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Saturday, September 9, 2017 3:06 AM The Witching Hour Lantern Hill at the best of times was rarely a lively place, yet in the darkness of the night even the dead slumber silent and still. The moon casts a cold light upon the landscape, dispelling the mists and shadows, though not all. There are places its light does not touch, and here the night creatures flit from their hidden crevices into the open world beyond, free from the beings who walk the streets by day. Dogs roam the alleyways in packs, snouts turned to the ground in search for food. Cats tiptoe high above on fences and roofs, glowing eyes watching in a predatory light. And rats scurry in the sewer and secret passageways, peeling back layers of wood and board with gnawing teeth. Once stately things, the old Victoria-era manors lay empty along one road in Lantern Hill, overlooking Freedom City in their lots overgrown with weeds and the dead husks of trees. The roofs are patchworks of missing shingles and dead leaves, brickwork turned to rubble and paint hanging in tatters from the foyer, brown from age, swaying sleepily in the breeze, and in the quiet of the night a lone feline perches on a chimney top. It pauses midway from licking its paw and twists in place to look up. Another figure streaks a silhouette against the purple sky. High above the stillness of the ground, the icy winds buffet her armor but she heeds that no mind, snugly ensconced in steel. Instead, her mind flows in equations and derivatives, codes and images and meanings and symbols, all blurring into one and another to form a mess of thoughts. But she lets the cold air in, and the chill drags her awake, forcing her focus better than a mug of espresso. Absentmindedly, she scans her surrounding area, aware of both physical and magic happenings yet all is silent and still. Even magic needs to sleep.