In the morning, while some Heroes were seeing to personal matters, a day bazaar was taking place on the Haberdashery. There were “magical” goods for sale, an opportunity for Heroes to fix some of the good that were broken in the warehouse at the night bazaar, a blacksmith looking for help testing their wares, and an enigmatic individual from Nim named the Thread Count who generously flaunted their wealth throughout the bazaar.
Some Heroes worked with Gwendolyn to make shells for Geoslugs so that she could retrieve special gems from them for a project her husband is working on. Around dinnertime the slugs, complete with their new shells, were united with their Heroes.
The watchmaker Himastin returned to the tavern but was visibly roughed up. When asked about what happened, he informed the Heroes that the scarf he was won was actually nefarious denizens of the Haberdashery known colloquially as the Sock Puppet Mafia (a group of sock puppet Fashioned running an organized crime ring on the Haberdashery). They had disguised themselves as the scarf in order to infiltrate his workshop and had stolen the pocket watches that the Old Heroes had commissioned him to make. Luckily Himastin brought a private eye from the Haberdashery to investigate the exact details of what happened. Eugene and his assistant Joan were on the case and led the Heroes to Himastin’s workshop. Upon entering, they found two Hat Skeletons (skeletons wearing hats) destroying and collecting evidence of the crime that had taken place. When confronted, the hat skeletons booked it to The Travail. While some of the Heroes fought the hat skeletons to recover the evidence they had taken, others worked with Eugene and Joan to solve Sock Puppet Mafia cold cases to gather more evidence. With all the evidence collected, it was organized into clues that led to the discovery of a sock puppet-sized note about a handoff to the buyers of the pocket watches that night. When Himisastin heard about this, he ran off with a spark of inspiration, telling the Heroes he would return and knew exactly what to do about the meeting.
Over the rest of the afternoon, posters were put up looking for a lost student from LLAFEE named Bradicus who had gone missing, a dinosaur wrangler needed help retrieving eggs, and a haunted zipper factory on the Haberdashery needed to be cleared of its evil presence.
Before dinner a representative from Midnight Accordia named Lilt visited along with a denizen of a world known as The Grid. Lilt informed the Heroes that they would be playing a game against this person to try to win the Brick that they need to attract a new Hedgewinx. The game was called Brick or Sheep and groups of Heroes played until they were victorious and received the Brick they needed.
At dinner, Captain J.H. Windy from the Navigators’ Guild visited and talked with Heroes further about forming crews, acquiring ships, and potentially joining the guild.
Towards the end of dinner, Himastin returned with a basket full of materials. His plan was for the Heroes to infiltrate the Sock Puppet Mafia meeting that night incognito, disguised as sock puppet Fashioned. The Heroes would need to craft their own disguises and, while wearing them, wouldn’t be able to do much more than talk. Many sock puppet disguises were made.
When the time came for the meeting, Himastin guided the Heroes to the meeting place on the Haberdashery. In attendance were numerous Sock Puppet Mafia members including, but not limited to, Jafar, Jamie, Edna, Ghola, and Stoolio. As Happy Birthday was being sung to Jamie (it was her birthday) the buyers arrived: The Declination. The “Heroes” of The Declination were unimpressed with the pocket watches delivered by the Sock Puppet Mafia; something was wrong with them and they weren’t in working order. In a grisly scene they degloved one of the Sock Puppet Mafia members to send a message about how serious they were. The two Declination members left and the remaining Sock Puppet Mafia members began conspiring with the Heroes on what could be done. Just as they were deciding to make counterfeit pocket watches and pull a fast one on The Declination, another Declination “Hero” showed up. This one was a sock puppet Fashioned piloting a construct and seemed to be more familiar with the Sock Puppet Mafia personally. He took 3 of the 4 pocket watches and said that the would be back once the rest were working. Until then, he had business to take care of on The Travail. With that, he left.
While some Heroes worked with the Sock Puppet Mafia to craft the counterfeit pocket watches, others went after the Declination “Hero” now wandering The Travail. This sock puppet necromancer was inquiring about ways to get into The Travail’s vaults so that he could visit his old vault. Similar to the prior visit from The Declination, this person was seemingly an ex-Hero of The Travail as well. He also claimed that his brother was a Hero of The Travail as well and has not joined The Declination. When pressed for more information (including his name), the “Hero” taunted that Simon was the one to ask if they wanted more information and, if there were things the Helpers weren’t telling them, that they needed to reconsider what they were doing on The Travail in the first place. Once defeated, the necromancer escaped through his construct, assuring the Heroes that he would return with his “real” construct in the future.
With the pocket watches recovered from The Declination and the counterfeits made, the Heroes cemented their curious partnership with the Sock Puppet Mafia, being owed a favor from them for helping get The Declination off their backs. Himastin returned and took a look at the pocket watches, saying that he would need a little time to examine why they weren’t working.
A few Heroes received missives via Sending, including a letter addressed to the Heroes as a whole from Hutilion. This was a follow-up to the letter received the prior Fall about how the world was in the process of being destroyed by an event known as a Chronosplit.
Some Heroes were able to follow the leads from the prior gathering about the location of Process Manuals in The Travail’s vaults. They were able to retrieve the manuals but not the Material Troves stored in vault 43R, allowing Heroes to work towards further Artisan specializations.
At the end of the night, members of the LLAFEE student group Drinks of Infinite Knowledge visited the tavern to invite folks to join them for a ceremony they were performing. The ceremony went awry and some of the student participants turned into monsters and had to be defeated in combat. The students had personal items they were using in the ritual that were recovered by the Heroes, including Cabhair Tears, needed for attracting a new Hedgewinx.
