“Come to the front of the crab, just behind its right front claw,” calls the voice. “That’s right, a little to your left.”
As the group gets closer to the crab, it becomes apparent that the creature is quite dead. There are ropes and pulleys rigged up to the claws, arranged so ingeniously as not to be visible from a distance.
[sblock=Perception 18 (automatic success if you succeeded on the previous check)]The voice speaks in a lower tone to someone else. “Well, they seem friendly enough. Wouldn’t that be something, to see some actual friendly faces on the Shiv? Perhaps fortune is finally with us, Pearl. I don’t know if I can believe it. Good things don’t happen on the Shiv. They just don’t.”
There is a pause. If the other makes any response, you don’t hear it. Then the original voice speaks again. “This won’t do, Pearl. We can’t have their weapons just lying out there. Something might happen to them. They don’t usually come around here, but ... you can never be too careful, can you?”
[sblock=Insight 15]As the voice speaks about friendly faces and good fortune, it starts to tremble slightly, as though the speaker is trying not to cry. During the pause, he seems to recover himself.[/sblock][/sblock]
When the adventurers get near the crab, a piece of chitin suddenly pops out at its side, just behind the right front claw, and a strange black figure climbs out. He wears a ragged pair of breeches, has a bandanna tied around his head, and carries sheathed at his side a fine rapier with an elaborate basket hilt. His body is otherwise covered only in glossy black feathers--he is, in short, a kenku.
“Quick, get inside!” says the kenku, indicating the “door” that leads inside the crab. “I’ll just run out and get the weapons. There are ... very bad people about.” And he runs over to the spot where everyone dropped their weapons.
The interior of the crab is rather chaotic, although it looks and smells reasonably clean. Tools, ropes, and pulleys are scattered everywhere. There is a system of levers near the front of the crab, and at the back, a single sleeping pallet.