The Court of Marah

The halls of the palace of Marah are every bit as beautiful and every bit as fascinating as the stories say. Tapestries line every wall, weaved with enchantments that play the story of the Court of Marah in living and often ghastly tableau. Servants dart across your vision at every turn, clad in blank black masks that label them mere tools of their sorcerous masters. And your gracious host, Mistress Sylvaine Marah herself, is completely in her element as she leads you through her home.

"You come highly recommended, you know. And that recommendation carries the burden of high expectations. I am used to seeking pleasure. I crave not only novelty, but expertise. One appreciates the finer things in their advancing age."

Sylvaine's "advancing age" certainly doesn't show on her. She walks her halls clad in naught but lace stockings and a red robe, tied at the waist so you can get a scandalous view of her gravity-defying breasts, swaying jauntily with every step. She catches your eye as you ogle her, but seems amused rather than offended. She stops in the middle of the hall, and prods your chest with a smirk.

"Eager, are we? Just remember our terms. If you succeed, if you prove yourself a sufficient source of "entertainment", you enter the family and marry my daughter. If you fail... well, you won't be around to wallow in it for long. Many have failed before you. So, I'm interested to know. What do you have planned for tonight?"

Breakfast at the table of Marah is a strange experience. There's the row of black-masked servants lining the wall behind you, the strange array of dishes lining the table, but somehow Sylvaine's behavior is the part that actually commands your attention. She lounges comfortably at the head of the table, regaling anyone who will listen about your performance last night in ribald, excruciating detail. You're pleased that she's accepted you, but her enthusiasm is something else.

Olivia, now by rights your fiancée, sits opposite you at the table, ignoring you, her mother, and the rest of the world save for a book she's got propped-up on the back of one of the black-masked servants. She turns pages steadily as she slowly eats, never dropping it from her sight until her mother finally leaves the dining room triumphantly. Only then does she finally look up and catch your eye.

"So you're the one she's picked out. Figured one of them would have to survive sooner or later."

She studies you indifferently as she chews a strip of red, furry bacon. After a moment, she shrugs.

"I mean I guess you're not bad to look at. But how'd you do it? What makes you so special?"

The great library of the palace has held a lot of interest for you during your stay in the palace. The books themselves are intriguing, from the conventional if dull family records to the frothing, roiling tomes of black magic that generations of Marah have apparently passed down like recipe books. You're thumbing through a tome on the family's founder, hoping to ingratiate yourself with the family further, when a pair of white-clad arms suddenly slams into the table in front of you.

"Leave."

You look up straight into a face that isn't a face- a white mask, leaning down mere inches away from you. It's the leader of those strange homunculus servants, the one Sylvaine mockingly calls "Ms. Celice", hunched over the table and bearing down on you with what is unmistakably dislike.

"You dishonor me and my masters by your continued presence. You are not Marah, you have the stink of Outside on you. We do not wish to serve you. My masters might be fooled, but they have made me wise. You will leave before you dirty this house any further."

This is quite the surprise. Ms. Celice had just seemed like another servant, one that Sylvaine had given a voice and dolled into a parody of femininity for her own amusement. And yet, she's the first real challenge to your continued residence.

The halls you've see in the great palace of Marah have been many, varied, and strange, but perhaps none quite as foreboding as the royal laboratory. The chamber lurks deep in the bowels of the estate, its walls lined with blood-red brickwork, one entrance adjoining directly to the dungeons. The walls are lined with diabolical magical instruments, some of them unfamiliar to you, some of them apparently unfamiliar to this plane of existence.

"Consider this your last test, oh son-in-law."

The great Sylvaine Marah stands before you with her daughter Olivia, who's displaying an unusual amount of attention and appreciation. They part to reveal the laboratory subject at the center of the room- a blonde woman sitting on a wooden table, wearing nothing but a white gown and a strangely eager expression on her face.

"Every inch of this laboratory is at your disposal. So, show us you're ready to join our family. To be a Marah is simply to understand that the world is there to be bent to your whim."

Olivia nods, and gives you a rare, vanishing smile.

"Go ahead, darling. A lot of the equipment here is quite rare; I'm eager to see what you come up with."

"Psst!"

You pause as you walk through the garden of the palace of Marah. You turn around, confused, to find a figure creeping out from behind a trestle of trembling roses. It's a woman in noble's clothing, with a long mane of luxurious black hair, scurrying towards you while looking over her shoulder and apparently intent on interrupting your morning constitutional.

"So you're the one they picked. You've been here long enough to see how these people act. What they do to people. Do to themselves."

The woman shudders, and gives you a look up and down. She sighs, and from her robes she pulls an oblong object tightly wrapped in black cloth.

"I am Lady Jacqueline Croix. Distant, distrusted family. And it sickens me just as much as it must sicken you to see what this court has become. You're the only one who can possibly get within arms reach of Sylvaine with her trust. So I ask: are you willing to do what must be done?"