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Message: <blockquote data-quote="spyscribe" data-source="post: 2743119" data-attributes="member: 5808">Happy (American) Thanksgiving everyone!  And a special shout-out to whoever found BadMonkeyJeff at SoCal and told him that Kettennek's Justice demanded the purchase of Lunch Money.  That rocks!Part the One-Hudred Seventy-ThirdIn which: our serenity is shattered.Thatch has been watching Ragya with some curiosity since she came aboard.  Sakeem does not seem to appreciate his interest.“Can I help you with something?”Thatch blushes furiously.  Guilty at being caught-out, even if he wasn’t up to anything.  “Um… Your sister… is she okay?”“No,” Sakeem puts an arm around his Ragya, “she isn’t.”For a moment, Ragya turns and actually focuses on Thatch.  “The water, it likes you,” she says simply.  Thatch blinks.Anvil comes to join the conversation in his usual direct manner.  “You were on your way to Dar Pykos,” he asks.  “Why?”“I wanted to take my sister to see the sights.”Although Sakeem sounds a trifle defensive, Anvil’s zone of truth does not appear to be affecting anyone’s answers.  However—the cleric reflects—the new visitors might simply be able to resist its influence.  Anvil has always thought was a serious flaw in the spell.  He does note that although the young man and his sister both appear to be from Ebis, Sakeem has what looks like a spell-book tucked into his pack… which is odd for a native of a country as hostile to wizards as the Empire.However, that would explain why the young man keeps glancing so nervously at the Ebisite flag flying from the mast of The Fool’s Errand.Anvil isn’t the only party member to take note of Sakeem’s nervousness, and as the party helps the new passengers get settled in the fore-cabin, alternate theories begin to form.“Do you think he’s a wizard?”  Lira asks in a whisper.“He’s got a really big book in his pack.  It looks kind of like Annika’s.”  Kiara bounces with excitement, eyes bright.  “Do you think they’re fleeing the Empire?”“Who wouldn’t flee the Empire?”  Eva puts in.Thatch doesn’t like that the way that sounds.  “We aren’t fleeing…  We just have somewhere else to go.”“What about his sister?”  Kiara asks.Anvil covers that angle by surreptitiously casting a detection spell.  Lira quirks an eyebrow as she notices that Anvil is not casting detect evil, but detect undead.  She shoots him a look.“Is that really necessary?”Anvil gives an uncharacteristic shrug.  “You never know.”  (His player continues, “There are all kinds of weird-ass undead in the world.”)“Don’t you think some kind of feeblemind effect is more likely?”“Perhaps, but I don’t have detect evil prepared.”Lira decides not to ask why he did have detect undead ready.  Instead, she joins the rest of the party as they talk with their new passengers privately, and attempt to confirm their suspicions.###They begin by telling the four their own story, or at least, its rough outline.“We’ve come from Ebis, yes.  But as you can tell.  None of us are Ebisites.  We’re on a mission for King Orrin of Dar Pykos.”“What does this have to do with us?”  Sakeem asks.In response, Lira casts mage hand and uses it to lift the flap of his pack open, revealing the spell-book within.“If you need help, we might be able to aid you,” Reyu says. Aurelia studies each member of the party in turn, as though trying to gauge their truthfulness.  “The ship that attacked us,” she says slowly, and at long last.  “It was an Ebisite ship.”“Why would the Empire attack your ship?” Anvil demands.Brother Bradley speaks up.  “Initially, probably because out ship was out of Dar Thane.  They must have thought we were privateers, menacing their shipping lanes.  Of course, we were nothing of the sort.”“But some of us do have—” Aurelia looks over at Sakeem and Ragya, “—other reasons for not wishing to encounter the Ebisite Navy.”Sakeem glares at Aurelia, not liking her decision to take the party into their confidence, but does not back down for an instant as he answers the Justicar.  “My sister is a sorcerer.  We had managed to keep her hidden from the authorities for years.  I thought she was safe if I left home for a while.  I was studying at the Mages’ Academy in Dar Pykos when I got word that the military had found out about her.  They came in the middle of the night, took her, and killed our parents.”Lira gives him a sympathetic look.  “We’re sorry.”“It took me years to find where they had taken her and get her back.  I don’t know what they did to her, but…” he trails off, his gaze turning to rest on her vacant expression.  “I’m hoping that if I bring her back to the Mages’ Academy, someone there can help me find a way to cure her.”“When were you at the Academy?”  Annika asks abruptly.  “Did we have class together?”Sakeem’s eyes go wide.  “Umm… about three years ago?”“I started right around that time…”Annika and Sakeem compare notes, and confirm that they did take first-year divinations together, and although it was some time ago, once their memories are jogged, they do each recall the other.  Anvil and Reyu exchange a look, reassured.Sakeem, due to his efforts to find and rescue his sister, had not heard about the attack on the Academy, and the party members fill him in on details as best they can.  It appears that not many of his former classmates will be there to greet him on his return.The party agrees—not knowing the full extent of Elsuki’s views on the arcane—to keep the siblings’ story to themselves, at least for the time being.  The new guests give the Captain a rough description of the ship that attacked them, but since they were cast adrift before the attack began, they are not able to say much definitively beyond the fact that the vessel was two-masted.The morning is spent helping the new visitors settle in and learning other small details of their stories.  (Details which I’m sure our astute readers can fill-in on their own. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />)Finally, Reyu brings the conversation back to the matter of the Ebisties.“Do you think they’ll come after you?”Aurelia shakes his head.  “I don’t know.”“Well, if they do,” says Lira, “we need to have a plan.”###Since the new passengers have come aboard, Captain Elsuki has not relaxed the crew’s vigilance for a moment. Just before midday, a two-masted ship appears on the horizon.The four refugees hide in the forecastle, while Thatch stands guard by the only door. The ship on the horizon draws closer.Another cry comes from the crow’s nest.  “Ebisite colors!”Captain Elsuki immediately relaxes.  After all, he should have nothing to worry about from the Ebisite navy or from another trading vessel.  Then, he notices the party members whispering and trading nervous glances.“What?”“Umm…”“If there’s something aboard m’ship, and you’re hiding it from me, you’d best be t’fixing that.”“It is… not our place to break a confidence.”“Then maybe you’d best bring me t’someone who can.”Thatch and Eva go to fetch Brother Brightly and the others, and they, with some misgivings on Sakeem’s part, bring Captain Elsuki into their confidence. Elsuki hears their story in silence, but all he says is: “If the military is looking for these people, we’ve got t’find a better way to hide them.”“We must get rid of their longboat,” Anvil points out.  “We do not wish it to look as though we have recently taken anyone aboard.”Lira shakes her head.  “But still, if they’re determined to search us, where on this ship could we possibly hide them?”Thatch is sticking to Aurelia like glue.  “We can protect them.”“No offense Thatch, but are we willing to bet all of our lives on that?”Reyu’s eyes light up with a sudden idea.  “The captain’s right.  There is nowhere on the ship we can hide them.”Eva rolls her eyes.  “Thank you, Miss Sunshine.”Reyu ignores her.  “We should hide them outside the ship.”“How—?”“Water Breathing.”“You know,” says Thatch to no one in particular, “all elves might be crazy, but she’s crazy in a good way.”(Hey, if Fajitas is going to steal from Firefly, why shouldn’t we steal right back?)###As the ship grows ever closer, Reyu quickly casts water breathing on Aurelia, Brother Bradley, Sakeem, Ragya, and Anvil.The sailors work to lash all five of them together with a bit of line, and before the new passengers quite have time to absorb what’s happening, they’re over the side.  Anvil uses an extra length at the end of the line to tie them to the ship’s anchor so they don’t drift out to sea.  Reyu follows them over the rail, wildshaping into a dolphin in midair so that she enters the water with barely a splash.Meanwhile, the party members work to conceal any evidence that their visitors were ever aboard.“What do we do if they find their things?” Thatch asks.Lira considers Thatch’s limited talents for dissembling.  “Look very sad and say, ‘They’re with Alirria.’  You should be able to get away with that even if they hit you with a zone of truth.”Thatch grins.  “Oh, that’s good.”“Other than that, you might want to let me do the talking.”  Lira smiles and heads up for a spot at the railing where she can watch the other ship approach. And we’ll hope that it goes better than it did with the Shesher. The other ship slows as it comes up alongside, bow-to-stern and now only fifteen feet from their own vessel.Lira scans the deck, but just as they are coming into shouting distance, several things happen nearly simultaneously.The Ebisite flag abruptly falls from the mast to be replaced an instant later by the colors of Dar Thane.A shout goes up from the crew.  “Thanean pirates!”As soon as the new flag hits the top of the mast, Lira feels a sudden rush of air.  She turns to follow the source and realizes that the sailor who used to be standing ten feet to her right is now flat on the deck, pinned there by an arrow through his throat.###Below the water, Reyu takes a few seconds to adjust to her new shape as a dolphin.  It’s tricky learning to use her new eyes, and she scans for Anvil and the others to give her something to focus on.What she sees nearly makes her doubt her senses.  Brother Bradley delivers a vicious chop to the back on Anvil’s neck, stunning him.  The monk then reaches into his sash, pulls out a dagger, and severs the lines linking the Anvil to the others, and all of them to the anchor.</blockquote>

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