1: What a strange view

You know when you want to cast you begin by pulling the energy around you and before you release that power, words and motions then clip and stitch until you have tailored a specific spell. Well, the chair pulls the power out of you before you have time to create the finished product. I used most of my energy for the day and yet, technically, I didn't cast a single spell.

Strange...but I'd recommend stepping back to be on the safe side He closes his eyes and does as Turner suggests.

Nirion lets his torrent of magical energy flow into the chair, and he is delighted to feel the chair take it all in. Furthermore he can still touch the energy, but it is more calm and streamlined.There is a staircase leading up to a closed hatch, in a corner of the room you are in.

Khezzik had been waiting to see if Nirion or the chair would explode, but when there are no fireworks he'll start to get bored. Spotting a potential new avenue for excitement, he'll scurry up the staircase and examine the hatch, testing whether it's locked.

Khezzik opens the hatch to the upper deck and the first he sees is starts on a pitch-black sky. The stars are more clear and the black is more black than he has ever seen. It is disconcerting! There is no roof on the world, it just continues forever.



Looking down on the deck is more comfortable for the mind to take in. It looks just mostly like a ship. The pirate symbol on the... sails(?) does now not come as a surprise as they kidnapped you, for some reason.
A few meters from the hatch lies a jumble of bones in a silver-looking-armor (red Silv token). You have found another of the crew.
Just behind the hatch is a closed compartment (see green door token)

Caution is the better part of valor so the wizard distanced herself from the chair. However, whatever had concerned Nirion about his magic proved to be unwarranted as the chair safely charged. How many lights are now glowing?

The hatch that Khezzik disappeared through called to the wizard but she resisted. Troubling was the pair of skeletons located in the room. Food, water, and air had been available to the crew so what had caused their demise? Turner examines the skeleton remains looking for trauma.

Khezzik calls down the stairs, "More skellybones up here! Wearing shiny armour! Anyone want armour?"

Considering that his job done, he then turns his attention to the closed door.

Nirion expends all 4 lv1 slots and one each of 2 and 3. he breathes a sigh of relief and then checks the lights

The golden-eyed eye scrutinized Nirion's experience, quill in hand. He jotted several notes, updating his thoughts on the younger mage's fluctuating mana...and this fascinating helm. A ship powered by arcana, loaded with arcane items and relics, was the Wan Hu of his lifetime. Perhaps we shall unlock these mysteries and have the means to perfect a vessel of my own design. The scholar firmed his mouth into an almost smile as the younger elf reported a nonlethal success.

"You should continue to train with the Helm, Incantatrix. The practice may reveal more about yourself and the vessel."

Akio perched upon the scribe's shoulder, rubbing its head against his. Takeshi then turned to briefly aid Turner's examinations. However, he swiftly moved to ascend the rail. The sight of the open heavens awed him. The wizard barely made it out of the hatch before he paused and stared long into the infinite abyss of swirling stars. He then forced his gaze to the more immanent and mundane deck of the ship. The scholar surveyed the area while his familiar took flight, circling the ship's perimeter at the height of the fighting top. With the creature's elevated insight, the wizard scanned the ship's exterior for its outfitting, conditions, armaments, and any clues as to its derelict disposition.

Leo follows Khezzik and Takeshi up the stairs and is equally awestruck at what he sees, an endless sea of pitch-black nothingness, punctuated with the tiny specks of distant stars. Leo takes a moment simply taking it all in, breathing deeply the fresh air.

Leo helps Khezzik investigate the strange door, but remains somewhat attuned to the happenings downstairs as well, calling out "We should avoid splitting up too much, don't want something happening to somebody and nobody knows about it. Maybe we should finish exploring the ship and come back to the fancy chair when we know this place is safe."

"Hmm, maybe. Mostly like, everybody is already dead. If anybody still alive, they will know the Chair is magicalised again, since they can breathe. So best option is to sneak-sneak back to Chair and take over ship. Might not be worst idea to leave someones behind to guard Chair."

Turner
Turner examines the skeletons and again, does not find any clear sign of trauma. She does however notices that the yellow/orange residue, most clearly seen on the windows, are visible on the tables, and kitchen area, but not on the bones themself. When she examined the skeleton on the deck, she finds residue on the armor, and other minor jewelry, but nothing on the bones.
Turner and Takeshi both think the residue could be connected to the Cloudkill spell.
Among the skeletal remains is a headband, the Leo recognizes as his Headband and his crystal eyepatch

Nirion
Nirion feeds his wild magic into the helm and sees two more gems light up. There are now 3 at full brightness and one glowing.


Khezzik
Khezzik has found the upper storage room. There are several rolls of fabric. High-quality stuff. Cotten, silke, linnen, other. This is an impressive amount, and properly "donated" by a trading ship. With the right buyer, there is properly a fortune in here.
He also finds a cloak and some magical clothing that Khezzik recognises as his hat and gloves

Akio and Takeshi
Takeshi's familiar Akio beats its wings and flies close to the underside of the ship. It almost crashes when it crosses an invisible line where gravity is upside down. There is a plane that follows the lowest floor in the cargo hold. Above that line, gravity is "normal", below the gravity, is reversed. Flipping gravity while flying is dangerous. You do learn that the ship's name is "The Mobius".
There are weapon mounts in the railing, but no weapons, other than a very impressive front-facing cannon/wand.

Akio and Takeshi agree that keeping a distance from the ship hulls is preferable. The flying cat leans the danger of curiosity. Just above the crow's nest in the mast, both the air and gravity suddenly stops. The familiar is now floating away from the ship while choking Nirion
He can hear the commotion from the top deck and feels the helm responds to the desire to know what going on. An image of the deck pops into his mind. He can "see" the familiar floating away. He is pretty sure that he could cast a spell from his current visual vantage point of the crow's nest.

Nirion will close his eyes and cast mage hand through the chair and attempt to gently pull the familiar back to the ship.

One of the benefits of living in the Tower was the access to knowledge beyond her personal scope. Mages and clerics of some renown called Wizard Harper friend in addition to colleague, thus, first hand demonstrations of top tier spells had been a steady diet in her education.

After an initial assessment of the properties of the yellow powder, Turner had a suspicion that the dust was the result of a specific spell being cast. Consultation with Takeshi confirmed the trace amounts were consistent with the spell Cloudkill. Takeshi, did you notice the deteriorated state of the clothing of the doctor? This powder is corrosive in nature. Mayhap the source of the accelerantion of the decaying process. We should run a field experiment with the bugs. But why would flesh break down faster than natural fibers?

And that brings us to another oddity. If it was indeed the cause then we can extrapolate the doctor was the first killed. Do you understand what I'm saying? The body in deepest hold of the ship was the first dead. If the threat had been an external attack then by location of the body, the doctor should have been last. Mayhap this ship captured someone too powerful for them to handle. Cloudkill is certainly beyond my capabilities. But if that's the case, where did they go?

Turner thinks of the bugs, and the clean picked bones. There were several dead bugs in the common room. They were not squashed, they could have died from a gass attack.

Takeshi compares the volume of the common room with the normal volume for gass spells and concludes that the spell could have filled more of the room than the caster could have anticipated. The two in the common room might have been struck by the spell, and the guy on the deck could have stumbled out on deck before dying.

The missing flesh of the crewmen could have been eaten away by the bugs. They were very fond of meat as Takeshi well remembers.

Khezzik whoops and hollers as he retrieves his beloved possessions. He immediately slips the gloves on and sets the hat at a rakish angle. He tries to activate the hat.

Khezzik quickly flickers between a few of his favourite disguises - a fat halfling pie-merchant, a bespectacled gnome, and a skinny goblin - then reverts to his normal appearance (albeit with an unsettling, toothy grin).

"Cloak belong to Lopeiros?" he asks the firbolg, holding it up.