"I'd feel the slightest bit embarrassed about that, if you weren't the one to finish off the last guy."  So thanks for absolving James of combat guilt, Chestnut.  "Also, you're still stabbed, so only most of us are okay."

  Now... Would it be rude, or entirely justified to already ask for a pay raise?... Probably both.

  "We're still getting breakfast out of this, right?"

Mittens lips the word, "hassenphafer," as if silently practicing the pronunciation.

She strikes a super hero pose and grins.  "Well fought, everyone!  You were all super fantastic!"

Her left sock puppet adds, "The PANDA was fantastic as well!"

The right sock puppet comments, "Mittens loves you too, Chestnut.  And yes.  We're hungry."

One of the dancing lights following her lets the children know that the badguys are smushed.  Probably best to stay outside till the mess is cleaned up.

Even though the knick Chestnut suffered isn't anything the Kender haven't experienced before, it didn't stop the Cleric to go into Mother mode.  "Oh my goodness, even with your bravery...let me take care of that."  She pulls out a healing kit to bind Chestnut's wound, healing him back to the maximum.  "I'm Darcy, and this is my BFF, Justin.  I'll take care of that knick you got."

As she's doing this, Justin just sighed and nodded for the waiters to start dragging the bodies away.  "Thanks for the save, folks.  Feel free to order anything for breakfast, my tab."  He then smiled.  "I take it you've come here because of my Looking For Group flier.  Name's Justin Mercurial, soon to be Burgomaster of a village that currently needs rescuing."

" No idea bout this flyer. Pipkin Ducain sent me to clear his debt. " he sighs saying the command word as his weapons vanish and he takes out one of the pies he nicked from the kitchen and bites into it.

Chestnut looks up and over at James Hill. "It's not our fault they fell like flies struck by a tornado." He then asides to Mittens. "It's a type of food made from rabbit meat. Very uncool for that man to have called Meiou that. And right after Meiou had juuuust warned him. Some people got to learn the hard way."

Chestnut gives Darcy the biggest cute-little-kid doe-eyed smile he can. "Thanks! You sure are nice, Darcy! Pleasure to meet you and your BFF Justin. My name is Chestnut. The rad red rabbit who just spoke is Meiou. The pretty panda and sock puppet extraordinaire is Mittens. And the gallant guy in polished plate is James."

Even if James doesn't polish his plate, guess what? Kender like shiny things, so it gets polished one way or another.

Chestnut goes for a sweeping bow once he can. "Thanks for covering the breakfast tab. I shall very much enjoy eating alongside you two."

A side-hug to Mittens before sitting down, though, as he is just oh so pleased Mittens returned the words of love.

  Now there's a staff used to it's customers not leaving their problems indoors if James ever saw one.  He's less sure about the 'gallant' thing, the frivolous spending on CHA fighter is in another thread.  He's the frivolous spending on WIS fighter.

  "Hopefully he won't need reminders about the rest of the poster, Chestnut."  Though he gets the feeling it will be of the unintentional variety if they honestly seem to forget it's not generosity when you owe somebody it in the first place.

  That (not) said, he doubts it will put much of a dent in Meiou's debt either.  "So, Justin.  What's got people walking this far to stab you over this town you want back?" James assumes they walked, because otherwise that would mean free horses and dead bandits just wouldn't be that considerate.

  ...Wait a minute, nobody got a chance to loot the bandi- Eh, let the bar staff keep em.  They can use the bandit's pocket change to pay for the cleanup.  But it does give him a bad sense of Dejavu.
This message was last updated by the player at 06:53, Sun 12 Feb 2017.

Mits ohs at Chestnut's explanation.

"Thanks for patching up Chestnut, Darcy!"

Too bad this isn't a Star Wars setting, or Mits could comment about Darc Vader.  "No, Luke.  I am your BFF!"

"This flier," Mittens says to Meiou, pointing with one sock puppet, and holding the flier in the other, "Yes, Justin.  You presume correctly.  I'd like a HUGE pile of bacon and eggs.  Enough to feed half a dozen mouths."

She nods to James's question.  "Right?!  And other question.  How come they're so guano crazy?!"

The dancing lights note the staff taking out the bodies.  "Eeew!  Blood smears on the floor!"

"Well don't just 'ew.'  Help clean it up!"

"Sounds too much like work."

Mits smiles, does a little dance, and spews magical "dragon fire" from her sock puppet across some of the blood, cleaning it up!

"In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun.  You find the fun, and – SNAP – the job’s a game!  Now you try!"

The dancing lights giggle and dance about the blood smears, making them disappear.  How did she snap her fingers while wearing a sock puppet?  She didn't.  That was the puppet breaking it's own jaw.
This message was last edited by the player at 07:17, Sun 12 Feb 2017.

Justin just groans when he hears Meiou's explanation.  "Stewfixings sent an alternate?"  He shook his head.  "Meiou, you better not suck."

"Oh, go easy on the rabbit, Justin," Darcy said while finishing patching the cute and personable Kender.¹  "I'm sure that Meiou's got his own misgivings.  Besides, you know how Pippkin Ducaine can get at times."  She then gave Chestnut a hug, thinking him as too cute.  "You are quite welcome."

"Don't I know it," Justin said, "He's got that debt because he tried to put you into his harem.  If the guards weren't there to hold me back..." Another sigh.  He goes back to the task at hand, while wrenches break out the mops for the blood stains.  "They were from the Redbands Gang, a bunch of bandits who overran my hometown, killing off my father."  He showed less sadness than base irritation. "In the middle of my Final Exams without me knowing!"  He reaches for a mug fo tea and quaffs it.

Darcy just looked and blinked at what Mittens has done.  "This adventure's going to be interesting, Justin."

¹ Remind me to put up a Kender race in my wiki.

" Hey you knew the risk of calling in debt tokens with him when he tried to collect Darcy here. I keep hoping some day his wiggling out of a debt will backfire. " the rabbit said as he munched on his food. He asked one of the wenches for a cup of coffee as he took his seat. Ofcourse after what he said Justin would realize he hadn't seen Meiou there so one had to wonder how the rabbit knew about what went down.

Chestnut enjoys the hug muchly and hugs back while petting Darcy's back before letting go. Upon hearing about Darcy nearly winding up in someone's harem, Chestnut says, "My gosh, Darcy... I hope you didn't have too hard of a time with that..."

He looks at Mittens. "As always, you astonish and entertain, my playful panda."

Chestnut looks from Justin to Meiou and back. "I'm... going to assume you and Meiou are buddies, seeing as the last guy to joke about stew in that way wound up dead. Speaking of, don't forget Meiou here is the one who killed the dirtbag that hurt your beautiful friend Darcy. You've apparently had a rough time and I get the feeling I don't fully understand your relationship with the best bunny I know, but I'd feel a lot better personally if you were to apologize to Meiou." that last part is said with a humble tone. It is clear Chestnut isn't being demanding, but simply letting his feelings on the matter be known.

Chestnut then goes to pull a seat for Mittens and one for Darcy before permitting himself to sit, much less order. Though he is quite anxious to get to ordering food. Kender are a kind of halfling, after all. ;) Still, as he does, he looks at James. "The rest of the poster?"
This message was last edited by the player at 04:52, Wed 15 Feb 2017.

  James is as usual, thankful he can roll his eyes without anyone seeing.  Dead daddy or no dead daddy, you don't react to someone helping you out (and doing a much, much better job than Justin) with 'hope they don't suck'.  He's got higher hopes for Darcy, but alas she's not the one running this job.

  "Well Mittens, that's actually pretty standard bandit idiocy.  So crazy would be an insult to actual crazy people." Like, you know... Probably Mittens?  Or would she qualify more as Eccentric?

  "Yes Chestnut, the rest of the poster.  Thanks for applying tact were I don't think I'd have managed so well, by the way."

OOC: Many months later, Justin hangs from a cliff with James looking down at them.
"But James, WHY!?"  The knight pulls out an old scrap of paper, and points at claims unfulfilled.

I will pay 10 gold up front

"...Seriously!?"  "Gotta start somewhere turning 'Lawful Evil'."
This message was last updated by the player at 05:01, Wed 15 Feb 2017.

Mittens gives a flourishing bow to Chestnut's compliment and takes the offered seat.

She's beginning to wonder who's more insane.  ...As she hassles the wrenches with conjured wenches.  http://i.imgur.com/P2ZnLMu.gif  But due to the nature of prestidigitation, they don't hurt.

"'Something something something Turd Muffin who forces women into harem who needs killed'  Where do I find this Pipkin character and how much do you want me to pay you to have him killed?"

Mittens' right sock puppet corrects, "Don't you mean to ask, 'How much will you pay me to have him killed?'"

Mits blinks.  "Uh... right!  Right.  Totally what I meant."

The left sock puppet warns, "The panda is coming!
So hide under your beds!
The panda is coming!
She'll rip your ass to shreds!

Mits then looks over to James, "If that's standard idiocy, the bandits in my country must have been geniuses."

The dancing lights head outside and let the children know that it's ok to come in.  They cheer and enter!  The warhorse lets himself in too.

https://img.ifcdn.com/images/e...aad6d1f5d7c943_1.jpg
http://srwog.velv.net/mecha_images/gunleon.png
This message was last edited by the player at 05:43, Wed 15 Feb 2017.

"Sorry about that, Meiou, I know you did well." Justin said as he patted the rabbit who rescued his girlfriend.  "As I just said, I'm under a lot of stress.  First having to deal with Pippkin Ducaine when I should be cramming for finals and then this."

"He'll feel and act a lot better once the Redbands are taken out of town," Darcy said once she stopped giggling at the red panda.  "And if that list of stressors isn't enough, we would've had a third with us.  Karl Kinderforge, a dwarf.  He's been our friend while we were in the Island Kingdoms, but as you know how dwarves get, he ran off in front of us.  He wanted to make sure there wasn't any more nasty surprises."

"That wasn't all, Darcy," Justin said.  "I heard that he had a map that he wanted to investigate further.  If I didn't have my own problems, I would've been more interested in that map of his."

"But then again, he did state that he didn't want to bother us with it; claimed that it could be nothing."

"Won't stop him from going on his tangent, Darcy.  We know how dwarves can get."

Darcy sighed and patted Justin's shoulder.  She then turned to the party.  "He's not too far off ahead of us.  I'm sure we'll catch up with him once we get going."

" Dont worry about it. Dealing with Pip can stress out even a druid or cleric. " said the rabbit as he looked around for something to drink with his meat pie.

Chestnut gives a bow to Justin. "...thank you kindly, sir." He glances at James. "Sure. No problem. Hand me the poster so I can read it over and see what you're talking about?"

Chestnut just thinks Mittens is fun. But if she IS crazy, Chestnut is pretty sure that Mittens is crazy like a fox.

Having ordered his second breakfast (why would he travel to the meetup on an empty stomach?), Chestnut says, "Don't worry, Mittens. We'll all take a crack at this odd criminal once we've dealt with the more deadly threat Justin is talking about. Whoever Pippkin is, his victims will at least live. These Redband scumbags mean to kill. Speaking of... is it only you they are after, Justin? Or do they have others to kill in order to meet their goal?"

Chestnut is already liking this Karl guy, but he also smells "rescue the dwarf" in that tidbit.

Chestnut also is sure to slide a glass of water to Meiou so he at least has something to drink until his order arrives.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:00, Sat 25 Feb 2017.

  As usual, James enjoys the mixed blessing of being the most boring named person in the room.  He's still waiting for those kids who hang around mittens to devour someone like a swarm of piranha does to a wildly out of place bear.

  He hands over a spare plot hook poster to Chestnut, and says to Justin "Are you expecting to have no time to read on the trip, or are you just dealing with an establishment too cut rate for your father being murdered to warrant a change of dates on your test?" Then again, it is a fantasy setting.  So a curriculum that could be altered every time fallen family members needed to be avenged or similar circumstances would probably mean nothing gets done.

  Even before considering adventuring academic professors flouncing off themselves in the middle of a semester.

The children smile to see Darcy giggling and want to be let in on the joke.  "What's so funny?  What'd we miss?"

The warhorse navigates carefully around chairs and tables before taking up position beside his master.  Mits offers him a pancake which he rapidly devours with a straight face.  (( https://youtu.be/UZ063SJ4eSE?t=11s ))

"Mittens is glad she has a Chestnut to help keep her priorities straight.  But after we're done making skip ropes out of bandit entrails, I daresay this Pipkin character will likely wish I merely did to him as I did the bandits."

The youngest of the kids asks an older one, "What's 'entrails?'"  To which, the older kid shrugs.

"And yes, I know how dwarves can get: anywhere from backbiting, greedy villains to the most noble and stalwart of heroes.  Glad you've befriended one apparently on the nicer end of the spectrum.  I don't charge extra for rescue as part of slaying bandits.  Just don't ex...pect..."

"Mits brain is finally catching up to the part where they said, 'once we get going,'" her right sock puppet explains.

Mits, the horse, and the kids all gawk at Darcy and Justin in slack-jaw, awed silence.

"They've never experienced quest givers going along on the quest."
This message was last edited by the player at 07:22, Sat 25 Feb 2017.

Fortunately for Justin, he heard James' question to pry his train of thought away from Chestnut and Mitten's shenanigans.  Not that he minded, though; those two are quite a pair. Darcy had to do the same as she helped with the servers for the meal. "Oh, that was for my last semester anyway, I've graduated.  I was intended to become the Burgomaster of Parnast once I've gotten my degree.  Thought it'd be a smooth transition.  Ppppth! Yeah, right!"

He then turned to Mittens. "Yeah, I'll be accompanying you. I even have a wagon and everything.  Heck, we can even help you along when the inevitable encounters come along."

"Come to think about it," Darcy said, "I've never seen anything like the two of you, Chestnut, Mittens.  I know about Pandafolk, and I've heard of the Red variety, so you're my first image of a Red Pandafolk, Mittens.  But you, Chestnut," she giggled, "you're much more lively than any gnome I've seen."

Upon hearing the duo speak of Pipkin like they were going to go after him after all of this the rabbit choked on his food and guzzled the whole mug of water while pounding his chest. Finally able to breathe again he coughed a few " STAY FAR AWAY FROM PIP! You don't want to get on his bad side. Just trust me!"

Chestnut answers the children, "Oh Mittens just being Mittens as usual. Doing silly antics and talking with sock puppets. And entrails are a person's guts."

Chestnut looks over at Meiou. He looks like he is pondering Meiou's words and his expression shows more determination than anything. "I trust you, Meiou. But I'm also convinced that Pip needs to be taken down. Facing odds that could mean death or worse is what I do on a regular. We'll see where we're at when we are done with the Redbands and then we can talk more about Pip, what it would take to take him out, and why he has you so scared."

Chestnut looks at Darcy and smiles. "I'm not a gnome, Dazzling Darcy. I'm a kender. We are closer to halflings than gnomes, honestly... fun-loving folk we are."

  "Well, at least the more painful task is out of your way then Justin.  Revenge tends to involve much less paperwork." Usually, it depends on how elaborate the revenge was.

  He follows up on Meiou's outburst.  "From what I've heard, you would be more likely to punch a dragon out with your sock puppet tomorrow than be personally responsible for Pipkin getting what's coming to him.  You exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about, Mittens."  As wildly eccentric as the Mittens Panda Weretiger(?) Dragon Sorcerer was, she didn't fit the criteria for dealing with Background Backstory Antagonists.

  Being cringingly smug while dispatching him in as self aggrandizing a manner as possible.

  "I expect we'll suddenly find ourselves preoccupied with other tasks once the current job gets sorted Chestnut.  Or at the very least, have possible jobs lined up that don't involve 'results hazy, try again later' if we paid for scrying"
This message was last edited by the player at 21:55, Sun 26 Feb 2017.

"Ew!  Guts!" the kids respond.

Left Sock Puppet nods to Darcy, "The panda is indeed the most mysterious of all creatures.  Shrouded in the enigma of his black and white coat.  What kind of camouflage is this, black and white?  Hiding in an Oreo factory?  Could be!  That's just another chapter in the ominous saga of the panda!"

Mits rolls her eyes.  "Mittens is sooo not a true panda.  Red or otherwise."

For starters, she's not exceedingly tall or overweight.  But for as quickly as the plates of food vanish, one might get the impression that she has the appetite of an entire orphanage... if you didn't notice the orphans helping themselves to the breakfast.

Mits nods over at Meiou and smiles lightly to him and James.  "Thanks for the warning, friends.  I will certainly be most careful.  Like that adventuring group that so over-prepped for a dragon fight that the poor monster never even got a single attack in before it died."

Though James' warning of Murphey timing getting in the way does give her some mixed feelings.  The baby dragon sleeping on the warhorse's back twitches an ear at the mention of dragon fight, yawns, flutters to the orphans, and shares noms with them.

(( I've been quoting these: https://youtu.be/ASLuRyZjp7k?t=1m16s
https://youtu.be/v5iJPoIynm0
https://youtu.be/-XEwooQ6ivg
...still makes me laugh! ))
This message was last edited by the player at 21:33, Mon 27 Feb 2017.

"Well, Pippkin's for another day," Justin says, "once we finish breakfast, we'll get on our way, first to catch up with a certain bull-headed dwarf, and then to rescue my hometown...Once I get Darcy out of her Cute Mode."

In the background, Darcy is just glomping Chestnut.  "Ooooh, you're so cute.  I hope you're not the only Kender in this world, It'll be great to see more of you.  Oh, I don't think Justin would want me to..."

Followed by something similar to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uv2BahuQLY0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hivjHlabFIA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL8WOPq1OBk

In fact....

Almost all of Calais heard a loud "Omochikaeriiiiiiiii!" as Darcy is carrying Chesnut to the stables, with Justin, and the others, in hot pursuit. "Hey! You can't just keep adventurers, even if you are going home!!"

While Darcy made a scene the rabbit sighed and finished his meal. On one hand he felt bad for this kender on other he knew it was best not to intervene . Itd just make it worse as he learned when it happend to him.

Chestnut squeaks! And is now dangling over Darcy's arm like a draped towel. If this were an anime, he would be a chibi / plush toy at this point.*

Not like he minds. He likes Darcy and thinks she is nice! "There are other kender, Darcy. But I don't know of any nearby, so I'll likely be the only one you will see for a while."

Either way, he is more than happy to get the adventuring underway and so he won't argue with Darcy carrying him off to adventure. He knows Mitts will be there the whole way since it involves adventure. :)

*Beware the Engrish, but this was closest I could find to what I was describing:
http://orig09.deviantart.net/b...hibi__by_vtophya.jpg