As we come back ashore, the Harbormaster greets us and professes his thanks for saving the town from the river trolls. He says that he will pass on this information to Prince Hauptner and perhaps there will be a reward, but not right away.

He also offers us free room and board in the town for tonight as well as free docking fees. Jean makes sure that we are put up in the Shooting Star, which is the nicest place in town and also the place that turned us away when we first arrived. The maitre d is not happy to see us, but the harbormaster explains the situation and he smiles through his teeth at us and bears it.

Jean orders the most expensive thing on the menu for dinner and requests the finest room and sheets. Tobruk takes a bath and gets it all filthy. Jean steals the terry cloth robe from the room when we leave.

We begin looking for a boatman who can handle our boat to take it up the river, and we find an older man named Gottfried Schmalls. Geeves speaks with him and he agrees to come to our boat and check it out. He thinks that it is river-worthy and we would just need to get rid of the stage. We offer him 100 gold for 2 months. We will get him and all of his crew, which includes Diego Calabria, a Tillian; Giles Simone, a Britonian; Udo Richter, an Imperial; Silvia Batanero, an Estallian; Vera Holz, an Imperial. Vera appears to be Gottfried’s first mate. He will help us load up our barge and fix up the landing area a mile from our keep as a trading outpost.

Gottfried also mentions that we may have some caverns under the area of our keep that we could use for smuggling and storage. We will have to deal with “the Boss” as she may try to extort us. Schmalls agrees and he says that he will tow his boat behind ours.