[center]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][table][row][/row][row][cell] [h2][color=darkorchid][i][b]Victoria Belmont[/b][/i][/color][/h2][i][b][color=9932cc]Half-Elf, Bard, Level 3[/color][/b][/i] [color=9932cc][i][b]HP:[/b][/i][/color] 23 / 23 [color=9932cc][i][b]Armor Class:[/b][/i][/color] 15 [color=9932cc][i][b]Conditions:[/b][/i][/color] N/A [color=9932cc][i][b]Location:[/b][/i][/color] Interior B&B [color=9932cc][i][b]Action:[/b][/i][/color] N/A [color=9932cc][i][b]Bonus Action:[/b][/i][/color] [color=black][i]Morty[/i][/color] [color=9932cc][i][b]Reaction:[/b][/i][/color] N/A [/cell][cell] [right][img]https://i.ibb.co/tpv4vyV/VicSS.png[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][center]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center] [color=9932cc]"What?"[/color] asked Victoria, suddenly switching from her more emotive, serious nature to stare at their Dragonborn companion. She hoped that the fellow was a "cross the I's, dot the T's" kind of person and that this was an attempt to confirm what was something near to obvious - the practice of a cautious man in a fairly unfamiliar group of associates - and not a legitimately serious question from someone who honestly suspected that the upstairs was packed full of rats or wererats, with a little girl in the main room aware of, but indifferent to, their presence. [color=9932cc]"No, the... this is a lodging house,"[/color] cautiously explained Victoria. [color=9932cc]"The place was flush with guests for the festival. I [i]think[/i] all of the guests were Humans."[/color] It was a safe enough assumption. Or might have been, were there not a pressing issue of unknown persons throughout town being transformed into vicious, conniving myanthropes. That in mind, it might have actually been a fair and pressing question. Kathryn seemed to be doing an effective enough job of making sure that little Lizbeth had some emotional support. This was usually her sphere of influence, owing to occupation, but so long as she felt safe and looked after Victoria would suppress her instinct to comfort. The gesture did give her an angle to see what was on the note. The script written upon it looked bold and blocky, not at all what she might have assumed came from a more delicate looking woman like Cecily. Though this was most certainly not her forte, mulling the possibilities over did brig her to another interesting thought: [color=9932cc]"Lea. She carried a note of her own when she informed us of Daisy's absence."[/color] Victoria let the statement hang there. [color=9932cc]"We have to do something before this gets worse."[/color] She looked over to Lizbeth. Memories of the previous evening came back unbidden, of her uncertain emotional state after having been through a [i]lot[/i] the previous days. And of course, the little trick that she quietly performed that others has missed. Lizbeth seemed to have a strength about her that gave Victoria a touch of hope. They could not take Lizbeth with them if they were stepping into a fight. Nor could they leave one of their number with her and stay at full force. And it seemed that, barring something being done, bringing her to their "camp" wasn't the best idea either. Was leaving her in this place tantamount to willful neglect of a child in need? Ordinarily, Victoria could detach from all of this and go about her merry, but for whatever reason Victoria was taking this child's interests personally. Quietly, the Bard suggested, [color=9932cc]"Maybe she should lock herself away in her room and hide, until we take care of this? Perhaps give her some silver, just in case?"[/color] Barring getting her back to their hidey-hole, which she might find preferable. Just then, Victoria wished she had a song or a snippet of spellwork that could explode many, many rats all at once. That would be a sight to behold.