Sailing Away (Everyone)

Glen puts his hands up again. "We were given these. Told they would reveal you if you were being disguised, or if someone was posing as you. I brought mine because I didn't know what we'd find, if we found you at all. Is there something we need to know about these?" He looks worried, but still remains calm and even in his demeanor.

Korogur's expression is stormy. "Well, you almost certainly have the plague now--and have brought it to my ship and crew. Other than that, it's fine."

Glen pauses for a moment in surprised silence. When he speaks, his voice is gentle, as he attempts to be understanding of such an absurd claim. "O...kay. Care to explain what's going on, and how a necklace transmits the plague?"

Ka'Ri struggles to maintain her position of submission, but her face pales violently and she looks like she's about to throw up. She had touched every member of her crew, including the ones who were not yet infected and Qiao.

She hopes beyond hope it's another lie from Korogur, but just the possibility it could be true is enough to roil her.

Sunrise goes very still, her face suddenly unreadable. For several long seconds she sits like that.

Then she comes back to life with a deep shuddering breath and turns to look at Tree. "So," she says quietly. "I take it your mother isn't working to find a cure?"

Tree springs forward to attempt to grab the metal from Glen's neck. "She is, it's just...!" She flails to answer Sunrise. "C'mon, who else has any of that metal? Throw it overboard now! Or give it to me if you're too scared to," she adds. "But give it up. Don't want to have to strip you."

Sunrise removes hers, standing quickly to throw it away. "Even if it's not true, we don't need them any longer," she points out for the benefit of the others. "Unless anyone doubts that this is her?"

Once her own necklace has vanished into the sea she turns back to Tree. "I'm ready to listen."

Ka'Ri reaches with shaky hands into her coat and into her pouch to remove the necklace. Flinging it as far as she can, it barely clears the side of the boat, falling into the water below.

"He handed them to us," she says in a monotone too struck by the connotations to be angry. "He handed them to us with a fucking smile on his face."

Glen frowns deeply at her roughly grabbing his necklace and tearing it off. His eyes are dark. "I would gladly have done it myself if you'd explained, as I asked." His voice is low, quiet and angry, the deference gone from his voice. He and Elen follow where they are instructed to go.

The party is shuffled into the captain's cabin at last and the door shut against the bulk of the crew, though Parih stays. Tree rounds on Ka'Ri, angry and urgent. "Who gave them to you? Who 'he'?"

"Luther Rivvers. I could have explained, had you asked."

Tree sags into a seat in relief, anger draining out of her. "Oh, thank Osprem. It won't work on him. He's safe, even if nobody else at the tower is."

Korogur takes a seat beside her, looking shaken but watching the intruders with a coldly evaluating gaze.

As though Tree's anger has bled into Glen as it drained out of her, he stares cooly at them both. He places his hands on the table, not gently. "Excuse me. I've been forthcoming and compliant with you. I believed we were working towards something that resembled mutual trust, or at least respect. I will ask once again, since you are implying that I've put the people I care about most in danger: what is going on here, with the necklaces?" Glen's voice is even and calm but his eyes are icy.

Ka'Ri expands with a dry cracking voice.

"He said it was a magical artifact. That we were to wrap it around you to confirm that you were you. His instructions were to keep it on us at all times. This included times in which we were with our loved ones. An intermediary the bursar was the one to physically give it to us, but he demonstrated the necklaces and answered questions about them and seemed to see no issue with them at the time."

"I... I am a pirate. My crew is my life and as Glen notes, we seem to have inadvertently condemned them, possibly to death. So please, anything you can share I would appreciate and I promise to be as honest as I can with you in return."

She is sunk into her seat, tears on her face as her eyes have adopted a pleading stance.

There's a small flicker of relief in Sunrise's eyes at the news that Luther is safe; nodding, she takes a seat. "I'm curious too," she says, her tone gentler. "We were given the necklaces by someone we trust, and the reason seemed straightforward. We haven't felt any ill effects. And as Glen and Ka'Ri say, we've all worn them around our families and frietnds, so yes, I'd quite like to know why you're so convinced they carry plague." Her voice is soothing as she talks, trying to turn this back into a conversation.

"We're not your enemies," she adds, a reminder as much to her own people as to the pirates. "The sooner we all get on the same page, the better it'll be for everyone."

Reaching over, she quietly takes Ka'Ri's hand, squeezing it in comfort.

Tree slaps her own hands on the table in echo to Glen; her eyes flash with a fresh surge of anger which seems to invigorate her. "I'm sorry you're misinformed," she says pointedly, "but you are intruders in our territory and this interview is in order to decide whether or not I get to kill you. I don't give a steaming hot shit about your trust and it certainly isn't going to be mutual, land-legs. Don't start thinking you can make demands where you sit."

Turning to Ka'Ri, she shakes her head. "Luther didn't know. I'd stake my life on it. He couldn't; he's not a mage and he's one of the few who are immune to the plague. And if you start telling people he knew, you'll be staking your life on it, coz I'll kill you. That's a promise." Her eyes flare with hot fury, but Ka'Ri's pleading eyes make the expression tenuous to maintain. "I'm... sorry about your crew. We're trying to work on a cure, but it's been slow going. When we make one, we'll give it out to pirates and poor people first."

Sunrise's statement prompts a frown from Korogur, who has been watching his girlfriend make threats with fond affection in his gaze. "It's not a normal plague. You understand that much, right? That's why the Feytower is the last hope for a cure. Anything that reanimates the dead and sends them shambling around the city mindlessly: that's magic, not bad harvest mold or whatever."

"Yes, I'd put that much together," she says, but the tension she's trying to hold back makes the wry humor fall flat. "I'd been assuming it came from outside the city though, or a traitor trying to bring us down, or... not someone or something in the Feytower, anyway." Her eyes move from Korogur to Tree, curiosity ablaze in them.

Glen snorts derisively, fresh anger burning through him. He continues listening with an expression of deep skepticism.

Ka'Ri gratefully accepts Sunrise's hands and reaches over to Glen. She locks eyes with him as she makes contact.

"Please," she begs him. "I need to know what I have done to my family."

She turns back to Tree. "I apologize, I didn't mean to cast aspersions on Luther. I'm just scared and didn't know what information would and would not help you."

She then silently bows her head in apology and prepares to listen.

Tree sighs and gives Korogur an unhappy look; she clearly doesn't enjoy going over this. "My mother, Laerdya Siannodel, is obsessed with keeping me healthy and alive," she says in a quieter voice. "It's how she got into plague cures in the first place: the more diseases she cured, the safer I was, the less anxious she felt. She experimented with new magics and new materials in order to help her work. She came up with this new alloy which holds enchantments amazingly well. The Feytower began using the metal in amulets and similar stuff just before the plague began, you see," she begins.

Sunrise nods. "She seems to think you're pretty delicate," she agrees quietly. "That's the metal that was in the necklace?"

Glen pats Ka'Ri's hand gently and his eyes soften at her. He gives her a nod. He isn't angry at her, but when he looks back at Tree and Korogur his eyes burn fresh and hot. He continues to be deeply skeptical of what they have to say.

"The same stuff, yeah," she conforms to Sunrise. "The metal itself isn't poisonous, but just as it is naturally capable of holding enchantment much easier than most materials, it makes the wearer and those around it much more susceptible to invasive magical conditions and illnesses. Including the plague. Someone who wasn't a skilled mage and didn't think to test the material would just think it was a good carrier of enchantment, not realizing they were basically throwing open the doors to any and all magical illness. And, by time my mother recognized the problem, lots and lots of little bits of the metal had been given or sold away within the city. Follow me so far?"

"Fascinating," Sithani murmurs. More audibly, she asks, "But why not announce this? Send out golems or something to collect as many samples of the metal as they can for safe disposal? Why leave hazardous material around for - ye gods, how many healers are mages themselves? How many might use this stuff to store healing spells - they'd be fucking plague vectors! Why wasn't anyone told?!"

Tree shifts in her seat, looking uncomfortable and sharing Sithani's anger. "My mother has been trying to quietly buy the stuff back up, but claims it's just for her 'personal collection' when anyone asks. The problem is, the metal is all wrapped up in what she did with it next. She made an amulet... for me. Used my blood in its creation. It was supposed to keep me safe and well, alert and well-rested, and if something were ever to kill me, it was supposed to bring me back a few days later after the danger passed. Healing, alertness, and resurrection all in the most powerful magical artefact she could create."