Tanis volunteers for one of the three hiding spots, nodding fatalistically.  Choosing the one closest to where the disembarkation point is likely to be.

"Seems a decent plan.  I'm best up close and personal.  Like a close shave.  Tis what Hairless Hal in the Watch always used to prefer, so clean shaven.  And damn if he didn't look fine and proper.  Lying there in a pool of blood after a stray hiccup made him slice himself in the throat with his razor."

He looks to Thamul and especially to Zifini.  "One day, we take out the Kraken-feeding lighthouse priest.  But I think not today, nor tomorrow, agreed?"

"Alright, focus on the task at hand it is" Thamul agrees. He will join Tanis at the closest spot the next night.

"I'll take that spot," Zifni replies to Selene's suggestion and nods toward a pile of barrels and netting a little further back.

He doesn't appear to have any reply for Tanis.

Selene watches as the others nod in quiet agreement, moving to mark out the hiding places she suggested, crates, coils of netting, rusted crab traps made jagged with salt and time. She sees them glance her way for final confirmation, trusting her lead. That trust settles cold and sudden in her chest.

For a moment, the salt wind catches in her throat.

Gods, what if this goes wrong.
The thought is sharp.
Unwelcome.
But there.

If the crossbowman misses.
If the timing falters.
If the drow don’t step where she needs them to.

Her mouth feels dry.

They’ve chosen her plan.

She presses her palm briefly against her side, the small weight of the dagger beneath. She draws a breath, lets it steady her.

Then she lifts her chin, smoothing the hesitation from her face like a veil.

"I’ll take the boat," she says, with a nod toward one of the lanternless ships, its hull shifting gently with the harbor’s rhythm. "Low profile. Good line of sight."

Her gaze sweeps across the group once more, this time slower. The positions are chosen. The routes considered. No more planning. 

"We're set."

She turns toward the gangplank without waiting, her cloak fluttering behind her as she makes her way off the dock, back toward the Bleeding Rose.

Warrick looks at the others, "Well I suppose I could take up a position in the back with my range keeper." He patts his crossbow, he was never that great with it, but his farther insisted he learned some forms of self preservation. Warrick was much more thankful for those lessons now, if only he would have put a bit more effort in when he could. "So it's settled then? Time for drinks and quarters?"

"Sounds like a plan, any one up for some axe throwing back at the Bleeding Rose?" Thamul asks with a grin

"Let's get back," Zifni agrees with a nod. He carefully surveys the dock area a final time before preparing to head back to the inn they call 'home'.

He places a hand on his side where the darkling had wounded him. He won't fall so easily next time. Next time he'll fight harder.

Tanis takes a long moment to do a last, slow 360, taking in the entire area, including escape routes, for tomorrow night.  Then, with a final glance out to sea, he turns to join the others through the streets he had mapped back to the Bleeding Rose.

"Aye.  We're set, Dark Sister.  For better or worse.  And axe-throwing could grow on me, Big Man.  Long as tomorrow night, you're the one throwing them."

The gloomy ranger reaches up to clap a hand to Thamul's shoulder as the party wend their way back through Tempest City.  Yet his gaze remains of the thousand-yard variety.  As if staring deep into the inky heart of the storm-cursed metropolis.

Tanis’ voice draws her back.

She turns her head slightly, just enough to catch the tail end of his expression before he looks away. Somehow always halfway between grim and resigned. He says little, but when he does, there’s purpose behind it and tonight, it’s her plan he’s placing his trust in.

She feels it. Not pressure, not quite. Just a quiet awareness that if it all goes wrong, the blame has a name, and it’s hers.

But Tanis wouldn’t say that. No, he’d spin it into one of his slow, allegorical rambles, something about a half-starved cartographer who walked straight off the edge of a map because he was too proud to admit he didn’t know north from the inside of his own boot.

It hits her then, why she always smirks at those stories. They’re not just grim wisdom wrapped in metaphor. They’re also a joke. At least half the time, they’re meant to be. He tells them long and dry, and people nod like they’ve just heard gospel.

She watches him a moment longer.

"Thank you, Tanis."

She says it only in her mind.

Out loud, all she offers as she falls into step beside them is her usual calm nod.

"That's the plan" Thamul assures Tanis while they walk back. He is silent the rest of the way, thinking about the possibilities of physical enhancements, and a lighthouse keeper who shouldn't be a lighthouse keeper.

You get back to the inn yet again without ambush, though the rain hardly lets up at all. It’s late evening now, and Snizgore seems to be preparing to call it a night himself as you come through the door, dripping wet onto his rotten floorboards. He hardly seems to care, just snarls at your reappearance and turns his back to tinker with something under the counter. By the sloshing sound it makes, you could maybe guess it’s a watering can, but you’d never dare voice that assumption near the redcap; he’d likely hold you to the edge of a knife just to maintain his hard-as-nails demeanour.