Drusk is watching the reactions of the kenku to Hildi's questioning. Insight: 24

The Kenku looks back and forth at each of you, then shrugs. In a child’s sing song voice it sings, “Yes or no, maybe so!”

Pascal moves his big ol’ jaw closer to the kenku, “Maybe be a bit more concrete, never knew if Kenku tasted like chicken...”

Hildigrim looks at his companions. "This may be more difficult than I had hoped." Hildigrim asks the question in halfling, elvish and dwarvish, pausing between each for the kenku's answer, and hoping that another language might result in a more straightforward answer.

Kenku can only speak by mimicking sounds they have heard before. If your characters don’t know this yet, it becomes pretty obvious as the questioning continues. The bird man is sufficiently cowed, and finally he offers you all he knows. In a thin, nasally voice, he says, “Tie up the pretty boy in the back room!” Then, in a scratchy voice: “No time to loot the place. Just get him to the boss.” And finally, nasally again, “Follow the yellow signs in the sewers.”

Pascal offers some words, “The boss’ name is...”

ooc: does Ilena find anything in the room under the stairs? 

The Kenku shrugs apologetically and says, “The boss,” in Pascal’s voice.

As you all are interrogating the bird man, Ilena opens the door under the stairs. More crates, and a thrown tarpaulin... with heavy breathing under it! There is someone hiding in here!

Ilena will stoop and poke the tarpaulin gently. She tries to sound friendly and sympathetic "Hello there... um... I see you. It should be safe now I think?"

(The tarpaulin is breathing heavily... it must be a Cloaker! Set it on fire! Run away!

For the kenku, it has an "I am Groot" limitation, but it can still answer yes-no questions, and it can point out locations on a map.)

It seems like Hildi, Drusk, and Pascal have the questioning covering, so Jorin heads over to Ilena and the breathing cloak.  He stoops down over it and after she pokes it, he'll pull off the cloak in a flourish.

Ilena pokes the tarpaulin, and speaks kindly, and the thing under shifts, and then pulls the tarp back, just as Jorin arrives. It is a man, and as he stands he is tall, early thirties, human, with good hair and handsome, wearing fancy clothes. "You're not? You don't look like them. Have you rescued us? Where is Floon? Is he okay, is he here still? I think they took him away."

He is gripping a broken piece of wood as a weapon, but lets it drop to the ground.

Jorin and Ilena help him out of the closet, thus letting Pascal, Hildi, and Drusk know they have found someone. The Kenku looks over, and rolls its weird bird eyes in a weird gesture. Annoyed? Scared? Who knows? Birds.

"Come along and meet our friends!" Ilena says cheerfully, bursting with excitement at her first rescue, the box with parchment stuffed in her backpack entirely forgotten for now. 

"I'm Ilena, and that muscle-y guy is Jorin, that man there is Drusk, and the quick one is Hildi, and the big red alligator over here is Pascal. Friends, this is... uh... what was your name sir?" 

It's only after she's blurted all of that out that she remembers that she only met you all this same evening (to her it feels like it's been nearly a month) and that she might be speaking out of turn calling everyone "friends". She looks around uncomfortably and chews her lip, feeling awkward. 

"Um, oh, yes, my name is Renaer. Renaer Neverember. My friend Floon and I were ambushed... it must be two nights ago? We were dragged here, and they were going to... well, I don't know what they were going to do, when these others," and he looks around and notices all the dead bodies. "Yes, some of them, burst in and attacked the ones that had us. That was when Floon and I scrambled. Did he get away? Is that why you are here? I hid, I could not hear very well, but it sounded like they caught him. I've been trying to sneak out, but they left these thugs here," he indicates the Kenku. "I had a flask with me, but I am very hungry."

He looks, to Drusk's eyes, like he is in a poor way, but nothing that food, water, and rest would not cure.

OOC > This is Lord Renaer Neverember, one of the nobility in Waterdeep. His father is the former Open Lord/scoundrel who left town when he was deposed and now rules Neverwinter.

"Yes, we've all had times when we were hungry or thirsty or tired. Sorry for your misery." Drusk leans back.

Drusk knows that there are times when people don't want their problem "fixed" by others, when they just want someone to empathize with what they are feeling. Drusk feels that this is one of those times. (If only he could recall who Neverremember is...)

Hildigrim is taken aback when the lord identifies himself. "Ah, your ... err ... majesty," the halfling says, giving an incredibly awkward bow, which hitches and starts as he tries to figure out if he's supposed to be doing it at all. After straightening up, he absolutely refuses to make eye contact with the man, afraid of what he might see on his face. "We are in fact looking for Floon," the rogue says, clearing his throat and looking everywhere and nowhere at once. "We have been employed by Volothamp Geddarm to do so. I assume you were also at the Skewered Dragon? That was the last place Master Geddarm saw Floon, and some bystanders told us Floon had been apprehended from there. Can you tell us why the Zhents and Xanathar guild are so interested in Floon?" Hildigrim clears his throat again and chances a quick glance at Neverember, but then looks away again quickly, attempting to look as though he is inspecting the positioning of the corpses.

Ilena, not wanting to risk putting her foot in her mouth (again?) quietly takes notes and draws crude portraits of Renaer, some of the Kenku, and tries to record again the symbols used by the Zhentarim and the Xanathar groups/cults.

Renaer looks forlornly at the floor. "Well, you see, I rather suspect they have poor Floon confused with me. I feel terrible about it. If I heard correctly, the Zhentarim think that my father embezzled a large amount of gold while he was Open Lord, and that he hid the dragons somewhere in the city. They think they can find it by using some artifact called the Stone of Golorr, which was in the hands of the Xanathar Guild until recently. Apparently, someone stole it. The Zhents thought I knew something about all of this. But I don’t. My father and I haven’t spoken in years.”

"Now poor Floon has been dragged away to gods know where."

At this point there is loud banging on the door you came through originally. "The City Watch is here! Open up!" says a voice outside.

"Hainard's hairy toes!" Hildigrim whispers loudly. "M'lord, do you have enough clout with the Watch to keep us from being implicated in the murders of these individuals?"

Ilena briefly thinks about hiding behind the secret door, but then remembers that Tyr teaches lawfulness as well as honesty and strength.

"Why can't we just explain what happened, Hildigrim? You don't think they'll believe us? We've done nothing to deserve their ire."