02.18.09 - The Drug Is In The Pasties

Location: Garba's Underground Cottage

Characters Involved: Darcy, Sivaine, Magramba, Harper

Darcy never made it to a bed. She must have been exhausted, or /something/, because by the looks of it the doe just passed out on the sofa. The bowl she was eating from is cradled in the curl of her arm and she's curled on her side, spoon in the other hand, bangs ruffled forward across her face. It's been a while, long past when any of them should have woken, and their host is gone. So is a lot of their stuff. The bags have been dug through, most of their supplies and personal possessions taken - and that which was left behind is scattered across the floor. The drugged state of sleep is only very, very slowly wearing off of Darcy, her muzzle and ears giving occasional flicks and twitches.

Sivaine is still at the table - or rather, sprawled on the floor beside it, with the sort of flopped posture that only being rolled about while unconscious or the very worst of theatrics can achieve. Her cloak and hair are askew, her expression one of shuttered blankness, her clothing mussed and wrinkled. One ear twitches, and she grimaces.

Harper's constitution is a little hardier than the smaller females... and so! He made it to a bed. Or, rather, just inside a bedroom. So he's no where in sight.

Flick flick twitch go Darcy's ears, little subtle motions. She makes a noise, "Nnnh," as wakefulness finally permeates her consciousness, and her muzzle crinkles along the top. Her eyes open, blink slowly, and for a moment she's rather like a reptile coming out of hibernation. "I don't think I've ever.. felt.. so... ... /groggy/," she mutters, rubbing both hands against her face. "Harp? .. Harper." Her head fills like it's filled with mud.

A sort of sighing sound escapes Sivaine. One foot twitches, toes flexing, and her eyes squint open. "N'n." The spacious cavern is gloomy; left untended, the fire's nearly dead, just a few straggling flames licking over ash-grey skeletons of logs. The mouse winces as she sits up, shoulders flexing, and as she gradually gains alertness her glowering expression isn't abating. This isn't right. There's a moment of silence, and then she curses.

Darcy's awareness is a little longer in coming. She tries to rise but her body is still kind of pliant and unresponsive, and she sways, fumbling one hand against the couch to stay upright. "We didn't lose Harp again did we..."

Well, there's still no answer from the old lug.

Darcy wobbles, looking around, taking a few steps. "Why's .. stuff ... nnh. Harper!" Is that his /foot/ she spies in the door to a bedroom?

No no, just a boot.

"Just ev'rything else," Sivaine fair growls in her groggy stupor, putting a paw to her head. This /headache./ "Darcy get over here." It's not a request. She grasps a chair and pulls herself upright, ears laid back with annoyance and more.

Darcy shuffles over, putting one hand against the doorframe and leaning in. She .. picks up a boot. Peers into the bedroom. "Harp?" And back at Sivaine, her eyes struggling to focus. "Siv. What. .. what."

Nope! Wrong bedroom.

Darcy stares at the boot. "I'm going mad. I thought this was attached to a whole person." She chucks it.

"Over here," Sivaine repeats, pinching the bridge of her muzzle. This /headache./ Her other paw migrates to her belly, cradling while she takes stock of the situation. "Just.. over here."

Darcy turns, shuffles back toward Sivaine. She knocks into a chair, grunts, and holds onto the back of it while peering at Sivaine. "I'm here. What."

There's a woody crash from one of the bedrooms, followed by another. An oath sounds loud in the close air of the subterranean dwelling.

Sivaine clamps down on Darcy's wrist. Not harshly, but very definitely. "Stay. Close to me." There /was/ a fire last night, and Sivaine angles in the direction she remembers housing the cheery hearthglow, but at the sounds her paw flies to her waist. Where her knife still sits. There's a silvery sound of drawn metal.

Darcy grunts. ".. get off. I need to find Harper." She shakes her arm a little, trying to detach the mouse, and her ears angle back at the sounds. ".. Harp? That you?"

There's an answering hiss as a beast draws their own weapon, though this one is significantly longer.

And still! No Harper.

Sivaine keeps a firm hold. "Shut up. I'm not having you stumbling around." She narrows her eyes in the gloom, edging for a wall with Darcy in tow. "Magramba?" There's an edge to her voice; it had /better/ be him.

Darcy gropes for her own dirk, and stumbles a little as she's kind of yanked. She bumps into Sivaine. "Hrk! Off, Siv!"

"Sivaine?" The answer is curious and distrustful. "Where are you?"

Darcy shakes her arm once again. "See! It's Mag. Let-go-let-go."

"Main room. I've got Darcy," Sivaine calls, ignoring Darcy's struggles other than bringing her arm up so they're locked from elbow to wrist. "We can't search for /anything/ in this light. Fire," she states, nearing the hearth.

Darcy /yanks/. "Siv I have the worst /headache/ of my life and if you don't stop treating me like a dibbun on a leash.."

"Where's Harper?" It's not a curious question, more like a 'send him here' question. "This closet thing is on top of me."

"It is /dark/ in a /strange place/ and we've been /robbed,/" Sivaine fairly snaps, setting her feet against the tug - then releasing. Whatever. "Don't know. Hold on a-" The mouse leans over, fumbling for the neatly stacked pile of logs she remembers from last night. Maybe. There's a woody clunk-clunk-clunk and a metallic CLANG, but a moment later she swings a stick up, one end starting to brightly burn. What it illuminates is a very irritated rodent. "Help me with the heavy lifting, Darcy."

"I don't see how dark-and-robbed equates to 'hold onto Darcy like a child'..!" Darcy grumbles, rubbing at her face again as she's let go. "We /have/ been robbed, haven't we. And drugged, obviously. Hi Mag." She smiles sourly and moves to the wardrobe-closet-thing that has keeled over on top of the squirrel, finding a spot to grip it.

"I think it was built to store lady badger's ball gowns." The construct has Magramba pinned at the waist. He lays his sword down and grabs on to help.

"Sorry," Sivaine apologizes after a pause. "Wrist-grabbing was a bit much. Just.. don't get separated from us? We'll all look for him together." She sheathes her knife to upend a wide-mouthed decorative vase full of dried flowers and stows the torch in their place before moving to the other edge, finding a fingerhold on some rather tasteless molding. "That would explain the scale of this place. On three?"

Darcy just nods. "One. Two. Three," she counts, and lifts.

As soon as the massive monstrosity is suspended a bit, the squirrel scoots his legs out. He sits on the floor, rubbing at the doubtless-bruised area.

"Clear?" Sivaine asks before lowering it again, rather less gently than she might in other situations. She studies Magramba in the flickering torchlight. "How're you?"

"Alive?" Darcy questions Magramba. "Good. Can we find Harper now.." With the aid of the light she wanders off to check the nearest bedroom.

"Angry, but what else is new?" Magramba collects his sword hastily and scrambles to keep up with the light, grabbing another branch from the hearth. The squirrel turns back to Siv. "Are you alright? Is /everything/ gone?"

"Darcy, will y- rrgh." Sivaine's expression is lost in the brief period of darkness, thankfully. "I'm.. /we./ Are fine. I'm hoping," she adds quietly. She follows after Magramba, drawing her knife again as they head down the hall. "Looked like a few things were left."

Harper watches Darcy as she walks into the room, past him! His arms and feet are tied and his mouth is gagged and he's lying on his side. He looks oh. So pleased. He thumps his foot against the ground, an attempt which has been ineffective to rouse them from the other room. Earth floors do not conduct sounds very well.

Darcy gets a few steps into the room, stops. Thump? She turns. "... oh my bloody mother. Hi?" She looks all different kinds of sympathetic as she goes to Harper's side, on her knees, and tugs the gag from his mouth. "Are you okay? Anything other than grumpy and disgruntled?" the doe asks, cutting through the rope that ties his hands, then his feet.

Magramba was following the glow of Darcy's torch, and so steps into the room as well. "/There/ you are."

Harper rolls over onto his back, with a faint grimace. His paw free, it goes up to rub tenderly at his head. "... I woke up while that /weasel/ was in here. He clocked me over the head," he mutters. "Where the hell were you guys?"

"Drugged," says Sivaine, offering a paw to the buck. "Actual weasel or insult?"

Darcy's ears lay back. "Passed out. He drugged--.. dammit. Siv." She grunts, shaking her head, and gestures at the mouse. "You.. need to drink a lot of water, okay?"

Sivaine paw withdraws a fraction, posture stilling. "... ..what?" She probably shouldn't have that look on her face when she's leaning over Harper with a knife. "I am going to /kill him./"

"Just. Drink water," Darcy says stiffly. "The sooner the drug's out of your system the better."

Harper eyes Siv and that knife. Aheh. "... He drugged you?" His brow furrows. "Figurative weasel. Not actual. Weasel in vole's clothing." Grr face! He slowly stands, rubbing at his head. Sigh. He loses more brain cells this way.

"The food. The food was drugged, or at least some of it. /He/ was eating stew, though..." Darcy says, sinking to her rump, rubbing her face with her hands. "Most of our stuff's gone. My head hurts."

"I felt kind of sluggish, but... I thought that was just the walkin'," Harper reasons. Rubs at his head some more. He looks to Siv. "You all right?" he queries, with a flickering glance to her midsection.

Sivaine just closes her eyes and worries at her lower lip. "All of us. When you go into the fairy mound, neither eat nor drink.. /stupid,/" she hisses. Then she exhales and looks around at them. "Let's just.. poke up the fire. Find water. Take stock of what's left." She turns to head back to the main room.

"... the drug is in the pasties," Darcy mutters, shaking her head. One hand cradles against it, and her eyes flick up to Harper. "How far are we to the first village you had in mind..?"

"A day's walk?" Harper considers a moment, eyes still worried on Sivaine. "You're going to sit down, Siv," he calls after her.

And then he's heading towards the door to the main room, as well.

Darcy gets slowly to her feet, hands ruffling into her hair, and follows. "Make her sit down, and find some water. The rest of us can do the work. You hear me Siv?" she aims at the mouse. "Sit, and drink. Now."

Darcy then says to Harper, "We should get to that village. We need supplies."

Magramba puts the sword away now, and takes his torch back with him to the main room. "I'll take care of the fire."

"Nh," replies Sivaine, an unhappy and frustrated little sound. She's already sitting, cross-legged on the floor near her dismantled pack while she shrugs off her heavy cloak.

"Any food to her as well," Harper adds, moving into the main room. He scrubs a paw over his face. "Aye," he agrees. "I'd like to stay here and have a word with that vole, but who knows when or if he'd be back..."

Darcy shakes her head, going to find her satchel. Things have been dumped out of it and some of the contents are missing. She makes a face. "My healing kit's gone. .. and don't bother. He probably has half a dozen places like this around, for luring travelers in. We'll never see /him/ again.."

"And what will we use to buy them?" Sivane is turning her cloak over in her paws, going through inside pockets with a furrowed brow to stave off.. something.

"I have a few coins I keep close to me." Magramba squats in front of the hearth, rolling the coals about.

Darcy just glares downward, putting what she has left back in her satchel. "How many days are we from Redwall? .. and how many days from the mountain, Harp?"

"They'll outfit a Brother of the Abbey on official business," Harper points out. And then goes very still. And curses very loudly and turns, racing back into the bedroom.

Darcy blinks, head lifting. "... Harp? What's wrong?"

Several seconds later, sounding more despondent than should be allowed... "They're /gone/... /Gone/."

Darcy aims for the bedroom, leaving her satchel there. She leans into the doorframe. ".. what's gone?"

Sivaine pauses, and fishes out something hidden in her fist, which she raises to her muzzle with a sigh of relief. "About a week, and- ..what's gone?"

Harper is walking back out as Darcy comes over. He stops. Looks bereft. "The records... the Abbey records... that I brought to exchange with Sala... the irreplaceable records that I brought instead of the copy I didn't bring the COPY why didn't I bring the COPY?"

Sivaine utters a heartfelt little 'nrk.'

Sivaine asks, "But there /is/ a copy? Harper?"

Darcy cringes, and reaches out to grasp at his forearm. She squeezes. "Harp.. we'll sort it all out..."

Harper nods, numbly. "I made one out before we left... but they were journals from an old Colonel while they were staying at the Abbey, so I thought... they should have the original..." He looks around, vaguely. You'd think he'd lost his mother or something.

Darcy huffs a breath out through her nostrils. "You want to .. just forget the trip for now? Go after the guy, try to track him down and get the stuff back?"

"Which is.." Sivaine's ears droop. "Well. What a literate thief," she muffles into her fist, and slips her ring on. "If he knows this place well enough by night? I don't know that we could find him. ..and we don't have the resources to stay long-" She scruffs at her headfur and keeps sorting through what's left of her things.

"What if he didn't know what they were and just... Kindling?" His eyes have gone squinty around the edges, his eyes going to the fireplace. "What if he's just going to... feed them page by page.. by page... for /kindling/?" A Recorder's worst nightmare.

Not to mention an academic's. Sivaine twitches. "Harper. Stop telling scary stories."

Darcy cringes again. Her grip on Harper's arm tightens. "They'll turn up. Things like that have a way of.. turning up. But we can't just /sit/ here so you have to decide. Are we going after him? Are we continuing to Sala, going back to the abbey? What."

Harper shakes his head, slowly, walking over to the fireplace. He drops down onto his knees and his paws go out, reaching for the ashes. To sort through. "He /wouldn't/... who would /do/ that. Siv. Siv, but. Siv he /could/ have." His eyes have alit on something that looks very distinctly like the curled and singed edge of a piece of paper. "... No way we'll find him," he mutters in half-answer to Darcy.

Darcy asks, "Do you want to go back then?"

"That was a good signaling mirror," Sivaine mutters, rooting through her pack. She finds her water gourd and shakes it critically, hearing a slosh. "He could have and it happens but /don't/-" Oh man, Harper, you're freaking her out too. "Just. Sutton. Harper. Forget it for a minute and answer Darcy."

Sivaine asks, "Abbey? Mountain?"

Harper grimaces. "... Mountain. I have to. To apologize. I-" His head hangs.

"Harper," Darcy murmurs, tone gravelly, comforting. She crouches next to him in front of the fireplace, one hand on his shoulder. "... it's not your fault."

"All right. You have the copy. You can copy it out again and it won't be the first edition but the /words/ are the same.." She glances at the two hares, then twitches her nose at a lack of sewing kit. No point searching for the bedroll or tent.

Harper's head slowly lifts. He sighs, nods. "So are we all goin' on or just one, t'bring back supplies...? I could run it..."

"No. We all go. We don't split up." Sivaine sounds very firm about this.

".. well I'm certainly going with you," Darcy says, hand dropping from Harper's shoulder. She looks at Siv, nods. "We're close enough to the town. We'll make it there, get supplies, stop a few days maybe. To recuperate, right?"

Harper nods again. "... Right. Right. Okay. We all go. Well, let's gather up what's left. I'm going to check if there's anything in the pantry." He rises, looks around, seeking out the most likely room for this. He heads towards it.

"No point in staying here, and you'll be an easy target carrying it all." Sivaine uncorks her water gourd and has a sip, then another. "Check for drugs!" she calls.

Darcy rises as well, going back to her satchel, finishing packing her things away. "Keep drinking, Siv, I don't care if you piss every quarter-mile." Then something occurs to her. "... Harper. What sort of village is it?"

Harper seems to have found the pantry! He stays in there a bit. "... There's not much here," he calls out. "Mostly spoiled..." And then. "Brewer's village."

Darcy looks a few notches more happy than she did a moment ago! "... brilliant."

Sivaine's ears flick backward and she mutters something. Then shrugs. Eh. Then gets a look on her face. 'Oh god,' it says. She tips the gourd back.

"If you two go off to booze, leave the supplies with me?" That's all she asks. Really.

"That shouldn't be an /if/ statement, Siv," Darcy says with a grin. "We /will/ go off to booze. And it will be fabulous. See, Harp! We can still enjoy this trip."

Harper's ears flatten a little. "Darcy, we don't have any - or not much - money. They'll give us supplies, not free /booze/."

Darcy lifts her brows. "They might not give /you/ free booze. I happen to be rather good at getting drinks bought for me, however."

Harper just gives Darcy a look. Doesn't say anything. He rubs his paw over his face, takes a few steps towards the ladder leading up.

Sivaine allows herself a funny, faint kind of smile, nodding slightly to herself in agreement with Harper. She pulls the gourd away and squints at the level of liquid left. Hrm. "You're the one dragging her back," she comments to Harper, sorting through the scattered things she can reach from where she sits and putting them back into her pack.

Darcy snickers a little, the grin still in place. She flicks shut the swivel-lock on her bag and follows Harper. "Don't you look at me like that, Mister Sutton. As soon as the grumpy wears off you'll have fun same as me."

A call echoes down from above. "It's about... Teatime."

Sivaine says, "Please say there's tea."

"If you c'n steep rotten potatoes," Harper murmurs, half to himself. He looks upward at the sliver of light, mostly blocked by squirrel. "Happen t'run into any voles carryin' a bunch of papers?" he asks. Mostly rhetorically.

Somewhere in the vicinity of the entry hole, Siv's halberd lies on the floor for unsuspecting feet. Apparently it was too heavy and sharp to safety purloin.

Darcy is the one who trods on it - thankfully she has boots on. Still it /hurts/ and she yelps, stepping backward and to the side, sort of colliding with Harper. He is ever in her way. "/Dammit/.. Siv your stick's over here."

Sivaine's ears perk and she actually smiles for the first time today. "Oh /wonderful./" Pause. "Are you hurt?"

"He's probably got my bow 'n' arrows," Harper mutters darkly... He sniffs. "He left the smell of frogs. How kind of him." He's still peering upward, waiting for Mag's descent.

"If I say yes can someone carry me?" Darcy says, managing good humor. "I'm fine. Just smarts a bit. Harp, the next stream we come to ... you are going swimming."

"No, I was down there, remember?" It seems the squirrel's not coming down.

"I think you count as heavy lifting. All right. Good." Sivaine rises carefully and goes about collecting the last few scattered items - not many - from the floor. "Can we make the town by nightfall?"

"... I don't think so. It'll be a coupla hours past," Harper has the misfortunate of reporting.

"Nrf," Sivaine mutters. "We could spend the night here. Forage. Make a fresh start in the morning. It'd be another night with couches."

Darcy shakes her head. "I'd rather leave, even if we have to hike in the dark for a few hours. Couches be damned."

"Who needs a couch when she c'n fall asleep drunk?" Harper mutters.

Darcy gives Harper a look.

"In the back of an alley because everything's closed and we can't pay the inn fees," Sivaine adds.

Now the same look is shot at Sivaine. "Why'd you bring me along, Harp?" she mutters at him, reaching to grasp a rung and start up the ladder. "Convenient scapegoat?" Her tone is a little chilly.

"I know the village, Siv. We won't end up in an alley," Harper says patiently. He looks back at her. "If we travel quick and don't stop - it's not like we have any food to eat, anyway - we might just make it." He looks after Darcy. Doesn't say anything.

Magramba's voice floats down the shaft. "Not so. I took the liberty of foraging a bit, and I've already gathered some delightfully nourishing roots."

Sivaine slings her pack over her shoulders; it's disappointingly light and things jostle inside loosely. "'Might just,'" she repeats, doubtful but not protesting as she trails over, glancing to Darcy for a moment. "Is this the brewer's village I'm thinking of? ..annual grape-stomping competition and .. what was that ridiculous. Vineyard Virgin crowning?"

Harper glances back at Siv as he climbs onto the first wrung. "The very same," he agrees.

Darcy pauses halfway up the ladder, glancing back. "Hey. I could win that!" She grins.

"Oh. /That/ place." Sivaine grins, very faintly, and pulls her halberd upright. "I'll feed this up? Blunt end first." Snort.

Sivaine says, "It's not until summer. You'll have to settle for barroom beauty."

Darcy reaches the top of the ladder and steps out. She glances down, and leans over, one hand extended down to take the halberd. "Barroom beauty is a given. We might even run into someone I know. Not my /dad/ thankfully."

Harper just snorts. "They have dancing, too." And then he's up on the surface, lying flat on the ground and reaching down for the halberd.

Magramba is seated off to the side, a small pile of edible things in front of him. "I found food."

The metal-capped end wobbles and wavers a bit, knocking against the sides of the hole, but it's definitely not pointy.

Darcy lets Harper manage the halberd, then. She steps back. "I'm sure dancing is just one more thing you're not very good at," she teases the buck.

"Guess you'll just have to find out," Harper quips back. And then the halberd's up. "Food?" he looks around at Magramba. Eyes the pile of edible things. Looks a little crestfallen. Edible doesn't mean palatable.

Darcy sorts through her bag as she stands waiting for Sivaine to ascend. "... bugger it all, my /valerian/..!"

Magramba glares at the look on the buck's face. "Look, I didn't say it was exquisite cuisine. I said it was food." The pile is mostly roots. Nearly all roots, actually. "It's too early for fruits and berries."

Magramba says, "With some boiling, we can have a stew of sorts. And I managed to keep some tea leaves in a pouch in my clothing." The squirrel produces it proudly. "Packs scream 'steal me.'"

Once the halberd is clear, Sivaine makes her way up. "That tent was like an old friend," she comments to no one in particular. "I grew up in that tent. /Bugger him./" The mouse quirks a brow at the assortment, picking up a rather wrinkly dirt-covered tuber. "Hn."

Harper makes a rather pleased sound in answer to Darcy's pronouncement.

Darcy digs through her bag with an expression of increasing annoyance. "Don't you act all smug and triumphant!" she grumps at Harper, giving him a mild glare. "Next time you /need/ it I'll make sure you've got no liquor anywhere. Don't /test/ me. Arse." And yet she grins with the last few words, and ends of just chuckling.

As for Magramba, "Do you realize that most of what I've eaten over the past couple of days... has just been edible? Or drugged. Or. Drugged." Yeah. Harper rubs a paw over his face. "We need t'get goin' if we're going t'make it.

"Yes. Let's. Please," Darcy mutters. "Are we ready? Don't want to set the place on fire or something?" She pauses. "I wonder what an underground house would look like on fire..."

"Have anything to boil them in?" Sivaine asks, brushing some dirt from the root.

"Rat-face Vole-boy might." Magramba glances over at Darcy. "Actually, I think we should this time."

Sivaine eyes the hole she just climbed out of. "It's tempting," she admits.

".. before we get back to Redwall," Darcy says firmly, "I /will/ set a house on fire."

Magramba stands up, straightens his clothes. "C'mon. We'll get anything useful and set the place ablaze." He beckons to Darcy and puts his foot on the first rung.

Harper shakes his head. "Don't. We c'n just let the Patrol know about it. 'Tis a nice home. Who knows who it /actually/ belonged to..."

Darcy crinkles her nose, looking begrudging. "It /is/ nice. It's not .. rotting and infested. We'll find a better place to burn."

Magramba sighs, and descends into the hole. "Fine, have it your way. But I'm getting whatever looks good. He /owes/ me."

Sivaine winces, a paw going to her belly. "Let's just go."

"Yes. Let's. Mag, we're wasting daylight," Darcy mutters. Her eyes flick to Sivaine, questioning.

Magramba says, "At least a pot. I want a pot."

You say, "You have half a minute to get a pot before we leave without you."

"Yes. Get a pot." Sivaine lays her ears back and kneels to retrieve her weapon.

Magramba's voice echoes back up the hole. "Just go, I'll catch up."

Harper doesn't have to be told twice. "Sounds good t'me."

"Good. Fine. Harp, we're following you." Darcy turns away from the dwelling's entrance, and her nose twitches. "... you still smell."

"You are a brilliant observationist," Harper mutters. And takes the lead.

"And you're just an arse. Aren't we well suited," Darcy mutters, giving Harper a light push in the back as she follows behind him.

After a moment, Sivaine rouses herself and follows after.