After opening up to Rod and having a good old heart-to-fishing-pole, Fenrir was to try practicing fighting with Rod. Thelmes had collected a variety of fishing poles for Fenrir to try attacking the slime golem of a punching bag with. Each one was made of different materials, some of which were even spiked for reasons unknown to Fenrir, but he was able to do the most damage with Rod despite Rod not looking nearly as deadly as some of the fishing rods that Thelmes had him test out.

With the tests over, Fenrir has learned that he does more damage using Rod as a weapon than he does with his sword or fists. He really doesn’t know how to feel about this. As awesome as it is, he can’t bring himself to seriously wield a fishing rod as a weapon. Sure, he may not care that much about what others think, but he cares enough that he doesn’t want anybody who he is fighting against to die of laughter as he attacks them with a glowing fishing rod.

Being able to have Rod take another form would be incredibly useful, but Fenrir still isn’t able to get his fishing rod to transform. At least it is glowing brighter than it was before that short bonding and training session.

Now, with Thelmes help being done, it is time for Fenrir to sit off to the side while Thelmes plays twenty questions with Rod.

Most of the questions that Thelmes asks are the kind that Fenrir finds boring, and going by how Rod is answering them as quickly as possible, Fenrir assumes that Rod finds them tedious as well. They are all questions asked about the game’s mechanics, how Rod works, asking for basic information about Rod, and so forth. It is only when Thelmes tries to uncover the mystery behind Rod’s origin that Rod ceases to answer at all. Of course, as disappointing as that may be, it does not stop Thelmes from changing his questions to more scientific and boring ones. What is even worse is that Thelmes really likes to use the whiteboard to write down potential answers for Rod to choose from, and whenever none of the answers are suitable, Thelmes writes down even more.

At one point, Rod stops picking answers that take more than five flashes of his glow.

Both Fenrir and Rod hope that Thelmes does not notice Rod’s answers may or may not be entirely truthful for the sake of speeding things up.

“Splendid! Thank you so much for this opportunity, Fenrir,” Thelmes says, shaking Fenrir’s hand.

“No problem. Thanks for helping us out. I don’t know if this is going to help out much in the tournament, but I can’t think of anything that could help me more than this,” Fenrir answers.

“Ah, you are looking for an edge in the final round?” Thelmes asks as a mischievous smile spreads across his lips.

Fenrir has never seen Thelmes smile like this, but he has a good feeling about it. “That’s right. Have you been keeping up with it?”

“I have!”

“Well, then I’m sure you know both of those bastards left are going to be coming after me, and they’re both way stronger than us.”

“I believe that I may have something that could assist you, but you must keep it confidential that you got it from me. Are you interested?”

Fenrir nods his head and tries to hold back his smile. He knows that the scholars here are more or less insane, so whatever Thelmes wants to offer him, it should be unpredictable and… now that he thinks about it, maybe he shouldn’t have his hopes up. These scholars may be scientists and tinkerers, but they’re also the same people who caused an explosion by trying to combine a pig and a monkey.

“Splendid! I was actually inspired to make this after watching the last couple of rounds and seeing how you used your ballista. Now, I have not gotten a chance to perform any testing with these, but you may find them useful. Come, come.”

With Rod in hand, Fenrir follows Thelmes into a back room that looks like it is used for storage.

Thelmes pulls a long, wooden crate out from underneath one of the shelves and opens it up.

Inside of it is five bolts that look more like proper ballista bolts than the hook bolts that Tabitha rigged up. Furthermore, each of the bolts has a tip that looks like they are made out of the same stones used to power The Shoebill’s engine.

Thelmes looks up at Fenrir with a proud smile and crossed arms. “Exploding ballista bolts,” Thelmes says.

Fenrir knows that he should be wary of anything involving these scholars and explosions, but he can’t help getting excited about this.

“You made these pretty fast,” Fenrir says.

“Well, I made them after the first round. I saw those carcass shots you used which gave me the idea for this. Oh! I forgot, you cannot see what is on the inside. I carved the inside of these tips out and filled them with volatile reagents that will not only spread noxious fumes but will make the explosion significantly stronger. They likely will not be strong enough to pierce the hull of that steel oak ship due to these bolts exploding on contact, but that foreign ship will be susceptible to it as will both crews. Just make sure to not accidentally drop them or hit them on the tips!” Thelmes explains.

“You’re giving these to us?”

“Well, I have no use for them myself, so I would much rather see them in your hands where I am sure that you will be able to put them to good use. Plus, the Hermetic Scholars may be a neutral organization, but as an individual player, I still want to see those jerks get what they deserve,” Thelmes says as he places the lid back onto the crate.

“Thanks, Thelmes. Don’t worry, we’ll take them out. There’s no way we’re going to let those assholes win,” Fenrir says, placing Rod down on top of the crate and then lifting it up with both of his arms.

“Splendid! Plus, I am certain that you will be back to report on the effectiveness of the bolts, any difficulties that you had, and are happily willing to let me perform some more tests involving you and your fishing rod, yes?”

Fenrir wants to groan and reject the pig-centaur-goblin-thing, but he can’t bring himself to do that after how helpful Thelmes has been. “Of course,” Fenrir says.

“Splendid! Now, I will get the door for you as your hands do seem to be rather full right now.”

On his walk back to the ship, Fenrir is surprised to get stopped a few times to have other players and NPCs alike come up to him to congratulate him on making it as far as he has in the tournament, and to wish him good luck against his enemies. It seems like practically everybody is rooting for him rather than the other two crews still left in the tournament. Everybody just wants to see Fenrir and The Shoebill destroy their competition. At this point, Fenrir doesn’t even know if anybody cares about the actual fishing part of the tournament anymore.

But, it’s nice.

One food stall that he walks by even places a basket of free, fried fish on top of the crate next to Rod for him to take back and share with the crew. Everybody wants to show their support.

When he gets close The Shoebill, he realizes that the crowds that have been gathered around lately are here for them. They are here to get up close looks at The Shoebill and her crew.

No matter how used to being popular—though, usually hated—Fenrir might be, it is still and forever will be embarrassing. Knowing that he has so many eyes on him waiting to see his next move does make him nervous, but it also makes him even more determined to prevail in the end.

Though, he is worried about Rachel and Nell coming to visit now that he realizes there are so many people watching this area. Then again, if the vast majority of these people are here to root for him, he doubts that they would snitch.

Alexander and Ull’s men may have better gear and skills, but they don’t have the support of the people. Fenrir is sure that Alexander especially has people hanging around The Steel Tiger wanting to sabotage it if they can. After all, Fenrir had to deal with that all the time back in the day.

“Tabs! I’ve got a present for us,” Fenrir says as he places the crate of explosive bolts down on the deck.

Tabitha comes up from below deck to check out the supposed present after placing half of a fried fish in her mouth.

Her eyes light up when she sees the bolts. “Whurred hew get hish?” Tabitha asks with a mouth full of fish.

“Thelmes at the office,” Fenrir answers.

Tabitha swallows her fish and no longer looks impressed. “Ehhh. I’ll see what I can do with these. He’s off to an okay start, but there’s a whole buncha room for improvement. I’ll make these way better once I’m done fixin’ the ship up.”

“I’m sure you will. Anyways, I’m going to go ahead and get some more training in.”

“What’re ya gonna do this time?”

Fenrir looks at some of the crowd watching them. “Combat practice. Training with Cass Cass has been helpful, but I’m not going to learn much from just always fighting the same person. And, if you look around, I think I’ve got a bunch of people who wouldn’t mind helping me train,” he says.

“Trainin’ with somebody other than your girl? You dastardly dog.”

“You know me. Anyways, you and Corwin help yourself to these fish. I’ll be back later.”