SoSS 1.3

***A Hole Lot Of Murder*** is the third episode of the first book of *Stories on the Subjugated Straits*, and the third overall.

## Plot

Having fallen into the kenku bandits' pit trap, Voy, Kaseos, and Silence notice some of the bandits have disappeared, seemingly into the solid pit walls. Kas attempts to establish parley with the remaining bandits, but Silence, not hearing him, attacks first. In response, a volley of arrows fly from behind solid earth, forcing the party into battle. Deducing that there must be holes in the walls hidden by illusion, the party advances toward the arrows' sources.

Continuing his attack, Silence begins transforming, with his skin becoming scaly, his face morphing into a serpentine snout, and his legs fusing into a single, slithering tail. As he rampages into the bandits' underground hideout, he comes across Kaseos and Lynx, who agree that they saw a hungry look in his eye. Meanwhile, climbing into the opposite side of the pit, Cassandra is accosted from beyond the wall. She retaliates, killing an older male kenku who seems to be a leader. A nearby kenku, wounded in the melee, bleeds out unnaturally fast, leaving her to wonder if she was the cause.

Within the hideout, Silence leads the way; his new form renders him far more resistant to the bandits' weapons, but he appears to continually have to resist attacking Kaseos and Lynx as well as their assailants. While rushing in to support the three, Voy is fired upon by bandits, but Yowuli's divination allows Kaseos to warn him from afar just in time to dodge. Elsewhere, Nati rescues Detonia, who had become stuck in a kenku-sized hole in the wall, and the two team up to attack the bandits with their magic. Cassandra, fighting alone, is severely wounded by a number of bandits, and she retreats to the surface to tend to her wounds.

Silence breaks from his party members and enters a room alone, and he endures a volley of arrows by the bandits waiting there. They step out of the shadows, revealing an older female kenku who uses a spell to put Silence to sleep. His transformation wears off, leaving him defenseless and out of range of Voy's healing spells. Instead, Voy uses Thaumaturgy to pose as Idia, the old god said to have taken the kenkus' wings, who he believes they still worship. As Idia, he orders them to cease attacking the party, or face a wrath even greater than the loss of their flight. The intimidation works, and the remaining kenku flee immediately, leaving Silence unharmed.

Seeing the older kenku fleeing, Nati teleports her back in front of the party and swears not to hurt her, confusing the others. She asks the gran-kenku to swear off banditry and show them to Val, hoping to prevent further bloodshed at the hands of either the party or the Marines. Continuing to pose as a messenger of Idia, Voy backs her up with threats. Communicating with repeated words and sounds, the gran-kenku is able to lead them to their pile of loot, in which sits Val - not a young girl, as the party had assumed, but a talking mirror. Lynx and Nati make fast friends with her, and promise to return her to her father Edmund back in Devo.

Nati continues talking to the gran-kenku, who conveys that banditry is the only way for the kenkus to survive, with the island having no available farmland to tend. Nati suggests they get a boat to the mainland, where they would have space to set up a farm, and finds their gold hoard to have more than enough to buy tickets for all the surviving kenku. She explains the plan to the gran-kenku, and teaches her loads of useful phrases for buying the tickets and navigating a new city. Grateful, gran-kenku gives her name as the sound of a tree falling in the forest; Voy interprets this name as Timber. With her gold and her newly learned phrases, Timber bids the party farewell and leaves to round up her compatriots.

The party, having successfully survived their first major battle as a team, reconvenes outside the pit. Kaseos approaches the oracle shrine and activates it, summoning an apparition of a different Kensei oracle. She informs them that a great many shrines are scattered across the Commonwealth, each providing them with timely information as divined by the oracles who built them. She tells of a particularly important shrine in the distant city of Aku, at the headquarters of the Kensei Knights, after which the apparition disappears.

Consulting a map, the party plans a route to Aku. They determine the best route to involve taking a ferry from the nearby Tonpetty to the mainland city of Oz, then taking further ferries to the western mainland. After a brief discussion on how they'll blend in in big cities, they decide to return to Devo for the night, and continue their path to Aku in the morning.

## Characters

### Main

* Cassandra Dunewatcher
* Detonia
* Kaseos
* Lynx
* Nati
* Silence
* Voy Graves

### Supporting

* Kenku bandits (several)
* Timber/gran-kenku (debut)
* Val (debut)
* Oracle Jezemine Chikamoto (apparition; debut)