Evening comes quickly in the Twilight City, for the mid-day sun only briefly holds court over the city between cliffs. For a few fleeting hours, the bridges, verandas and vistas of Teluval are graced with what little light the dull orange sun can still provide. After, when the shadows have resumed the endless march across the crevice, and the market bridges have emptied, the city is illuminated by torch-light, carefully cultivated phosphorescent flora, and endless magical and automatomic marvels. Here a two-person airship, armed with only a mirror, a flame and two over worked and underpayed members of the city watch drift between bridge-spans. The light of the flame is reflected through a diabolical apparatus of prisms and mirrors, and a wavy length of light scans the darkest alleys of Teluval. The city watchmen, suspended mid-air aboard their rickety ship, shout and wave lightning tinged-batons at drunks and scoundrels, who scamper or stumble into darker alleys still. All is stone. All is night.
But in the halls and wine-gardens there is life, and light, and lots and lots of drinking. Just above the Mourning Quarter, where the dead are laid to rest, and the weeping is endless, there is laughter and song. Artists, poets, playwrites and troubadors gather in taverns and inns, with names as colorful as there patrons. The Squished Fish. The Varnished Turtle. The Gnomes Hole. As the evening wears on, and the laughter dwindles to a few hold outs, too drunk or weary to wander to whatever cave they call home, a Tall Man dressed in black slips between the dispersing crowds. He is a messenger, an errand runner. A mole. He carries a pouch on his hip and a short silver engraved dagger on his waist. From the pouch he pulls small coins, and places them effortlessly into the pockets of unsuspecting persons. It is the calling card of H. Erstwhile, a simple coin, that fits comfortably into the palm of your hand or claw. Emblazoned upon it is the Watchful Eye, a rendering of a cyclops eye. To the uninitiated it is simply a curiosity to be discovered, bleary eyed the next morning. To the initiated, or to those skilled enough to discover it upon there persons, it is a signal that you have been summoned to the Ceaseless Feast. All around the city of Teluval, in small, unsuspecting places is the same symbol, the staring eye of the cyclops. Chiseled into stone walls, or carved onto wooden beams, the eye leads along narrow bridges rarely crossed, down corridors frequented more by ghosts and flesh-hungry gnomes than well-to-do citizens and travelers. You have discovered this coin, one evening, in the city of names, and where our story begins.
Tucked into a bowl shaped room that once collected rainwater and fed the cisterns of Teluval, the Squished Fish is a gloomy wine-garden with pre-Obliteration mosaics along the long semi-circle wall. Glass bowls are suspended from the ceiling, filled with phosphorescent fish and eels, that bathe the room in an eery, murky light. The floor is warm and damp. The wails of the grieving several floors below in the Mourning Quarter are drowned out by the small trio of musicians occupying the center stage; a stone column rising from a central reflecting pool. There are a dozen tables, long and crafted of stone or scavenged wood, stools, couches and divans placed against those least decaying mosaics. The scenes are very old, depicting armored knights riding silver winged chariots through the night sky. One scene shows a sorcerer in a glass helm placing a flag on a gods-forsaken grey mountain.
A Tall Man winds his way from table to table, speaking briefly, shaking hands and then moving on to the next group. He is oblivious to the music coming from the stage, despite the obvious skill of those performers. He flutters like a curious moth from person to person, even approaching a cantankerous looking Grumbler and a rude automaton insulting the Suzerain of Corvasquer. The Tall Man, having performed his task slips from the Squished Fish as the song ends. The trio of musicians is debating what tune or tale to perform next. It is a typical evening in Teluval, and there is a relaxing feeling in the evening gloom, beneath the phosphorescent night of the imprisoned eels and fish in their glass bowls.
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