[Take the children to the food stalls.]
The children will be easier to tame once they have food in their hands. You kneel down to get eye-level with most of them—there are nine in all, from the youngest, Geth, at age 7, to Maribel at 12.
“Let’s get you all something to eat,” you say. “But no sweets until after you’ve had a proper dinner, okay?”
They respond in a din. You wonder for a moment at how joyful they seem; when you were their age you were all gloomy shadows. But then, the Orphanage has never had a sibling as old as you, unloved as you are in Quietbell. You push these dark thoughts away for now and focus on the positive: the children have had an older sibling in you, and that means someone besides the distant Sister Margrite and Father Velholme to raise them. You can be proud of that, at least.
But oh, now Sabine wants to ride on your shoulders, so up she goes. Geth and Quel take either hand, and Maribel helps wrangle the rest.
“Look!” Maribel says, and points to a gnome peddler. She runs to him and returns with several paper masks, cinched with elastic, meant only to last the night. They are in the shapes and colors of the many monsters that the hero Aldric is said to have vanquished, when he ended the Long Night two hundred years ago.
Maribel slips on a werewolf mask. Now the children ooh and aah as they assume new identities: Quel the Quasit, Geth the Rakshasa. They insist that you don a monster mask as well, and so you are now an oni, the blue-skinned ogre mages of legend. The eye-holes are a little misshapen, and so you have to make mnemonics to keep track of the little ones. Quel the Quasit, Geth the Rakshasa, Maribel the Were-ibel, Sabine the Skeleton…
It turns out there are no ‘proper dinners’ at a night festival. You settle for fried potatoes on sticks and sausages in slit buns. The youngest ones won’t eat anything spiced, and so you scour the glowing marketplace for carved turkey meat, repeating in your head all the while as you count heads: Quel the Quasit… Sabine the Skeleton…
[You spend 20 copper.]
You see a little head beneath a cloak, all green and pointy-eared, and you think to yourself that Geth has gotten away, that he’s across a crowd of people, and is sneaking an entire armful of dried meats out of a tent while the purveyor is distracted. Geth the Goblin…
Intelligence Check: 13
Success
Geth is a Rakshasa, not a Goblin. You scan the flock of little heads around you and spot the boy with his frightful tiger’s mask drawn to the side of his face, devouring a potato on a stick. You give a little sigh of relief as you count heads and it turns up nine.
With dinner out of the way, the children are begging you for candies. You acquiesce and grant them colorful spun sugars and lollipops shaped like Aldric and his companions, Elfmaid Threnna and Bjornmir the Mighty.
It is 8:45 in the evening. The sun has set, but the night is still young. The festival is packed, and as the blue hour sinks in the true atmosphere of the Long Night Festival begins, as lanterns begin to light up, beacons of warmth as far as the eye can see.
The children are happily eating their candies and so you have a moment to think. You notice an armed guard is standing nearby and wonder if you should report the stolen food you recently witnessed.
First Choice: Do you report the goblin shoplifter?
A. Yes.
B. No.
Second Choice: What do you do next?
A. Take the children to the game stalls.
B. Take the children to the Vistani camp.