The path to Whatsit Way was a strange one, and more heavily signposted than any place had any business being. It seemed every few minutes along the road was some faded signpost, promising some new wonder, oddment, or other distraction.

Soon they trundled past what looked like the remains of a selection of circus wagons, probably older than the deepest strata of socks, that seemed to live in Sir Humphry’s laundry hamper. (All the maids were perfectly willing to swear he did it on purpose in the hopes that one day they would attain enough sentience to crawl out of the hamper under their own power. The experiment had been abandoned though, after a burglar broke in, and was found head down in said hamper. Or at least most of his head, after that Ethelred ordered it sealed. Much to the terror of the poor exorcists.)

Upon noticing the wagons both Mibbet and Rosalind sincerely hoped, if there was anything left of said circus it would be completely clown free. Or it definitely would be by the time they were done with it. Ever since the incident in the mirror maze they had both reached a mutual agreement as to their personal policies regarding clowns. That policy simply read “get them before they get you, even if they don’t try it it’s win win.”

A policy most royals reserved for homicidal dragons, undead leaders, and returning ancient powers beyond the ken of mortal minds. But since their policies for those issues were usually to rescue them, help them out, tell Sir Humphrey to wash them, or occasionally recruit them into their employ? Well obviously they felt this was a more practical approach to the situation.

Then suddenly they were in town, it least they assumed from all the buildings. But given that most of them appeared to be empty, it was questionable at best. For all they knew “the amazing vanishing town stead,” was actually a genuine attraction.

The entire place was painted in a dizzying array of colours, like they had let a five year old do the exterior design with crayons. Plus all the circus paraphernalia hereabouts put Mibbet and Rosalind on high alert for potential baggy trousered, big shoed threats.

Elvira looked round like she had hit the jackpot, so many nooks and crannies to booby trap, and the freaky figures everywhere were just begging for a good googly look. She was just about to get to work when she heard the ticking.

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Errol was not happy either, this whole place had a Nopeville vibe to it, no cobwebs at least. Though he was a bit unnerved when the first stall he visited contained a stuffed o’deer. Those things were not something to muck about with, yet it was stuffed in a perpetual expression of Surprise. Had something managed to sneak up on the damn thing? Whatever had managed to pull that off, he really hoped it was on their side.

He headed to the next stall, from inside some mind boggling creature of twine, and teeth roared, and give a sisal slash towards him, only to be stopped by a pretty damn powerful barrier. he gawked at the Gordian Grotesque gingerly. Occasionally it would glare over at the creature in the next pen over, which was probably originally a rubber band ball. But now, seemed like a bouncy bundle of non euclidean unlikeliness.

Next up was the worlds smallest horse, carefully stabled under a microscope. He was enjoying the show so much he didn’t even notice the ticking.

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Sir Leeroy was on edge, he hadn’t seen Errol for a bit, but he had a duty. First and foremost guard The Princess from trouble. Second, guard trouble from The Princess. (He wasn’t so good at that one if you somehow missed that while reading this gargantuan saga. The king had once over tried to recruit backup for her regular guards. It may not surprise you to find out that even the worst convicts chose their regular punishment over such a cruel and unusual one. The Princess was bad enough news that recruiting professional mana saw jugglers from a stamp collectors convention would probably produce more reliable results. There was a legend that one convict had actually when offered the opportunity for pardon, actually gone to the hangman in person to book an appointment. You may remember him, he was eventually assigned as her teacher for a bit. Apparently his actions in the past had really pissed off Rosalind’s dad.)

He wasn’t the only one not responding, Princess Elvira was missing too. Of course in her case odds were good she was off just sticking eyes to something. but this place gave him a bad feeling. He drew his weapon.

Addy, meanwhile was attempting to communicate with some kind of fortune telling automaton. She wasn’t having much luck though, the device in question seemed to be purely mechanical, and judging by the responses from the dozen cards she had purchased from it so far, seemed to either have a limited vocabulary, or pre programmed responses with no nuance. She felt uncomfortable thinking of a human speaking for a construct these days, but at least this one wasn’t sentient.

She carefully started dredging up all the data she could find about the attractions here, from the net. Or tried, it was strange, she was getting no signal here at all, and not in the usual sense. It felt like something was actively blocking the network out. That was alarming, it was probably best to get back to Trundles now. From behind her came an eerie, tick, tick, tick.

Mibbet had gotten her report from Sir Leeroy about the disappearances, she carefully got off the carriage, and lead Alba with her. If something had hurt Elvira it was going to pay, she readied choppy and started to ride about, while Rascal had a quick nose about. (She figured that nothing could convince a cat to be anywhere but where they felt like being.

Soon their search was interrupted, as from somewhere in the stalls, came a TICK, TICK, TICK.