The Wing Cutter was gone. The wings they had severed, the horrors they had wrought—ended. But for Fip Goldscale, victory had never tasted so uneasy.   The beast remained.   The true monster—ancient, unnatural, awakened by Ariben’s twisted ritual—still moved across the land. Where it stepped, nothing lived. Where it breathed, whole towns vanished beneath silence and ash.   It would take more than arcane power to stand against that.   Fip needed unpredictability. He needed mischief with purpose. He needed madness made manifest. He needed the Jester’s Mask.   That very morning, within the stonework sanctum of his bastion in Frandyln, he conjured the first of what would become a week of calculated creations. From snow, shadow, and spell, his simulacrum came to life.   Fip called him Flap.   “Time to make something shiny,” Fip muttered.   Without a word, Flap conjured the first flawless diamond—clearer than mountain ice, worth 25,000 gold pieces.   That night, Fip sent magical messages into the secret channels of Frandyln and Isondale, a single phrase echoing out across high towers and low alleyways:   “Ten perfect diamonds for the Mask. No questions asked.”   ⸻   By the second morning, Flap had crafted another.   Fip took a walk through Frandyln’s South Market, the sound of a lively tavern spilling into the cobbled street. The tune was unfamiliar but catchy, a quick rhythm of lute and drum.   “Backwards they go, with flair and flow, Through tower top and pit below…”   Fip paused, startled.   It was them. A bard was singing about his group.   He stepped to the side of the open window and listened as the chorus rose. The crowd inside was clapping in time.   “They faced a beast with many mouths, A False Hydra’s cursed cry— But still it came to die…”   He didn’t stay long. He didn’t need to.   He walked away smiling, a little taller than before.   ⸻   On the third day, another Flap was born and another diamond formed. That afternoon, Fip sifted through reports from the north. He sat in a quiet corner of a candlelit study, a spread of papers in front of him—some torn, some stained, none comforting.   Hill giants had been seen moving as one. A village vanished, not burned, just… gone. Rumors of reptiles large enough to carry wagons on their backs, wandering too close to the borderlands.   A spiral-shaped scorch mark had been found in the rocks near Dewbreak.   Fip tapped his claw on the parchment, staring at it long after his tea had gone cold.   Later that night, as he passed through Frandyln’s outer square, a group of traveling minstrels were setting up. One of them nodded to him—recognition gleaming in his eyes—and strummed the opening notes.   “Oh come ye close and lend an ear, To tales both grand and bold…”   Fip gave a shallow bow and kept walking. But the smile stayed on his face long after the music faded.   ⸻   On the fourth morning, Flap handed him another diamond, its brilliance cut as clean as ever.   That night, Fip dreamed.   He stood in a jungle clearing. The stars above were gone—only blackness remained. Giants with spiraled skin surrounded him, murmuring chants in voices that echoed twice. At the center of the clearing sat a monstrous dinosaur, its body covered in eyes that blinked out of sync. Hovering above it was the Jester’s Mask, spinning lazily.   It turned. It looked at him.   It winked.   Fip awoke before dawn, chilled despite the warm hearth nearby.   On his desk was the diamond. And beside it, a note.   “Seven dawns. Ten diamonds. No questions.”   ⸻   On the fifth day, the whispers returned—louder now.   A courier from Plumefall had reported a caravan turning back after the forest began to “sing.” The bark of trees, they claimed, bore spirals that wept. In the tavern near the courier’s post, a trio of performers sang a new verse:   “To shores of rot and dead man’s breath, They sailed through storm and blight—”   Aakscree’s verse. Glynhorn’s.   Fip closed his eyes and let the music wash over him. There were no verses about what was coming. Not yet.   ⸻   The sixth Flap created the sixth diamond without a sound.   By noon, a raven arrived bearing a scroll sealed in red wax shaped like a grin.   “The Weeping Garden. Dawn. Bring ten. Come alone.”   Fip said nothing. He tucked the scroll into a drawer and packed a pouch with ten of the brightest diamonds ever born.   As evening settled over the city, he stood by a windowsill and listened again to the tavern music drifting across the rooftops. The chorus repeated, and children in the alley below shouted the words back to each other.   “From boss to base, with daring grace— They flip the script and win the race!”   He shook his head, amused. The world had already written their legend.   But the final verse hadn’t been sung yet.   ⸻   On the seventh morning, one final Flap created the last diamond. Nineteen total. Ten for the mask. Nine for what came next.   Fip arrived at the Weeping Garden just before the sun rose. The statues wept as they always had—stone tears marking their unmoving faces.   From the fog, a hooded figure approached with a long, cloth-wrapped case.   The exchange was silent. No words. Just trade.   The pouch of diamonds for the Mask.   The figure vanished. Fip opened the case.   The Jester’s Mask stared up at him—its grin slowly shifting from playful to knowing. It pulsed once in his hands, like it was breathing.   And somewhere, far beyond the horizon, the ground stirred.   The beast still moved.   But now, so did Fip.   And behind him echoed the final lines of the tavern song—faint, like a memory carried by the wind:   “Oh Backwards Delvers, toast their name— The mad, the bold, the brave, the famed…”