Wiping the water out of his eyes Bukis smiles as he takes his sword. After caressing it for a moment he looks over the others in the cabin. Ready? When he sees that they are Bukis goes back to the main deck and watches as Lilly gives everyone back their items. What next? He looks around at the group when he asks this question.
Brelkar is not on deck but Lightfoot is and his face absolutely lights up when Maia hands him his boots. "Thank you!" He yells, grasping Maia in a brief but thorough hug. It takes a while to make it through the chaos of the deck and it isn't until you make it into the cabin that something approaching peace falls.
Trinan sees where you're headed and hurries over. "The Captain had some sort of magic compass which she's used to get us through storms before. I don't think she took it with her so take a look, see if you can find it."
Double doors open into this lushly appointed cabin containing a hanging coat full of soft rugs, a solid table with built in writing desk and wide stern windows which currently show a wide angle view of the storm raging across the sea.
As you look out one of the ship’s boats, a dark smudge among the waves, capsizes and disappears into the depths. Oddly, despite the ship’s pitching, the cabin is immaculately neat, even the stack of parchment on the table remains exactly squared, held down by a smooth black paperweight.
Bukis moves into the room, surprised by the neatness despite the rolling and tossing of the ocean. However he tries hard to remain alert to any possible danger.
From the back of the group, Maia hovers in the doorway and keeps an eye on her friends and allies.
Out of the rain again is nice, even if it is in the quarters of a man that was going to sell them. "I'll search this side."
Armed with cutlass and ill-intent, Estian barges into the room and keeps Bukis' back. The soft rugs catch his attention and fill his head with dreams of spending days upon days in a cage of comfort and splendid luxury. His back groans and moans in reply, and other than that, the esquire adds very little to the party's efforts.
Bukis doesn't see anything untoward, although he does catch a whiff of a funny smell in the air...
Taking a deep sniff he can't quite place the scent he catches but makes sure to mention it to everyone else. "Strange smell. " Then he walks further into the room. Taking a moment he reminds himself that his focus now is the compass, anything to help them get through the storm is worth looking for, the rest he or someone else can search through later.
Lilly sniffed, and cringed, "well it has been a few days since we've bathed..." she keeps looking.
Still lingering in the doorway, Maia casts a spell to allow her to sense magical auras and begins concentrating on narrowing down where the enchanted compass is.
Maia sees a magical aura in the far corner of the cabin, under the bed and is just about to point it out when Lilli hops up from the floor holding a black and copper compass - the source of the aura. It was tucked into the furthest corner under the bed, the exact place someone would put something they didn't want found in a hurry...
Lilli feels a sharp sting in the back of her neck and a winged and grimacing figure appears from thin air, its tail still hovering behind Lilli's neck.
Maia gasps at the sight of the creature with its stinger in poor Lilly's neck. Letting her spell fade, she focuses on the magic in her blood and conjures a cloud of sparkling dust to cover the creature and stop it from vanishing again. She does her best to center the effect far enough away to spare her friend, and grimaces when the ceiling proves too low and the sparkling dust gets in the other woman's eyes. "Oh," she groans, "I'm sorry, Lil, I'm sorry..."
The imp seems unaffected by the glitterdust and flaps up a few feet before turning to Estian.
"Restrain the woman so she can't cast any more spells and hinder your friends!" It suggests, magic echoing behind the words. The suggestion is so reasonable that Estian feel compelled to consider it!
Frusrated because his scythe can't reach the imp Bukis looks around for something to throw. "Magic! Bring it down!", he says as he realizes there is no way to hit the imp he attempts to throw a blanket over it to force it down after taking a step closer to it.
Then spends the next moment trying to pull the blanket off his head.
A sharp sting, and burning pain, and then the world exlodes in color, then darkness. "MAIA!" Lilly stumbles back unsure what to do when she can't see anything. So she huddles into a low to the ground ball, in hopes she can just stay out of the way.
Maia mutters something unintelligible and gestures towards the imp. A light pink aura appears around it and it starts to chuckle.
"Restrain the woman so she can't cast any more spells and hinder your friends!" It suggests, magic echoing behind the words. The suggestion is so reasonable that Estian feels compelled to consider it!
"Stop it, Maia! Stop it!" Estian tries to interrupt Maia's spellcasting by grabbing her wrists and yanking her arms down. Whatever caused this conflict to flare into outright violence, it has to stop!
Estian attempts to interfere with Maia's casting but trips on the edge of a rather nice rug and nearly slams into the table. Lilli cowers and Bukis tries to extricate himself from the blanket he accidentally threw onto his own head...
The imp, quite understandably find this hilarious and laughs so much that it ends up rolling around on the Captain's bed giggling its head off.
"No, Maia! You made it ... you made it laugh! That's ... I don't know, but stop it!" Estian doesn't quite know what to think or feel, but it's clear that whatever Maia is doing just isn't right.
He continues his efforts to frustrate the bard's spellcasting.
Estian wraps his arms around Maia's and holds her tight. While this is something that many men would pay good coin for, and often something that the aasimar rather enjoys, right now it's just awkward for both of them.
Uncovering his head Bukis is quite surprised to see the imp rolling on the bed. Dropping the bedding he swings his scythe at the giggling imp.
Bukis swings his scythe in a rather trucated arc and catches the imp, although the blow seems less effective than it should be.
”Ok,” Maia says uncomfortably, ”but you don’t have to assault me... You’re wise words have restrained me. No more hindering your friends, I swear. Now turn around and kill that thing before it finishes the job it started on poor Lilly!”
Instead of trying to pull free, she stands still and offers no resistance in the hopes of proving she is no threat.
this is the last hug this buffoon is ever getting from me...
There is a lot of yelling, crashing, and laughing? Doesn't sound like it is over though Still in her huddled ball on the floor, Lilly starts praying for help.
Being stabbed appears to shake the imp from its laughter and it vanishes from sight before leaping up and off the bed.
"W-why am I holding you? You're not even my type!", Estian sputters as total confusion washes over his face. Had their foe taken control over his faculties with an infernal spell of sorts?!
He tries to regain a sense of control over himself by tightening his grip on his cutlass. "Hey, where did it go?"
A majestic eagle pops into existence, shining in celestial energy and oddly muscled...
Blind still, Lilly shouts "It's an imp! There has to be a contract telling us its terms of service. Find it!"
Not getting away!" Bukis exclaims as he swings his scythe through the air where he hopes the imp has gone. Unfortunately the little beast moved in a way he didn't expect and Bukis only hit some dust motes floating in the air. Then with a quick glance toward Estian he tries to get him to do something useful. "Contract, find it."
"An imp?! Those hot darn Chelish export their bad habits everywhere, now don't they?!" With that said, he goes about r ransacking the room in search of this 'contract'.
The eagle seeks its evil foul annoying prey, but did it find it... hmmm
not his type... if he’s going to lie he could at least try something believable...
Maia frowns as the imp vanishes again. Then she begins to sing as Bukis continues attacking.
Unfortunately neither the eagle nor Bukis can find their prey without the glimmering of Maia's golden dust. Estian however does find an official looking document with two signatures sitting on top of the desk in plain sight. It's almost as though it wanted to be found!
The imp reappears, jabbing at Bukis with its stinger!
Getting hit by the imp's sting only serves to infuriate Bukis. He swings his scythe about wildly hoping to hit the small creature.
The eagle dives after the imp.
"How's it going?" Lilly yells out. Assuming no one yells out it is going peachy, Lilly will then concentrate on her holy symbol, begging for divine help with these die rolls.
Estian presents the documents to his companions, but some of them are locked in mortal combat and so, might be a little too busy for what he's about to ask. "What now, should I tear it up?!"
No, that seems silly. Action! That's what needed! The contract wrinkles up as he wraps both hands around the grip of his cutlass, paper underneath, and he moves up to assist Bukis in sending the imp back home. Wherever that might be.
Guided by the gods Estian hits the imp! Even though his attack is blunted by something it is still a firm hit and the imp yowls in protest.
Maia continues her inspiring song as she hesitantly raises the recovered shortsword and stabs at the imp.
The imp dodges Maia's rather wild swing and stings her in retaliation!
Shaken by how brutally the infernal thing stings Maia, Estian's strike fails to strike true.
The pretty bird attacks again, before popping out of existence in a poof of sublight.
The explosion of colors fades from the ginger's eyes with relief.
"Where is that contract?" she shouts, then runs over to where Estian left it and starts reading quickly looking for the conditions of servitude on the imp.
The eagle's smiting talon carves a great gash through the imps tiny ribs but the tiny creature still flies... barely.
Bukis had given thought to getting rid of the contract and hoping that would appeased the imp, but seeing the little creature injured inspires Bukis to attack once again.
With a final mighty blow Bukis drive his scythe right through the creature and it vanishes in a pitiful puff of smoke.
The contract, once smoothed out and read, proves to be a deal between Imperia Tanessen and the imp Xerithelxius, for one to provide familiar services to the other in exchange for two souls yearly. It seems that the imp, abandoned by the Captain was unable to leave the cabin, even with the ship in critical danger.
Outside the cabin comes cries of alarm and a lot of high pitched squeaking!
"I think if we tear up the contract... oh" the imp is toast.
Maia winces in pain as blood and venom drip down her otherwise flawless porcelain skin. As the sounds from outside reach her ears, she turns and heads back onto deck to see what new emergency has arisen.
With their foe beaten and the contract taken out of his hands, Estian wanders about the cabin and looks for any useful and or valuable items that might be lying about. Like say, a bottle of fine Andoran bourbon or a scroll case with maps of the area.
There is no bourbon, nor even a map - presumably the captain took both with her. Estian does however find a satchel hanging by the door which seems to contain some useful items, or at least he presumes they are since they are labelled 'for emergencies'.
Maia opens the door onto the deck to see huge and ominously green clouds beginning to form over the ship. That is a problem for a later time as most of the crew it seems are scrambling up onto deck followed by a chorus of frantic squeaking.
"Rats!" One of the sailors yells to Maia, seeing her in the cabing doorway. "Dozens of the buggers. They're coming up out the hold!"
"Eh, which of those 'emergency' items are applicable for the current rodent emergency?!", Estian asks as he hands the bag to whoever is open to receiving it and its content.
Bukis moves to where the screams are coming from only to see a swarm of rats coming from the hold, "Behind me." he says to Maia and then he sees the amount of rats coming towards. Looking at his weapon and then looking again at the swarm Bukis makes a quick decision. "Magic for rats?", he asks Maia as he watches them come towards him and his new ally.