Selena 'tel Surta 'tel Reville's page

The captain makes a face. "Oh the joy." She says with a lack of enthusiasm. "Keep that to yourselves for now. It's above my pay grade, thankfully. I'll keep the document in the ship's safe for now. Make sure you put any magical items in the vault. I'm sure your boss will want a full debriefing."

The captain looks pensive. "Psionic materials? They knew they were psionic, or they are crystals and these dark elves don't know what they have?" She takes the scroll and reads it over, putting on a pair of glasses that glow slightly when she's reading. "This just seems to be a missive granting the bearer docking privileges in any port in their country."

Ok, was waiting for Selvan, but moving on now.

The captain laughs at Alys's comments. "You tell him girl, make 'im think through the testosterone haze, and if that doesn't work, blow something off." She laughs, then stands. "Ok, well, you got your marching orders, so I'm off to make sure the watch is not when shift change occurs. You can use my office for an hour or so if you want, but don't forget to grab your stuff before you go, or it won't be here when you get back."

She heads out the door, taking the good jug with her.

Selena grimaces. "I'd tell people before you got back. But, I do understand your hesitation. I was told you'd be ok with this, and used to it. We don't exactly have permission to put people ashore other than the docks." She shrugs. "If we had, I'd just have sent you off with some shooing motions. The tabbies are kind of sticklers for protocol it seems, you know the types, papers, laws, got rods up their fuzzy butts. So they haven't given us permission to let anyone leave the docks area. Going to be hard to find out about the local situations if we get all our info from a handful of tabbies. But hey, if you lot don't want to do it, no skin off my nose. Stay on the ship for all I care. You explain to his smugness you didn't go." She shrugs, and takes another swig. "I get my bonus whether you go or not, so stay on the ship for all the frack I care."

Selena waves a hand at Reaghar, not really caring if he tops off his flask. "I have no idea if you're supposed to research someone specific. I was told you'd be gathering information on the locals. If you've got orders from his smugness about someone specific, or wet work, I don't know about it, and I don't want to know about it. I imagine your lack of ability to fit in may be why I was told to make sure the crew believed you were deserters. I'm sure Kiana will b@%~# good and loud the next two months about you lot leaving." Selena grins. "I imagine she's going to work your butts off when you get back and she finds out she was lied to."

Distracted from Sammark, the Captain looks over at Selvan. "Well, you'd certainly be one to know, wouldn't you, Mr. Selvan Kilvani 'tel Mintakia." She then laughs and takes another drink out of her mug, apparently ignoring Sammark for now. "Well, now that we're all here and seated, I should probably get on with why I called you here. I suppose I could say that one of you is a murderer, but I think you all already know that."[b] She gives Sammark an extra cold grin, before continuing. She reaches down next to her table and pulls up the Ship's Log Book, and drops with a loud thump on the table. [b]"This here's the log..." She flips it open about half-way through. "And according to tomorrow morning's log, you lot went AWOL. Was supposed to be seven, but apparently someone had a bad case of puking all over my ship and couldn't leave with you." The hand reaches down again, and this time pulls up a leather pouch, which lands on the table with a clink of metal. "Apparently you also stole 80 platinum pieces from ship's stores, and various gems ranging in value from 5 to 100 gold pieces, for a grand total of 2000 gold pieces. What absolute rogues you are." She pours herself another mug of mead. "Not sure why I let such ungrateful snots on my ship in the first place." Another swig of mead. "Oh yeah, now I remember, some graying old goat of a government spit-licker insisted on it as payment for clearing The Blade as escort." She shrugs. "Anyway, you lot are supposed to go awol, and gather information on the tabbies and the surrounding areas, especially anything scaly and foul tempered if you can find out without getting your heads removed from the rest of your body. We'll be in port for about 2 months for repairs, so you got that long. We'll pick you up 10 miles south on the river in 60 days. We won't wait longer than 10 days, so you got that long to get back."

"I see... soo... Sammark Bellefonte... you are basically telling your Captain to shut her mouth and quit wasting your time?" The question is rather mildly stated.

Waiting on Selvan and Flick

The captain laughs, and raises her glass. "Well, that would be the most convoluted way of trimming staff I've ever heard of, having them go after themselves... but if that's what you're telling me, then all I can say is, deal with each other off ship, I don't need the blood stains."

"Yes, and I'm perfectly aware of all four of them." The captain tells Alys, a bit sourly.

Selena blinks again, then waves at a jug. "For shtock's sake, drink something. You're giving me a headache trying to think like a corkscrew." She finally says, sounding a bit miffed. "I'm the captain of the damn ship, and I know everything about anyone on my ship, even if I'm not supposed to. That includes who are spies, who are incompetents, who's sleeping with whom, and a whole host of other things. I even know who are members in good standing with the Assassin's guild."

The captain actually blinks at that. "Well, if you think you were picked at random, then either I was given very bad information, or you're not as smart as I was told you were."

The captain laughs. "No, I don't need you lot to go shopping. Sivalla's dealing with their shipwright's guild. She can take her harness off, and 'poof', no wings. Makes the tabbies a little less nervous. These lot are nothing like the Taksians. Then, the Taksian's are mostly a different clan, big burly striped guys who like to swim and have fists bigger than your head." She laughs. "Not that the Leo's seem to be afraid, they're just not used to us. And be careful of calling them primitive, the Master Gunner checked out one of their forges, and they do damn good steel. Even saw some adamantine armor on one of the royal guards."

She seems to be waiting for the rest of the people to sit and get a drink, and ask any questions, before she get's down to why she wants them here.

About a week after making port, and finding that the locals are non-hostile, if not warm and fuzzy about visitors, Selena pulls the group into a private conference in her meeting room (yes, including those assigned to The Blade). The Captain is sitting in her chair, leaning it back, with her boots on the table when they enter. She's got a mug filled with, ostensibly, mead given the bottle next to her on the table. There are mugs in the center, and a couple of jugs of various types of alcohol on the table. "Well, pour yourself a drink, and close the door behind you. Don't got all day to deal with you lot." She says, waving a hand at the chairs. "And close the door behind you."

Selena grins. "What Selena wants is a cut of the trade. We'll get that, in spades, since we're the only ones who will go against council edict on the trade. And since we've gotten the council's ok, we won't have to worry about being smacked down. At least not until they can get the votes to make it legal, then we'll get smacked down. But we'll make a ton of profit in the meantime." She does look thoughtful though, after the standard Reville response. "Specific cargo though, we don't know yet, that's sort of the point. We're wanting to open up new trade routes to see what they have. We may flop and not find anything new worth trading for. We may luck out and find a new medicine that stops Moltrot. Who knows. It's a gamble, but it's worth it, we won't make money sitting on our wings."

Just as Kiana finishes handing out assignments to the new crew members, a veritable flock of mixed species comes flying out of the old 1st gen ship that acts as the floating dock, and comes winging in toward the ship. At it's head flies an elvavian with flame colored hair and black leather armor, with Reville colors. On her hip is a rapier.

She alights down on the command deck, then hops up to the railing, standing on the railing with her wings flared to keep her balance. All around the ship, the flock of people come in for landings, catching ahold of rigging, landing on spars, or landing on the railing or deck.

The woman grins fiercely, showing off bright white teeth. "Ahoy! Attention you slackers! Captain on the freakin' deck!

Sivalla calls out merrily. "But you're on the railing!"

The woman looks down, the holds her hand out toward Sivalla and a sawed off rifle appears in her hand. "Avast ye, ye scurvy dog! How dare you correct your captain!"

Sivalla bows. "But, you're not my captain!"

The woman looks thoughtful, and then the sawed off rifle disappears again. "Oh, well, carry on then Wench!" About half the ship bursts into laughter, followed a few seconds later by newcomers who join in a bit nervously.

"I am Captain Selena 'tel Surta 'tel Reville! I am your new Mistress, and the closest thing to a God you lot are likely to meet any time soon! And the first one of you jackholes that makes a joke about me being your lover will get your hide whipped off at the mast!" More laughter from the old hands, while the new hands seem more nervous about joining in.

The woman's wings flip, and she falls into a sitting position on the rail, her hand catching the railing to stop her fall. Her crimson wings fold in behind her. "Alright you scum, listen up. Our illustrious council can't find it's arse with a map and a compass and three interns to help them, much less a functional policy! So we're gonna go out and fix their screw ups. In other words, standard procedure." More laughter.

"They've given us the job of opening new trade with Vellandrus." That set's some people muttering. "Oh shut up you pantywaists. If I wanted to go make money with grandmothers I'd have asked mine! And she'd slit your gizzard and cook you for dinner for making so much noise!" The muttering drops to near nothing. "Now, our papers detail us Sivalla's Blade as a body guard." That perks up the crew, and also explains why there are so many crewmen. "We're gonna see what we can find in the way of place to trade with, and also find out any thing we can about the dragons while we're at it. Now then, any questions that don't include how to wipe your own arse or other equally stupid things?"

A dark skinned Humavian with blood and black colored feathered wings clears his throat. "I ma'am, we've got a lot of new crew, we going to do a shakedown cruise? Or we going fat to the fryer?"

"Good question Jimmy. Our shakedown cruise is going to be to put in at Taksi with a load of dried whale meat we got in. Those cats love whale meat. After that, we'll figure out which direction to go."

A blonde-haired female humavian in a tight fitting and revealing outfit pops up. "I got a question Captain!"

The red-head captain cuts her off. "I said no Brass! You're not my type!" The old hands laugh, and Brass joins in. "Ok, any other questions? And before you ask Brass, no you're not Sivalla's type either." Another round of laughter.