Synopsis[]
Late in the evening, Bonathan Ramshackle visits Montaine DeVue, who invites him to stay for a delayed dinner. Ramshackle declines at first, and as he reports on the progress of his new adventuring party DeVue continues to offer his hospitality. His comments suggest he is aware of the fate of Ramshackle's last party, and complicit in keeping it quiet from the rest of the city. Ramshackle explains that he has arranged a sort of test - sent them after the Xorn. If they return, they will have proven themselves and eliminated an obstacle in the process. If not, they're no worse off than when they started.
DeVue compliments the shrewdness of the plan, but asks why Ramshackle has so little faith in the new crew. Ramshackle admits that he sees promise in the witch lad and the healer, but is concerned about "the Osprey girl".
At this, DeVue's countenance flashes with surprise - a deeply uncustomary expression, for him. His dinner invitation becomes a certainty as he issues a magical order into the night rain and insists that Ramshackle stay for dinner to share every detail about his plan.
Finding themselves unexpectedly under attack in their hotel room, our heroes leap into action - or, at least, Odion does. Cal and Weevil are dead asleep, and Flo is too thoroughly occupied with her own irritation at being in this situation at all to register the wholly foreign concept of danger; to make matters worse, none of these conditions is remedied by Odion leaping into the room through the window, shattering the glass in his wake. It does, however, alert the intruders, who determine that since he inconveniently woke up they now have to kill him - and set about doing just that.
In the time it takes three Angels to clean Odion's clock and stuff him into one of Flo's suitcases, Cal and Weevil are roused from their slumber by Nicholas, Cal's pet woodpecker-griffon. Upon recognizing the same individuals who were terrorizing her parents not a day ago, Cal goes ham(mer) on the group as Weevil tries to draw Flo into the fray, conjuring a couple mirror images of Cal on his way to collect their final party member. Odion, meanwhile, slowly leaks vital fluids into Flo's bespoke wardrobe as memories of an ill-fated encounter with a brown bear - and his mentor's lesson about prioritizing survival over victory - flash before him.
Flo, awake but more irate at being disturbed than anything else, voices her displeasure loudly - though her gun, oddly, seems to have other ideas about how she ought to express herself, pointing at their enemies of its own accord and dragging her arm along for the ride.
Mick starts a fire amid Flo's luggage, hoping to obfuscate what's happened in this botched operation, but as the fire begins to spread the sky opens and for once, rain is a blessing in Basin City as it flies through the broken window and staves off the conflagration. Weevil wields his magic to great effect, blinding Mick's many eyes for a time while Cal fights with characteristic fury and desperation - and, after the head falls off her hammer, with her teeth - at least until she, too, is rendered unconscious.
In the midst of the fray, the battle not going their way, Weevil realizes that the handle of Flo's gun is made of devil horn. Hoping it might yet save them, he urges her to follow its lead as the balcony doors blow open and the torrential downpour extinguishes what remains of the luggage fire. Yelling in frustration, Mick instructs the other Angels to get the map and go - the two people he wanted dealt with are dealt with, at least. They rifle through Odion's things and swipe the map Ramshackle gave him as Mick turns to Weevil, having sprouted a whole new batch of feather-eyes, and overwhelms him with a compulsion, forcing him toward the open window. Weevil, however, not one to miss an opportunity, exercises malicious compliance and fully launches himself off the balcony to land on the taller of the two minion-angels, who holds the ill-gotten map. The two of them plummet through the vertical city toward an alley far below as Weevil wrestles with the angel to prevent him from gaining his composure and spreading his wings.
Just as Weevil disappears out the window, Cal miraculously stirs back to woozy consciousness. Dismissed by Mick, she takes the opportunity to heave the head of her warhammer at him, and Flo blasts him with what has now transformed into a shotgun (she learns the meaning of recoil as they both go flying backwards). Bedraggled and bleeding, but no less determined, Cal lifts the head of her warhammer off Mick's chest and, before he can get up, drops it back onto him as she grimly tells him he's got debts to pay. He's unable to reply on account of his ribcage being crushed.
Weevil continues to fight for his life as he and the angel fall through the driving rain; the other angel gives up his attempt to snatch the map and wings off, and the remaining angel becomes increasingly frantic as they approach the boardwalk at breakneck speed. Just before impact, Weevil plucks the map from the angel's hands and casts featherfall on himself only. His opponent becomes a smear of blood and feathers as he punches through a series of wooden layers, and Weevil takes a somber cable car ride back up to the hotel.
The party reconvenes with more than a little friction and awkwardness - Cal squaring with the realities of adventuring life (though she does manage to secure a deal with Odion wherein he owes her 20 gold any time she heals him), Weevil frustrated at his party's failure to cooperate effectively, Flo petulant about the lack of sleep and the wrongs done to her prolific luggage, and Odion lost in quiet self-recrimination about having failed to anticipate the attack.
It was a *strange* attack, though - not at all matching the read he'd gotten on the angels when they'd met the day before and they were representing one of the less prominent insurers in the city. How did they know he had the map? Why did they want it? Could what it leads to be more valuable than even Ramshackle knows?
Lesson learned, they arrange watches before once again undertaking to rest; Flo, the only one uninjured, takes first watch to work on "minimizing" her luggage - Weevil conjures an unseen servant to help her, but Flo, accustomed to being surrounded by servants, does not even realize that some other force is doing any of the work.
When she does finally sleep, she dreams. She awakens on a hot road, calling for her companions, but only a disembodied voice replies. It tells her it has become aware of her today, and wants to check in on her. It explains that it expected her to have a particular item on her in this place, and she does not, though it's unable to discern whether that's because she really doesn't have it or she managed to leave it at home. Then, it drops the bombshell: she is its granddaughter.