"I can explain." - Clue! Murder at Sea (1)
14 Cylus 720
"Who's Isabella?" A soft voice said as the hand wrapped around his waist moved lower to his more prized regions. Balthazar's eyes snapped wide open and he rolled suddenly out of the bed and onto the floor, pulling the red silk sheets off with him. He backed to the wall of the room, covering himself with the sheet.
He was naked. Where were his clothes? Balthazar looked around for those immediately but clearly saw the woman on the bed first.
She was naked, and bare now that he'd stolen her blanket. She sat up, wrapping an arm around her breasts to cover herself and looked at Balthazar with an amused grin. "I'll still be wanting that back." She said with a small gesture to the blanket. Balthazar tossed the sheet to her and kept looking around the room for his clothing. He found his pants and pulled them on quickly then continued his search for his shirt. "I think you left it out in the hallway." The woman said.
"What?"
"You took your shirt off before we got inside." She said. It was Scarlet. Balthazar was still on the ship. These revelations came with more questions than answers though. Balthazar pushed open the door to her cabin to find the rest of the ship very much the same as he remembered it... and his shirt was on the floor as Scarlet said it would be.
"What happened to the captain?" Balthazar asked, his mind managing to find some clarity amidst the fog that had overcome it. He shut the door to the room, aware that Scarlet was still in the nude while he was more or less dressed now.
"Captain Wadsworth is above deck, we're almost to Almund now." Scarlet said as she slipped off the bed and pulled a thin dress on over herself.
"Wadsworth? What about Boddy?"
"He's with Surgeon White, something happened in his room and-"
Balthazar stopped himself and held up a hand towards Scarlet. "I get the idea. Thanks for the night." And without giving Scarlet a moment to reply, Balthazar left the room. He walked directly towards the captain's quarters, certain he knew the way and when he opened the door he found the room remarkably as he remembered it. All the same maps and decorations hung in the same place, all the same furniture and dinnerware remained. Balthazar's eyes narrowed on one cup. He couldn't interpret the frequency of the object in the same way that he'd been able to interpret the frequency of the dead captain but there were enough signs in the song that Balthazar knew something was wrong... he just didn't know what.
So Balthazar went to find his little spider, Cabin Boy Green. He found Green where he'd first talked to him, scrubbing the deck, and Balthazar grabbed a brush to help him out. That was how the trade always worked, help for information. Yet this time when Balthazar approached with the brush in hand, Green pulled his bucket away from Balthazar. The mage made a curious face and reached for the bucket again but Green pulled it away again.
"What's wrong?"
"I don't know nothin." Green said too quickly to be natural. Balthazar looked around the deck of the ship but he didn't see anyone other than Captain Wadsworth at the helm... now why did that seem so odd to Balthazar? Balthazar shook the thought away and then knelt down to Green who's frequency he'd begun to peer into out of curiosity. This song was not familiar to Balthazar. Green's frequency had changed somehow... there was more of one note in it that Balthazar couldn't quite put his finger on.
"Well that's obviously not true," Balthazar began "because I didn't ask a question yet. What happened last night?" That unfamiliar note rose higher in Green's frequency and he shook his head.
"You and Miss Scarlet were drinking and went into her room." Green said without looking to Balthazar.
"When?" Balthazar asked as he looked up towards Captain Wadsworth at the helm.
"Sundown."
"Sundown? That's a lot of time for me to have lost drinking." Balthazar turned his gaze towards Green. The Cabin Boy seemed to try and do the math in his head right then and there but when he realized it didn't add up he quickly followed with,
"Maybe a bit after?"
"Maybe you're lying to me." Balthazar countered as he knelt back down to Cabin Boy Green. He heard the note rise again but now Balthazar understood it. Now that he had caused it to emerge he realized the truth behind the note. Fear. Cabin Boy Green was afraid of something, or someone. Right now, probably Balthazar, but why? They'd been allies the day before. For the briefest moment Balthazar thought to let the situation lie, he would gain nothing from solving this mystery, but then he realized it just wasn't in his nature to let this crime go unsolved... crime... why did he think there was a crime attached?
"Please don't make me talk." Cabin Boy Green whispered so quietly that Balthazar strained to hear him. The mage nodded to the boy and moved below deck to the only place he thought he would find real answers, Surgeon White's room.
When Balthazar arrived, Surgeon White was not in the room and so Balthazar took it upon himself to peer around a little. Captain Boddy's body was laid out on a table behind Balthazar as the mage wandered about the room, looking at the various instruments Surgeon White had at his disposal before Balthazar turned to focus on Captain Boddy himself. The odd thing was that Boddy still seemed to give off a changing frequency. Balthazar had never really tried to attune to the dead but he didn't expect it to be anything like this. Balthazar approached the table and set both hands on the wooden surface as he leaned in towards Boddy's chest, trying to hear the notes in his song.
"What are you doing?" a voice called out from behind the mage, startling him and causing him to turn with two fists raised ready for combat. It was Surgeon White, standing at the doorway to his room watching Balthazar.
"I thought I could help figure out what killed him." Balthazar said. Surgeon White laughed.
"Oh he isn't dead, just paralyzed. It's a good thing that Scarlet found him when you did, otherwise the poison might have spread to his heart and lungs. fortunately my grandmother taught me a concoction that should buy him time till we reach professionals."
"Scarlet found him? Cabin Boy Green said I was with Scarlet all night." Balthazar countered.
"Well you weren't with her when she brought the captain here, just the quartermaster." Surgeon White responded. Balthazar narrowed his eyes slightly in thought. So Boddy was alive, and that was why his frequency continued shifting. Balthazar wondered what he could learn if he devoted time and focus to reading the frequency but it didn't seem that Surgeon White was all for that.
"You mentioned poison, do you know what kind?"
"An iocane bloom." White replied "Captain had a small one in his room. Said it reminded him of a cabin his family used to have in the Sweetwine woods."
"Iocane blooms? Aren't those flowers?" Balthazar asked with an odd look.
"They are, yeah, but they're poisonous." White replied "They can be ground into a fine powder but it takes some muscle."
"Muscle?" Balthazar repeated. He stared at Boddy's body for a few trills more as a crude theory came into his mind. Balthazar would need evidence to test it though. "Well I wish you luck, let me know if anything changes." Balthazar tried to leave but White grabbed his arm and stopped him.
"Are you alright? You seem... confused."
"I'm just trying to figure out what happened to the captain."
"He was poisoned, we've bought him time. What else is there to know?"
"How about who poisoned him? Because they are still on the ship." Balthazar pulled his arm free of White's grip and left the room. He returned to his own to find it ransacked. His bags had been dumped out, his mattress overturned, his shelves left open. Someone had been looking for something. Hard to judge them given what he was about to do.
