Dan hurried to the disembarkation point once they got the news that the tender was on its way back. He already knew that all of them were alright, but that didn't help as much as it should have in calming his nerves. Part of him was still stuck on what-ifs and all that could have been.

  Once he got there, he saw that Marcus, Robert, William, and Jackie had beaten him there. Greeting them, Marcus asked him before he could say anything:

  "Is everything ready? Keith and Freddie know what to do once they are in?"

  "All is set." Dan nodded.

  He got what the man meant. With the group returning from the mainland, who knows if there were some eyes on them? Or whether a tracking mark like the one they dealt with before was hidden on the group. So, taking all that into account, they were going to move deeper into the ocean. With the Dynasty having a weaker presence in the deeper waters, that was the best course of action.

  "That's good," Marcus said, he then looked around and added, "Voyager, check to see if there's anything on them, any tracking mark or the like."

  Dan smiled when he saw Marcus address Voyager directly. It was good for people to start talking with her instead of just going through him.

  I will! Voyager said, I was going to!

  "She says she will," Dan relayed, "That she was going to do so anyway."

  "Good."

  They talked some more before the tender could finally be seen as it closed in on their location. After dropping the three old ladies and Luke, Hank waved at them as he went to tether the tender so they could get ready to move.

  "How did it go?" Dan asked as soon as they were on Voyager. "Are you all alright?"

  At the same time, he could feel Voyager deploying her auras and focusing them on the group of five.

  "Don't worry," Mrs Raily said with a smile, "We are alright, and nothing happened. We achieved what we set out to do."

  "Just see if Voyager can find anything on us," Mary said after she was done hugging her husband, "We got a weird piece of paper that might have been something aimed at us, and I'm not sure if there's anything off about it."

  "She's already on it," Dan said, before asking in confusion, "And what was that about a piece of paper? What exactly happened?"

  "At the gate, a guard was handing some paper to everyone who seemed like an outsider and from a far-off place..." Mrs Raily explained all they had been through as she took out a palm-sized piece of paper.

  "So they most likely felt that something was off about you there at the end and they still let you go?" Robert asked after Mrs Raily finished her explanation.

  "Exactly," Mrs Raily said, "It was as if they were told to only keep an eye on people like us, and not to interact with them."

  Dan glanced at Marcus just to see the man giving him a look too.

  "So if the paper is really for us," he started slowly, "We could take this as proof that the Dynasty might be aiming to build some kind of relationship. Their main aim must not have been to catch people like you, just keeping an eye out in case anyone who might be with us appeared."

  "That's one way to look at it," Marcus said, "Well, the easiest way to find that out is to activate that paper. Did Voyager find anything off about it?"

  Dan focused on the connection he had with Voyager again.

  Found nothing, she said, a bit hesitantly, The paper is weird, but found nothing.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  "She found nothing," he updated them, "But she does feel that the paper is weird somehow."

  "I think that we should wait till we are deeper into the ocean before trying to activate it," Marcus said thoughtfully, "What do you think?"

  No one disagreed so they just went in. Dan and Marcus talked with the group, trying to see if they could catch anything that the group might have missed. Of course, they did all that in the Skyline, giving the group a chance to relax and have something to eat.

  "Captain, we are deep enough." Half an hour or so later, Dan was contacted by Freddie through the walkie-talkie. "You can go on. Over."

  After thanking the man, Dan turned to Marcus. At that point, they were almost sure that the piece of paper was truly meant for them. The Dynasty might not have been sure that they were there, but they weren't willing to risk it, so they took this first step just in case.

  But again, that was just what they thought, the truth might be something else entirely. The only way to make sure was to try and activate that piece of paper.

  Of course, they did consider the fact that the paper might be used to lock onto their location, so they had Voyager focus her auras on the paper while they tried to activate it, just in case.

  Getting a nod from the man, Dan looked at the paper in his hand as he read it once again.

  Dear Friends, mention the name of the one to whom you gave gold, to see the rest.

  Dan knew the person that the note referred to, it was most likely Oswin, the head of the black market they were introduced to by Corgan. He was the man whom they had sold their gold to.

  Putting the note down on the table, Dan had everyone step back a bit as he took a deep breath before saying in a loud voice:

  "Oswin."

  Nothing happened, and Dan started wondering if maybe they had been looking too deeply into it and they weren't even the ones the paper was for. But then, just as he was about to close in to see if anything had changed with the paper, a change happened, the paper flashed lightly.

  "Well," Jackie said with a faint chuckle, "I guess that answers it."

  "Voyager felt nothing," Dan relayed what she told him.

  "What does it say now?" Mrs Raily said in interest.

  "Let me see," Dan murmured as he closed in on the paper, finding something he didn't quite expect. "It's another statement like the last one, it seems that they truly aren't taking any chances with this."

  The new statement read:

  Mention the name of your Captain to see more.

  Reading that statement for everyone, Dan took a few steps back before saying again:

  "Dan."

  Just like last time, the paper flashed faintly. Unlike last time though, Dan felt Voyager steer before he could even close in on it.

  Something left it, she said dejectedly, and a bit troubled about how to explain it, It flew away so fast, I couldn't stop it.

  "It's alright, you did your best," Dan first comforted her before saying to the others, "Voyager said that she felt something, it was too fast though, she couldn't react and stop it in time."

  "It's alright, we expected something like that to happen." Marcus just nodded. "What does it say now?"

  Closing in on it, Dan saw that the paper finally had something else. It was filled with tiny writing.

  "It finally showed what was locked away," Dan said then he started reading.

  If you're reading this, then there is a high chance that it's truly Captain Dan and his crew. First, we would like to welcome you to our land, we are glad that you've managed to reach here safely. Second, and to be transparent with you, as soon as the paper is activated, we will know that it happened. We won't know where that happened though, we understand privacy and we respect yours.

  With all that out of the way, we would like to formally invite you to join us as guests, our Dynasty is more than happy to have you as friends. If you are agreeable, please follow the instructions below and you will know the way.

  ...

  Again, and finally, we welcome you to our Dynasty and hope you accept this hand we are extending to you.

  The group fell silent after Dan was done reading the piece of paper, everyone was lost in thought.

  "So that happened!" Mary finally said, "How exciting!"

  "Let's first change our location," Marcus said, "They said they had no way to lock on to us using the paper, but we shouldn't take their word for it. Changing locations should come before everything else."

  Dan agreed, and after arranging for that, he asked the question that must have been weighing heavily on the minds of everyone there.

  "Should we go for it? Try to contact them?"