As we're looking over the pile of loot we found in the captain's lockbox, Uncle Hawk shows up in Hebron's hearth with his Epic-ranked party.

"What's this?" Uncle Hawk says, coming up to our table. "Did you kids find some treasure?"

We fill them in on what we've been up to, and they do likewise. They've been doing some good exploring in the meantime. They have a few comments to make on what's going on but are going to leave us to it unless something well beyond our level range shows up. It's not even worth them getting involved otherwise. Anything they have to do for us is something we don't get experience for.

I don't know if the Honest Order of Aethernauts has a Legendary on their payroll, but if they do, I feel better knowing I have four aces in the dwarf hole.

"What's the name of your party?" Basalt wonders. "We registered at the Adventurers' Guild as the 'Defiant Seekers', but Drake keeps referring to you as the 'Epic party' and Falcon's as the 'Heroic party'."

Uncle Hawk laughs. "Well, that's fair enough. My party is called the Ardent Pathfinders, and Falcon's is the Daring Edgewalkers."

"For a bit there, I thought we were going to become the Unique Adjective Seekers," Basalt comments.

"I wonder who she is," Anise says, holding up the locket to examine it. "A niece? A lover?"

Jade puts in, "I wonder whether or not she's still alive, what rank she is, and whether she would be annoyed at us."

"Do you detect anything weird about the scroll, Drake?" Anise asks.

I shake my head. "There's nothing to it but whatever it on the scroll itself."

Anise pulls off the ribbon and unrolls the scroll onto the table. It's covered with sigils, but inactive ones.

"Can you read what spell is on the scroll?" Jade asks.

"Nope," Anise says cheerfully. "It's definitely a spell and will definitely do something if activated, but I have no idea what. I am not terribly good at Wizardry. There's waaaaay too many weird symbols to memorize."

"I'll keep that safe in my bag of holding for now, since it weighs almost nothing," I say. "And the key."

"How would we get more of those magic bags?" Basalt wonders.

"I have not found a seller in Tempest, and I have looked," Milo says. "Perhaps in one of the more developed domains like Crux or Flux."

I hold up the small steel key. "And I would really like to pay a visit to Flux in the near future."

Milo has been going through the pile of notes that were in the box, carefully sorting them and piecing together clues.

"Vetch Halkyn," says Milo, holding up another note. "That's another name of interest here. I have been going through Lance Tresco's correspondence. It seems he was the sort of person to keep all manner of illict behavior in writing. He must have had great confidence in his security."

Basalt picks up a gold coin and examines it closely. "And these are quite shiny. I'd like to use one of these to spawn our [Dwarven Merchant]."

We go over to the dwarf spawner to find out what these things are worth.

A check indicates that one gold coin is worth 10,000 essence points. Silver coins are worth 100 essence, while copper coins are worth 1 essence. Given where they come from, I suppose it makes sense that they would directly correspond to the value dungeons place upon them. Though it seems funny that my notebook full of scrawling and babbling was apparently worth over 30 silver before I fed it into Basalt's spawning.

"Hebron, do you mean to tell me that a single gold coin could summon a dwarf?" I ask.

[It would still require an earthen effigy,] Hebron replies in my mind.

"Can we bank coins in a Hearth and receive them back without loss in essence? And can you convert one of these into silver?"

[Yes. All dungeon coins are equal and capable of being freely converted.]

One of the gold coins on the table dissolves and is replaced by five stacks of silver coins. Hebron's coins have Basalt's face on the heads side and a bunch of grapes on the tails.

Basalt examines one. "Damn, that's an ugly face. Who is that?"

"Sorry," I say. "That's, uh, that's you. You don't want to know what my [Stoneworking] skill was when I carved you."

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"Will all the coins update if I respawn with a different face?" Basalt asks.

[No. Only future coins that I create.]

"Would that make old coins collector's items?" Milo asks.

"Well, if anyone cares enough to collect my first mug face, I'm not gonna be vain enough to worry about it."

The idea of having access to all the copper we want doesn't seem so valuable anymore. Still useful, but it's not like we found a gold mine or even a silver mine. And once we find a source of tin, it will grow much more useful.

I look back at the lockbox. "Man, I'd love to keep this around to study its curses, but it's really cursed. We need to figure out a way to disable or contain it, because it's still trying to curse us. We're not feeling much because all this curse is meant to do is leave a marker, so far as I can tell. I think we've all been branded as thieves."

"That might be a problem if anyone can detect that and cares," Milo says.

"Nefern probably won't care seeing as they already know where the curse came from, at any rate," I say. "Hebron, would you be capable of absorbing this box? And would you be able to recreate it or get some sort of bonus for doing so?"

[Yes. It would add curses to my defense options.]

"Alright, does anyone want to stay here and copy down the sigils on the box?" I ask.

"I shall do it," Milo says. "I have the best handwriting." (He's not really smirking here. Goblins just have a resting smirk face.) "Let me see if there is anything I can do about the markers before you go. I probably have a better chance of it than Anise."

"I never managed to unlock Sorcery (Feign Innocence)," Anise says.

Milo clears his throat, lifts his gangly green hands in the air dramatically, and says to the box, "We didn't do it. You were salvage. Your owner is dead. We are not thieves. We are innocent."

"This probably sounds a lot more dramatic to people who don't speak English," Basalt comments.

"The curse was not convinced, in any case," I say.

Skills increased: Discipline (Long-Term Planning, Delegation), Enhanced Mind (Calculator), Clairvoyance (Psychometry)

When we get back to Nefern, we find that Uncle Falcon is already back in town along with his Daring Edgefinders. Fervent Pathwalkers? Blast, maybe I'll remember it the next time someone mentions it.

"Colt Nefern is safely home again," Uncle Falcon says. "He went to a curse breaker who discovered that he had a theft marker on him and had him arrested. I persuaded the guards to let him go."

"We all handled that box and got hit with the marker, too," I say. "So I suppose it's best to avoid Amroth ourselves for the moment. Do you know anything about how that marker works?"

"You'll need to get it removed by someone who doesn't immediately try to arrest you," Belladonna says. "What did you do with the box?"

I explain how we got it open and describe what we found inside. "Do you know anything about the Honest Order of Aethernauts?"

"Sometimes useful but never to be trusted," Belladonna says. "I don't know how much they might care about the late Lance Tresco."

Uncle Falcon just grins. "I hope they've got an Epic to throw at us so we can rank up."

"We're close," says the blue-skinned wizard. "I can feel it."

Following up on Captain Lance Tresco's apartment key would require getting to Flux, which is… non-trivial. My skyboat is nice and all but at the speeds I can manage at the moment, it would take many hours of flying across open sky with only the vast wilderness of Thorn far below us to block the view of the Void. We would be extremely vulnerable and we've apparently annoyed a group with 'Aethernauts' in their name. And we wouldn't be able to use any official transports unless we could get this thief marker removed.

That evening, another skyboat almost identical to the Celestial Duck flies in and parks across from it at the skydock. It has fewer dings and fresher paint, but they may well have rolled out of the same skyboat factory. I go up to the docking tower to see who is coming in, along with Badger Nefern, and to take a better look at the boat.

They sent one Elite-rank Messenger, by himself, in the cheapest basic mass-produced boat they had. (This is making me feel better about being able to fly to Flux.) His clothes are clean but not fancy, bearing no artifacts or sigils that I can detect, and he looks to be in his thirties.

"Welcome to Nefern," says Badger. "Name and reason for visit?" (He's never so formal with the locals.)

"Euston Flux. I am here investigating an incident."

"Then let's head for the guest house to discuss it," Badger says. "It's cold out here and about to start raining again."

We reconvene in the guest house, and immediately attract an audience of adventurers and farm kids. Euston (that has to be a Hearth name) has an aura tinged with annoyance and a tiny bit of distress at all the attention he's getting.

"I've come representing the Honest Order of Aethernauts," Euston says. "I am not a member, merely a messenger and investigator, so if you have some grievance with them I would kindly request that you not take it out on me. A skyship belonging to a member of the Order went missing somewhere in this area. Would someone care to explain what happened?"

A quick exchange of glances around the room indicates to even the casual non-psychic observer that no one is especially eager to explain to this guy what actually happened.

"I saw it go down," Badger says. "They crashed in one of our fields but we turned salvage rights over to another Hearth that could make better use of it in exchange for a cut."

Euston scribbles something down in a notebook. "That tree is too big. It's clearly a flight hazard."

Falcon puts in, "If your employers are so bad at piloting skyships that they can't avoid hitting the tree without crashing, maybe they shouldn't be flying over Tempest. It's an important landmark and a treasure of the domain. It's not like it just sprung up overnight."

Euston finishes writing. "Very well. The Order might not be happy with this, but I have done my job and was paid 50% in advance. May I get room and board for the night? I shall depart at azure tomorrow."

After securing a room, Euston bids us good night and retires to a soft bed that isn't moving around. His boat didn't look like it had any more creature comforts than mine.

"Foreigners," Badger spits. "Remember, kids. It's your Hearth against your domain, your domain against your skymote, your skymote against the Crystalline Heavens."

"I don't see why we really need to be against each other," I say. "But they didn't strike me as the nicest sorts of people. We found lots of notes in the captain's lockbox. They were up to stuff. How well do you know the Halkyns?"

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