While Maithien spoke, Simnia grew quieter. Her rigid shoulders hunched, and her screwed eyes softened. And then, he apologized. A [i]human[/i] apologized to a [i]dwarf![/i] She stared up at him in sad wonder. For a moment she looked over at Arturos -- the odd one that had appeared out of the ship with a supportive word -- and at Aria and Katewyn, who had been through quite a lot without so much as a reason why, until now. The dwarf was glad she had forced the captain's confession, for all their benefit, but she still felt a little ashamed of her roaring.

The dwarf huffed a sigh and laid her fists on her wide hips. The look she gave Maithien was motherly and somewhat disappointed. "My point, dear captain, is the fact that if you want our help you'll have to tell us what we're helping with, instead of ordering us about without reason like we're blind and deaf. Thank you for that clarification. It still troubles me that you'd set off in a ship without a proper engineer, though." She soured just a little -- but she stepped away and turned toward the rest of the crew idling on the deck, and assumed the captain's voice had been too quiet for all of them to hear. The dwarf decided to take it upon herself, once again, to make an announcement:

"We're gonna be bodyguards for the captain, as he goes off into the city to make a deal for an old artifact that'll lead us to the spot of a long-buried treasure. This thing is a thing any bandit would kill for, so polish yer weapons and stoke yer guns. If anybody's got an extra weapon, I wouldn't mind it, myself. We may well get ambushed, and I won't be runnin'." She grinned up at Maithien, gave him a solid wink, and gestured to Arturos and Katewyn and Aria to follow (as soon as they'd prepared themselves, of course) as she marched off the ship and to the unfamiliar dock of Braelv.

As soon as she'd set foot on the dock, her confidence paled. What if they [i]were[/i] ambushed? Was it really better to die a free dwarf than to live as a slave, after all? She glanced back up the gangway, and decided it was her first duty to protect the captain and her fellow treasure hunters -- though chances were it was they who would end up protecting her.