They are overjoyed to get a free ride.

There is a limited amount of consternation at your first approach, but one of the better dressed Grendel stands up near the prow and ensures nobody interferes with the quick deposit of the boat's inhabitants, taking charge of the situation and informing people that there is another rescued boatload coming if they are polite - he seems to be primarily trying to salvage his reputation by taking credit for the live return of the survivors, but it gets the job done.

The remaining orcs are being guarded by sword wielding humans when you get back, but are unharmed - their impromptu guard claim to be protecting them from the others. 

The most important looking Grendel on the second boat asks in a conversational way whether their terrifying chauffeur considers herself to be with the Empire.

"...Was seeing if you're horrible monsters. You are, fucking slavery, but I'm not much impressed by them or myself either right now."

"So you are.. Affiliated with the Empire? A disaffected citizen? Or perhaps... summoned by one?" He seems to be fishing for something specific... 

"Very foreign. Just acting on my own virtues, such as they are. You know, collective punishment and execution without trial is a violation of the Geneva Convention - you're not a signatory, of course, but it was pretty horrifying seeing six men cut down for one acting out, that was the tipping point, really."

"Oh, over from the Commonwealth? I heard they liked their treaties and conventions, for all the Empire likes to take credit for the Liberty Pact."

As the conveyance approaches shore, there is less outright commotion but a lot of curious onlookers this time - including the most important looking Grendel sighted so far, complete with lackeys that attempt to wave Lenora over. 

She shrugs.

"What do you want, ten words or less, I'll have a bit more time if you call off that other ship."

She opens her mouth to begin her prepared speech, then thinks for a couple of seconds, then says, "Take my second in command over to the ship, please?"

A somewhat flustered younger orc with almost as much excessive gold braid and jewelry reluctantly steps forwards and presents herself for boarding.

"We have no means of communication with the other vessel, but I can order them to stand down and avoid additional unpleasantness, if conveyed to their position," the apparent second in command offers.

"Sure. Let's nobody else die today."

She looks and sounds very tired, jittery, and stressed out. Like someone seeing blood for the first time.

If the lieutenant will get into the boat, she'll ferry them over to the other attack boat. Maybe she won't even have to sink it. This was a mistake from start to finish but doing nothing also would have been.

The lieutenant attempts to make polite conversation. She is clearly very disconcerted to be in a flying boat, but is determined not to let this affect her actions.

"I'm sorry that we couldn't be introduced under better circumstances. I'm Keth, second to the governor of Oran port."

"Lenora. I'm not really in the mood to chat. I'm not going to go on some sort of mindless crusade without thinking about it more and considering options if that's what you're worried about."

"Well, if you did want any assistance considering your options, I'm sure my Lord Governor would be extremely interested in negotiating. We do pride ourselves on being open to negotiations and trade with all comers, regardless of any unfortunate circumstances or initial misunderstandings."

"So those were or weren't slaves?"

"Well, yes, we don't kill all our prisoners like some people do, and we do like to get a bit of work out of them if we have to keep them fed and watered."

Keth peers out of the boat to see how close they are getting, and makes herself visible to the intact Grendel vessel in good time; the sailor orcs begin to clear landing space on the deck, with only a modicum of confused gawking.

"Uh-huh." Color her unimpressed.

Whatever. Boat on deck. She hovers over the side, looming and keeping pace with the ship.

Keth steps gracefully out of the boat and has a succinct conversation with the captain:

"My mistress bids you stand down and return to port."

"Is your mistress the Lord Governor of Oran or this summoned creature of Sky magic?"

"The former, but the latter will kill you just as dead if you argue, or insult her, or if she feels like it."

At which point the captain begins to give orders to turn the ship around, and Keth looks up at Lenora as if to say, 'Satisfied?'

Sigh. She wouldn't, but saying so is worse than useless. If they come to the conclusion that she's a vessel of random violence? Fair. Shock and awe is like that. This is Not Going Well.

"I'll be guarding that ship from high above. Do you want to go back to shore, Keth."

Keth weighs up the options of sailing back on the resentful vessel which might do something Lenora dislikes and be destroyed, and a terrifying flying boat ride that probably won't kill her unless she says something particularly stupid. "If you wouldn't mind," she says, stepping back into the rowboat. 

She's quiet and tense on the flight back. The rowboat is at least designed to withstand even pressure along the whole bottom and hopefully will continue to hold up, but she's getting tired of focused shaping the impeller. It's a bit like standing on a balance beam while looking straight ahead.

She'll ignore the slavers trying to say anything to her and head back to the 'rescued' ship and ask about the food and water and navigation situation, sounding very tired.

Keth does not verbally poke the dangerous individual responsible for her not falling out of the sky now that it's clear Lenora doesn't want to talk. She is not very happy about it and her reception back at the shore turns rather sour once Lenora immediately flies off instead of staying for a nice chat.

"Glad you're back," says one of the freed slaves who had been guarding the orcs, as she gets back. From the wary glances from other ex prisoners, this is not a universally held opinion.

The slave orcs have stopped huddling together but are visible on deck pitching in with rope hauling and similar tasks where strength is an advantage, rather than mysteriously absent.

The food and water team report that nobody is going to starve or die of dehydration today, but everyone doing hard physical work will be hungry by the end of the day, and tomorrow is not looking good unless the ship manages to summon help.

The navigation team report that the plan is still to run aground, but probably on the main Madruga coast now as they don't have to outrun the other Grendel vessel any more, which they should manage in an hour or two and everyone can go and forage or wait for traders to converge on them and start picking apart the cargo and anything else that isn't nailed down. 

"This is such a fucking mess. I couldn't do nothing seeing that, but. Such a fucking mess. I can take messages places. Find food and bring if truly necessary, though I'm getting tired.

...You all from Brass Coast originally, or...?"

If she can get inland and let the nearby town know they're coming ashore, that should speed up getting supplies down to the beach, although there's a bit of an argument over whether this is actually a good thing or whether they'd like to have some time to take valuables off the ship before anyone else shows up.

The main difference between the sides in this argument seems to be that some people have extended family in Madruga that they expect to take them in, and some are not sure they have anyone and want to secure some valuables so they have something to trade for food and shelter while they look for work.

Everyone here (except the orc ex slaves) considers themselves Freeborn (which appears to be the demonym for people from the Brass Coast for confusing historical reasons), although a few people were not born in the Brass Coast and married in.

She-

-Probably shouldn't just completely discount the plight of over a hundred refugees and say she doesn't care about the valuables, actually. What if she declared that they're mostly her spoils of war and should be distributed to those in need or at least sort of evenly, would that... Work. At all.

Everyone is relatively happy to go along with this - they didn't really want to fight amongst themselves and nobody wants to gainsay the scary rescuer over a gairlus sensible kind of suggestion.

The side that wanted to keep the valuables together and hand them over to the magistrates suggests that they get to pick out the most identifiable or sentimental looking pieces and can hand them over themselves.

Then the people who don't have families to go to can take the coin, materials, loose gems and so on, which should be easier to sell anyway.

Provided with an agreed on problem, everyone who isn't busy keeping the ship afloat and on course and everyone on it alive and acceptably fed and watered starts enthusiastically sorting through the cargo, levering open crates and redistrubuting their contents, rigging makeshift bags from fishing net and rolls of fabric, and so on.

There are a few disputes that are actually brought to Lenora, mostly along the lines of whether the personal-items side should be allowed to take various especially valuable heirlooms and works of art that would probably sell really well, but mostly her scary presence lets people settle their differences with just the threat of having to refer them to her.

And the shoreline comes into view, small cliffs and coves and beaches, and the sailors aim for a beach.

She finds a piece of deck space to sit on - doesn't demanifest her core but does sort of ... go lower intensity - and does pop-up scans every five, ten minutes. Shoot up to a few thousand feet, slow visual and RADAR sweep in a circle. Just in case.

If people are getting enough to try to restart their lives, say a Throne each ish, important heirlooms and art needn't be broken up Solomon style. Despite all the very mixed results here they're probably going to be okay in the end, it seems like. That's nice.

It's more like four crowns each, without any of the art, and some individual heirloom pieces are likely worth more - but everyone pretty much calms down and agrees that four crowns is plenty to be getting on with if you're not exactly planning the trek to Anvil any time soon, and it's not as if the people taking those pieces are planning to run off with the proceeds.

It is brought up that perhaps a couple of the decorated notebooks in the treasure should be sacrificed to write up contracts for everyone, which clearly state the expected valuation, what has been received, and what should be done in the case of higher value pieces not finding their owners and being sold on instead.

Written contracts seem to be quite a popular concept, and one of the ex prisoners with huge curly ram's horns offers to mix some of her 'cambion' blood with the ink, which apparently makes them even better somehow?