On his way back from Dorean's room the next morning, he encounters Snowcap, the special muffins from Life is Pain arranged before her. She observes that the muffin case is preserving them, though the muffins themself are also magical. She asks if Ward would accept a muffin offered to him that was ancient; Ward is more concerned about why the person would be offering him food. He requests then that she pay off a mage he knows of to cast a spell in exchange for a ring of protection for Eck, a deal which she accepts. He then goes off to find Vinter, who is able to cast it twice on Dorean to remove her levels of exhaustion. Snowcap gives the ring to Eck, informing them that they have good allies. The party spends the day preparing for the play or otherwise training before the play begins.

• Dramatis Personae
  The Court of Light
  • King Michael "Mickey" Walschilde — A harsh but just ruler, a believer in order and law. It's all fun and games until someone breaks a rule. (Luna)
  • Kairi, Princess of Heart — A kind maiden and a princess of light. Her beauty and song have captivated the Prince of Darkness. An obsolute dork. (Sapphire)
  • Magnificent, Thethe Dragon — A Dragon. (Eck)
  The Court of Darkness
  • Riku, the Prince of Darkness — A dramatic young man. Probably listens to too much MCR. Obsessed with capturing the princess' heart. uncertain if he means it literally. (Alibi)
  • Sora, First Cousin to Darkness — An optimistic soul who has seen too much in his short life. Life of the party. (Ward)
  • Roxas, second Cousin to Darkness — Sora's Omnipresent counterpart. Says so little some wonder whether he's real at all. (Mira)
  Unaffiliated Ne'er-Do-Wells
  • Goofy, the Layabout — Merchant and acquaintance of Riku, Sora, and MIchey, always with Donald. (Vera)
  • Donald, the Taskmaster — Merchant and acquaintance of Riku, Sora, and Michey, always with Goofy. (Vera's raven friend)

Riku tells Sora that he is in love with Kairi of the Court of Light, having met her in the marketplace. Sora hatches a plan to allow the two to meet up again at the club, away from the prying eyes of her father. There, the two have a conversation, but the music is too loud for the audience to hear the conversation. King Mickey arrives and takes Kairi away. The next scene, Goofy and Donald hide weapons for a later fight at Kairi's wedding slash birthday party. The trio indeed attack the mysterioud groom Kairi is engaged to, taking his disguise and encountering Kairi. King Mickey once again takes her away, sending out his dragon Magnificent to fight off the three. As they fight the dragon, Cecily falls in from the ceiling, pursued by a massive orb. She announces that the king has greater enemies than a dragon, then leaves the stage and leaving the party to deal with Sodizarq, Thespian Eye. Swiftly dealing enormous amounts of damage to the beholder, it threatens to attack the audience if they do not surrender. They offer to let him talk to Cecily about a job, since his current one is apparently uninteresting to him. He agrees and pretends to be killed. Cecily takes him elsewhere to discuss potential employment, Vera going with her to potentially protect her if Sodizarq attacks her. The show continues, Roxas turning evil and ultimately fighting Sora. They have a dramatic sword fight, umbrella against fish, resulting in Sora's death. Roxas, realizing King Mickey and Riku have a philosophical discussion about goodness, and then Riku defeats King Mickey in a sword fight. Riku and Kairi are united, they kiss, and then Kairi kills Riku to avenge her father and her kingdom. The play ends.

Cecily and Talthis meet with Sodizarq and discuss at the very least an alliance in the area. Sodizarq agrees to help find information on the Roc's Chosen for the Fourth Act. He does comment to Vera that she keeps strange company, meaning her raven friend.

After the show, the group meets with Cecily in her office. She assures them that everyone on the team was okay, that they were just unaware that the beholder was one of the defense measures. The job has been completed, but things are bad. The Doctor intends to stage an attack with some of his creations, allowing the Roc's Chosen to subdue it and strengthen their control over the city. The creatures will likely be released directly from the lab in the sewers, the location of which they have pinpointed with Sodizarq's help. They decide to contact Armin, Hobbes, and Vinter and hire them to help run interference and protect the town if anything gets out. The group also agrees to try to contact Merely and try to team up with her against the lab in an attempt to mitigate further Merely issues.

Ward and Vera attempt to do the ritual to imbue Vera's lunar silver with the light of the red moon. As the ritual proceeds, two entities appear. One is a warforged made of the night sky, Bellerophon the Astral Wanderer, who raises the jar of silver to the sky. The other is a cosmic dragon made of stardust, touching the jar and making it glow briefly, before vanishing into stardust. Belle waves and vanishes. Ward pours the imbued silver onto the mirror, repairing the mirror though it uses up all of the silver. Ward leaves her alone for the night, and Vera stares contemplatively for a while before storing and hiding it away without using it.

The next morning group discusses the plans for contacting Merely. Though she does not have a plan for after finishing at the lab, the group ultimately agrees to meet with Merely later that day to discuss teaming up with her and what her goals are after that. While they are making preparations, Vera encounters Snowcap continuing to contemplate her muffins. Vera laments that she talked herself out of buying the muffins despite having wanted one. Snowcap reluctantly gives her one as thanks for assisting in keeping Eck safe.

With a quick Sending to Merely asking her to meet them, the party travels to the park. Dorean offers Merely a gift, a headscarf that matches her own in a different color. Merely accepts the gift happily, allowing Dorean to put it on her head. Dorean explains that their intention was to go to the lab the following day in order to destroy what is there and that she wanted to bring along Merely to do so. After some discussion, Merely agrees not to attack Dorean's friends if they don't attack her; she goes so far as to ask if they will be her friend, which Vera readily agrees to while the rest remain silent. They hang out for the rest of the afternoon, Vera in displacer beast kitten wild shape, while Merely talks about so many bugs that she knows so much about. Mira recognizes one of the bugs as one from space. When questioned about where she encountered such a bug, Merely explains that it was one she saw while in space, or perhaps one she dreamed about. It turns out that Merely has dreams about various shards, describing one that seems to be Cailleamhan, still alive and populated.

Introduced

• Sodizarq, Thespian Eye

Returning

• Snowcap
• Vinter
• Alibi
• Sapphire
• Suspicious as Heck Raven
• Edwin - the Red Prince
• Invicta
• Cecily Cardew
• Merely

• Ruby mirror (repaired; for Vera)
• Special muffin (from Snowcap to Vera)

• The special muffin from Life is Pain increased Vera's wisdom by two and decreased her dexterity by one.