Carpet the M <- - o - - - -> This creche ant is the butter tart of pallor
Silent night <- - - o - - -> Do you hear what I hear?
You are rather torn between using clever subterfuges to get at the thieves inside and just charging their headquarters. It seems to be a moot point, because even after some waiting and knocking and extra waiting after the knocking, no one shows up to so much as greet or warn off your anxious troops. Not wanting to let what little surprise remains go to waste, you order a furious charge on the building Bark-Bark-SQUIRREL-Bark pointed out and find it just as empty on the inside as on the outside. Bark-Bark-SQUIRREL-Bark nervously notes that the scent actually gets weaker inside. The recruits fan out a bit and spot no valuables or signs of recent use on the furniture, which is covered in a thick layer of dust and cobwebs. This has been a most disappointing day for intrepid investigative journalist B-KAWK.
As you continue your search in the streets, Bawk-Bawk-BAWK and Bark-Bark-SQUIRREL-Bark hit upon the idea of looking under the loose cobbles in the street. Sure enough, an irregular lid of mortared cobbles is concealing a hole and a half-rotted rope ladder! Bark-Bark-SQUIRREL-Bark confirms that the smell is strongest around the pit, and the party cautiously descends into the Tunnels of Theft, which you find out is a maze of twisty passages, all different. Luckily, Bark-Bark-SQUIRREL-Bark is perfectly capable of following the scent, and it isn't too long before you come across a scarved rat. You can make out a mouth full of shiny teeth and a scarf in the dim candlelight, and you attempt to set up an interview with the putative thief.
"What is your name?"
"Goldteef becaufe I'fe got gold teef, fee?"
"What is your quest?"
"To feek the Holy Infifor, a toof of fuch fine it can cut fpace and time, that no prife would be high enough!"
"Who is your favorite bard?"
"That'f a hard queftion, but if I had to pick--"
"SQUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWK!"
Someone in your party has prematurely ended your interview with a deafening war-squawk! The recruits fall on the stunned rat, and you get the strangest sense of déjà vu before you, too, succumb to screaming bloodlust for Vexing and dubiOus reasons despIte your best intentions. When you ComE to your Senses after a very satisfying rampage, Goldteef and a handful of other scarved but probably not starved youths (three pigeons, two rats, a monkey, a magpie, and a raccoon) are tied to a wooden support in the middle of a room, and you are holding one scarf for each tied up tunnel-dweller. You look around and see telltale glimmers of metallic objects on tables placed along the walls of what appears to be a treasure chamber of some sort. What would you like to do with the prisoners, treasure, and hideout?
On an unrelated note, all of the scarves recovered are marked 59. You wonder if there are at least 58 other such bands of rowdy thieves across town. It would take a while to search through all of them for one particular holy relic even with everyone devoting all their waking hours to the mad hunt.
You also make a mental note that getting Bark-Bark-SQUIRREL-Bark hired would be very useul in case future jobs involve or otherwise benefit from odor-based searches.