"Is it... over? Again?" Eris whimpers before she finally witnesses the last of the flame being doused. She trudges over to the giff alongside Princess and Zoide before she kneels down to use her alien device to revive him, though she doesn't receive any response. "No... No... A...Autoguy, Ohime-sama. He's gone. Now he won't be able to find his golden pistol..." she mourns as her cat ears droop whilst she silently rises. It's been so long since a Catian like her has received this ounce of sorrow in a while (minus the fact that she missed her first mating season), and she's visibly struggling to hold it in... 

"Thing is though, if I calculate correctly.. the equipment we brought onto this ship should not be able to produce such a fire as severe as this one. So what in the nine lives caused this in the first place? Anyone have clues to help?" She sniffs as she starts scribbling more notes as she attempts to deduce what was the cause of the entire incident and why the giff was long gone before it even started... 

Inves: 12

Near Ryeback's body is what you now recognise as the remains of a fourth of the creatures; it seems the cook was able to slay one of them, but was killed by its death burst explosion. Eris determines that the first started near the giff's portable cooking surface, but is correct that it could not have produced such a large conflagration on its own, and certainly couldn't have summoned the elemental creatures. That had to have been some kind of spell; possibly one or more spells had been cast on the device?

Meanwhile, the smoke starting to clear, Veena has finally found her way back to the rest of the group; Miken is slumped in a corner and looks on the verge of tears; Krik'Lit and Pffred start checking over the damage to your supplies. [Most of your water, firewood, cooking oil and fresh foodstuffs were consumed by the fire, as well as the portable cooking surface itself; however you still have plenty of dry rations, and all the other magical items including the potions of healing and the sending stone by which you can contact Boatswain Tarto back on the Flighty Foundling]

(Was working on writing my post when DM posted and didn’t see it)

"Wait a minute... Hey guys? Come take a look at this." Eris gestures her crewmates to inspect the portable stove upon further inspection of the area whilst she finishes scribbling her notes to confirm her own suspicions. "I was right. The stove wasn't big enough to create such a massive fire like what happened. The amount of gasoline that it contained would not have been able to engulf this entire section of the ship, let alone summon such hideous creatures I've never seen before..." She whips her tail a few times before facing Da'Kal, Icarus, Veena, Princess and Zoide. "Not only that but whoever must have remained inside this area has to be some sort of magic user that is able to amplify this flame source ten-fold. The thing is that the only casters I have seen so far are you all (Minus Cricket and the elf girl). And we were in a different section so there was no way it could have been one of us. Who else do you all think can cast spells and is able create such a huge mess like this?" She then eyes the other particular crew members that were alive with her wide, ruby red eyes...

Icarus casts Detect Magic and begins to search the area. 

Da'Kal doesn't know much about magic and she knows the other members of the crew are less than trustworthy.

She keeps an eye on them while helping to clean up the mess.

Per Roll (HA!) 19

Krik'Lit replies to Zoide, "The four of us had been through that area many times," the thri-kreen gestures with one lower arm to indicate that "us" includes himself, Pffred and Miken, and the deceased Petty Officer Ryeback. "I believe none of us saw anything unusual prior to the explosion." Pffred gives a wobbling nod of agreement; Miken continues to stare into space like he's trying not to have a panic attack.

Da'Kal notices that Pffred, Krik'Lit and Veena all wear, as she herself does, the insignia of the Spelljammer Corps, that branch of the service for those who lack either the inclination or the magical ability to attune to a helm as a capital-S Spelljammer. Miken is curled up so you can't see his insignia.

Casting his detection spell, Icarus can feel the residual magic of an activated glyph of warding on the wrecked cooking surface, mixed with a sense of conjuration magic, probably a summoning spell that the glyph triggered when the device was activated. Both have the slightly dry texture of a spell cast from a scroll, and relatively recently [as in, since you've been on board].

Icarus shares that knowledge and scans the rest of nearby rooms.

Princess is not a detective, and worries about what might happen with an unattended helm, so she makes her way back to the pilots seat. 

"I don't know any of this weird magic stuff either. I mean... you alien lifeforms were the first ones to introduce me to this- Wait..." Eris then gasps before she glares at Miken again as she flashbacks to herself cheering Miken up whilst he is studying... something magical. "If that suspect is a magic user... and he or she has been right inside this room, that means..." She gestures everyone to approach Miken and crew before she asks him with a low-pitched hiss: "Hey Miken and your two crewmates, Piff-a-red and... whatever the other one is. The last time we met, you said that you were studying something for the exams right before we all did the simulations. I don't know if your other two can use magic but, not to mention that after carefully deducing whatever magic we detected inside was something that none of us including me could use something like that right now, you seem like you matched almost all of our suspicions. Eris then utters to her crew if neither of Miken's don't budge: "Anyone want to do the honours of interrogating them?"

[Eris, I'm going to call that an Intimidation check, please :)]

(OOC: Technically Eris always lets her team have the chance and will only step in if they are unable to do so, but ok.)

Intimidation if neither of the others are able to siphon any info out of the three: 

"No one was supposed to die!" Miken finally wails under Eris's glare. "It was only supposed to slow us down. I thought… a few minor burns, maybe… but he stepped in front of us… tried to keep them away…" Tears flowing openly now, he buries his head in his hands. You can just make out, "…mercane… said he'd hurt Ines if… didn't take the money…" before his voice is lost in outright sobbing.

"Miken, why?! Why did you have to be like this?! We all had your backs during the lunch break! We all supported you... yet... you had to turn on us! Why?! Why did you- eh?" She cries out until she heard something unfamiliar. "Mer...cane?" She gives off a confused look to her teammates. "Uh...  What's a mercane again?"

*Stop your blubbering, who did you say made you do this?!* Da'Kal folds her arms across her chest and glares at the fool.

Gradually, with a bit of Good Cleric Bad Barbarian, you're able to get the whole story out of Miken. Shortly before embarking on the mission, he was approached by someone in a security officer's uniform, who said she was working for a certain mercane

(You're unlikely to have ever met a mercane, but they are known for three things: One, being reclusive blue-skinned, twelve-foot tall humanoids; Two, operating vast networks mercantile networks throughout the know universe, dealing in high-value magic items mostly via layers of middlemen and lackeys (if you wanted to purchase, say, a new spelljamming helm, you'd probably end up buying it through an agent of a mercane); Three, being championship-level grudge-holders (if you then reneged on the deal, you'd likely be blacklisted for life not only by that mercane, but probably all of them for several solar systems))

who was never identified by name, only by his sigil—a stylized V. The mercane offered Miken a choice: he could do the mercane's bidding and be paid enough money to set himself and his young fiancé, Ines, up for life; or he could refuse, in which case Ines's safety "could not be guaranteed". The agent even supplied the spell scrolls—glyph of warding and conjure minor elementals—with which he was to sabotage the galley, forcing the mission to be aborted.

Finally, his confession complete, Miken throws himself on your mercy, to decide what you're going to do with him (and more generally, what you're going to do about the mission).