Chapter 1 - Kem, City of Gold

The heavy blue and red curtains are yanked open by an invisible hand. The four small dolls are on display for all to see. Their heads swivel around, taking everybody in, each doll looking at a different person.

Butterfly's bullet goes slightly wide and instead cracks into the piano making a horrible sound of metal and wood breaking. The dolls' eyes flash brilliantly--one in purple, one in red, one in green, and one in white--as they fan out and rush towards you. Dark purple tendrils come out of the purple eyed doll and plunge into Fingas. He feels his strength being siphoned off. The tentacles make a slurping sound and then dissolve into nothingness. Butterfly's pistol shatters in her hand, making her yelp and drop the ruined remnants. Theodore feels a consciousness invade his mind but his willpower quickly shunts the feeling away. Hargrac seems immune to any artificial fear and quickly stamps out a rising sense of fright before it can take root.

Fingas magic shimmers around his body, giving him a ghostly aspect that makes it difficult to perceive him clearly. Theodore performs a lunging thrust intending to skewer the little nightmare doll but only scores a glancing blow against its porcelain body. Butterfly likewise uses a rapier and gets a slightly more solid hit, punching a small hole in one doll's torso. Hargrac sees much more success with a solid blow to a doll's head, cracking it in half. White light spills out of the jagged wound but still it stands. Two of the dolls retaliate with magic. The purple- and green-eyed ones attack Fingas and Theodore with sharp ceramic fingers. All except the white-eyed doll are ineffective. Hargrac's body erupts in weeping boils all over his skin.

While goblins adapt to weakness by being quick, being a tiny spirit-possessed doll is even quicker, and Fingas' dagger strike catches nothing but air. His compatriots fair much better, however. Theodore punches a hole right between his doll's eyes, causing a shaft of emerald light to pour out. Butterfly takes an arm off with her rapier attack, spilling red light instead of blood from the wound. Hargrac's hammer blow send cracks spiderwebbing throughout its whole body. The dolls remain standing but three of them are barely holding together, except for the one attacking Fingas who seems determined to suffer no harm and to inflict whatever weak damage it can with its little ceramic fingers. They each renew their attacks on the intruders to their theater. Fingas' spell seems to be working at least as his doll can't land a blow either and the two flail about in a dance of whiffs. The other three dolls find much more success, but only landing superficial damage against the party.