[Do not report the goblin shoplifter.]
[Take the children to the game stalls.]
You decide there is no harm in a single goblin stealing some food, so you say nothing to the guard and keep moving.
The game stalls seem to stretch on to infinity. You peer into your coin purse. Thirteen silver. This is all you will have to your name by tomorrow. But work is plentiful in Rowangrave, and you want the children to have something to remember you by. So you decide to save at least five silver for yourself if you can, and spend the rest on showing them a good time.
You start by redeeming some coppers for a reel of tickets. The children hold them as if they were deeds to gold mines, their fingers sticky with melted sugar.
[You spend 5 copper.]
Your group start at the strongman game. Maribel heaves a large mallet over her head and slams down on a spring, hoping to shoot a sliding cutout of a fireball up a pole and into the mouth of a looming wooden troll.
Maribel rolls a Strength Check!
9 – 1 = 8
The cutout of the fireball barely reaches a black line labeled “Emaciated Kobold.” She curses, then stares at you in surprise and covers her mouth in embarrassment.
“Morninglord’s merkin,” you repeat, mimicking her intonation. She bursts out laughing, face flushed. You give the game a shot.
Cirrus rolls a Strength Check!
5 + 0 = 5
The hammer slips out of your hand and grazes the loaded spring. The fireball barely budges. You are not, it seems, a match for even an emaciated kobold.
Maribel throws you a sarcastic look and you spend another token to try again.
Cirrus rolls a Strength Check!
5 + 0 = 5
“Fucking thing,” you murmur quickly, and you ferry the children along to the next game.
———
Quel insists he wants to try to win a pet fish, so despite your best judgment you let him try to toss a white ball into a tightly-packed array of fishtanks.
Quel rolls a Dexterity Check!
6 + 0 = 6
He is thankfully as bad at this game as you were at the Strongman game. Since Rowangrave is near the sea, all sorts of potential prizes were at stake. You don’t know how you’d explain to Sister Margrite that the children had a new pet squid.
———
Your eyes are drawn to a shooting gallery. It looks a little expensive, but it is calling to you. There is a stuffed owlbear cub prize for a perfect score, and you need it.
“You always like these violent games,” Sabine says while stepping down from your shoulders.
You hand several tickets to the dwarf in charge of the game. He hands you a mock flintlock pistol and a bucket of corks. Your goal: shoot seven glass bottles off a shelf. You only have eight shots.
You take a moment to examine the toy pistol. You cock the hammer and feel its resistance—or rather, its lack of resistance—as you pull the trigger and hear a weak click.
Investigation Check: 2
Failure
The idea of knocking a glass bottle over with a toy this weak baffles you. Still, you hope to redeem yourself after your poor performance earlier. You take a deep breath and focus, taking aim at your first bottle before pulling the trigger.
Attack Roll: 14 + 3 = 17
Hit!
Damage Roll (1d8): 6 + 3 = 8
To the surprise of everyone, including the dwarf gamemaster, you load the toy pistol with a cork, aim at a precise location above the center of mass, and manage to tip the first bottle over. It falls from the shelf and lands on a cushion with a dull thud. Without hesitation, you load the next cork with focused efficiency and fire. Another fallen bottle. You repeat this action five more times, and all seven bottles fall. You even have a cork to spare.
“Woah, Cirrus! Yer just like Threnna, from the stories!” Geth says in amazement.
The dwarf asks you which prize you’d like and you immediately point to the owlbear cub plush. He takes it down from the wall and hands it to you and you hug it and squeeze it. It is soft. It is so, so soft.
Maribel stares at you. At first you think it is the judgmental gaze of a twelve year old at your childishness. But as her glance shifts up at you, then down at the plush, then up again, you realize what she’s after.
Charisma Contest!
Maribel rolls 16 + 1 = 17
Cirrus rolls a Natural 20!
“He’s mine, Maribel,” you say. “I swore an oath, just now. To be Hoo-bear’s loyal protector for now and forever.”
The girl puffs her cheeks. She is impetuous. But she has no retort. Hoo-bear is yours.
[You gain item: Hoo-bear]
You turn to leave and barely miss bumping into someone. Three figures in white stand before you, a man and two women. You freeze for a moment. There is something about these people—they seem dangerous somehow. You have passed by several travelers, and even some adventurers over the course of the evening, but this is the first time your instincts have fired off a warning to you.
The stronger of the two women, a toned and muscular woman with a short pale mullet, wearing a tanktop and a warrior’s white overcoat tied around her waist, approaches you and the children. For just a moment you think upon the utility knife in your back pocket.
“Mind if I try that game next?” she says.
You stand there dumb and then realize that there is no danger after all. She takes the toy gun from your loose grip and reaches into the bucket of corks. The dwarf raises a hand to demand her ticket, but she has already cocked the hammer and fired.
The shot sounds through the night, a boom like a firework. With a single shot she grazes the left side of the first bottle in the line, and it shoots sideway with an equal and opposite reaction, knocking into the rest of the bottles and scattering them to the floor.
All eyes are on the woman, and the dwarven gamemaster seems concerned, even a little angry, at the show she’s put on.
“Galea, you don’t know your own strength,” the man in white says, his voice smooth. He has the air of a knight about him. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a roll of tickets, hands them to the gamemaster, and says, “She should have paid up first, but you’ll honor these tickets, won’t you? The girl here would so love to have that prize.”
The dwarf wordlessly takes the tickets and hands the woman named Galea an owlbear cub plush. Incredulous at first, Maribel’s face lights up when the mysterious woman hands her the plush.
“Look, Cirrus! My very own Hoo-bear! Oh, they’ll be twins! Thank you, miss.”
The woman looks over in your direction, makes eye contact with you.
“You’ve got potential,” she says. She fixes the knot on the jacket tied to her waist and walks away. The man throws a devil-may-care smirk in your direction, and he and the other woman walk off too.
As they walk away, you notice an emblem common amongst them: a brooch depicting what appears to be a silver full moon.
The scene dies down.
———
It is 9:50 in the evening. It’s nighttime, and the revelry is in full swing. All around you people are drinking ale from steins, wearing monster masks, and singing folk songs to ward off monsters.
”Mandragore, mandragore,
Stay down in the soil!
I’ve worries on my mind
And twice my load of toil!
Drider, drider,
Keep spinning in the dark…”
You’ve used up most of your tickets. You still plan on taking the children to see the Vistani camp, but there’s enough time, if you wanted, to buy more tickets for the children’s sake.
Spend more money on the children before going to the Vistani camp?
A. Yes.
B. No.