"Heartbun, Gridron's Way, blue shutters, got it."

She looks to her companions, "A quick lunch to sustain us then on our way to make the most of the day's light, yes?"

Grumbling to himself about conspiracies and mistrust, Mirth slumped into the closest seat, "Lunch is good with me. We'll just have to remember to pull the other notices off the board as we get each one added to our list."
He half-turned in the direction the dwarf wandered off and shouted, "Isgood! Boar!?"

"Yes, it is good. But we don't have any on the menu today." Isgood materialized from the crowd again and pointed at a dark patch on the wall near the door where the day's menu was scrawled with chalk. "Today I'm serving roasted venison. There is a big pot of chicken soup with noodles and carrots. I have potatoes fried with onion and sage or lintels seasoned with bits of fried sausage. The ale is stout, the whiskey burns like molten iron, and the wine is watered down to go around. A full mug and dish will cost you two silver."

Mirth scratched his chin, thinking intensely. Finally he spoke in a considered, measured voice, "I suppose venison would do as well as boar. But I'll take the ale instead of the wine. Two silver? Perhaps a third to add a bowl of the soup?"
He started fishing for his coin purse where it was tucked into the front of his tunic to avoid pickpockets, "Do you two want some as well? I'll buy."

Siloqui smiles and says, "That is very generous of you Mirth but my meal is already on the house. I am certain Corvis will take you up on your kind offer though."

She winks at the man then selects a table a likely table and takes a seat.

Mirth grumbled back, "Why do you think I offered?"

The only open place to sit in the tavern was along to two long tables in the center of the main room. At the corner of the one nearest the fireplace offered room for the trio to sit together. It was warm, but not overly so, and the company was equally interested in the three as they sat and equally loudly involved in their own conversations. A normal day in a typical tavern all in all.

They had no sooner sat down than when a tall, attractive woman appeared from the crowd and place mugs down along with a pitcher.

She smiled at the bard and sheepishly said, "The pitcher is on us bar girls. It's more wine than water. we hope you like us, er, um, the wine."

Morning came as expected; the sun came up, people began to stir, and Corvis was hung-over. Not as bad as he had expected, however, though his feet where not to be trusted for a little while.


After a quick wash is a basin of cool water and getting dressed they made their way downstairs. Issgood was nowhere to be seen. But, the last time they had seen him he was well on his way to a serious drunk. A barmaid stopped and took their request for soothing tea, water, and porridge with honey and milk.

Soon enough, as the town came to life around them, they were on there way to track down their first employer.

"Gridron's Way... left or right... right," Siloqui mumbles as they make there way to this Esme Heartbun's home.

"This is the one," she says confidently, standing in front of the house with the blue shutters.

She looks up at Mirth, "Try to keep the conspiracy talk to a minimum, eh? The woman's little girl is missing after all."

She nods to  Corvis, "Will you knock or should I?"

Mirth grumbled to himself, his clothes crooked from dressing in a hurry, "I'll keep quiet and let you do the talking. Unless I think of something important, ya know? You forget the important questions sometimes."

He stood a little behind Sil and hunched down as if trying to seem smaller than he was.

A squeaky voice came from inside the house, "hello there, can I help you with something? If you are looking for Marvin Olmes, he lives on Gridiron boulevard."

Siloqui looks in the direction of the voice, "Hello, we want to speak with Esme Heartbun about helping to find her missing daughter, have we come to the wrong place?" she replies, standing on tiptoe and craning her neck a little to try and see inside through the window with a slight frown indicating she thinks she may have led them to the wrong house.

"No, she is listening. She doesn't talk much." A high-pitched, but gruff, male voice replied. "If you are looking for Mistra go down to the well of Zandhi. It's that carved rock everybody here-abouts prays to when they leave town southways. She was last there, found her cloak and knapsack. She had been gathering roseleaf petals for Esme in the hills southwest of the well."

Siloqui frowns further, "Oh... I thought we were looking for a girl called Luella, not Mistra... And she went missing to the north... Are you her brother or something? What does she look like?"

She looks to the others, her expression shifting to display her doubt.

Leaning in, she whispers, "Am I misremembering things? This is the right place..."

Mirth rolled his eyes and mouthed I told you so at Sil.

And elder halfling walked out of the house and looked up at them, weighing their worth as it were, before speaking, "Good. Most your type comes out here thinking it will as simple as walking out of town and calling her name. You are right. My granddaughter was out with another maiden collecting herbs. We found where she had gone missing. The other maiden, Olsa, came back alone. They were separated you see, and Olsa thought she had taken too long. So, she came back thinking my granddaughter would be here waiting for her. We founds tracks, wolf tracks the size of a mule's hoof."

He looked at each of the three adventurers in turn, taking their faces, looking for something particular.

"Stop rolling your eyes, I'll smack them loose in their sockets for your insolence." He began again. The edge in his voice sounded serious, real. Eyes rolled again at that, too. "I can't go out there any more. After the last time, when I.., ah well, I am trapped here on this street for another two years. Punishment for doing the right thing. But you three can find her. Bring her back here, even its just her remains. When you come back with her remains I'll pay you all thirty gold each."

He seemed on the verge of saying more, but only shook his old head and walked into the house.

"Alright," Siloqui says just as the man turns to head indoors once more, "before we go looking, what does she look like and do you know what clothes she was wearing? How long ago were the tracks found? If it has been a while it might pay to ask around for wolf sign if this is recent enough we might have some luck following the tracks directly."

"Here, take this." He replied as he pulled a small rolled up bit of paper from his pocket and handed it to Siloqui.

She unrolled the paper as he spoke again, it was an incredibly accurate picture of the younger halfling. She was not a child, maybe in her late teens, but not a child. That was hopeful, maybe she had some skill at preserving her own life.

"She was wearing a light blue cloak, a green and brown dress of wool, and she wears a broach that looks like a scarab, we just call her roach broach." He said. It was obvious most of the would be searchers had just been charlatans looking for a few coins up front to cover costs of a search they never conducted. "Call her Ikashi. It's her name in the Family. She is an aspirant to the temple of Mytra."

The paladin takes the proffered portrait, committing the image to memory and showing it to the others, Mirth in particular.

"Ikashi, roach brooch green and brown wool dress, light blue cloak. That is helpful. What about the time frame? Knowing whether to ask around first or go straight to following those tracks will be very helpful."

Mirth raised his hand as Sil sowed him the parchment, motioning her to wait for a moment. He took a long look as if trying to memorize the details. FInally he lowered his hand.

"Ikashi. What does it mean? Or is it just a name?"

"Father's wish." He said. "From a parable we teac hthe children about wanting the proper things in life."

Siloqui chews the corner of her lower lip slightly for a moment then says, "I do not think it has rained in the last five days, we should go search the area first then if we cannot find any tracks we can ask the local hunters if they have seen any wolf activity."

Barring any protest from the others she leads the way north to the location described.

To Siloqui's surprise it was easy to find the area in question. For there was wold tracks there. Wolf tracks the size of a cow's hoof! The first thought to come to her mind was dire wolf. But there wasn't any signs of violence; no blood, blood stained clothing, or pieces of flesh. She looked around more, occasionally moving Mirth aside to do so.

She found several sets of tracks. None of them moving to or from the same direction as the wolf tracks. Something was wrong with the scene, she just couldn't put her finger on what it was.

Mirth grumbled in the way he always did when Sil moved him out of the way. He frowned and looked at the tracks, trying to imagine the movements.
"That's a lot of tracks. Big ones, too. Can you tell what happened?"

Siloqui shakes her head and mumbles as she inspects the tracks, "Either coming or going but not both... makes no sense... nothing here so has to have been leaving..."

She looks up to Mirth from where she is crouching by the tracks, "No signs of violence that I can see, and there is only one set of the big wolf tracks leaving. Do you know of any birds big enough to haul a dire wolf into the sky? I do not."

She starts inspecting the tracks intently again, "It was late when she sent missing but I do not remember there being a full moon so I doubt it is that..." she mumbles to herself before standing up and gesticulating, "Ah ha, I have got it! She befriended and rode off on the dire wolf so if we follow the tracks maybe we can find her."

OOC: 08:05, Today: Siloqui Galenodel rolled 22 using 1d20+3.  Nature: Tracks.
Does Mirth know if there has been a full moon recently 4 or 5 nights ago? Seems the sort of thing he would notice, being all observant and all.