Spring Equinox, Playroom Reveal, Graduation, Mosquito Hell
- Playroom reveal: With tensions high, Erevan gathers the teens (Raven, the twins, Zendril, Estrelle, Nox) and unveils Rivvin’s giant playroom. Rules are safety-first; the space can shift for team games. Doubts vanish; they have a blast. Later, sign-ups are needed. Next morning Amber gets her own gentler session with Raven, Quetzal, and Bufo on her team.
- Dinner tension managed: At dinner, Averon’s temper shows; Rivvin warns him to rein it in. Quetzal keeps Nox distracted. By the end, the mood settles. Afterward, Rivvin tours the other estate features.
- Averon & Aeris vacation: Pushed to rest, they go to Valkaenar’s coastal property. Averon sulks, then unwinds a bit—wine, sleep, swimming, glowing surf. He brings mushroom spores home for later projects.
- Mushrooms & management: Averon hands the spores to Rivvin with site details. Back at work, he visits five sites, fixes a breakdown in communication, and forces teams to coordinate.
- Search for Zendril’s brother: Vey, Zendril, and Rose spend two weeks asking around likely towns. No luck yet. Vey plans one more mundane sweep, then divination. Rose gets a nearby apartment and starts looking at trade schools.
- Roles on the ground: Vey sets soldiers on public safety and keeps enforcers on crime (drugs, dirty money). Nox returns to school; Karo plans to train as a Silvaeari enforcer.
- Exam results: Nox passes (solid D) and celebrates; Karo pulls a B+. Quetzal admits he failed this round but kept quiet so Nox wouldn’t spiral. Family talks names (Vaeari vs. Silvaeari); the choice is about pride and unity. Zendril notices a budding positive thread between Karo and Nox.
- Move-in red flags: Erevan and Ava love their new house’s “earthy” smell. A bodyguard urges caution. Bites appear; Quetzal casts an extermination in the bedroom and heals the welts.
- Kitchen collapse: During the first home-cooked dinner, the kitchen floor gives way. Quetzal is scraped; Nox is knocked out. Vey gets Nox up; Rivvin exterminates the swarm below. Clerics treat Nox (likely cracked ribs). The house is turned over to professionals.
- Aftermath & reset: Nox recovers at Vey’s with Raven and Quetzal on watch. Nightmares hit; they steady him. Family shifts meals and beds to Raven’s place. No one re-enters the damaged house except for quick, guarded retrievals. Erevan vows to salvage the frog fountain for Pinebrook and rethinks housing until repairs are done.
More Detailed Summary-
Narrative Summary – The Playroom Reveal
The mood around the house is tense. Current events have left heavy Unseelie vibes lingering in the air—enough that even family members feel unsettled. Amber keeps her distance, because when Averon is in this state, even a grandfather can seem frightening.
Quetzal finishes speaking quietly with Nox after dinner, then excuses himself. As he leaves, Erevan steps in. He doesn’t give Nox a choice, simply telling him, “We’re going to go play.” It’s not a suggestion; it’s an adult’s command. Nox obeys, but his unhappiness shows. Erevan promises something new and exciting, a game everyone needs to learn. Raven, the twins, and Zendral are all gathered too. Even Estrelle is pulled along, her teenager’s energy fitting right in.
Outside in the driveway, the group gathers, unsure of Erevan’s intentions. He grins and explains: Rivvin has built something extraordinary in his manor—an extension of family space, but one that everyone can enjoy. At first, the others are skeptical. A playroom built for kids? What kind of joke is this? Erevan only smiles wider, insisting it’s real and worth their time.
He makes them cover their eyes as they enter, stepping sideways through the door to fit the whole group in together. When they open their eyes, gasps ripple around the room. The playroom is huge, colorful, and alive with possibilities. Raven stares, then glances at his father and admits, “Okay, disregard everything I just thought about you.”
Erevan takes charge, laying out rules—mostly about safety. He shows them the changing rooms, the warm showers, towels ready in case of water games. Sheets and props are stacked for building forts, while strips of colored tape divide the room into sides for team play. It’s clear Rivvin designed it with flexibility in mind: the space can shift to match whatever wild game the family dreams up.
The teenagers are wide-eyed, buzzing with anticipation. Erevan keeps the energy flowing, turning their doubts into laughter. Soon, the skepticism fades and they throw themselves into play, the room echoing with shouts and excitement. It’s rough, chaotic, very much teenager energy—but in this moment, it feels like exactly what they needed.
Narrative Summary – Playroom, Dinner, and the Vacation
Ava joins the others in the playroom, though she’s familiar with the space already. She remembers it more as a work zone—where Rael and Zephira once buried themselves in library duty—than as the riot of fun it’s become. Before the games start, Rivvin wants to explain some additional amenities, but Erevan waves him off, insisting they wait until after dinner. The playroom, he says, is the crown jewel. The pools and frog ponds can come later.
The teens divide into teams, Estrelle loudest among them, demanding balance so no one ruins the fun. Erevan eggs them on, while Rivvin plays referee from the sidelines, savoring the sight of pure joy on their faces. He’s proud—he managed something wonderful without disaster. Even Raven, at first hesitant, gets swept into the games with prompting from the others.
Dinner that evening is tense. Averon’s mask of composure slips, his frustration leaking through. Rivvin sends him a sharp warning: get your temper under control, I just calmed things down. Quetzal notices too, deliberately keeping Nox distracted with cheerful talk, reminding him of fun moments from earlier. Both Rivvin and Valkaenar watch closely, ready to step in if Averon lashes out. By the meal’s end, the mask is steadier, the storm quieted.
After dinner, Rivvin unveils the rest of the estate’s marvels. The adults are impressed, though he admits the playroom will need sign-up sheets—it’s too small to hold everyone at once. The next morning, a special session is run for Amber. Rough play is toned down for her size and age, but her uncles and father sign up to join, ensuring she’s fully included. Thistle is far too young, but one day even she’ll be old enough for these games. Raven takes his place at Amber’s side, joined by Bufo, the frog determined to play despite being utterly useless. Quetzal joins too, and the team balances around them. Amber beams—this is her game, her team.
The Equinox celebration passes smoothly, the seasonal fertility rites quieter this year. Families focus inward, the spring rites more about household and kin than spectacle. Contractors who helped build Rivvin’s playroom whisper about turning the design into a public attraction—proof of its appeal.
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Meanwhile, Aeris and Averon are nudged into a forced vacation. They travel to Valkaenar’s coastal property, a quieter estate compared to Zeromaeus’s party-centered holdings. The port city is noisy with tourists, but their ship carries them out to a secluded beach. Averon sulks, suspicious of being manipulated, but Aeris persists, coaxing him to rest. He drinks heavily, falls asleep on the sand, and wakes groggy but calmer. Together they explore, gathering mushrooms, watching the ocean glow with natural bioluminescence.
The days slip by in wine, half-sleep, and reluctant relaxation. Averon eventually accepts it: if he fights too hard against rest, he’ll only be forced into another vacation. He gathers spores to take home, perhaps useful later, and talks with Aeris about ecosystems and spellwork. By the end, he isn’t at peace, but he’s resigned. Home and its problems still wait, but for a moment, he let himself breathe.
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Narrative Summary – Mushrooms, Underlords, and a Search
Averon brings the mushrooms home in a little sealed box, gives them to Rivvin, and describes the exact place and weather where he found them. He sets up a warm, damp corner so they can try to grow, then steps back and lets Rivvin run the project. It’s fussy work, but it gives Rivvin something concrete to wrestle with.
Averon returns from vacation and does the rounds. He visits the five sites, starting with the two that clashed. The problem wasn’t hatred—it was silence. No one was sure who owned which part of the task, so nothing moved. Averon lays it down flat: you don’t have to like each other; you do have to cooperate. With clear roles, the logjam breaks. He fixes a major issue early, and the rest becomes a long grind of making everyone work as one team instead of a bunch of separate fiefdoms.
Late March turning to early spring, they turn to the next thing: finding Zendril’s brother. They bring Rose. The plan is simple: hit the towns he’d likely choose, ask questions, and be easy to approach. Ava sketches what he looked like last year. Vey roughs up the look again—less “healthy and new” and more like before—so a chance sighting might click. They pick a lower-middle hotel so no one will balk at the door. Rose goes to markets and other public places where a son might shadow a mother he recognizes. They spend two weeks at this: many questions, many faces, no luck. It feels like hunting a needle in hay.
Vey keeps everyone steady. One more sweep the mundane way, he says. After that, they’ll switch to divination. He doubts the missing boy has a formal true name, which actually helps: the name they gave him may serve for the spell. They also check for keepsakes or old belongings to use as a focus; both Rose and Zendril have nothing. For now, Zendril even skips scented soaps so the missing boy would catch the right scent if they cross paths. If the plain search fails after the next push, they’ll cast.
They head home tired but not defeated. The plan holds: fix the systems, get the teams talking, and keep looking—first with boots and questions, then with magic if they must.
Vey keeps everyone steady after the failed trip: they’ll keep looking for the boy, even if it takes more time and money, and there’s no promise he’ll come back. They head home and reset. While Rivvin organizes soldiers and enforcers—soldiers for public safety, enforcers for the criminal threads like drugs and dirty money—Vey drags Zendril along on the overnight circuits so he learns the towns, even if he doesn’t go on the actual jobs. Rose gets her own furnished apartment nearby (not forever, but livable for a few years). Nox goes back to school. They start scouting a trade program for Rose; she isn’t the type to be “kept,” so an exploratory first year makes sense.
Narrative Summary – Exam Results and Celebration
Vey makes sure he’s home when the exam letter arrives. Nox paces, sets it down, picks it up, sets it down again—then finally opens it. He passed. A solid D, and he is over the moon. He hugs his father first, then Quetzal, then Caro/Carol, then Zendril—tears, relief, and a lot of “I win, you lose” energy for the people who said he couldn’t. Quetzal admits he failed this time and kept quiet so Nox wouldn’t spiral. That doesn’t dim the mood: tonight is about Nox.
They cook a celebratory dinner—think steak-and-dessert fancy—and Nox helps in the kitchen because he loves it. Karo pulls a B+, Erevan does well too. Raven gives a short, sharp speech about beating expectations. Somewhere in the glow, they wander into the name question: are they Vaeari or Silvaeari? Vey leans toward honoring Vaeari while Quetzal says family either way. There’s also a proud, defiant angle: take “Vaeari,” once spat as an insult, and wear it on purpose.
Zendril notices something new between Karo and Nox—nothing formal, but a positive thread, like the start of a connection. Later, Karo takes Nox out to celebrate; the bodyguard net keeps an eye on them. Nox is still small, but stronger, and his reactions are changing: if someone comes at him hot, he still shrinks; if they’re just jerks, he fires back with spice more often than before. That’s progress. Quetzal lets it play unless it veers toward real danger—better to learn to stand up in a kitchen than in a pit.
With the pass confirmed, tuition gets paid and the moves begin. Funding clears through the usual channels, and carriages stack with boxes. Karo heads home to fetch his things and plans to train as a Silvaeari enforcer, which his parents love—steady work, good treatment. Raven and Quetzal settle into their new place; the others land in theirs. For the first time in a long time, the road ahead looks organized: school on the calendar, work lined up, search plans queued, and a family identity they can choose rather than accept.
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They start moving into the new places in fits and starts. Raven’s home is already fully set, so the first night’s meal is there. Erevan and Ava tour their own house and love the smell—“earthy, forest-undertone, not swamp”—and joke it might fade once they truly settle in. A bodyguard, polite but firm, suggests they pay attention to that scent. Erevan waves it off; rich noses don’t register “dirt” as a warning.
Boxes come and go. Nox is still out celebrating with Karo for a couple days. Vey and Zendril are irritated in the practical way: Rose has a roof but no cookware yet, so they’re juggling hotel nights, errands, and deliveries while the wagons keep rolling. Erevan notes the frog fountain is clogged with leaf-litter—probably just a long-vacant maintenance issue. The property itself has a natural, swamp-edge smell outdoors, so the indoor “forest” note doesn’t stand out as trouble.
The first night they actually sleep in the house, Erevan wakes scratching a welt. He assumes spider; they shrug and move on. Night two brings three or four bites—on him and on Ava. Now it’s not funny. Quetzal comes by. The scent still reads to him as “pleasant and earthy,” nothing like mildew. He casts an extermination in the bedroom anyway, then does his cleric work to soothe and close the bites. They decide to keep moving in, stay alert, and see if the problem returns once doors and windows stay shut and the fountain is cleaned.
By week’s end, the family’s rhythm is taking shape: Raven’s place anchors dinners, Rose’s apartment starts to feel lived-in, and Erevan’s house smells like a forest that refuses to leave. Whether that means hidden tenants in the walls or just a long-empty home breathing out its stored air, they haven’t decided. For now, the bites are handled, the fountain is on the chore list, and the move-in continues—with one eye on the scent that started as charming and might yet prove to be a clue.
Narrative Summary – The Kitchen Collapse
With the bedroom pests cleared, they decide to christen Erevan and Ava’s house with a family dinner. Quetzal is giddy about cooking; boxes are barely unpacked, but he’s already pulling ingredients with Nox helping. They step into the kitchen—and the floor drops out.
The crash brings everyone running. Quetzal lands hard on spongy, rotted wood swarming with little red worm-things, scraped up but conscious. Nox isn’t. Raven circles the jagged hole, panicking, until Erevan yanks him back from the edge. Quetzal calls up that he can misty step out, but first he crawls to Nox, checks him, and realizes this is bad—breathing, yes; neck intact, yes; ribs likely broken, debris on him, and he’s out cold.
Vey doesn’t hesitate. He drops into the hole, scoops his son, and wings straight up through the gap—awkward, but Nox is small enough that Vey muscles it. On the floor above, Rivvin sweeps an extermination across the pit; the bugs die, still clinging, and Vey strips Nox’s clothes to brush the bodies off. Raven helps Quetzal misty step out; Quetzal waves off fussing, promising he’s only scraped. (This got changed to Raven getting in Vey's arms and sudden transpositioning Nox, where Quetzal used his own misty step.)
They test adjoining rooms—soft spots near the kitchen groan underfoot. That decides it. Evacuate now, argue later. Vey carries Nox; Quetzal mounts up with them; the rest split: some to the cleric, some to secure the perimeter and keep anyone else out of the house.
At the temple, the clerics eye Quetzal’s cuts and assume he’s the patient. He shakes his head and rattles off Nox’s symptoms like a pro. Treatment starts fast. Someone asks Nox’s age—his size confuses the guess. “Seventeen,” comes the answer, “just small.” Once Nox is stabilized and bandaged, Quetzal quietly closes his own wounds.
Back at Vey’s, they make up a bed in the main hall and tuck Nox in where everyone can watch him. The house talk turns sharp. That “nice, earthy” smell wasn’t charm; it was rot and an infestation chewing through the kitchen. The clogged frog fountain, the swamp-edge air outside, the bedtime bites—every clue was there. Erevan promises: Rivvin first, then professionals only from here on out. No one goes back inside except to pull immediate essentials, and even that happens fast, with guards on the door and a second extermination queued.
Raven keeps to Nox’s side. Ava stays outside the wrecked house while runners fetch what they need. Bodyguards notify the right people. There’s grumbling about inspections, sellers, and agents, but the priority is simple: heal the kid, house the family, and fumigate the problem to ash. Dinner moves to Raven’s place again. The kitchen can wait. The kitchen has to wait.
Narrative Summary – Aftermath, a Soft Landing, and Nox Wakes
They hand the ruined house off to professionals—full remediation, pest kill, the works—and shift to triage mode. Nox is laid out on Vey’s couch, breathing steady, bandaged, watched like a hawk by Raven and Quetzal. Erevan and Ava do the practical thing: food run, hot and fast, straight back to Vey’s.
Beds get sorted. Raven offers rooms without hesitation; Erevan and Ava take him up on it. Quetzal stays on Nox-watch through the night. Erevan apologizes to everyone for the “awesome” house that turned out to be a death trap; Quetzal keeps the frame steady—no one died, everyone got out, lessons learned.
Hours later, Nox blinks awake. Quetzal fills him in: kitchen floor gave way, the infestation had chewed the joists to sponge, they both fell, Quetzal got scraped, Nox got knocked out and probably cracked a couple ribs. Vey carried him up, clerics handled the rest. Those “pleasant, earthy” notes? Not ambiance—rot. The “mosquito” bites Erevan and Ava picked up were the other warning they missed.
Plan going forward: nobody back inside except escorted retrievals, then certified crews only. Meals and nights shift to Raven’s place until the house is declared safe or replaced. For now, the family closes ranks around Nox, who’s sore, alive, and—despite everything—finally home.
In the night Nox jolts from a nightmare and hurts himself sitting up; Vey is there instantly, and Quetzal does a quick check and eases the pain. Nox mutters the dreams won’t leave him alone. Raven tells him Valkaenar said he’s going to be a strong Dreamwalker one day—strong enough to tell those dreams to 'get lost'.
Erevan doesn’t sleep much. He’s angry at the seller and sad the “perfect house” was a trap. He swears the frog fountain is coming with them and going in at Pinebrook. He talks it through with Ava: if Averon has to be away more as lord, Pinebrook may fall to Erevan and Riven to hold. Maybe they can split time the way Valkaenar does—court work during the week, home on weekends—once the family is steady again.
