So now what do we do?
"Check the next room." Besmara tells and opens a door. But not before checking for anything out of order.
Besmara sees nothing out of order about that door. And even as she opens it, nothing happens. Eight simple beds crowd this room, which is untidy with used plates, flagons, and clothing strewn around. A bricked-up fireplace stands in the west wall, and the room smells strongly of grog and sour sweat.
Behind the door stand a sea chest. The chest is unlocked and holds a register listing crew shares as well as a large leather purse containing 760 gp and 975 sp.
After all the stuff is gathered Lito looks at the bricked up fireplace.
Hey did we ever look the body of that alchemist lady downstairs? If she was running she may have taken a bunch of stuff with her.
Noonan goes back down and grabs the corpse for the required looting.
So..I suppose we go back to see The Hurricane King about the spy we killed?
No. It was Captain Fairwind who asked us to look into this. Lets finish looking at the house and then we can report back to her.
Lito leads the group to the next unopened door and uses the keys to open it.
Opening the door opposite of the meeting room reveals two interesting things. One is a mechanism of some kind that is attached to the wall. The other is a flight of stairs running down into the basement. Only that they are completely filled up with rubble.
Noonan pulls the lever!
Nothing happens.
*Sqwak! You goof! You just made a volcano erupt*
Can anyone figure out what this thing attaches to?
Lito examines the machine
"Nothing here, lets go and check the other rooms." Besmara suggests and leads from door to door.
This neatly ordered shop has a long counter with a tall stool behind it, and display shelves stocked with containers and jars. Samples of plants, tubers, and roots hang from hooks up on the walls and the scented fragrance of herbs suffuses the store.
This room features a table and two chairs and was used by the guards.
The shelves of this small storeroom are stacked with flasks, vials, ampoules, and bottles of various shapes and sizes. Arranged systematically into groups, these containers, fashioned from porcelain, metal, glazed pottery, and glass, appear both clean and empty.
This crowded workroom holds a stone bench along the wall opposite the door and cupboards on both ends. Weighing scales, a mortar and pestle, and other pharmaceutical paraphernalia are tidily arranged about the room.
This plain room holds a simple table and two wooden chairs. A small oil lamp sits on the table.
Rows of wooden shelving line this chamber. The shelves contain trays and containers of roots, cuttings, twigs, mosses, and unprocessed herbs. The fragrance of dried aromatic flora fills the room.
Just another corridor.
A small rusty stove stands against the north wall of this dank and otherwise unfurnished room. A blackened metal chimney pipe runs diagonally up the wall from the stove into the ceiling.
Behind the door is a damp pantry, its moldy shelves bare.
So all in all, there is nothing else of interest about the espionage found in the apothecary.
We go back to Fairwind now?
We need to get our fallen crewman and consider if we want to bring her back to life. Only after that's done, then yes, I think we head back to Captain Fairwind.
"Probably. Pack up everything and also the bodies of Estelle and our spy. I'll see to hiring a few guys." Besmara replies.
Then she leaves the apothecary to find the guards. "Hey guys, want a new job? As we put your boss out of business a few days early, it would only be fair to offer you a position on my crew. How about it? First thing would be not very piraty though - I need someone to take the bed apart and transport the parts to my ship." she tells them. "I'll pay you two gold each for that and taking a look at my ship and crew to decide if you want to come along."
The guards are not too pleased, but their job was going to run out anyway with the apothecary getting closed. And once the body of Zarskia is carried out, their reluctance is gone. They do as told and bring the bed to the Kraken.
As there is no need to stay here, everything and everyone is moved to the ship and the discussion about what to do now commences on board.
"Now what? Sandara, are you able to bring Estelle back to life?" Besmara asks the cleric.
"No. The best I can do is keep her corpse fresh until we find someone. I'll pray for that magic tomorrow." Sandara replies.
Captain I suggest we head to a big town and see if we can find a lead on someone who has that magic. Or we might be able to find that magic back at the whispered sighs.
He gets a gleam in his eye as he continues:
I won't mind visiting the priestesses again
"You mean the House of Stolen Kisses? I can imaging that priestess to raise a dead man. Let's find out if it works for women too." Besmara replies in a chipper mood.
She orders the crew to get the ship ready to leave.
The Kraken leaves port and sets course to Quent again. After a days travel with steady wind you reach that port. Quent is lively as ever, but the crew is not really happy as all this questing for information doesn't pay very well. And word is that a lot of gold will be spent on one dead officer.
Go get some ale and whores Noonan suggests
"That would serve only half the crew at best." Sandara objects. "Also I'm sick of hearing them whine about their cock rotting off when they caught something on their ride again."
"Maybe you offer your service by checking the ladies beforehand?" Besmara suggests to Sandara with a grin.
"Lito, are you going to make us a fortune, by selling the stuff in the belly of the Kraken? We need some spending money, for us and the crew."
Pay crew, they grumbling after all the trips we do.
Lito heads out to try to sell the loot.
Lito sells off the stuff that was not claimed for about 31.000 gold.
Noonan enjoys his spiffy new cloak
Besmara throws a small party for those who are interested with a nice meal from Fishguts matching the wine. "Cheers!" It's double the fun to drink that from the stylish glasses.
After enjoying the meal and handing out pay to the crew Lito approaches the captain.
Captain, do you want me to take what we found to Captain Fairwind, or do you want us all to go?
"You want some privacy with her?" Besmara asks with a sly grin. "You can go alone. I will visit the House of Stolen Kisses first next morning to get Estelle back to the living."
Me go with Lito.
Lito grins back at the captain.
Can you blame me? She will make a powerful friend for the crew and is almost as pretty as you.
He winks at her as he says the last.
Then he goes off to gather all the evidence of the spy ring.
When he’s done he come back on deck with everything tucked neatly in a backpack to leave his hands free to fight if he gets jumped.
Hearing Noonan comment he is about to object when he thinks better if it.
Better if there are two of us in case we get jumped. The crew worked too hard to lose this evidence in some random mugging.
Come Noonan, Lets get this over to Captain Fairwind.
It is easy for Lito to ask his way to Tessa Fairwind's residence. The building is impressive, as one would expect from the Mistress of the city of Quent here on Motaku island.
Fairwind's personal guards recognice you as you state your business and you're sent in. "You have found something?" Fairwind greets Lito and Noonan as she comes to meet you on your way in, in the hall. Obviously the guards have some means to contact her.
Estelle's ghostly form floats around Chey's room, turning items and just being bothersome to the ships mage.
Chay looks up from his work trying to determine how to perminately enchant a ballista.
Be gone you pesky imp! And he swats at the spirit with mage hand
Estelle moves away from the Ballista.
"Yer gonna piss off that Red Headed wenches ghost? Ye will pay I bet once they bring her back." Flips stands by his siege weapons as Chay tries to make it pack a bigger punch.
"Why don't we just strap a bunch o' that alchemist fire to the head and call it a day?"
You expected something less?
The captain she does what she sets her mind too, and I make it a point to never to renig on a commitment to someone as impressive as yourself.
Between the two of us, we have the Kracken running as a pretty tight ship.
So we not only have the proof of the spies for you, we have names, intercepted orders and numbers of informants in each crew.
Oh and as a side benifit we disrupted the message flow going back to Cheliax.
So ya, I’d say we found something.
He smiles a winning smile at her.
Do you have a little time? I’d be happy to lay out all the details for you. But it might take a little bit of time as there’s quite a bit here.
"The time I spend matches the importance of things. And that is pretty important business. Follow me." Fairwind tells. She leads you into a spacious room. There are maps and books everywhere. She rolls up the maps on the large table and stows them away.
"Feel free to spread out what you found." she invites you.
Lito lay’s out the whole story for her, pulling out the evidence and explaining it toher as he comes to the correct points in the story. He makes sure to make the story as entertaining as possible for Tessa while giving her all the important facts and dramatically giving each officer in the crew a heroic moment to shine.
Note he will gloss over some of the details with the priestesses although he will let slide how impressed the high priestess was with him before moving on. The goal here is to discretely impress Tessa not flaunt his conquests.
"That is a serious matter." Fairwind concludes. "It is right as I feared, and we are still none the wiser about what they are up to." she states kinda frustrated. "Or do you see where that goes?"
Noonan's eyes glaze over as Lito speaks
Sensing her mood, Lito turns serious, leaving off his flirting ways for a time.
The only clue we have is that the plan is happening soon and it has something to do with the Master of Gales.
The only thing I know about him, is he wins the pirate Regata often, operates out of Drenchport, and is rumored to know more about the Eye then anyone. Do you know more, or is what we have to work with?
Lito Thinks for a moment the says:
Unless the numbers in this journal mean something else... I assumed they were the number of turncoats in each captain's crew, but maybe they mean something else.
Lito goes over the Journal with Tessa including pointing out her name in there and the number next to it.
"That's interesting. This looks like amounts of gold." Fairwind concludes. "I wonder what for. Could be bribes, but I know that wouldn't work for me. Even with the sum stated there."
ON the ship Besmara tells Sandara to take over the command and asks Trytton and Jessica to come along to bring Estelle's body to the House of Stolen Kisses. Using a cart and a blanket to not draw unwanted attention.
As second time visitors Besmara expects to get to meet with the high priestess, to discuss the terms.
The pirates are guided through some back corridor as dead bodies kill the mood for the usual activities in the temple. Estelle gets parked in a room and the others are lead to Dindreann. "Welcome back. I hear you ran into fatal problems?"
"Yes. Can you fix that?" Besmara asks.