So, Akiki looks for a way to lower the cage! :)
There's a pulley by the wall that may be ah...pulled to lower the cage to the ground.
Akiki gets on pulling said levers, then, seeming proud of herself. After all, her friends have totally got this. Right? Right.
Burahl has enough of the tumult and the noise the bandits make while trying to flee, steps up to one of them and tries to whack him on the head with his quarterstaff.
"Look around," he says severely, holding his crossbow out in front of him to deflect any more blows. "Barvasi is beaten, trussed up like a calf. The only reason you two are standing is because my friends don't consider you threatening. Throw down your weapons, or that will change."
Cat slinks into a cobweb-filled corner to lick her wounds.
Thaven turns and fires two arrows at the living thug!
Thaven - 23
Barvasi - 22
Raijinn - 21
Thugs - 18
Burahl - 13
Goffred - 11
Akiki moves to lower the pseudodragon's cage to the ground, pulling on a chain pulley to bring it down. Thaven then looses another two arrows at one of the surviving thugs, piercing him in the neck and in the back. He falls heavily. Barvasi sees the stairs down as if for the first time, and leaps to them to try and escape, but he's looped about the legs by Raijinn and falls. The one remaining thug looks from Burahl to Goffred to Thaven...and throws down his sword, dropping to his knees to beg for his life.
Burahl looks around and sees Barvasi restrained by Raijinn and the groveling thug before him.
Wow that escalated quickly, good that we finished it quickly as well.
He walks over to Barvasi and bluntly says "Keys" holding out his left hand to collect them and his right still holding the staff.
If Barvasi gives them, he heads over to the cage and unlocks the little door to release the pseudodragon.
Thaven keeps an arrow nocked and nods at Fredo and the rest. "Sorry. I don't like criminal scum and I don't abide slavery. Keeping a thinking person locked up like that, only to torture them and laugh? Not if I can help it."
Thaven pauses. He looks over the corpses feathered with his arrows and smiles slightly. Then he frowns. He actually enjoyed killing the thugs. Just like he enjoyed killing Lamm. What's happened to him? When did he become a killer?
Fredo nods at Thaven's words, then looks around at Barvasi's fallen workers. They were as much slaves as the psuedodragon, only they'd refused to see it, and had paid steeply for their willful ignorance, and Barvasi hadn't paid the same kind of price. He couldn't save all of them, but he does kneel down by the one who looks nearest death and breaks a vial of devil's blood against his face. Just to be certain he won't attack them again, he takes the man's weapon, then brandishes it as he turns to Barvasi.
"Now that we've established who's in control here, Spider King" he says contemptuously, "here is our revised offer. You will give us all the information you have on Amprei. You will let the dragon go - and tell us his name while you're at it. I'm tired of saying 'the dragon' like he's a thing. In return, we'll leave you alive here, trussed up, and we'll lock the door behind us when we go. We'll leave you for your workers to find." ...and to do with as they please he adds silently. No doubt Barvasi has inspired some hatred along with fear in his staff. "Refuse, and your life will be forfeit."
Raijinn watches as Fredo uses a vial to heal one of the men they had wounded, and before he can stop himself, walks back over to the man that he cut down. The smell of burnt flesh stings his nostrils, and a feeling that he can't quite explain fills him.
Deep down, he knew that if things had gone the other way, the thug would have not hesitated to kill him, and would more than likely have drank and laughed with his friends about it afterwards. Still, he wondered if perhaps he himself should have hesitated. There was a power building within him that he did not understand, and when it chose to manifest, the damage that he was capable of... it was too much for him. Raijinn didn't have to shred and electrify this man to stop him, but he did it all the same, without even really thinking about it.
For the first time in his life, Raijinn felt afraid, truly afraid, and it was of himself, and of what he might one day do.
Raijinn successfully trusses up Barvasi, struggling as he is after the fear spell wears off and he regains his wits. When Burahl approaches him, all he has to do is indicate his hands in their tied-behind-his-back state. He can't hand Burahl anything.
The pseudodragon cage hits the ground with a bit of force, but the dragon seems unharmed. 'Thank you, thank you thank you. I am ever in your debt.'
To Goffred's demands, Barvasi actually spits onto the planks of his throne room. "You think you have the power to threaten me? What happens if I don't give you the information? You kill me...then what? You're hunted down by my allies and prosecuted by the Guard."
"But you'd still be dead right? We can take our chances then, but you can't do that now, so how much do you value your life? Too little for a bit of information?"
He walks up to Barvasi and searches him for the keys to the cage and everything else Barvasi still has on him.
Barvasi's belongings: potion of cure moderate wounds, potion of invisibility, five vials of poison, a suit of +1 leather armor, 2 masterwork bladed gauntlets, a masterwork hand crossbow, 20 bolts, two keys.
Barvasi sits in stunned silence for a moment as he realizes the truth of his situation, and does nothing to prevent Burahl from frisking him. "It's in my personal chambers. How are we supposed to get it?"
Thaven laughs when he hears Barvasi threaten them. "Prosecuted by the Guard? Good one." Thaven's face soon goes back to its usual hardness.
"Simple, really," says Fredo. "Some of us keep you here, under guard, while the rest search your chambers." He nods to Raijin and Burahl, then flicks his eyes towards Barvasi as if to say that they should guard him. They'd be most conspicuous moving about; all Barvasi's workers - though not all his clients - appear to be human. "Now, will you tell us where they are, or will we have to ransack your whole establishment?"
Raijinn nods at Fredo's words and pulls up a stool in front of Barvasi, flashing him a terrifying smile as he plops down. "Who knows what interesting things you might find if you tear the place apart."
Burahl simply tucks away the vials of poison in his own robes as he finds them, not even planning on mentioning them to the others. The rest he sums it up and places it beside him as he goes. He takes a look at the two keys and throws them to Goffred saying:"Catch! You might be needing those."
"When you get back you can pick anything you'd like from among these things." He says a bit absent-minded as he goes through the things found on Barvasi as though he is ordening them on his own shore stelves.
When the others are gone and Raijinn isn't looking his way, he tries to determine what the poison in the flasks is.
"Thanks," says Fredo, grabbing the keys out of the air and examining them for any decorative or distinguishing marks. Sometimes they match the handles, and if Barvasi tries to send them to a red herring room, he doesn't want to be caught off guard.
Barvasi stubbornly remains silent, an impudent smile present on his face while Goffred and Raijinn threaten him....then he thinks about it for a few moments. He says "Well, you've taken my things, I'm not much of a threat. Can I perhaps lead you directly there, so as to keep you out of my other things?"
Meanwhile, Akiki pulls out her tools and begins to pick at the pseudodragon's cage. Under her careful fingers, the lock springs open, and the tiny dragon immediately pushes the cage door open and leaps out, soaring in a circle in the confines of this tiny room. The tiny thing lands at Thaven's feet and nuzzles his ankles with its head. 'My name is Majenko, and you have saved me from certain torture and death. In thanks, I pledge my loyalty to you for a year and a day. Anything you wish me to, I will do.'
Akiki seems pleased with her handiwork, and winks at Thaven and his new friend, before sauntering over to peer at Barvasi with her grim quiet. Looks like they managed to tie him up okay - no stabbing necessitated this time.
A pleasure, Majenko, thinks Fredo, not really sure if the little dragon can hear him but more than willing to try. Would you mind please wrapping yourself around Barvasi's belly, just below his solar plexus?
"Very well," says Fredo, "you may come with us...under a few conditions." Cat seemingly senses Fredo's intentions as well, and with another flying leap settles on top of Barvasi's head, her claws out just above his brow. "Your hands will remain bound and the rope will remain in my friend's capable hands. Attempt to escape or call out for help, and your eyes will pay for it."
Since no one has made mention of the dragon's speech, Raijinn can't be sure that the others even heard it. Between his increasing use of magic and the fear that he's beginning to hear things that ears are not meant to hear, Raijinn goes pale. Or, well, as pale as one can get when they have deep red skin.
Raijinn kneels down to be closer to Burahl. "My friend," he whispers. "Did you just 'hear' that dragon talk?" Raijinn carefully omits the part where he thinks he might be losing his mind. But looking in his eyes clearly displays an uncommon level of worry.
Thaven looks down at the little dragon. "You're free. You owe me nothing. If you want to join us, do so. But I don't want your service, Majenko. It isn't any more right for you to serve me than for you to be slave to him."
Burahl looks up at Raijinn, with a slightly disturbed look.
"You mean that little dragon did actually talk to us?"
He blinks a few times then says a bit hazily.
"I thought that was still a remnant of my visit to the Dragon's Breath."
Burahl gets a few tubes out of his bag and pours in a bit of the poison in each one. He dips a few of his crossbow bolts in it. As he does this he absent-midndedly continues.
"Majenko was his name wasn't it? Can't say that I'm familiar with such small dragons. How about you my friend? You know anything of it?"
Majenko blinks a few times at Thaven. 'Your generocity knows no bounds, human. You must know that it is custom to pledge service in thanks for large services. It would not be servitude, it would be repayment. Please, for the sake of my pride, allow me to serve you.'
Burahl recalls a few things about the pseudodragons. Tiny red flying creatures that infest most of Korvosa, they're cousins of true dragons. A few times a year, they have territorial wars with the imps that also infest the city. Their tails contain a deadly poison. They're about as intelligent, on average, as an average humanoid.
Nodding in compliance, Barvasi struggles to rise, bound, and leads the party down the stairs into the hold of the ship. Arriving on the bottom of the stairs in a hallway with many doors, Barvasi leads the party to a door in the southeast corner of the hallway, bringing them into a meeting room with a door to the south and to the north.
"Right this way, good sirs." says Barvasi with a grin as he leads the party to the southern door.
At Burahl's explanation and Thaven and the dragon having a conversation, Raijinn calms down. He looks at the small dragon with a smile. "You are certainly a curiosity, dear creature."
"We would be honoured to have you with us," Raijinn looked the dragon in the eyes and gave a small bow, wondering what other absurd things they might collect. A mage's soul, a small dragon, what could possibly be next?
"I suspect that a certain someone hasn't been feeding you well," Raijinn spoke to the small dragon, giving Barvasi a kick as he said it. "Perhaps you would like to do some hunting while he leads us to his chambers?"
Raijinn picks up the rope attached to Barvasi, and gives him a slight shove. "You. Walk."
Raijinn stops Barvasi and spins him around. He shoves the man up against the wall of the ship. "Have you already forgotten what happened to your men upstairs? Lie to me again and I'll take one of your hands."
Thaven looks at the dragon. "Fair enough then. If it's your choice, I'm happy to have another set of eyes to watch for trouble."
Seeing Barvasi attempt treachery, Thaven smiles slightly. "He can still talk without his ear, can't he?" Thaven raises his bow and sights at the man's ear.
Akiki scowled at Barvasi, poking the back of his neck with one of her knives. "Really?" Thats all she says.
Barvasi laughs, but can be seen sweating a bit at his deception unraveled. "Of- of course! How could I have forgotten, my office is just in here, not in there. Silly of me."
He turns around, leading the group to the northward door.
"Well, I can't exactly open it myself, can I?" he says with a knaveish smile.
Akiki totally checks that door for traps.
She elbows Barvasi out of the way and peers over that door quite intently.
Akiki totally finds no traps wired into the door. Actually, it isn't even locked. It's just a simple wooden ship's door.
Raijinn frowns, not quite trusting it. He motions for Akiki and Burahl to back away from the door. He looks at it and furs his brow, concentrating. Sweat beads form on his forehead as he focuses, trying to remember how he did this the last time. He stares hard at the door, and moves his hand.
Thaven keeps his arrow trained on Barvasi, ready to feather him should anything prove treacherous!
The door swooshes open with a fizzling sound to reveal a somewhat messy office. Papers lie on desks, along with quite a few valuable-looking items. Apparently, Barvasi collects the best of the loot just as Gaedren did.
Barvasi motions into the room, to the desk. "There, the two open envelopes, quality stationery, addressed to 'My Kitty'. That's what you're looking for."
Barvasi smiles at Thaven, despite the threat of imminent violence. "You aren't afraid of me, are you? I'm unarmed, unarmored, and tied up. What threat could I possibly pose?"
Thaven looks at the man. "Measure twice, cut once." is all he says.
Raijinn looks incredibly pleased with himself for managing to open the door and shoves Barvasi through it and into the room, following closely behind.
Fredo clicks his tongue in seeming disappointment at Barvasi's attempted deception, then flashes Raijin an encouraging smile before pouncing on the envelopes. Or, rather, he barely stops himself pouncing on the envelopes just before he touches them. This is for Cressida, after all, not him, so if he can avoid damaging or smudging the writing with the oil of his fingers, he will. Instead, he concentrates for a moment, and one piece of parchment worms its way out of the envelope, unfolds itself, and hovers before Fredo's face so he can read it.
This room is small and simple, and contains only a few pieces of furniture. An ornate bed sits against one wall, while a dresser and round table sit against the other. A (locked) wooden sea chest sits at the foot of the bed.
Even a cursory reading shows this letter to be a love letter of a scandalous affair between a married woman and Amprei, also a married man. A more detailed reading shows that the woman he's been having an affair with to be the wife of an important Chelaxian nobleman. They apparently had been meeting aboard the Goldenhawk.
Akiki just snorts at Barvasi, "Nah, you're just a traitorous bastard. There's a difference between fear and intelligence" She lurked over Goffred's shoulder to read.
Ugh. Once a bad guy, always a bad guy, apparently.
Burahl sidles up to Fredo and stretches himself to see the letter.
"What does it say? I can't quite see it."
Burahl looks at the valuables in the room and tries to see if anything is alchemical or poisonous in nature.