Halcyon And Solevei Are Rescued

The Danger Gang Auxiliary arrives in a small town at the mouth of the Danube. They learn from the locals that the island with the Achilles stuff is about twenty miles out. The locals call it Snake Island, and they say it's haunted. They figure they've wasted enough time, so they sail out, arriving at Snake Island fairly quickly.

After circumnavigating the island, they see Halcyon and Solevei come out of the woods. They row to shore and pick them up. They're very glad to see everyone.

It seems that Halcyon got word from Basil II to go track down Barnacle Bashim. He and Solevei were out sailing in the Swordfish, keeping an eye out, when the Tigress snuck up behind them. They tried to maneuver for position, but it was as if the Swordfish was stuck in some seaweed. And so a battle ensued. Solevei and Halcyon fell into some bad luck, as they both were quickly snagged in Hold Persons. On top of that, it's hard to fight Bashim, because it turns out he has four arms. He took most of their stuff (he let Halcyon keep the sword of nix, because he didn't think it was magical). He did get everything else though, including, but not limited to, their armor, Solevei's bizarro first edition illusionist spell book, and (fortunately for us) Halcyon's cursed sword. Also, it turns out that they have some kind of weird priest that worships the Metatron, who hopefully doesn't have Remove Curse.

So it seemed that these two would be pressganged into Bashim's crew of the damned. However, while sailing through the Euxine, the boys saw a nearby island. They lept overboard and swam ashore. For reasons that probably became increasingly apparent, Bashim elected not to follow them to Snake Island.

Turns out they landed on an island inhabited by a Kulshedra who keeps on pissing out Larva. They might have been able to do something about it, except that it turns out Halcyon has sworn a Besa against harming any Kulshedras.

Luckily, it's all behind them. The Auxiliary decides that this island might warrant some investigation. Arben offers to leave them with ten gold to take care of themselves while they're out, but Eorl shows him up buy giving them two-hundred. It looks like the showdown for the sixth greatest rogue of the Mediteranean continues. Everyone hits the sack so they can heal up Halcyon and Solevei a little more before they go.