The remainder of the journey was uneventful, something about a heavily armoured carriage escorted by a golem, a whole group of assorted warriors, a construct, and about six or seven individuals of draconic descent tended to act as a rather firm deterrent. One group of bandits considered it at one point, then in a first as far as Mibbet was concerned, demonstrated they had brains, the ability to use them, and the desire to keep them firmly where they belonged, by scarpering. (Honestly Mibbet almost wished they hadn’t, a little delay in this particular trip would have been most welcome as far as she was concerned.) But as per usual when one is praying for a delay, the universe decided to give her ample opportunity to be punctual, and no excuse to evade it. Thus they arrived in Daveejons harbour.

Daveejons was pretty much a standard harbour town, to the point where Mibbet was pretty sure if you looked up harbour in the dictionary you would see a picture of Daveejons. (At least if dictionaries were even vaguely pictographic in nature, which, as well you know, they are not. Largely to prevent the risk of an already thick book requiring a dock crane to carry it around.)

Off to one side of the main street was a decently tidy looking tavern, named “The Locker Inn,” a name that seemed oddly fitting. Over to the side was a shrine, with a statue depicting a hot tempered looking young lady, perched atop a waterspout. Clutching a ship in one hand, and a bolt of lightning in the other. From this Mibbet was pretty sure she could figure out why the goddess in question was worshipped around these parts. When a goddess is capable of treating your source of livelihood like a tub toy it’s a pretty safe bet you don’t want to cross her. Particularly not if she feels a smitey need, and treats lightning as a hobby.

There was actually a pretty nice looking town hall near the centre, which for some reason had a waterway leading right into it. Which was pretty much the only non standard thing she saw, apart from the fact that pretty much every ship seemed to be in dock at the same time, usually at least a few berths would be empty, as sometimes things needed to leave a harbour.

Spiketail looked at the scene, and gave an unhappy sigh, he was used to hustle and bustle (particularly bustle as there were usually a lot of dancers who plied their trade round the harbour area, specifically the second small tavern, which was in the sweet spot for all the gents on shore leave, hey a gal has to eat, right?)

“Seems rather too quiet, and I see a lot of human stuff around, but not much sign of the Mer.”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“Yeah they tend to keep to themselves for the most part, and right now, with The Don lurking, and talk of The Quacken floating about, well... they’re keeping their heads down, and who can blame them?”

“That’s true, but at some point in time I’m really going to have to deal with the diplomatic crud. I’m going to have a hard enough time with dealing with this situation, without doing it sans the assistance of an aquatic species. So let’s make that a priority.”

“That’s fair,” said Spiketail, trying not to groan at the thought of that particular situation. “But for now perhaps we should start with meeting the ship-faring side of this expedition. Since dealing with The Don while swimming is probably not ideal, right?”

“That’s true, so where to?”

“The locker.”

************************************************************************

The locker was a pretty standard tavern, there was a scowling bartender carefully wiping the glasses down with a cloth that had probably last been replaced around the same time the place had been built. (Mibbet was pretty sure that careful examination of said glasses would result in actually study-able strata of grimy grunge, that in old furniture would probably be called a patina.)

There was a barmaid too, of course, who seemed to be more capable of dealing with the grabby clientele than an assassin, and wore a fascinator with a hatpin the size of a small dagger, for just such an occasion.

There were also a few hooded figures sat in scattered shady corners. (There always are, it’s practically obligatory, who the hell keeps giving these buggers face concealing hoods was a mystery, as was the question of why the hell nobody ever tells them if they want privacy, then a private cubicle was the way to go. As it was Rosalind was pretty sure they chose the main room just to be awkward.)

Then there was the guy sat at the bar, who had been there so long it practically looked like he was fused to the stool. This individual will of course, be capable of drinking half an ocean of booze, and never being noticed. He is permanently drunk enough that nobody ever questions that he has had a skinful, but never be drunk enough for people to never question him about how much he has actually had. Nobody will ever realise this, but the fact is such individuals never stop. Every bar, tavern, or inn in the multiverse has one, but somehow they mysteriously vanish whenever closing time happens, without anybody ever seeing them leave. (These are usually the Angels of Avaskinfull, out doing what they do best. Given the difficulty of recruiting worshippers for such a deity their job is a bit complicated to explain. But they do have a plan, honest, and the never ending supply of drinks has nothing whatsoever to do with their presence, I’m sure.)

“There’s our group over there, not all of them of course, not enough room here for that,” said Spiketail, pointing to a shady corner. Mibbet could barely suppress a sigh at that, but for now she had work to do. so she paused for a moment, then squared her shoulders, and headed over to meet her crew.