Venno's audience were buzzing. The level of concern for the team members was obvious, especially among fans of Katin and Silas. Venno smiled as he prepared to begin. He could already imagine the coming reactions.
"Back at the Ark, they barely had time to deliver the collection of magazines and other valuable documents to the dawn vault before they found themselves dragged into an assembly. Puzzle Paul was once again pushing the museum, taking advantage of Silas's crushed face preventing him engaging in any coherent argument. Ultimately the Ark decided that they had quite enough projects on the go and didn't need any more right now.
Katin went straight back to her den for some sleep, while Silas attempted to use the first aid kit he'd found to fix his face - with a bit of help from Lenny. He ended up using most of the contents of the box, but got the job done.
That night, Katin had a strange dream. She was outside, surrounded by green grass, with a gentle sun shining down on healthy trees. Flowers were all around her, but somehow when she tried to sniff them, she couldn't make out a scent. Looking around, she saw the elf from the tunnel. Trying to talk to her wasn't helpful, but she was pointing at a wall where there was some writing. Katin couldn't read it. The letters wouldn't come into focus. But there was a picture. A tower with a clock on it. And then a loud bang woke her up, and she was back in her den.
The next morning, everyone felt rather better and got to work. Zippo began working on making some armour for Lenny. Silas went scouting for building the defenses. Quin attempted to work on the pigsty, but lacking the proper tools for digging post holes, she strained her back. Clearly more time reading the Health and Safety manual was required.
Lenny spotted Silas struggling at the defences and went to help, but distracted by worry for both Silas and Katin he managed to injure himself. Meanwhile, Katin decided to try another attempt at training the hunting party in archery, this time using a regular jury rigged bow which they were more familiar with. One brilliant archery training session later, they were ready to go.
As the sacred text said, 'Meat's back on the menu, boys!'
The next day, Katin sought out the others at the Prancing Pony, and told them about her dream. Silas took extensive notes. Clearly she needed to ask the elf about it. But before she could find her, a scream echoed across the Ark.
At the site of the museum, they found the body of Puzzle Paul under some bricks, with his head bashed in with one of the bricks. Gripped in his hands was one of the anti-museum posters Silas had been putting up. Accusing eyes turned on Silas. Paul's face had been crushed - just like Silas's was.
The team rapidly leapt to Silas's defence, by pointing out that he was so hopeless in a fight there was absolutely no way he could have killed anyone, because Puzzle Paul would have kicked his arse. Silas was a coward who once left Lenny to die, not a competent killer. There's no way he could have snuck up on someone because they'd seen Silas try to sneak and he was really conspicuous. A reasonably compelling argument, and enough to buy them some time to investigate what really happened.
Lenny promised to keep an eye on Silas, reminding everyone that he was no Boromir or Saruman. Quin had a look at Puzzle Paul's body to see if she could find something to get a scent from. The murder weapon looked like a good candidate, and with some assistance from Katin, Ork was soon on the trail. Noses to the ground, the two of them tracked down the real culprit.
The young man's name was Archie, and he'd never been known to cause trouble in the Ark before. He was sitting in the ticket office, covered in blood, and repeating the words, 'the voices made me do it'.
Katin went to get the others, while Quin stayed with Archie. He didn't seem to have even noticed her presence. She did her best to get through to him, but it seemed he was too far gone. Zippo's attempt to slap some sense into him when he arrived didn't even register with him. Finally Lenny's imposing presence got him to talk - although he was still talking mostly about the voice in his head. He'd been hearing it for two months, every day, telling him to kill Puzzle Paul. And with that he retreated into himself again.
He obviously needed some help, and the Seven Sisters seemed like the best option. Silas hung back, not wanting to get thrown under the replacement bus service. Zippo explained things to Briktoria. She agreed to look after Archie, on the condition that they were paid for their services. After some further persuasion and bribery, she was convinced to go out and tell everyone that Silas was not the killer, cementing the work the team had already done. Silas was off the hook - even though the nickname 'Staircase Silas' seemed to have stuck.
Silas headed for the Dawn Vault to look at the artefacts, where he was rather annoyed to discover that the other chroniclers were planning on naming the museum after Puzzle Paul. Katin went looking for the elf, who was no longer staying at the Dawn Vault, but had integrated herself with the group from the Misty Mountains and was currently staying at the Prancing Pony. Rather to her surprise, she found them reading a book.
The book was called Travels With Asterix, and unlike the Ark's sacred texts, it had pictures all the way through. It was quite an effort to drag herself away from it, but she finally managed to talk to the elf - even if they were all a little confused about why they called her an elf. Katin told her about the dream, and she did know about the tower with the clock. It was called Old Ben, and she knew where to find it. She drew it on Katin's map of the zone. It was definitely the right place - it looked just like what Katin had seen in her dream.
It was going to be a long walk, into a far more dangerous part of the zone. The elf didn't think they were ready to go yet, and Katin agreed. She would have to scout out the first part of the path so they could get through them quickly when they made the push to the tower, and they definitely needed more food and water supplies. Katin went on her way with the Asterix book on loan.
Katin knew Silas would appreciate the book, so went to visit him. His eyes lit up at the sight of it. She explained that she knew he'd had a rough day, and thought he might appreciate it. Even with his access to the Dawn Vault he'd never seen anything like it. They passed some time turning the pages. Katin might not be the most empathic of people, but Silas was starting to feel better all the same."
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