"Extra! Extra! Get the latest gossip in The Flibbertigibbet!” yelled a wolfanth-cub newsie. “Youth taken under Duchess Sheba’s nose!"

"Someone defied a phobiac?” wheezed a scarecrow, looking at the title of the latest tabloid.

"Duchess Sheba of Arachnophobia, no less!” shrilled an imp buzzing around the newsstand. “The most terrifying Royal broad out there! And get this—whoever did it—that crazy son of an bē●kh●tn got away with it!"

"If someone could go against a phobiac like that…” said one street-punk monster to the other. The thugs were beating up a gargoyle. “…then does that mean we common creatures can, too? We can actually break their b.s. Phobiac Favoritism Laws?"

"Some have already tried, but the Royals' houndanths are really stepping up their game,” said the other punk. “One day, though. One day. Hey gargoyle! Hand over all your lid!"

"No one knows who stole the Duchess's child,” said an undertaker. His smile stretched uncannily to any observer as he prepared a corpse for burial. “Not even the Delegation could get a crack at the case."

"The Duchess claimed it was Commander Zhondun!" said the corpse.

"Impossible!” said a vampire to his invisible friend over a bloody coffee. “He’s heroically leading our soldiers into battle against z’ose damned Baskūnians on zee other side of zee vorld. Bluh!"

"Take it easy, will yah, Chuck? You’re getting blood coffee on me.”

“That Duchess Sheba, what a load!” cried a ghost, having a pint hover at his lips. He downed the beer. The liquid poured through him and puddled on the floor. “She's just jealous that creatures love Commander Zhondun over her stupid family!"

"Yeah,” agreed his peers, “down with the Arachne Family!”

“Cheers!” yelled the whole restaurant. “Tear the Arachnes apart!"

Rumors like these went on for days after the Youth’s disappearance. Then weeks passed by. Then months. Then years… Then a decade…

And still the missing Youth remained a mystery.

The rest of the world may have moved on, reveling in the newest and trendiest bad news, but the inhabitants of Ayzabin can tell you something more with hushed awe.

The Arachne Manor, for hundreds of years, had been a place of untimely doom to the valley dwellers who dared to creep high into the craggy mountain peaks near the Arachne Family’s abode. The gray adobe pagoda with its piercing porch lights teetered on a great plateau of sandstone, like a vulture with patient, hungry eyes looming over Ayzabin.

Yet at the news of the Youth of Arachnophobia disappearance, as the creatures below discovered with a shudder, the lights snuffed out. The mansion wilted into a despondent husk that couldn’t outwait its prey.

No one knew what came of the Duchess. She followed suit after her missing daughter. Some said, in the absence of her daughter’s whereabouts, Duchess Sheba locked herself away in the confines of her mansion, never to be seen outside the Arachne Manor again. Others said the Youth actually died, as did the Duchess from heartbreak, ending the Arachne Family bloodline. The Arachne estate was already prime real-estate for scary stories to Ayzabineers, but now, it became a name uttered with hallowed horror. If you got too close to the Arachne Manor, or the "Manor on the Mountain," then the big, bad Duchess--or the ghost of the big, bad Duchess--would gobble you up.

As for her child... Well, the child became a legend, first in Ayzabin, then in the whole country of Dunca, then in the whole world. Hallows Earth only knew the child as "The Long Lost Youth," and its title, along with the Arachne Family, fell into obscurity as a cautionary ghost story.

There was no happy ending for this royal family.

It’s an accepted worldwide fact:

The Long●Lost Youth will forever be lost.