There's one big question that needs to be answered before Raucous can do his thing.
Is Serena a good person?
One way, it'd be best to end up with a painful and possibly humiliating beating. The other, it needs to be a beating which will benefit her in some way. Otherwise where's the fun in it? It'd just be hurting someone doing their job. Now it might be worth it to do that, if Sala has a sufficiently interesting or important scheme.. but this still seems more like testing than doing anything important.
As another lesson to learn, money isn't worthless. Raucous has plenty of disdain for wage slaves, after all, finding garbage tasty goes a long way to lowering the cost of living, but buying incendiaries wasn't free. Still, five silver paid for a bird-sized bundle, which should get the job done.
Now.. is Serena a good person?
Well, Serena didn't feed the bird, and didn't fall victim to the black beady eyes of desperate hunger. But that isn't conclusive, she's here all day and can't feed everyone. Or maybe she saw him digging away at those moldy noodles. So that isn't conclusive. However, she does not warn other people away from feeding the bird, and so far he's gotten a piece of genuine candy, some bread, and a dozen tiny raisin-sized sour berries. And the bird can see the genuine surprise when he went in to buy the firestarters, clearly not expecting Raucous to be capable of speech. And she does live in a nice place and seems to care for others so..
..Ahh, Serena's a good person. So need to be a little bit more careful.
Disassembling the firestarters wasn't too hard. They boil down to four pretty simple parts.. some paper casing, a metal bit, (brass maybe?) that lights up with sparks that hits and a tiny spring-loaded gray metal thingy that you pull back, lock in place, and falls after you rotate the trigger lever. Good, it can be operated without hands, if you know how to do it.
..Now, where were those rats?
The next day, Serena walks back to the market, with many others. There have been a few accidents. A cart has it's side fallen off, dumping potatoes all over the ground, and another stall has lost its sign, with it swinging down somewhat dangerously. The proprietor is hammering it back up now. Hmm.
..And, about five minutes after she starts, fire. Fires everywhere. A pile of farm compost is on fire in the corner, and of course, of course, the spill on the ground is lamp oil, lighting the cobblestones on fire. And there's a big pile of rats there, running all over the place and tripping people up, with everyone scrambling for cover. And of course Pruat put his big case of tools on top of the compost bin, like he always does. And there's fire.
Nothing for it but to get it back. Should be safe enough in this armour. It'll take a good while before the fire will get hot enough to hurt Serena, anyway. She runs over to the heap, stepping over and around the rats, and quickly taking a leap over the fire towards the case, grabbing it and hurling it away and over the.. ring of fire.
Huh, wasn't it a pool of oil? I'm not sure how I got surrounded here.
Still, the bin is on the cobbles, next to a brick building. Can't stomp out an oil fire, so just get out of it and wet down anything else to keep it from spreading. Simple enough. One step, two steps, and a jump, and over the fire and in the clear.
..except for all those barrels, that picked just this moment to come loose and are rolling right at her, while she's off-balance from escaping the fire.
What.
No, Serena doesn't quite manage to negotiate the barrels. She vaults one, but the second or the third one clips her and she puts a foot on the fourth or fifth one, tumbling to the ground. If she was a little less distracted she might have noticed the other loose sign, too, or the sabotaged stall, all barely holding together and full of hazardous falling objects. But that's what happens when you have a full night and a good supply tools and an overly-cluttered overhead space. Plenty of room to play around with things, and gravity is a harsh mistress.
Job complete.
There's one big question that needs to be answered before Raucous can do his thing.
Is Serena a good person?
One way, it'd be best to end up with a painful and possibly humiliating beating. The other, it needs to be a beating which will benefit her in some way. Otherwise where's the fun in it? It'd just be hurting someone doing their job. Now it might be worth it to do that, if Sala has a sufficiently interesting or important scheme.. but this still seems more like testing than doing anything important.
As another lesson to learn, money isn't worthless. Raucous has plenty of disdain for wage slaves, after all, finding garbage tasty goes a long way to lowering the cost of living, but buying incendiaries wasn't free. Still, five silver paid for a bird-sized bundle, which should get the job done.
Now.. is Serena a good person?
Well, Serena didn't feed the bird, and didn't fall victim to the black beady eyes of desperate hunger. But that isn't conclusive, she's here all day and can't feed everyone. Or maybe she saw him digging away at those moldy noodles. So that isn't conclusive. However, she does not warn other people away from feeding the bird, and so far he's gotten a piece of genuine candy, some bread, and a dozen tiny raisin-sized sour berries. And the bird can see the genuine surprise when he went in to buy the firestarters, clearly not expecting Raucous to be capable of speech. And she does live in a nice place and seems to care for others so..
..Ahh, Serena's a good person. So need to be a little bit more careful.
Disassembling the firestarters wasn't too hard. They boil down to four pretty simple parts.. some paper casing, a metal bit, (brass maybe?) that lights up with sparks that hits and a tiny spring-loaded gray metal thingy that you pull back, lock in place, and falls after you rotate the trigger lever. Good, it can be operated without hands, if you know how to do it.
..Now, where were those rats?
The next day, Serena walks back to the market, with many others. There have been a few accidents. A cart has it's side fallen off, dumping potatoes all over the ground, and another stall has lost its sign, with it swinging down somewhat dangerously. The proprietor is hammering it back up now. Hmm.
..And, about five minutes after she starts, fire. Fires everywhere. A pile of farm compost is on fire in the corner, and of course, of course, the spill on the ground is lamp oil, lighting the cobblestones on fire. And there's a big pile of rats there, running all over the place and tripping people up, with everyone scrambling for cover. And of course Pruat put his big case of tools on top of the compost bin, like he always does. And there's fire.
Nothing for it but to get it back. Should be safe enough in this armour. It'll take a good while before the fire will get hot enough to hurt Serena, anyway. She runs over to the heap, stepping over and around the rats, and quickly taking a leap over the fire towards the case, grabbing it and hurling it away and over the.. ring of fire.
Huh, wasn't it a pool of oil? I'm not sure how I got surrounded here.
Still, the bin is on the cobbles, next to a brick building. Can't stomp out an oil fire, so just get out of it and wet down anything else to keep it from spreading. Simple enough. One step, two steps, and a jump, and over the fire and in the clear.
..except for all those barrels, that picked just this moment to come loose and are rolling right at her, while she's off-balance from escaping the fire.
What.
No, Serena doesn't quite manage to negotiate the barrels. She vaults one, but the second or the third one clips her and she puts a foot on the fourth or fifth one, tumbling to the ground. If she was a little less distracted she might have noticed the other loose sign, too, or the sabotaged stall, all barely holding together and full of hazardous falling objects. But that's what happens when you have a full night and a good supply tools and an overly-cluttered overhead space. Plenty of room to play around with things, and gravity is a harsh mistress.
Job complete.
