Skabb scratches his chin with a curled claw and watches as the others start rummaging through the goblins belongings. He takes out one of his two bottles of ink and pours it onto the floor, before going back to the giant rat. He places the bottle below the sack that squirted yellow ichor earlier and squeezes some of the goo into the bottle and corks it. 

While everyone is busy looting he takes out a stack of paper and start copying the strange symbol on the floor. "Extraordinary... Salvation by rodentry.. . Astounding.." Every five seconds or so a new, random uttering escapes the tabaxis lips.

Religion: 6 He also checks if he recognizes or get inspired by any of the strange runes making the circle.

Keeping the bottle in his pocket he walks out and lifts the painting towards the exit and takes the strange painting with him. 

Once you all have looted to your heart's content, you flag down a Muzga Guard from a nearby post. Nearby, being relative of course, as you had to travel for a few minutes to find one. You lead him back to Oikz's home and the man coughs and holds his nose from the stench of the basement just from standing atop of the stairs. "Ugh, I certainly believe you," the lizardman guard shakes his head. "How awful this is. Thank you for reporting... of course, I know you would like payment." He nods, understanding. The party looks like hell, so regardless of what your wealth, or lack thereof, is he assumes you must be beggars on the street. "I'll file a report. Please report to the Muzga Station in the morning, chums. We will have sorted out this mess by then, I hope."

With that, the quest to rid the world of five rats in a goblin's basement resolves with the discovery that at least one goblin was worshiping a rat-like god known as "Nah-Zumi." 

(As the day draws to a close, please post about where your character is staying and what they do when they get 'home'. Since this game is pretty hardcore in general, please take a long rest to also mean you recover all your hit points, but any scarring won't be fixed without magical healing.) 

Jiron nods to the lizardfolk after given instructions. He then, clockwork rat in hand, makes his way back to the Ayabis Ward and the Elder's Vault. He flinches as the adrenaline from combat slowly subsides and the arrow wound to his shoulder racks him with pain.

Staggering through the door, he enters the antique store to find Zellix. "Hi," the hobgoblin mutters as he faces the illithid. Taking out the trinket, he sets it on the counter. "I took a job from the Smiling Gnoll. I wanted to get you a gift, to thank you for everything you've done for me since I got to Dorborden. Turns out though, the only job that was available was actually bait some cultist goblin was luring adventurers with so he could turn them Into rats and sacrifice them to some weird being he called Nah-Zumi, god of rats. I thought you might like this." Jiron flinches again at his bleeding wound. "It did take some fighting to get, though."

"I'm gonna go get this bandaged up," he quickly finishes, and he heads to his tiny room at the back of the store, where he tears off a piece of his sheeet to bandage his arm with, and sets to work replacing the bullets he spent on Oikz's rats.

In the morning, before his shift, he heads to the Muzga barracks like he was told,

(Using Arcane Magazine to get back to 40 bullets)

 Brand makes his way to the harbor district and finds a trading post where he purchases a large cotton sheet and a bit of well-preserved foodstuffs. When his business is done there, he heads straight for the nearest seedy bar and drinks until he can only stumble into a gutter and curl up under his new blanket.

(10gp as such...3 sq. yards of cotton: 1.5gp, 4 days of rations: 2gp, night of drinks: 5sp?)

Skabb carries the huge painting to the cartographers guild. They had rooms for the guild members as long as they gave some of their earnings towards the guilds expansion. Skabb had already paid for a week in advance, using the last of his earning, so at least he had a couple more days in comfortable lodging. 

As he enters the small one man room he places the painting across from his bed and lies down. Laying there, alone in a dark room with only a single candle as a light source he stares at the strange picture. Barely blinking, until the need for sleep overcomes him and he falls into a deep slumber filled with dreams of ships on stormy seas and giant rats.

Skritch heads back to the Smiling Gnoll, passing through the marketplace first to see if he can pawn off two of the pieces of jewelry he looted along the way. He'll not really haggle as much over the price, accepting whatever is offered as long as it might help feed him a few days longer. Stowing the gold pieces away, he heads up to the job board and tears off the rat job paper and passes it to the person at the bar in charge of such things. "Job done." He caws, rather matter-of-factly, and accepts any reward that may come his way, even if it's just a hearty pat on the back and a mug of ale, before leaving to find a rooftop or bell tower to curl up in for the night after spending a gold piece on food. From his vantage he looks over to the witchs' castle, wondering how he will get in there to complete his mistress' task. Maybe  tomorrow's meeting will lead to a solution. Holding the Thorn Witch's large seed close, he drifts off to sleep.

In the morning, Skritch will head down from his perch to go where he was instructed.

(Brand, that works for me!)

Skritch manages to find a few folks willing to purchase the jewelry. They seem to be haggling him to drop his price to 15 gold. (3  beat this DC with a persuasion roll to get 35 gold instead. This is the total for the amount of jewelry you got, which was a really good roll lmao.)

As you all make your way to the Muzga Ward Barracks, the sky pours water over you as dark clouds hang overhead. To say the rain is heavy would be an understatement. You all put on whatever coat or jacket you may have in hopes you won't catch your death.

As you come into the barracks, you see there is a light line, but you all meet up and only wait a couple of minutes before you come before a Yuan-Ti woman. She is not pure like some of the other's you have seen, and so her body is much more snake-like than man-like. She leans against the desk as she takes you all in and speaks, "How can I help you, sirsss? Here to iss-ssue a complaint, hmm?"

(Woah, well, I guess Skritch gets 35 g jeepers...)

"Hello there Madam. No, no, no we are not here to complain dearie. We are here because this fine guardsman last night promised us a reward. We took down a rather, excuse for using such terms, down right crazy goblin. He was sacrificing hopeful adventurers and money chasers to a most spectacular god of rats. Anywho, the guard told us we could come here for a reward." Skabb smiles wide, his canines glistening in the low light within the barracks. 

"Ahh, yessss, I was told about you. It ssseems that goblin iss responssible for most of the missssing perssonsss here in Muzzga," The Yuan-Ti woman shakes her head, "How awful to take advantage of your own people like that. Ssso many dead goblinss and hobss were found in hisss bassement. I think we ssshould exile him to the Gaian landsss, but I am quite cruel.

"Asss for your reward, I sseee four of you. Hold pleassse." The Yuan-Ti slithers away, and you can see that, of course, she is wearing a brown tunic, belt, and a longsword, but no pants. When she returns, she has a small lockbox. "Thank you for your ssservice to Dorborden, citizzzens. We hope thisss isss of use to you." She hands each of you a small, cheap pouch. Inside the pouch you find, 7 gold coins, 80 silver, and 33 copper. 

Jiron takes the reward shyly. "Much abliged," he whispers before turning back to his companions. "It's been nice working with you, maybe we will see each other again, sometime." He then pulls up the hood of his cloak and heads back into the storm to return to Zellix.

(OOC. Just wondering, Walpurgisnatcht is just around the corner, right?)

Skabb bows towards the yuan ti and jogs to catch up to Jiron. "Excuse me, Jiron, but the shop you stay at. Does the proprietor show any interest in odd art? Specifically paintings? I would love to get his opinion on something." Skabb smiles friendly to the awkward hobgoblin. 

Skritch lingers a bit as the others filter out with their rewards. Peeking over the desk, he looks to the snake-woman and chirps questioningly. "Skritch see Baba Aga? Deliver message?"

(Walpurgistnacht is in about three days, I've decided.)

The Yuan-Ti chuckles a bit as the bird asks her if he can see or give a message to the Baba Aga. "Oh birdie, if I could connect you to the great Baba Aga, I would. I can't really do much... If you want to ssschedule an audience with her, might I suggessst approaching the represssentative of your ward? Or, maybe you can talk to one of her followersss in central Dorborden. Just don't go harassssing anybody."

Looking slightly dejected, Skritch takes this new information and heads out.

EDIT: More specifically, Skritch will work his way through the main street until he makes it to as close as he can get to the grounds of the Faran Tree, looking for people that look like these "followers of Baba Aga" he heard about.

"Zellix is interested in all manner of antiques, trinkets, relics of the forgotten past and such. I'm sure he would love to take a look at the painting," Jiron smiles as he talks with the Tabaxi as he heads out the door. "I'm not sure your going to want to haul it over in this weather, though."

If Skabb has any more questions, he will continue talking as he makes his way back to the Elder's Vault, trying to keep out of the storm best as possible.

Brand will lean in a bit closer to the desk, "You must have problem cases that need to dissapear. Maybe something that your rules wont allow. Should anything like this come up, I hear a good place to start is by the harbors or at The Smiling Gnoll." He gives a knowing poke to the brand across his forehead and makes his way out after Skritch.

"Ah, the rain." Skabb looks up towards the rain for a second and lets the water soak the fur on his face. "Maybe if it stops later today i'll come buy. For now i'll go to the cartographers guild and work on my town maps. I think I want to add some notes on Muzga." He nods goodbye to Jiron and walks towards the guild to gather some supplies. 

Skabb will go the nearest library and check up on some local history to further develop his knowledge of the Muzga ward. 

(Could I earn a little cash by drawing simple maps of the Muzga ward? Also, what do i roll for cartography?)

Skritch arrives nearby the Faran Tree, the place that Baba Aga makes her home somewhere up high. As expected, there are several guards positioned at key points around the base of the tree and even a few patrolling the area. After waiting for almost ten minutes, he finally sees a group of creatures emerging from the stairs that spiral from the roots upwards. These creatures look much like a tree themselves, Skritch thinks as he remembers seeing people like this in the Shadowbraid. Dryads, he thinks they are? Their wood-like skin darkens as the heavy rain soaks the group, but they seem unfazed. Many of them wear a loincloth to conceal their unmentionables, and carry longbows on their back. These dryads are devoid of leaves or flora of any kind, and seem to come in a variety of gender expression. They seem to be led by a taller dryad woman who wears a shawl of leaves and a crown of flowers on her jagged bark head. She does not seem to wield a weapon of any kind.

Skabb enters a very small library, that seems mostly crowded with homeless that seek to exit the rain. He eventually finds a seat at an empty table in a fair corner where he gathers some crude and uncompleted maps to work from. If Skabb desires to make smaller maps, this will take an hour for each map.

(The DC is 8 and sense you are in a library you add double your proficiency bonus. The modifier you need is INT. So since you are trained in cartography, here is the breakdown of what you roll (+2 for proficiency in the tool x 2 for being in a library) + 0 from your intelligence mod. So you would add +4 to your roll. You roll 1d4 and that's how much you are able to sell each map for peddling on the streets (without further checks). --- Note: I didn't think to add how long it would take to make each map, but small maps would take an hour since you'd want to take your time and make it look decent enough to sell even if crude. Let's say each step up adds another hour to time, even if a large map IRL would take A LONG time...

Also, don't forget these sick rewards for rolling very well:

When rolling for downtime:

)

(Well shoot, while we're talking downtime activities, anyone need some hired muscle or dock help?)