A couple of days later, Xochitl and her squadron made their way back into the Baron's territory, this time dressed as a bunch of down-on-their-luck street urchins. They entered the encampment in two separate groups and several bells apart; Atlan and Pixie in the first group, then Xochitl and Izco in the second a few hours after. The children didn't scatter like they had when they'd arrived before, garbed in full Landsguard panoply. In fact, the children seemed to welcome them and be curious about them.

Atlan and Pixie said that when they'd first arrived, the children swarmed around them, asking them all kinds of questions about where they were from and if they'd been abandoned by their families, too.  Atlan had a hard time keeping himself together as the children told him of their own sad stories as to how they came to be here. One child had gotten lost, separated from a merchant caravan traveling from Urqopacha, he'd been found by the Baron himself as he hid in a shallow cave. Another child, her family had the misfortune of their house being struck by lightning, causing it to catch fire as they slept. The child had been the only one to escape and even then, she'd been badly burned.

Pixie spent the time looking around and observing things. She told Xochitl that the little hovel at the back of the encampment didn't seem like an actual building, more like the entrance of one. She said she'd observed one of the children going inside and it was just a small room that led to some stairs going downward. So there was clearly something underground there. 

During Xochitl and Izco's arrival, they'd actually been pickpocketed by one of the Baron's urchins, so they made a great show of pursuing the child through the streets, following him all the way back to the hideout. When one of the older children tried to take the thief to task for leading them back to their base, Xochitl and Izco had to step in and tell a sob-story about how they'd been abandoned by their parents who had gone across the Salt, leaving them standing at the docks, bewildered. This made the older child sympathetic and they were invited to join the little commune of thief-children.

Now, the four of them sat together around a small campfire, listening, observing and sharing what they'd learned thusfar. They made a meager meal of some 'stolen' food they'd picked up at the market. The other children around the encampment were given food by the eldest in the camp; a cup of stew and a hunk of bread along with a cup of water. It was barely enough to sustain growing children. 

As they sat and ate their meal, they were joined by the shetona lad they'd pursued through the streets some suns ago. He just hunkered down by their fire, gnawing on his own crust of bread that he'd been given. "You lot have some nerve coming back here." He said between bites.

"I told you that we'd help with this situation." Xochitl said to him. "So, now we're here."

"Right, right." The young jack replied, his flop-ears twitching slightly. "Rather than getting us out of here, you've decided to join. Makes sense."

"Listen..." Xochitl blinked, realizing that they didn't know the lad's name. "What's your name?" 

"Bob." He drawled, taking another mouthful of bread.

It likely wasn't his actual name, but it was the best they were going to get for now, so Xochitl just nodded. "So, where is the Baron?"

"In the Catacombs." He said, tilting his head toward the lean-to hovel at the back of the encampment. "But we aren't allowed to go there except on Tribute Days. Or unless he sends for you, but you don't want to be sent for."

The tigress shifted her ears back, considering. "You never see him otherwise? What if you have a question or need something from him?"

Bob turned his head, looking over his shoulder.  A few campfires over, there was a mamool ja girl, perhaps fourteen or fifteen years of age, pinching off pieces of her bread to put them in her mouth. "That's Maple.  Well, her real name is Mapila Ja, but everybody calls her Maple because her scales are the color of maple syrup." He explained. "But she's the Baron's scribe. If someone has something to say to the Baron, she writes it down then drops it down a chute.  If the Baron cares to respond, he'll come up to the surface.  If he doesn't, then we just never see or hear from him."

"Why her?  Why can't just anyone write a note?" Izco asked, prodding their campfire with a stick.

"Because she's the only one that understands how to write them. There's a specific way you have to write the words so that the Baron knows each request is legitimate. Maple's been told to ignore requests for things like blankets or food, basic necessities like that. So she has to weed out genuine concerns from paltry ones.  Then she writes them down in a specific manner and send them down the chute." Bob said, finishing his hunk of bread.  His stomach growled loudly in spite of it.

Izco grunted, then handed off what was left of his dinner to Bob before he got up and left their fire. The four of them watched as Izco made his way over to Maple's fire, crouching down near the mamool ja girl.  They started chatting.

The rest of them shared what was left of their meal with Bob, who was very happy to receive all their leftovers. As he ate, Bob told them various things about himself and others in the encampment. The young shetona seemed starved for conversation, so he regaled them with half-remembered stories from his youth, shared with them various snippets of overheard conversations. They also learned that another reason Maple had been chosen as the Baron's messenger was because she was one of the small handful of children in the encampment that even knew how to read or write. 

Eventually, Izco came back to their fire. He made a big show of yawning and going straight over to his bedroll and meager blanket, curling up in them. Xochitl, Atlan, and Pixie all continued to chat with Bob until they, too, feigned tiredness and want of sleep.  Bob took the hint and took himself away. Once they were all curled up in their bedrolls, all three of them looked toward Izco with expectation.

From his bed, Izco's eyes were bright and full of energy, he wasn't tired in the least. "It's a boustrophedon."

Atlan blinked. "Bless you?"

Izco rolled his eyes. "A boustrophedon is a way of writing something; the first line you write normally, starting on the left and going right. The second line goes the opposite direction, right to left, and continues in that vein of back and forth.  It's a very simple sort of cipher, but easy enough to figure out.  It's probably a way of keeping the other children from reading what gets written."

Xochitl nodded. "Are you able to forge her handwriting?"

Izco grinned. "In my sleep."

The tigress smiled. "Then we can move on to Phase Two of our plan starting tomorrow."

The four of them nodded, snuggling down into their beds. Time to sleep, because tomorrow the real work would begin.