Your healing, clean-up, and other errands finished, the squad regroups at an entrance to Mason Street Station, and you leave the surface headed down toward the station. You pass the edge of the Market just below the surface, which is a bustling, busy place. Several of the vendors there vie for your attention holding out a variety of wares, but you are intent on your mission and pay them no heed. You pass a group of children of various diminutive races playing a very informal game of Keepstorm in one tunnel, a few mothers chat amiably on the sidelines keeping an eye on their charges. Arriving at the Station proper you queue up for a brief wait until the next downtown-bound train on the East Arc rolls in. Quickly boarding with citizens of various races and social strata, you hang on as the train of passenger carts jerks into motion behind the large and powerful team of massive horses. The unusually lean young halfling driving shouts insults in a playful tone at a cargo wain crossing his path. A few stops and an equal number of hair-raising misses later, you find yourselves on the streets of the 2nd. As you make your way toward the Magistrate's office you pass residential areas, warehouses and move into areas of increasingly upscale shops, banks and, notably, the large brick Florist's shop called Bloom's. The uppermost floor is ringed in glass forming a greenhouse. The street level windows are filled with flowers for sale.
Just up the street from the popular watchmen's and constable's tavern, the Night Cap and Truncheon, you reach the marble-fronted offices of Charlie Festus. In contrast to the offices in the 14th, this building looks more like a bank or prosperous investment house. It exudes a feeling of prosperity and safety that is the hallmark of the 2nd. You haven't had too much experience with the 2nd's Special Squad, but it is well known that they often pursue white collar criminals and that there are more accountants than warriors among them. City services seems to get top billing here in the 2nd, with the constables offices being in the back and upstairs. Reaching the outer offices, a plump apple-cheeked halfling woman waits behind the desk. "Ah yes the Special Squad from the 14th, we were expecting you this morning. If you'll take those stairs," she points to the left, "and once upstairs take the 3rd door on the right, you'll find conference room two. I'll alert the Magistrate and the Constables that you are here."
After a brief wait and a round of the 2nd's coffee, you are greeted Winslow Butterbalm, a halfling who introduces himself as the 2nd's Kidnapping Specialist. (So few residents of the 14th have the resources to pay a significant ransom that you have no formal kidnapping specialist on your own team, so you feel some brief pangs of jealousy, but mostly you are happy to be working with true professionals, and look forward to learning from them.) Winslow Butterbalm is accompanied by Angus Delvish, the Special Squad Diviner of the 2nd. Moments later a particularly rotund halfling in an expensively tailored business suit strides in puffing a prodigiously long ivory pipe with a very deep bowl, that looks like it must hold several hours' worth of pipeweed. He introduces himself perfunctorily as, "Charlie Festus, Magistrate, I'm in a bit of a hurry, so this will have to be brief. I have a very full schedule this afternoon, you see. Angus, my lad, tell them the story."
OOC: Insert dramatic pause here. You'll have to wait until tomorrow for the rest of the story...
