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A year came and went, culminating in the New Year’s Revel that had Silverymoon’s streets glowing like the fires burning in nearly every hearth, turning the entire city into an ember sea that could be seen from Sundabar. People flooded the streets and the heady smell of baked bread and evening roasts filled the air, music playing overhead like an ethereal orchestra. Taverns were bustling and children were running between pedestrians, two of them nearly knocking Leucis into Flare. He hated holidays.
Flare nudged him in the side, smiling and shaking her head as if she could hear his sour thoughts. “Oh come on, you. The New Year only comes once a year, ya know.” She wiggled her eyebrows, and he rolled his eyes, as he did know that quite well. “Once a year is already pushing it.” He grumbled, and it was her turn to roll her eyes. “Oh please, it’s not like we drag you here every time. This is the first time we’ve celebrated, and why not?” She placed her hand on his shoulder as they squeezed through the busy streets. "To surviving another year.” She said, her voice soft with meaning, and he winced, shrugging her hand away. They continued walking shoulder to shoulder, Dreden and Iraelias leading the way and parting the crowd for them.
“We should get drinks, the New Year is best enjoyed when three sheets to the wind,” Dreden said with a grin. Leucis stood straighter at that and rubbed his hands together. "Now you’re speaking my language.” Which earned him a swipe from Flare, though he ducked out of the way without looking at her. Iraelias nodded as they bantered and drifted away to get the attention of a red-faced human, who pointed in a seemingly random direction before clapping a stiff Iraelias on the back. Iraelias returned to the group looking mildly ruffled, but still smiled. “I think I know a place.”
The Stagstand was more packed than the smaller pubs they had passed on their way there, but despite the crowds, they managed to find a recently vacated table. A fire roared in a large hearth against the far wall and the tables were arranged neatly around a large dance floor packed with flailing bodies. People elbowed their way between the tables and the live band in the corner only added to the ocean of noise. Despite the uncomfortable way his boots stuck to the floor, Leucis was beginning to relax. They ordered a round of drinks, which Leucis was sent to pick up from the bar, and after settling down, they began to talk. Flare and Iraelias were arguing about how many rats one could fit into a bag of holding, and when their pints emptied, they ordered another round, then a third. Leucis was on his way back to the table, a rolled cigarette of bog myrtle between his teeth when something connected solidly with his knees, causing him to swivel dangerously, four pints sloshing over his hands. He growled and bared his jagged teeth, looming over the figure below him.
He moved his hands out of his way, which revealed probably the most horrific visage he had ever laid eyes on, and yelped in terror as an arcane sense of fear washed over him. Furred, yellow-eyed, and horned, the trembling beast tilted its head, and its lips pulled away to reveal two sharp bucked teeth.
“Why hello there, friend!” It crowed, and just like that, the magic released its grip on him, and instead of an eldritch abomination he was looking at a seriously disfigured harengon. He had never seen a harengon like this, because indeed he was horned, and now that Leucis was capable of rational observation, he even appeared to be wearing an eye patch, which sat beneath his left eye, rather than over it. The short man extended his shaking hand between them and grinned wider. “The name's Wilbur, a pleasure, truly-truly, it must be fate!” When Leucis didn’t move to shake his hand, both of his own being occupied with his friends’ drinks, the man mimed shaking hands with the air, satisfied with that.
"Your name?" He asked, and Leucis glared. “Nun’ya.” He snapped around his cigarette, and Wilbur only nodded, closing his eyes as if he were deep in thought. “Ah yes, very fitting.” He said cryptically, and Leucis felt the strange urge to laugh but also to run away, every hair on his body standing on end. He began to slip past Wilbur, who had started rummaging around his stained and torn overcoat, and almost kicked the harengon when he realized he was following him back to the table.
“Now you see, my friend, on the topic of glow beetles—“ The deranged man rambled behind Leucis, who caught Flare’s eyes as he returned to the table and tried to project as much alarm onto his face as he was capable of. Flare frowned and said something to the others, which he could not hear over the music, before he stopped at the table and all but threw down the drinks, rounding on the man behind him. Wilbur, however, had completely lost interest in whatever he was saying to Leucis, instead turning his attention to Flare, Dreden, and Iraelias, who simultaneously glanced down at him, the confusion on their faces twisting into horror. Flare shrieked, jumping out of her chair along with Iraelias, and Dreden tumbled out of his seat and onto the floor. Leucis’s hand darted to his dagger, but he didn’t remove it from his sheath, sensing not only that all the nearby tables had their eyes on them but also that this reaction did not seem to be intentionally provoked by Wilbur. The harengon didn’t blink, instead jumping up to stand on Leucis’s chair so that he was about eye level with them and clapped childishly. “Hello friends! What luck, what luck!”
Whatever terrifying condition that Leucis had experienced earlier seemed to be ebbing out of friends, who relaxed but shared concerned glances. “Can we help you?” Dreden asked, getting back into his chair, irritation evident.
“Help? Oh no! Am I in danger? I’m not bleeding, am I?” Wilbur asked, his eyes widening comically. He stumbled around precariously on the chair, searching up and down his person as if looking for an open wound. Dreden opened his mouth but closed it again, looking toward Leucis, who grimaced. He was just as unnerved, and while he would normally grab this man by the ears and throw him to the other side of the room, the depth of innocence in Wilbur’s voice made him second-guess himself. “I think our… friend here has had a little too much to drink. Bumped inta’ me earlier.” Indeed, Leucis could still feel where Wilbur’s horns had jabbed him in the stomach.
“Drink? Oh no, I’m very thirsty! But not for long. Yes, my friends come drink with me!” He jumped up and down on the chair, and Flare held her hands out as if to catch him when he inevitably fell, and Leucis gripped his dagger tighter when Wilbur shoved his entire arm in his clearly enchanted, tattered satchel and pulled out a large fistful of pure gold coins, which showered the table. Leucis had never vacillated between shock and the desire to sink into the ground as quickly and as violently as he did in the moment as the sound of coins plinking against wood drew a large number of eyes to their group.
“Ok, nope, enough," Flare said, grabbing Wilbur by the coat as she tried to cover the coins with her hands, and Iraelias picked up the few that had fallen to the ground as quickly as possible. They tried to shove them into Wilbur's satchel again, though the man was not making it easy, gesticulating wildly as he spoke, and Leucis moved to help put the coins away.
“Yes, it will be good fun, bloody Mary's, bourbon, brandy, baileys.” The man giggled, and Leucis grabbed him by the back of his jacket collar, lifting him from the chair, ready to make good on his internal threat of throwing the harengon, when he was interrupted by shouting.
“Wilbur! Hey, get your hands off him!” Someone shouted over the music and Leucis immediately dropped the man, who landed on his feet on the ground and got back onto the chair as if nothing had happened, though he was noticeably twitchier.
"Ah, yes, yes! More friends, we know these friends.” He said, and Leucis and his party instinctively moved closer to one another and watched three strangers push through the crowd and stand by their table.
As a tiefling, Leucis was accustomed to life as a minority, fully aware, though not comfortably, that many found him and his kin to be rather exotic, and as such he never really felt the need to give similarly uncommon races a second glance. That being said, two of the three humanoids now standing before him were so wildly foreign he stiffened despite himself. There was a tense moment where the seven of them stood locked in a standoff, eyeing each other with suspicion as colorfully dressed people danced and stumbled around them, before Wilbur shattered the moment.
“Abner-Babner-buddy, my good friend, I have made new friends and they want to drink with us!” He spread his arms wide, turning to Leucis, who shied away and resisted the urge to blow smoke into the man’s face. This was going to ruin his high, and he wasn’t even properly high yet. Hearing this, Flare reacted first, putting up her arms placatingly when Wilbur’s friends gave them accusing looks.
“He came up to us throwin’ his money around and telling us to drink with him, we ain’t here for trouble.” She said, and the insectoid creature in skimpy outfit shook their head. “Of course he did.” Their voice was distinctly feminine, but Leucis would never have known, as she seemed to be a humanoid version of the praying mantises he would find outside of Wyn’s cottage.
“Sorry about him,” the one to the mantid’s right said, sounding as if this was not the first nor the last time he would be apologizing on the harengon’s behalf. This man was dressed for traveling, but beyond that he was strange, a skeleton wearing a suit of transparent, featureless blue skin, which glowed beneath a swirling purple lamp that hung from the pole jutting from his backpack. The other man to his right was what Leucis recognized as a hill dwarf, dressed in all manner of religious memorabilia, the emblem of Savrus embroidered into his robes.
“It’s fine, no harm done.” Iraelias assured, sitting back down in his chair. Wilbur nodded jerkily. "Yes, no harm, no foul, so drinks on me!” He began to reach back into his bag, which sent his friends into a frenzy of trying to keep him from throwing great handfuls of coin into the air, and in the end the skeletal man was carrying the Wilbur like a child, sending the insectoid woman off to grab drinks with a reasonable amount of coin in hand—or hands, as Leucis belatedly realized she had four.
That was how they came to find themselves at a larger table, Flare, Leucis, Dreden, and Iraelias on one side, and the strangers on the other. Leucis sat across from Wilbur, mutely watching the other man repeatedly take a swipe for his pint and miss, and Leucis wondered if this is how he looked to other people when he was two bags of wondercaps in. Introductions went around the table, the skeletal man introducing himself as Abner and Wilbur as Wilbur, gently pushing the pint into the struggling man’s twitching hands. The praying mantis woman eyed them hungrily and said to call her Tam, winking at Flare, and the hill dwarf was Moses. Conversation began rather shallow, but as the liquor flowed and Leucis watched the candles around him begin to streak and his vision softened, they grew increasingly amicable. Iraelias and Moses began a careful discussion about their respective religions, though it turned into Iraelias listening to Moses rant about blasphemy across Faerun, while Abner, Tam, Dreden, and Flare watched Wilbur challenge Leucis to a game of cards.
“Prepare to lose devil man!” Wilbur whooped, and Abner cringed on Leucis’s behalf, as he was too inebriated to do so himself. He soon found himself going from match after increasingly intense match of rummy and losing each round.
"Dragons' balls!” He groaned, baffled, as Abner counted Wilbur’s cards on his behalf, as he was apparently incapable of doing so despite having picked up the cards in the first place. He’d lost all five matches, and the harengon seemed very aware of it.
“He has difficulty seeing; perhaps you understand,” Abner explained delicately, gesturing subtly toward Leucis, and he knew the man was referring to the leather patch fit snugly over where his left eye used to be. Leucis hummed noncommittally, shuffling his cards and taking the deck from Wilbur to deal their cards, something Wilbur apparently also could not do. He glanced at the eyepatch Wilbur wore, not on either of his eyes but just below one, and refrained from asking.
Dreden asked to be dealt in, and soon it was Tam, Dreden, Leucis and Wilbur duking it out, though the results hardly changed, Wilbur taking hand after hand, until Tam finally won a round and jumped from her seat in joy. “Take that dumb bunny,” she cackled, and Wilbur hissed like a cat, fur standing on end, snapping his teeth at her. He looked viciously angry, and before he could actually bite Tam, Abner grabbed the back of his coat and pushed him back into his seat. “Calm down. How about you show our new companions your photos, yeah?” Abner distracted expertly, and Wilbur’s demeanor shifted abruptly like the sun parting storm clouds, and he reached into his pocket to pull out a leather purse, opening it to let dozens of slips of paper unfold over the table. They appeared to be magically rendered images of multiple different harengons.
“Meet my family!” Wilbur said, pointing out different people in the photos and rattling off information about them. Leucis was beyond shocked to learn that the man before him was not only married but also the father of five children. The Wilbur in the photos, without his horns, eye patch, or dirty clothes, looked worlds away from the man sitting there now, and Leucis felt somehow more uncomfortable than when he had first met Wilbur. He took another rolled cigarette from his bag and lit it, feeling suddenly far too sober.
“I’ll see them again someday…” Wilbur said, suddenly distant, and Tam put her hand on his shoulder. “You saw them last week, remember?” She said gently, and Leucis shared a look of confused discomfort with his three friends. Wilbur tilted his head, uncomprehending.
“Of course, I look at their pictures every day! I can’t wait for Estella to meet you guys.” He began to talk about the white rabbit in one of the photos, and Tam only shook her head and sighed. “Don’t mind him,” Abner began. “Our friend here is, er… afflicted.” He said, scratching his head.
"Deeply," Tam added, and Wilbur continued as if they were not there at all.
Abner watched Wilbur rant about his family, something he did to nearly everyone they met who would give him the time, and took an opportunity to observe the strangers they were getting to know. He could see the obvious similarities in occupation, though it was just an assumption, but they certainly had the look of a gang of hardy adventurers. Definitely more hardened than they themselves were, whether that was because of the serious conditions they had faced on the road or just simply a product of time, he wasn’t sure. He imagined it to be a combination of both, though there was a somberness about most of them that he thinks they must have carried with them into their adventures rather than acquiring it along the way. Silvanus was right, he was the brain and the keen sense among his party, so only two pints of lager in, he found himself eyeing them and taking notes. They had only been in Faerun for a week and any insight into the locals was greatly appreciated.
His attention, when not occupied by Wilbur, was usually on Flare, whose flaming hair captured the attention of many before the bold way she carried herself kept you listening as she fed them bits and pieces of their travels. Iraelias was striking in an elfish way, though he was distinctly fey and therefore completely foreign to Abner, who had never been to the Feywild and hoped not to go. He was quiet and respectful even when Moses made questionable remarks about worshipping a god other than his. Abner cringed but reminded himself that they were working on it and that Moses had come quite far from the mad holy man he once was. Dreden seemed to be the outlier in the group, as he did not appear to be carrying the same invisible weight the others were; rather, he held a silent vigil over his friends, smiling when they spoke and commenting when he needed to. Abner also thought the booze might be hitting the diminutive man harder than the rest of them, putting him into a drowsy stupor. Leucis was somehow the easiest to overlook, which Abner thought could only be possible because Leucis wanted to go unseen, because once you were looking at him, it was difficult to stop. A four-horned, notably tall tiefling was curious enough, but additionally Abner doesn’t think he has ever met someone so severely scarred in his life. Not even when Tam was frozen in an active state of decay after being afflicted with the plague had he seen wounds so gratuitous, even if all that remained were scars. The poor man had thick knotted scars peeking out beneath his clothes, some in very unusual shapes that alluded to a host of nasty implications, and had seemingly lost use of his left eye, the skin around the patch lumpy and puckered. Abner watched Leucis watch Wilbur speak behind heavy eyelids, his arms crossed defensively over his chest—though everything about him seemed in a perpetual state of defensive, and Abner looked away quickly before the man figured out he was staring, if he didn’t know already.
Strange as they all were, Abner was happy to be spending the New Years with pleasant people.
The night slowly devolved into chaos as midnight crept closer and closer, the tavern filling to a stifling degree, and their drinks emptying and refilling without restraint. For every glass the others downed Leucis drank two, and he was swaying slightly in his chair, a dopey smile on his face. They increased the volume of their conversation in tandem with the increasingly loud atmosphere, laughter breaking when Moses told an old, rather unfunny joke about a drow, a vampire, and a bard walking into a bar, and eventually Tam suggested they play a drinking game.
“Oh please, as- as if we need more of a reason to drink.” Flare giggled but agreed nonetheless.
“I’ll go first, drink if you don’t want to answer or if you can’t” Tam said, and made a strange chittering noise as she looked around the table, eyes landing on Moses. “Do you have any weird secret habits?” she asked, and Abner made a motion that must have been rolling his eyes, though his eye sockets were clearly empty.
“No! ‘course s’not! Savrus sees all, I’ve nothin’ to hide.” He looked proud of his answer but Tam glared, and he started to sweat.
“Well, I dunno… sometimes I like to peel my grapes before I eat ‘em?” He shrugged and Tam groaned, causing everyone to laugh. “Bo-oring!!” She said, and then it was Abner’s turn, who shamelessly asked Flare if she had ever had a threesome.
The questions became more explicit from there, the alcohol in their blood doing most of the heavy lifting, as they shared deeply embarrassing truths and sometimes lies with these people they met only hours prior. Their inhibitions only shrank further when Leucis offered them each a hit of fine golden powder, which only Iraelias and Moses declined.
“What’s your dream job?” "The dirtiest thing you’ve done in public,” “Most expensive pickpocket?” “Craziest sexual fantasy. Go.”
“Who has the highest body count?” Tam asked, and Iraelias rubbed his nose to hide the color in his cheeks. “Like, confirmed kills or bedroom stuff?” He asked, and Dreden laughed at Tam’s incredulous look.
“Bedroom obviously! Who says body count and means killing? But ya’know, why not both.” She sighed, and Iraelias chuckled. “Believe it or not, Dreden has a way with the ladies,” to which the gnome wiggled his eyebrows suggestively before Iraelias jerked his thumb toward Leucis, “an’ if I had to speak for everyone, this guy’s our murder hobo.” Said murder hobo made an unintelligent sound of confusion before taking a long draw from his spirits.
“What about you guys?” Iraelias asked, momentarily diverging from the game rules.
“Everyone knows I got more game than these sweaty old men could ever dream of," Tam said, swooning dramatically, and Abner threw his arm over Wilbur’s shoulder, who had been twitching erratically in his seat and shuffling his cards frantically since taking a hit from Leucis. “Believe it or not, this guy drops people like flies.” Abner said, "Half the time it ain’t even intentional.” Wilbur threw his cards in the air and wriggled away from Abner. “Eighty-seven—er, twenty-one pick up!” and began to pick up the cards.
It was midnight and the celebration was in full swing, the previous band switching out for a group that played like galloping horses. Caught in the swell of excitement in the air, the two adventuring parties were swept up onto the dance floor, switching between each other experimentally. Flare and Leucis were dancing together like they were the only two in the room, their footwork light and quick despite the way the room spun before their eyes, boots tapping on the floor. Iraelias swayed awkwardly with Dreden on his shoulders, Moses beside him. Wilbur was jumping high enough to brush the high ceiling, people cheering him on as he landed on willing shoulders and between dancers, shouting unintelligibly. Abner was dancing with a sharp elven woman with very little space for any of the gods to fit between them, and somewhere in the corner, Tam was obscenely making out with a massive half-orc woman, drawing the attention of even the most focused dancers. At some point Wilbur lost his eye patch, revealing a third eye that sat beneath his left eye. This eye was dark and had no scalera, instead it was a dark nebula, stars twinkling in a way that had nothing to do with the candlelight. Thankfully no one was sober enough to pay him any mind.
Midnight came and went, and they continued to dance, growing rowdier than Leucis thinks he has ever been with friends, when eventually Abner wildshaped into a monkey and began to dance on the tables. People began to display their quirks and magic tricks, colorful sparks whizzing around the room overhead from an absolutely hammered wizard at the center of the dance floor. It wasn’t until Dreden had fallen asleep against Iraelias’s shoulder at the table, the Eladrin not far behind, that they started to consider leaving.
“To-to an inn…yeahhhh, W-Wilbur’spayin’” Abner slurred, stumbling back toward the table, the harengon in question being carried bridal style as if it were the most natural thing to him.
“Oh gods the stars, I can see into the void again!” Wilbur babbled, his bloated pupils leaving only tiny slivers of his orange irises. Flare went to retrieve Leucis from the dance floor, the man absolutely out of his mind with whatever he had been snorting from the vial in his pocket. She was upset with him for bringing it without her knowledge, considering he promised he would cut back, but knew she couldn’t say anything now that she had tried some, even if it was hardly more than needle-points worth. She had seen Leucis snort three lines of it since then and he was giggling like mad, swaying arm in arm with an androgynous human whose pupils were big enough to fall into. Later she would feel sad that Leucis could only get this close to people while blitzed and sky-high, but now she focused on extricating him from the crowd, ignoring his protests.
Moses was sent to retrieve Tam, who waved him away from the lap of the half-orc woman she had been snogging earlier, but the half-orc whispered something to Tam that would have made her flush if she weren’t covered in exoskeleton, and she begrudgingly left with Moses, promising they would see each other soon. The eight of them stepped out into the cool night, the wind sobering them up only slightly as they stumbled arm in arm to the nearest inn. The first inn they found was at max capacity, and they were turned away from two others before finding one that had just one more room available, forcing all eight of them to cram into a dusty room with two beds. Too tired to find better accommodation, they prepared for sleep with a single-minded focus, toddling around on stiff limbs. Moses took one of the beds before anyone could argue, and Tam crammed in with him just to see him protest. Abner laid Wilbur in the second bed, which managed to also fit Dreden and Flare. Leucis planted himself in the corner of the room on the floor and didn’t move from there, though he used the pillow Flare threw in his direction. Iraelias and Abner lay on the floor as well with the air of martyrs enduring torture, using their bags and spare blankets as pillows.
Someone blew out the last remaining candle, and the room was plunged into darkness, the creak of expanding wood and slow breathing filling the room. There was silence, their ears ringing with the hours of music and excitement they had just endured, when at last a voice whispered in the dark.
“Good night, friends…”