Ok, New Plan

 

"OK, new plan," said Whisperleaf as they stared at the now fully active teleport circle.

"No pirates. We do this ourselves."

"And keep all the treasure," Ricmo agreed.

Solving the activation sequence for the abandoned teleport circle hidden deep in the Annwyn Wing of Haven University had forced the companions to consider the details of the next step of their plan.

Or Governor Davilia and Maria Teresa's plan, at least. And the more they had considered it, the more flaws they had exposed. For one thing, it required rallying a large percentage of the fractious pirate captains and somehow getting them from Skull River Bay into position to attack the returning treasure fleet. During Hurricane season, no less.

The only way to do that would be to bring the entire fleet through the Shadow and across the Shadow Sea. Difficult, very difficult.

But it was really the pirates that had been the turnoff.

"I mean, the problem with pirates is they are pirates," Dakhir had so succinctly put it. "Which means, despite their romantic reputation, they are mostly thieves and killers, and completely untrustworthy. Even if we get them to sign on, they'll backstab us at the first opportunity."

"Plus, if we don't include them, we can keep all the treasure ourselves," Ricmo added.

"An excellent plan with far fewer loose variables," Tello remarked. "It suffers from one fatal flaw, however. We cannot take the entire treasure fleet ourselves. We are but one ship."

"Perhaps we don't need to," Whisperleaf said. "A lightning raid, we take the richest ship or two and escape?"

"Maria Teresa needs the whole fleet gone, though," Freddy reminded them. "Her intent is to break the strength of the oligarchs, after all."

The group nodded. There was some support for Maria Cristinia's revolutionary crusade; their personal experience with the Merchant Houses of Haven had not been pleasant.

"Gone. You said 'needs the fleet gone'" Dakhir repeated slowly. "Not captured, not sunk. Gone. That's interesting."

"We were already talking about leading the Pirate Fleet into the Shadowlands," Whisperleaf continued, the thought. "What if we just did the same for the Treasure Fleet?"

"What good does that do, though?" Ricmo asked. "All we would do is speed up their journey?"

"No one said anything about leading them OUT again," Dakhir said with an evil smile.

"Oh," Ricmo replied, the implications suddenly striking him. He thought back to the terrible cold of that place. The never-ending darkness. "Boy. That's nasty."

"Is it even possible, though?" asked Whisperleaf. 

"That cartographer that Maria Cristina brought said there is a flagship, and they make some attempt to travel in convoy. Freddy replied thoughtfully. "What if we took the flagship? Used it to send our own instructions?"

"We could lead them into a Juxtaposition," remarked Tello. If we can find a favorable one. A big enough one."

"Is there such a one?" asked Freddy.

"I need to run the maths," Tello replied. "This Orrery device will help, but I will also need my books from the ship. I am hopefully we will find one however. There have been many such intersections of late."

They were all quiet for a moment at that. They remembered what had happened when they had run the Orrery forward in time. How the entire clockwork mechanism had ground to a halt when the plane of Shadow had intersected the Prime Material. Just under seven years remaining before that happened, and while none of them knew the exact effect of such a thing, it couldn't be good.

"We need to wrap all this up and get back to searching for Black Alice," Freddy murmured. "At least we know where she has gone now. Great Mbo."

"Yes, but first things first. This sounds like a pretty good plan to me," Dakhir said."

"This sounds like a lot of mass murder," Radiant Lightbringer returned. "Most of those poor souls are innocent. We cannot abandon them to the darkness."

Nods to that. The group, as a whole, wasn't really up for the mass murder of innocents. Selective murder, maybe, especially if the person had it coming, but they had so far avoided major war crimes and wanted to keep it that way.

"Ransom then," Ricmo perked up. "Lead them out again, but only in exchange for all their treasure."

"You and your treasure," Freddy chuckled. "What would you even do with all that? You already have a king's ransom and no idea of what to spend it on."

"There is no such thing as enough treasure," Ricmo rejoined.

"Still, depriving them of their fortunes would solve Maria Teresa's problem. She doesn't need all those people dead. Just the Merchant Houses bankrupt," Freddy agreed.

"We need to find them first. We can use the Scrying trick the same as we were already planning, to locate the flagship!" Whisperleaf was getting excited. For an elf, he had a somewhat uncommon thirst for treasure himself, though, like Ricmo, no real plan on what to do with it."

"I will need an arcane connection to the Admiral of the Fleet," Radiant reminded them. "Something close to him. Clothes he has work, a portrait, preferably something from his person, a hair or fingernail would be ideal," Radiant reminded them.

"His house is not a mile from here, the cartographer said, a little B&E and Bob's your uncle," Ricmo answered.

"And I need to find a favorable Juxtaposition," Tello replied. 

We need a plan to take the flagship, quietly, without alerting the rest of the fleet," Dakhir said thoughtfully. 

"We need to think about what to do with the Treasure Fleet once we capture it; we can't carry anywhere near all that treasure in the Lady Jezebel. And I hate the idea of just dumping it overboard," Ricmo added.

"Ok, But first, the Admiral's estate. That leads to all the rest," Freddy commented.

There were nods all around. 

"I like this plan," Whisperleaf said.

Tello laughed, a low rumble. "Indeed. It is much more... us... somehow."