Aurelian Seas[IC]

[Alistair]

His back leaning on the cabin's wooden wall in a posture of deceitful apathy, Gael listened closely to Desmond and the Kenku. When the latter began to cough, he immediately understood something was wrong, and stared at Desmond intently.

Nodding slightly after the Half-elf had sent a barely perceptible message to his mind, Gael stood up, told the bird "hang in there, friend" and placed himself near the door as his companion requested. The rogue made sure to remain mostly hidden behind the wall, where he could quickly glance in the hallway without being seen by an unsuspecting passerby.

[Chickens]

As Tan walks into the saferooom, he notices some mats, empty shelves, a deck of cards and a dice on the ground. Noticing the poor condition, he thinks to himself, 'What a bunch of misers.' Tan takes the cards and dice with him and flips the mat to look for anything important on the floor (10 in investigation)

[DigitalAmber]

The Kenku coughed for a few moments more before recovering. "Damn it! Cough I can't help you too much about her. Cough She, she... I don't know much about her. Only a few crew members have met her directly. Rumors flew. Some say she is a temptress, others a witch or even that she made a deal with the devils. We only know a few things. Violent coughing. I don't care if it kills me! She is a magic user, we know that. Apparently she knows a way to get us wings, the Captain said he had a way soon after she arrived. Cough. She be- intensely violent coughing -witched us or something. cough We don't know her name. Cough. She has cough ears everywhere. Cough Saying too much brings pain."

[Newt]

"Oh, I see. You don't need to say anything else. Please, go back to resting, and don't leave this room for any reason until the ship stops. We promise we are going to get revenge for your friends and for our friends. I can't promise you about the wings tho, I'm sorry. Oh, one last thing before we go! Do you know what is this? Stalla... she gave it to me before dying.."

Desmond shows the Kenku the pin he found on Stalla's body, hoping to get at least a little more information.

[DigitalAmber]

"I... I guess I can go without wings. I've gotten here without them, after all. I can live, I guess. I really don't want to talk about her more, for fear of consequences worse then death. I simply just can't believe Stalla is dead, alongside Avani and Feulin too. That pin..." The Kenku grunted and ruffeled through her robe before pulling out a pin identical to Stalla's. "The- the captain gave one of these to everyone. Said it would be something to keep us together and remember each other no matter where we were. I guess I am the only one left to remember.... It reads 'Birds of a Feather'"

[Newt]

"I see. Thanks, that all we needed to know," Desmond looks at the pin for a second, before looking at the Kenku again. "Here. You should stay with this. Now we shall take our leave. As I already said, keep resting, and don't leave this room in any circumstance. If you hear any noise, hide under the bed." Desmond handled Stalla's pin to the Kenku, and leaves the room, together with Gael, and closes it as they leave.

"Ok, that was surely useful. What do you think we should do now?" Desmond asks Gael, unsure if they should go back to the rest of the group or investigate more.

[Alistair]

"A pin to remember each other no matter what, huh? How very quaint." Gael snickered softly as he walked alongside Desmond, then shook his head. "In all seriousness, I don't know. The bird seemed to be truthful. But then I don't want to spend any more time than necessary in the potential vicinity of such a powerful magic user. As long as we don't know what's going on, we're vulnerable."

Gael thought silently for a few seconds, then turned to the Half-Elf. "What about the captain? He could probably explain everything. I'm not sure just the two of us could survive a possible ambush though."

[Newt]

"Yes, the captain. Well, as we are still 5 hours, 47 minutes and 32 seconds away from our destination, I'm sure we have a lot of time and don't need to hurry, therefore I say it's wise to go back to the rest of the group, and then we can go make a visit to the captain." Desmond starts heading back to the rest, using the same way he and Gael came.

[Walpurgis]

Nadine lifts creature's unconscious body. "Come on, we have to move quickly! We don't know how much time will it take them to discover what happened, we must clean this mess or we will be in a terrible situation."

[Alistair]

Gael shrugged. "Let's do as you say then. At least this little walk was more enjoyable than carrying corpses around and sponging blood."

[Cataline]

"Ughhh I really wanted to be part of the interrogation!" She whined, "Maybe I should have really stayed in my room. Anyway, I know I said "clean up crew", but meant make these corpses more presentable. Because let's face it there is no way we can avoid any involvement. So if you're done looting, let's make sure this place isn't an absolute mess and call it a night." Crevasse glances through some of the doors left open and notices a storage rooms with barrels, and looks in to check their contents.

[Walpurgis]

Nadine follows Crevasse into the storage room and lays creature on the ground. "This place looks good enough. Let's just leave the bodies here and get away as soon as possible..."

She cuts 15 feet of her rope and proceeds to try to tie creature's hands and legs up. "I-I never thought I would be using rope this way."

She then lifts her again and puts her in a corner behind some barrels in a way she isn't directly visible to someone that enters the room. 

[Yash]

Lynsal takes the half empty bottle of alcohol from Kaeso and drinks it while he helps with the cleaning up of the crew and the blood. "How many are dead? How many are hurt? Who betrayed us?" He asks the rest of his comrades. He starts looking for the captains quarters, while keeping an eye out for trouble. (Perception roll 19)

[DigitalAmber]

The clean up crew used water found in the storage room to clean up the bloodstains while Tan lifted grimy mats in vain, finding nothing under neath them. It seemed everythingnin the room was removed to make room for all the sleeping people. Lynsal stumbled up the staircase to the main deck, and stared at the room built into the side of the upraised back end of the ship, which held the wheel. A large mast jut out the center of the ship. The stairs depositited them underneath the cool shadow of the mast. The sea sprayed and roared, but it was a quiet road. The waters were calm. 

[Walpurgis]

"What should we do now? It's a matter of time before someone discovers what happens and we are trapped in this ship until we reach land. We can try to hide and pretend to don't know anything or even if I would personally prefer to avoid conflict we could surprise attack them before they attack us. Staying still until something happen isn't the wise thing to do, that's for sure."  Nadine notices Lynsai is missing. "Uh. Where did the monk go? Did anyone see him?"

[Yours Truly]

Before he even considered leaving the room full of corpses Kaeso made damn sure to do one thing and only one thing, he kicked  the creature's unholy symbol towards Stalla's body, and with one fell blow he (19 to hit, 12 to damage) finally shattered it for what he hoped would be the final time. Before he snatched any of the pieces large enough to possibly be used to reassemble the damned thing with the intent to chuck it all into the sea or have a cleric consecrate and fashion it into a holy symbol at some point as a sort of sick joke, a middle finger raised and displayed quite prominently in the direction of the forces of darkness if you will.

He then did his best to gingerly wipe off any 'unholy symbol' fragments from his morningstar using the feathers of Feulin's hands and he slipped the pin and the letter he got somewhere inside of the creature's bag, but not before he ceremonially wiped his morningstar clean of blood on the Creature's hair and clothing and bloodied up Feulin's short sword by deeply stabbing the corpses and placed it right next to where Creature's unconscious self was residing.

After all of this he stood up, and motioned at his bloodied outer clothing before he said, "We need to find him, our best chance of surviving until this ship docks is to stick together, rest in shifts, and remain ever vigilant, lest the same fate that befell the first King of Ifral happen upon us, and the great enemy we are hunting down approach us in our greatest moment of weakness and ruin our clothing."

[Walpurgis]

Nadine and the group went to look for Lynsai around the ship and they eventually stumbled upon him in the deck. "That looks like the captain's quarters. Should we..?" She puts her ear in the door and tries to see if she hears anything. She doesn't. "The waves and the wind are very loud, I can't hear anything."

[DigitalAmber]

While corpses were being carried and interrogations were had, everyone decided to sit down for a time and recoup their wounds. It also provided ample time to hide the bodies behind a few barrels in the storage room. 

[Yours Truly]

After looking upon the results of his work, Kaeso shook his head and muttered something about how 'he couldn't just leave her here, not after all that she's done', and after motioning for everyone else to leave the room and search for Lynsal first he waited a few moments before he picked the creature up and ran out to the top of the ship like a man possessed and threw her entire bound self overboard, almost certainly killing the bound and unconcious 'woman', and getting rid of her here for the last time.

He then marched towards the captain's quarters and noticed Gael attempting to open the man's doors while everyone else was watching on as the man did his work, and he tapped the man on the shoulders and said, "You've got this," in a surprisingly kind and reassuring tone to try and uplift the man's spirits.

[Alistair]

Kneeling in front of the captain's door and trying to unlock it, Gael felt he was close to forcing the bolt open when a slightly taller wave sent the ship swaying, making the rogue's tools fall out of the keyhole. [rolled 9]

"Oh for the love of--"

Gael's dissatisfied grunt was cut short when he felt Kaeso's hand on his shoulder. Gael briefly glanced at him, raising an eyebrow, then nodded and went back to his work. This time, the tools twisted and turned correctly inside the lock. [advantage given by Kaeso, rolled 14]

"There. This should do the trick."

[DigitalAmber]

The lock yielded easily and noiselessly. If the party chose to open the door they would see a Kenku in somewhat fancy robes and a tricorn hat reaching for a violin. He was seated in a chair behind a desk. Two chairs were on the opposite side. A bookcase was on the left. Scrolls hung from the walls.

 

Soft violin music could be heard through the wall. 

 

Will the party enter the room? 

[Walpurgis]

Nadine bursts through the door and uses shocking grasp on the kenku and springs back (19 to hit, 4 damage if it hits). "Look, I don't want to hurt you, but I won't allow you to hurt us. We were abducted during the night, presumably after being drugged by your crew. We woke up to the distant sound of a battle and after waking up the rest of our companions we went to investigate. The door of the room in which we were sleeping seemed to had been blasted and in a nearby room, we found the bodies of three kenku hidden behind some crates. It looked like someone else had woken up too and didn't take too kindly being drugged and abducted, so they retaliated against their captors. I want you to explain what's going on. If we are satisfied by your justification we might help you find the murderer, if we aren't we will help the murderer take out the rest of your crew, starting with you."

[DigitalAmber]

 

The captain was taken by surprise and shoved against the wall. The violin fell to the floor. “Damn it! Unhand me! I can’t die here. Not when the tipping point is so close. Not when we sacrificed so much. I guess I will have to comply.... unless! Unless! Unless! Wait, you said someone murdered your captors and some Kenku? Who died? Did they have a white rag strapped around there leg? I never ordered you to be kidnapped, nor drugged and abducted.”

[Alistair]

Gael swiftly approaches the captain and, unsheathing his rapier, towers him with a threatening expression. "I have neither time nor taste for games and mysteries, bird. Explain yourself clearly, or die. What are these white rags you're talking about? What do they mean?" (intimidation, rolled 14)

[Yours Truly]

Kaeso slowly takes a couple of confident strides forward before he looks down at the captain and asks, "They only spoke of wings, of how they were glad to finally obtain them, about how all they needed to do now was to bring us all to the safe room on the captain's orders, and to secure us there while the mutinous members of your crew fought for control over the ship. They only spoke of wings when they died captain, and quite frankly I never stopped to check their legs for any white rags, there was no time to do so, it was all just an ever escalating scene of violence that started when one of your crew attempted to strike me down as I was praying. 'It was all the captain's orders' he said, just before he cried for help for the last time tonight. So tell me, before I grow impatient and consign thee to a traitor's grave in the watery abyss below us, why is the crew mutinying? And what is the importance of these...white ragged crew?."

Rolled a 24 for intimidate.