[Mission] Page in: The Missing Earrings

Mission Details:

Page made his way down the trodden dirt path, marked with lines fresh and old from where carts had been taken through from town to town. At this point, Sheffield was nowhere in sight, but through their shared trust and limited experience, Page didn't worry, he figured good ole Shef was just out picking up some sort of snack for the trip, and his guess was confirmed when along prancing from the forest, a rabbit in his mouth and a stuffed bear tied around his neck. As they passed more and more sign posts saying which town was where, eventually one name caught the former farmer's eye, the village of Goto.

As the tamed wolf scarfed down the freshly caught prey, they saw the first permanent architecture sticking up over some of the smaller trees and entered the village of Goto. Page scoured the area a bit, saw people going to their houses, minding their own businesses trying their best to ignore the outsider. Eventually Page managed to catch the attention of one of the townsfolk, where he asked and promptly received the answer to where he could find a place of temporary lodge, an inn of sorts. Turns out there was one located right across from the fountain in the town square, and so off Page was to see if he could secure a warm bed and a dry roof for himself and his dog.

Page entered the establishment to find yet another person in need of help, this time a woman. She was frantically searching for something behind the reception desk when Page opened his mouth, asking, "Everything okay here, anything the might need doing where I could help."

"Sorry," the woman replied, "just something that has gone missing," she said, highlighting the missing with a certain disdain. "Anyway," she continued, "I'm the owner of this establishment, I can get you a room easy, how long do you plan on staying?" 

After taking a pause to think and look to Sheffield, Page answered, "Well I guess just one night if that's alright, how much will it set me back, afterall I'm not entirely doing my best financially right now."

"Hmm, I suppose we could strike a deal if money is the issue," the innkeep said, "I had a pair of earrings go missing recently, a family heirloom, and if you can get them back for me I'll throw some ryo and a couple nights free stay here at the Silver Star, how does that sound?"

"Sounds simple enough," Page replied, "and if you don't the potential rudeness, sounds a bit too simple, there some sort of catch?"

"Figures it's probably better the person getting this isn't naive, there is a slight... hold up you see," she admitted, "I'm pretty sure that the earrings were stolen, and I'm pretty sure I know who." There was a dramatic pause, before the innkeeper started back up again, "This might sound weird but the local ramen chef had stopped by, and I had to go check the mail, so I asked him to hold the front desk while I was gone. My earrings were under the counter when I was here, and gone by the time I got back, but I can't just blatantly accuse him without evidence, would you kindly track down my pair of earrings."

"Woah, that's quite the ordeal for a small town, consider it done," Page said, a auditory sigh of relief coming from the inkeep as the farmer and his dog exited the inn.

The former farmer and their dog walked up to the local ramen stand, stopping before for Page to instruct his pet, "Alright, I'm going to distract the guy, you go around back and see if you can find two little shiny bits of metal back there and I'll nod if it's the right thing, sound good buddy?" and Sheffield nodded before going around to the back of the shop, just as Page entered the front. 

Page opened up conversation with the ramen cook, asking him to talk through the different kinds of ramen, and using that excuse to explain his nodding and shaking of his head as approval of the food, rather than its true purpose, which was telling his familiar that no the spoons and forks were not earrings, and yes the teardrop shaped silver with ear piercings is what he was looking for. The earrings were found, and with that, barring ordering anything, Page left, met his dog outside, picked the earrings off his tongue, thoroughly cleaned them using his shirt to minimize dog slober before returning to the inn for his payment.

Page entered the inn, and presented to the innkeep her missing earrings, which she quickly grabbed and noting the strange smell said, "Strange brew they're cooking up at the ramen shop from the smell of it."

After pausing Page realized what she was saying and jaggedly broke his word through the air stating, "Yeah, place was stinking like a storm hehe," awkwardly scratching the back of his head, "Anyway, about that payment."

"Oh yes, oh yes, of course, here is your 500 ryo and you can stay here the next two nights, I implore you to stay after all we don't get many capable freelancers around here, and I'm sure you could find some work. Plus tomorrow night we are hosting a poker tourney where you could wage your earnings to make quite the pretty penny," the innkeeper said.

"You wanna know what, you caught my attention easily with the offer of a new jobs seeing as I'm down on my luck, but you can bet your ass I will be at that poker night and I don't intend to lose," Page said, seemingly more incensed than he had been at any point earlier in the night, "Been far too long since I've made a decent gamble."

And with that, Page, followed closely by his trusty hound, headed to his room for the night, putting out some of the blankets and a pillow to serve as a bed for Sheffield. He had a successful day, and even if he was going to be taking a break from it for the next few days, at least he was a new place to meet new people.  He leaned back in bed, relaxed himself, and started to stare into the ceiling. "Get some good rest Shef," the former farmer said, and seemingly replying, Sheffield hopped right on top of Page, disrupting this calm before nustling himself in for some pets and cuddles. With the last disturbance in the bag, both Page and the Pup fell asleep.

WC: 1,105
600 Ryo
1 AP
E rank Basic Medical Ninjutsu 350/350 (Continued from Here), continued to D 500/500, continued to C 1000/1000
Body Part Replication Jutsu 332/1.5k
+6 Stats Page
+5 Stats Sheffield

Approved.