Episode 1: Ierendi, The Tournament of Adventurers

@Skyharpy and @MaJunior, looks like Khali's post was edited just about the same time Anlo's was posted. I quoted Sky's question again in this new post just in case the question was important.

Anlo follows quickly after the now wounded shifty little rogue. Though Pippin is invisible and obviously skillful at stealth, Anlo does notice sparse blood droplets on the hall floor. He follows their patchy trail and it leads him to the window at the end of the hall. Unsurprisingly, the window is open, the long curtain covering it waving gently.

As Anlo makes it to the window, Khali bursts into the hall from the spiral stairs and runs down the hall making a turn toward Anlo's door, which she sees is wide open. Anlo hears her.

At first she panics when she finds Anlo's room empty but then her eyes follow the red drops to see Anlo at the window. Concerned, she makes her way towards him; afraid it's his blood.

"Anlo! Are you alright? Are you hurt?"

"Bastard got away!" Anlo spits a curse and punches the wall by the window, poking his head out to see if he can tell where the thief went. Climbing the outside of a ship can't be easy, and if there's any chance of knowing where the hin went...

When Anlo peers out the window he just catches, by the moonlight, the sight of the hin finishing a shimmying descent down the tower's beams and slipping through an oversized portlight into the lower decks. Anlo imagines that the hin's small frame barely fit through the portlight.

A hall door flys open and Jin--the Ringmaster's grandson and troupe magician--steps hastily out from his quarters quickly into the hall, looking alarmed, spotting at first Khali and then Anlo by the window.

"Khali, why are you up here? Did I hear you screaming? Oh, Anlo..the window? What''s going on? Please don't say there more trouble tonight."

"The hin was waiting in my quarters, paralyzed me and took our evidence," Anlo replied tersely.

"Waiting in your quarters!? The hin that is a tournament contestant?" asks Jin, taken back with a troubled amazement. With a worried look on his face he walks to Tasya's door and gives it an assertive knock. "Tasya? You okay?" he calls through the door.

Both Khali and Anlo know that Jin and Tasya are close, like brother and sister, since they were both raised by Ringmaster Ganesh.

There's no answer from within Tasya's quarters.

Khali is suddenly worried too because she didn't see Tasya with the others. She walks to stand by Jin in case there is trouble; to back him up.

"Master Jin...you might want to see if she's alright."

said as gently and assuredly as she can. She glances at Anlo, hoping he will do the same.

Nodding to Khali, JIn opens Tasya's door and cautiously steps into her unlit room.

"Tas?"
No response.

He lights a lamp on a stand next to her door and waves it around to move the shadows out of the corners of the room.

"She's not here." He says in a worried tone.

"They used some sort of magic I think, to make me unable to move. The hin bound my hands and bagged my head, but my feet being left unbound makes me think the intent was to walk me somewhere?" Anlo theorizes aloud as he also pokes around the room for signs of a struggle, a vial, anything.

"What in the nine hells is going on here? I feel sorely underprepared for whatever is happening. I'm no mage or sorcerer, I'm no detective, I'm no student of histories or politics. I throw sharp objects very, very well... but you understand if I have concerns about being out of my depth."

His tone is grim, with an almost resigned quality. The self doubt was creeping in... the concern for his friends and the troupe itself with it. Anlo draws a spike and starts spinning it between his fingers, a clear sign of worry.

Khali lays a hand gently on Anlo's shoulder to reassure him.

"I feel you, my friend. The Puppet Master's skill far surpasses mine. He, or she, is able to control the contestants like they are marionettes. But, the puppet master requires strings to control the marionette and I have a theory about that. The strings, I believe, are the pendants they wear."

She then points to a drop of blood.

"My Mater use to say 'Sometimes you have to follow a trail of blood to find your way home.' Your skill may have just provided us a trail. We should go off ship and see if we can find the hin's tail. Wouldn't hurt to see how the others have faired with the charmed Captain, too. He's also charmed by the Puppet Master."

With more concern she requests

'Jin, will you continue to search the ship for Tas? Or, delegate that task to the others and accompany us?"

In Tasya's room, Anlo sees no signs of struggle, vial, or--for that matter--any signs of what he would recognize as Tasya's normal post performance activity.

Anxious by the thought that Tas is missing Jin quickly replies to Khali, "Yes! I will search for Tas. When and where did you last see her?"

Khali is no acrobat but she knows that time is of the essence. She turns on her heels quickly and makes her way as fast as she can towards the exit and entrance ramp hoping Anlo will follow, or better, lead.

"At the reception."she answers briefly.

"I walked her to her dressing room, then continued to my quarters. Start there!"

And then, Anlo is running through the ship with Khali to where they should be able to pick up the hin's trail.

Khali allows Anlo to lead because he was at the window while she was standing in the hallway.

"Okay." replies Jin urgently. "Goodluck!" He then rushes down the hall. Anlo runs right behind him.
Anlo leads Khali down the tower stairs into the troupe quarters lower hall--that she had escaped Captain Zephyros into earlier. Caspian and a group of armed roustabouts emerge into the hall through the stables door.

Caspian calls down the hall to Khali, Anlo, and Jin when he sees them, "The Captain must have giving up on your chase when he heard your commotion Khali. He's nowhere to be found. We didn't even find him in the contestant quarters. KaeKae Storm and Pippin Shadowstep are not in their quarters either. The other contestants have no idea where they are."

Khali informs Caspian "That may be for the best. The contestants should be considered as hostile and dangerous to all of us. If possible, confiscate the pendant. I have a hunch that the Puppet Master is using the pendants as his 'strings' to control them like marionettes."