It bobbles, indicating the parcel it dropped.

She makes a rude gesture at it, then opens the scroll, then glares at it again.

"What, you feeling some regrets?"

It can't hear what she's saying. It just bobbles at the note again.

"I'm not gonna write anything. You smuggling stuff in here might make it even worse, you know?"

Pause.

"Whatever. It's not exactly a long story. I own a house in the city. It was my mom's. She owed a decade of back taxes, she died, the property went to me. But the taxes still need to be paid. For some legal bullshit* reason I'm not even allowed to sell it without the approval of some nobleman? And he won't give permission except at a criminally low price. I thought about just packing up and going somewhere else, but my brother's a woodworker here and I think they'd just go after him next. So I got the money to make the tax payments however I could. And now, here I am."

*Lit: "Tin smoke"

Oh for fuck's sake.

Carefully, painstakingly, Eefina has Cupil shift a manipulator tendril. Shapes that aren't pre-programmed in are really hard to do, but she manages. She has Cupil pick up the note and the pen, and writes, with agonizing slowness, CANT HEAR YOU, and then, THIS WAS ALWAYS PLAN.

She backs off again, alarmed, until Cupil stops writing. Then she writes down what she just said, less some sarcasm and with the addition of and by the bloody winds don't make it worse by making them think I'm smuggling things in here!!

Cupil can't read, but Eefina can guess. She goes by memory and has Cupil tap the note where she wrote, I will destroy this after reading it.

Cupil eats the note and the pen and slithers back into the earth. The return journey is much faster, since he doesn't have to burrow a new mole hole.

Hm, so, apparently she didn't evade any taxes, she just turned to crime to make ends meet.

Annnnd she can't use the red moon to set the note on fire, right. She will just have to tear it up very thoroughly and have Cupil bury the scraps. Which she takes her time about. Can't act suspicious.

There's enough left to write a new note. She writes, Why did you tell me not to trust the sergeant and his guards? And whatever the reason is, do you still want my help? And then, Information about trouble-causing noble?

She sends Cupil off with the new note.

Guess where the guard gets most of its money? Nobles. They're mostly for protecting the property of the rich, not protecting the people. His name is Julius Salvatore.

I don't know what you can do or if you'll just end up siding with them and making things worse for me.

Hm. So, background economic incentives, rather than anything specific to the sergeant.

Eefina destroys the note and pockets the pen while she thinks. She feels a little anxious about leaving the conversation there, but she's out of paper and wouldn't want to risk a third trip anyway.

From how it sounds, this Julius Salvatore effectively revoked permission to obey the law, which lead directly to the woman's arrest. That their system of laws could allow that to happen is disturbing.

There're several avenues by which Eefina could approach this problem, but they all require more resources than she currently has. Delving the dungeon will have to come first.

Eefina gets up and heads back to the Adventurer's Guild.

Someone is following her. The streets are fairly crowded, but she keeps seeing that wolf-boy with a shock of white fur and a notch missing from his right ear. Maybe he's also going to the adventurer's guild, except wasn't he hanging around while she was in the park too?

Hm. That's interesting.

Eefina stops to window-shop some more, and waits to see what wolf-boy does.

He walks right past her nonchalantly and goes into a different shop.

Well, that doesn't necessarily mean anything. In fact, its more suspicious if he was, in fact, following her.

Which shop did he go into, is it an interesting shop? Eefina is kind of vaguely curious if and how he'll react if she follows him.

He went into a store selling "Ghur materials". Lots of animal parts in the display case - skins, teeth, bones, but there's some rocks, pieces of wood, and a few almost tribal-looking weapons and tools.

More neat things! Not the most interesting stuff, but its novel.

Eefina goes into the shop and browses the stuff. What's the wolf-boy looking at?

Jars of blood labeled with what they're from!

Wolf boy sniffs at the air, sighs, and walks over towards Eefina.

"I don't feel like playing the mutual stalking game. You smell interesting. Tret Moonwind, wolfkin scout."

"Ooh I was right! Er, I mean, hi? Eefina Selvarn. What do you want?"

"Hi! I wanna know what's up with you. My nose tells me everything I need to know most of the time, so when it's confused I gotta take a look. Or maybe that's just me, 'cause I'm a scout. Gotta learn who, where, when, and what, that's the job and I'm good at it." He strikes a little pose and points one thumb at his chest.

...pff. What a character.

...possibly literally. You will not be steered too far wrong if you act as though the world follows a certain sort of narrative.

"Well, okay, I guess. I was on my way to the dungeon. Want to walk with me?"

"I'll walk with you, sure. You're an adventurer, then?"

Eefina shows off the tin badge pinned to her dress.

"Officially brand-new. What about you? Does being a scout take you into dungeons much?"

"Not all that much. I could do well on the daily grind, but I don't like how cramped dungeons are. I spend most of my time running ahead of caravans or looking out for trouble in the Red Waste instead."

"I see. What's it like out there?"

"Oh, don't even get me started. It's nasty. Twisted. No plants, and it's all craggy and broken ground. You know why it's the red waste? Blood. The smell pervades everything out there, and close enough to the cursed dungeon you get pools of it. The smell chokes everything, which is even worse for me than you. And dark magic fills the place. Not to mention the monsters running around, and Waste Raiders. Do not recommend. But every time I can give advance warning of a monster or raiding party coming out of it? Saves people, and I get a big bonus. What about you? Tin badge, so not yet one of the greats as far as adventuring goes, but what's your story since I'm sharing bits of mine?"

"This is my first time away from home. I grew up in... I guess you'd call it a medium-sized village. A medium-sized village that exists above the sky. Our Elders thought something bad happened to one of our warriors, and I was training to follow him and find out what, but then he came back on his own, so it turned out I wasn't needed. But I guess fate decided my training ought to be worth something after all, and here I am. It's exciting, honestly. Life in the Silver Shrine was very... predictable."