Deacon raced through the streets of Crok’s Landing finally stopping outside the tavern. Alfred was standing outside the tavern like a statue. Deacon wanted to avoid another heart to heart conversation right now. Amanda choosing to leave made sense to him. It seemed everywhere he went; he was caught up some more nonsense. Even standing out here in the rain and looking over his dungeon spirit turned robot, Deacon knew there was some other disaster just waiting for him.

That’s when Deacon realized he hadn’t spoken to Chimera in quite a while. He had questions that the god should be able to help him with. First and foremost was why he hadn’t received any level ups lately. He seems to be stagnating at level twenty four. That and he only has two abilities, his breathing technique, and his aura, that have increased above level five. Why would his progress slow down so much? Did he have a false sense of growth that others haven’t experienced? For now he’d have to put those thoughts on the back burner and get his team moving if they wanted to catch up to Amanda and get to the city.

“Alfred, are you enjoying your newfound freedom?” Deacon asked.

“This frame is well designed but there are some flaws. I can’t actually feel anything out here, not like I can inside the dungeon. It has no natural weapons besides this housing. Considering I didn’t have a body before, this is an upgrade. I imagine if we could find the conduits in the Philo’s workshop, I might be able to make improvements with Tantus’s help. I… did want to speak with you about a personal request. I no longer want to travel in your bag. I’d like to be out here with the rest of you,” Alfred replied, his voice quavering a little for the last part.

“I’d never force you to go into the bag. It was just convenient. Do you still want to be the headquarters of the Regulators? We can find other accommodations if—” Deacon began before Alfred held up one robot hand.

“I’m happy to provide shelter for the team. I just don’t want to be cargo. We can talk more about this later. You seem to be concentrating rather hard to allow the water to pass through you. I understand how that child had one of your garments on now. I’ll stand guard incase more trouble comes, it’s getting a little too weird in there for me,” commented Alfred before going back to his guard position.

“Don’t get too comfortable. I intend to gather everyone and head back out,” said Deacon as he passed by Alfred.

Deacon put a hand on Alfred’s shoulder to give him a reassuring squeeze. After he opened the door to the tavern, Deacon realized that Alfred couldn’t feel it physically, but he was sure he felt it emotionally. Now he’s got a Pinocchio situation on his hands on top of chasing down a runaway Amanda… again.

“Hani, Tantus. Let’s get moving. Amanda is consumed with her vendetta, and she took off. We we’re going to back her up we need to go before she gets too far away,” complained Deacon as he looked up to see the smiling faces of the villagers.

They were all drinking and laughing. Even the boy in Deacon’s shirt was dancing on the bar, hood flopped over his face and sleeves extended far beyond his hands. It felt wrong to Deacon to pull his team away from this celebration. With his dungeon spirit outside going through some shit and Amanda racing headlong into the unknown, they just couldn’t stay.

“Do we have to go? The tavern owner said the drinks were on him tonight,” slurred Hani.

It looked like he was one drink away from stumbling around. Tantus on the other hand was reading a scroll at the same table. Deacon leaned over and couldn’t make sense of the magical symbols sprawled across the piece of parchment.

“What have you got there Tantus?” asked Deacon.

“Oh, you startled me. It’s a Deep Dweller spell called Hang Over Cure. It was in the belongings of the attacker I got this staff from. I didn’t think I’d have a use for it until I saw Hani knocking back flagons earlier. I assume you took care of anymore problems?” Tantus asked in response.

“These guys were from a company called the Sharkfin Privateers. At least that’s what the last one said. I’ve got some plans if they are a legit organization, but I’ll need to speak with the Teller at the guild. These guys didn’t look like adventurers. More like sailors, with the fabric they all had around theirs waists and the piercings. Use that scroll on him, cause we have to get out of here. I assume you didn’t hear my declaration when I walked in here, but Amanda took off. We need to catch up,” said Deacon as he patted Tantus on the back.

“Ooh bad news. The Sharkfins are a notorious pirate fleet. Weird they would be this far east. We aren’t that far from the coast but too far to collect slaves. Must have been looking for someone. We should have a drink and think about what to do about them,” hiccupped Hani.

“I’m not sure it’ll sober him up. Seems to me it will just prevent him from feeling like shit later. You aren’t sitting down so I guess this a do it now scenario. Give me a sec,” groaned Tantus as he stood up and began to recite the spell on the page.

White and blue ritual circles appeared on the document before they began spinning around. Tantus’s voice dropped a few octaves as the scroll burnt up in his hands. The circles then appeared around Hani’s head spinning rapidly before sinking into his skull.

“What was that?” asked Hani now completely wide eyed.

“It’s a Dweller hang over cure,” Tatus said, lilting his words toward the end.

“Then why does my mouth taste like a beach?” inquired Tantus.

“Let’s go guys. Wave goodbye to your friends. We need to get moving,” Deacon said, making his way toward the door.

Once they all made it outside of town, Tantus used the enchantment on his new staff to create a water repellent dome around them. The rain that fell atop the dome just ran down the sides of the invisible barrier. Deacon took this opportunity to stay corporeal. Alfred discovered some more downsides to his new body. Once outside of the well warn roads of town, his metal feet just sunk into the mud with loud squelches. It seemed that every fifteen minutes or so Deacon needed to pull him up out of the mire.

Deacon stood back and let Hani and Tantus get ahead of them. He then turned his back to Alfred and bent at the knees. Nothing happened for a few heart beats before Deacon explained what he was doing. Shortly after, Deacon jogged back up to the others with a five foot tall Gentlemen Solider riding on his back.

“Why is it called piggyback?” asked Alfred.

“Not sure. We just called it that when I was a kid. I expected you’d be able to route around in my memory for some context,” replied Deacon as Hani and Tantus fought hard not to laugh.

“Our connection doesn’t work like that when I’m out here. It’s only due to my upgrade that I can even speak to you on the material plane. I’m surprised this platform isn’t too heavy,” said Alfred as his top hatted head bounced up and down with each of Deacon’s steps.

“Strength is my highest attribute. It’s pretty difficult for me to meter my strength. Constantly making sure I don’t break doors or crush people’s hands during normal greetings. This is one of the times when I just don’t have to think about it. It’s kind of nice,” said Deacon.

“No, no. He’s leaving out a significant amount of information. Even with a high Strength score, exerting that much effort would drain stamina bars twice over. Being strong and being able to endure moving heavy weight for a long time interact as a multiplier for stamina. Unless you have specialized in a class that gets cost reductions to stamina usage or you have an item that’ll let you ignore the weight. He doesn’t get tired so he’s effectively a big cheater,” explained Tantus, Hani nodding along with him.

“If I wasn’t carrying this automaton housing my Alfred who doubles as our home, I’d give you such a pinch,” said Deacon in jest.

After another thirty minutes they found themselves traveling through some small farming communities. The group had to stop when they heard the sound of battle coming from the west. They turned their attention in that direction just in time to see a wave of holy light fly off into the distance.

“That couldn’t be Ralph, could it? They were supposed to be waiting on the boat… Sorry Alfred, you’ll have to walk from here,” Deacon said as he dropped the robot and started sprinting across the field of corn.

Deacon checked his soul energy bar and noticed he had only regenerated up to one hundred out of three hundred. If this was a fight, he’d have to use his abilities sparingly. Bursting through the corn into an open area, Deacon could see a melee was happening. There was a farmhouse on fire and the side of barn was sagging in. A family of Deep Dwellers were huddled together and crying while Sophie stood between them and a group of ten pirates. She had her shield bearer tattoos called out in front of her while Ralph held several pirates at bay. There was a group of pirates attempting to break through her defenses and several bleeding pirates on the ground next to Ralph.

That’s when Deacon noticed a large dark haired cat man holding Jeremiah by the neck with one hand and directing the pirates with the other. Once the cat man was done barking orders he reached down to his waist and produced a slave collar. He turned to Jeremiah and sneered with a mouth full of sharp teeth.

To Jeremiah’s credit, he didn’t flinch as he watched Deacon barreling towards the cat man at full speed. Deacon collided with the feline slaver ending in all three of them sprawling in the mud. The pirates harassing Ralph all paused not understanding what just happened. Ralph didn’t miss a beat, he stabbed one through the chest, pulled out the blade, spun it in his hand and decapitated another. That left one more out of the five he was fighting. Two were on the ground from the initial melee and he just killed two more.

“You’ve made a terrible mistake, whoever you are,” growled the now wet and muddy cat man as he got up to his feet.

“Let me guess. Sharkfins? Once I’m done here, I’m going to sink all your boats and wipe my ass with your pirate flag,” said Deacon starring into the cat man’s eyes.

“Don’t make me laugh. It’s too late for bravado. You’ve come here alone to die,” the cat man shot back.

“Who said I was alone?” Deacon asked as lighting struck the five pirates harassing Sophie.

The lighting strike came down on the man in the middle and arced between two others who were standing in nearby puddles. Sophie took this opportunity to activate the fireball tattoo on the top of her left hand. It leapt into reality and slammed into an as of yet untouched pirate who ran around in a circle flailing his arms. He eventually fell to the ground and rolled around in the mud. The last pirate that was attacking Sophie didn’t like the current odds and dove into the corn field. Hani appeared from the corn spinning his hat and sending it toward the fleeing man, but he was too fast. Several stalks of corn were severed and fell to the ground.

Running seemed to be a core part of the Sharkfins mission statement. As soon as the lightning strike took out three of his men, the cat man lost all of his bravado. He leapt up to the top of the soon to be condemned barn and scampered across the roof. Deacon gave chase by Spectral Jumping up after him. As soon as he landed the building began to give way and the roof collapsed in. Deacon saw the cat man jump off the roof on the opposite side from him as the roof quickly disintegrated beneath his feet. He was surprised at how agile the cat man was and knew that would be enough of a head start he couldn’t catch him.

Deacon ghosted his way out of the rubble back toward his team. He took some tim to use Nether ice to prevent the farmhouse from burning any further. Sophie gathered everyone up to assess the situation. By the time Deacon finished his work they had all been briefed.

“This was technically our fault. Would you mind compensating these poor folks for the damage?” Sophie asked.

“Whose fucking idea was that?” Deacon asked back as he noticed both Ralph and Tantus duck behind Hani.