The morning after the explosive attack on the Urchin Stronghold and Dodgy Goods Store, Tepic and Strifeclaw look over the smoking ruins….. who were the attackers, and could anything be salvaged?
Surveying the Damage
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An outrage! What sort of coward would try to blow up urchins?
Hear! Hear! When you want to kill an urchin you look it in the face and shoot it. Then chuck the body into the canal.
Ah ha! So you’re the fiend! I’ve had to fish three of them out of the canal and reanimate them this month alone!
Bunch of grubby, ill-mannered, thieving troublemakers. Why waste good money reanimating the little blighters?
Dead urchin is a good urchin.
Beacause like it or not they are the future of this city. When some calamity finally wipes New Babbage off the map to join the civilizations that came before it, I can guarantee that the urchins will survive to rebuild this land in their image.
If the cockroaches make room.
Emerson starts to applaud
what kind of coward well the one who did this of course… I think I won’t go walking alone at night anymore…
Lisa was shaken out of a sound sleep by a noise and concussion enough to shake the Asylum a little. She lay still on her pallet for a moment, gathering her sleep-slowed wits together, then she scrambled to her feet and dashed for the door.
Sniffing the air, she followed the smell of smoke across the nearby canal, and saw, in the moonlight, that one of the buildings the urchins had appropriated was now nothing but a pile of rubble. Several urchins, including Tepic, were milling about. A few words with the fox told her what she needed to know, and she hurried back to the Asylum, anger settling in the pit of her stomach.
Once inside, she hurried upstairs and peeked in Dr. Solsen’s room to see if he’d been awakened. He had, and he asked her for the news.
“A group of bad men went into the urchins’ building nearby,” she replied, “and chased out the urchins that were there. Then they blew up the building.”
Dr. Solsen looked shocked. “Why would they do that?”
She shrugged. “Tepic didn’t know. Or, at least, he didn’t say.”
“Was anyone hurt?”
“Yes, but not seriously. Is it all right if I bring some bandages to them?”
“Take whatever you need, and please inform me if any of them need more treatment.”
Lisa smiled a little and nodded, then quickly went to the supplies to grab what she needed. Arms full, she backed out through the front door, pushing it with her back side, and trotted back to the smoking wreckage.
((Hope you don’t mind my appropriating you a bit, Dr. Solsen! ~smile~))
That morning, as Bookworm was preparing to leave home to run some errands, an insistant scratching at the door heralded the arrival of Beryl. “You wanted to know when things happen?” he asked with just a touch of sarcasm.
“I take it something has?” Bookworm asked wryly, knowing what the answer would be.
“Did you happen to hear the explosion last night around 2 AM?”
Bookworm’s eyes widened. “I thought that was thunder!”
Beryl shook his head. “This way.” He took off up the street, Bookworm at his heels. It didn’t take long for her to smell the lingering smoke. She skidded to a stop beside Beryl, looking over the wreckage. “What was here?” she asked. “And was there anyone here?”
Beryl told her what little he knew–that men had come in, chased out the urchins who had been there, and then blew it up. “I think the leader was the man who said PJ to me the other day,” he concluded. “I’m judging based on an old scent and Tepic’s description.”
“But why target Tepic?” she mused. “Can you tell Tepic I’d like to talk to him?”
“I’ll let him know–though he is busy, recovering from this, and losing the vole traps that were inside.”
Bookworm raised an eyebrow, but let that pass, as she left the scene to check in at Militia headquarters and see what information they might have.