Peek: Under the Sea (Patreon)

It's been a long time since any outsiders came.  Only the adults remember what they look like in person.  The children, and the teens, only have tales to go on, and even those tales are whispered.  The Captain doesn't like talk of the outside... and the First Mate doesn't like when the Captain is unhappy.

He's unhappy right now, but there's not much the First Mate can do about it at the moment, thankfully.  The dwellers have been feeling it for a while now, and have finally gotten the Captain to concede the point.  The mana flows have been slowing, the fish spawners have been slowing as well.  They need to venture outside to eat, if Captain Hullbreak is to avoid starving.

The situation had been... unpleasant, but at least sustainable for a while.  Things had even started to improve when the seagulls discovered a new dungeon in Fourdock!  The raids didn't make endless mana, but they were bringing in some.  That, combined with the raids on Neverrest, had the Captain in a good mood.  And then Neverrest was subsumed.

The graveyard dungeon never did have much of an answer to the seagulls, and so was a good source of mana.  But the new dungeon has ravens, and they are very good at dealing with the gulls.

The Captain tried rationing, and even letting some nodes wither, but even the First Mate had to admit that something had to change.  And so the dwellers were allowed to venture out, but not without limit.  Only a select few are allowed out, and only away from the shore.  They can hunt and fish deeper in the ocean under the watchful eyes of the First Mate.  The great white shark keeps an eye on the merfolk whenever they're outside, and is not above dragging someone back home if she doesn't like what they're doing.

Yendo is careful, though.  He remembers what life was like before the tragedy... when his wife was still with him and his son.  Like the others, he mourned the loss of life, and he mourned for Captain Hullbreak.  The dungeon took the losses harder than anyone, and in the merman's opinion, the Captain has gone mad.  He holds tightly to the merfolk, terrified of losing more, not knowing he's in danger of losing them for suffocation.

And so Yendo has been planning and waiting.  The first step was to tame a seagull.  That part was easy.  Step two has been much more difficult.  He needs paper, and seawater is not friendly to paper.  But with a gull, paper can be kept out of the reach of the waves and of the First Mate.  It took Berl, the gull, a week to find a good place to hide some paper, and a few more weeks to actually find paper to hide.

Then he just needed to wait for the right moment.  Ink and something sharp to write with aren't too difficult to find.  Urchins and squid abound beyond Hullbreak.  He just needed to find both while the First Mate was distracted.  Finally, he's found the chance.  A large school of fish has been spotted, and the merfolk want to get as many as possible before they wander off.  So more merfolk are out hunting, stretching the First Mate's attention thin.

Yendo takes his chance and maneuvers to the far side of the school from the great white, and then takes off.  He waits to feel the teeth of the First Mate, to be dragged back... but she doesn't seem to notice him leaving.  He slows slightly, conserving his energy for the swim to his goal.  He breaks the surface and calls for Berl and the paper, and soon he writes a hasty and messy note.  While the delvers often talked about messages in bottles, Yendo can't risk it drifting back into the Captain's territory.

All he can do is put the note in Berl's beak and hope for the best.  The Dungeoneer's Guild should is marked on the large map, and the Captain does his best to keep it up to date, so at least Yendo knows where to send Berl.

He hurries back to the fishing grounds, an excuse already prepared.  He saw a large fish and gave chase.  He didn't realize how far he had gone until after it had gotten away.  He likely won't be allowed back out on a fishing trip for a while, if ever, but he had to take his chance.  The Captain needs help.  Despite these long years, none of the merfolk want to see him hurt, and yet he hurts himself constantly to try to keep them all safe.

If anyone would know how to help Hullbreak, it'd be the Dungeoneer's Guild.