"It would probably help any of us," Maia answers with a smile, "but I'll carry it for now in case someone needs to be shot. You should grab that pearl, Lilly, it'll let you recast one of your spells, which we made need pretty soon..."
After thinking about their current predicament for a moment, she tentatively suggests, "there's still a bunch of sharkmen out there, and we don't know where the rest of the crew is yet. I think we should try to call or lure one of the guards in here... I think I can speak to them... if it'll listen, we can tell him that I'm the new queen and command him to tell us where the rest of the crew are, and if he won't listen it'll be a lot easier to kill them off one at a time?"
Without any hesitation, Estian takes the ring and tries it on. Hadn't he been an absolutely fabulous bon vivant before enlisting with the Andoran navy? Oh, the first part of him to succumb to the briny menace that is the sea was his luscious curls. Soon after, the colors of his finest clothes followed suit. Not much later, said clothes were dragged to the bottom of those endless blues, and he was left with little more than rags. No, you deserve this, Estian. Don't let anyone put you down, ever, and shine!
With that out of the way, he turns his attention to the others and the more pressing matter at hand: the damned sharkmen. Maia's proposed plan is wicked, but the kind of wicked Estian can get behind. "Devious, Maia, I like it. Let's do it. "
"The pearl is lovely!" Lilly gushes, slipping the chain it is on over her head to nestle warmly in place. "Oh that shirt would look fetching on you, Estian."
After the items are distributed, the cleric says "I need a moment. My goddess deserves a little time to express my thanks for her aid." Lilly smiles warmly at her companions then excuses herself to pray for a few minutes, bringing along one of the silver combs to try and tame her thick hair into something akin to sanity.
Maia nods to Lilly and then attaches quiver and mounting hook that go with Cekrite's crossbow to her belt. "While Lilly prepares, let's get the rest of this stuff picked up. Bukis, why don't you put this shirt on, someone aught to be ready to use it in a pinch, and I'll get the rest of the things packed into you bag. Then we'll try to lure a guard once everyone's ready."
Once Lilly has finished her prayers, Maia seats herself in Cekrite's throne and instructs Lightfoot , "the sharkmen should recognize you as one of the queen's attendants; go and summon just one of them come meet with the queen."
Lightfoot nods and heads out. It takes a few minutes but he returns, dangling in the fist of a huge sahuagin. The huge mutant is followed by four, more normal sized, sahuagin - all wielding tridents. The sight of Maia slouching in the throne makes all of them pause and the lead mutant drops Lightfoot unceremoniously on the floor.
"Who. You?" It growls in broken common.
Seeing how the huge lad brought four friends to add weight to his words, Estian steps up next to Maia's throne to add some weight to hers.
Lillebeth was looking around the room, to combat too much energy, but hurries over to the throne once company arrives. The ginger cleric doesn't add nearly as much weight as Estian though.
Brelkar comes too, lending considerably more weight than Lilly, and Bukis adds more weight than everyone else combined, holding Cekerite's severed head in his fist. The sides seem evenly balanced, and Lightfoot scurries out of the way to avoid collateral damage.
It appears that Maia can unleash violence at her will...
we're going to have to make sure Lightfoot isn't still enchanted if we get out of this... I clearly told him to summon one single sharkman, and this is clearly not one single sharkman...
Maia casually raises one hand to restrain her companions and answers, "হ্যা আমি. সিকারাইট দুর্বল ছিল, এবং তার দুর্বলতা তাকে ব্যয় করেছে। আমি তোমার নতুন রানী: রানী মিয়া। আমার প্রতি আপনার আনুগত্যের প্রতি নতজান এবং অঙ্গীকার কর এবং আমি আপনাকে করুণার সাথে শাসন করব, অথবা আপনি আমার অনুগ্রহ প্রত্যাখ্যান করতে পারেন এবং আবিষ্কার করতে পারবেন যে সেকেরাইট মৃত সাগরে আপনার উপরে রাজত্ব করবে কিনা।."
Lilly nods a HmmfHmmf sharply even though she has no idea what Maia is saying.
The four-armed leader lets out a low growl at Maia's words and responds in the same tongue.
"Will you save the People then? Return our females? Witch said she would, when she had the power. You killed her. Do you have power then?"
Maia continues in the aquatic tongue, ”we will save the people and return your women to you, yes. And, I have more power than she did, but I don’t have the power that she was seeking yet—the power that will allow us to save them. Tell me, do any of you know anything about her plans? If she had any information about the power that we don’t have yet it would help us to get the power more quickly.”
The mutant crosses two of its arms and shakes its shark-like head. "Witch said blue witches had it. Hide well. Then your ship came. Witch want it. Now dead. Like females."
The other sahuagin, who seem to have been able to follow the conversation once it switched to aquatic, all let out low growls.
the females are dead not missing... that's going to be harder to return them from... this power must be truly remarkable, or Cekerite was lying to them...
"আপনার ক্ষতির জন্য আমি দুঃখিত," Maia answers earnestly. "আপনার মহিলারা কিভাবে মারা গেল?"
"Witch." One of the lesser sahuagin says, spitting a thick glob of phlegm toward Cekerite's body.
Maia scowls at the headless body and, in the creatures’ watery tongue, offers, ”you may have her corpse to do with as you please, in order to get some small revenge. But, first, bring me the other surface-dwellers that she captured with you.”
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Lilly doesn't know exactly what is going on with all this auran being passed back and forth, but she gets the gist. "We can work together to get free of the storm, and you can make new families."
The mutant barks orders and most of his followers leave. They return a few minutes later with all your missing crew, and one more... a bedraggled man dressed in rags and clearly malnourished. He looks up through dank hair and smiles in gratiatingly, an expression that you all recognise.
"Well, if it isn't my old friends." 'Smiler' Kendrick says...
"FRIENDS!" the ginger cleric shouts back in scorn and disgust. "I don't think you understand that word, you simpering weasel of a man." her eyes flash with a fury of other things she'd like to say or do, but she stamps them down in the wake of her duty.
She quickly goes to the rest of the crew and starts checking to see if they are wounded and what she can do to help, providing smiles and soft words for anyone that needs them over healing.
Not Smiler though.
Estian is completely unsure how to react. The man has earned their utter contempt and has done nothing to deserve anything better than that, yet, haven't they all gone through hell and back since the shipwrecking? After the fight and the brush with death, Estian is too tired to squabble. "Well, well. I guess not even Pharasma wanted you, huh? Perhaps you ought to take this as a sign and make something of what remains of your life. The Gods are always watching."
While most of the sharkmen are away, Maia fills in her companions on the conversation they've missed. She does so speaking very quickly and using lots of big words in order to make it as hard as possible for the remaining sharkmen to understand. Once they're caught up, she turns back to the four-armed creature and says slowly and clearly, "I can see that you are a leader of your people. What is your name?"
After he answers, she addresses him by name to ask, "do your people have any other leaders in between you and me, or are you the highest of your kind?"
"I am Ke-Mar." The sahuagin grunts. "You have people. We take body. Then go. Find new females." He grunts out some short commands and two of the lesser sahuagin peel off to collect Cekerite's body.
"Blue men on big fish came." Ke-Mar adds as his troop leave. "Wanted witch things. Maybe come again."
Unless stopped the sahuagin depart without further comment, seemingly intent on leaving the Eye for good.
"So Cap'n." One of the former slaves asks with a nasty glint in his eye as he points to Kendrick. "They got the witch, we get this piece of gull s***e, right?"
"Not the greatest of deals was it?" Lilly says with a frown. She crossed her arms over her chest and tries not to let her mother's temper out as she watches Estian talk to the gull s$$#.
Maia frowns as well, not wanting to sentence even such a foul man to death but aware that she may have painted herself into a corner now. Looking out at the mixed crew they'd just rescued she tries to gauge how many look to be in favor of turning over Kendrick to the former slaves he wronged and how many seem opposed to that idea.
Trying to think, and act, quickly she points out, "the witch was already dead because she wouldn't allow herself to be taken prisoner when they got her... this miserable cur's already a prisoner, and sadly still alive... hmm... What do you have to say for yourself, you piece of gull sh!t, you want to die free or live in a cage with a former slave as your master?"
Maia gets the impression that the general mood of the group is definitely in favor of scragging Kendrick. From what little she remembers of the voyage on the Devil's Due Kendrick didn't have many friends on board apart from one other man who was also some sort of officer. He likely won't be missed.
Kendrick seems to be able to read the mood as well as he practically grovels into the floor. "I want to be useful captain, ma'am! I'm a humble servant! That's all. I know plenty about ships, I can be useful to you..."
Maia looks to her fellow senior officers to see if any of them will offer an opinion on what should be done with the vile former slavemaster.
Lilly catches her friend's eyes and frowns "Someone dying in battle is one thing, but I am against executions, even in this case... but won't get in the way if that is what you decide, captain." she uses the title in this case instead of her friend's name, keeping the two separate is important to her at the moment.
Feeliong that Lilly is anything but okay with what's about to happen, Estian can't help but give in to her moral qualms. He sighs and steps forward, speaking with a voice full of resentment that's struggling to cling on to hope. Hope for things to get better, to be better. "He could swear an oath of service to me as I am an esquire ... albeit an errant one, well beyond the borders of Andoran. I'm uncertain how we'll get the attention of a God of contracts and or loyal service, like Abadar or Iomedae, without a priest, so eh, perhaps Desna would like to do the honors? Bind those who roam in places unknown, for them to stay together, faithful, regardless of the challenges they might face? For him to prove himself worthy of the grace of the Stars above, to live a life worthy of song and story?"
He's then quiet for a moment before giving voice to his doubts and reservations. "The Gods know, maybe Pharasma won't instantly send you to the burning Abyss if you choose to fill the rest of your life doing good, trying to be good, being a light to the world around you."
Relieved at the prospect of a resolution that doesn’t involve an execution, Maia addresses the crew. “You hear that? What could be a more fitting chance for this scabrous slug to redeem himself than the former slavemaster binding himself to serve another? It’s poetic, it’s punitive, and it provides us with another set of hands to fix and sail the ship.”
”What say you, Gullshit? Will you swear yourself, before the gods and this crew, to serve Sir Estian loyally and faithfully?”
"Of course Sir Estian. I swear to you my faithful service!" Kendrick grovels and manages a little bit of a smile, not as fine as it was since he's now missing two teeth. "I'll do anything you ask. I swear! Upon my honor!"
With the sahuagin gone you are left in possession of the island and the supplies that can be found there. You have more than enough to repair the Devil's Due now.
Lily seems quite content and gives Estian a quick squishy hug. "My hero" she beams.
Maia nods to Estian, looking a bit relieved herself. "There you have it," she declares to the crew, "rather than free him from this world for a moment of bloodthirsty revenge, we will all watch him labor in service for his own redemption." With that matter resolved, she sets to work orchestrating the gathering of resources and transport of materials and crew back to the ship so more repairs can begin.
Once everyone, and all the salvage, are safely back she gathers the senior officers in the captain's quarters and says, "well done, all. That was a tricky situation and coming out of having spared most of the sharkmen and with one more crew than we started is more than I could have hoped for. Now, the sharkman leader said the power that the fey witch was after was with the blue couple... that must be Mother and Father, right? We've been on good terms with them, do you think we can just go ask them about it?"
Transporting the salvage back takes the rest of the day and a number of back and forth trips. Thankfully there is a very battered, but still seaworthy, skiff wedged under one of the stilted huts so the job is much quicker than it would have been otherwise with only one boat.
Brelkar, once he recovers from the embarrassment of being enchanted by a witch, sets to work in fine form and is confident that the Devils' Due will be seaworthy again in a matter of days.
Kendrick proves to be a competent, if not enthusiastic, worker. The first night there is a quiet scuffle and he reports for work the next morning with a mighty black eye, but all in all the crew seem willing to let him be - for now at least.
Maia honors Kendrick's decision to take the lumps without 'rocking the boat' by pretending not to notice the black eye. She makes a mental note, however, to watch for any repeated abuse which she would clearly have to deal with.
Although she had gotten painfully little feedback from her senior officers about her theory that Mother and Father were the keepers of the mysterious power they'd learned of, or the idea of simply asking them about it, she makes arrangements the next day to return to their home.
Lilly assumed Maia knew she knew that she knew what might be known... about... crap what was it again... oh, that speaking to the blue people was a good idea. Lilly might have found a bit of rowdy fun that involved a bit of... well you know... down in the hold of the ship here and there that had her preoccupied from talking strategy with her friend/captain. Nothing about being alive to awaken one's libido. And at the moment the ginger cleric is very very awake.