Victor and Adrian: Central District, Trade District
 Morning - Early afternoon.

Adrian stared at Roman, seemingly unimpressed. Nevertheless she nodded and went back to peering around the room, absorbed in her own contemplations. Victor's brow furrowed as he listened to Roman's words with intrigue but he didn't have any questions to ask. Once the talk was over and they were permitted to leave, Adrian was the first to trot outside and stretch. She looked up at Victor dully.

“He didn't understand,” Adrian grunted. 

“It’s fine, we’ll have to figure it out with the others.” Victor reassured her.

“Was it my fault?” Adrian asked, following Victor through the neat cobblestone streets of the central district.

“No, you’re just small so people understandably gloss over you.” he nodded.

Adrian made a thoughtful grunt and pulled on her bandana again. They squeezed their way through the trade district and up towards their tavern room; most of their gear was spread out across the floorboards. It didn’t take long to figure out the essentials, under the assumption that there wouldn’t be any civilised facilities inside of the district; things like torches, rations and water cantines were packed first alongside first aid kits and potions. Tonics and toxins were next; simple poisons and their antidotes alongside painkillers and fortifying brews made for strength and staminia. Two long coils of rope were attached to the pack with twine.

It started to become more tricky when they approached the issue of preparing for a particular beast, because no beast or being they’ve ever encountered before had any sort of similarity with the witness reports. “Eyes, flesh and cocoons. Sounds like...spider?” Adrian dug through the myriad of large, small and equally as dangerous weapons before her. “Many people lost, in short time. Whatever did it is big, many, or sneaky.”

“For all we know it’s not even a beast.” Victor remarked, making sure they keep their minds as open as possible when threatened by the unknown.

“Still could be many, big and sneaky,” Adrian pointed out. “What do you think it is?”

Victor let out a deep sigh, seemingly lost without any form of real evidence to go off of. “There’s a myriad of creatures that can cause something of this scale, especially in a crowded city…” he went quiet, seemingly lost in thought as he stared at the pieces of equipment they were packing. “I couldn’t tell, not this early.” he went back to packing.

Adrian made a quiet noise of acquiescence. She slipped in two invisibility potions into the pack as an afterthought but let Victor decide the majority of the equipment they would bring. Once everything was buckled up and ready to move, Adrian set about clearing up the non-essentials.

“We should meet the others. Didn’t someone welcome others to a drink?”  Victor enquired.

Adrian nodded, but her expression was one of confusion. Similar to the meeting in the central district, she was woefully inexperienced with larger social gatherings that included more than two other people and drinking in a tavern was a foreboding prospect. “Yes. Why?” she asked, hoping to glean some more information from her travelling partner.

“We should take them up on it, it’ll be a good way to get to know our peers.” he explained, aware of her confusion.

“Like tracking a monster,” Adrian responded helpfully, trying to translate it into something she knew a bit more about. She nodded and poked her head out of the window - judging by the position of the sun it was coming close to noon. “Not yet, but soon,” she pointed out.

After some brief debilitation as to what they should do with their remaining time, Victor persuaded Adrian to plunge back into the hectic market for some supplementary supplies; notably, herbs that were as fresh as they could find within the city, a few spare vials and some extra antiseptic to widen the variety of potions Victor would be able to brew. Typically Adrian would have helped find the best specimens, but the sheer overwhelming amount of smells and sights made it difficult. She loitered in the back and helped with the shopping list instead.

Once they had their gear in order, they ventured into the Lazy Pheasant Inn and were perplexed to see that nobody was there yet; they had arrived somewhat early. Victor bought himself some ale, ordered a glass of apple juice for Adrian and they settled on some potage for lunch as they conversed quietly amongst themselves, waiting for their fellow adventurers to filter in (or, in Y'vanna's case, stumble downstairs.)