Ever the aristocrat, Anthielle carried a hand towel that she used to wipe things before she touched them.  Her part of the stoop was clear of dust and grime.  She had picked out the most shaded area too, having a slight intolerance for the sun’s harsh rays.

“I’ve been thinking…”

Usually a scheme accompanied that little catch phrases of hers… and this afternoon was no different.

“Why don’t we have a permanent headquarters?  I think it would be a fitting quest. We could wrest control of a place from the Strange Quarter… where nobody would bother us…. or our loot.”

Anthielle looked squarely to Din, then Sarah, Raga, and Jaffa… in that order.

Raga lifts her chin off her knees to say: "Spooky place.  Weird too."

She then resumes resting her chin on her knees, which are still gathered in against her chest by her arms

Din wasn't really much of a listener. But, to Anthielle's credit, Din listened to her entire pitch. He grunted a wordless response to indicate that he'd paid attention.

Overall, he wasn't really one for the whole 'headquarters' thing. But she'd said 'loot' and he was definitely one for loot. He loved the idea of loot, and if the unreasonably tall half-elf wanted a place where he could keep his loot, who was he to say no to that?

"I'm in," he said.

"I don't know about that..."

Jaffa had tried settling into a 'permanent residence' a while ago and maybe she was just bad at managing a home, people bothered her until even the adults came by. She wasn't sure what exactly they meant to do, but she didn't want to be taken away by some random jerk who would call her "Redspot" or make her give up sweets. And she'd even tried to hide her loot before after overhearing an adult in the Dock Quarter talking about good places to hide their own loot. But when she came back to it after a week, the loot had gotten hard and crusty, with a weird growth over half of it. She hadn't cried so hard in a month...

"Isn't it easier for people to find and bother us if we stay in one place? I know the Weird Quarter moves around, but if we can find this new place, I'm sure others can. Besides, loot goes bad after a week or so, so we should really just eat it when we get it, right?"

"That's food," Dinkar said, and not for the first time. Jaffa loved cakes almost too much to eat them. "Loot is gold, or weapons, or magic items. You eat food. You save loot."

"Well I think food is better than gold! And what does a Master Assassin like you need with weapons and magic anyways? Cant you just sneak up next to someone, go fwah!" To punctuate her point, Jaffa jutted her arm forward with clawed fingers pointed out, ruffling dust out of her haphazardly stitched-together robe. "And then they're down!"

Din saved Anthielle the trouble of correcting Jaffa.  She was a sweet girl, but kobolds could be weird.  Weren’t they part reptile?

“Din is correct, Jaffa.  And this headquarters can allow us to plan other endeavours in secret.  We can have maps, tokens, and yes… refreshments.  What say the rest of you?  Now is the time we put our training to the test.”

It was a little melodramatic, but Anthielle wanted the group excited.

Raga is clearly not excited.

"If we 'ad anythin' good, someone'd take it."

"'Fwah' is all fine and good, but sometimes an assassin gets paid to kill a target in a particular way," Din explained to Jaffa. He was pulling the explanation out of his ass, but it sounded about right. Truthy, if not actual truth. "So you need knives, and poisons, and all sorts of fun stuff, just in case.

"And besides, loot is loot. It's good to have loot. And nobody gets to take my loot."

Big talk for a kid who didn't even have a sharpened stick to his name, but again, it sounded good.

"Exactly, Raga! Besides, wouldn't it be safer and easier to carry around that good stuff. That way, people can't take it without us noticing! Except picky-pockets, of course. But still!"

Taking a moment to listen to Din, Jaffa nodded her head. It sounded plausible enough, though it was rather rude of a patron not to supply their assassins with the tools they wanted to use. Sounded rather cheap of them. "Okay, fine Din. I guess you might need some weapons. But just be careful with them, okay? I know that I can make it feel better, but that takes time and I would rather you don't get hurt in the first place! And that goes for all of you!"

With a self-satisfied smirk on her face, Jaffa gave her warning and knelt over to brush some of the dust out of her robe. She wished Anthielle had brought this up earlier so she could've avoided coming up here. She didn't like how dusty it was.

Sarah merely watch on as the others decide on a permanent base. She mostly chewing on some bubblegum she found on the floor, she then spits it out after it loses it's flavor,"Ah, theirs no need to be worried Jaffa, not when you have the strongest kid around Poor Quarter. If any of you got hurt, I'll attack back with a thousand more hits, though it's too bad my grandma took away my sword after that sword practice incident." she says, remembering a lot of antiques being destroyed that day and Din getting a lot of bruises by "accident","If we're going to take over a quarter, why not take all of it. Sides, theirs bound to be an epic and powerful sword hiding away in one those quarters."
This message was last edited by the player at 23:01, Tue 05 Oct 2021.

"'d settle for food."

“It sounds like everyone is in, more or less.  Now the question beckons… how do we find such a place?  Going to the Strange Quarter sounds like a good first step.  Then we can look around and settle on a site.”

As was customary, one of the group would have to lead the way.  Anthielle knew the catacombs well, but Din was a great guide too.

Ooc: I guess we roll a Travel Elsewhere action.  If Din is a sneaky kid, he can do it with Agile.  Otherwise the next best qualified person can roll Insightful, if we have such a person.  I’m not 100% sure on everyone’s TYPE.  Anthielle would roll 2d6 total if using the Catacombs, other people might roll 2d6 for alleyway or street travels…
This message was last edited by the GM at 01:35, Wed 06 Oct 2021.

As the others planned, the last member of their group poked his head in through a gap in the wall. Looking around curiously, Grog took his friends in, before entering fully. Apparent from the obviously old piece of bread in his hand and the pigeon feathers in his hair, he’s come straight from stealing from the elderly and their birds again.

“Got grub.” The scrawny goblin said, Holding up the nigh-moldy bread in one hand, and fishing a dead rat from his rags with the other. The chewmarks made it clear just how he’d caught the rodent. “We goin’?” He added with mild interest, as He offered the bread and rat to each in turn. The others usually had some kinda plan when they all got together like this.

"Grog, I see you've been busy. Thanks, for the gift I guess." Sarah says as the team's pet goblin gives her a dead rat, she pretends to put it in her pocket but tosses it away at a open window when Grog's not looking,"Anyways, yeah, we're heading to Strange Quarter to make our first conquest. We're gonna have a permanent base and I could even find a new sword, but we'll need a guide so I nominate Din as our guide for this trip. I'm sure he knows the best spots to find a sword."

Raga sighs heavily but doesn't say anything.  She doesn't get up either.

"Oh, hey Grog."

If Din knew the best spots to find a sword, he'd probably already have a sword, Din thought to himself. He said nothing to this, of course.

"The best way I know to get there is by way of the rooftops," he said. "We'll have more light up there, but it's gonna be slippery in places. Anyone deathly afraid of falling ought to say so now."

He paused for just a moment, and then added, "Nobody? Good. Let's go."


Dinkar rolled 2,5,5 using d6,d6,d6 ((2,5,5)).

Taking the bit of moldy bread in her hands, Jaffa slumped to the group, clutching the stale good in a solemn act of grief. Another victim of poor planning and lack of appetite!

"I swear to give this gift a proper burial," she vowed to Grog, pressing it into the pockets of her robe. They were heading out and she didn't want to throw the poor thing onto the street. Following Din to their destination (one that she still wasn't terribly pleased about, mind you!), Jaffa allowed herself a good cry to mourn the neglected piece of bread.

As Din prepared to leave -- and the others as well --- Raga stirred slightly.

Considering her options, she decided the least bad option was to stay with the others.  So she went with them.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:31, Wed 06 Oct 2021.

“M’kay” Grog said as the others took the food. He didn’t quite get why they didn’t just eat it now. But to each their own. He would definitely have eaten the rat immediately, while it was still pleasantly crunchy. But maybe they’d find more in the Strange quarter. Some of the food there tastes really weird, but sometimes in a good way.
“Why a sword?” He asked after a moment. He could see the point of having a more permanent den, but a sword?

Sarah shakes her head at Grog's question,"Oh, Grog, Grog, Grog!" she says in a tone an older sister would say to a child that doesn't know what swords are. She then coughs and tries out a gruff voice,"To be the strongest, one must always carry a powerful weapon. To be without one, is to take the path of a fool." she says, her finger on her nose to form a mustache,"At least, that's what my grandpa said, and he knows a lot of stuff. So of course, someone as strong as I need another sword, one that my grandma wouldn't know about." she says in her normal voice, she then follows the rest of the group as Din takes lead,"Anyways, rooftop traveling sounds like a lot of fun. Let's make a move on Grog!"

"Grog, good to see you are only marginally behind time.  Jaffa, have you learnt nothing from my wisdom?  If you insist on carrying rotten food, at least use it to bait something... edible."

It was a bit hypocritical of Anthielle to dispense survival advice when the most challenging thing she had to do at dinner time was to save room for desert.  However, there was one rule for her... and one rule for everyone else.  While they were picking their way over the rooftops, Anthielle answered Grog's question.... after Sarah did.

"Swords also make people do what you want... why else do the town guard carry them, hmmm?  There's a reason why the adults don't give us any, to maintain their authority over us.  At any rate, acquiring some weapons is a good idea... and we'll be able to hide them in our headquarters."

She paused.

"Nice going, Din... this path should take us exactly where we need to go..."

As she could not really dominate Din, Antheille preferred praise and ego tickling.

Dinkar leads the way up into the abandoned building, and then up onto the roof. And then he easily leads the way onto the next-nearest roof... and then another... and then another...

The smoke from the Smoke Quarter starts turning the sky red... but the children don't get very close to the thickest parts of it... where the stray fumes and wisps occasionally move in ways that don't seem to have anything to do with any breeze...

And then, their rooftop journey takes them away from the smoke... and the roofs get more spaced-out... And they realize they're in the Strange Quarter. More wrought-iron. More dead trees in yards. More dead ivy on the sides of the buildings. And hardly anyone moving around in the streets below...

Upon arriving in the Strange Quarter, Jaffa made a beeline for one of the few yards that looked remotely alive, pulling out the moldy bread and laying it on the ground. Hands clasped tight, she mumbled out a wish under her breathe for the poor thing to take safe passage to the great stomach in the sky. Jaffa immediately felt much better about the bread, confident that her wish had helped in some small way, as opposed to using the poor thing as bait. Could you imagine? Bait!

Standing back up, she walked back to the group, not bothering to shake off the yard's dirt from her robe. Brightly smiling with a sharp, toothy grin and covered in grass, she approached their most recent guide. "Thanks for the safe journey, Din!" she exclaimed, arms wide in the hopes of a friendly hug.

"Triumph!" Din was pleased with himself for getting them safely to the Strange Quarter. He'd made the journey a few times before, but he'd nearly sworn that the quarter had moved between visits in the past. Maybe he'd just gotten himself a little turned around, he'd justified... but it hadn't really felt that way.

Now seeing that Jaffa intended to hug him, Din turned a bright pink. Hugs were too great an expression of emotion for the generally angry little hobbit. He didn't know what to do, so he did nothing.