"At once, champion," the Bosmer responded, before turning to one of his comrades and pointing a thumb over his own shoulder, "Yittrad, Deruce, fetch some of the stew and some trenchers, as well as a couple of skins of water."

"Yes sir," they both said in unison as they walked off. It seemed that everyone was of the same mind as Meesei in this matter.

With that, the Bosmer walked slowly up to the slaves and knelt down with a sympathetic expression. He spoke quietly in Ta'agra to the family. At first, none gave any reaction, but as the Bosmer elaborated, the man shot a glance at Meesei and Gallus, before shakily giving some words of his own. Those hearing carefully could understand the word [i]Senchal,[/i] but nothing more if they did not know Ta'agra.

The Bosmer turned his head and conveyed, "He says they are from Senchal. The man had a skooma debt, so they went for his home. He doesn't know whether there were any others, they were just thrown in this box a while ago and haven't seen light since."

The man spoke some more and the Bosmer looked to hear, conveying the words, "He says he didn't mean his family to get involved. He doesn't care what happens to himself, as long as they can go." The Bosmer gave a nervous sideways glance to the man, "I'll tell him that we're going to help him and get them out of this filth."

The Bosmer did just that, asking his friends to help carry the starving family by the shoulders out of the crate. The child screamed, but with some words in Ta'agra from the mother, she settled into fearful sobs.

Before they left the hold, Gallus walked in front of them and stopped them for a moment. He drank from his waterskin, before offering it to each of them. At first, they suspected a trick, but the man took the risk and wrapped both quivering hands around the skin. He drank deeply with both hands, passing it on to his family, who did the same. Gallus got his empty waterskin back with a few smudges of filth on it, but he would manage.

"I suppose we had better inform the other ship," Gallus said gravely. He took a breath, obviously affected by the scene, "That's how the clan would have looked in the hold after a while, wouldn't it?" Gallus looked at Meesei, devoid of joy, "I think I understand your bent towards slavers a little better. That is a horrible thing to do to anyone."

[i]"M'ibasa?"[/i] Tzirret called out as he looked around the hold, [i]"M'ibasa?"[/i]

Ma'tanza's voice interrupted his search. Tzirret turned around to see her looking understandably nervous. She obviously had no luck either. Tzirret offered a sympathetic look. [i]"This one thinks...that if M'ibasa is looking for you as well, he would try the same thing?"[/i] Although his response was not exactly confident, Tzirret tried smiling and put a hand on Ma'tanza's shoulder as he turned to leave the hold, [i]"Let's look anyway."[/i]