Announcements - 2026/09 - The Seventeenth Day
September 2026 - Event Page
Original Link - No Link Available
The Seventeenth Day
She had made it out. How, she could not have said. She remembered a thing, clearly, the way one remembers a face, and could not have told you whether it had happened yesterday or was going to happen tomorrow. Her thoughts turned on her. She was so tired.
Had there been others? The question slid away from her like a worm off a hook, and came back, and slid away.
The Sisters had sent them. That much held. They had felt the evil come back into the world, and before they were strong enough to face it they had sent the party down to close something: to keep it from getting out, to trap it in that tainted place that had been nothing but a hovel for the filthy Burun, and to hold it there while the Sisters gathered their strength. Simple work. Stone, and iron, and stone. They had known how to do that.
But they had found something else down there, and they had been caught trying to take it.
Eirlys had been the first to see it for what it was. Not a haunting, nor any working of the ordinary kind. A loop in time. He was doing something in the dark under the ruins, reversing wrongs of the past, summoning the future, she had never understood which and Eirlys had said it was both, and the days were going round on themselves. Eirlys had understood, and had done the wise thing: had begun a text that could not be destroyed. A warning. Something that would remember when they could not, and that Dereth would have to read whether it wanted to or not.
They had been caught red-handed with his missive, curse be His name. He had toyed with them. He had tortured them. One of them had died, truly died. He had not come back at the lifestone in the town nearby; she was sure of that, because if he had, he would have sent help.
On the sixth day, or the seventh, he had torn Eirlys's warning in three. He could not destroy it, and she remembered his fury at that, so he had his creatures carry the pieces away and hide them, each in its own deep place, so that they would never be laid side by side again. But Eirlys had been wise. Eirlys had put a spell on the writing so that it made a copy of itself whenever a hand took it up. Smart Eirlys.
And He had been smart too. He had boasted of it: he would copy his own missive and send out nine messengers, so that one at least would reach his master.
She wondered what had become of Eirlys. Whether Eirlys had come out the same way she had. It did not matter. Arwic was ahead. She would rest there, and then go to the authorities, and warn them of something that was about to happen. Or bring them news of something that already had.
She stopped at the edge of the town with her hands folded, and looked back along the road, and began to stare off into the void.
****
In Zaikhal, a page came up the hill to the library that Kuyiza bint Zayi could place at once: late Empire, Dericost, a working hand, someone writing standing up with ink that had been cold when it went down. The last sentence on it had been written twice, with the same pressure and the same small hesitation, by a hand that had not known it was repeating itself. Or had known, and could not stop.
She set it down and went to the shelves at the back, for the file the library had closed the last time the cold came early, and while she stood there with it open she did not notice the cold until she saw her breath. The floor had been warm an hour before. It was not warm now.
She put the file back. She kept the page. Then she went to find someone willing to go down into the deep places and look, because it was plain that nobody had gone the last time, and that the last time had not thawed so much as waited.
Unlike any other gaming experience, the world of Asheron's Call continues to evolve. The cold has come early to Dereth, and not for the first time; and this time somebody has made it out to say so. Join us as The Seventeenth Day, the first live event to run on this world, opens on 27 August and runs until 17 September 2026.
Be sure to play your part in this ongoing story, and we'll see you in Dereth!
Letter to the Players
Original Link - No Link Available
Letter to the Players
The Seventeenth Day is the first live event to run on this world, and we want to be plain about three things before it starts.
First, it is not a quest. Nothing you do in it will appear in your quest log and nothing will tell you that you have finished. The world has changed in a few places and a few people have noticed; if you want to know what they noticed, go and ask them, and then ask them again.
Second, it is limited. It runs from 27 August to 17 September 2026 and then it is over. Whatever has not been found by then will not be found. Whatever has not been handed in by then will not be paid for.
Third, it will not end early, so there is no race to Arwic. What comes out of the grotto is worth a great deal to the woman waiting there, and nine copies of it fall from one kill so that everyone in a fellowship can be paid for their own. She will take them until the last night. What happens to her after that is hers to know and yours to find.
This is the first time we have tried something that happens whether or not anyone is standing there. Tell us what worked and what did not. We will see you in Dereth, and we hope you are not late.