“Did you really have to land on top of us like some soaking wet harpy?” Tantus asked as he started wringing out his robes.

Deacon, Tantus, and Hani entered the tavern and shut the door behind them. They could see Amanda at the bar arguing with the Gnome tender. He was still balancing on that unicycle. The whole image was comical to Deacon, and he almost busted out laughing. He knew Amanda was in no mood for that, so he curtailed his instincts.

“I wanted to surprise you. I think I figured out how to walk, kind of, on rain drops using my sandals,” answered Deacon with a big grin on his face.

“You’re lucky I was just startled and didn’t detect hostile intent. I might have used a more deadly ability,” Hani chimed in.

“Let’s just have a seat and try to dry off for a bit. We don’t need to be down by the beach for a couple of hours yet,” relayed Deacon as Amanda stomped her way over.

“He says he won’t rent rooms to us. Something about Typhus leaving him holding the bag with some criminals,” scoffed Amanda as she plopped down in the fourth chair.

They were seated at a round table a half sized too small for the four of them. The carved wooden chairs were also crafted with much smaller butts in mind. Tantus used his new staff to syphon the water out of his clothes. One of the gems on the staff lit up an aquamarine color. He spent the next few minutes examining it. There were several leaks in the roof above dripping down through the wooden plank flooring. Deacon didn’t know what was under the floor, but he assumed it was some kind of root cellar. There were several town denizens occupying other tables.

Deacon expected the locals to be having polite conversations with each other but most of the patrons were focused solely on their food or drink. There was a humming coming from Deacon’s bag. He had never heard a sound come from his bag before and he almost slipped off his diminutive chair. When he reached into his bag a familiar shape slapped into his palm. It was Alfred’s dungeon cylinder.

“Sorry to interrupt but one of my experiments is complete. I’d like to show it to you all,” said Alfred with a bit of excitement in his voice.

“I didn’t know you could reach out to me from storage, or I should have figured out a way to communicate with you before now,” mused Deacon.

“Well I tried screaming but you couldn’t hear me. So I stared vibrating my dimensional boundary at a frequency counter to your dimensional storage bags. It’s not exactly safe but it seems to work in a pinch,” responded Alfred.

“It is strange to keep a sapient person in your magic bag,” added Tantus.

“Oh no, don’t start that. He’s been in that bag since I found him. Why is it all of a sudden bad? Not like I can just travel around with a dungeon cylinder in a baby carriage or something. That’d be ridiculous,” said Deacon, sounding a little offended.

“Ahem, Master Deacon, if you could find a safe place for me setup. I promise this will be worth it,” requested Alfred.

“Small problem. They won’t rent to us and I’m not walking back to the cemetery,” complained Deacon.

“Let me try my hand. Maybe if I bring a little joy to these people’s lives, they’ll be more amenable,” interjected Hani as he stood up bounced over to the barkeep.

There were a few hushed words exchanged between the two and Hani walked in front of the main staircase that lead up to the second floor. The stairs began in the center of the common room and could be seen from all angles.

“Ladies and gentle-gnomes My name is Hani and I’ll be your entertainment this evening. Shall we start with a little juggling?” announced Hani before being pelted with various bits of food before a beer stein smacked him right in his forehead.

The whole tavern broke into peals of laughter after the stein made him fall flat on his butt. Even Deacon was holding his sides with one hand and pounding on the table with the other. Just as the laughs started to die down the tavern owner fell off his unicycle, kicking off a second round. Even Amanda started laughing. A dejected Hani walked back over to their table; shoulders slumped.

“If it’s any consolation. Every one is having a really good time now,” said Tantus between bouts of laughter.

“I should have never left the capital,” replied Hani.

“Keep running!” yelled Ralph as the long boats made it to the beach.

The pirates had bombarded the fishing vessel with cannon fire from a short distance. The captain had called an abandon ship after the first two hit. The boat now sat half submerged in shallow water on it’s side. The pirate ship dropped anchor once it was obvious there would be no return fire. The long boats from the fishing vessel made landfall and everyone scattered except Ralphs party. It consisted of himself, Sophie, and Jeremiah.

The captain wasn’t interested in going down with his ship and once he hit the beach he started sprinting towards the Shattered Sky. Ralph knew he’d never make it and figured going inland made more sense. The pirates wouldn’t travel too far from the ship, but they would chase someone along the shoreline. Ralph looked back to see several of the pirates beaching vessels coming around the now derelict fishing boat. A dark haired cat man stood up and pointed at them through the rain. That motion destabilized the rowers and one tipped over the side before the cat man sat back down.

Ralph didn’t understand why or how it saw them specifically, but it didn’t matter. The group decided to run over the dunes toward the road. Once there they would cross it and head further inland. The rain was making navigation more difficult, but it didn’t seem to slow down Jeremiah at all. They finally made it to the road and stable footing.

“Why are they still chasing us?” asked Sophie as she looked back.

“That might be my fault. I think that’s my old ship. The first mate had a habit of picking on me specifically. I was hoping that I’d never see him again,” answered Jeremiah from Sophie’s side.

“Well that’s just great. How far do you think they’ll chase us in this rain?” aske Ralph as he climbed up onto a small hill.

“It depends on how mad he is. I didn’t see the bosun with him. He usually keeps him in check when Captain Figaro isn’t around. I don’t want to go back,” replied Jeremiah before he started weeping.

“No one is taking you back, buddy. We just need to find Deacon since the plan is going as well as can be expected with him involved. Where did Typhus say this town was?” Ralph asked sliding down the side of the mound.

“Typhus said it was a small hamlet north of the road to the city,” answered Sophie.

“That could be anywhere from here,” Ralph shot back.

“Raising your voice to us isn’t going to help, Ralph. Let’s just go north. There are other farming communities out here. We should be able to hide and maybe wait out this storm,” she scolded him.

“You’re right. I apologize. Let’s just go,” replied Ralph.

“I really wish we didn’t have to hang on to this recording in the sound stone,” commented Sophie.

They traveled through the rain for another hour. They needed to take two breaks during that time for their stamina bars to refill. Each time they stopped they could see lanterns searching the area in the distance behind them. It was shortly after their second break that they found a farmhouse with a red barn. There was a simple wooden fence surrounding the place and the doors on the barn were roughly two thirds the size they’d seen in the Griffin kingdom. Right now it was shelter and that’s all they wanted.

Inside the barn smelled of manure. There were several sheep and pigs milling around the inside. As the door was opened, they began make noise. This was shortly followed by a Deep Dwellers voice coming from the farmhouse.

“Pipe down in there. It’s just a little thunder. It ain’t gonna kill you,” called the farmer.