The Tide Masters, clad in their strange green plated armor, closed in, moving to encircle Kel and Jazathya. Mipmip jumped down from Kel’s arms and scampered through the door into Lilannette’s house while the two women moved to stand back to back.

The Tide Masters were organized and efficient in their movements. They were arrayed in two circles, alternating between standing in the inner or outer part of the formation from one man to the next. The warriors in the smaller circle had their tridents level and pointed at the girls, while the ones in the larger circle held their tridents over their shoulders, their arms back and ready to toss the weapons at a moment’s notice.

Kel’s mind raced, trying to work through how a battle would go. There were too many to overpower, and even taking a couple down with a lightning spell wouldn’t break the enemy’s formation enough to allow them to slip through that wall of deadly warriors. Kel couldn’t see any way for them to fight their way out of this one. As much as it pained her to admit, it sure would have been helpful if that eel spirit were still there. Not that she would have wanted to drag her sister into this fight…

One of the Tide Masters stepped forward. “Miss Kel and miss Jazathya?” he asked.

“It’s Dame Keloran, actually,” Kel replied.

“My apologies,” he said. “Our guild master would like to request your presence to discuss some of your recent activities.”

“Awful lot of weapons you’re pointing at us to deliver an invitation,” Kel observed.

“I’m sure you can understand the need for caution, given that one of our men died in your last altercation,” he countered.

“That was the orc, not us!” Jazathya interjected. “Besides, you attacked us!”

“Yes, I’m aware of the Reeftowner’s actions,” he said. “Unfortunately, seeking justice against a Diver guild member is far more complicated. Don’t you worry. She’ll get hers one day.”

“We can make killing us plenty complicated too!” Jazathya said and suddenly shot her hand out, launching a lightning bolt from her fingertips at one of the Tide Masters, who was knocked off his feet. Immediately, the two on his flanks lunged forward, holding their tridents just inches from Jazathya’s flesh, while the other members of the back row reared back, preparing to throw their own weapons.

“STOP!” Kel yelled. “Jazathya, stand down!”

“I can assure you,” the leader said. “If we wanted to kill you, you would already be dead. As long as you don’t give us a reason to want that, you won’t be harmed.”

Kel turned, no longer trying to keep up their pointless defensive stance. “Jazathya…”

Slowly, the other woman lowered her arm. “Fine,” she said.

“Very good,” their leader said. “If you’ll accompany us around the corner, we’ve got a gondola waiting for you.”

A few moments later, the two of them were seated in a gondola with only one other Tide Master on board, though the rest had all slipped into the water and were surely swimming alongside and under them.

“How did they even find us so fast,” grumbled Jazathya. “Think the gondolier told them?”

“Maybe…” Kel mused. “But I think it's more likely they were waiting in the water for us to come out of the Depths and overheard us talking about going to see the witch of Reeftown by the canal. They did attack us instantly as soon as we were over the water. They must have missed Niva, because she left immediately after the fight at the bar, while that elf would have needed a bit of time to get his cronies together.”

“Shit,” Jazathya said. “What else did we say back then?”

“We mentioned Kashin, so they’d have overhead everything we know about him.”

“Which is basically everything we know at all,” Jazathya said as she leaned back in her seat. “Wonderful.”

They sat in silence together for the rest of the ride, as the gondola wound through Darazzo’s canals, ultimately leading them to Lighthouse Point. The defining feature of the district was the imposing lighthouse for which it was named. The stark white tower reared over the rest of the city, dominating the skyline and visible from practically anywhere in town. Kel herself had seen its cool blue flame hanging over the city out her hotel window the previous night. It was perhaps the most iconic building in Darazzo and, Kel had heard, was the power source that allowed Shipsnakes to continue operating in the mortal world without the ambient magic of the Depths.

A few minutes beyond the lighthouse, they came to a circular artificial lake. A horde of gondolas crisscrossed the lake, moving between the mouths of the various canals that connected to it or else to the squat green stone building which sat at its center, around which dozens of gondolas, perhaps even a hundred, were moored. Kel could see people in the now familiar green armor of the Tide Masters around it.

“Quite small for a guild hall,” Jazathya commented. “I thought you were one of the richest guilds.”

“That’s only the part above the surface,” the Tide Master guard riding with them replied icily. “You’ll be going all the way down to the guild master’s office. You try anything, there’s no other way out except swimming all the way up to the surface.”

Soon they had arrived at the building’s docks, and their guard, who Kel was fairly certain was the man Jazathya had hit with that lightning bolt, roughly shoved them onto the pier. He then pushed them forward, through the guild hall’s doors and down a giant spiral staircase in the center of the floor, wide enough to let no less than five or six people walk alongside each other.

The décor was overwhelmingly related to sea life, be it in the form of paintings, statues, or preserved specimens. They proceeded downwards in silence until they finally came to the massive doors at the stairwell’s bottom.

Their guard ushered them inside, and if the rooms outside had been devoted to sea creatures, this room was utterly consumed by them. Exotic fish, or just their giant severed heads, littered the walls. The sides of the rooms were consumed by various weapons on stands or items made from fish parts. The centerpiece of the whole room hung from the ceiling: a gigantic three headed fish with a harpoon piercing straight through its side and out the other end.

Sitting at a comparatively plain desk, and in front of a painting of himself harpooning a whale, was a man with short, curly red hair and a neatly trimmed beard. He flashed them both a warm smile as they entered the room and motioned to a couple of plush chairs at the desk.

“Welcome, welcome! So nice to make your acquaintances, though I do wish it could have been under better circumstances, eh?” he said with a wink. “My name’s Garvan Dorcholly. And you two are Kel and Jazathya, yes? Yes, very good. I’m sure you know why I’ve had you brought here?”

“Our friend made a few indiscreet inquiries regarding your guild and an item that was stolen from the Twilight Eye,” Kel said. “Frankly, the way you keep reacting to that doesn’t make you look any more innocent.”

“Yes, Torvonel’s a bit of a proud one. It’s caused me a bit of trouble before,” Garvan said, apparently referring to the elf who had started the previous two fights. “In fact, he reminds me of an old friend of mine, from back when I first came to this city. A great bear of a man, he was, and I’m not ashamed to say he was an even better fighter than me. Saved my life down in the Depths more than once. Only, good old Pelgar had so much pride. Couldn’t take an insult sitting down but was always going out of his way to belittle everyone else. He was the best, and he wanted everyone to know it. Got away with it for quite a while, too. Wasn’t a Diver in the city who could match him. Only, one night it wasn’t just one or two drunks who got riled up, but more than a dozen expert Divers who didn’t like him making fools of their guilds.”

“I’m rambling, I know. Point is: Pelgar got to take his precious reputation with him straight into a coffin, and I, who kept my mouth shut and didn’t make enemies, got this!” He spread his arms, gesturing at all the trophies scattered throughout the room. “Torvonel’s like Pelgar. Me? I don’t go looking for trouble. I go looking for profit. This feud with the Twilight Eye is something I inherited. I don’t like to pursue it any more than I need to for the sake of not looking weak. So when someone waltzes into a bar and starts saying that we stole some big score off the Twilight Eye, that’s a problem for me. And when someone’s a problem for me, I’m a problem for them, understand?”

“So you’re threatening us into not investigating your guild?” Jazathya asked.

“Not at all. Look, I understand, we’re natural suspects. Just don’t be so loud about it, alright? If the whole town is talking about how we robbed the Twilight Eye, Sopak will have to escalate things with us to avoid losing face. And then I’ll have to respond in kind. Nobody wants that.”

“You captured us just to tell us to be more subtle?” Jazathya asked.

“Well I can’t have you permanently disappear a couple of hours after getting into a very public fistfight while accusing us of being thieves, can I?” he said, his cheerful tone not faltering in the slightest. “That would look even worse. Besides, I’m interested in you. Why would Sopak rely on you for this instead of his own men?”

“I’ve never been to Darazzo before, and she’s a noblewoman in need of fast money. Neither of us has ties to the Diver guilds, so we could investigate without risking that the thieves would recognize us as Twilight Eye members,” Kel said.

Garvan stroked his beard in thought. “Hmmm… Nope, not buying it,” he finally said. “Your friend’s little stunt hardly seems like the kind of thing you’d do if you were trying to keep a low profile or pretend not to be connected to the Twilight Eye, eh? You must have some other angle on this, something the Twilight Eye doesn’t have themselves.”

Kel inwardly cursed Niva. Not only had her loud mouth gotten them into this mess, but Kel could hardly admit that they’d gotten the job by framing the Tide Masters with fake evidence. She simply kept her mouth shut and met Garvan’s gaze.

“You don’t want to tell me. Fine, I understand that we all need our secrets in this game,” he finally said, breaking the silence. “But perhaps you’d be willing to entertain a little offer of mine?”

Kel looked to Jazathya, but she seemed to have just as little idea of what he could be referring to. Garvan apparently took their silence as assent. “This cauldron that was stolen, it enhances the power of potions, yes?” Kel nodded. “I’d certainly be interested in an item like that, as would several other people who I could name. It could make me a lot of money. But Sopak, he’ll just think of it as stolen property, like he already owns it when it never even made it into his hands.”

“What are you implying?” Kel asked.

“Only that he’d never pay you anywhere near what it was worth,” the guild master continued. “Just a pittance of a recovery fee. Whereas I would give you a fair cut of my profits on it. So if you use whatever secret advantage you have to get that cauldron, then tell the Twilight Eye you couldn’t find it, well… I think we’d all come out richer for it.”

Kel was absolutely aghast, her mouth hanging open in shock. “Sir, you are trying to involve a knight of the Order of Our Lady of Roses in a conspiracy to buy stolen property!”

Garvan shrugged and threw up his hands. “I’m offering to buy a magic cauldron. Where and how you choose to get that cauldron is up to you. Frankly, I’m a very busy man and I can’t keep track of every inconsequential detail about my suppliers. I’d have to have some time to confirm the merchandise works like you say it does before you’d be paid, of course. Don’t want to fall for the old king’s ring scheme.”

Kel continued to stare at him, uncomprehending.

“Never heard of it?” he said. “It’s a classic. A rich man pretends that some expensive treasure has been stolen from him, say a ring he received as a gift from the local king. An accomplice, either claiming to be the thief or to have caught the thief, sells a counterfeit ring to the mark. Then the two split the take, and the victim is left with nothing. He can’t exactly go to the guards and admit that he tried to buy the ‘stolen’ ring, now can he?”

“Just between you and me,” he added with a wink. “I’ve done it a couple of times myself. Poor bastards never see it coming.”