-greep- "I shall try your method of breathing fumes on another occasion. Do these herbs have any other use then as a eurphoric?"
Renkar looks over at the listless Tiefling girl
"My dear you have not touched a bite of food! Are you well?"
"hmm?" Karrin glances over at Renkar, "I guess I'm just not having a very good day. My cat's gone missing on top of everything else. It was my one responsibility and I guess I messed up. Not a very promising start to my time in Sigil."
"Cats are selfish and prone to wandering, Karrin, and it is seldom negligence that sets them on their perambulations, so don't blame yourself. They also have a somewhat mysterious sense of loyalty, and I'm sure that sooner or later your cat will come back."
Rubbing krato's ears "That cutter is why I like dogs ,don't worry karrin cats roam,they come and go as they please she'll show up when she gets hungry" Pilling his pipe out,he fills it {"I perfur Arcadian redleaf myself.Good stuff that reminds a blood he's enjoying something few primes worlds could even grow"Zigel takes a few drws from his pipe be for offing it to greep"care to try some cutter"
Renkar puffs his pipe
"Karrin, don't take your cat's disappearance too hard. Perhaps she is out exploring her new home. Cats will roam, but they always return to where they get fed."
By this time, the cigar has Greep looking a little green (which looks decidely odd on a greenish creature who colors himself blue).
"No, but thank you, Zigel. I believe the herb begins to affect me overmuch. Perhaps another time we shall share your flavor of herb." -greep-
His eyes cross as he attempts to focus on the smoke ring produced.
Karrin sits up a bit, "you guys are probably right, Blacky'll come back, but is Sigil safe for cats? should I be worried that some monster might eat her?"
Sagely
"We have cats at home too. They come, they go. If we feed them they come again. That is the way of cats everywhere it seems."
Ffethpaar is starting to turn a bit purple in the tobacco smoke. He doesn't seem the least bit perturbed though.
Karrin straitens up, cuts a large hunk of bread off of one of the fresh loafs, slathers it with butter, then, just before stuffing the entire thing into her mouth Karrin says:
"I guess you guys are right, but that doesn't stop me from worrying."
Renkar looks at Karrin, his head wreathed in fragrant smoke
"Miss Kind, I would not worry overmuch about your cat. I have found that cats are never on time, they tend to go off on adventures alone and they are masters at taking care of themselves."
Renkar glances at the dimming light coming from outside the Copper Cauldron's door.
"Speaking of never being on time, I wonder where our Miss Swift is this fine hour."
"M'ya" Karrin mumbles with her mouth full of food, "m'I momer mere me m'is?"
"Of course I'll ask Bess for more bread, Karrin. Or did you say your head was missing?" -greep-
The small Faerie Dragon yawns, shakes himself awake on the dusty rafter high above the tables of the Copper Cauldron and gazes down at his companions. A slight rumbling can be heard from the general region of his scaly belly.
Swiftly, he launches himself from the high rafter, orange and black wings spread wide. He darts down to the table where his friends chat and partake of their supper. He hovers over their heads, chattering.
"MMM ... ham-ham-ham ... Mercutio likes ham. Bread-bread-bread ... Mercutio must be fed! Bread and meat, Mercutio loves to EAT!"
"No, that's alright," Karrin says after she finishes swallowing her food, "I sometimes miss hear things as well. I was just agreeing with Renkar because I don't know where he Swift is ether."
"MMM ... ham-ham-ham ... Mercutio likes ham. Bread-bread-bread ... Mercutio must be fed! Bread and meat, Mercutio loves to EAT!"
"Me too Mercutio!" Karrin says, "You want to share some of my food?"
Karrin glances over at Renkar to make sure that this is acceptable.
Renkar looks up at the flittering mooch
"All right you haunt, we'll get you some food."
Renkar looks at Karrin
"By all means feed him Miss Kind. If you do not he will subject us to more doggerel verse."
Seeing the flying lizard being feed.Kratos makes his way under the table to karrin, pushing his head under her arm and laying it on the table he trys to make what the two leggers call big puppy dog eyes and watch intently as she feeds the lizard
As his stomach is a bit uneasy after his tobacco experience, Greep (after checking to see if Bess is looking) slides his plate under the table for Kratos.
Kratos makes his was to greeps side attacking the plate with fury
Grinning brightly Swift happily meows out a response to the familiar.
"It looks like Mystery and I are in agreement. She's more than happy to have a look into things for me, I'm sure with help from both of you we can make sure a very sweet little girl is safe." She declares with a feline grin "But it's getting late, I should get going. All things considered I should be back to see you within a day or a few and we'll have a proper chat and catch-up" She promises her old friend.
Edwin smiles at his old familiar
"Very well Swift, take care and I will speak to you soon."
Mystery meows a farewell.
Swift enters the darkening lane. The light that surrounds Sigil is almost gone, a faint grey shadow is all that is left. The Cage Fog has returned in force while Swift drank tea with her friends, the outlines of the surrounding buildings blurred and indistinct.
Fortunately, Copper Court is not far off, and Swift hurries through the gathering gloom to her adventuring companions. The wide avenue of Copperman Way is thronged with revelers and street minstrels now, the festive air of Before Antipeak in full swing. Swift can see the arch of Sigil rearing up in front of her, the far side of the Cage lit with fires like a starry summer sky squeezed tight into a narrow band.
Swift turns down Copper Court and heads quickly towards the Silver Rose. As she heads down the darkened court, she notices from the half-open door of the Copper Cauldron that it is full of dinner patrons. She can just hear on the edge of her sharp hearing a snatch of Mercutio's squeeky Draconic. She pauses to check in the door and sees her new friends all sitting down to a ham supper. She enters the door.
Renkar looks up from the remnants of his dinner
"Ah! The elusive Miss Swift! I apologize for starting dinner without you, but we wanted to get everything out of the way so that we could concentrate on the business at hand. Please take a seat and partake of some of this lovely food Bess made for us."
taking his meal with wine zigel looks across the table to eir"well cutter dont bar your bonebox how did talks go this peck.Find out anything usefull?"
Karrin has begun eating again as Swift enters. Karrin was thinking about asking about her cat, but Renkar made a move to discuss business, and Karrin knows that official business comes first. She does continue eat however (unless someone sitting next to her tells her to stop) and any long pauses in Eir's speech may be punctuated with the smacking, gumming, and chewing of Karrin's meal.
And for those of you that missed Karrin's interaction with Greep earlier: it's clear that Karrin take a hint ;)
Greep prepares to take notes.
Renkar nods when Greep whispers to him about privacy
"Just so. I think we should all finish our meals and head to the Silver Rose. Swift, there is plenty of ham, please eat and then we will depart."
The companions finish their meals, Swift's a bit hurried, and then the group with Mercutio and Kratos in tow walks to the old warehouse. They file into the second story meeting area and Renkar looks over at Eir.
"My dear Eir, why don't you begin?"
Eir stands up and speaks commandingly.
"Our client, the Saltiere Society, has supplied Sigil with salt for generations. We have promised the utmost discretion so no mention of the society should be made from now on. They get their supply from The Plane of Salt, an Inner Plane of almost entirely pure salt. They have mined it for years, have treaties negotiated for their industry with denizens of the plane, and sustain a tremendous network to bring the salt back.
Recently a new supply of salt has made its way into Sigil. It didn't come from their stocks and no detailed knowledge of its source is known. The new sellers are undercutting our client’s price by 50% and they are losing several of their best customers in the Meat District in the Great Bazaar.
The interlopers are a clan of recently-arrived goblins named the Broken Claw. They have set up residence in the Goblin neighborhood of Crackskull Close in the Lower Ward.
Our task is to find out the details of their trade: portals, locations, keys, anything we can. They will double our fee if we shut them down entirely.
Current information on the Goblins comes from a former hireling of theirs, Grakk Pettigrue. He worked as their face man when they first began offering their salt, but the Goblins cut him dead when they found him arranging side deals. All he was ever able to find out is that the salt was stored in a warehouse near Crackskull Close in the Lower Ward and that it was from the Plane of Salt. After turning stag on them, he disappeared with the payoff from our client.
In case it is helpful to us, the lost clients are the Osmonders' Meats in the Hive, the Fernalian Meat Company (they have a place of business in the Great Bazaar), and the Axebeak Poultry Company, also in the Great Bazaar. I promised not to harass the stray buyers in the event that they might do business with our client again in the future.
This was all the information divulged to us. I asked if there was anything else useful to no avail.
As fees are a matter of internal business, perhaps Hanali will explain the fees to us, Hanali?"
When she's finished she sits and lights her customary panatella.
Hanali nods as Eir spins out the chant.
"That's it exactly."
Hanali looks to Renkar and the rest of the group.
"So what should be our first course of action?"
"I managed to get Lucius to promise 500 Ladies per participant with the fee doubled if we manage to close down the Goblin's operations. I think the goodwill we will derive from the Saltiere Society will be an added bonus that will serve us in future endeavors as well."
"So what should be our first course of action?"
"I advise surveillance."
Eir looks at the others as if they are expected to speak now.
Ffethpaar struggles with his thoughts.
"It may be that they are mining the Plane of Salt secretly, without a treaty. If that is the case, presenting the evidence for this in the right places may cause whole operation to be shut down."
"I remember a story about a nasty mean god turning one of his followers into a pillar of salt once . . ." Karrin says, then remembering that things are different on the planes she slouches down, "but then if had they had the power to do that we might be out gunned and there'd be a lot of missing people . . . surveillance sounds good."
Ffethpaar struggles with his thoughts.
"It may be that they are mining the Plane of Salt secretly, without a treaty. If that is the case, presenting the evidence for this in the right places may cause whole operation to be shut down."
Renkar nods at Ffethpaar.
"Indeed that is a good idea Fftehpaar. The tricky part is pinpointing where on the Plane of Salt their operation lies. A plane by definition is infinite, or as big to be functionally infinite, sages differ on this question. One small mining operation will be hard to spot from the plane side. That is why finding the portal will be key."
"... presenting the evidence for this in the right places may cause whole operation to be shut down."
Hearing this, Eir's usual poker face breaks into a faint half smile.
Eir:
... That is why finding the portal will be key."
"Oh gods, we're going to go there, aren't we. That place is hell on the complexion. Renkar, if we go to that planar armpit we're going to need some special equipment, and a lot of lotion."
zigel thinking to himself for a bit"We could trail the bashers.kratos here can fallows there scent once he has it allowing use a safer distance behind.Or we could bunt one of em over the head and see just how much flabbing of the bonebox he does once we get t spend some alone time with him" zigel chuckles to himself Or we could put the hardheads on there trail bashers prob broke a few laws and there goblines hardheads wont need much to land on em both feet and a frail"
Greep stands up and paces while he talks.
"It seems to me that the crux of the question is the salt acquisition and delivery." -greep- "We believe the goblin tribe is acquiring the salt from the 'Plane of Salt'. So one weak point in their operation is access. We can expect that they have to transport the salt. That's a second weak point in their operation. If their portal is no longer available- they're done. If they can't move their product- it will at least slow them down and may" -greep- "stop them."
"Also, they are a tribe- which may mean weakness in their structure- either because of internal rivalry or because of distrust of outsiders." -greep-
" It sounds like first we need to answer questions."
"Where is their portal?"
"How do they transport and store their product?"
"How stable are they?"
-GREEP-
He sits back down at the conference table
"Unless those of you who understand the city better think it is advisable- I would not like to involve the 'Hardheads'- our first commission is too important to involve outsiders." -greep-
"Unless the goblins aren't really behind this salt thing," Karrin says, truthfully Karrin's still thinking about the pillar of salt, but sometimes there's more truth to Karrin's words then she knows, "you know, maybe they're just there to take the blame . . ."
This is one of the reasons why Eir asked about the source of information.
"Great minds think alike, Karrin, I've been worrying about the same thing. Keep thinking like that and you're going to be just fine here in the cage."
"Thanks Eir," Karrin says with a toothy grin, "people always say I'm smarter then I look."
"Is it possible that knowledge of who has ownership of the warehouse would be useful?" -greep- "Either because it might indicate a backer or justify some action on our part?"
-greep-
"Also, if this Pettigrue was their 'face' when they began- how did they approach or chose him?"
"And who is facing for them now?"
-greep-
"We could put some feelers out for such info . Scan the chant for the dark .I may know a few people who might know such things"
Hanali pipes up.
"I also wonder what happened to Mr. Pettigrue. It is convenient that he 'disappeared' after turning stag on the Goblins. Perhaps we can track him down?"
Zigel:
As for your contacts in Sigil, they might get you some darks on the Goblins, but most likely they will know little.