Raign's initial reaction was to inquire snappishly if they were entirely unaware that she might have other duties besides attending to their every whim, with pointed reference to the gaping hole on her deck and her injured crew, but even she had to concede that the captain had all well under control. Somewhat grudgingly, she turned to face them, arms folded. "For future reference, you may wish to remember that, unlike you, I do not have undivided attention to use exhaustively upon whatever matter you might wish to discuss."

Stars above, they looked as though someone was plotting assassination of the royal family. Raign could not make herself assign quite that level of importance to the matter. She eyed the pair in silence for a moment, glanced once back down at Valtair, and sighed imperceptibly. It was mildly intriguing, yes. "All right, then. What motive would a member of the Imperial family have in an ill-advised attempt at blowing up a ship you happen to be traveling on, thereby attempting to sabotage a mission you are on that will ultimately strengthen their empire and protect their borders?" She raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Or perhaps their target was not to accomplish such, and if so, what was it?"

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(well, I have to have something to post...)

The throbbing of Aidne's face gradually died down to something manageable, and she sunk deeper into sleep.

Warm. Her cheek was pleasantly warm, instead of acutely stinging. She welcomed this respite, even if she didn't remember why.

She looked to the right, curious about the source of heat, and discovered that she was huddled in front of a small, smoky fire that struggled to warm anything within a meter radius, much less the rest of the tiny room in the slums of the capital. They were lucky to have a room to themselves, her mother and she.

A knock at the door, thundering through the wood.

"Does Aidne live here?"

She turned her head, recognizing the man three meters away. "Naim!" Jumping up, she pattered eagerly to the officer. Knowing what was expected of him, he smiled and pressed a stick of hoarhound candy into her eight-year-old palm.

Turning to her mother, who was standing back in bewilderment, he added gallantly, "I'm Leftenant Myros, madame. Your daughter knows me from the market in Folber Square - I'm quartered near there."

"Sara," her mother supplied abruptly. "What d'you want?"

"Aidne," he crouched down to look her in the eyes. "Do you remember the cloth-seller in the green coat? The one who was saying all those nasty things about the Queen?"

She nodded, preoccupied with the candystick in her mouth.

"Do you know where he lives?"

She nodded again. "Cooper's End. There's an apple tree in 'is yard, an' his wife never takes in the laundry."

"Know when he comes home at night?"

Aidne shrugged. "Dunno, really. Maybe two hours after dark, an' then 'e gets screamed at 'cause the dinner's cold."

Naim smiled and rose. "That's my girl." He flipped a silver coin into her hand and left.

She stared at it. Silver, not copper. Her mother snatched it. "Girl, I don' know what that was 'bout, but you keep doin' that, hear?"

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<center>Nothing but the Rain</center>

"No, indeed," returned Raign evenly. "To discount the improbable is to accept the probable, of which there doesn't appear to be much." The wind caught at stray tendrils of her dark hair and she absently reached to tuck them back into her crown of braids.

Turning her attention to Arren, Raign raised her eyebrows. "Perhaps you'd care to theorize further?"

Her sentiments on the situation currently resembled wary concern for herself and her band more than anxiety for whatever less than benign scheme might be at work against the Empire. But granted, to discover and thwart that meant safety for the rest of them. Expression faintly perplexed, she cast another glance down at the blackened hole on the ship.

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Endymion stayed in her new corner, thinking, listening. She couldn't here the conversation between the three companions that seemed to be highest up on the totem pole on the mission. There were only two words she could here, and that just barely. "Magic" and "Melwyn". Melwyn? Wasn't that the High Captain dude that had sent them on this mission? If so, why would the one who sent them on the mission, be the one to try to stop them? And the topic of magic was something Endymion knew very little about. She had only seen healing magic be done on others and those times were few in her short life. So making something explode with magic was a new concept for her entirely.

She was about to contemplate the topic more in her mind when something on the opposite side the jar had exploded. Endymion watched the speck on the horizon carefully as it came closer. Another small boat? And this one looked like it had someone in it. No, two people. One rowing the boat towards the ship, the other pouring something black into what looked like a rum bottle.

Soon enough they were in arrow shot. Endymion was glad she had kept her quiver on her back when she grabbed an arrow and her bow from it.

"Boat with two men coming up on port side!" she called loud enough for the others on the ship to hear, but not the two men on the boat to. Endymion loaded her arrow in her bow and aimed, but did not shoot. Not unless she was told. But she aimed for the shoulder of the rower, so she would stun him and not kill him if the others wanted the men for interigation...

((hope that's okay...))

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(}--{)Imagination Inspires Ideas -Zandain(}--{)
Married Cloud Strife 9/17/08

Arren sighed. What had Danil and Raign done, if they were still so uninformed? He had worked with mages on two separate occasions in tracking down dangerous men, and had learned a lot. Apparently, few others had.

"I don't think you realize the gravity of the situation," he insisted. "The mages are spellbound, literally, to the Archmage. They cannot do anything with magic unless it's fine by him--they can fight each other, or such things, but only if he lets them. If he wills them not to, they are unable to. And he knows what they do. Every action. That is why you never hear of any rogue or rebel mages--if any do anything against the Guild, they are silenced, permanently.
"And we only have the word of Melwyn that anything happened to the garrison on Andayon, after all. Perhaps we stumbled across something, and need to be silenced as well." He frowned. If they needed to be silenced, why not send an assassin, instead of grouping them together and giving them a mission? It did not make sense. There was something else he struggled to understand, as well.

"The barrel exploded, and it had to have been enchanted to do so. Spells take considerable amounts of time to cast, so against moving things, like this ship, a cast fireball would be worthless. There was no ship in sight from which the mage could watch us, either, to trigger it. The boat, I'm sure, was cast loose so that it would drift to us. That shows that the mage who did this had a very good understanding of the ocean currents around here, and an equal knowledge of where we are. Somehow, he's tracking us."

A glance around the deck revealed that the other tracker had strayed into hearing range. Arren concealed a wince. How much had she heard? How much speculation would she take as fact? His theorizing might end up being damaging, as well.

He was about to change the subject when the tracker called out. Men, in a boat, approaching. Would this give them any clues as to what was happening, and what their mission really was about?

The men in the boat were almost within hailing range when, without any warning, the front of their boat collapsed with a hollow booming sound that could be heard on board the ship. A flash of silver went from sea to boat, and a spurt of red accompanied the disappearance of the man with the flask into the water.

Arren stared.

The boat sank below the surface, and the man who had been rowing began treading water. Only momentarily. Then he jerked violently, and a cloud of red spread under him accompanied by faint screams--closer, those screams would probably be far louder, and the piercing, agonized sound it would be likewise clearer. Then that man, too, vanished, after another flash of silver under the surface of the water.

Arren kept his stomach down. Barely. He had seen many things as a hunter, but normally they were the evidence or effects of brutal things. Every time he saw something like that actually happening, though, it sickened and horrified him.

He turned away from the railing.

_________________

The shock on Raign's face was evident for more than the usual split second before she relegated it behind the smooth wall of her expression. Looking sickened, she turned away from the sight with fists clenched behind her back. No use in shouting for man overboard. The water was stained red, and there was no sign of any struggle. Several of the crewmen were still staring overboard, shocked.

She turned halfway to direct a stunned look in Arren's direction. "Gravity of the situation. No, I hadn't."

Valtair was already demanded a return to posts in his ringing bass, but there was a distinct atmosphere of paralyzed shock aboard the trim little ship. Raign cast one more glance back at the spot in the water that now bore no more evidence a boat had ever been there than any other spot in the ocean. She suppressed a shudder, too shocked to even be appalled at herself for expressing that much emotion.

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[quote="Aerlinniel [Gandalfa =P ]

Raign turned and walked away. Whether or not she had noticed her at all remained a mystery, but not one Líadán was very eager to solve.

Pffft. She turned to Garvan with a sort of wry half-smile "Who shove that stick up her bottom?"
[/quote]

Garvan returned the smile. "Some people..." he half-shrugged, then continued, "I guess some people like taking charge. Apparently she's the law on her ship."

He glanced down at Aidne. She was asleep. "I wonder if we could move her belowdeck now, where she'd be safer." As he bent down to pick up Aidne, though, a across the deck drew his attention. "What, more barrels?" he muttered, moving to see what it was.

"Boat with two men coming up on port side!" Endymion called. Before Garvan could react, a hollow boom echoed. He barely caught a glimpse of the men dissappearing beneath the water in clouds of deep red.

He shook his head and turned away. This was much more than he was expecting. If it wasn't for that... thing that had killed the two men, he probably would have jumped ship and swam back to the shore. <i>Curse Melwyn, curse Arren and Raign, cure this whole bloody 'quest'. I just want to be back home with my wife.</i>

He turned around and picked up Aidne. "C'mon, let's get her below." He said to Liadan.

Twang. An arrow hit the red water where a man had once been rowing moments before. Endymion had been in shock that the two men disapeared in such a way, that she had just let go of her bowstring. She just stood there a moment, mouth gaping, stuck in that position of just shooting an arrow.
It was one of the worste sites she had seen in her life. Endymion felt the contents of her stomach-what little there was at that moment- coming up. She took a deep gulp, and started shaking.
"What just happened?" she said, her voice only just above a whisper...

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(}--{)Imagination Inspires Ideas -Zandain(}--{)
Married Cloud Strife 9/17/08

Arren was frowning as he climbed down the side of the ship into the boat, where Danil already was. After yesterday's events, he would vastly prefer it if the ship was closer to shore--as close as possible would be best, as they had no idea what was out there that had destroyed the other boat so easily.

He left his pack slung over his shoulders, just in case he had to get out of the boat, and notched an arrow to his bow, for the same reason. If something tried to sink the boat, he would at least draw blood. Fortunately, the shore was only a few hundred feet away--it might just be possible to swim it without being eaten, or whatever had happened to those men.

Arren realized that he was scanning the azure waters incessantly, but didn't make himself stop--he didn't want anything taking them by surprise. Jhondael had climbed down into the boat as soon as Arren was out of the way, and sat down with a heavy thud--the boat seemed to lean a little more towards his side, now. Arren sighed at the smug looks the armoury directed towards Danil--their sparring session had caught the attention of everyone on board ship, and had helped divert them from the gruesome memories of the day before. Unfortunately, it also had put Danil into a foul temper, despite Jhondael's claims that he had merely slipped. Arren doubted that anyone bothered to believe that for a moment.

-------------

K, all aboard that's going aboard. If you're planning on continuing with everyone else, the boat is the only way--otherwise, you're going to have a lot of challenging RPing trying to explain why your character went ashore a different way, and how.

Btw, they're not going to get ambushed between here and the shore.

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Endymion couldn't get the picture of the sickly crymson water from her mind. She hadn't the stomach or guts to retrieve her loosened arrow. But she could easily make more, arrow-making wasn't very hard at all, and she had about a dozen more in her bag that was slung on her back with her quiver.

When the longboat was lowered the day they got to the island, Endymion looked at the small rickety thing with distaste. The wobbly little boat wouldn't help her stomach any.

With a sigh of dis-content, she climbed down the side of the ship and into the longboat, making sure to sit by the edge in case her stomach desided to empty it's contents. And remembering the blood-filled water didn't help her case either.

Endymion had taken the closest available seat, and so found herself sitting next to Arren who was scanning the water. The girl was thankfull that someone was on the look out for what ever it was that had taken the two men the other day. She did not want to die a watery grave like they had. Endymion felt the boat teater a bit more and put both hands on the side of the boat as a reflex...

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(}--{)Imagination Inspires Ideas -Zandain(}--{)
Married Cloud Strife 9/17/08

"We agreed I could make my own decisions." Raign was sitting at her desk still, quill in hand. The speed at which it spun relentlessly indicated her current state of agitation. Currently it was a blur in the air.

"Aye," Lucan paused, arms folded and jaw set. "Decisions for yourself. Not decisions for the rest of us."

"And yet," Raign returned, deceptively quiet, "if I were crown princess now, Lucan, I would make decisions for more than the thirty of us who remain. I would rule a nation. But -"

"You're not. All right," he snarled, turning. "Do you think I don't know? Do you think I'm under some illusion that the Jewel Isles remain in their former splendor, for us to return whenever we wish. We are all that is left."

Raign blinked. She felt a sudden and very strange rush of something like deja vu - but with the perspective altered completely. "I'm not pretending I am a princess," she clarified, "only that aye, we are all there is left. And we need to make decisions that will...decisions that will keep us that way."

"So venturing onto an island reported to have been the site of grisly murders is going to do that."

"No," Raign snapped. "It's going to get us the money we need to keep from starving on this hulk of a ship. Have you looked at our funds lately?"

He ignored her. "And if you die?"

Raign stopped twirling the quill - it had begun to whizz faintly with her intensity. "I'll take that risk," she returned.

"And leave us leaderless if the risk goes awry."

She was forced to nod. He stopped to rest his fists on the desk. "Right."

Suddenly she felt ominously small and young. He was older by a good four years, and when he decided to make it known...

Roughly half an hour later she exited, slamming the door so hard her fingers went numb, and went abovedeck tight-lipped and dry-eyed. The boat was being readied to go ashore. For a moment she stared down into it. Oh, stars, stars above..."Choose, Raign. Do you want to command, or do you want to take risks?"

Oddly, she wondered how long the words would haunt her. Raign climbed down into the boat. If this failed, she was left powerless and penniless. Lucan would not be relinquishing what he'd fought to gain from her. And now he had it. The command he'd wanted, in return for agreement that she embark with the rest of their impromptu group, in a single last-ditch attempt to claw the remainder of the Jewel Isles out of disaster.

Aware of her stony expression, Raign turned her eyes to the foggy edges of the land and forced herself not to contemplate whether it was worth it or not.

Because the truth was - it had to be.

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((My muse is ignoring me in relation to this thread. I'm not sure what to post, but we'll assume Garvan's in the boat. lol))