Karis' funeral was held the day after he died. A small raft set ablaze from off the Monty and it was done. Nathan Grymes told Tank Tursel that they'd interrogated the Ob-Lobs who'd surrendered and their testimony would clear them of the demon-worshipping charges. The Helusian Spirit would have their hands on their captured Ob-Lob ship the next day.
So then everyone went out drinking. The crewmen of the Spirit had been fond of the poorly spoken man and though they hadn't been invited to the funeral properthey'd taken over The Broken Mug for a good send off. At the party Tank and Ndege Greenlimb were approached by a well-dressed man who'd seen the duel the previous night. Zov introduced the man as Rodemus, but he gave his full name as Sir Rodemus Pike. He'd done a few milk runs for the company while the command crew was down Rana Mor way, and seemed to be a fan of Karis. After a night of heavy drinking and weeping and manliness, Pike slept back on his "magnificent" boat with Tank's address carved into his arm.
Tank and Ndege woke up late the next morning to heavy knocking at the door. After hung over arguing about who might have carved up Tank's coffee table they opened the door to find a pack of Dindavarans there. The lead one introduced himself as Special Envoy Meng Bian and demanded the return of the Dindavaran cultural property that was on the premises. Within 3 hours. Tank took slight objection to this and the armed soldiers on his doorstep. His exactish words were "You come to my house dressed for a tea party and you'd better expect a goddamned biscuit!" The door was slammed and plans were hatched.
Rodemus showed up as did Calebain. And TC Uki (who'd slept through the first part of this) ran upstairs and brought down the Rain Tiger's Claw, which he'd been hiding. People were shocked to see it and TC said he figured now that Karis was dead he might as well tell the rest of them that he'd rescued it. Much mulling was done over what to do about the Dindavarans. Rodemus had trained with a swordsman once and explained how they view their swords as their children so this was probably a big deal. Eventually Tank grabbed Goodsword and they headed down to the Dindavaran embassy (they stashed the Rain Tiger's Claw and the Windsword on Pike's boat).
At the Dindavaran embassy in the Old City Tank was insulting towards the Special Envoy and the swordswoman with him, but after some discussion Pike smoothed things over. Finally, in exchange for returning Goodsword and the Dindavaran plate they got excellent deals on light Dindavaran armour from Ko Ben's Swords. Afterwards Ndege thanked Rodemus for his help and they decided to offer him a permanent place on the command crew.
So then it was time to decide where their next adventure would take them and they decided it was time to head to Port Strike and get a shipbuilder. Rodemus mentioned how the Spirit wasn't too well liked in Port Strike the last time he'd been there and there was some discussion about what ship to take to get there. In the end they sent the Spirit west and the Ob-Lob ship (under Mikono's command) east to Milonda. Pike told Mikono that if he did a good job on this run he might get to be a captain himself some day. He was very inspiring about it, possibly because he sensed Mikono's sullenness about his rank in the organization.
Grymes took Tank aside just before they left to warn him that no one had heard one word from Titra since the Spirit returned and the rumblings were that the Continental powers weren't happy about their missing moonstone. Grymes promised to protect Tank as long as he could, but it might be a good idea to have some answers when the powers came calling. They were still making a killing on their moonstone sales though so that would continue.
And the command crew set off in the Queen's Mercy, Pike's garbage scow. It was a slow lumbering beast of a boat covered in seagull shit. They met a dozen ships bearing all sorts of sails an the way to Port Strike, and Calebain on one of his frequent scouting flights spotted three Ob-Lob ships pacing the Continental expeditions (heading to Freeport from quite a distance away.
When they arrived in Port Strike the docks were filled with ships and they decided to take the Queen's Mercy in the back door, the river dock.
