Fish was a little more than annoyed their initial thoughts on this investigation had just been chasing red herrings. The potion stealing seemed to be just a front for something much more dangerous, yet somewhat exciting. How could a bird with a knack for the scientific not be excited about these new suits? Something powered by alchemy? That was something Fish wanted to see.

Of course they nodded along and agreed that this technology was bad in the wrong hands, but Fish knew their hands were the right one. They just had to figure out how to recover one. Fish had plenty of plans and ideas for what they could do with it, but it meant nothing until they had something in hand.

The bird patiently waits outside The Black Spire for whoever will be joining them. Fish is pleasantly surprised to see it's Astrid. They always enjoyed having someone who could take the hits instead of Fish, made the entire job way easier when Fish was not concerned about that.

"Fish has not spotted anything yet, but Fish is sure they are hiding somewhere in here...makes sense. No patrols or watching eyes. Does Astrid want to sneak in or charge in? Fish has plans for both."

The idea of people wearing special suits like an odd suit of armor and drinking juice to make them go berserk interested Astrid enough on its own. First of all, she wants to study the suits themselves and see if she can learn anything from them. Secondly, stealing one of these suits? Oh, she'd steal them all if she could. Thirdly, well, fighting something like that sounds super fun. The question is where are they coming from and who are they supposed to be for?

With Sol City being one of the worst places in Charon in her opinion, it seems like they can't keep things under control. But gods... or... dead gods... She's not excited to be back. At least this time it's with pleasant company: Fish the Sneak! A clever little bird that definitely does not like snakes. She waves to them, and they start motioning with their hands to explain the situation. While she spent some time studying alchemy with Kvasir, the amount of sign language she actually learned and has since gotten to practice is embarrassing. So, she whips out a little notebook and flips through it, finding a few gestures to help her translate.

"Ah, erm... sorry, I only caught about halfa that," she admits. Her reference book doesn't contain as many nuances and gestures as she wishes it did. "Ya... haven't seen nothin', but this is the place? And we can... get in. Somehow." There's embarrassed pain on her face. "I'm willin' ta do whatever. I've got a potion that'll make me silent fer a few minutes, so if ya wanna sneak in, we could probably do that then start bashin' 'em from inside!"

With her track record, there's no silent entry AND exit.

---

SPOILER: Click to show

Quest Name: Chug Chug (Golden Consortium)
Participants: Two or more (Only guild members get the reward)
Location: Sol City
Post Requirements: 6 post per person, 200 words per post
Reward: +1 Renown
Description: We have a problem. Turns out all those illegal potions being crafted had a purpose. Someone is using these concoctions as physical enhancers. We are not really sure what for, but we received a tip describing how someone will climb into a strange suit with a helmet, and then drink this concoction, making them go crazy. We need to learn more, and luckily the guild has identified a warehouse in the slums that is supposed to have a shipment of these potions. We need you to go in, and record as much information as you can, even getting your hands on one of the potions if possible. Please be careful, for we don't know what they are doing or how dangerous it is.

Astrid was one of the few people to quickly earn Fish's respect, so as a courtesy Fish does slow down their hand signs from here on out to give her a bit more time to understand what is being said. At the very least Fish sticks to more common signs to at least get the gist of their message out.

"Fish would prefer sneaking at first...Fish does not want to get ambushed by the armors in there....but if Fish can get in and steal some notes, Fish might be able to learn how to operate the armors....That is when Astrid and Fish can have what Fish has been told is called...fun."

They were asked to retrieve some of the suits, but that didn't mean they couldn't give them a test drive first. Besides, what could be more useful in a scientific endeavor than first hand experience? Sure they would steal all the notes and stuff, but then they could wreck this place and the guys stealing the potions and also potentially commit small acts of vandalism and/or property destruction.

"Fish can go in through a window and unlock the door whenever Astrid is ready."

There's visible relief on Astrid's face when Fish slows down so she can interpret better. "Thanks," she says with a smile. Finally able to pick up most of what they're putting down, she looks at the warehouse. "Sneakin' sounds good ta me. Once ya get the door open fer me, I'll drink the potion that keeps me quiet, an' I'll try an' get a good look at the suits or steal one." Her eyes cut back to Fish.

"But first, let's scope it out!" With that, Astrid makes a little motion with her hand that magic seems to follow, and beside her a spectral elven woman with long flowing hair and a tattered dress manifests. "Fish, meet Melodia. Melodia, this is Fish. They can't talk aloud, but they can do sign language!" 

Melodia looks around at the situation then gives the little bird a kindly smile. "Hello, Fish. It's nice to meet you. Astrid's been working hard to learn sign language so she can understand you."

"Melodia!" Astrid squeaks, embarrassed. 

In response, Melodia giggles slightly. "So, shall I scope this place out for you or join one of you?" 

"I think a quick look around could be good," Astrid says. "That way Fish knows what ta be careful of when they sneak in." 

"Very well, be back soon," Melodia says before fading from view. While she's gone, Astrid tucks her notebook back in her bag. She has nothing to be embarrassed about, but she is anyway. Typical 12-year-old behavior. After a few minutes, Melodia manifests near the two of them again. 

"Alright, I saw a handful of people inside. There's an office along the catwalk up near the second floor with someone inside looking over paperwork. Most of the rest of them are handling some kinds of crates of potions and preparing for some sort of test. There's two bruiser types of fellows patrolling. One is on the catwalk, and the other is on the ground floor." Melodia looks between the children with a motherly warning stare. "I'll help keep an eye out for both of you as you sneak in." 

---

Call Ghost [post 1/3]

Fish nods and watches as Astrid summons a ghostly spirit. So ghosts do exist. Fish pulls out a notebook, jotting down 'ghosts are real and can be summoned' before tucking it back in their pouch missing the embarassment of the half dwarf.

They patiently wait for Melodia's return, rocking on their talons. Fish is great at stakeouts, but they are a terrible stakeout partner. Their natual inclination is to respond to others, not intiate conversation, so small talk is almost a no-go for them. On top of that if someone does end up engaging Fish in small talk it is either painfully boring or incredibly bewildering.

Fish nods at the information and flicks their hood up to conceal themselves. As the bird makes their way into the shadows they quickly disappear into them.^[1] Circling around the building, Fish scopes out another means of entrance....Open windows. At least this group wasn't dumb enough to skip ventilating the place.

The bird is up the wall and into the building in a flash and softly hits the ground without a sound.^[2,3] Carefully and slowly they move in and out of the shadows and around crates to get to the door. They flick out a wrist and lock picking tools slide out from under their sleeve.

For Astrid it's about five minutes of silence and waiting. That is until the front door quietly drifts ajar. It isn't much, but it's enough to slip in before anoyne notices.

---

<sup>1. One With the Shadows
2. Surface Scaling
3. Silent Step</sup>

The few minutes of waiting for Melodia with a silent Fish is a bit awkward at first, and as much as Astrid wants to see how they're doing, learn a bit more sign language, and prod at what they think of a particular scam artist living with their alchemical mentor, she doesn't. Maybe after the stakeout. 

Once Melodia delivers the information about what's inside, Astrid gets ready to drink her potion and rush in. She watches the door intently, and the five minutes of waiting are full of anxiety. It's not that she expects things to go wrong, she's just half expecting someone to surprise her. The door cracks open, Fish peeks out, and Astrid chugs her potion and runs across the open yard full speed to open the door. She bursts through it without a single sound, everything completely made silent by her potion. 

Astrid motions to Fish to check the offices then pulls out her hammer. Her broken sign language says if she gets into trouble, she's gonna start whacking. Then she closes the door and makes her way between some crates with Melodia to guide her and keep an eye ahead. She's terrible at stealth, but she's excellent at destruction. 

---

Call Ghost [post 2/3]
Potion of Shadows [post 1/2]

Fish pulls a small wooden flask with a match in the side of it and hands it over to Astrid. "Signal with this."

This is one of those rare moments where the size of both of the infiltrators is to their advantage. It's a lot easier to duck behind things and stay low when you're already pretty low to the ground. Fish takes off into the shadows again once Astrid is set.

They quietly scale the scaffolding to get to the second level. It's a bit trickier to hide up in this walkway, no crates to hide behind or shadows to dive into. Fish scans below to make sure Astrid is fine before slinking over to the office.

A little beak cranes up and just over the edge of a window in the office door. There is one person in there and lots of bright lights....What to do? Time to see what these scarab abilities can do then.

There's a gentle golden shimmer to their feathers as they suddenly appear inside the office[1], quickly moving underneath a desk. They flick out their other wrist and rather than lock picking tools a hidden blade appears.[2] They press a small button and a channel opens along the edges with a dull black poison.[3]

Fish first reaches out to cut across the back of the man's calf before jumping a bit and holding themselves off the ground underneath the desk to dissapear into the shadows.

The man growls as he looks under the desk frantically, feeling the wound and seeing blood. "All right you little shite, come out."

Right when the man turns to search the office, Fish drops and stabs the other calf. There's another groan as the man feels both his legs get heavy from the wounds and the poison. The man turns, trying to get to the window, but before he can Fish darts out to get one last cut across the thigh.

There are another step or two the man manages before hitting the ground with a thud. A few of the workers down below look up in confusion before going back to work.

---

1. Spirit Walk
2. Desert Stinger
3. Scorpion's Venom

Fish sure is a nimble little bird, Astrid thinks to herself. Her armor may feel like it weighs nothing to her with how used to moving around in it that she is, but ultimately, climbing things is a bit hard. But that's alright; she doesn't need to do that. 

Looking at the little flask in her hand, she tries to parse what it does. It must be an explosive if Fish left a match with it. But what exactly does it do? Astrid decides she should start with pulling her goggles over her eyes just in case, then she starts skirting along the perimeter of the warehouse. What would normally be clunking and clanking between the boxes is instead only silence. Man, she loves this potion. It doesn't make her be too particularly clever about-

Melodia manifests in front of her suddenly to stop her from proceeding just as one of the men working with crates walks past, then the ghost motions that no one else is coming and to take him down. So Astrid does. She whips around the corner with her war hammer in her right hand and her left hand outstretched, sparking with electricity. The man doesn't even notice her approach, and when she grabs him, his scream is silent, caught in the effects of the potion. Lightning courses through his body, leaving him charged and sparking. Astrid immediately follows up with a solid bonk on the noggin from her electrically charged war hammer. More electricity wreaths him, a silent display of maddening power. 

He falls unconscious from the overload, and Astrid quickly drags him away and out of sight leaving only the smell of burnt hair in her wake. The potion is about to wear off, but she reenergizes the magic keeping Melodia around because an extra pair of eyes is never a bad thing. Hopefully, Fish is alright. 

---

Sun Sparked Goggles
Potion of Shadows [2/2]
Call Ghost [post 1/3] - recast
Storm Lord - paralyzes and does lightning damage
Extended charge - if charged by lightning damage, takes x2 lightning damage next time and is paralyzed

The aviankin slips the keys from the now unconcious warehouse manager to unlock the door and quietly slip out. They drop down into the shadows without a sound before approaching Astrid from behind. Fish gives a little wave to Melodia first so she can silently warn Astrid so as not to startle the half-dwarf by being snuck up on. Fish has become slightly more aware that their ability to just seemingly appear beside people is unnerving to most.



"Fish has the papers, but....Fish doesn't feel like leaving this place standing. Should we steal a sample then burn it to the ground?" Fish motions to the cask, showing they have another of their own. It also shows off the other vials of potions and poisons they have, but the explosives are the main thing.


Between two explosive devices and the massive amounts of energy Astrid's hammer gives off, the two of them could do a lot of damage in a surprisingly quick amount of time probably. There are a few good spots to do said damage too, lots of flammable reagents and things that like to go boom. If they wanted to steal from the Consortium, Fish was ready to show them that was a pretty dumb move.

With one guard taken out, Astrid stands upright and sees Melodia motioning to Fish beside her. The half-dwarf looks beside her and still nearly startles at Fish’s proximity. This bird is very quiet and apparently very quick too. She focuses hard on watching Fish’s hands move to tell her what’s going on. They want to destroy the place? Of course, she wants to as well!

Astrid pulls a piece of paper out of her pack and unfurls it, showing it to Fish. It’s blank. Until words manifest on its surface without Astrid having to write them. ‘I thought we were gonna do that. Didn’t you hand me an explosive? I want to get one of the suits and some of the potions first if we can.’

She glances around at the warehouse. After having done a couple of construction projects in Sky Peak, she has a better idea of where the biggest structural supports would be. After Fish has read the words, a layout of the warehouse manifests on the piece of paper along with some specific areas near support columns circled. Astrid taps it, and more words manifest in an empty space. ‘Can ya set the explosives in these spots? I’ll get the other stuff. If we’re gonna make a mess, we might as well have fun.’

Across the warehouse, the regular murmuring chatter has quieted down. Then someone screams out in a primal rage. It sounds like they started the tests. May as well make a mess of things now!

---

Wanted Poster

"That was meant to be a flare, now we can use it more destructively." Maybe Fish should have been a bit more forthright with the ideas cooking in their brain. A random explosion works fine, but now they can coordinate and maximize the amount of damage done.

They look over to the suits and some of the guards moving about the place. Getting into a suit was going to be hard, but Fish thought of a few ideas that could by Astrid the time she needed. Fish's eyes scan over the map seemingly memorizing it in an instant. Those are good spots, lots of load bearing beams, Fish had really come to appreciate Astrid's on the fly tinkering ideas. It was rare they met someone that thought as fast as they did.

"Three knocks on something to signal to Fish that Astrid is ready to escape and Fish can set off the explosives."

As Fish takes the one explosive back, they duck back into the shadows and head off. Within the darkness, Fish mimicks out a few panicked screams^[1] a few blood curdling calls to get the few stragglers on their side of the building to run over. It still wouldn't be a lot of time, but Astrid would have her chance to get in and steal a suit. As that happens the bird will get busy setting up the explosives where they need to go.

---

1. Sound Throwing

The writing on the sheet changes in an instant to reflect Astrid’s thoughts. ‘Oh, I didn’t know that.’ There’s an embarrassed smile on her face as she offers it back to them and they take it.

Watching Fish pour over the plans she laid out, the two exchange a nod of agreement. These two are about to be Kamille’s chaotic children for sure. In no time at all, Fish disappears into the shadows, and Astrid stands upright again and looks around. She starts to clink along the back wall to head towards the other side where the suits are with Melodia guiding her. The blood curdling screams certainly throw them both off, and they freeze, only to hear confused shouts from the goons near the suits.

“What the hell is going on over there??”

“I haven’t seen Geoff in a minute…”

“Go check on him. I’ve got this.”

Two of the men grab weapons and rush to the corner where the screams come from while one takes a few steps back from the screaming man throwing an absolute fit from within one of the suits. The man in the suit is muffled by the helmet, but if his face could be seen, it’d be evident he’s frothing at the mouth. His arms swing wildly and without rhyme or reason. One arm slams into the man observing the test and sends him flying through a crate.

Bright green liquid covers the man in the crate and mixes with blood pooling from his neck. Suddenly his eyes glow the same bright green, and he starts screaming, but he’s not contained in a suit. He starts ripping and tearing at his shirt until his shirt is gone and his nails are ripping at the skin on his chest.

Oh, that looks bad. No wonder the Consortium wants this stuff off the streets.

"Fish over estimated the competency of the guards here. Fish believed it would take either Fish or Astrid longer to get to this point. The progress has exceeded expectations." They don't quite pick up on the embarassment of Astrid's expression, so the attempt to console her is unintended.

Fish does try to get into a position to see what is happening as well. Their feet cling to the metal grating of an upper walkway as they take out their notebook to scribble down notes of what is happening. Fish had heard of some people taking drugs or potions to go crazy when fighting and not feel pain, but this seemed to go a bit further than any of that. When the notes are taken, they slowly drift down to land near an alchemy station.

They quietly reach over the top and swap a vial before ducking back under the desk and into the shadows. As they do, the man that had been thrown across the room rises out of the crates in a rage.

His eyes seem filled with a blind fury as he flings himself at the two guards who are stunnded in the immediate moment. One begs and pleads for him to stop as the other uses a club to knock the raving man off of him, deep nail rakes down his arm. The feral man's skin bubbles and blisters, but he seems impervious to the pain for the moment. Heavy breaths and pants fill the room as he stares down the other two.

After a scuffle and screaming, there is a moment of quiet as everyone in the room takes stock of what is happening. Two men are affected by the potions with one contained in a suit and the other covered in blisters and boils. The suits might be to protect from injury and to prevent infection from open wounds caused by the side effects of the potion. Either way, both men seem miserable.

The wild man in the suit tries to claw at his own head, stopped by the helmet protecting him. Each scream sounds hollow and metallic because of the metal head bucket. He’s going absolutely crazy, trying to peel himself, but unable to get through the suit containing him. His nails dig so hard at the material that they start to rip off, leaving bloody finger streaks with each attempt to grab at himself.

With someone else in the warehouse screaming, his attention turns in that direction, and like a beast, he barrels over to where the two guards are trying to beat back the test observer affected by the broken potions. Helmet first, he crashes into one of the guards, knocking the man down with a hefty concussion before looming over the others. Before long, the berserker with the helmet and the one from the crates are going at it without tact, rhyme, or reason.

This seems like a good opportunity to swipe one of the suits. Astrid abandons stealth and hiding and rushes over to the testing area where the various suits of metal and fabric hang on a rack. They’re quite heavy and unwieldy, so she only manages to grab one, struggling to prop it up and committing to just hefting it across her shoulder. When she turns, it knocks into the rack, toppling the suits to the ground and creating a loud clatter.

Uh… time to go.

“FISH!! I’M FLYIN’ OUTTA HERE!” Astrid’s wings flare out from beneath her cape, and she blitzes into the air just as one of the berserkers dives at her.

---

Bat Wings [post 1/3]

At this point, Fish has abandoned all curious notions of stealing a suti for their own. They catch a glimpse of how Astrid struggles and know they made the right choice. Her hammer probably weighs 3 or 4 Fishes, so if she was struggling with a suit Fish would be crushed.

They dart towards to door as a static field begins to form around them. Right before they burst out, Fish fires off a bolt encased in lightning that flashes and streaks across the warehouse. The heat of the bolt sparks the ignition fuses of the explosive casks. The pair have about 3 seconds to escape before deep concussive blasts take out the support beams of the warehouse.

Fish keeps running for a good few minutes before they stop to look back for Astrid. They last saw her flying off, so there was no telling where she could be at the moment. Fish wasn't quite ready to just bail and hope she finds them at the Consortium headquarters again. The aviankin scrambles up the side of a building and on to a roof top. If she's flying, this will be much easier to spot. Now they just play the waiting game.