A Struggling Artist Appears!

Once the initial shock of the group is over, there is definitely some scrambling over the Big Ass Dragon on the ship. Magnus wants to try and calm everyone down but his noises aren't human languages so they mean nothing. He can convey some things with tone, mostly that he's in a lot of pain and not having a great time. Tanya manages to get everyone to calm down instead. Getting everyone to back up/stop crowding the serpent with a serious head wound.

Sinthia is the one that yells about the Silversnake when she sees him, kind of in awe that he's there since she hasn't seen him since she was little. Her awe helps counter the panic from Dirk, who's trying to pull the girls back. Especially when she mentions that the serpent she remembered had never been aggressive.

That helps everyone else chill a little bit, as well as take note of who all is there. And they finally notice who isn't there with them all after Sym and Dirk's scream. Which brings up the question of where their stoic, steadfast captain is right then because he definitely would have come running if he heard any of them scream. (Godrick and Magnus are the only ones who actually know that Magnus is the Silversnake. Tanya only suspects it and doesn't wanna be called crazy for suggesting it.)

Godrick, not wanting to admit what he knows, suggests that maybe Magnus took something to help him sleep and that was why he didn't come yet. It wouldn't be the first time he'd done something like that, after all. It's not a secret that he had trouble sleeping at times.

(Magnus can't decided if he wants to be relieved at Godrick providing cover/an alibi for him or if he should be suspicious about it.)

The reasonable explanation helps calm everyone down enough to talk over a plan to present to the captain once he wakes up. First step: Take care of the wounded beastie they've found on the ship.

Tanya takes command for the moment and start giving orders for what everyone needed to do, with notes from what Sinthia remembers of the creature. She asks Zacharias to tend to the Serpent as best he can, then tells Dirk and Mariana to find a tub or something to load it into to keep it from drying out too much. Wirman points out that putting it in salt water probably wouldn't be a good idea at the moment, so they'd best fill it with fresh water for now. (Because Saltwater + Open Wound = OUCH!!)

They also agree on putting the tub in the Captain's quarters. It's big enough to fit the tub (even with Magnus' desk there) and they can tie it off to some of the old hooks there to keep it from sliding around. Zacharias volunteering to stay up until Magnus left his bunk to explain why there was a water tub with a sea serpent in his cabin.

Once they get there (after juggling the tub and Magnus' noodle body up to it) they find the room unlocked. Which is kinda weird if he's probably sleeping… Didn't he usually lock it when he slept?

Things get shuffled around, the desk and chair getting moved to one side so the tub could be tied in place at the other side of the room and filled with fresh water to keep the creature moisturized.

Magnus is being a tired noodle for most of this.

His head hurts, he's a silversnake again, no one can understand him enough for him to ask questions (or give answers), and he's noticed some things that are concerning but has no way to bring them up. (He was sure he'd locked his cabin. And he'd had the key with him in the storage room, hadn't he? Why was the door unlocked then?)

The trapdoor to Magnus' bunk is open, it's ladder down for any of them to access. Sinthia goes to check on Magnus, initially planning to just stick her head in to see if he was really asleep. For her peace of mind, if nothing else.

The bunkroom is empty. He's not there.

Now there's definitely some room to panic about where he could be.

Tanya, with great hesitation, points out that the serpent had been tangled in clothes that looked like Magnus' clothes. And he wasn't the type to lock a creature in a storage room that was not built for it. Especially on something that was obviously hurt quite badly. It just wasn't like him.

Math is done and they come to the correct (though wild) conclusion.

They figured out why Magnus hadn't come running when he'd heard the screams. He'd already been there for them.

The silversnake was Magnus.

Who was probably concussed, totally blind at the moment, and currently sitting in a water tub with no way to tell them what the fuck happened to him.

Magnus can't decide if he's glad they've figured out who/where he is or stressed over having no control over how they found out about it.

Tanya herds the majority of the group into the parlor to debate on what they should do, leaving Zacharias to finish tending to Magnus' head and then let the mystid rest.

In the parlor, someone remembers the empty cauldron and suggests there was something in it that could be tied to whatever happened. A curse gets floated around until Tanya points out that Mangus wouldn't have let Sym use that room for her magic if there was something dangerous to people in there. Dirk suggests that it got stolen, somehow, and that the silversnake thing was keep him from stopping the thief. Tanya mentions seeing a stranger on the aft deck when she went out after they surfaced and not being able to catch them.

They end on Sinthia hiring detectives to figure out what might have been stolen from the ship. Because she'd read about a pair that had done a case for the Fellows and she remembered that they'd known a lot about the silversnake. They could have learned stuff from them while working on the case there. So maybe the detectives could help them look for how the captain had been turned into one? Then Magnus could tell them what might have been taken from the ship?

Detective Grimoire is called the next day and asked to investigate a robbery and "missing person" case on the Mortuga Submarine. And only part of the case file would be left at the Stonetop Inn, she would give them the rest of it once they were on the submarine.

(Wirman told her not to say that their captain had been turned into a dragon in the call/case file she planned to leave out in the town. Because if someone else read that before the detectives did, they'd think the whole group had gone insane while under the water. And he did not want to be put in a loony bin, please and thank you.)

Grim and Sally, once they arrive, they're given the rest of the files by Sinthia and told that the sub's captain was only kinda missing. They were pretty sure they knew where he was, but asking him what happened wasn't really an option. Which is why they were hired.

Grim asks if Magnus is sick, which Sinthia latches onto harder that she really needed to. Before sending them to look at the crime and talk to everyone else on the sub.

Everyone gives statements, but they're all kinda vague about the state Magnus was in other than "Hurt with a nasty head wound and had to be carried to his Cabin". This vagueness is frustrating for Grim and Sally. For many reasons. Chief of which is that they want to interview Magnus too but they can't if no one is gonna let them talk to him.

So they go back to Sinthia to talk to her about meeting Magnus. She sends them to Zacharias since he's become the unofficial "guard" for the captain's quarters, due to the Dream Chamber being next to the Captain's quarters. There is a momentary runaround as they try to convince him to let them talk to the captain until finally he lets them in.

And they see the wounded silversnake curled in a water tub, lifting his head curiously as the door opens and they walk in.

Suddenly the part about not being able to ask him what happened makes A LOT more sense.

However they are goofy Determined Detectives who want to get at least something from Magnus even if it means getting it via 20 questions and Charades.

They show him a lot of the stuff they picked up during the investigation and try to keep everything they ask to "Yes or No" answers. Mangus is able to emote a little via tone (and some of his noises) so they can get a little bit more, but they can't get anything more in-depth.

Magnus decides they're funny and he likes them. Their banter is amusing to listen to and it's fun to be spoken to completely seriously even though they can't understand a single thing he's actually trying to say.

Stepping out of outline-mode for a second: Due to Magnus being the Silversnake, the sub crew reacts to some evidence differently than they do in canon. Like the little trading collectors journal that's found in the Dream Chamber. The Silversnake Skull goes from a weird thing in the booklet to somewhat unsettling now that their brains can sub in Magnus as the snake. Finding out people are willing to trade in solid gold for the captain's skull is… Certainly a thing to learn. And be left to sit with once the detectives leave.

Magnus reacts to some objects that are unusually shaped, since he can echolocate to get a "look" at them, but anything that needs to be read has Sally/Grimoire reminding each other that he doesn't have eyes so he can't see whatever it is they're trying to show him. If they think it's important, they read or describe it to him instead.

Most of his reactions are nods, head shakes, croons/humming-like noises, huffs/snorts, and at least 1 threatening hiss. (It's the mask that gets the hiss. Grim reads off some of the items (excluding the skull, bc he has some sense) and that's the one that gets the most violent hiss either Grim or Sally have ever heard.)

Magnus' "Secret"/Item thing gets unlocked via finding either the recipe for the Change Brew or Sylvia's journal. That could then lead into the actual Secret of him being the original Silversnake that was brought to Silkwirm by Sylvia and Felicia. That this wasn't just the captain being "cursed" or something, it's more like he was changed back. If it's the brew though… That could offer the chance to make him human again, and give them actual answers for what happened/what he was up to.

Making the brew would take time, so that wouldn't be possibly during the Secret thing but it could be deployed during the Reveal later. But also, if it was done before then, there would be the option of showing him things they remembered him reacting to and getting some actual explanations for why he reacted.

(I only know the bare bones of animations and don't know if I could do a whole bit, but the idea of at least scripting the possible reactions from Magnus as both a snake and a human is just so tempting…)

Yeah... Both options are good and honestly I'm not 100% on which one to use.

Sliding back into Outlining: Throughout all of this, Magnus doesn't actually know that it was Godrick who turned him back into a silversnake.

He strongly suspects that he was the one to steal the mask, but he can't sight more than a gut feeling. Plus, Godrick is still there on the sub. He's sure that, if he'd gotten the mask, he would have called the mermaid and vanished into the deep already. So the fact that he's still around is throwing him off.

Sinthia tries to end the case by sending Grim and Sally off, but this doesn't work (mostly due to lack of forethought about how they could/would leave).

Magnus didn't know that she tried to fire them bc he stayed in his cabin. (Getting to the mess hall is too much work rn, and he's still kinda unbalanced). While they're finally giving the place a proper going over, including hiding in there to open things they couldn't open before, they admit they have a stronger theory about what's going on but they need his help to put the final nails into it.

So he helps give them the final clues they've been missing. Like opening the black box for them, confirming that he'd been talking to someone on Mariana's hidden tape, and signaling where the opening in the floor is hidden.

He stays in the room long enough to listen to them lower the bell to the storage room below and talk through how he got blindsided before he moves himself to the parlor to wait for the final results of their work. The rest of the Sub is surprised to see him lounging there and are definitely wondering wtf made him want to leave the water to wait for them all.

Then the Reveal Begins and there's a lot more to think about.

From the fact that Magnus had originally been a Silversnake, to Sinthia's mom keeping him hidden from trophy hunters (and not telling her that the dude that showed up at the Inn used to be the snake), to the mermaid's tongue being real and on the ship with them (which Magnus hisses/growls at), to Godrick's presence on the trip…

It's a lot.

And there's about to be a lot more.

Godrick clears the air during his confession, from his involvement to the plotting to well… Everything that lead to where they are now. Including admitting that he'd thought Magnus was being forced to keep the mask hidden and may have actually wanted to return to the sea the whole time. He admits, at this point, that he may have been projecting his own feelings without considering the life that Magnus had found/built in the town or on the Sub. (Is there an apology in there somewhere? There might be.)

But now the mask was in front of him, complete once more. The key in his possession. And there's nothing left to hold him back.

The lights go out.

Magnus is already stumbling toward the aft deck when the light comes back. Already sure of what's going to come next and the danger fast approaching with it. They don't catch Godrick in time to stop him.

Godrick uses the mask, leaving behind the repaired compass so they can return to Silkwirm safely. Everyone on the sub escapes with their lives. Let go by the mermaid.

Magnus returns to being human, with no idea where to go now. He knows, at the very least, he doesn't want to keep living on the sub.

What if Magnus was, somehow, the Silversnake?

We know that the Fellows (and the Remingtons/Pointers) viewed themselves as the Experts on Mystids. They felt that it was something that was exclusively theirs and belonged to no one else. Some kind of "Nobody but US is allowed to have these creatures" mindset. (Because of… Pride? Arrogance? Obsession? All of the above?)

That's why, when a bunch of them left Mystid Mansion, they basically gutted the place and took everything with them. Right?

So when the Silversnake got fished up in Silkwirm-On-Sea, the Fellows (minus Felicia) were the ones pressuring the Seafoams to give it up to the "government" for "research" purposes. It was a rare, strange creature with unknown properties, after all! Even if the rest of the town was capitalizing on the hype of having their own cryptid to draw in tourists and business that their little town probably needed.

Sylvia, however, did not want to give up the silversnake. She wanted to keep it! Badly enough that she literally started building an entire submarine with the intention of having her family (or at least herself and her daughter) move into it and live in the ocean with the mystid. She also may know more about the Fellows and Remingtons than they realize she does since she was Felicia's best friend.

Enough to know that they may not want the silversnake for the reasons they claim they do.

(After all, they make a point of mentioning Trophy Hunters in TT and Richard Remington was certainly one in SotS.)

She convinces herself that she needs to protect the snake because, if she gives it up, the Fellows/Remingtons are sure to just kill it and add the body to their trophy collections! She can't let them do that to the poor creature! But she can't just say that to Felicia's dad, even if she's sure it's true.

(She doesn't want to hurt her friendship with Felicia. Although, her friend was more of a Stonetop than a Fellow. She used the Stonetop name far more than the Fellow name. Some people didn't even know she was a Fellow!)

She visits the eatery at the Inn one day (when Felicia was out) and shares her woes with a sailor from far away, but had noticed her mood after she'd had a few and asked what was wrong. An odd but pleasant person who was just visiting for the hubbub, but mentioned that they'll be leaving soon anyway so there was no harm in sharing her thoughts. It wasn't like they'd be in town long enough to spill the secrets to everyone.

The sailor leans back in their seat after she finishes talking, giving her a long, hard look over their stein. Like they were evaluating her deeply for some reason. Then they lean in and, in a low voice so they won't be overheard, ask her for a pencil or pen and some paper.

"I can think of a way to hide your creature that these folks will never figure out. And if they did, everyone around 'em would call 'em mad for even suggesting it." They scribble two recipes out on the paper, one they label 'Change' and the other they label 'Return'. "Hide the beast by giving it the first brew, but make sure you have a story for why no one will be able to find it. When it's ready to go back to how it should be, give it the second."

She takes the papers, figuring "why not?" and goes home. She sleeps off the drinks and forgets about the conversation for a few days.

Then Faustus Fellow comes by and informs her that, in a week, there will be people coming to take the Silversnake from the harbor. (With the full aura of "I am not asking you. I am telling you. And you will listen.")

Suddenly, there is a time limit to what she can do before they'll just take it away. By force, even.

Sylvia finds the brews, remembers her talk with the sailor, and decides "Fuck it, I may as well try." She gathers all her supplies and carefully outlines her ploy before putting everything into motion.

She orchestrates an "accident" at the shipyard with the help of her husband, making it look like something fell and broke the tank the silversnake was in and the creature escaped back into the ocean.

Then she smuggles the snake, in a much smaller tank, into the Inn's basement. She had secured permission to go in while Felicia was out doing something, leaving the Inn basically empty and her free to use it for her "Saving Silversnake" plot. (Felicia figured her friend was up to something, but wasn't asking so she could claim Plausible Deniability if it went wrong.) She makes both brews in the kitchen, so that she can have both on hand if she needed them, and thoroughly cleans up afterwords to prevent anyone from getting clues about her doing something there.

She adds the Change brew to the seawater of the tank, unsure of how else to feed the serpent a bottle of the stuff without risking her fingers, then she sits back and waits for it to do whatever it's supposed to do.

What it does is turn the Silversnake into A Guy.

One that she has to hurridly yank out of the tank to keep from drowning. (She gets smacked in the face at least once and has to deal with the bruise for a few days.)

The silversnake is not handling this well, because he has no fucking idea what's happening. There's this knew thing he's never dealt with before (eyes and sight) that are making his head hurt, his chest and nose hurt from the water (they've never hurt before???), it feels like he's choking on something, everything is muffled and then too loud in his hearing, the Noisy Grabby Thing is being Loud and Panicky and grabbing at him, his limbs aren't working the way they should, and everything is wrong wrong WRONG!

He's laying on something hard and rough, coughing and hacking and panicking. Because what else can he do when he doesn't know what's going on?

He feels stuff being wrapped around him, heavy and scratchy and unfamiliar, the Noisy Grabby Thing making it's noises at him like it thinks he knows whatever it's sounds mean. Then he's hauled up and moved somewhere else. Eventually he's set on something softer, more heavy things wrapped around and thrown over him, before he finally passes out.

Leaving Sylvia to stare at the mystid-turned-man and wishing she'd asked the sailor more questions about what the brews did before they'd left.

When Felicia comes back from her mini-trip, she finds Sylvia with a thousand yard stare in the bar, a random dude she doesn't remember giving a room to wrapped in towels and comforters, and an empty water tank in her basement.

They agree on letting the silversnake stay at the Inn and leaving Felicia to teach him How To Person. Since him staying with the Seafoams would raise questions, and also Sylvia's dealing with the Fellow Inquisition now that the snake has "escaped" from the shipyard. Having him there would be too stressful for all of them.

They also decide to name him, properly now that he's person shaped. After much arguing, they settle on "Magnus Mortuga" as the name they would tell anyone who asked who he was. With the excuse of some kind of illness or head injury for why he didn't know how to do things everyone else knew to do. (It was not very well planned but, well, Sylvia didn't expect her pet dragon to become a guy so-)

Magnus learns quickly, getting to the point of "functioning human" soon enough. It sucks a lot at first, because he can't/doesn't understand them. Noisy Grabby Thing languages never had any meaning before. he'd been a creature living in the dark, quiet depths of the ocean for most of his life. Nothing down there needed to make much noise, never mind the many complicated ones Noisy Grabby Things used to communicate. They made so many noises! All the time! Why would anything need to make that much noise?! He only ever made noises to find his way, but the Noisy Grab- The-the humans… Couldn't do that, apparently.

((I'm assuming that, since the Silversnake doesn't have eyes, it uses some kind of smell/taste/hearing combination to navigate. Much like cave-dwelling Olms do. (Those are a type of cave-dwelling salamander!) I would assume that would explain the use of it's long whiskers, as sensors to help it move through the darkness safely. Echolocation might be unique, but usable in the open ocean though.))

Moving on two legs is hard when he's so used to having more. No tail to balance with, no claws to get a better grip, and they're so… so.. soft and squishy and easy to hurt! He's bumped and fallen so many times and that hurt so much more than he thought it should. Stumbling under the water had never hurt that much! And their hands were so big, even if they didn't have claws.

And eyes! Everything was so much with those! There were things everywhere and he didn't need to echo to know about them! If it was too bright they hurt, too dark and he couldn't move around without falling. They stung in seawater, but he needed them to move because he couldn't hear as good anymore.

It was strange and overwhelming and there was so much happening all the time.

Felicia has a hell of a time getting him to even leave the blanket nest that's become his room, but at least she's able to get him out and doing things. She's basically teaching from scratch for every single thing that went into being a human. Like, all the things they normally learn as small children now need to be taught to a full adult. Thankfully, Magnus seems to be a natural quick-study.

(Is it because he's actually a mystid? Is it a trait of him just being smarter than the average critter? Is it the thing that made him Person letting him learn so fast? Any could be true!)

Originally, their plan was for him to be human until Felicia's paternal family stopped harassing the Seafoams. Then they got attached to their Weird Guy, and he reached the point where he kinda liked being a human. Even if he still got confused by some culture stuff humans insisted was important, like using "money" instead of just trading things they needed.

(Felicia knew the family that ran the Navigation Emporium tried to teach him about the importance of money. She got to laugh when she saw how frustrated they were when it didn't work. The map guy seemed to have fun teaching Magnus about how to read different charts, at least. And she got to see him make at least 1 friend with someone from out of town, too!)

He was the stoic but nice guy who lived at the Inn and helped out there.

Then Sylvia got sick and passed away, leaving her submarine plans and her family behind. Then something went down with Felicia's family and see was deeply upset and determined to do something. Then Magnus took the map he and Felicia couldn't read to Godrick Gripp, so they could find whatever it was she was insisting they needed to find. That this was a trip she couldn't afford to not make.

Magnus didn't understand it. He wasn't sure if not being born a human was the reason why.

Godrick, after deciphering the map, insisted on joining them for the voyage. Felicia hadn't refused, so he'd let the man aboard as a navigator. Felicia finally told him about what it was she was after when the sea gave him clues that there was danger, and his instincts told him they needed to leave. Felicia talked him out of it, insisting that he was being paranoid and that everything would be fine. They went and collected the mask, the eerie green light of it's marker making him far more nervous than he'd ever felt before.

Felicia decided she had to test it before they left. Winding it up with the necklace-key that she'd always had for as long as he'd known her, pulling on the mask and saying… Something while she wore it. He couldn't understand the words, but the tone… Something about it felt familiar.

Then the ship rocked and the Mermaid appeared.

Magnus was a mystid. He was human shaped but, at his core, he was still a silversnake. Something made by the remnants of the Mermaid's birth.

He couldn't speak the mermaid's language. It was just as unintelligible to his ears as it was to human ones. But at least part of what had made her, had also made him. And that meant he could understand the meanings behind her words. The feelings and thoughts carried by her tone.

He could feel a loneliness, a call hoping to be echoed back. Confusion at what it found instead. A lack of understanding behind what it was looking at. And very little thought paid to the small creatures that had somehow called out to her.

Magnus knew the Mermaid wasn't malicious or cruel, but she knew nothing about humans. And had no idea how much harm she could do to them without meaning to. Harm that she does do when she grabs at their tiny, frail ship with her too large, too hot hands. When her touch burns his skin and scorches the wooden deck.

Felicia is the one that gets them to shore again. He doesn't know how they got away. If she'd managed it by convincing the Mermaid to let them go or if it was sheer luck.

It takes weeks for him to recover. In that time he finds that; Felicia didn't sink the Mask to the bottom of the sea while he was out of it, Godrick survived because of driftwood that brought him back to land on a lucky current, Felicia had fled town without telling him or her other friends where she'd gone, and that Godrick was obsessed with learning what the mermaid said to him. No matter the risk of calling a being that didn't understand the frailty of a human's life.

Magnus wanted to put it all behind him and return to the comfortable life he'd found as a human, to find Felicia and learn if she was really okay after everything that had happened to them. (He knew first hand what it was like to have your world completely changed, after all.)

Godrick didn't care about his life on land, and refused to let go of his obsession with the mask or the mermaid. And he refused to tell Magnus where Felicia had gone, denying him any kind of closure with the remaining human that knew his true nature.

Somehow, this battle of wills ended with him as the captain and helmsman of a submarine that Godrick had commissioned and named after him. Searching the dark seas for a mask they would never find there.

(Magnus would later lay awake at night and ponder the irony of living in the changed submarine. That, despite everything that had happened, he would be living in a place built with him in mind. But without any of the people who'd wanted to be there with him.)

Fast forward roughly 4 to 5 years, just after Sinthia joins them.

Magnus comes to Silkwirm at least once a month to restock supplies for them all. Usually sending out Godrick and Zacharias with things he'd salvaged from the depths to get food or clothes or parts for everyone. He convinces Godrick to go and check with Don Drummand if it was really okay for his daughter to be staying on the sub or if she'd snuck off without permission.

He agrees, with some reluctance, and visits the shipyard to see the father of the teen girl who'd had the gumption to row out into the ocean with a duffle bag and a walkie-talkie in vague hopes of finding the submarine and speaking to Magnus.

Somehow, he gets his hands on a journal written by the late Sylvia. (I haven't decided how. Maybe being given stuff to take on the sub that Sinthia might need while with them? Possibly?) A journal where she talks about everything that went down with the Silkwirm Serpent, many of which she kept from the rest of the time. And she outlines her original plot to smuggle the silversnake out from under the noses of the Fellows and the Remingtons.

He finds the recipes for the brews. Old and yellowed and hidden at the very back of the book.

He finds out about mystids. He finds out about the Fellows and Remingtons "Trophy Hunting" ways. He finds out that Felicia helped her hide it at the Inn. He finds out she accidentally made it human. He remembers a man who'd appeared overnight, barely understanding the world and how it works, constantly being watched and guided around by the local Innkeeper.

Godrick puts two and two together and gets four. Aanndd Then he proceeds to fuck up the math after that.

By coming to an incorrect conclusion about Magnus' motives for keep him from the mask.

Godrick's new theory for Magnus' stubbornness is now anchored on the short talks he must have had with Felicia before she skipped town. Possibly even before then.

Magnus was the Silversnake, trapped in a human form. (Trapped because he must want to return to the sea!) With his only way to return to his true form being held by Sylvia Seafoam for the longest time. And then she died without turning him back. His only hope had, surely, been left in Felicia's hands. She and Sylvia were best friends, so she must have been told how to make the cure at some point.

He was so determined to find out where Felicia was… Had she, possibly, promised to turn him back in exchange for guarding the mask for her?

He keeps his discovery a secret, swiping the journal and recipes to take back to the engine room.

He creates the Return brew in secret in the Engine room, doing his best to keep anyone from knowing what he was doing other than his usual work there. He needed to have a vial of the stuff in his pocket for his future plans. A new tool he could use to convince Magnus to finally, properly search for the mask and not just puttering around in the dark ocean with no true goal. He needs to have it on hand to show Magnus how serious he was about it.

But he can't just race in with that information. He needed to ease his way into revealing that he'd acquired the recipe to return the Mystid-Turned-Human back to how he should be. And that he was willing to make it in exchange for finally getting the mask.

Godrick starts dropping hints. Carefully planned ones to try and get Magnus to confront him first. Magnus picks it up after a while, but he's unsure on what to do with that.

He doesn't know how to unpack Godrick knowing that he used to be a Silversnake. He knows that Sylvia and Felicia were trying to keep it a secret. He knows that something bad could happen if the wrong people found out what he used to be. But it's been so long since he was brought to Silkwirm and how many humans would believe that he used to be the silversnake? (Could he even function as a his former self again? He'd been human for so many years now, he'd gotten so used to being human. Could he live any other way now?)

He ends up shelving it, because he just… Has no idea how to deal with it.

Wirman and Dirk arrive, getting him busy enough to not allow a proper confrontation between himself and Godrick. Followed by Mariana and the Mourning Envolope with the Key inside.

Godrick takes that moment to confront Magnus about his origins as the silversnake, and his theory that Felicia was holding his true form hostage to make him act as a guard for the mask for her. If she's passed away, then he has no reason to keep guarding it.

Magnus denies that he's been guarding the mask's location for Felicia. He denies that he's being forced to act as a guard for anything. He denies that the mask has actually been on the ship the whole time. He says he'd rather destroy the mask that keep it for himself. But, key to Godrick's perspective, he doesn't think to deny being the silversnake. (He's more focused on the rest of the accusations.)

When he leaves, frustrated and grieving, Godrick has a different idea of what to do now that he 'knows' Magnus is really the Silversnake. And he has a short scope of time to prepare a plan/trap to finally get the mask. Even with Magnus' continued refusal to work with him.

Instead of wedging the necklace key into the bell, he very carefully uses the small bottle of Return Brew instead. It's far more fiddly than the key was, but he's determined to get it into place as a trap for Magnus when he opens the cauldron. He's sure he'll open it soon now that they've got the mourning envelope. Either to hide it somewhere else on the sub or to discard it entirely to keep it from Godrick's grasp.

(He believes that Magnus isn't actually doing this of his own will, in this au. He thinks Magnus is in denial, on some level, that Felicia is actually dead and still holding onto the idea/hope that she has the key to return him to normal. That she'd made him promise to not allow anyone to take it. He's still pissed about the lying, but he's got something holding back the level of violence against Magnus himself.)

When Magnus finally does go to open the cauldron, with the intent of ripping the accursed mask to shreds so Godrick couldn't get himself (or anyone else) killed because it, the bottle smashes him in the head.

It's a thick bottle, originally so Godrick could be sure it wouldn't break while he was carrying it around, so there's a lot of force behind it when the bell swings it around. Enough to knock him out cold, the brew changing him back to a silversnake while he's out.

When Godrick slips in after getting the key, he feels some sympathy for the wounded creature laying in a tangled pile on the floor of the storage room. He takes a moment to tie Magnus' bandages over the new painful-looking crack in his head before finally taking what he'd come in after.

Instead of Tanya finding blood dripping into the bilge after the tilt, she hears a low pained croon from Magnus through the vents above. It's such a weird noise, she has to check it out and see what the hell made that sound.

She finds the silversnake in the store room, lying in a heap on the ground in front of an open cauldron. And realizes that the cloth tangled with it is actually the remains of Magnus' half-coat and trousers/pants, his shoes laying near by too. Also, there's a giant crack in the side of it's head and it looks like it's bleeding. (Meaning it's not only alive, but genuinely hurt as it lays there.)

Tanya feels insane at the idea forming in her head, but Magnus wouldn't just wrap some random critter in his clothing. Nor would he just leave it in a room that he knew Sym liked using without saying anything to the rest of the crew about it. Even if the door was too heavy for anyone but Magnus or her to open without help.

She carefully steps back, closing the door to keep the kids from getting in and possibly interacting with a wounded creature that might lash out. Even if she thought the creature might actually be her dear friend. She then races out to figure out what the hell happened and how Magnus got hurt. She goes looking for Zacharias, since this is weird as hell so maybe it falls under his field of skills? Unsure but she needs to find someone.

When she gets to the parlor, she notices that the door to the deck was open and that makes the idea that someone did this to Magnus kick in. She goes from worried/concerned/confused to Mc-Friggin-Pissed:tm:. She has the canon chain of events for Godrick trying to summon the mermaid, hurling the oar from Sinthia's dingy like it's a javelin at the "Demon" standing on the aft deck.

She comes in through the airlock with the mask, tucking the coral/gems into her treasure chest and leaving the leather remains of the mask in her room.

Then she's back to looking for Zacharias to get him to look at the Creature-That-Might-Be-Magnus in the Store Room.

She spots a very confused Sym outside the Store Room's closed door, Dirk trying to open it for her but doesn't stop them before they can get it open. And they both get scared by Magnus dazedly flopping out on the floor of the hall.

Magnus' head is throbbing, he can't see shit, and he very off kilter as he tries to figure out what the hell is going on now.

He whines at the shrieks of surprise from Sym and Dirk, the combined noise making his head ring painfully. But it gives him a familiar feeling of echoes that he hasn't felt in a long time. And, for the first time in years, he uses his echolocation to "see".

Becoming aware of the gathering people and his own form at the same time.

What if Magnus was, somehow, the Silversnake?

We know that the Fellows (and the Remingtons/Pointers) viewed themselves as the Experts on Mystids. They felt that it was something that was exclusively theirs and belonged to no one else. Some kind of "Nobody but US is allowed to have these creatures" mindset. (Because of… Pride? Arrogance? Obsession? All of the above?)

That's why, when a bunch of them left Mystid Mansion, they basically gutted the place and took everything with them. Right?

So when the Silversnake got fished up in Silkwirm-On-Sea, the Fellows (minus Felicia) were the ones pressuring the Seafoams to give it up to the "government" for "research" purposes. It was a rare, strange creature with unknown properties, after all! Even if the rest of the town was capitalizing on the hype of having their own cryptid to draw in tourists and business that their little town probably needed.

Sylvia, however, did not want to give up the silversnake. She wanted to keep it! Badly enough that she literally started building an entire submarine with the intention of having her family (or at least herself and her daughter) move into it and live in the ocean with the mystid. She also may know more about the Fellows and Remingtons than they realize she does since she was Felicia's best friend.

Enough to know that they may not want the silversnake for the reasons they claim they do.

(After all, they make a point of mentioning Trophy Hunters in TT and Richard Remington was certainly one in SotS.)

She convinces herself that she needs to protect the snake because, if she gives it up, the Fellows/Remingtons are sure to just kill it and add the body to their trophy collections! She can't let them do that to the poor creature! But she can't just say that to Felicia's dad, even if she's sure it's true.

(She doesn't want to hurt her friendship with Felicia. Although, her friend was more of a Stonetop than a Fellow. She used the Stonetop name far more than the Fellow name. Some people didn't even know she was a Fellow!)

She visits the eatery at the Inn one day (when Felicia was out) and shares her woes with a sailor from far away, but had noticed her mood after she'd had a few and asked what was wrong. An odd but pleasant person who was just visiting for the hubbub, but mentioned that they'll be leaving soon anyway so there was no harm in sharing her thoughts. It wasn't like they'd be in town long enough to spill the secrets to everyone.

The sailor leans back in their seat after she finishes talking, giving her a long, hard look over their stein. Like they were evaluating her deeply for some reason. Then they lean in and, in a low voice so they won't be overheard, ask her for a pencil or pen and some paper.

"I can think of a way to hide your creature that these folks will never figure out. And if they did, everyone around 'em would call 'em mad for even suggesting it." They scribble two recipes out on the paper, one they label 'Change' and the other they label 'Return'. "Hide the beast by giving it the first brew, but make sure you have a story for why no one will be able to find it. When it's ready to go back to how it should be, give it the second."

She takes the papers, figuring "why not?" and goes home. She sleeps off the drinks and forgets about the conversation for a few days.

Then Faustus Fellow comes by and informs her that, in a week, there will be people coming to take the Silversnake from the harbor. (With the full aura of "I am not asking you. I am telling you. And you will listen.")

Suddenly, there is a time limit to what she can do before they'll just take it away. By force, even.

Sylvia finds the brews, remembers her talk with the sailor, and decides "Fuck it, I may as well try." She gathers all her supplies and carefully outlines her ploy before putting everything into motion.

She orchestrates an "accident" at the shipyard with the help of her husband, making it look like something fell and broke the tank the silversnake was in and the creature escaped back into the ocean.

Then she smuggles the snake, in a much smaller tank, into the Inn's basement. She had secured permission to go in while Felicia was out doing something, leaving the Inn basically empty and her free to use it for her "Saving Silversnake" plot. (Felicia figured her friend was up to something, but wasn't asking so she could claim Plausible Deniability if it went wrong.) She makes both brews in the kitchen, so that she can have both on hand if she needed them, and thoroughly cleans up afterwords to prevent anyone from getting clues about her doing something there.

She adds the Change brew to the seawater of the tank, unsure of how else to feed the serpent a bottle of the stuff without risking her fingers, then she sits back and waits for it to do whatever it's supposed to do.

What it does is turn the Silversnake into A Guy.

One that she has to hurridly yank out of the tank to keep from drowning. (She gets smacked in the face at least once and has to deal with the bruise for a few days.)

The silversnake is not handling this well, because he has no fucking idea what's happening. There's this knew thing he's never dealt with before (eyes and sight) that are making his head hurt, his chest and nose hurt from the water (they've never hurt before???), it feels like he's choking on something, everything is muffled and then too loud in his hearing, the Noisy Grabby Thing is being Loud and Panicky and grabbing at him, his limbs aren't working the way they should, and everything is wrong wrong WRONG!

He's laying on something hard and rough, coughing and hacking and panicking. Because what else can he do when he doesn't know what's going on?

He feels stuff being wrapped around him, heavy and scratchy and unfamiliar, the Noisy Grabby Thing making it's noises at him like it thinks he knows whatever it's sounds mean. Then he's hauled up and moved somewhere else. Eventually he's set on something softer, more heavy things wrapped around and thrown over him, before he finally passes out.

Leaving Sylvia to stare at the mystid-turned-man and wishing she'd asked the sailor more questions about what the brews did before they'd left.

When Felicia comes back from her mini-trip, she finds Sylvia with a thousand yard stare in the bar, a random dude she doesn't remember giving a room to wrapped in towels and comforters, and an empty water tank in her basement.

They agree on letting the silversnake stay at the Inn and leaving Felicia to teach him How To Person. Since him staying with the Seafoams would raise questions, and also Sylvia's dealing with the Fellow Inquisition now that the snake has "escaped" from the shipyard. Having him there would be too stressful for all of them.

They also decide to name him, properly now that he's person shaped. After much arguing, they settle on "Magnus Mortuga" as the name they would tell anyone who asked who he was. With the excuse of some kind of illness or head injury for why he didn't know how to do things everyone else knew to do. (It was not very well planned but, well, Sylvia didn't expect her pet dragon to become a guy so-)

Magnus learns quickly, getting to the point of "functioning human" soon enough. It sucks a lot at first, because he can't/doesn't understand them. Noisy Grabby Thing languages never had any meaning before. he'd been a creature living in the dark, quiet depths of the ocean for most of his life. Nothing down there needed to make much noise, never mind the many complicated ones Noisy Grabby Things used to communicate. They made so many noises! All the time! Why would anything need to make that much noise?! He only ever made noises to find his way, but the Noisy Grab- The-the humans… Couldn't do that, apparently.

((I'm assuming that, since the Silversnake doesn't have eyes, it uses some kind of smell/taste/hearing combination to navigate. Much like cave-dwelling Olms do. (Those are a type of cave-dwelling salamander!) I would assume that would explain the use of it's long whiskers, as sensors to help it move through the darkness safely. Echolocation might be unique, but usable in the open ocean though.))

Moving on two legs is hard when he's so used to having more. No tail to balance with, no claws to get a better grip, and they're so… so.. soft and squishy and easy to hurt! He's bumped and fallen so many times and that hurt so much more than he thought it should. Stumbling under the water had never hurt that much! And their hands were so big, even if they didn't have claws.

And eyes! Everything was so much with those! There were things everywhere and he didn't need to echo to know about them! If it was too bright they hurt, too dark and he couldn't move around without falling. They stung in seawater, but he needed them to move because he couldn't hear as good anymore.

It was strange and overwhelming and there was so much happening all the time.

Felicia has a hell of a time getting him to even leave the blanket nest that's become his room, but at least she's able to get him out and doing things. She's basically teaching from scratch for every single thing that went into being a human. Like, all the things they normally learn as small children now need to be taught to a full adult. Thankfully, Magnus seems to be a natural quick-study.

(Is it because he's actually a mystid? Is it a trait of him just being smarter than the average critter? Is it the thing that made him Person letting him learn so fast? Any could be true!)

Originally, their plan was for him to be human until Felicia's paternal family stopped harassing the Seafoams. Then they got attached to their Weird Guy, and he reached the point where he kinda liked being a human. Even if he still got confused by some culture stuff humans insisted was important, like using "money" instead of just trading things they needed.

(Felicia knew the family that ran the Navigation Emporium tried to teach him about the importance of money. She got to laugh when she saw how frustrated they were when it didn't work. The map guy seemed to have fun teaching Magnus about how to read different charts, at least. And she got to see him make at least 1 friend with someone from out of town, too!)

He was the stoic but nice guy who lived at the Inn and helped out there.

Then Sylvia got sick and passed away, leaving her submarine plans and her family behind. Then something went down with Felicia's family and see was deeply upset and determined to do something. Then Magnus took the map he and Felicia couldn't read to Godrick Gripp, so they could find whatever it was she was insisting they needed to find. That this was a trip she couldn't afford to not make.

Magnus didn't understand it. He wasn't sure if not being born a human was the reason why.

Godrick, after deciphering the map, insisted on joining them for the voyage. Felicia hadn't refused, so he'd let the man aboard as a navigator. Felicia finally told him about what it was she was after when the sea gave him clues that there was danger, and his instincts told him they needed to leave. Felicia talked him out of it, insisting that he was being paranoid and that everything would be fine. They went and collected the mask, the eerie green light of it's marker making him far more nervous than he'd ever felt before.

Felicia decided she had to test it before they left. Winding it up with the necklace-key that she'd always had for as long as he'd known her, pulling on the mask and saying… Something while she wore it. He couldn't understand the words, but the tone… Something about it felt familiar.

Then the ship rocked and the Mermaid appeared.

Magnus was a mystid. He was human shaped but, at his core, he was still a silversnake. Something made by the remnants of the Mermaid's birth.

He couldn't speak the mermaid's language. It was just as unintelligible to his ears as it was to human ones. But at least part of what had made her, had also made him. And that meant he could understand the meanings behind her words. The feelings and thoughts carried by her tone.

He could feel a loneliness, a call hoping to be echoed back. Confusion at what it found instead. A lack of understanding behind what it was looking at. And very little thought paid to the small creatures that had somehow called out to her.

Magnus knew the Mermaid wasn't malicious or cruel, but she knew nothing about humans. And had no idea how much harm she could do to them without meaning to. Harm that she does do when she grabs at their tiny, frail ship with her too large, too hot hands. When her touch burns his skin and scorches the wooden deck.

Felicia is the one that gets them to shore again. He doesn't know how they got away. If she'd managed it by convincing the Mermaid to let them go or if it was sheer luck.

It takes weeks for him to recover. In that time he finds that; Felicia didn't sink the Mask to the bottom of the sea while he was out of it, Godrick survived because of driftwood that brought him back to land on a lucky current, Felicia had fled town without telling him or her other friends where she'd gone, and that Godrick was obsessed with learning what the mermaid said to him. No matter the risk of calling a being that didn't understand the frailty of a human's life.

Magnus wanted to put it all behind him and return to the comfortable life he'd found as a human, to find Felicia and learn if she was really okay after everything that had happened to them. (He knew first hand what it was like to have your world completely changed, after all.)

Godrick didn't care about his life on land, and refused to let go of his obsession with the mask or the mermaid. And he refused to tell Magnus where Felicia had gone, denying him any kind of closure with the remaining human that knew his true nature.

Somehow, this battle of wills ended with him as the captain and helmsman of a submarine that Godrick had commissioned and named after him. Searching the dark seas for a mask they would never find there.

(Magnus would later lay awake at night and ponder the irony of living in the changed submarine. That, despite everything that had happened, he would be living in a place built with him in mind. But without any of the people who'd wanted to be there with him.)

Fast forward roughly 4 to 5 years, just after Sinthia joins them.

Magnus comes to Silkwirm at least once a month to restock supplies for them all. Usually sending out Godrick and Zacharias with things he'd salvaged from the depths to get food or clothes or parts for everyone. He convinces Godrick to go and check with Don Drummand if it was really okay for his daughter to be staying on the sub or if she'd snuck off without permission.

He agrees, with some reluctance, and visits the shipyard to see the father of the teen girl who'd had the gumption to row out into the ocean with a duffle bag and a walkie-talkie in vague hopes of finding the submarine and speaking to Magnus.

Somehow, he gets his hands on a journal written by the late Sylvia. (I haven't decided how. Maybe being given stuff to take on the sub that Sinthia might need while with them? Possibly?) A journal where she talks about everything that went down with the Silkwirm Serpent, many of which she kept from the rest of the time. And she outlines her original plot to smuggle the silversnake out from under the noses of the Fellows and the Remingtons.

He finds the recipes for the brews. Old and yellowed and hidden at the very back of the book.

He finds out about mystids. He finds out about the Fellows and Remingtons "Trophy Hunting" ways. He finds out that Felicia helped her hide it at the Inn. He finds out she accidentally made it human. He remembers a man who'd appeared overnight, barely understanding the world and how it works, constantly being watched and guided around by the local Innkeeper.

Godrick puts two and two together and gets four. Aanndd Then he proceeds to fuck up the math after that.

By coming to an incorrect conclusion about Magnus' motives for keep him from the mask.

Godrick's new theory for Magnus' stubbornness is now anchored on the short talks he must have had with Felicia before she skipped town. Possibly even before then.

Magnus was the Silversnake, trapped in a human form. (Trapped because he must want to return to the sea!) With his only way to return to his true form being held by Sylvia Seafoam for the longest time. And then she died without turning him back. His only hope had, surely, been left in Felicia's hands. She and Sylvia were best friends, so she must have been told how to make the cure at some point.

He was so determined to find out where Felicia was… Had she, possibly, promised to turn him back in exchange for guarding the mask for her?

He keeps his discovery a secret, swiping the journal and recipes to take back to the engine room.

He creates the Return brew in secret in the Engine room, doing his best to keep anyone from knowing what he was doing other than his usual work there. He needed to have a vial of the stuff in his pocket for his future plans. A new tool he could use to convince Magnus to finally, properly search for the mask and not just puttering around in the dark ocean with no true goal. He needs to have it on hand to show Magnus how serious he was about it.

But he can't just race in with that information. He needed to ease his way into revealing that he'd acquired the recipe to return the Mystid-Turned-Human back to how he should be. And that he was willing to make it in exchange for finally getting the mask.

Godrick starts dropping hints. Carefully planned ones to try and get Magnus to confront him first. Magnus picks it up after a while, but he's unsure on what to do with that.

He doesn't know how to unpack Godrick knowing that he used to be a Silversnake. He knows that Sylvia and Felicia were trying to keep it a secret. He knows that something bad could happen if the wrong people found out what he used to be. But it's been so long since he was brought to Silkwirm and how many humans would believe that he used to be the silversnake? (Could he even function as a his former self again? He'd been human for so many years now, he'd gotten so used to being human. Could he live any other way now?)

He ends up shelving it, because he just… Has no idea how to deal with it.

Wirman and Dirk arrive, getting him busy enough to not allow a proper confrontation between himself and Godrick. Followed by Mariana and the Mourning Envolope with the Key inside.

Godrick takes that moment to confront Magnus about his origins as the silversnake, and his theory that Felicia was holding his true form hostage to make him act as a guard for the mask for her. If she's passed away, then he has no reason to keep guarding it.

Magnus denies that he's been guarding the mask's location for Felicia. He denies that he's being forced to act as a guard for anything. He denies that the mask has actually been on the ship the whole time. He says he'd rather destroy the mask that keep it for himself. But, key to Godrick's perspective, he doesn't think to deny being the silversnake. (He's more focused on the rest of the accusations.)

When he leaves, frustrated and grieving, Godrick has a different idea of what to do now that he 'knows' Magnus is really the Silversnake. And he has a short scope of time to prepare a plan/trap to finally get the mask. Even with Magnus' continued refusal to work with him.

Instead of wedging the necklace key into the bell, he very carefully uses the small bottle of Return Brew instead. It's far more fiddly than the key was, but he's determined to get it into place as a trap for Magnus when he opens the cauldron. He's sure he'll open it soon now that they've got the mourning envelope. Either to hide it somewhere else on the sub or to discard it entirely to keep it from Godrick's grasp.

(He believes that Magnus isn't actually doing this of his own will, in this au. He thinks Magnus is in denial, on some level, that Felicia is actually dead and still holding onto the idea/hope that she has the key to return him to normal. That she'd made him promise to not allow anyone to take it. He's still pissed about the lying, but he's got something holding back the level of violence against Magnus himself.)

When Magnus finally does go to open the cauldron, with the intent of ripping the accursed mask to shreds so Godrick couldn't get himself (or anyone else) killed because it, the bottle smashes him in the head.

It's a thick bottle, originally so Godrick could be sure it wouldn't break while he was carrying it around, so there's a lot of force behind it when the bell swings it around. Enough to knock him out cold, the brew changing him back to a silversnake while he's out.

When Godrick slips in after getting the key, he feels some sympathy for the wounded creature laying in a tangled pile on the floor of the storage room. He takes a moment to tie Magnus' bandages over the new painful-looking crack in his head before finally taking what he'd come in after.

Instead of Tanya finding blood dripping into the bilge after the tilt, she hears a low pained croon from Magnus through the vents above. It's such a weird noise, she has to check it out and see what the hell made that sound.

She finds the silversnake in the store room, lying in a heap on the ground in front of an open cauldron. And realizes that the cloth tangled with it is actually the remains of Magnus' half-coat and trousers/pants, his shoes laying near by too. Also, there's a giant crack in the side of it's head and it looks like it's bleeding. (Meaning it's not only alive, but genuinely hurt as it lays there.)

Tanya feels insane at the idea forming in her head, but Magnus wouldn't just wrap some random critter in his clothing. Nor would he just leave it in a room that he knew Sym liked using without saying anything to the rest of the crew about it. Even if the door was too heavy for anyone but Magnus or her to open without help.

She carefully steps back, closing the door to keep the kids from getting in and possibly interacting with a wounded creature that might lash out. Even if she thought the creature might actually be her dear friend. She then races out to figure out what the hell happened and how Magnus got hurt. She goes looking for Zacharias, since this is weird as hell so maybe it falls under his field of skills? Unsure but she needs to find someone.

When she gets to the parlor, she notices that the door to the deck was open and that makes the idea that someone did this to Magnus kick in. She goes from worried/concerned/confused to Mc-Friggin-Pissed:tm:. She has the canon chain of events for Godrick trying to summon the mermaid, hurling the oar from Sinthia's dingy like it's a javelin at the "Demon" standing on the aft deck.

She comes in through the airlock with the mask, tucking the coral/gems into her treasure chest and leaving the leather remains of the mask in her room.

Then she's back to looking for Zacharias to get him to look at the Creature-That-Might-Be-Magnus in the Store Room.

She spots a very confused Sym outside the Store Room's closed door, Dirk trying to open it for her but doesn't stop them before they can get it open. And they both get scared by Magnus dazedly flopping out on the floor of the hall.

Magnus' head is throbbing, he can't see shit, and he very off kilter as he tries to figure out what the hell is going on now.

He whines at the shrieks of surprise from Sym and Dirk, the combined noise making his head ring painfully. But it gives him a familiar feeling of echoes that he hasn't felt in a long time. And, for the first time in years, he uses his echolocation to "see".

Becoming aware of the gathering people and his own form at the same time.