"Ah! There is the back door," the baker said, "if the young miss is heading outside, it is around the building. Competitors... it would not just be bakers, it would also be others who cater or supply events like that," the baker put a hand to his chin, "there is that good-for-nothing Carmela, I hear she puts sawdust in her cakes. And that pig Linguini, they say his restaurant had a rat problem so bad, they took over and now secretly run it! But those are only rumors, I do not know the truth."<br/><br/>Maria, Lauriel and Evan nipped around the back while the baker cleaned up after their meals. Evan's idea of the pirates coming in the rear was well-founded; near to the back door of the bakery they could see foot-prints and wheel-tracks in the mud right outside, where someone had parked a cart (no tracks of a draft animal, though) and a number of discarded hairpins next to the door itself.<br/><br/>Well! That was... straightforward. The tracks led away, however, down an alleyway and into the city proper; tracking it through the sheer quantity of other tracks and life and activity in the city and its streets might well be a task worthy of an elven ranger!<br/><br/><hr/>In a grungy alleyway elsewhere, a local fence by the name of Timothy Two-Fingers spat at the mention of the gang Sophie was looking for. "Bunch of airy-fairy nonsense is what they are, rank amateurs pretending to be big trouble. You know last week a lady got out of being robbed by them by claiming she was an orphan? Who buys a story like that, or cares? And not only that, but her parents were with her at the time! Well as soon as the parents saw that worked, they claimed to be orphans too, and just like that everybody got off scot free. It's a disgrace is what it is. And don't get me started on the singing..." he grumbled, "point is, everybody but everybody would be better off if you just slit their throats and had done with it."