More stuff to do! Oh my!

We checked the board once again, noticing a new request from Teacher Zuma, labeled Garden Preservation. He stated he was in dire need of assistance! We still had 2 requests from Teacher Janatimo still outstanding as well. We went to see Teacher Zuma. He told us that he enjoyed visiting the carnivorous gardens. Apparently, they had closed the garden because of an experiment in how they feed the plants at the garden. The researcher that caused this was named Natafoe. We excused ourselves and went to the gardens! We quickly found Natafoe. She showed us what she had been doing to find a meat alternative for the plants, explaining that she moved forward too quickly and several assistants were "absorbed" by the plants. She told us that the oozes she had been feeding them may be the cause of the plants becoming more violent. She explained there was a green, a black and a yellow ooze she had fed them. The plants actually changed colors & seemed to be trying to pull free of the ground. We made out way into the garden... Luckily, we had quite a few people who were good with plants in our group. This helped us avoid much of the hazards, while helping the plants where we could. We ended up not being able to save any "infected" plants, fought a bunch of oozes & found a chest under a bench in the garden. We returned the chest to Natafoe. She was happy to see it as this was her missing research case. She gave us a gold reward, promising to send along something more interesting to the school later. We returned to the school to report to Teacher Zuma. Once he learned that he could return to the gardens he pushed past us and rushed away, without rewarding us!
We decided to rest before looking into the other message board requests. However, on the way we heard rumors of a body washing up on the lake shore nearby. We decided to go see if this was the person we had helped "escape" the city. When we arrived we found Teacher Ot overseeing the scene. We told him we came to see if this was anyone we knew. He allowed us to see if we could identify it. It did indeed turn out to be Abeo, the man that we thought it might be. Looking closer we noticed that there was something lodged inside of a wound on his neck. It turned out to be a lockpick sized for a Grippli hand. Most likely belonging to Froglegs. We informed Teacher Ot about this and he told us to be safe & come back safely. We then went back to the dorms to rest for the rest. The next morning we asked around about the fires we had heard rumors about, but could not find any concrete leads to follow. We then went to see Teacher Janatimo. We told him about the body of Abeo washing up on the lake shore. He said he had not narrowed down which gambling establishment yet, but that once he did he would go with us. We then asked about the tasks he had posted on the message boards. He said the Buskers needed help, as they were being robbed. The criminals were very efficient. It was odd since noone robs Buskers to get rich! Buskers all over the city were being hit. We then asked about the "Tell a Tale" task. He told us that in 2 days we were all signed up for a tale telling contest at the Black-Crowned Cane Restaurant. We agreed to this and then went to see what we could find out about the problems the Buskers were having.
We headed back to the market where we had spoken with the Alchemist about the bad supplies. Moselani played the violin, Laraena recited historical verse, Orkbolt performed acrobatic feats, Gazzean attempted to blend in, watching the crowd & TIX3 accosted Buskers. It took about 3 hours, but eventually Gazzean noticed 2 shady folks in cloaks. They had reptilian tails sticking out below their cloaks. One of them cast invisibility, disappearing, but we were able to follow the other to the area where we had been shown the drop-off warehouse. At this point the 2nd lizardman also cast invisibility and disappeared. Orkbolt was able to follow the tracks he left to an area that backed onto a waterway. He recalled that this was an area where most small time criminals gathered. He suggested we speak to the thugs in the area. We found a young fellow that proved to be a shrewd negotiator, extorting much gold from us to get information that the folks we wanted were about a block away... We headed there. We quickly found 3 enemies to fight, including some nasty characters! We emerged victorious, but it was tight!