Chapter Summaries

Shade and Miss Benanis searched Streamland Forest for clues about Saint Perry Cemetery before stopping to eat and discussing Shade’s powers and rapid advancement. Shade shared three ballads he had heard through the Time Key, and Miss Benanis asked him to explain how they had been composed.

• Shade and Miss Benanis talked about Unicorns as they traveled along the river to Eldron Lake and crossed into Streamland Forest.
• They searched the forest for locations rumored to be connected to Saint Perry Cemetery but found nothing before lunch.
• Miss Benanis summoned paper servants to make camp while Shade lit a fire empowered by the Primordial Fire.
• Shade told Miss Benanis that he had met the God of Toys and Sister Devlin, and she remarked on his rapid progress to the Fifth Ring.
• Shade asked Miss Benanis to choose a poem praising butterflies, the earth, and spring, then shared three ballads he had heard through the Time Key.
• After Shade hummed the ballads, Miss Benanis asked him to explain the circumstances in which they had been composed.

Shade and Miss Benanis encountered a young Unicorn in Streamland Forest after it was drawn by her singing and the food. They followed it through the snowy mountains to the edge of Innas Forest, where it stopped at a seemingly ordinary spot.

• Miss Benanis sang the Witch Riding a Unicorn ballad for Shade beside their campfire.
• A young Unicorn emerged from the snowy woods, fled from Miss Benanis, then returned and ate food she offered.
• Miss Benanis decided she wanted to raise the Unicorn, but after lunch it walked into the mountains and waited for them to follow.
• Shade and Miss Benanis mounted their horses and pursued the Unicorn across snowy streams and rugged terrain.
• The Unicorn stopped at the junction of southeastern Eldron Creek and Innas Forest, where Shade and Miss Benanis found nothing unusual at first glance.

Shade used the Clay Holy Grail to purify a petrified, corrupted patch of woods, where he and Miss Benanis discovered the power could turn soil into fruit. The unicorn led them to a humanoid stone statue beneath the snow, leaving its identity unknown.

• Shade and Miss Benanis found that a unicorn had detected madness and petrification in the woods, and it wrote the warning in the snow.
• Shade entered the corrupted area and used the Clay Holy Grail to heal the land, resisting a black sludge creature with Silver Moonlight as the Grail’s aura dissolved it.
• Miss Benanis supported Shade when the ritual left him weakened, and Shade saw the Grail’s inscription change from “Pure Water” to “Fruitful Results.”
• Miss Benanis demonstrated that the Grail could turn soil into an apple, which Shade gave to the unicorn.
• The unicorn led Shade and Miss Benanis to a humanoid stone statue buried beneath the snow by a stone tree.

Shade and Miss Benanis investigated a petrified hunter and followed clues to a campsite where the Blood Spirit School had searched for something and fought unknown attackers. They suspected Saint Perry Cemetery was nearby and returned to the city to gather supplies before coming back at dusk.

• Shade used Echoes of the Past and learned that members of the Blood Spirit School had killed their guide while searching nearby with the Puppeteer's Script.
• Miss Benanis tracked the Blood Spirit School northwest to a campsite marked by signs of battle, where Shade found supplies and a half-eaten apple.
• Shade followed blood traces to a mountain stream and concluded that a wounded survivor had escaped through the water.
• Miss Benanis identified signs of the Sun Church's Sunlight Greatsword and suggested the graveyard's defenses had interfered with their tracking.
• Shade and Miss Benanis decided to return to the city for battle supplies and come back at dusk with her follower.
• They left the Unicorn at Green Grass Farm, where it reluctantly parted from Shade after he promised to return.

Shade returned to Randall River Valley with Miss Benanis and her followers to wait overnight for an expected event. As they camped, Miss Benanis told him how she and Siris Lathers had contained the Black Door Curse and founded the new Golden Dawn, before a living person triggered their perimeter in the forest.

• Shade left Little Mia with Dorothy, who kissed him goodbye and urged him to return safely.
• Shade joined Miss Benanis, three nine-ring Sorceresses, and five Mid-Ring Arcanists, and they rode into the forest with a white Unicorn following them.
• At their camp beneath the cliff, Shade asked Miss Benanis how the young Siris Lathers had become leader of the Golden Dawn.
• Miss Benanis explained that Siris was a gifted five-ring Arcanist whose father, Weilon Lathers, had disappeared, and that she had encountered Siris while Siris was cursed by the Black Door Curse.
• Miss Benanis described how she drew the dangerous Black Door into the Council and contained it, after which she and Siris established the new Golden Dawn.
• The white Unicorn sensed someone approaching, the camp's perimeter was triggered, and a watcher reported that a living person was coming.

Shade and Miss Benanis waited near Saint Perry Cemetery, drove off the Blood Spirit School’s group, and faced a supernatural fog that brought wandering souls into their camp. After Shade helped one soul pass on, an old nun emerged from the fog and praised his compassion.

• Shade confronted five Blood Spirit School outsiders, and Miss Benanis used a song to pin two of them to the ground with gravity.
• The outsiders turned into stone figures and attacked the camp, but Miss Benanis’s follower shattered them as the group retreated.
• Shade and Miss Benanis stayed awake by the bonfire until thick white fog surrounded the camp and put the other women to sleep.
• Shade touched an adventurer’s soul with Guiding Death and released it into the Mudflat beyond a dark rift.
• An old nun walked through the camp’s defenses and praised Shade for allowing the soul to leave.

Shade and Miss Benanis passed Saint Perry’s trial and discovered that her cemetery was a sealed church contaminated by the power inside her coffin. They prepared to face the dangerous remains, with Miss Benanis planning to contain them while Shade purified the land.

• Saint Perry revealed that she was a remnant of divine arts and tested Shade and Miss Benanis by asking where she had hidden a pebble.
• Shade used the Silver Cube to learn that Saint Perry’s cemetery sealed the Mad Earth, then inferred that the trial tested their ability to resist contamination.
• Shade bathed the area in Silver Moon radiance, found and destroyed the pebble, and passed the trial.
• Saint Perry led Shade and Miss Benanis through the fog to a hidden Sun and Earth Church containing a chained stone coffin.
• Shade sensed severe contamination around the church and identified the coffin as its likely source, while Miss Benanis offered to contain what lay inside.

Shade and Miss Benanis battled the black sludge in the Old Man with the Lantern's church while Shade used a Clay Holy Grail to purify the land. They suppressed the outbreak for now, but the coffin and its chains remained unpurified, and Miss Benanis asked to borrow Shade's desire-inducing relic to recover her strength.

• Miss Benanis boosted Shade with a song, then took Night Watchman and promised to guard him while he purified the church.
• When the coffin burst open and spewed black sludge, Miss Benanis used Storm Sand to hold it back, then trapped it in her Mystic Lock and struck the sludge creature with a golden sword light.
• Shade formed a Clay Holy Grail and sent it underground, using its Healing power to purify the church while the coffin's sludge dwindled to a trickle.
• Shade drank fragrance from the pink bottle to restore his spirit and continued purifying the church, but only the land around the coffin remained tainted.
• Miss Benanis asked Shade to lend her the bottle, and he warned her that its powerful side effect was increasing desire.

Shade and Vanessa Benanis used the Desire perfume to restore her spirit, then purified the coffin’s deadly black sludge with the Clay Holy Grail. After the sludge vanished, Shade recovered the silver flute he had been seeking and found two other extraordinary items in the coffin.

• Vanessa Benanis drank three small sips of Desire perfume, lost control briefly, and clung to Shade until his Silver Moonlight helped calm her.
• Vanessa asked Shade to keep her reaction secret from Galina and the others, then went with him to the coffin.
• Shade and Vanessa found the coffin filled with black sludge that could kill anyone it touched, and identified the Holy Grail as the means to remove it.
• Shade pressed the Clay Holy Grail into the sludge and spent twenty minutes purifying the coffin while Vanessa helped him recover his strength.
• The black sludge vanished, revealing three undissolved items, and Shade retrieved the silver flute he had been looking for.

Shade and Miss Benanis uncovered Sister Nun Perry’s records and relics after purifying the hidden church, learning more about the Mad Earth and the forces protecting Randall River Valley. Nun Perry’s lingering memory vanished after warning them of the Guardians and a dangerous force marked by the Petrified Rose, leaving Shade with powerful relics and a lead on Mr. Lehmann’s family.

• Shade used the Butterfly Summoning Flute to strengthen his illusion and illuminate the church.
• Miss Benanis read a Witch Emperor’s stone slab, which described the Mad Earth and identified the Chosen One of the Earth and the ritual time.
• Nun Perry revealed that her engraved hand bone taught Earth Power - Bountiful Domain, then thanked Shade and Miss Benanis for resolving the church’s problem.
• Nun Perry told Shade that Mr. Lehmann had been buried in the valley and left an item in the graveyard, and she urged them to seek the Guardians of Randall River Valley.
• Nun Perry warned them about a powerful, cunning force symbolized by the Petrified Rose, then vanished and left behind a powerful Sun Holy Emblem.

Shade and Miss Benanis returned from the hidden church and rested with her Followers before setting out from camp. A unicorn led them to a frightened Moon Creek elf, whose unexpected appearance left Shade and the witch wondering why she had returned to Randall River Valley.

• Shade and Miss Benanis left the church with the hand bone, silver flute, and Witch Emperor relic, planning to reveal its location to the Sun Church through the Witch Council.
• Shade tested the Holy Grail of Recovery and told Miss Benanis he had been involved in several major events because of a promise to a young girl.
• As the group prepared to leave camp, a whistle called the unicorn into the forest, and Miss Benanis chased after it with Shade.
• Shade and Miss Benanis found a Moon Creek elf girl greeting the unicorn, and she rode away after thanking Shade for caring for it.
• Shade picked up the elf's golden leaf brooch, while Miss Benanis explained that the elves of Randall River Valley had supposedly moved north and could not be tracked.

Shade and the witch lost track of an elf and a Unicorn in Randall River Valley, then Shade returned to Tobesk to rest. After Iluna found records about Earth Power, Shade offered its inheritance to her, but she suggested giving it to Luvia and sensed Luvia might be tied to Destiny, Time, or the Moon.

• Shade and the witch searched for the elf and Unicorn, but the pair had vanished, and the witch sensed the elf came from the Far North and attended Saint Byron's.
• Shade returned to Tobesk before dawn, visited Dorothy, and rested at home until evening.
• Iluna visited Shade with Church records stating that the Chosen One of the Earth wielded a branch of Earth Power, which had thirty-two recorded branches.
• Shade told Iluna about Saint Perry Cemetery and proposed that she learn Earth Power from the single-use hand bone, but she refused because she did not want more responsibility.
• Iluna suggested giving the Earth Power inheritance to Luvia, and she sensed that Luvia could be the Chosen One of Destiny, Time, or the Moon.

Shade helped Luvia learn Earth Power, then learned that the mysterious spirit who aided him in the Emerald Dream was Thomas Granger, a missing member of the Granger Family. He planned to question Earl Granger at a banquet that evening, while Miss Benanis explained the test she had prepared for Margaret.

• Shade gave Luvia the hand bone, and she learned the Earth Power thaumaturgy Bountiful Domain.
• Miss Benanis told Shade that the Sun Church had found Saint Perry's cemetery and gave him a 2,000 Gold Pound bill of exchange.
• Miss Benanis identified the man in Shade's photograph as Thomas Granger, who had disappeared in 1780, and Shade described his encounters with Thomas in the Emerald Dream.
• Miss Benanis revealed that Earl Granger had concealed information about Thomas, and Shade decided to question him at a banquet hosted for Prince William Anjou and Margaret.
• Miss Benanis said Margaret's test would involve the Anjou Royal Family's debt to the Stone Masons Association over the collapsed Colossus at the Royal Mausoleum.

Shade discussed Margaret Anjou’s test with Miss Benanis and revealed that he suspected the undead Thomas Granger could be the Earth’s Chosen One. He searched Randall River Valley City’s urban legends, found no monsters, but discovered gold ore in the riverbed.

• Shade declined Miss Benanis’s offer to pass Margaret’s test for her, saying he wanted Margaret to resolve the Stone Masons Association matter herself.
• Shade told Miss Benanis that he and Luvia Annette were not the Earth’s Chosen Ones and suggested that the undead Thomas Granger might be one.
• Shade inspected the Randall River Valley City clock tower, found hidden hallucinogenic drugs, and anonymously reported them to the police.
• Shade and Luvia ate at the White Puffer Restaurant, then Shade searched the Ailong River for the rumored aquatic creature but found only discarded valuables.
• As Shade swam toward shore, she pointed out a stone containing gold ore in the riverbed.

Shade returned from searching the Ailong River with a haul of valuable objects, including a ring belonging to Haila Osenfott. At Earl Granger’s banquet, he saw Prince William Anjou lose a Rhodes Cards match to the remarkably skilled Stone Osenfott, who then accepted a series of challenges for a cash prize.

• Shade showed Miss Benanis and Margaret the valuables he had recovered from the Ailong River after searching for aquatic monkeys.
• Miss Benanis identified a ring engraved “For Haila” as belonging to Haila Osenfott, and Shade agreed to return it to Stone Osenfott at the banquet.
• Shade went to the banquet hall to seek information from Earl Granger about Thomas Granger, who had disappeared seventy years earlier.
• Prince William Anjou played Rhodes Cards against Stone Osenfott and lost a Special Rule Card after Osenfott drew several powerful cards.
• William invited guests to challenge Osenfott for a prize that grew to twenty crowns, and Osenfott confidently accepted.

Shade challenged Mr. Olsenford to a Rhodes Cards match and drew three sevens for twenty-one, matching Mr. Olsenford’s total through a chain of special-card effects. Mr. Olsenford’s hidden card forced Shade to draw two more cards, and Shade’s fourth draw stunned the crowd when it turned out to be the Queen.

• Shade joined the card game and rolled a three, setting the initial draw limit for the match.
• Shade drew Stars 7 and Flower Seven, while Mr. Olsenford revealed special cards that adjusted his hand to twenty-one.
• Shade revealed Moon 7, making his three sevens total twenty-one and creating a tie with Mr. Olsenford.
• Mr. Olsenford revealed Shakadi Story Love, whose effect required Shade to draw two additional cards.
• Shade drew a fourth card, and the onlookers erupted when they saw that it was the Queen.

Shade won an extraordinary Rhodes Cards match against Mr. Olsenford, received a weak misfortune curse and a rare card, then privately asked Earl Granger about Thomas Granger’s disappearance. The earl revealed that Thomas had corresponded with the extinct Farmer Family, whose members and a group of soldiers vanished on Lake Heart Island in the Pantanal Great Swamp.

• Shade drew a King to complete his winning hand, and the Seer Association’s arbiter confirmed that the special rule allowed him to draw it.
• Shade heard that winning had afflicted him with a weak misfortune curse, but he declined to use the Dice of Destiny against Mr. Olsenford.
• Mr. Olsenford gave Shade the Southern City River Valley card and his business card before leaving and inviting him to a future match.
• Shade asked Earl Granger what had happened to Thomas Granger, and the earl admitted that he had hidden details about his great-uncle’s past.
• Earl Granger explained that Thomas had corresponded with the Farmer Family, whose members disappeared with soldiers during a visit to Lake Heart Island seventy or eighty years earlier.

At Earl Granger’s banquet, a stonemason tried to assassinate Prince William Anjou, but the prince’s guards stopped him. Shade then arranged with Iluna to explore the manor on Lake Heart Island that night, while spending the day on a cat-finding commission and visiting Cassandra.

• Shade learned from Mr. Granjay that no one knew where Thomas Granger’s letters to the Farmer Family were, though they might have been lost on Lake Heart Island.
• A man in a patched black coat entered Earl Granger’s banquet and fired at Prince William Anjou, but the prince’s attendants subdued him before he could shoot again.
• Shade suspected the gunman was a stonemason whose wages had been withheld and whose right hand had been disabled in an accident twenty years earlier.
• Shade reminded Margaret to be careful, then arranged to explore the manor on Lake Heart Island with Iluna that night.
• Shade found a client’s missing black cat, then visited Cassandra, who said Aurora had not yet obtained materials for the Ritual-Contact Earth-Shaking Worm.

Shade lent the Butterfly Summoning Flute to Grace and Helen to suppress their relic powers, then investigated questions about his past and possible nonhuman bloodline. He set out to visit Stone Osenfott and learned that Osenfott’s criminal business was connected to Prince William Anjou.

• Shade showed Grace and Helen the Butterfly Summoning Flute and left it with them to restrain the return of their relic powers.
• Shade and the twins discussed his earlier encounter with the Butterfly God, his lack of past ties to Kalas Mountain or The Truth Society, and the possibility that the god would demand a story next time.
• Helen recommended using the Sorrowful Nurse Statue to determine whether Shade was a Purebred Human, and arranged for Qi Na to have it retrieved for Sunday.
• Shade asked the twins about Earth Power, then left to return a ring to Stone Osenfott and investigate him.
• Miss Lathers described the Osenfott Family’s decline and Stone’s rise through illegal business, warning Shade that Osenfott’s smuggling was connected to Prince William Anjou.

Shade traveled to the remote Osenfott Manor to return Haila Osenfott’s ring and speak with Mr. Olsenford about Rhodes Cards. While waiting for her husband, Haila told Shade that he was accustomed to winning in business, relationships, and wagers.

• Shade tried using Puppet Manipulation on his horse, causing it to stop abruptly and tumble with him into the snow.
• Shade rode through the countryside to Osenfott Manor and was admitted by the Old Butler, who said Mr. Stone Osenfott was away until later that afternoon.
• Haila Osenfott received Shade in an almost empty manor and explained that her husband had dismissed the former servants.
• Shade returned Haila’s ring, which he had found inside a fish, and she said there was no need to mention it to her husband or reward him.
• Haila told Shade that Mr. Olsenford rarely lost in Rhodes Cards, business, relationships, or wagers.