12/2025

Shipyard. Protect the ships. adeline given flare gun once secured ship yard. heavy rain. more fires but more people being dispatched. fob is farethest back. ships seems untouched. rowan tries to check for illusions. thinks rain would disrupt any illusions. Aramil and Rowan scout ahead in the ship yard. Everything seems fine. Abel tries to draw a fish to him with a dried cricket. Hand sized fish comes up and eats. Casts Speak with Animals to see if it will check under the ships and let him know what he sees. The vagabonds that are usually hanging around are not present. Tana casts Call Lightning to attempt to lighten the rain. She slowly disapates the rain. She meets a lot of resistance. Creates a pocket above the city - not clear, but thinner, lighter. Rowan and Aramil investigate again now that the rain has stopped. Suspicously, there is noone and nothing here. No dock workers, captains, abandonned cargo. No blood. No damage to this half of the docks.

Arena. DT casts Arcane Eye on the instruments. The instruments move when they aren't being observed. DT gets the feeling that they are animated. DT opens up the tuba case and steps back. Gleaming silver tuba. He tries to play the tuba. He does badly. He feels that something is blocking it inside. He lays it down and climbs into the bell. Some of the valves and pulleys aren't coming out but no discernable pattern. DT starts taking it apart. Inside the valve is a little piece of paper. Blank paper. DT thinks there might be an illusion hiding the message but is not sure. Does the same with the xylophone. DT hands get stuck in the pipe. It's wedge in there. Corked plug. Bigger than a wine bottle plug. Like a mute for this pipe. There is a key after the cork drops out. They head back. As we walk away, Cindora hears a coin change hands.

Back to the ship yard. They make it to the other side of the dock. The fish returns and tells Abel that it's deserted. Relays that there is a really big fish but it's not moving. On the bottom. Really, really big fish. It almost smells weird. Horendous, horendous vibes. No one wants to touch that thing. Looks like a mossasarus. No weird metal shit. Abel gives him the whole unit of stuff. It was missing chunks. Everything is being scared off. Rowan sprints toward the Fist of Benevolence. All the repairs are done. Rowan heads on board. Caelum (Brenda mop, Patrice broom), Careis and Apple Bottom Jeans (who was taking a nap). All the other ship hands are gone. Abel casually walks that way and inspects the outer of the other ships. He finds signs of tampering on some of the ships. Scuffles. Barrels out of place (like someone was shoved into them). Evidence of a brief encounter. Finds nothing around the Fist of Benevolence. Tana messages Cindora (vibes off, everything fucked at docks but not fucked. Fish gone, signs of struggle.). Cindora tells DT. DT says we need to find out about the paper and key. Cindora messages back (Give us 5 mins).

Arena. They make there way to Squantch to ask about the key and paper. Wooden key with faux thorns (decorative). Well made. They come out at the bar to heated argument. DT goes straight up to Squantch. Hey man what's the deal with this key and the paper I found in those instruments I found. (I may have a situation to help you get out of here.) Mouthy portly dwarf "well what do you want to share". DT cast Motivational Speech. Squantch closes the meeting. Get your shit packed, we're going to the dock: Fist of Benevolence everyone. Wak and talk. Didn't happen to find a bag in there did you? No. Someone has been smuggling things behind my back. DT tells him that they are animated. DT tells Squantch uppies and takes Cindora's arm and they head that way. The guards are starting to sort through people. The rain has stopped. Seems like it's calming down.

Ship yard. Abel and Rowan investigate the tampering. Seems like it was someone mishandling things. Mismanged. Like someone disrupted and but back sloppily. Tana asks Adeline if she wants to use the flare gun. Adeline fires off the flare. Bright red flare shooting up in sky. Pierces the clouds. The guard should be coming in the next 5 minutes or so. Rowan goes to check on Friend. Friend is much better now that there is some light and some water. Not dropping quite as much. Rowan asks Careras to do something for Friend. Friend zaps Careras.

DT, Cindora, Squantch arrive at the same time as the guard. Apple-bottom jeans shows them where to put their stuff. The troop slowly files in. Then the guard arrives at the ship. Andessa too. She asks where everyone is. Adelines says very good question, probably scared off. They do the Predator handshake. Rowan tells her that the mossasaur is dead. Martin? Thought Martin would never die.  The troope is 60 people. DT keeps the key in his jammie breast pocket. The rain starts to come again but the city is calmer. Almost deafening rain. Rowan and Aramil leave to investigate what happened in the city. DT goes to take a nap. Adeline helps load the ship and keeps an eye out. Tana is keeping an eye on the weather waiting to cast Call Lightning to calm the weather again. She goes up into the Crow's Nest and looks out over the city. Most of the fires and being put out. She sees the train of the bard troop. She sees two people walk off north from the troop train. Toward western gate of the city. Inland gate. Towards the Reservation way. Abel jumps off the docks. He is water-tight. Hits bottom and wild shapes into a hunter shark. Seems like Martin is very dead. The wounds (bite marks) aren't recent. Gashes, slashes, bite marks. A giant hand seems to have raked Martin on one side and ripped off a fin on the other. Kraken like size perhaps. Closer to a hand shape (doesn't rule out a kraken). There are ruins down here. Long abandoned even since the 1st age. Martin is not decaying. The lake is very cold. Abel comes out of the water in a weird anamorphs way. He asks if anyone knows about some weird underwater God. Able asks Tana about it. Tana says yeah, I had a weird dream about stuff like that. Abel says we need to leave and survive. Cindora helps load the boat. She starts seeing rats. They seem to be coming down the line mainly from the north of the city. She decides to wait for Abel and tell him about the rats.

Rowan and Aramil go into the city. Rowan goes to the most popular Tavern to find the crew. They find three quarters of the crew there. A lot of people are worried about trade coming and going with E's death. Rowan hears that one of E's last orders was to get people away from the docks. They go to get the crew and leave.

Ship. Abel comes up out of the water and Cindora tells him about the rats. He casts speak with animals and questions the rats. The rat runs off. Abel follows. Abel drops down into the bilge and sneaks up on the rat. "Uuuhhh squeak". Abel threatens to put him in a jar. (Please don't put me in a jar). What are you doing here? (Why is it your boat?) "Dude what the fuck?" Abel finds out that the rat is trying to find Remy. His name is Whatsit Toya. He was following the other rats. Ida is the lead rat. Ida Know. Abel squeezes him. He screams. Abel unclenches his fist. Tenris is the lead rat. Abel tells Cindora to put all the rats in the jars. Cindora hits him with a dagger after Abel trhows the rat off the ship into the water. The crew starts hunting rats to capture. DT wakes up to a rat on his chest staring into his eyes. DT screams "Get the fuck off me" with his pecial helm. Rat leaps off DT. Abel hears this and runs to the noise. DT tells him it was a rat. Abel tries to find it. The rat is climbing up on the dock. ABel goes after it. DT's pocket is empty now. The key is gone.DT tells Squantch.