"And who else was with these less than savory individuals?" Rubin asks. "What prisoners did they have with them? You are acting like you were not involved with this, but you just admitted to aiding those who attacked the deligation that went missing, and who sold you this book. Who else was with them when you gave them this ride you mentioned?"

Quanderil’ s bodyguard blinks myopically.

"Boss?  Who’s Miraj?"

Wuanderil scoffs.

"I told you—just a group of well armed individuals.  No prisoners, no odd clothing, nothing.  Just a . . .feel, you understand?"

Tyde goes very still and looks right at Quanderil, meeting him eye to eye, "Was Miraj with them?"

"Did any of them say anything about what they might be up to?"

When Quanderil scoffs back, Kethra checks her nails on her free hand and flicks the dirt off of them right at his face. When the halfling wakes up and raises his head, she checks him for a forehead tattoo, then uses her fingers to feel one on his skull bone, just like she did Quanderil, but more gently and with less dirt on her hand.

Perception, if needed: 9

Quote from Brian_Avery >>

Tyde goes very still and looks right at Quanderil, meeting him eye to eye, "Was Miraj with them?"

"Did any of them say anything about what they might be up to?"

Being the 'bad cop' again, Kethra interrupts, "Maybe it's time to take him out to the woods and start cutting him up, like you said before! Or we should just take him out and start interrogating his friend here!"

While letting that shock set in, Kethra takes the hand she had around Quanderil's jaw then shoves her fingers up his cheeks, to momentarily stop him from talking.

Quickly leaning towards Mr. Tyde's ear she whispers, "I'll explain later, but I'm pretty sure he's confident because he's just stalling for time while he's still on this boat!"

"I agree, let's take him off the boat and someone quiet where no one will hear his screams!"

Tyde wonders what Kethra is up to but trusts her enough to just blindly go along with whatever she has planned.

Xanranzan stands there more wide-eyed at the last exchange. But...

Insight: 18.

Fortunately either remembers previous exchange before the guy woke up, or picks up on enough maybe to at least calm a little bit and continue letting things play out. Even the guy was responsible in some way or another with the disappearing dignitaries, it didn't sound like he was fully apart of the cult. Yet.

"Uh, ah... uhm... 'fore ya'll do all that. Uhm... Ya'll ask'im already 'bout dem missing folk around here too?" He asked, and if the answer is no, he'll give the two captured smugglers a pointed and questioning look, raised eyebrow and all.

"Oh right...the legend of the Womfort Bat and these recent kidnappings. Good point!"

Motioning for Xanranzan to come and ask for himself she whispers to Quanderil, "Remember this guy, who decided to put you to sleep instead of killing you? You've got one chance to convince him and it's back to my way."

She picks up the old used apple with a new javelin and smiles at the smuggler.

(Edited! Basically flavor for giving Xanranzan Help to assist with Persuasion lol.)

(Unfortunately Xan wasn't intentionally being mean about it, so I guess persuasion: 24.)

Rubin doesn't think they are likely to get anything more from these two. It has gone on too long, and he starts to worry about someone calling the officials of this area. he puts the book into his pack and moves into the shadows, waiting to see what his companions have in mind.

"For these smugglers to operate so freely here they must have bribed the local officials and law enforcers." Tyde pauses and looks around at his companions, "The only justice will be for us to administer."

"We can't afford to leave them behind to cause trouble, or worse yet have them catch us from behind when we are faced with another enemy." 

Quanderil glares you.

"How many times to I have to tell you.  I.  Don’t.  Know.  Who.  Miraj.  Is.  If he walked up to me on the street and greeted me I still wouldn’t know who he is.  And I may deal in some shadier things, but I’m no kidnapper.  Unlike you."

Giving Quanderil a sharp this-is-ALL-your-fault glance Kethra replaces the apple back in his mouth, throws him over her shoulder and walks in between the arguing ranger and wizard.

"Below deck there's only 3 books...but Quanderil says he owns the books so that means he doesn't have any cargo. The halfling here says he's Quanderil's employee, so that means no passengers. But Quanderil said at the start that he's running a caravan." 

She first stops and addresses Rubin. "With no goods or people to transport, the only possibility left is that this top secret caravan is waiting for their cargo. Or passengers. We should get going...but should we hide and wait? Or move on? (I kind of want to use him as bat bait.)"

She addresses Mr. Tyde next with a moral question, "I'll bring Quanderil, but what should we do with his first mate here?"

"He was just a bodyguard for Quanderil. We can leave him to escape from his bonds perhaps hours from now."

Tyde follows Kethra carrying Quanderil, and the others as they leave the boat.

"And somebody take those books, they might be important later."

Xanranzan gives the Q-man a once over after the little outburst. Just to make sure it wasn't some attempt to cover his butt by getting all heated about a "politely" asked question.

Insight: 20.

... But after that, he looks up to the others and shrugs. "Think Mr. Scared-of-Sunlight has'im, so no problem there. Ain't find much else tho'... surprisingly." At that, Xan takes the initiative and scoops up the halfling first mate. "I'm gonna leave this guy below deck, if that's alright. Folk might still come running if he gets chatty, but hopefully that help some." If noone then argues against his idea, Xan almost more than happily carries the man off and sets him on whatever bedding is down below.

"Now you be a good Galeb Duhr, and chill out here for a bit, M'kay?" He grins, tries to ruffle the halflings hair, then makes his way topside to follow after everyone else.

The pale eyed girl nods at Mr. Tyde's and Xanranzan's suggestions, although she would give the latter a gentle scolding look for saying 'Mr. Scared-of-Sunlight'.

Kethra retrieves and puts away her maul and javelins and wonders out loud, "He had a sleeping spell on him and it looks like he doesn't look that hurt...is that why he's so confident?"

Once Xanranzan finishes taking the halfling away, Kethra will toss the tied up and silenced Quanderil off the ship and into the docks.  Unless anyone objects she'll drag him somewhere out of the way and maul him with the maul until he's unconscious, then pick him up on her shoulder again until he wakes in 2 hours.

Rubin, with the books in his pack already, has already moved off into the shadows. He keeps an eye out as the others cart off the prisoners. He stays close by as they move away from the ship and then off of the docks. Once a bit away he would move up to the others, assuming he has not noticed anyone paying too much attention to them. "Just let him go." he says to the others, glancing to the unconscious mage. "Unless you truly plan on torchuring him, we are not likely to get anything else out of him. Just leave him here to wake up whenever he does so, and let's be off. I'd like to check out that spire place we were told of before myself, we have already been to this riverguard keep after all."

Once they are off the boat and moving away, "Should we burn the boat or leave it?"

"Yeah, I would rather not have to carry them all over either. We can dump them somewhere and pursue one of these other leads."

Xanranzan would give Kethra a funny look, then gesture between her and Rubin just as he walked into whatever shadows the man could find. Besides all that, he just shrugs plodded along until he caught up with everyone else.

"Uhhh.... Well, I would need to get other guy out of there first, but burning his boat sounds good to me. Probably a bit excessive for trading and maybe ferrying those other dudes before, but I don't think smuggling is exactly a well to do, uh, job on this plane. So.... yea." He said, shrugging again. "That said, if he didn't have, uh, a hate boner, I think ya'll call it. But uh, if he ain't have that for us before, he'd certainly have one for burning his ship down and ruining and slash or delaying his business. But hey.S'pose that's the, uh, lesser of two evils all things considered. And the spire sounds... nice." He said, if albeit with a bit of tight smile after.

When the plan gets officially decided, Xan will take the halfling off the ship and go about tossing the other dead bodies on it while whoever worked on setting it ablaze.

(Just to be clear—where are you heading towards?)

Rubin is not taking part of destruction of the boat. "I will wait for you at the edge of town." He informs the others, obviously displeased with this idea. "When you are done I'll be ready to move on towards this spire we were told about previously."