It was the first day of Klangiary, one of those Autumn days where all
had begun to become crisp and golden; one of those days where life could
start all over again. I had placed all my hopes for that day, for that
new life, on a letter. The letter was silk, expensive and keen to show
that off - it bore elegant words that drew me in like a fisherman's
hook. A party, and a large party at that, the intimate sort of party
where you can find true privacy. Of course I went - I could never have
done otherwise.

The Gilded Chateau was a towering, elegant silhouette against the
expanse of the Inner Sea, backlit by the distant lights of the islands
across the water, which seemed almost emerald in the midnight glow. I
crossed the bridge over the alabaster sands and was transported into a
different world, a world where anything was possible, where one stepped
out of the haunting loneliness of the rest of the world and into a place
that was all about finding one another.

I stood aloof for a time, watching as the adventurous guests - those who
had made their name by stepping through the Portal of Fate - made poses
upon the carpet and were announced to the rapturous ears of those
already inside the Chateau. Their laughter as the tall Czigany announcer
fumbled over false titles for them drew me over, pulled me in by the
inexorable magnetism of potential embarrassment. I had no desire to
become reviled by a false announcement, and so I slipped the gentleman
that most universal of understandings - gold.

Thus I entered the Gilded Chateau without any announcement at all,
finding myself amongst the mingling crowds of city and communefolk.
There was, of course, no sign of the host. Trader Bob was the most
accessible man in all of Lusternia and yet it was said that there were
few who truly knew him - not even his Coterie, nor the long string of
lovers to whom he had been supposedly attached. This was not the first
of his parties, nor I was sure would it be the last. The previous
Ascension, when the Seals had weakened at the hands of the Higher Gods,
had been the inaugural gala, held at the Triple Junction Inn. This
year...this year was a dream, a turbulent riot of joy, a last desperate
grasp at happiness before facing the Almighty Himself.

I made small talk, as one is wont to do at such gatherings, but largely
I observed. There was a tension in several of the attendees from
Serenwilde, born of frequent disdainful glances and the painful
exhaustion of an argument abandoned before resolution, that I pitied and
envied all at once. What must it be like for these strange creatures, to
be facing down the Soulless, but to feel more pain from crimes of the
heart? I longed for a life where I could be swept up by such things,
even as I wished dearly for the world to be uniform and focused upon
that which truly mattered.

And the Chateau - the Chateau would have captivated even the most
mundane of persons. From the domineering fresco of the entrance hall to
the juxtaposition of the game room, where I watched noblemen from the
Engine of Transformation play at Fate - a fitting game for such people -
the whole affair was like sunlight bursting into a star before the eyes.
I passed through a solarium where a dracnari basked with an ever-present
smirk, her gown leaping upon her body like gasping flames, as she
whispered in the ear of a blushing faeling - through a parlour where
another dracnari wielding a notepad scribbled furiously in response to
the goings-on around her.

I travelled down the stairs, finding myself in a gallery of sorts. I saw
a man of elegant bearing press against something on one of the portraits
- and to my astonishment it turned, revealing a secret door that allowed
him ingress. He reappeared some minutes later by the same entryway, and
marched past me where I stood examining the other portraits. I felt as
if I ought to know him; he had that bearing of a man who people spoke
of. Curious, I retraced his steps and transgressed through the hooked
portrait. What I saw there shall never be spoken of, for there are some
secrets that must remain kept.

Beyond those watching Bobs was a larger room, a darker room, a room that
smelt as pungent as the ground beneath my shoes felt. It was the sort of
juxtaposed image that displayed a microcosm of the gala as a whole:
Hallifaxian noblewomen stood in the fine regalia one would expect of
that grand city, their thoughts and their speech turned wholly to the
spectacle that would soon be undertaken within the pit. Perhaps
something buried within them called to the feral nature of it, perhaps
they yearned from their staid and stoic towers for the intimacy of the
sport - or perhaps there was far more to their city than I had presumed.
I saw them cheering alongside the other cities and communes with all the
fervour of a street rat at a bar brawl, as the wrestler known as Korgrim
claimed a controversial second victory in a row.

But it was the terrace that captivated me the most, and formed the
centre for much of the party, the focus for discussions of missing
meringues and the lack of champagne. There I stood days later, amongst
gossiping partygoers who might never even have taken the time to learn
one another's names but for the Trader's gathering. Cheers erupted from
the crowd as confetti descended upon us - they were riled, still, from
the exertions of the wrestling arena - and all turned their attention
towards the steps from which, at last, our host descended.

Trader Bob was a human man with one of those rare smiles that had a
quality of reassurance, the sort that you would come across perhaps only
once or twice in life, the sort that assured you that it would rewrite
the world to be prejudiced in your favour. He lifted his champagne glass
in a toast to us, and we followed suit - he seemed the sort of man that
one could not help but copy. Beside him swanned in a younger man, barely
out of his teens, with a hook for a hand and a handsome face. After my
earlier excursions, I found myself following suit as several female
attendees stepped away from his presence, listening to their murmurings
that Bob Junior was not so gracious as his father.

His father, however, captivated me. I found that I could not look away,
could not consider anything but him and the mystery that he was. He
swept us up to the ballroom in a dream, and though many of the guests
had long since retired from exhaustion those few who remained leapt at
once to dancing. Such a wondrous display I have not seen before and I
doubt that I shall ever see its like again. I watched the couples spin
and twirl as though they were as light as air: a Hallifaxian pair made a
romantic contrast in crystal and feathers; the blushing faeling was
brave enough to take Bob Junior's arm for a spin; a wild pair of
demigods laughed delightfully in one another's arms.

So intoxicating was the intimacy of the display that for a time, my
attention was torn between them and the Trader himself. He had made his
way quietly to the side of the room, near a willowy viscanti who was
doubtless a high-ranking noblewoman from the Engine. It was only when I
placed my full focus upon the two of them that I truly appreciated the
way he looked at her. Moonlight fell through the windows and refracted
across the mirrored room, casting the two of them in a halo of
incandescent majesty. The viscanti's silver mask gleamed around her
turquoise eyes as she looked up at him, echoing the Trader's gaze - the
sort of gaze that men and women both dreamed of having placed upon them.
He murmured in her ear, and she in his, and I felt as even from across
the room I was as much of an intruder upon their private moment as if I
had been stood between them. But I could not look away.

I do not know how long I stood there, watching them. I gleaned no
further information, and soon they retired, arm in arm as they departed
from the ballroom. I remained for a day or so thereafter, coming to
terms with this magical world into which I had entered. I watched the
adventurers around me doing the same, heard latecomers announced and
watched as waiters began quietly to pick up the detritus of the party. I
sat there, brooding on the vast reaches of the world that I had not
heretofore understood, of the romantic dreams that could be realised in
a place like this.

And all of it could be gone within the month. It would not, of course.
There would always be people who dreamed larger than eternal
nothingness. The world would always beat on, driving forth against the
current of the world, even though it sought ceaselessly to drag them
into the past. The thought made me smile at the comfort of it, and I
knew that it was time to depart the Gilded Chateau.

I picked up my hat, brushed it clean of confetti, and returned home.

Penned by My hand on the 17th of Kiani, in the year 468 CE.