Help with Mission plan?

So I’m running an MG game for my 9-year-old godsons (twins) and their parents. It’s my way of working to shape them into the appropriate type of nerd, just like me. They have plenty of sports uncles.

Anyway, I’m looking for help figuring out an aspect of the next mission for them.

Basically, they’re in Port Sumac, which is suffering under flooding (stolen from someone else’s thread here, mostly). Since one of the mice is from port Sumac, I’m going to introduce some issues while they’re there.

Specifically, someone has found tunnels underneath (logic is for other sorts of people) with possible resources. Rather than share their found, they’ve taken to blasting away to get as much as they can for themselves before anyone else finds out. This is leading to various issues in the town above.

The beginning of the mission tomorrow will be the immediate effects of a disastrous blast, with effects akin to a small earthquake. It will end up setting fire to the administrative area of the town, as well as the tiny library in the town (the head archivist is one guardmouse’s mother).

With that in mind, I’m thinking of showing them some of the bizarre nature of Conflicts by making the saving of the area/putting out the fire a Conflict, with the guardmice vs. the fire. I’m not sure which skills to use for this, though. Seems obvious that Attack would be putting out the fire, Defend would be working to prevent the fire from damaging things, with Feint being… um… and Maneuver being fairly easy to figure out.

Any ideas? Is this just a bad idea?

It’s a great idea. Some skills I could see being useful are survivalist, laborer, carpenter, persuader, scientist. Also Health of course.

It’s a cool idea, but try to start by presenting them with a problem they can tackle. “Oh no, a fire’s broken out in the Port! Help or the town will be lost!”
Save the investigations and extra content for the Players’ Turn. If they care, they can ask around to see what started the fire and discover the tunnels, etc.

Mouse Guard is all about starting off with action.