Paladin, running out of leads, decides to return to Cold Water NY to question Amora's mother, "Grandma Maddie". Taking Ruddy's plane back from the shores of Lake Ontario they make the nearly hour long hike to Grandma Maddie's hut. Paladin sends Grimwalker to the back of the hut to prevent Maddie from escaping out the back while he and Nocturna are in the front. When no one responds to their knocking Paladin (and Nocturna) try to pry one of the dilapidated shutters free to get to a window only to discover the shutter is too solid for them to open. Calling Grimwalker over even he has to take two attempts to pry it free. The area within is a well made, actually superiorily constructed bunker-like building. From the design it (until recently) housed advanced satellite communication equipment, computers, a powerful yet portable energy source, and more. While examining the place they discover a scrap of paper that reads 'Experiment Compremised Amora Needs Extraction, Reporting to SAMURAI'. Paladin calls Nocturna's friend Agent Barker. Barker sends a better investigation crew to Grandma Maddie's house for a proper analysis. Paladin then says that they are pretty much done with their leads unless Barker can get them a submarine. After Barker talks to Nocturna (telling her to keep herself safe but the rest of the group is expendable) he agrees to supply a 10 person exploration sub, Nemo class, to the group along with a pilot named Sam. Rudy flies them back to Lake Ontario. Paladin assures him of a good paycheck coming from Cassandra and the group goes to meet Sam. When they get on the 10-man sub Sam proudly tells them the boat was built by Doctor Elias McQuark of the McQuark's Superhero Supply Shop and Gymnasium. He hands out McQuark's business cards. Sam tells them that McQuark is the 'finest non-lethal weapons-man in the business!' For three hours (it is now very early July 5th, about 1AM) they travel to the cave where the giant crabs vanished. Paladin has Sam shut off the Sonar and all the lights except the minimum needed to navigate. At their destination they find a underwater farm growing kelp(?), a undersea base that consists of a central dome and three smaller domes radiating from the center connected by long causeways. A 64m long submarine is docked to the lab at the end of one of the arms. There is one giant crab 16m across and six smaller crabs 8m across happily munching on the crop the base seems to be producing. Sam pilots them around and they find a hangar and airlock on one of the domes. Prime cycles the airlock without triggering a alarm. The group enters the airlock. Looking through the porthole they see a mechanic working on a sub in the hangar. Nocturna knocks him out. They tie him up and leave him in the sub he was working on, The Aquatron. They make their way out of the hangar and explore the second floor where they discover the bases brig. Grimwalker nearly, and intentionally, one of the two guards while Nocturna and Paladin knocked the other one out. The only prisoner there is a man called Atticus. Grimwalker rips through his cell door and frees him. He confirms that the underwater base is a Viper Nest and that they have been quite active for the last several hours. He overheard the guards talking about a VIP visitor being present. Could it be Amora? Who else could it be!