Larrikan glances behind him, looking for who talked. He wishes he hadn’t when he sees the shambling, seven foot tall form of a bogle following him. The monster’s toothy grin makes Larrikan stumble on a mild upward incline of the moonlight he is walking on. The bogle laughs coarsely, “Haw, haw, haw!” and clearly enjoys the fox’s discomfort.
Larrikan looks back ahead, to help regain his footing, and sees an unnaturally beautiful human woman in front of him. He revises his opinion of her humanity when he sees her fangs, as she says, “Looks like a lost little fox to me. Hardly a mouthful.”
Larrikan refuses to stop playing the charm, and steps nimbly around her as he goes by. She reaches out and casually runs cold, clawed fingers through his fur. It makes Larrikan shudder, but he does not stop.
“More for men then,” the bogle chortles, and reaches for Larrikan.
Larrikan keeps moving. He considers dodging off the moonlit trail into the surrounding dark forest, but he suspects either or both of these creatures would have no trouble following him. While he considers the trail, he realizes it is heading upwards, leaving the ground behind.
“Wait!” says the female-looking fey, “Is that a fiddle, fox? Will you be playing for us tonight?”
Larrikan looks her in the eyes, and notices he can see through her eyes to the night beyond. He nods decisively at her.
She grabs the bogle and says, “Let him play.” When the bogle grumbles, she adds, “You can eat him on the way home. Let him play!”
Larrikan does his best to ignore the sounds of a scuffle behind him. This is pretty easy as he is walking over a silver arch of pathlight, which leads over a lake that Larrikan did not know was this close to the University. The path seems to stretch a long way over the lake, but it feels like only a few steps before the path slopes downwards and he steps on to the beach of an island in the center of the lake.
Moonlight shines on the island, making everything look silvery, with only deep shadows. The lake reflects silver light back so strongly that the shore of the land is all but invisible. It seems like all the Moon’s light shines here on the island.
The island is low and flat, just barely above the waterline. It seems to be filled with a large collection of faw of all kinds. Larrikan does not see any other Shy Folk. In fact, he sees a lot of very powerful and dangerous fey. It is hard to tell who is what in the bright silvery light.
Larrikan stops playing his recorder, and the path he followed vanishes. He loses the bogle and the … he doesn’t know what she way, but she was scary. Larrikan follows his ears to find the band. He sees a bear, two nymphs, a long limbed hairy kind of man he does not recognize, and several hovering pixies. They all have different instruments. The bear spies Larrikan and rumbles, “A fiddler fox! Just what we needed! Let us begin!”