Motioning to the others with one hand, Xochitl stepped to the fore alongside the prostrated form of Alvaro. Gently, she pat the shetona's soft ears before taking another step forward toward the Baron upon his throne. "We were Landsguard recruits, but the four of us decided we didn't want to be ordered around, told when to eat, sleep, and work like we're little more than beasts of burden. Three square meals and a rough rack to sleep in at night don't exactly fill us with enthusiasm to protect and serve." Behind her, though she couldn't see them, her friends nodded along.

"Why not return to the families that birthed you, hm? Surely you have parents, siblings, extended family who might want you, yes?" The Baron said, his hands clutching upon the arms of his throne. There was an eager glint in his eye.  Most of the children within his domain were young, impressionable, malleable, yes but still too young to take on some of the more lucrative tasks he might ask of them.  These four were on the older end of that spectrum and could serve him well.

"We're all orphans." Xochitl lied. "It's sort of what brought us together, because the other recruits would make fun of us." The others behind her again nodded their agreement, Izco and Pixie both feigned to look sufficiently down-trod. Atlan just looked around the room with air-headed bewilderment. 

"So, nowhere to go and a refusal of the militant life afforded you. Mm, a very difficult situation to be in. Very difficult." The Baron mused, his long, spindly fingers drumming on the ends of the throne's armrests. "A challenge, I shall issue you. Consider it a test, of sorts, to prove your willingness to provide for me as you shall be provided for in turn." 

Xochitl's ears shifted back and her tail flicked back and forth briefly, but she inclined her chin imperiously to look the Baron in the eye. "Whatever it is, we'll do it."

"We like them eager and ready to please, yes, yes we do." The Baron said, lifting one hand to pat it over his rounded belly. "Very well. The task I give you is to steal food from both Xbalyav T'ye and Aunt Tii's Taco Stand. They are both rich fat cats that can afford such losses, especially to feed such meager, starving children as you see within my demesne." The man gestured to the room around them and the stairwell they'd come down. "Bring enough food to feed us all for a sennight within three suns' time and I will welcome you with open arms into our fold."

The Baron could have opened a magical portal into Oblivion and the four Landsguard cadets would have agreed to walk through it, such was their dedication to the role they'd been assigned. This actually played right into the Staff Sergeant's plans; they could make their way into the tavern and the taco stand, perhaps arrange to meet him at one or the other somehow in order to make their first report.  All of this was only a fleeting thought in Xochitl's mind as she bobbed her head in agreement. "We'll do it."

"Excellent. Alvaro, see that they are given extra portions at dinner tonight, they will need their strength for their trial ahead. You are all dismissed.  Have Maple send word once your task is done." With that, the Baron waved a dismissive hand at them.

Alvaro leapt up from his groveling, skittering away toward the stairwell before Xochitl and the others so much as turned around. As they departed, Xochitl made note of no less than three other doorways attached to this room besides the stairwell entrance. So there was more to this complex than just this room; it would be something they'd have to investigate later. For now, they had an assignment to do.

As they made their way up the stairs, Alvaro was utterly silent. He offered no apology for ratting them out, he didn't even make eye contact with them. Once they exited the hovel into the encampment proper, he broke away from them presumably to go tell Cooksie that they'd get extra portions come dinnertime.  None of them made any move to stop him.  He'd only done what he had to in order to survive, so none of them were upset by his betrayal. They couldn't really expect any kind of loyalty with how little they knew him. 

Once they'd returned to their own campfire, Xochitl hunkered down around it to strike her flint and steel in order to get it going again. Iczo brought over a small handful of kindling and a couple of logs. Pixie and Atlan sat together, each holding the other's hands in comfort. Looking at the three of them, Xochitl took a stick from Iczo's arms and began drawing in the dirt: a rough outline of the building that housed Xbalyav T'ye.  "So, here's my plan..."

Xochitl spent the next couple of hours outlining their angle of attack when it came to both the tavern and the taco stand. Xbalyav Ty'e was a busy place and relatively open, it would be easy for them to get in and out unseen with the right distraction.  Aunt Tii's was the much harder objective.  The taco stand was butted up against a solid wall and the only real way to get in and out would be to leap over the counter or -- as Xochitl suggested -- cutting an entrance in the sea-ward side of the tent cloth and squirming their way in along the floor.  Still, it was a cramped area to work in, it would be difficult to move unnoticed which is where another distraction would have to come into play. 

The other three cadets listened to Xochitl outline her plan, making occasional suggestions of their own, which the tigress took into account. Some she dismissed outright as being too risky, but for the vast majority she tried to take their input into consideration. It's a lot of the reason why the three of them looked to her as their leader.  Atlan would try to hard to take in everyone's input and make sure everyone was happy.  Pixie's style of leadership was "my way or the highway."  And Iczo had no interest in leadership at all.  Out of the four of them, Xochitl was best-suited to lead.

Eventually, Alvaro returned with a tray laden with their double-portions of dinner.  It was the same brown, non-descript stew with two hunks of bread for each of them rather than one. The same tin cup of water.  So, not exactly double-portions, but they weren't about to quibble. As they ate, that was when Alvaro mumbled out an apology, shrinking back from them with his ears flat, as if he expected to get beaten for it.  They just smiled, each of them breaking off a piece of their extra bread to give to him.  The young boy beamed brightly at the extra food, devouring it with youthful gusto.  Alvaro ended up falling asleep on Atlan's bedroll, but no one bothered him about it.  Atlan just made himself comfortable on the ground; he'd slept in worse places, as a fisherman's son. 

They all went to bed, but as her comrades drifted off in snores and snoozes around her, Xochitl could only stare upward at the smattering of stars she could see through the palm fronds and taller buildings of the city around them. There it was; the brightest silver star in the sky.  Faro Ta'uj, her people called it.  "The Silver Beacon."  It was the first star they learned in her tribe as young hunters, for it was the one star in the sky that would always lead them home.  It wasn't home she longed for now, though, but the calm and constant presence that the star represented. 

Oxomoco.