Captain Robin Goodfellow watched as the Wave Skimmer nosed its way up the river Taran past over half a dozen anchored ships awaiting the wind to change. They sailed past Taramouth and carried on upriver. The fields on either side of the Taran were neat and productive with several fortified villages and hamlets. The locals seemed to have something against trees as Robin hadn’t seen one yet.

Five hours later and having passed two merchantmen being towed by galleys the towering walls of Varopolis finally came into sight. By this time they had an escort, a small liburnian was being rowed energetically in their wake. Charles, the captain of Wave Skimmer watched the liburnian for a while before ordering his crew to furl the sails slightly so as not to outpace it, and not give too much away if he had to make a run for it.

On docking Captain Charles hosted the cities harbourmaster and the leader of the river patrol. Both requested to be shown round the ship for different reasons. The harbourmaster was shocked at the number of passenger cabins and the small but high value perishable cargo. The leader of the river patrol looked dubiously at the backward leaning masts and unorthodox sail plan.

The Wave Skimmer’s purser cum cargo master happily came close to crashing the local spice market, the saffron was especially well received. He held onto the pearls and did the rounds of the local gem merchants buying selected items of jewellery and any and all outstanding gems he could afford. And thanks to the saffron and spices he could afford a lot.

Then he visited the local office of the alchemist’s guild. Zack approached the receptionist and told him he had a sample of a new magical herb that had been found in a dungeon recently and he wanted it tested and valued. He offered to pay the standard fee. The receptionist accepted the sample and payment, including a bonus for speedy conclusion, as the Wave Skimmer would be sailing soon. Zack pocketed the receipt and left.

Robin and his squad remained on board to augment the guard, the man-rats and their meerkat friends disembarked during the night.

When Zack returned to the Alchemist’s guild two days later he was greeted with open arms, The guild was very eager to know which dungeon the herb had been discovered in. Zack apologised, the adventurer’s had been very secretive however he did have some...

* * *

In the headquarters of the river patrol Admiral Chan’ardon looked at his captains, “It would seem we have a treasure ship on our hands, the scum of the river will be out in force. I want our galleys spread out along the river, hopefully this will allow us to clear out the worst of the scum.”

“Won’t we be offering them an escort as usual.”

“We have and were politely refused on the grounds that we wouldn’t be able to keep up, and the captain is confident in his marines. Marines! She’s no smuggler as we feared, I suspect she’s someone’s state yacht.”

* * *

Robin and his squad disembarked and watched as the Wave Skimmer spread her canvas when dawn was breaking and eased her way out into the river. They and the river admiral watched as her sailors went round the hull prying away the false décor that disguised her lines. The mat black ship was soon scudding before the wind making for the sea cleaving the river with her knife sharp bows.

Robin turned and led his people towards the local seat of the adventurer’s guild.

The arrival of eleven large well armed and armoured intimidating Tiger beastmen accompanied by two humans and two more beastmen, a badger and a... meerkat? All wearing a blue green tabard with an embroidered silver dolphin on the right shoulder brought all activity to a halt. Admittedly there wasn’t much happening so early in the morning.

Robin grinned and strode up to the reception desk and said. “My name’s Robin Goodfellow, and I’m the commander of our company, we are tired of the mercenary life and wish to register in your guild and declare ourselves as an adventuring company.”

Ravenbriar the gnome currently standing behind the reception desk looked up, and up and squeaked, “Just let me call one of the guild officials to deal with your request.” Then he took off in a hurry.

While Ravenbriar was gone, Faaron went up to the notice board and stuck up a poster.

When just after lunch Robin led his people out of town they were accompanied by three new recruits, two hopeful siblings who had just hit their majority and a gruff dwarf who had made himself unpopular after a couple of binges. The siblings were taken in hand and had a rather exhausting time of it but the rapid level gains made them stick with their new comrades.

* * *

Mary was busy, she had decided to discard the three chartered merchantmen she had sunk in her domain and absorbed their materials. Three days later after having enlarged her shipbuilding facilities and locks she released her latest fun project. The Cutty Sark II sailed across the lagoon and anchored just outside the harbour.

“Honestly Mary, I thought you wanted merchantmen optimised for cargo, that thing is very pretty and looks fast but haven’t you sacrificed cargo for speed again?” asked Trisha.

« Yeah! But she’s pretty and she can carry lots of cargo. »

* * *

The Alesandrina’s Glory arrived back in good time and Tomcat introduced his passengers to the Voice.

Drina instructed the appraiser. “Be aware that while Mary Silvestre does not wish to be cheated she also does not wish to beggar those who had the misfortune to have their ships seized. So estimate low, but not unbelievably so.”

“If that is your wish, I will do so. But not wishing to look like a fool I will indeed set a – justifiable value on the ships.”

“Good. I suspect it would be wise to start with whatever ship they are here to regain.”

At the end of the day three ships had been duly appraised and the documentation to that effect had been drawn up and witnessed by the merchants, their small legal team and their appraiser.

In fact their independent appraiser had queried the, somewhat low value attributed to the ships.

“My client requested it, she does not wish to unduly penalise the victims of theft.”

The legal team paid using a letter of credit and left on the redeemed ship which much to her captain’s disgust had to leave in ballast.

* * * INTERLUDE 1 * * *

Dave and Maddy were watching the BBC news in their apartment in Hove when their interest was caught by a throwaway snippet about Germany.

“Do you think that lad is something like you Dave?” asked Maddy.

“Possibly, I think the first twenty-five victims were sent to Diavlo.”

“Should we contact him?”

“Wouldn’t hurt, let me check with Andy and see what he thinks.”

Andy was watching a pixie as she buzzed around his valley. She seemed both fascinated and scared of the Mock Turtle dungeon across the way. Now she was looking into his entrance. Then his other self called so he split his attention and answered.

He wasn’t able to help Dave decide.

‘Yesss! She entered!’ Andy hurriedly restrained all his monsters and traps and waited nervously.

« Yes Azurea mentioned Diavlo, and yes sent twenty-five of us there. All I can add is to be wary of the girl from Hawaii, she is one of the four most powerful dungeons here on Parthia and she did it in less than a year. That implies ruthlessness, ambition and power. »

“And how many dungeons are there on Parthia?” asked Maddy.

« Thousands. »

‘Yes little one, please come down to my second floor.’

“Right, lets see what we can find out about this Markus Wrangel and get in touch with him. Then we can decide if we get back in touch with Mary after we speak with him. Can’t do any harm as he won’t have any contacts on Partia.”

Meanwhile back on Parthia Andy had lost interest and was now avidly watching the little dungeon pixie getting closer to his heart room.

* * * INTERLUDE 2 * * *

Mary saw her guests out, then she headed home in a hurry, she had just remembered that she had promised officer Meier that she would go to his party today. So home, a quick shower and decent clothes but nothing fancy.

The house and garden were crowded and a towering Frank Meier insisted on showing her round and introducing her to a new world. She actually had fun and towards the end of the party found herself in the company of Mrs Meier or Ellie as she preferred to be called.

“Frank told me how you saved his sight, and how you were able to argue with whatever is behind the blue screens, can you persuade him, it whatever to change me too. At the moment we are too different but...”

“Um, Bluey, yeah maybe if you’re sure. But it will be for life and it... um, maybe, I think so. Bluey is... is... like some overeager teenager sometimes, other times he’s like some ancient sage but with a bizarre sense of humour. Other me doesn’t listen to him much ‘case of how they... met? Yeah met.”

“Please. It could save my marriage, and I love him.”

Mary gave her a blank look of incomprehension, blinked and switched her attention to her interface. It took her half an hour to manage to get Bluey to integrate Ellie into the System then a further ten to help her navigate her interface and force the choice she wanted. The main difficulty came in ensuring that Ellie got the same package as her husband and not just any Half-Giant option most of which featured some very undesirable side effects.

When they were done and Mary was once again paying attention to the rest of the world she realised that she had a fascinated audience. Frank looked at her thoughtfully, “now I understand what you were doing when you kept on harping on about intelligence and temperament. Thanks again. Oh and today you can drive home in peace, nobody will see you.”

Mary walked out to her jeep, the recipient of several pats on the back, and statements of friendship.

* * *

Sunday saw her working with her badger folk claiming and then enlarging the tunnels they were digging to link the dungeon under her house and the one under the cliffs that included an arc of open sea.

Towards lunch time Mary sensed an intrusion in her domain and went out onto the beach to see a middle-aged Hawaiian couple standing by a very traditional canoe and looking round with interest.

“Mornin’, we were about to have lunch, want to join us?”