Captain Anders

*The Captain is waiting outside - he is as bushy bearded as advertised. "Anders Sfarr, at all your services."*

The Grand Duke scoffs. "You have my word that your cart and all its delicious, valuable contents will be safe in my paws."

Helmut sneers in a whisper to Anders, a worker with a long thick beard. "The word of a fox, sure."

"'Ey Markus," Anders says. "Remember the peafowl feathers the boss was selling for the big bucks? How much you reckon these fox pelts'd be worth?"

"Shhhhh, Anders, not where they can hear you!" replies Markus. But his eyes begin to turn acquisitive and thoughtful.

"They are blue and fluffy," Helmut reminds his companions. "Nice thick winter coats."

## Family

Advari herself is dressed roughly, in an old captain's coat and trousers. A small portrait of several dark and blond haired people is on her desk. One of the men her age has a bushy beard.

"For all his virtues, my father was not the most careful man." Richter sighs sardonically, with the merest touch of somberness.

## The Grand Duke

Everyone around the cart, including Keryth, also experiences the Song.

The Grand Duke listens to it and seems to grow brighter, and longer-furred. Anders and Helmut draw their own clubs.

"What vile trick is this fox? What are you planning?" "It hurts, Helmut, make it stop!"

The Grand Duke bares its teeth. "You know, King Rufus the Foxth was quite happy to look the other way when it came to your greedy ways, invaders of the Forest. But I am quite happy to give you righteous justice. Die if you like, wretched humans."

Helmut steps forward to answer the fox called Grand Duke. "We already gave you lot enough free stuff. Sod off and stay over there. I wouldn't trust you to guard a chicken coop."

Anders adds "Quiet Helmut! D'you really want to fight that wolf-thing with most of the party gone off? We're supposed to be guarding the cart."

Helmut replies, "But if most of the party's gone off, Markus and Klein and Silvius and all the rest aren't here to get in our way."

Anders snatches it up protectively. "I was hoping to keep this a secret, but it's clear the foxes know what this is. This rope's magic. It was ten feet when we found it, and five feet when not used. If we take it home to sell, it'll be thousands of silver!"

"And which is more valuable, coin or life, Anders? And would not the employer be the one to ascertain what happens to such a thing, regardless?" *Keryth steps forward, taking the rope and holding it out towards the Grand Duke.* "It is yours."

Anders stares at Keryth, and then stares at the fox, and then stares at the rope, and then feels the holes in his shirt with his fingers. He seems to remember Klein's scream as the Waxen-Thing laid him out.

In the end, Anders doesn't say anything. He turns away from Keryth and the fox, shrinking into himself, and begins weeping softly. Helmut spits to the side, disgusted, but without Anders backing him up, he's not willing to continue instigating a fight.

## Bravery

Of the other remaining workers, Anders just hides under the cart.

Anders leaps up, inspired by a fire to resist that he feels burning in his chest. He snatches a waterskin from the cart and dashes as close as he dares to the Voice of Conviction.

"Ahhhhhhh!" he screams, splashing as much water as he can at the Voice of Conviction.

Helmut stands ahead of the workers to address them.

"I don't fear some sticky red ground-goo. We should take the path of stone, where there might yet be some riches to loot. It would be easier to bring the cart down a paved path as well."

Another worker, Anders, cheers in response to this.

## Greed

Meanwhile, Anders has crept over to the shattered remains of the Marble Sailor, and has pocketed a large piece of it that was not especially damaged.

## Legacy

Similarly to how Silvius planted orchid seeds on the way to the Tree of Winter, Walking Orchids have positioned themselves within sight of each other and stand in silent reverie on the path. Each of them seems to have once been one of the stakes that Joachim, Helmut, Theo, and Anders hammered into the soil at one point during the earlier phase of the journey.

## Connections

**A woman in navy blue** is standing in front of the Inn, taking in the façade and conversing with two familiar faces - **Helmut and Anders**, the former workers who helped build the Lampway on Silvius's first trip. Gespenst nods at her. "That's Ethelinda." Ethelinda wears a veil-like hood, and her long hair frames a large nose. Bearded Anders and thin-faced Helmut stand taller than her as they salute Silvius.

## Post-Forest Career

"The manor has been temporarily evacuated for now, Reisu. One of the Company captains has secured it with some of our employees.

"As far as I know, no one is lost inside. Do not worry about getting lost on the way, we will deliver you to the door by carriage. The Captain in question is named Anders Sfarr. You'll know him by his bushy beard if you meet him inside the manor. The company captain, Anders, will brief you on his own more detailed investigations at the site."

Richter tells a brief story of an expedition into crawlspace under a shop in the Market Square. "Ritually arranged hallways, supposedly designed to contain something. "The Thing was still there. We never dealt with it in the end. That was the worst one I've been on.

"Now the new craze is some weird forest. My father went in himself - that's the Captain."

"We are keeping the entire manor under surveillance." Anders explains. "Keeping each other in sight at all times in case something tries to isolate us.

"We're also guarding the owner, you can talk to her if you wish. Her name is Mary Erhalten."

## Death

Moving past the cocoons, Yara and Reisu make it to the last door. It is sealed shut by webs, but the door can be forced open. A man's corpse hangs from the ceiling, his rib cage torn open. Three books cling to the cocoon with new spidery legs, drinking from the exposed meat with shimmering proboscis. The man's beard leaves little doubt of who he was.

"Had the transformation of the books feeding on poor Captain Anders' corpse been complete, maybe new Mary-likes would have been created, dependent on those new versions of the book.

## Burial

There is what seems to be a sarcophagus in this room - a rectangular slab with the stone figure of a human on top. A seam on the side indicates where the lid meets the vessel. The sides of the somewhat obviously human size-coffin are carved with some stylized writing. With some concentration, it is clear the writing is in standard coral. It says: SFARR, over and over.

"Sfarr like the adventuring company?"

"Yes. Or like the man who was killed by Mary."

The coffin has... ...no body? It is full of what appear to be little black stones, and a long blue-and-white coat. Fox fur? The color is very similar to Malephox's ears. There are also three long thorns.

There is a place among the items in the sarcophagus where *something* or *someone* was. But it is no longer there.

## Not-Death

Following her is a similar spidery thing, but even larger, on eight hairy legs. Its carapace is armored in rusted, bloodstained steel. Many-eyed things chitter as they peek out from under his breastplate. A heavy morion sits on his long, untidy hair. A long tangled beard almost hides his new mandibles. The spider-formed Captain Anders smiles and waves at the party as they depart, before drawing his sword to wait patiently.

Mary grumbles as she enters a combat stance. "This battle seems lost. Why defend a Prince in decline?" Captain Anders growls, replying in distorted voice. "It depends whether we can reach an accommodation with the adventurers that slaughtered your first version."

Captain Anders smiles. He disengages and jumps off into the abyss. "Mary was right."