Descent Into Madness

For the past twenty seven years, Mr. Brightley has gallivanted around his estate in southwest Buncombe, punctuating his days with romantic mishaps and steadily squandering his inheritance on extravagant Salons. All of that changes overnight when Buncombe is invaded by a trio of supervillains known as The Intelligentsia and Brightley finds himself on the run in the wilderness with his few surviving servants, sneaking over city walls, attempting martial combat in the mouths of fetid alleyways. With his mansion burned down and his favorite employee dead, he is forced to take refuge in a cramped, stinking apartment with a plumber who calls himself Jason the Cynic, while The Intelligentsia tightens its ever-oppressive reign over the country.
Can circumstances get any worse?
As it turns out, yes.
Before he can cry “Cupid have mercy!” Mr. Brightley and his servants have signed up to join The Circus of Outcasts, a guerilla gang of freaks and misfits led by an ascetic philosopher named Thom Bloom. In a race against time, The Circus launches a covert operation to emancipate the cities of Buncombe and reach the capital, Port-of-Mouth, before The Intelligentsia releases the ancient demon king Dionysos from the dimension of Darkaether, through whom it hopes to conquer the known universe.
And – if such circumstances aren't already desperate enough – Mr. Brightley cannot stop having these strange hallucinations and dreams...