Swamped

Right. You're not in the mood to waste time here.

"I suppose taking the captain prisoner would be bad for your career in the Bogknights," you say. "What'd you do with him and Marshall? Where are they?"

"If it were up to me, I'd be happy to let you take them off our hands, but my associate has other ideas. And with all the bridges I've burned, if she kicks me out, I've got nowhere else to go. So pardon me if I don't answer."

You aren't exactly feeling sympathetic. He's made his own damn bed, after all.

"As if you couldn't just ask your friends in the Guild for a nice desk job somewhere."

"Unfortunately, that only works if I don't have any enemies powerful enough to ask the Guild to track me down. That might have been true yesterday, but today is another matter."

Well, he seems to be regaining himself. At the same time, he's betraying a level of vulnerability that you haven't seen since you first met him. He's terrified - not of you, but of what happens next. He's used to being in control, and now he isn't.

You feel like you should wrap up this conversation fast, preferably by knocking Ash out. You know there are others on this ship, and you have no idea when they'll go poking around over here. But you don't have the info you need yet.

So how should you play this?