[Tiburon] [U] The Sunken Barrel Tavern

[Kage]

Kage was amused at Lilly. Some kind of fire mage it seemed. He took his shot and set it down with a smack of his lips.

"Getting there unseen isn't really an issue for me. How much would you really pay just to verify their location?"

He wasn't going to agree to do something that seemed too easy for too little. He had seen it go from easy to a disaster with the payout being lack luster. He wanted Kaia's opinion, so he spoke to her telepathically. "So Kaia, if we decide to do this, what do you suspect are the odds of us getting through completely fine versus us getting horribly maimed?"

[Magikeeper]

The blade hardly let him finish requesting her advice before shouting into his mind. "DON'T TAKE ADVANCE PAY! I think we should go with the job for now, ditch it if the group's bad or Dalton is drumming up fodder. He's still at the table despite the horror story, something's up with that". Kaia then returned to silently listening, as she tended to do at the start of jobs.

Just in time too, as Garza had just finished fishing out a small.. notebook? He starts flipping through the pages."I need to take into account the need for an..um..larger group. Let's see.. if.. *sigh* I suppose I can reduce that for a few weeks.. that too... how big a group you think we'd need, Dalton?"

The hunter shrugs. "Depends on the group. Half-dozen or so, we need enough people to handle being attacked. I'd need to see what they can do before signing on, though. I'm not going to be a second Bertie." Kaia mentally shares a note of mild approval with Kage. Six bodies wasn't enough to choke a dragon; he'd need to keep the team mostly alive.

Garza bobbed his head up and down like a ball in a storm, sketching out a few more calculations before holding up his notebook and pointing at the final number. Not amazing, but within the bounds of a dangerous job. "I think this should do it? More than I was planning on paying, but, since there is a dragon and all..."

ooc note: I don't know what I'm rewarding for this yet, please work with me here.

[Lilly Mato]

Lilly nodded at the number in the notebook, seeming satisfied enough with it if not overjoyed. Her eye soon slipped past the notebook and stared directly at Garza.

"Now. Why do you want to know the whereabouts of these pirates, exactly?"

[Kage]

Kage gave Kaia a mental chuckle even as he heard the offer and other rationale that pointed to a non sacrificial group.

"And could you be as specific as possible in what you want accomplished in order to get paid?"

Kage wanted to know when he could stop caring about the others and get paid, if it came down to it.

[Magikeeper]

Garza looks relieved by the topic change. "All I want is for you to confirm the pirates are on the island. Any kind of proof you can acquire is fine, I just want to convince the military that my son was right. This is his chance to be a local hero, the man who figured out that a ship full of pirates was hiding so close to the capital.."

Dalton nods "Shame he was injured in the fighting, eh? I heard the lords had lent their personal healers, I suppose they haven't got to everyone yet."

Garza nonchalantly shrugs, in strict contrast to the bead of sweat forming on his brow "I could pay for it, but healing to the extent he'd need has gotten expensive lately. My boy would rather I pay a group to investigate this than spend it on him."

Dalton pauses for a moment. He appears to be calculating something.

[Darby]

Darbison Jackson esquire bought some shots, introduced himself, and got caught up on the details.

"Oh, so the pirate ship was damaged and a dragon may inhabit this island? It's likely we'll find the wreckage and nothing else. I wager we can investigate this and find your sons proof without stepping off the boat."

[Magikeeper]

Garza's eyes lit up at the thought. "That's a great idea! We wouldn't need nearly so many people to-" "No. We shouldn't do that." The disgruntled Dalton held his hand up, motioning for Garza and the others to wait, before he continued. "I have.. a friend that's fanatical about the local shark population."

"What does that have to do with the dragon?" asks Garza.

"I am fairly certain the dragon hunts in the water."

Garza's eyes narrow as he throws a suspicious glance Dalton's way. Dalton must have left out that bit of trivia during his earlier talks with the man.

[Darby]

"Oh? What else is known of this dragon? I thought the only thing we knew about it came from a message in a bottle that said 'Dragon'."

Darby calmly tipped back another shot to emphasize his cool detachment from the situation, and immediately squinched his face into a bitter grimace and coughed.

[Kage]

Kage mused about the sudden knowledge of the so called dragon. It could be just a water shifter that looks like a dragon. Although there could be a dragon, he supposed. There were many different types after all. He sat watching the conversation and waiting to respond. In the meantime he spoke to Kaia, "I wonder what else this Dalton is hiding from the rest of us. My bet is he is the real one who wants the job, but had to talk Garza into footing the bill. Clever. Keep an eye on him. He might be a problem more than what appears on the surface."

[Lilly Mato]

"Yes, I'd like to hear everything we know about this creature. Conjecture or not, more information is always good."

Lilly has set fire to another of the shots, this one she appeared to be letting burn as her fingers danced through the flames.