(Salazar roll again to indicate the benefits of Advantage from Claire’s artful manipulation. We’ll take the best of both rolls)

Sleight of hand 2.0 11.

-_-

The guard appears utterly entranced by Claire's seeming interest and pleading nature.  His eyes bore into hers, and she manages to keep his attention riveted on her; her fingers gripping his arm almost desperately.   As he stares into her captivating orbs, Salazar deftly unhooks the swaying keys off the guard's belt and slips them into the folds of his hessian smock.

"I can take you away to somewhere nice 'n' quiet, lass," the swarthy sailor tells Claire, leering at her suggestively.  "I can tell you exactly what to do when we get to me private place."

Claire tries her best to suppress her squeak of genuine excitement, though she still does make a peep.  "Really?  Alone on this ship with you?  I just can't wait," she says, gleefully imagining thirty-seven different ways to break the man's nose without the rest of the guard watching her.  Though if his leer is anything to go by, she supposes her first blow could land a good sight lower.

"By th' bells of the Sacred Bull of Tatarian, is that a Morpholian Dragominx!" Nos Heliwr yells in a voice that would not be unexpected from someone who had a monster descend from the sky in an attempt to eat them. He stands bolt upright, at least as far as possible in chains. "ARRRGH! "tis comin' t' eat me!" He gets a wild look in his eyes, starts drooloing and slavering madly, then collapses into a heap, twitching and moaning meaningless, but panicked syllables.

Performance   16

The guard looks annoyed at this interruption and, perhaps reluctantly, attempts to free himself from Claire's grip to go and see what is happening with this frothing mad-man.   (Is Claire going to "reluctantly" let him go or try to hold on to him?).

Meanwhile most of the other slaves in the hold are moving as far away from the twitching Nos Heliwr as they can.  Clearly no one wants to catch whatever ill has afflicted the poor man. 

There is a lot of disturbance and noise in the hold now, though you doubt it is carrying up to the deck above.  The ship continues to pitch and roll slowly over the swell and still, so far, everything seems as normal as possible outside of the immediate commotion.

Claire will reluctantly let him go, figuring that it will be easier to clobber him when her wrists aren't chained together.

Vaclav makes moves to look like he's trying to help Nos settle down and really just tries to keep the man from cutting himself on his manacles. 

Claire shakes her head slightly at Ralfi.  Taking advantage of Nos's distraction, she whispers back to the other man quietly.  "Valcav had said the goal was to overwhelm the ship at a shore, and not in the middle of the ocean.  We'll have to bide our time until the evening, but with the keys - and potentially our equipment in hand - we'll have a real fighting chance to take these bastards down."

The guard reaches Nos.  "What's wrong with you?" he wonders, noticeably not wanting to get too close in case he has something infectious.  He peers down at him through the gloom of the dim hold half-light, squinting.

The guard takes a moment, clearly pondering something.

Vaclav looks up at him. "My guess would be poor food and hard work have gotten to him. Almost like being a slave is bad for you." 

Deception: 17

18

((It was not, my bad))

The guard takes a quick look at Vaclav (Insight 17)...

... and tells him to, “shut yer trap and keep out of it, matey.”  However he appears happy enough to leave Nos alone.

He looks back to Claire, hungrily, but the door to the main hold opens and another guard is in the doorway.  “C’Mon Burt!  Scraggs is on the warpath.  Time to get aloft and stop skiving down ‘ere!”

Burt growls, but reluctantly nods his head.  Looking back at Claire his face softens, to an almost pleasant visage.  “Another time, beauty,” he says softly, before turning on his heel and leaving with the other guard. The door to the main hold shuts and silence descends on your prison once more.

What are you going to do now?

“Blow me down w’ a feather,” Nos Heliwr says as he straightens up with a huge grin. “No bad fer a failed Bard, eh!”  He looks at his fellow conspirators, “ Now we hopes he don’ realize what ‘appended.  Tonight we kin check the ‘cupboards’, no?”