"Not quite that bad, no. The plane just grew... lifeless. Stale. Nothing seemed vibrant, or energetic, and it was leeching into us. Everyone noticed, fairly quickly... and it started almost as soon as you left. Actually... it's probably better, now that you're back. As a lucky side effect, Faerie is also rather anathema to Barid's forces. The plane itself frequently rises up against them, when they try to settle here, so they've long-since stopped."