Grugga doesn't have a taste for the interrogation and excuses himself to the fore deck. He takes a good look at the mastless ship and considers how to display flags so that the group could see them from land if they needed to. Then he starts designing a simple code for whatever messages they might possibly need to give over long distances.

Rohuzar will watch quietly, just making note of how the Bandit reacts to different subjects. Looking to see what are positives, negatives, sympathetic areas, and unsympathetic. He is also attempting to determine how valuable he is as an asset vs dangerous to hold on to. 

Insight 12 

Leelan will observe the interrogation. He doesn’t say a word, but he takes some satisfaction out of the bandit’s predicament. That’s all he deserves for calling him a ‘’wee man’’.

With plenty of eyes on the interrogation Cosette leans in to Raqisat. "You got this eh?" Cosette bows out while a pouty Bruno gets turned away from Rohuzar. The mastiff mopes over with the saddest eyes and plops himself on Raq's feet. He dramatically flops the top half of his body along the mans legs. Resting his head down he whines, his drool pools in a warm puddle on his lap.

Meanwhile Cos chooses to meander around the ship some more to further familiarize herself with it. Eventually finding a spot to perch herself, Cosette watches the Captain, and crew, work, also further familiarizing herself with their roles and routines. She liked to know what made people tick and what she could do to gain good favour. Throughout her thorough review she notices Grugga working on something in the fore deck. Pulling herself away from one curiosity to another, Cosette eventually approaches Grugga to ask if there's anything she could help with.

The Bandit Leader begins breathing heavy.  He rocks back and forth against his bindings before howling in frustration.  "You don't get it!" he hisses.  "All the legionnaires in the world won't do you a damn bit of good a hundred leagues away.  Out here, it's just YOU.  And you don't have the numbers to take them on."

He is sweating now, his skin glistening on his brow and his hair becomes damp.  "He and his witch, they traffic with devils.  The prophet, he holds fire in his hand... he plans to blaze a new world here where the old world died.  The old dwarven forges are open and he is arming his troops. There's wealth... there's wealth to be made in aiding him and... if... there's..." he seems to be struggling.  He gasps, as if it is growing hard to breath.  His eyes grow wide, and he starts to cough.

Puffs of grey smoke emerge from his mouth with each cough.  He tries to speak, to shout, but the words are garbled.  He rocks back and forth against his bindings, in obvious pain.  The large burn scar on his upper arm turns black and starts to smolder.  Within moments, the man is blistering and searing, burning from the inside-out.  His body can no longer contain the heat and there is a brief flashfire, hot enough that you must avert your eyes.  The whole thing takes just seconds, but when it is over there is a pile of scorched bones and armor, and a discolored burn on the floor, wall and ceiling of the galley.  

Investigation DC 15 (for those still in the room):

     Raqisat rolls his eyes at the dramatic Bruno but happily welcomes the weight of the beast with some pats and pets.  "As much as ever," he responds to Cosette and throws her a wink.  It would be a minute or so before exactly what this is plays itself out but he was indeed determined to watch the interrogation.  After he finished watching Cosette walk out of the room, anyway.

     "Bruno!" Raqisat grunts with a sigh, and shoves the dogs head away when it started drooling.  "Do not be unseemly.  We are guests here..."

     Distractions aside, Raqisat Alsayf had his main focus on the captive.  It was obvious that the hostage was in distinct pain and fear and Raqisat noted the indifference of their hosts.  It was not altogether not to be expected as the man was recently trying to kill them but still, many would have at least blanched at such masochism.  These were either hardier or crueler sorts.

     As the bandit leader began to... Spontaneously combust, for lack of a better phrase...  Raqisat leaned forward with interest.  Whatever was going on, and he of course was unsure at first, it was apparent that this was not an every day occurrence.  At first it appeared the man was dying of fright... or perhaps just out of spite.  But when smoke started puffing out of his mouth and then his skin blistering and cracking...  "Well that is unexpected," Raqisat notes with surprise.

     Holding Bruno back, Raqisat actually ducks and tries to shield the dog with the flames reach their apex of heat and brightness - He honestly had thought the captive might explode.  He was thankful to be wrong about that, at least...  Bruno smells bad enough without being mixed with the soot and burnt innards of a person.

     "Your interrogation techniques..." He says, more to break the silence than anything else.  "They are a bit extreme, yes?"

((Investigation:  5 ))

Rohuzar moves to shield Aubrey as the man starts smoldering. 

Investigation 25 

Can rohuzar make a check about what he knows of the old dwarven forged? And would his favored enemy stuff for dwarves assist him in this? 

Aubrey listens intently as the man starts to tell him about the prophet. The emperor would need to know about this, it could certainly be an obstacle to the reconquista. As the hogtied man starts to combust, the young noble gets up from his chair and steps back, letting Rohuzar shield him, looking with a frown at the sorry remains of the despicable bandit. "Extreme?" Aubrey responds to Raqisat without taking his eyes of the charred corpse of the now truly burned knight. "I can assure you I had nothing to do with what just happened. This prophet apparently had some way to terminate his subordinate to prevent him from divulging more than he already did. As far as I can see he brought this upon himself by serving this devil worshiper. He was clearly more afraid of this prophet than of me, rightfully so of course. I had no intention of actually letting him come to harm, but he didn't know that, and neither did you, which only served the deception. Obviously I didn't expect this to happen but my guess is this man was doomed the moment he was caught." The young noble continues with a grim voice. He then uses the powers of his talisman to shift through the remnants of the burned knight.

Use telekinesis to investigate corpse
Investigation: 4
History to know about dwarven forges: 17

Grugga smiles as Cosette approaches. "Hello, Cosette. Ummm, right now I'm just thinking of different ways that this code could work. The colored cloth is a good idea - I'm sure we could find some cloth, but I don't exactly have any way of coloring it. So I was also thinking of ways to signal with light, but that won't work until dusk, and we really want to be out of the city before then."

He sighs, "The cloth idea seems the simplest and most efficient, if we had cloth and access to dye. What I really wish is that I had the other end of this." He pulls a simple looking glass bottle out of his pouch and shakes it. "If you put a message in it, it goes straight to the other bottle, but the other bottle is in Bluffton..."

"Any way to help? Hummm.... I don't supposed you have access to bolts of cloth and dye? No? I'm not sure then. I could use someone to bounce ideas off of if you have a s---" He cuts off suddenly at the sound of sudden human incineration. He rushes over to the galley to see what's going on.

Still a bit in shock at the sudden combustion of the prisoner, Leelan covers his mouth and nose with his hand as to not get a whiff of the smell of charred flesh.

Using the last of his magical reserve, Leelan will cast Detect magic in the hope of finding any residual magical aura from the corpse or its belongings that might explain the sudden phenomenon.

Cosette returns Grugga's smile with one of her own. As he chats on, she enjoys him sharing his thoughts out loud with her. She looks thoughtful, hovering around him and occasionally popping up on her tip toes to get a better look as he goes over any work in progress on the bench on in drawings. Then when he shows her the wonder that is his message in a bottle, she pauses everything and bounces in excitement. "While that may not solve our current issue, that's still really unique Grugga." She chimes. "I'd like to make notes of it, if I may?" Cos pulls out her note book to add a new entry.

"Always happy to bounce ideas." The redhead encourages. She then brings her hand up and starts to pat her nose as she habitually does when in deep thought. After a brief moment, Cosette raises her finger as she thinks of a solution. Between the Golden Empresses stores, local flora and fauna, their own chef's kitchen equipment and potentially her own disguise kit, she believes they have plenty of means to achieve their goal. "Actually, we may have the means to dye the clo-". At Grugga's sudden departure, Cosette follows.

Once at the scene, Cos tries her best to look over the larger men. Even with her boots, these guys were big. She eventually settles along with Leelan, a gentleman she could respectfully see over. As she looks over what remains of the scene and awaits the witnesses conclusions, Cosette pops a brow. She's more curious than immediately concerned at this time. Bruno however...

The mastiff crept forward. He tries to hide himself behind Rohuzar's legs as he cranes his neck to sniff cautiously at the (assumed) gods awful smell that may remain. Sniff. Sniff. Blink. Blink. Looking up to Rohuzar then over to Cosette, Bruno's eyes were large and filled with lots of concern.

Rohuzar snakes a hand down to Bruno's scruff to ease the dog's nervousness. 

"Aubrey, Grugga... Ve need a vay to keep that from happening again. Might be best to put your minds to it when you have a free moment."

Grugga nods and hands the bottle over to Cosette. "It's an interesting bit of magic. The temple of Ord gave it to me - I suppose they were inspired by the messages in bottles that sometimes wash up on the beaches."

At the combustion site, Grugga answers Rohuzar. "I'll... hrm. I'll think about, cousin. I'm not sure how to stop something like that, but... yeah... I'll think about it."

Wrapping up the afternoon, Grugga works with Cosette to see if they can dye a few sheets to make a code for relaying a small number of set messages from the boat to land. "So, you think we can dye some of these? I think all we have on board that stains is the wine... But you said you know some plants around here? I wonder if Leelan is writing plants into his book..."

As Grugga and Cosette returns to the common room, the young noble looks up with a grim smile. "I sincerely apologize for the mess, and the smell, so impolite of him to go in this perfectly awful way." He says with cold sarcasm in his voice, then turning to Captain Neck to ask her to take the Empress along the Amnifortis Shoreline for a recon tour to gather more intelligence before deciding how to best protect her from the Burned Knights. He mentions preferring to have the remains of the bandit disposed of as soon as the others are finished with it. He will then try to relax in his chair up on top deck with his cold white wine after the gruesome scene of the bandit being consumed by hellfire. After regaining his eldritch strength to again make use of his talisman, Aubrey would call upon his raven Furvus from it's pocket plane, using the powers of his talisman to turn the bird invisible before sending him to closely scout the coast and harbor of Amnifortis. He chuckles to himself at the thought of the others showing the same affection to his familiar as they are to Bruno.

Furvus Perception: 8

Leelan quickly casts detect magic.

Aubrey, poking around the remains with telekinesis teaches you nothing, but you do ponder on the meaning of the man's final words.  Amnifortis had a Dwarven Quarter outside the city walls to the southeast... its possible that is the location of the 'dwarven forges' he spoke of.

Furvus heads out to patrol the shoreline.  [This will take him a little while so I will update this later, or if no one else has anything they want to do right now.]

Before resting, Aubrey would also ask Captain Neck if she would think it safer to retreat north up the Breitwasser during the days or turn to open waters to the south.

Grugga starts work on hauling out some cloth onto the deck and laying flat. He pulls out some empty barrels, or buckets if there are no barrels, to prepare some dye in. "Cosette, what different colors do you think we can get around here? I think if we get three different colors that should get us 15 different patterns for messages. That should be plenty, I think."

Later, while the boat is traveling and the flags don't need his attention, Grugga tries to get everyone together. "So. These Burned Knights change things. We need to think about the safety of our crew. We know they have spellcaster that can teleport. Rohuzar already approached me about putting together some traps, and while I might be able to put something together, I think our best option will be to go on the offensive. We know they're in Amnifortis and the Golden Empress will be in danger as long as those cultists are out there - even if we send the Golden Empress away while we're ashore, the cultists might send a boat with spellcasters after it. However, they can't afford to send anyone if we're threatening their base, which it sounds like is in the Dwarven quarter. We were going to have to clear there anyway, so why not just start there?"

Grugga looks to get everyone's opinions on the matter, but he presses that these cultists are the biggest threat to their mission and safety at the moment, and they should be taken care of sooner or later.

Finally, Grugga goes to check on Mr. Howie and see howie's doing.

Aubrey listens and nods as the artificer speaks. "I agree with your assessment Grugga, though the Burmed Knights might not yet have a boat to come after the Empress. When we scout out the shoreline and harbor of Amnifortis we will hopefully be able to ascertain whether there are any seaworthy seacraft available to the Burned Knights." The young noble says, looking around at the others assembled in the common room.

     Raqisat leans back in his chair and stretches out his legs.  He listens to Grugga and Aubrey and nods a bit but he does not neccessarily agree with all their thoughts.  "In my limited experience the Knights are bandits and ruffians, but not pirates.  Not that I think they have a morality against such, they just seem focused on the city.  If their dreams of conquests and rebuilding were to go forward they would need ships eventually but I suspect their attack on you was one of opportunity rather than planning or strategy.  Most ships don't land here abouts so they likely thought you weak and vulnerable..."

     "Cosette and I have been here...  Two weeks now?" Raqisat begins, looking over to his companion for confirmation.  "We've seen them attack others who have come to investigate the city but we've not seen them wholeheartedly holding land of building checkpoints or such.  We have not seen them reaching out away from Amnifortis to attack passerby..."

     "Not to say the ship is safe.  With their defeat and losses this may have become personal to them now...  Bad way to do business, holding grudges and such, but it happens.  But mostly I think the ship will be in danger when nearby.  I do not imagine they've built a navy quite yet.  Magic, of course, always complicates things," Raqisat says, his eyes narrowing.  Not being a practitioner himself he sometimes cannot help but view it unkindly...  "But even magic has it's limitations, no?  I believe it is hard to teleport on to something you do not know where is?  So again, most vulnerable when nearby..."

     "My new friends...  Cosette and I have survived her for a while now with no such luxury.  Extra manpower could only make such a thing easier.  I would suggest that returning to soft beds every night may be a bit impractical..."

     "And as for searching out the Knights, I am here for the profits... How you say?  The knowledge and the history that can be learned and preserved, yes?  I am not opposed to a fight when necessary, but I am not a soldier to be seeking out an army to tilt against.  Are any of us?  Knowing their location, taking advantage of openings, sure...  But I do not know if eradicating the Burning Knights is really the job any of us signed up for?"

Aubrey listens to Raqisat, frowning slightly, standing up as he finishes to adress the others but Raqisat in particular. "The witch, before she used her magic to flee, mentioned the prophet had commanded them to bring him a ship, so I can only assume the Burned Knights see some use for it even if they don't intend to turn to piracy. Their deception was most certainly planned though in order to capture a ship." Aubrey starts. "Regarding what is impractical, unless you are suggesting we should spend the night inside the ruins of Amnifortis, I don't think it would be more impractical to be picked up by the Empress than to leave and camp somewhere else outside the city. And regarding the Knights and our mission here, I can only assume the Emperor would be grateful for taking care of any obstacles to the reclamation of Amnifortis. If that will not convince you I would still argue that by what you yourself told us we are likely to run into these Burned Knights in these ruins during our prolonged stay here, and if we are to fight them, I at least would prefer to do so with the element of surprise, striking at them where we find them with our scouts, not taking a greater fight than we can handle at a time."