He landed on his feet and immediately crumpled to his hands and knees. "Ow ow ow ow," he hissed. "Bad idea, bad idea."
Alex used the grappling hook. "Dummy," he said.

James eyes were watering and he moved to sit down. "You know what," he said, sounding like he was trying very hard not to cry or sound like he was in pain. "I'll stay here to keep watch."
Alex nodded.

Alex started up the ladder after him. "Use our super secret signals if something happens."

Alex climbed up onto the roof and went to the chimney to peer down. "Oh good, they dont have the fire going!"

Alex hung the grappling hook on the edge and grabbed the rope. "I'll go first," he said.

Alex went into the chimney, using the rope to get to the bottom. He crouched down to look around the room before looking back up and giving Galaxian a thumb's up. He then crawled out.

They were inside the main area of the guild. There were tables everywhere, a bar, several dart games, and stuffed monsters and monster heads everywhere. Hanging up right next to a door that appeared to lead to some kind of private office, was a request board. Alex made a beeline towards it. The private office also appeared to be where Bleakburn and his friends were brainstorming strategies.

"Well, I was just gonna take a quest and leave," Alex said. "He'll for sure take it away if I stay..." he thought for a moment. "How about I sneak out and you stay to try to get that interview?"

"Okay!" Alex said cheerfully. He scanned the board, and chose a quest involving hunting down and killing a group of goblins that had killed some merchant's daughter. "Maybe when you're done, you can join us on the quest! Or just hang out sometime, you're cool. And good luck!" He grinned at Galaxian before disappearing back into the chimney. There were noises that suggested that he was climbing back up it.

There was lots of arguing coming from the room. They were disagreeing on everything from what types of weapons to use to what time of day to even do the attack.

"Let's just set the whole forest on fire and smoke her out!" One of them said. "Get the whole guild on it so she can't escape. Get the kids on it if we have to!"

Bleakburn seemed to be the one shooting down all the ideas. 2 other dudes were going through papers and making random suggestions. A fourth dude was resting his head in his palm and looked like he was going to fall asleep at any moment. Every once in a while he would mutter a "yeah totally" or "no that's dumb" but didnt actually seem to be paying attention.

In response to this, Bleakburn angrily swiped everything off the table, causing sleepy dude to shoot wide awake and jump back in his chair, causing both him and the chair to fall over. "This is pointless!" He bellowed. "That freak always manages to slip away! Clearly, plans are useless!"

Sadly it didn't work. His mind didn't even consider the possibility, clearly capturing or killing her was a matter of pride now, alongside the reward.
"How about instead of going after a little girl with too many arms, we focus on far more dangerous monsters, like, I don't know, the giant rats that eat kids that live in the sewers?" Sleepy suggested with a yawn. "Let's just take a break from this quest to focus on more important matters."
"This IS important," Bleakburn growled. "If we don't get her in the next 2 weeks he's gonna be sending his own guys, and none of us get that reward. Besides, what about everyone who lost limbs and lives to that little monster!? The rats can wait, there are plenty of guys on that already! And that stupid buddy system whats-his-face keeps rambling about."

She was.
According to Bleakburn's mind, the person he was referring to was a dude who had put out a pretty big reward for Ribbon, and was now getting impatient.