Perception 3

Glancing out the window on their travels, Nate keeps a keen eye out for anyone he recognizes.

In case Liana recognizes any of those who peeked in or if they seemed worried to see her in such a situation, the unmasked hero will flash a grin and thumbs up to the people. She hopes to assuage their fears about her wellbeing.

@Nate

Aidan is trying to be as stoic and quiet as possible. He is obviously not comfortable in the confined space, surrounded by the crowds outside.

The man at the gate gives a salute as he heads back to his post. The captain returns and sits by the coachman, giving you all some room. After a few moments, the door heave open and you continue on your way. Inside the district, there is not a crowd to cut through. Instead there is just a road with a few people on the sides. The few people walking the street have a very different appearance to the citizens before. Holding lofty appearances and displaying their wealth, they're not celebrating like those outside, rather using it for meeting with others. A few venues here and there are held by rich merchants, nobles, and others. Lilliana, you can spot some eccentric inventors from your hometown. It seems they're trying to sell their inventions to the nobles here. 

The castle is in sight as the captain gives a wave and a shout to the guards there. You see that tall tower is still abuzz with small airships around it. You even see some of the Dragon Roost's mounts lie about in the gardens in the district. While the imposing Soarvern vessels and the impressive Flying Chalice ships lounge about. High up above, you even see the famed DracoGriffon. The carriage pulls into the castle courtyard as you lose view of the ships, blocked by the castle. The captain jumps off as the carriage stops and opens the door for you all. 

"Alright, now just need to turn in your weapons for now. Just mere code for the castle right now. We'll return them to you all once our business is finished here."

Aidan hands over everything he's got with zero fuss.

Nate looks around for a few seconds debating, but will step forward to give up his weapons as well.

Gaèls eyes narrow for a second, but then he just shrugs and hands over his weaponry.

"Missus. I'll also need your weapons."

He sets his hand out to take the few weapons you have on hand. The captain takes a look at the both of you, but he lingers on Lilliana for a while before asking, "Are...You look a bit familiar. What's your name?"

(Lyrel is on vacay, I think!)

Liana hands over her weapons, for she has no need of them anyway. Her fiery hands are more than enough if the going gets tough. When the guard asks Lilliana his question, Liana interrupts him and throws an arm around Lilliana, "She's a wonderful person! Beautiful, don't you think? This is Lilly, and you best learn her name. I'd thank you to kindly lead us to the Commander. I'm sure he would hate to wait, a man as important as that!"

The captain nods, "Alright...let's get going then." After turning in your weapons, he leads you through the castle's corridors. The castle is abuzz with servants going about, a few nobles waiting around the castle, and foreign dignities talking with a few attendants. As you keep following him, you start to see less of the politicians or service and more guards. He leads you to an large office with a small gnome behind a desk too big for him. The gnome's hair is snow white and kept trimmed as he runs his fingers through it. He taps his quill against the wood as he grunts at the paper before him. "Commander, I'm here to report."

"Yes, yes, how was the prisoner transport?"

"That's what I want to talk about. We had a situation, but it didn't concern the prisoners."

The gnome looks up, "Captain Mire, what do you mean...and who are all those people behind you?"

"Sir, we encountered a hijacking situation. While we did try to keep order, we almost lost the ship to them. But their goal wasn't the prisoners, they wanted to crash the ship into the city's engines. These are the prisoners, they managed to escape during the chaos and actually help us take control back. I brought them here to help retell what happened on ship."

Aidan remains quiet in a non-threatening 'parade rest' position as the conversation begins.

Nate grins and waves. “Hi.” He looks around the office disinterestedly as he tells what they did on the ship, with someone chiming in if he misses something.

"Well you see, my dear commander," Liana strikes a pose as she puts her hands on her hips, straightens her shoulders, and loudly talks over everyone. "It was another normal day aboard the wonderous vessel. Of course, we did not quite enjoy our time there, but we waited like good inmates. Suddenly pirates attacked! They swarmed the ship like rats. There was nary a corner you could find without one of those dastardly fellows. So, here we were, seeing these poor uniforms going down. In the attack, we managed to break out of the jail, but then we had to choose... would we save ourselves or would we go and rescue the poor souls on the ship?

As you no doubt know, commander, I am Liana the Red," and so she dons her mask, "and though we do not see eye to eye on several policies, I believe you know me to be a defender of the innocent. We fought our way up from the belly of the beast, maiming any pirates that dared to cross our path. Once we hit topside, we joined up with the captain and used all our might to keep the ship from ramming into Aerovail!

And now we stand before you as rescuers and prisoners. I believe that is the long and short of it."

Aidan cocks an eyebrow at Liana's theatrics, but otherwise remains fairly quiet. Near the end of the tale, he specifically mentions the risk taken by the group in scaling the exterior of the ship's hull to reach the Main Deck and secure the helm. 

The gnome sighs, "You've even have Liana here as well...Then let us try to deduce on who would want to cause another Tilting. I can only think of a few people either foolish or crazy enough to try and doom everyone here. Can you describe these attackers for me?"

"Sir, they were rather bland in appearance, most of them just wore black on black. I saw no tattoos, no bandanas, nothing really tying them to any known pirates. For me the only thing that stood out is that an Aarakocra was among."

The gnome raises a brow. "An Aarakocra? Are you sure? We haven't seen much of them lately...Describe that one for me."

"I...I don't remember much, she had managed to beat me. The half orc here saved me before she could end my life."

"You have my thanks for taking care of Captain Mire, please tell me of the Aarakocra you fought."

Nate describes the Aarakocra as best he can from the fight. “Now I don’t mean to pry, but the nice captain here did say that he would put in a good word for us to you since we did save the city from another Tilting. It would be fair to say that we prevented many deaths today, wouldn’t you agree?”

Aidain speaks up after Nate gives his description.

"Not sure if it will help narrow down who did this, but while we were getting patched up on the way to docking, I overheard the Vice Captain receiving status reports from the still-able crewmen. All the engineers on the ship were unaccounted for at the end of the tussel. No bodies. It sounded as though they simply disappeared. Which speaks to a high level of skill. I doubt these were your regular, run-of-the-mill pirates."

Nate turns to Aiden and says, “They were probably thrown out the hole in the engine room. That’s what I would have done.” He puts up an apologetic hand towards the gnome, “No offense.”

Aidan crosses his arms and gives a slight shrug.

"Maybe so. If that is the case, perhaps a search of the ground below can confirm it. The crewmen aboard ship seemed to imply there were few signs of any struggle to be found."