Early morning and Cass has been hanging with his guardsmen mates in the palace's outer grounds. He keeps an eye on the dungeon grates beyond the gallows but sees no sign from Sycthe. As the suns have come up and the chance for rescue seems passed, he leaves with a heavy head.

Sycthe awakens to the noise of the prisoner next door being moved. She catches a glimpse of a very poorly looking man with grey skin thread with horrible veins and bulging eyes. A firefly type creature that was on her cell wall follows his removal. A guard arrives and nervously reads a dictat that Sycthe is to be executed when twin suns Reth and Keth reach their zenith.

The resources of the Palace Library are made available to Dextrin, Polly and Kalen to research their upcoming mission. Keepsie the old Librarian gives them a faded map of the Valasa islands and a picture of a horobob monkey he copied from an encyclopedia. He also excitedly entrusts them with a curious old scroll written in an incomprehensible language with an ornately decorated illustration of a monkey in the corner. He has no idea what it is but assumes that as they are off to find a magical monkey he would be interested to see if it they can reveal the nature of the scroll. Keepsie suggests they make use of the morning as he expects their captain will want to set sail before the fishing boats return to the docks at lunch to unhaul the morning's catch.

Polly goes shopping in the market for hunting equipment and buys a net and a few small cages having discovered that the monkey they're looking for is quite small. While shopping she comes across a sparrow that seems to want her to follow. Led once more to the Aphrodisia house she again meets the wizard Lythande who, after hearing the destination of her mission, concernedly lends Polly an etherial short sword.

Cass wanders the market and buys several strange looking rocks from a curiosity shop. While perusing other stalls he comes across Nate who has a crowd gathered to hear one of his exciting yarns (attached). Cass stops to listen and watches the audience gasp and cheer in appreciation. He knows that his old friend will have a purse full of soldats and a belly full of beer before he leaves. But after listening to the story, Cass wanders just how much the Governor is paying Nate to sail those particular waters once more. Cass's musings are interrupted as a firefly type creature lands on his shoulder where we can see it is in fact a winged ghecko fire elemental. Cass helps it into a jar filled with rocks which glow as the creature lands on them. Cass puts his ear to the glowing jar and then abruptly gathers his belongings and starts off towards the palace.

Sycthe ties some cloth onto the bars in the grate but she suspects it's too late to get a message out. She takes the lock on her cell door in her hand and whispers a spell. Then she scratches a circle around the grate in the outside wall with one of her sharp claws and sits crosslegged to meditate.

Dextrin rushes off to the mages' guild to find his chum Alexin who he pulls out of a lecture on divination to show him the mysterious scroll. Alexin arranges to meet up in an hour once he's had a chance to research the scroll. Dextrin waits in the guild's enourmous and ornate Library of magic where he searches through the potions section, trying to find any recipies that require monkeys. But potions is not Dextrin's forte and it's like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Cass arrives at the Palace grounds and heads for one of the guard houses but then he sees Scythe's sign. He uses his authority, reputation and guile as a hell hound to gain a five minute private audience with the prisoner. Sycthe explains that as she is to be executed, she has rusted the lock on her door to prevent it being opened and has weakened the grate in preparation for an escape. But she says she is not strong enough to pull it free. Cass tells her to wait for his signal and leaves. Once he's long gone, Sythce intimidates one of the guards and commands him to give a message to the Visier that if he will not grant her an audience when she seems at his mercy, then he will listen to her when she returns in strength. The terrified guard mumbles she should be praying to her Gods and remains at his post.

With a large crowd gathered in the outer palace grounds for an exciting execution, Cass takes advantage of the commotion to tie a rope between the small cell grate and an ox in the gallows market stalls without being drawing attention. He whistles to the watching Scythe and wacks the ox on the hind with a pitch fork before dissapearing into the crowd.

Inside her cell Scythe rises up towards the guards and spreads her arms to look as impressive and ghastly as possible as the room fills with dust and the late morning sunlight which casts a wicked sillouette into the eyes of the guards making it look like she is casting powerful magic. By the time they realise there is a hole in the wall she has leapt threw it. In horror they struggle with the rusted lock before raising the alarm.

Nate is preparing his ship for departure but notices a large rip in one of the sails. He shouts curses and disappears back to the market.

Dextrin has been waiting for Alexin for an over an hour and is worried he is going to have to leave without the scroll when Alexin arrives at a run with an excited look on his face. He explains that the scroll is indescipherable, but he has managed to find out that the reason for that is that it is written in a dragon script. He laments that he has no way of keeping in touch with Dextrin on his travels but Dextrin decides not to risk talking about the Vizier's mirror and after grabbing the scroll, leaves at a run to get to the docks. As he passes the centre of the city he notices a poster advertising today's midday execution of a witch and wishes he had time to attend.

All the crowds eyes are on the gleaming gallows and the main gate to the dungeons and no-one notices the dark figure hurrying along the the shadow of the stone walls. Sycthe is grabbed out of nowhere by a strong soldier but she realises with relief it is Cass who leads her down an external passage to the far side of the outer grounds where they nonchelantly but hurriedly make their way to the main outer gates. All hell is breaking lose behind them but Cass is nodded through the gates by the guards and they start off towards the docks without looking back.

Nate returns to his ship with sail cloth and extra bone needles and then himself and his first mate Baglin set to work on the repairs.

Polly arrives at the docks in time to see a hooded figure approach the Miranda. At first the crew seem to shake their heads in disagreement but the figure produces something from his belt and the crew seem to change their minds and welcome him on board. By the time Polly reaches the vessel the figure has dissapeared below deck. She introduces herself to the crew and is welcomed on board although Nate explains they might not be sailing for a couple of hours while they make repairs. On the horizon, the fishing boats can be seen making their way back towards the docks.

Dextrin is not far behind and seeing Polly board the Miranda he hurries toward the same ship and climbs up.

Sycthe and Cass arrive at the ship almost running but she stops in her tracks when she sees the name of the boat. She recovers and Cass helps her on board as Nate explains that they won't be sailing till later in the afternoon. Overhearing, Dextrin complains that he could've gone to the witches execution after all but shuts up and decides to go below deck after a sharp look from the dust covered and hooded female stranger who has just arrived. Cass leaves her on deck and ushers Nate into the captain's cabin. He calmly explains the situation. I.e that he is respnsible for the rescue and harbouring of a prisoner who is in fact a powerful witch, the same witch that was dragged from the Vulgar Unicorn. Nate listens gravely, then abruptly stands. He takes down a bottle of rum from the cupboard, swigs three massive gulps, before striding onto the deck and ordering the crew to prepare to set sail immediately. The crew look at each other in suprise, then nod their heads and set to the task.

While Scythe is on deck looking back at the city she spots an enourmous looking armed man decorated in the colours of the royal court running towards the docks shouting at the Miranda not to cast off. Sycthe stares at the man intently and strange black ink-like snaking lines appear on her neck and begin swirling down and encircling her arm. A soppy looking old dog is whimpering at her from the behind the ships main mast but she doesn't notice. She raises her hand to point at the stranger. But as the man approaches the ship, Dextrin and Polly call out that they weren't going to leave without him. Sycthe lowers her hand and the markings quickly dissapear. Kalen hurriedly leaps on board with one massive bound, apologising just as the crew cast off.

With Nate at the helm the Miranda sails out of Sanctuary's harbour and into the glare of the twin suns.