"Okayz, no problem, understood.  And if monsterz finishez her off and comez to town looking for more snacks, remember that we iz on call to save you....if you gets to us in time."

Fyste will shrug before putting his tools away and just heads back to the manor, "This place is just full of too many complacent people," 

"We lets him think about it," say Last Tree Standing, joining Fyste.

Loudly enough to be heard through the door, “He’s allowed his fear to paralyze him. Handy for a hungry dragon, knowing its food won’t run or fight, but not so good for anyone relying on his leadership. Perhaps we should make our presence known to the townsfolk, so they know someone is here to help. Where do people congregate and exchange information?” Seruk’s contempt of poor leadership is not well hidden.

Make an intimidation check...

Intimidation: 7

I don't suppose I could get advantage from the others helping with the monster talk?

You can see Reginald growing more and more impatient with this town master as he continues to talk. Finally with a huff and throwing up of his hands he turns around and walks towards what he thinks is the town center. "I am done with this, I am going to meander around the town and introduce myself and let them know the company is around if they need help with anything. I am also going to hope that this town has some kind of tavern in it. Who wants in?"

Sorry, no advantage... Not with others already walking away.  Maybe next time...

Seruk will start back towards the manor, "I'm going to go let Kass know that we were successful, I should probably pass on what we've learned to the main office as well. I'd also like to examine these spines, Fyste, I saw you setting up alchemist's equipment around, would you care to join me in that?"

After talking to some people around town, or returning to the manner to do some examination of the spikes, the group eventually all settle in for the night.  Kass was happy to hear that the midwife issue was resolved to the Town Master's satisfaction, though she wondered if there was some oppertunity there to work with the midwife on expanding her sails of Healing Potions.  She also suggests the group continue to work on the Town Master to get him to pay for keeping the midwife safe, since that seemed to be a good idea in her book.

The next morning, when you all gather in the conference room again, you find Kass and another woman with her.  "This is Leann, she is going to be working with us going forward."  Kass introduces the newcomer.  The new woman is a blond woman, wearing chain mail armor and bearing the symbol of Torm on her shield.

"Good to meet you."  The paladin says with a nod to the group.  "I've been told about your work yesterday and am glad that things worked out good on that end."

"Ruric had to return to Home office."  Kass said as she took control of the meeting again.  "Something about his paperwork was out of line it seems." She says with a frown.  "Leann will be taking over his role as Occultant for the franchise."  She glances around the group of you.  "Now that we have completed the midwife contract, which one are we going to do next?  We have the gnomes or the dwarf excavation..."

Seruk

"How far is it between them? Would it make more sense to travel to one and go straight to the other from there rather than return here between? In either case, it sounds like the gnomes have ways of defending themselves, whereas the dwarves could be caught unawares before they could prepare to defend themselves. Thoughts?"

"Dwarves sound good to me."

"Ok, that's two votes for the Dwarves..."  Kass says with a nod.  "I also vote for the Dwarves...  Leann?"

"Dwarves, Gnomes, it makes no difference." Leann says.  Kass gives her a small frown and Leann sighs.  "Dwarves then..."

"Dwarves may actually be less stubborn than the townfolk" 

"Soundz like everyone wants to do Dwarvez, I am okay with that," says Last Tree Standing.  "While we iz here, who should carry the healing potion?  I does not consider that loot, but az operating assets."

"And when you haz time, Kass, I needz a clearer idea on how much of our takingz goez to pay billz, how much becomez operating capital, and how much endz up in our pockets.  I am new to hoardzkkeeping."

"Last Tree Standing brings up a good point, I don't know about the rest of you, but I could use some personal funds. In addition to a few things I'd like to work on for the company as a whole, such as replicating that potion, I lost my Sword coming here and had to sell my armor shortly after, how do you stand having to eat all the time? Anyway, the point is, all of this costs gold."

"Good point Lastree, personal funds would be nice to have, maintaining this equipment is not cheap. Also someone else should have the healing potion, I am capable for healing myself a little bit in a pinch so I have no need of one of those, at the moment." Reginald chimes in.

"And I will be usually standing behind shooting arrowz, and may not be close enough to uze a potion on one of you, when you iz down," says Last Tree Standing.

"I haz all the gear I needz for now: but I haz bought saddlebags for company use from my own fundz, which ought to be reimbursed at some point when coins iz more plentiful: and eventual arrowz replacing ought to be deductible as expensez. We also needz to consider buying gear which iz not for personal, but for bizzness use, out of budget. Stuffs like shovelz and wagonz and coin-hoarding chests and stuffs."

"By the way, I haz requisitioned from company and haz for our use: 100 sacks, 1 barrel, 1 block and tackle, two baskets, five flasks, and five jugz, in case we needz to carry stuffs.  They is quite heavy."

Kass nods her understanding of the questions.  "I totally get it, adventuring has costs."  She agrees with you all.  "The way this works is that you get your 1 GP per day from the company, which I can give you daily or in a lump sum at the end of the month, your choice." She shrugs to show it is of no concern to her.  "While out adventuring any treasure, loot, or payments you get on contracts is yours to keep.  You can split those up as you see fit among yourselves."  She pauses for you to all let that sink in a bit.  "as for the franchise, how much we make a month in large part is dependent on how much work you want to put into it.  If you are promoting the franchise, working on expanding it, or other tasks you can do to help out, then we tend to make more money, and some of that will go to you.  If we have a loss, then some of that will need to come from you instead..."

(OOC: go ahead and review the Downtime Tasks available in the franchise module, in chapter two, if you have not already.  Downtime tasks have a time needed for it to be considered to be something you are working on, so keep that in mind...  At Rank 1 you only get to do one task, which is above and beyond the required Running a Franchise task.)

"Okay, iz good to know," says Last Tree Standing. "Thank you, Kass. So, friendz, doez we want to split this right away and enjoy our first pay-out, or put it aside for future expensez and get on with the next mission for lootz?"