Part-timers of Murkow

Having recieved a tip from their classmate Dugren in class, some of the students set out into the vast world of part-time minimum-wage work in addition to a full-time study.   After ten minutes of walking they arrive at the Brightstone Burrows; a huge city block of dwarven houses that has built vertically until forming an artificial mountain dwarf-city in miniscale. One of the outer houses is the Ironquill Bookforge, owned by Dugrens uncle. As the students enter, Dughelm Ironquill and his elven wife greets them. They explain that they've sorely needed help around the store ever since their previous employee Rudy seemingly skipped town a week ago. They get a speedrun of the rules and chores, and the owners are off to file a missing person case.    Almost immediatly does Katia whip out her new Scryglass, using the relic to search for Rudy, having taken notes on their appearance and actions. The telescope struggles for a bit to focus, before running into static. Rudy is either protected by anti-scrying magic, on a different plane, or dead.   The party quickly delegates tasks, going through the chores list like it's gospel. Nicolás prefers with his blooming charisma to lead the charge against customers, while Laymon prunes and tends the plantlife all across the establishment. Irma quickly sorts through old inkwells while gossiping with small dwarven bobble-heads of stone, with a little help from Nicolás. The latter also makes it his life's mission to sell said Stony figures, calling them ''lil stoners''. Katia takes to browsing the inventory for her own interest, while also sorting new additions into their respective shelves. The store has been understaffed for a week, and the dust and mess are in abundance.   As Irma and Laymon check out the storage for tools to polish and clean, they come upon some vermin. Nicolás is extra eager in going all Ratchet-and-Clank on the crates, and ends up sending them all flying. This reveals one, no, two, no... six Rust Monsters hiding behind the cluttered system, while breaking apart the brittle tools into a ruststorm. Nicolás quickly discovers his fear of such distrubing little guys, throws out some CC and the most high pitched scream he can, before levitating out of reach. Some say he still perches up on that bookshelf... Katia calmly evokes bolts of fire and force, and walks the monsters into the larger room. Laymon and Irma are one moment floating with insects, before finding themselves surrounded. Laymon pops all his most experimental chaos-tonics as most fizzle out, while Irma takes on her calling as traffic director, slowly learning the phrase ''this way gents'' in Rust Monster. Her pacifist route ends up opening for the critters to scurry towards the front door, through Nicolás' starry Darkness, and with a motivational slap (and firebolt) on the butt, they're out. Two rust monsters dead, and four more to freely roam the district of Murkow most densely populated by forges and smelters. Great.   Throughout the day the students gets a few customers; a dwarf picking up an order of family annals (and attempting at picking up Irma too), a gnome with a bad ear and eyes and other ear in search of golemancy-history, and an elderly neighbour with a nose for gossip. From her they learn that Dughelm's reputation might be less ideal, but seemingly to little fault of his own. Furthermore, the granny claims to have seen someone run out of the store after a shattering noise, matching the time Rudy would have last been seen. Nicolás succeeds in selling her a Stony garden-redcap. He also does this to an impressive young halfling in search of stationary, and a human putting an order for 15kg of parchment.    With a group effort the four students makes their way through the upper floor, noting on books of interest, cleaning, sorting, watering and patrolling. In the final room they find Dughelm's collection; stands with weapons, armor and artifacts sold only to high bidders. With some spellcraft and a high arcane attunement they quickly find the room is protected by some proper real shit wards, almost blinding Katia upon her Detect Magic. Laymon finds a pile of glass shards, seemingly having once formed a full mirror on a table in the corner. They quickly link them to their precious mirror-based misfortunes when the artifacts in the room doesn't seem to show in the shards' reflection. Katia sneakly stows one shard, which gives Irma and Laymon the brilliant idea to do the same! All very sneaky, of course. After all, they're just cleaning out the trash.   Finally, while being the only part of the list they were not to do, the students let curiosity take over: If there's a wasp nest problem, it's now their wasp-nest problem. Katia locates objects, mortified at the wasp-problem Murkow has, and locates something similar enough to note behind the store. They all leave the store temporarily to check it out, entering the Brightstone Burrows proper. Among bustling markets and beneath webs of pillars, bridges and overhangs, they find a dwarf standing guard next to a small restricted area. Why is it restricted? Stirges. Big ones. Nest up there. Yup. Why does he have a stick? So that if anyone wants to poke the literal Stirges' nest with one, he will whack them with his. Laymon convinces him that the firbolg and high-elf can take over for a bit, since they're all employed by Dughelm. Katia regales the tale of Finding John North to Laymon, and they formulate a plan from this legend: Poke the nest with fire, sleep the stirges. Now it's raining stirges. Great success.    Back in the store, the students finish their shift. Dughelm is happy with the cleaning and effort. Nicolás tries for a discount on books and a free labubu. The store has set prices. He buys three books. Katia buys some too. Laymon as well. Irma has new material for strange (and normal) dreams. Later, Irma and Katia experiment with scrying on Irma's dad with the Scryglass. It works. Nicolás starts the path of smith-training. Laymon grafts some branches he swiped.