HA! I FOUND FEN!

I knew there was only one gold and red feathered tophat that would be terrorizing these seas! Sure enough, it was mine! I'm kinda lucky like that.

I found him on an island. That was surrounded by storms. Broke my collarbone on a boulder getting into the eye of the storm, but it was totally worth it! Because in the middle of the lightning filled hurricane that was ravaging the countryside was my buddy Fen Worthy!

And a very shattered city. Nothing aboveground was standing, and almost everything was on fire. I'm so proud of him! I taught him how to ravage you know.

Anyway, our reunion was beautiful!

I came bursting out of the raging tempest like a half drowned and battered cow fired from a shoddy catapult. So, I kinda just flopped wetly out of it with lots of gurgly moaning. Not my proudest moment. My aforementioned gurgles were heard by Fen, who came to investigate and exterminate.

And so he saw me bending over to remove my soggy trousers, and zapped me good! I've never dried off so fast before! I turned around and lobbed a small giant fireball at him, and then we recognized each other. So we kept fighting.

Accusations of dopplegangers, which is a thing apparently, and mind games came from him. Accompanied by lighning bolts and wind blades, of course. I just kinda got into it with him because it sucks to fight someone who doesn't resist, and I didn't want to ruin our reunion by not fighting.

Which makes a lot less sense now than it did at the time.

Anyway, eventually he decided I was real/myself. Which is when he started crying. When hats cry, it's more sound than waterworks, but his brim did get a bit soggy. I had a good cry myself, and then we cried together.

Then he told me his story, but I'll let him write that himself.

*****

Greetings, it has been too long!

So from the top then? We were heading into the whirlpool, everything was normal. Then we got into it, and the Wearer collapsed and started kind of twitching, like an electrocuted flounder. But, the structure of the tinglewood was secure, and we didn't really need him to do much. So we just kind of nudged him into a corner and Onica started showing us how to play cards.

I was better than Julius, but Lena was better than me, and I think Onica was cheating.

Anyway, time passed, no idea how much. We played a lot of cards though. So probably a while. Feeding the Wearer was fun, if you put things on his mouth while he sleeps he bites and eats them. Even if they're not food.

Spiders.

Then the thingy changed. The feeling of movement, shifted from a bumpy ride along fast currents, to a slow and steady ascent. So we figured we had finally left the caves, or at least we heavily hoped we had left the caves. Lena said the water was different, but I didn't notice any real difference in the air.

More time passed.

Then. Out of nowhere.

BRAKOWKAKOW!!!! Smashed.

Everything was a mess, I threw a bubble up as fast as I could, but the only one close enough for me to save was Onica, she had been wearing me at the moment of smashed. No idea what happened to the others beyond their survival. Anyway. We latched onto some rising wreckage of the tinglewood, and rode it to the surface.

Where we were saved by a ship from the Iceni navy many days later.

We were lost, hungry, and hurt. So we had to make some concessions with the stupid Iceni Queen. Georgia. She isn't a very nice person. I heard she had eight different husbands decapitated. And keeps their heads in her trophy room. We agreed to help her fight the Shoto Empire for a year, and in exchange they wouldn't execute the rest of our friends, who they claimed to have found. They wouldn't even let us see them!

Which was super suspicious and prompted Onica and I to do some sleuthing when she had healed up enough. We found out where Lena and Julius were. Working for the Shoto much like we were working for the Iceni, and possibly for the same reason. But we couldn't find anything about the Wearer.

They claimed he was locked up, but if that was the case then why wasn't anything burning? Super suspicious. I got so worried about him, that when I dozed off lately I'd imagine him. I had started seeing him in my dreams, and then sometimes while I was awake.

But it always turned out to be something else. A burning corpse, a clump of seaweed, a dumb bird. I always zapped them, just to check if they were real. I knew the Wearer would respond with fire, and I was right! I knew he was too much of a violent lunatic to not huck a fireball at something that attacked him!

Anyway, we couldn't find him.

So we played along, we couldn't find a good way to contact Lena and Julius yet either. Oddly enough, requests to write letters to the enemy were denied or disrupted. They have been keeping us separated lately. I've been going island hopping, while they send Onica deep into enemy waters to assassinate key targets.

But now that we know where the Wearer is, there is no reason to listen to them. It's time to get the crew back together, and make these people pay for lying to us. Make them all pay! Especially Mike!

That guy is the worst.

*****

So, there it is. Still no idea what smashed the tinglewood bubble. But I wager that is a question that'll get answered eventually. At least one of us must have seen what happened. Right?

And now, if you'll excuse me. I need to go punish Fen for feeding me spiders while I was passed out, and for calling me a violent lunatic!

Goodnight.