"There's someone up there, I can scoot to the roof and try to get a peep at em?"

"..." Kerri looks up to the roofs to see how much of an easy time she would have getting up there, "perhaps we should just approach and see what's wrong?"

The figure is a rather odd sight—he appears to be carrying a massive pack on his back, which rattles with every step he takes.  His skin is a blazing red color, with fiery tufts of orange hair sticking up at odd angles.  He's holding what appears to be a half-broken magnifying glass of some sort, and is fiddling with it frantically.  He's muttering to himself, but you're too far away to hear what he's saying.

Aimee hops from foot to foot.

"Ooooohhh! I can go and you can cover me!"

She starts going towards the person waving as she walks.

"Oh geeze...", Lyss slips after Aimee, relying on her friend's uncanny ability to draw all attention to her as she circles around to get the drop on the person should they prove to be one of the Floon-nappers.

"Hey! Hey you! You there looking for stuff! Hey!"

Kerri also follows, more nervous about the girls getting hurt than anything else.

The figure looks up, grimaces, and looks back down again.  As you get closer you can more clearly hear what he's muttering . . .

"Stupid.  Stupid.  Shouldn't be here.  People are approaching.  We must put on a smile, act friendly, be polite.  Blech."

He looks up again, and flashes a wide, forced smile.

"Hello!  Might I interest you in a trinket or two?"

He looks back down again, and continue muttering to himself.

"No, no.  Don't ask everyone that, people will think I'm greedy.  Or mad.  Get plenty of that.  They just can't see the genius."

Aimee returns the smile,

"Being polite is hard! You're selling stuff? Okay you're not selling stuff... I think your inside voice is coming out!"

She stops and sticks out a hand,

"I'm Aimee. I'm on a quest! What are you looking for?"

She looks down with the orange person to see what he is looking for, hand still out for shaking.

Dnee looks up at the figure and smiles at him. "May I see your collection?" he asks. "I'm interested in buying one for my sister." Then remembering he gave away all his gold to the brutes in the bar, he pats his pockets, sighs and whispers under his breath, but loud enough for everyone else to hear, "Could I get some of your money on credit?"

"Of course Dnee! How much?"

She looks to the orange person and explains,

"I was homeless and now I live with Dnee! This is Dnee!"

Hand still out for shaking she starts digging around inside her robes for the swollen money pouch and awkwardly digs out five gold for Dnee.

Lyss slows to a walk, stepping out but keeping an eye on the odd fellow. 

Insight Check: 8

She grips her dagger as her eyes narrow in suspicion.

"Careful Aimee, sometimes crazy beggars can get mean when they smell coin."

A bright light appears in Spark's eyes, and he promptly ignores all of your other questions.

"Customers?  Customers!  Of course!  Let me see . . ."

He half twists, half slides his pack off and begins to vigorously rummage in it, still muttering to himself.

"No, no, no, not good, not good, what in the Nine Hells is that, maybe, possibly, no no, too intellectual . . ."

He eventually pulls out a random assortment of gears and a few odd looking . . .toy figures?  One is some sort of odd octopus, but with only seven legs.  It's glowing with a rather sickening green light, and seems an interesting choice for a toy.  The other is some sort of dwarf, with a hammer positioned over a smithy.  Even though it's not moving, the faint noise of metal being hammered is coming from it.  He then appears to completely lose interest in what's going on, and begins fiddling with the gears.

Aimee shakes her own hand,

"Hi, Aimee! Nice to meet you! My name is Man in the Alley!"

She takes a big step back at Lyssli's recommendation.

"He is not a very good beggar! Yep. So are we there Lyssli?"

She looks around the alley for signs of recent Floon habitation.

Perception: 17

One of Aimee's words startles the odd man out of his reverie.

"Idiot!  Do I look like a beggar?  Are all merchants beggars?  Wait . . .perhaps we are.  Oooh, must consider this.  Yes, very interesting perspective."

Aimee does notice, across from the one operational streetlight, a ramshackle warehouse. 

There is a chipped and faded sign above the warehouse, reading Candle Lane Handler Co. Looking at the front of the building, it seems to be one story, there is a door  and two dusty windows on the facade. The door has a black winged snake painted above the handle And is on the left of the facade, with a window in the middle and one on the right. To the right of the building, some stone steps lead down the side of the building.

((Check to recognize the snake?))

Lysslin, trying to suss out this strange red man, can’t really get what his deal is, but he is clearly hiding something, as you notice from his rambling admonishing of himself.

As Lyss sees Aimee noticing the warehouse, the flying snake symbol does seem familiar - it was tattooed on the men in the bar. But you need to rack your brain a bit to figure out it’s significance. (A straight intelligence check)

Aimee smiles at the odd beggar/merchant,

"Yep, I got all kinds of great new ways of looking at stuff!"

She sees the address and decides to be sneaky speaking into Lyssli's brain,

<Lyss! Lyssli, over there! I see the place that was on the thing! You want to go check it out? Its got stairs and stuff along with a black snake above the door.>

She gestures with a nod of her head in the direction she means.

She then returns to the red guy,

"So, you normally hang out in alleys all alone trying to sell stuff?" She lowers her voice to a loud, husky whisper, "Or are you on a quest too?" She winks very obviously at him.

The man scowls.

"Stupid girl!  Quests are for idiots looking to get themselves killed, my intellect is far to great for that.  No no, the rigors of a slightly underdeveloped consciousness called me here.  I fear some fool bought one of my devices and used it for his own nefarious purposes!  He tried to pull the wool over on me!  On ME!  Spark, maker of a thousand objects!  Inventor of countless wonders!  Master of flame!"

At the last exclamation, Spark's hair catches on fire.  It then swiftly goes out again, but you can notice patches of burned hair presumably caused by similar incidents.