Ed was having what was quite probably the scariest day of his life, he was one of those rare individuals who asked to be assigned to lookout duty..... usually. Of course usually that was because so long as you didn’t mind the cold it was a relatively stress free duty. Again he had stress, usually.

Then again his regular lookout duties did not involve storms, pissed off gods, giant rubber ducks with more appendages than they had any business having, ancient shrines, or navigating a nasty nautical labyrinthine knot-work. Today they did, and as you can imagine he was shitting bricks. Still his crew didn’t choose him for decoration, but rather because even when things got scary he was bloody good at his job. It also helped that the Mer were very good at making sure they noticed the kind of crud that was not good for a ships waterline. (Often other ships, particularly round here, it seemed Briony Deyp was particular about visitors.)

So they kept to a crawl as they navigated the maze, behind them that damn duck was having problems at least. When a god sets up a puzzle, maze, labyrinth, riddle, or any other variant of challenge they take it very seriously, and the gods do not like a cheater. So every time it had tried using its semi aquatic attributes to get across land bits of the maze it had been swatted back, and swatted HARD. (being sent skidding back over the water had definitely been a wake up call for it.) Until eventually it took the hint and followed the ship as fast as it could without taking any shortcuts.

The rock walls lunging up around them were absolutely pant wetting terrifying all by themselves, and the idea of tangling with a deity at the end wasn’t exactly an incentive. But given that turning back would require them to sail right past The Quacken, in beak range, that was a definite motivating factor in keeping them on course.

Besides with the gods there could be a cuppa and a chat waiting for them at the end for all they knew. But the deity in question was Briony Deyp, so Ed really wasn’t holding his breath on that one. (He tried not to hold his breath at all if he could help it, there was plenty of water out there that would be happy to hold it for him, and it wouldn’t give it back to him afterwards, even if he asked really nicely. No not even for a pretty please.)

They were getting there though, he could see the course through, even if the gods had made the fog in here ridiculously thick on purpose to prevent lookouts from giving their crew spoilers for what lay ahead. No mystery there though, what lay ahead was the isle of Streyts, and their ridiculously over scaled guardian statue. (Apparently once over it had been a construct, of sorts at least, but it required a huge number of legendary Dublay cores to get it moving, and they didn’t come cheap, so to everybodies relief it wasn’t going to be swinging anything down at them today. Thank heaven for small mercies.)

They passed through the final channels of the liquid labyrinth, and into an automatic lock that raised them to the temple proper. Passing through the legs of the Whopper of Streyts, (and before you think it while the statue IS clad in a loose toga, it is named after the club, and the action it took using it, not anything you may, or may not see upon staring upwards as they pass through, so kindly get your minds out of the gutter this instant, before somebody sees and washes your brain out with soap and water. Also anybody who does look up isn’t telling so we really can’t tell you if it’s a double entendre or not.)

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Briony watched the ship coming in, and realised whether she liked it or not duty called. She made herself presentable (not that there was a hair out of place in the first place, it’s hard for an omnipotent being to have a genuinely bad hair day, though some choose to, Gawdam, for example, the god generated by the amount of individuals giving such a prayer upon seeing themselves in the mirror, the Goddess Maykova had offered multiple times to help him out, but given that it was part of his mantle, any attempt to rectify the unpleasant situation for him was met with failure. Besides he felt like it would be letting down his adherents, whose faces were definitely stuck that way, wind changing direction or not.)

Well they had made it this far, the least she could do was hear them out before drowning them. Maybe she’d keep the ship though, it wasn’t their fault they were infested with humans.

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Mibbet clambered out on deck as they approached the tidal temple, hoping this would get sorted before the tide turned, as refloating a ship while an irate deity glowers at you did not sound like it would be a fun time for anybody.

She glanced back one more time to make sure that The Quacken was still following, like twenty odd foot of tentacled rubber duck was somehow going to vanish, and started getting ready. She wasn’t what you would call the diplomatic sort, but this was a situation where it was be diplomatic or die. Even Mibbet and Rosalind could manage a bit of tact in that situation, she joined the crew members who were free in a low bow as they pulled into the central ring. Where according to the stories the altar stood.

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Suddenly everything was white, and The Wellerman, The Quacken, and all the crew were floating in a void. The Quacken was of course rather perturbed by this course of events, and tried swimming in the nothing to get at The Wellerman and her crew, gaining no traction of course.

“YOU HAVE A LOT OF NERVE COMING HERE MORTALS.” Boomed the voice from nowhere “THIS HAD BETTER BE GOOD.”