A fresh start

[Robbo]

Gunter lets Searos have his water while quietly ordering another one with a wave.

"Tell me more about the smugglers...where do you think they're from?"

[Jenara]

"Good luck? Isn't luck what you make it?" she grins, putting the small knife she carries on the table. "I suggest if you are hungry, you get some food, or you may find the alternative painful."

"And yes where are these smugglers sailing from?"

[The_Muffin_Man]

Searos eyes Brax for a moment, chewing thoughtfully but then heads up to the bar to order his own breakfast and an ale to wash it down.

"Well, it seems there's an inlet that feeds into this town. If there are smugglers, they come during a double new moon or when there is little light at all. It would take some decent seamanship to get through the inlet without sight but nothing impossible. The man I spoke to seems to think that none of the sailors has helped out the smugglers on account of none of them acting strange but he did seem to think that someone has probably given them instructions. I guess you could get a fairly big ship through that inlet with some skill and nobody would be the wiser."

[Jenara]

"Interesting, so they have their own sailors..." She bites on a small piece of fruit and sits back in the chair.

[The_Muffin_Man]

"Right. They have their own sailors, but they probably still have a benefactor of some type around here. Maybe someone with some sort of sailing experiance. There's also a possibility that the smugglers have some sort of nautical map. I wonder if someone around here would have something like that that has gone missing."

[Jenara]

"Well linton is a creepy old man that likes young girls that don't fight back but he's not guilty i think." she sips her water. "Who would have the ability and equipment to pull this off? I wonder what the others found? Amon mostly."

[Stik]

"I always say 'Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.' No. Wait, that's not me. That's somebody else. I say 'Fortune favors the lucky.' But I love weddings. Are we gonna get invited?" he frowns briefly. "I didn't think so.

"But of course there is an inside man in town. That's how smuggling works. What we need to do is shake things up until our bad guy drops out, like a coin from a piggy bank.

"You know, in tricky waters it is not uncommon for a ship's captain to lay up his vessel a few miles offshore and have a local pilot come aboard to bring the vessel into port. We might want to look for someone like that. Some local native who has experience sailing blue-water vessels. Or we might just look at whoever in town has more money than his peers."

[HorizonsDream]

Echo storms into the inn. It was likely she just woke up in a foul mood, but she didn't seem like she wished to talk about it. She sits down at one of the tables near the rest of the group quietly.

[Robbo]

"I know the chances might be slim, but what are the odds that after discovering their hideout, we've chased these smugglers off? I'm not much of a criminal, which is probably why I'm poor as dirt, but if I were them, there's no way I'd still be working out of this location with this much heat on me. Unless it was for something very important."

[Breila]

Kim arrives shortly after Echo, just in time to hear Gunter's remark. "We might have chased the land-based people off, at least those who are not part of the town population. But they might not be able to communicate with the ship that brings the contraband before it arrives, so there is a chance that the ship will come for the next meeting."

[JadedDM]

"Sounds like we should have some kind of contingency then," Amon adds as he arrives with the other two mages. "It seems rather foolish to just hedge all of our hopes that somehow the smugglers haven't received word that Sanbalet and his men were chased off. Because if they have been alerted, we're just wasting time, sitting here waiting for the new moons."

[Jenara]

"And good morning to you Miss Sunshine." Brax giggles, "I think that map is they key, we find out where it leads and we go there." She states plainly, ignoring the strange Jester.

[The_Muffin_Man]

"I have to agree with Bright Eyes. Regardless of whether we've chased them off, we still need to actually go to them at some point."

[Breila]

"What could the means of communication have been between the land-based smugglers and the ship?" Kim asks the group. "Do you remember the enchanted window on the upper floor that had the good look over the bay? There was a lantern standing on the window-sill, maybe that was used"

[Jenara]

"You have mentioned this before Kim, I believe you may be correct, however I am unsure where it gets us." Brax frowns and sits back in her chair.