The break had arrived. Cedric returned with Lunden and Lydia a short time after Balthazar finished scouting with portals and he filled them in on the plan. Cedric liked it and Lydia seemed a little apprehensive which gave Balthazar pause. Lydia was always apprehensive but maybe she was right. It wasn't exactly an assault on a pirate ship, it was just... investigating? If they uncovered something, it would be worth it. If they uncovered nothing, it was important that the footprint they left remain small. Stealth was the name of the game and they were all going to play whether they wanted to or not. Balthazar designated Lunden and Cedric as the lookouts. When they board the first ship they would be the one to stay up top and ensure they could return to where Balthazar first conjured the portal.
Lydia was to proceed into the larger ship with Balthazar to look for signs of criminal activity or to find out why the ships had gathered. Cedric wasn't happy to be relegated to a lookout, but he was content to take a shot at any pirates who showed up on the ship. Balthazar had to remind him a few times that baring the first one they had to knock out, they did not want to get into a fight. Lunden assured Balthazar that they wouldn't get into any unnecessary conflict but the mage still felt a little apprehensive about Cedric. Hopefully his allies could keep him in check. When everyone understood the plan and their roles in it, they stood again at the edge of the docks and Balthazar prepared to open a portal onto the drifting ship.
He stood just in front of the tree recruits with his arm raised and he began spinning it in a small circle. He could feel the distance close before his hand and a few trills later a ring of fire blazed to life at the end of the docks. It burned into existence with a loud sear and Balthazar pushed immediately through it, though all of his recruits were surprised by the portal and lingered a trill longer than he wanted them too. He did not let their inaction translate into his own.
When the ring of fire opened at the docks, a twin opened at the back of the pirate ship where Balthazar had scouted. Balthazar came through and seized the pirate at the helm before he could call out or sound any alarms. He squeezed hard on the man's neck to keep him from getting any air and a few trills later the man seemed to lose consciousness. Balthazar lowered him slowly onto the deck and turned to find his recruits only then passing through the portal.
"Stay focused." Balthazar said sternly before swiping his hand through the portal to collapse it more silently than it had been formed. He gestured for Cedric and Lunden to stay where they were and watch the unconscious pirate. Then motioned for Lydia to follow him as the moved down the helm and across the deck towards the boarding plank connecting the ship to the larger one. He stepped more quietly than she did but she was following his example and lead well. He could feel the uncertainty in her steps when her weight caused the boarding plank to shift but they made it across and onto the deck of the larger ship without incident.
It was only there that Balthazar began to get a good sense of what was happening. He could hear voices coming from below them, many voices. The pirates were celebrating or perhaps trying to organize something which had taken the majority of their focus. Still, Balthazar and Lydia moved low along the ship so that they would not be spotted by the helmsman of the large ship, or one of the helmsmen from the two smaller ships. The railing gave them the cover they needed to avoid being seen by anyone who was out and about on the smaller ship as soon as they'd crossed the boarding plank. The duo moved along the railing towards the stern side of the ship where a trap door was hanging open outwards. It lead down a small flight of stairs into ships hold where Balthazar could immediately see the backs of a few pirates who were facing inward and listening to someone talking.
As he and Lydia grew closer to the trap door, they began to make out the voice behind the words a little more clearly. They'd stumbled into the middle of a speech it seemed
"- a business venture. Guided by my hand you and your crews will live better than the Pirate Lords of old ever did- and better yet the Elements will not be able to do a thing about it." Balthazar gestured for Lydia to stop outside the trap door when he noticed she was trying to get closer. They could hear just fine from where they were and there was no one around to see them yet. The voice continued,
"All I ask is that when I call on your aid or when I ask you to bring your ship to some portion of Scalvoris, you obey. Work with me and we will become the most elusive, and more importantly the richest sailors on the Hollow Sea."
So someone was trying to curry favor with other pirates? Balthazar didn't like the implication but he still wasn't sure bargaining in an arresting everyone there was going to be the solution. He tapped Lydia's shoulder and she looked at him nervously. He pointed back down the boarding ramp and she seemed to get the message that he wanted her to go back to Lunden and Cedric. He turned to go with her when he heard another pirate, presumably a captain, speaking up.
"And what if we tell you to chew sand? We've done fine on our own and I see more than a few necks in this room I already want to slit." Balthazar paused because he was curious how this 'uniter of pirates' would respond to his opposition.
There was silence for a long time. Long enough that Balthazar turned back and moved a little bit down the steps into the hold to get a glimpse of what was happening. Lydia didn't notice that he'd fallen behind, having been so preoccupied with maintaining cover and silence. He didn't go down the steps too far, only ever really willing to risk his legs being seen by someone peering over at the entrance. It couldn't have been the whole of four pirate crews in the ship, but the number was certainly staggering. Balthazar quickly deduced that the ship captains had brought their more trusted crew members aboard for protection. That meant there were still pirates to be concerned about on the other ships. Less, but pirates all the same.
There was a man with a large hat and rather decent looking clothing for someone in his line of work standing across from another man wearing much dirtier and bloodstained clothing. The man in the nice hat said,
"If that is your decision, you will not step off this ship alive." That sent a fair uproar through the crews but there were level headed individuals among them for sure. The captains themselves seemed to respect the answer more than the crew members did. They saw it as a challenge, which it was, but it was not a challenge that the other captains seemed to want to answer.
The faces among the crowd were not familiar to Balthazar for the most part but one stood out among all the others. One who did not belong. One who lurked in the background of the room like Balthazar lurked at the entry. Lucas Mallory. Balthazar had gone with him into the Scaloth jungle to recover the remains of Vri's followers not long ago and now the adventurer was here on a suspect pirate ship in the middle of Cylus? Something was afoot. Mallory had seemed a good man at the time but his presence in the meeting was disconcerting.
"You wouldn't make it out of the fight." The captain in a bloodstained shirt said with a smug look.
"You have been enjoying my wine, my food, and my company ever since you set foot on my ship." The captain in the hat said,
"Anyone who does not accept my offer died the moment you drank my wine. Isn't that right, Mallory?" Well that answered one question Balthazar had. The assassin stepped forward from his well hidden spot on the wall as the outcry became almost too loud for even Balthazar to make out what was being said. The pirates were furious, some were afraid but most were angry and wanted answers. Two of the captains sat in silence while the third in the bloodstained shirt shouted all manner of profanity at the captain in the nice hat.
"You have all been given a small portion of a poison derived from the iocane bloom." It was not true but Balthazar and the pirates would not know that.
"Within the break your bodies will begin shutting down unless I am instructed by Captain Vane to treat you." Mallory certainly knew how to strong arm people. Or perhaps this 'Captain Vane' was the mastermind. Either way Balthazar had seen enough. He began to back out knowing they needed a more thorough investigation of who this captain and assassin were.
"Bend the knee and be saved, or keep your pride and die." Was the last thing Balthazar heard from the captain before he'd made it back out onto the deck. He moved faster and with more ease when Lydia was not there but that was, in part, because he could see torches on the smaller ship. The recruits had woken the crew but he didn't hear any alarms sounding. The boarding plank was floating down in the sea so Balthazar took a running jump off the edge of one ship and used a blink portal to get him across to the other. He appeared in a small puff of flames and landed on the smaller deck, finding Lydia, Lunden, and Cedric in the middle of tying up pirates.
"That was fast, what did you find?" Cedric asked as if nothing had gone wrong on their end.
"I'll tell you later, what happened here?" Balthazar asked as he opened another portal back to the docks. It was easier to bridge the distance the second time than it was the first time but it still took a few trills.
"Cedric." Lunden said definitively. Balthazar looked over at Lunden for further explanation but none came so he turned an irritated eye on Cedric as Lydia and Lunden moved through the portal.
"What? Someone saw us. It was easier to knock them all out." He said as he moved through the portal. Balthazar stepped through and sealed the portal behind him. He gave a single motion for the trio of recruits to keep walking and they began making their way towards the Element Hall to fill out the report.
"You're lucky they had bigger things to deal with." Balthazar said,
"You could have gotten your entire team hurt."
"Maybe it was luck, but it worked." Cedric said, causing Balthazar to almost stop in his tracks.
Was this what it was like working with him when he was greener? He took a deep breath. It was going to be a long night.