Characters:RavenLogs/TTS PayingForDeal

The Treacherous Sea: Paying For the Deal

Marius finishes his dinner at long last. He really did eat all of that food. He looks quite a bit healthier than he did when Raven came in and he seems to be moving more steadily than he was when Raven entered the cell.

"I think I could do this," he says. "Are you ready?"

"As charming as it is to stand around watching someone eat, this ain't exactly my idea of a good time," Raven answers. "I'm ready."

Marius smiles as he comes to his feet and moves to the door. It bodes ill for the Gatwegians.

He gestures to Raven to get into place. "You force it, and I'll deal with their magic. It should come free quickly enough."

Raven positions herself appropriately and then nods. "Ready." It has not escaped her notice that she'll be first through the door and first to find out if there are guards out there (and how many). Not that she blames him, but it's nice to know that her fellow prisoner is self-serving enough to let someone else be attacked first. It's not the most charitable of thoughts, but given some of his claims so far, it doesn't seem entirely undeserved.

As soon as Marius indicates he's also ready, Raven applies her boot to the door with extreme prejudice, aiming for the weakest point. If it's actually going to give, it'll give there, and she'll give it her best effort.

The door rattles on its hinges. Whatever Marius is back there doing, it's having some effect, because when Raven inspected it before, it wasn't moving at all. "Again," he says, and there's some strain in his voice.

She assaults the door again, with no less vigor, and will continue to do so until either the door breaks, stops moving, or Marius passes out, all of which seem to be reasonable outcomes to her. And if she happens to be taking out some of her irritation at the Harbormaster on the door at the same, well... it's not undeserved, and the door is there whereas he is not.

It takes two more tries before the door falls. Marius almost does the same, but then he picks himself up to make good his departure. Breaking the door and the bar are a feat of strength Raven hardly thought she had in her, but still, people can do amazing things in extremity, and this is extreme.

Once she's sure she won't have to sling Marius over her shoulder and carry him out, Raven makes a point of being first out the door. "You been out of the room enough to know which way we're going?" she asks as she looks left and right for guards and witnesses that might cause a problem later. "Or are we going off my memory of how I got here?"

Marius takes a moment to recover from his exertions but once he does, he's moving through the door as fast as he can. He has no more desire to stay in the gaol than Raven. "You'll need to be our guide. That took more from me than I expected."

He's moving steadily, despite the appearance of a splitting headache: wincing at the sunlight outside and care for how his head moves when he jogs.

"Done, and done."

She does her best to navigate them back to the Harbormaster's office, although she'll choose whatever seems to lead towards the docks if she isn't sure. After all, finding that particular office from the docks is supposed to be fairly easy. She keeps half an eye on her companion - enough to make sure he doesn't fall too far behind (or over) with the fast pace she's inclined to - but otherwise leaves him and his headache to commune with each other in silence.

Assuming they make it as far as the dock area, she'll momentarily stop their progress, turning off into an alley if there's one convenient. "Right," Raven says lowly. "So is part two of this plan 'walk casual' or 'charge in swinging'?"

Marius grins in a way that shows his teeth. "We'll 'walk casual' until we need to break heads, and then we'll charge in, or out as the case may be, swinging. Let me see if I can find something to make it a bit easier to walk casual."

They're in a nest of small warehouses like the one that served them as a gaol. As they move along between the buildings, Marius finds a door and tries it. Surprisingly, it comes open and he ducks inside, gesturing to Raven to join him.

It's a bit strange; Raven wouldn't have expected the building to be unlocked.

"I'm starting to think this isn't your first jail break," Raven says, sounding amused, as she follows him. She frowns slightly and quirks an eyebrow at the door as she passes it, despite her amusement; it's strange that it wouldn't be locked... but then, Marius seems to be a bit strange all around. On the other hand, this could also be a set-up; it would be a shame if it was, though - he was doing so well at lulling her into a sense of fellowship to go and screw it up with a 'luckily' unlocked door. She shrugs just slightly as she looks around. Time will tell, after all.

"It is a useful skill if one travels a great deal," Marius says agreeably. He looks at the crates and locked trunks in this warehouse. "There should be a crowbar around here somewhere. See if you can't get one of those crates open--quietly. I'll work on this." His foot nudges a trunk with a padlock on it.

"I got more sense than to make noise fit to wake the dead," Raven answers drily. "Say something if you need help."

A bit of searching turns up a crowbar on top of one of the crates, as though someone had set it down to do some other task and forgot to pick it up again. She hefts it for a moment, testing the weight, and decides to take it with her when they leave; she'd always liked the utility of crowbars. And then, badly humming a tune about a particularly bloody sea battle under her breath, sets off along the row of crates in search of a likely suspect: a crate with shipping marks indicating it contained clothes, boots, hats, or some other useful thing.

Searching through the warehouse, Raven finds and opens what proves out to be a crate of bolts of cloth of the right weight for cloaks. When she digs around the edges a bit, she finds two cloaks that she wouldn't describe as perfect fits for herself and Marius, but certainly adequate for disguise. When she looks down from her perch on top of some boxes, she finds Marius has joined her. He has a sword in hand and looks like he knows how to use it, which is no surprise.

"Can you make do with knives, or should I keep looking?" Marius asks.

"Knives'll work," Raven agrees, "and I'm taking the crowbar, too. Might come in handy. Here." She tosses down one of the cloaks. "Finder's right - I'm taking the less ugly one. 'Ware below; I'm coming down."

Marius catches the cloak, laughing at the comment about finders, and steps back to clear a space for Raven to leap down into. When she's steady on her feet again, he passes her the knives, haft first. They seem like they'll do for throwing from the way the weight is distributed, which leaves her with the crowbar for any melee they get into.

The blade Marius took is a bit longer than the ones sailors use for close-in work; more of a landsman's duelling weapon. He draws the cloak around his shoulders and fastens it with his free hand. "Lead on, Captain Raven. We have your men to free and your vessel to escape to."

"And my papers to collect," Raven reminds him pointedly as she tucks away the knives and hooks the crowbar on her belt. "I ain't about to try explaining the last few years to the higher-ups without 'em. And I hope you're planning to hide that thing," she adds, with a gesture at the sword. "You did say 'walk casual' and not 'stalk around like a young idiot with more gold than sense'?"

She fastens her own cloak and leads the way back out of the warehouse, returning to where they'd turned off. She picks a pace that is not so fast as to be conspicuously running away from something, but brisk enough to look like they have someplace to be and something to do - which is entirely true - and sets off down what she thinks is the correct way.

"We'll find them," Marius says, closing his cloak in a way that somewhat conceals his blade, but not enough to suit Raven's taste. But he walks behind her swiftly and silently, and as if he's well used to moving with the blade, not just sitting and dancing.

When Raven identifies the Harbormaster's office, Marius nods and suggests they see if they can't get behind it, with an eye to entering via a back door or some such. He judges the risks as being more likely to be seen if they bluff their way in, and more likely to be caught by magic if they try to sneak in. He'd have an easier time if he went it alone and Raven rescued her crew, but he certainly understands that she's unlikely to think much of that plan.

The just slightly mutinous look that briefly crosses Raven's face when he suggests the plan of splitting up is probably a good indication of how she feels about it. She tempers her actual reply to a succinct, "Terrible idea."

The back door seems like a reasonable plan to her, and she somewhat prefers bluffing over having magic tip off unknown and unseen numbers of people and maybe just catching them like flies in honey. At least if they're bluffing, they have half a chance of seeing who they tip off and a fighting chance of getting away.

Marius slips into an alleyway with Raven right behind him. The two escapees are reasonably sure their initial escape has not yet been detected. The harbormaster's office is a low building of two floors.

Marius straightens his hair unsuccessfully and places his makeshift weapon behind his belt. He gestures at the back door. Behind it, Raven hears voices, too quiet to understand. Marius is grinning, as if he's enjoying this.

Raven eyes him for a moment, and snorts in amusement. At least he'd finally put the sword properly out of sight.

She moves up to the door and - just on the off chance - tries the doorknob. If it doesn't budge, she knocks on the door, pauses, and then knocks again, more urgently. Then she ducks her head slightly, her plan to pretend to be servants sent on an urgent mission, and waits.

The door opens, and one of the Harbormaster's men, not one Raven knows opens it. Marius steps up and speaks. "Message from the Collegia Arcanum for the Harbormaster. We're to wait to bring it back." He holds up a sealed parchment that he did not have when they left their gaol.

The Harbormaster's man looks at Raven expectantly.

Raven nods helpfully, shifting aside to let Marius hand over the supposed message - which she rather suspects is just a list of contents from whatever chest he found the weapons in. "They said it was quite important," she says. "And somewhat urgent."

Marius hands over the paperwork and the Gatwegian opens it, scanning the list. He frowns. "Hold on, I'll get it." Then he disappears into the innards of the building.

"I decided it was likely he'd interpret that as your paperwork," Marius says to Raven half under his breath.

If he had said, "By the way, I can transform into a dolphin and I'll swim us out to your ship," Raven might have given him a stranger look.

Maybe.

As it is, Marius is treated to a look that could not say any clearer that she has at best half an idea of how to take what he just said, and that she suspects he may be slightly unhinged. After a moment of uncomfortable silence, she says, "Riiiight. That's probably better than us going inside."

"As long as we don't run into one of their mages, we'll be fine," Marius says in a tone that's clearly meant to be reassuring. He scans the area, perhaps looking for any of the aforementioned mages, and waits.

A few minutes later, the Harbormaster's man comes back and hands a stack of familiar paperwork to Raven.

Marius beams. "Thank you, good sir. We'll be sure your cooperation is noted."

Raven does not flip through the papers to make sure everything is there once she has them. She wants to, but she doesn't. The paper Marius had handed over was sealed; they weren't supposed to know what they were getting. She damned sure will be checking as soon as they get out of sight, though. It's just prudent, to her mind, to check it all over, regardless of who handed it over - although she also doesn't entirely trust a looney, a mysterious parchment, and a guard that probably only didn't try to hit her earlier because he was at the back door and not the front to have got it all right.

Instead, she nods agreement to what Marius is saying. "Yes, thank you."

The door closes and Marius gestures to Raven to come along. They duck into an alley between two buildings so Raven can reassure herself that she's gotten everything they came for.

Marius waits impatiently while she looks through the paperwork. "Is it all there?"

Raven gives him a brief, quelling look - the kind usually reserved for a sailor that's irritating her. Clearly, she is unimpressed with his impatience, although she does understand they're in a hurry. "Looks like. Let's go."

As they head off, she adds, "Bluffing ain't going to get us into the jail. Ain't neither one of us can pass as somebody's grieving girl."

"No, but we can pass as errand boys from the Collegium. We've proven that," Marius points out. He rubs his temple, as if it aches a bit. "As long as we're lucky enough not to run into an actual mage from the Collegium, we should do just fine. I'm handy at finding keys and once we free your men, it's a moot point."

He looks over at Raven inquiringly. "Unless you have a better plan?"

"Well," Raven answers after a moment's thought, "to be blunt, no. I got the broad plan of getting out of here, but I ain't never tried to break anybody outta jail."

"You're not about to _try_ to break someone out of jail," Marius tells Raven. "You're about to do it." He produces a second forged letter from inside his cloak. "Who's the most senior of your men? I'll ask for him with this letter."

"Jasper," she supplies.

"And then when we have him, we take out the guards, set the prisoners free, and we're on our way."

"That's a lot of ifs," Raven says drily, "to be sounding so confident, especially with the possibility of mages hanging about. I assume plan B is the same: break faces until we got what we came for, then run for it?" A response doesn't seem to be required to that; it's only barely a question, anyway. "And put that note away. Ain't no reason to wave it about 'til we get there, not with me carrying papers as well. It looks odd, and we don't need help with that."

Marius tucks the note away with a flourish. "I wouldn't say I'm not worried about the mages, but they don't spend much time in the harbor. The stench of honest labor, not to mention honest laboring men, distracts from their esoteric studies." He says the last with something that might be an eyeroll.

He sticks his head out of the little alley and looks around. "I think we're clear."

Raven chuckles. "Right. Fair enough." She moves around him and turns in the direction her men had been led off. "Don't know exactly where we're going, other than this way, but it ain't never hard to find the harbor gaol."

Marius and Raven make their way toward the gaol in a businesslike manner, keeping their heads down and their presence minimal. It's Raven that spots her first: a blonde witch, by her gear and insignia a senior mage of the Collegium.

"I see trouble," Raven says lowly, pitching her voice just loud enough that Marius can hear her. "Blonde trouble, at that. Keep your eyes to yourself; we got things to do." Thanks to a tribe of short and particularly cranky mages some months back, she's wary of eavesdropping when a mage is nearby and standing still - on top of being a bit wary of mages in general - so she's hoping he'll get the message to stick to the plan until it doesn't work without her having to spell it out.

"That," hisses Marius, who has spotted her moments after Raven, "is Thalia. If she spots me--" he does not complete the sentence. Perhaps he thinks he doesn't have to.

If Thalia hasn't spotted them, she may soon. She is headed their way.

Raven scowls. Additional complications, they do not need. Especially ones her dubious companion is on a first-name basis with. A mage is bad enough - this better not be his jilted girlfriend too. "Right. I got three ideas, then: you fake a faint and I sling you over my shoulder; you go make like you're puking your guts out in yonder alley; or we keep our heads down and hope we make it to the corner before girlie gets too close. You got a better one?"

"I drag her back to Amber to get some much-needed answers," Marius says, his hand tightening on his blade's hilt.

Thalia continues her approach.

"Your idea of 'better' needs work," Raven answers bluntly. "And we ain't got a jail on board that'll hold a mage. Alley. On your knees.

Muster up something that sounds like you've spent the last week in a

cask of rum and regret it. Hustle, and make it look good." And if there was any question that that was an order, she resolves it with the kind of stare reserved for disobedient sailors and a stern, "Now."

Marius stares at Raven for a moment like she's grown a second head, and then laughs, loudly, as if she said something hilarious. And maybe she has.

Thalia's head snaps up at the sound of the laughter and she's looking right at them, or perhaps at just Marius.

"You *moron*." The scorn in Raven's voice could wilt vegetation, were there any nearby to be wilted. "You bloody lunatic. The idea is to get away with what we came for - it ain't to beat up mage-girls you know, or to try it and get caught again." She scowls at Marius. "You better be able to back up your claim you can get us home, boyo, 'cause I'm starting to think you ain't worth the trouble."

And with no more preamble than that, she takes a swing at him. After all, if he's face down on the ground and unconscious, this 'Thalia' woman won't be able to recognise him - and he'll be less trouble, at least for a few minutes.

Whether because Marius is slow or because he's paying more attention to Thalia than to Raven, Raven can't say, but the blow lands hard. It would have felled most men, even most of Raven's sailors.

Apparently Marius isn't most men, because while it rattles him, it doesn't fell him. It might have annoyed him, though. He doesn't bother to wipe the corner of his mouth where a little blood is trickling out before he moves to respond in kind.

This is going to get out of hand and draw notice--more notice--in a moment. Thalia is already moving to intervene, but she doesn't seem to have called for help yet.

Raven dodges back, trying to get out of his reach (and not coincidentally in the direction she wants to go) in a hurry. "Heh. So you ain't made of glass. So much for that plan." She smirks. "Come on, time to go - your girlie's headed this way."

The retreat takes her out of Marius' reach, but the punch was rather half-hearted, or perhaps reflexive and partially pulled, anyway. He's paying more attention to Thalia than Raven, anyway, so he doesn't seem to be following Raven

Thalia continues her approach. As she gets within speaking, rather than shouting, distance, she calls Marius's name and he turns to face her, his hand moving to the hilt of his blade to ready his draw but not completing it.

Thalia glances at Raven, but is more concerned with Marius.

Raven just crosses her arms and looks irritated. If Marius moves to draw his blade without any particular provocation, she'll grab his nearest body part and yank; if it looks like they're about to be arrested, she'll start heading for the hills. Otherwise, she's willing to see where this is going.

Thalia is a moderately tall woman; her bearing gives her the illusion of additional height until she stands close to someone like Marius. She has a fine bone structure and a sharp chin, and from the color of the tendrils that have evaded her headdress, her hair must be blonde. She stops out of the reach of Marius' blade and, not coincidentally, Raven's arm. "We must talk, Marius. There's been a terrible misunderstanding."

Marius has not yet drawn his blade, but he's ready to if Thalia makes the wrong move, clearly. "I understood you perfectly well. You made it clear you'd allied with Amber's enemies. What happened? Did your bet go badly? Did the assault on Rebma fail?"

"Not everyone agreed with the Collegium's decision--"

Marius interrupts her. "So now you want to--what? Rectify your mistake? If your alliance with him fails, you'll play my card for the good of Gateway?" He flashes a very toothy grin. "I'm as corrupt as any of my kin. Name my price, and perhaps you'll have me." The look in his eyes makes the entendre clear.

The curl of Thalia's lip suggests Marius has scored no points in that direction, if it was what he intended. "Don't be a fool, Marius, we're not all allied with the Black Tide Army. Yes, as a matter of fact Huon's assault failed, and you should do what you're clearly working on doing, which is getting back to Amber. I saw what they did to you; if you think you can stand up to me, even now, you're deluding yourself. I'll help you get this Amber ship free if you'll take me with you."

"Begging your pardon, miss," Raven interrupts, "but you'll be wanting to talk to me about being a passenger on my ship. And quite frankly, I've got enough trouble on my hands," she glances meaningfully at Marius, "without adding a lady mage of apparently questionable loyalties to the matter. Unless, of course, there's more to this escape still than what I can see with my own eyes...?"

Thalia's delicate eyebrows arch slightly at Raven's statement. "Are you rescuing Marius, then, Captain? I was under the assumption that he was rescuing you."

Marius' expression has shifted to something approaching cross, and not just at being left out of the conversation.

"Let's call it a mutual rescue," Raven answers, a bit wryly. "But even if he were doing all the rescuing, I still have the right to say who gets on my ship and who don't. He's already got a pass; he's promised something I want. I don't see the benefit yet of having a woman on board a ship full of men who ain't seen a woman from this close to home in an age, and the only thing that's going to come of me having to deal with the two of you circling each other like a pair of wet tomcats wanting the same fish is me losing my temper. I'm not saying 'no, you can't come,' miss, but I've jumped blindly into enough agreements today, and I ain't really of a mind to take just a 'I'll help you escape' in trade, not without something a bit more concrete in the way of information about what needs doing."

"I am a ranking member of our college of wizards. On my say-so, you and your men can sail out of this harbor with no opposition," Thalia says coolly.

"But can you find your way back to Amber?" Marius says, and he sounds like he knows the answer is 'no'.

"And on your say-not," Raven says drily, "you can make our lives more difficult. I did figure that, miss. I still ain't fond of the idea. But seems likely you ain't the only one to know we've got out, and we've probably spent enough time standing here by now that your help's the only way we're going to get away from here." She's silent for a moment, clearly thinking. "You still didn't give me anything firm, but I got a feeling I've got all you're going to give me. Fine. Ain't got the first idea where I'm going to put you, but I'll figure out something."

She looks at Marius then and says, "Well? Anything else?"

It could as easily have been 'well? Are you going to continue to pitch a fit, or can we get on with escaping?' judging by her tone of voice. She's ignoring the question; he already knows her answer, so she assumes it's not directed at her.

"And if I don't?" Marius says, which could be directed at either Raven or Thalia.

Thalia smiles thinly. "Then you chance me arriving in Amber before you do. Perhaps you can fight your way out of this, but I saw what Huon did to you. You're still weak and you need time to recover. You've lost your cards. You're on your own. Are you willing to chance it?"

Marius' eyes narrow. Thalia glances briefly at Raven before turning her full attention back to Marius; it's some unspoken communication that there's little for Raven to draw any conclusion from.

"All right," he says, but nobody is under the illusion that he likes it.

Raven eyes them both, and then shakes her head slightly. A cold fish of a mage, a possible lunatic, and a lost captain - it sounds like the start of a bad joke. Hopefully she won't be the butt of it.

"Well, miss, this is your city, and I'd be willing to guess you've got a better idea of where the gaol is than I do." She gestures in the direction they'd been traveling. "Shall we?"

Thalia nods and gestures toward the building that Raven and Marius been meaning to enter. Marius follows, still looking faintly mutinous, but blessedly silent.

In short order, with Thalia's assistance, the crew members who accompanied Raven in the shore party are released into Thalia's custody and they're all boarding the Vale of Garnath with permission to depart the harbor. Raven's senior people are quiet; they can tell something is going on but aren't stupid enough to ask what until they're somewhere safe, like aboard the ship and preferably out of the harbor.

Raven has a few things to take care of - but first and foremost is getting out of the harbor and on their way.

One thing Raven quickly realizes is that Marius is almost certainly the captain he said he was. He does his share of ship's work relating to getting the Vale out of harbor alongside the men. He's very competent and quite useful even in his weakened condition, and the sailors naturally defer to him.

Thalia remains out of the way while the sailors do what is needful. She seems to have little to no experience of ships from the sailing point of view, and plenty as a passenger. Oddly, she did not stop for much in the way of mage-gear, or luggage, before she left. Either she's planning to borrow sailors' gear or she means to conjure clothes by magic.

Once that's taken care of and there's a sufficent lull in activity for her to do so, she'll collar her first mate somewhere out of earshot of their passengers with a list of items:

- Thalia needs someplace to sleep, and Raven isn't giving up the captain's cabin for her. This place should be arranged such that the captain is not going to have to deal with a pissed-off lady mage and/or fried crewmembers. - Marius will be sleeping in one of the currently unoccupied crew spots; if he complains, he can come talk to her. - Marius claims to be able to get them back to Amber. She'll hit what she considers the high points of what he said about Amber itself - much changed due to whatever it was that threw them off course originally, and only one Royal Admiral now - but is not shy about indicating that she questions the source. - Gateway is not friendly any more, which is why they're leaving so abruptly.

She's willing to field questions from him, should he have any, and any of the list is available for passing on - discretely - to the rest of the crew.

The mate thinks they can set up a faux cabin in part of the storage area to give the lady a little privacy. She's not safe, per se, but the men are unlikely to trouble a mage, especially if she proves her powers. A little demonstration wouldn't be amiss.

Raven will make a mental note to take that up with the lady later. Setting up a faux cabin sounds fine.

The mate sends a sailor to do exactly that.

The crew will be keeping a close eye on Marius. If he turns out to be false, they'll want to know what Raven means to do.

If he continues to be useful, he might make a decent replacement for the crew they've lost. If he continues to annoy her, he's likely to be ejected from the ship, and she might even go out of her way to find some dry land and make sure he's able to fend for himself if she's feeling especially generous that day. Today is not a generous kind of day.

The word to that effect goes out among the crew.

They are antsy, they are itchy. They are not well supplied, and took on nothing at Gateway. They have a witch onboard and a strange captain who promises to lead them back to Amber, but they have no proof of his word. They're like tinder waiting for a match to go off.

Raven doesn't know how long she has until something bad happens.

It is fortunate for her, then, that something good happens that night. Marius stands on the bow of the ship, and waits and concentrates. Something happens, something that Raven can feel in her bones, and then the ship slides forward in the water and the stars have changed.