Carnival of Tears (day 1, Lamashan [October] 4708 AR)

When the heroes returned from their meeting, they found the carnival had been drastically altered in their absence. Yellow globes of light that floated and twirled through the air above the carnival now brilliantly lit the paths and tents of the show. Every so often, a new yellow globe rose from one of the tents and joined the growing multitude above the fairgrounds.

Most of the people had gathered along the lakeshore to witness a breathtaking display of fireworks. When the heroes arrived, the moon was high in the sky; its light shimmered off the ice like pale ghosts dancing in the darkness. On the surface of the lake, fairgoers reveled and hooted, stomping their foot to rollicking fiddle music, played by a band of grigs that maniacally bowed their legs while hoping about the bandstand. A gong sounded from the stage and scores of colorful rockets suddenly sprung into the sky, where they exploded into glistening clouds of multicolored sparks that drifted gently to the ground. As the sparks slowly drifted on the wind, an unseen mist seemed to lift from the scene, and in a moment, everything changed.

The grigs continued to play, but instead of a lively dance tune, they were playing an eerie, haunting melody that dripped with sadness and cruelty. They stood off to the side with expressions of anxious expectation. Meanwhile, instead of colored sparks, a rain of leeches drifted from the sky and settled over the crowd with a series of wet noises.

Unless the heroes can stop the slaughter, most of the population of Falcon's Hollow is likely to die within the next couple of hours. All around the show, the fey have transformed the fun carnival events into death traps, while the hapless townsfolk wandered around with smiles on their faces, only realizing the true situation after it was too late. While a few of the townsfolk realized what was going on, the rest of the carnival blissfully ignored their cries of fear and terror.

Not every area had been changed. The menagerie of freaks, the vacant tents and the ice carving were empty and dark; the carnies that were running them were missing.

Black lines smeared through Sathelbry's name on the signboard in front of his sleigh stop. It now read, "Free Sleigh Rides for Children". Seated in the driver's seat, a queer little gnome with an icy beard waited patiently as dozens of children piled into the sled.

As the heroes approached, the gnome driver cracked his whip, lurching the overpacked sleigh toward the nearby wood at a breakneck speed. The heroes saw a mangled corpse bound beneath the sleigh, its head dragging against the snow leaving behind a bloody trail. Searching the feed trough revealed limbs diced into the horses' oats. The sleigh driver was a frosty chiseler who the heroes could not stop.

The Titan's Wheel had undergone a drastic change. Stripped of its once colorful decorations, it jutted like a rotten claw from a quagmire of mud and blood. Fairgoers navigated toward it on rotten planks arranged as stepping stones to span the fetid morass. Ghoulish trophies dangled from the great metal wheel, bound by their own intestines to the rusting metal so they dragged through the mud and up into the air as the wheel rotated. A gang of dark ice fey had transformed the Titan's Wheel into a sadistic torture device.

The barker tried to act as if nothing was wrong while the other three dark ice fey tried to get heroes to come around back and trick them into entering the machine. When injured, the fey disappeared.

A towering mass of sinew with a skeletal visage stalked the perimeter of the machine tents, randomly plucking carnival attendees and violently thrusting them beneath the tent's greasy canvas folds, where their hellish screams were mostly drowned out by the deafening grinding of the machinery within. Nothing walked from the tent's exit. Instead, a dark fey raked piles of shredded flesh and ground bone into a shallow trench of bloody pulp that trickled down the hill and into the river.

The gruesome tentkeeper, Jhoruk, did his best to maintain his Eye of Rapture cover. When the heroes gave him trouble, he attempted to bounce them first, trying to appear as menacing as possible, though when pushed he didn't hesitate to dig his claws into Mrunk. Jhoruk used his claws against Mrunk, saving his axe for Aranthor. When injured, Jhoruk had no problem calling for aid from within the tent. Despite that, the heroes emerged victorious. The other fey fled when Wrack cast shatter.