If Things Go South
✧ ✧ Reavers ✧ ✧
- Bafaloukos, Adyna, Kevi, Jacksor
- Black Gull Tavern
Bafaloukos is perched at a hightop table, chowing something that looks like roast hen.
Adyna sits perched on a stool at the bar, halfway between `drunk' and `asleep'. No pretensions of grace or nobility today.
As if she ever had any.
Bafaloukos studies the stoat, still wrist-deep in a chicken that is being rapidly reduced to bones and burned skin bits. He bites the fat end off a wing bone, sucks out its marrow and then, ever mischievous, launches it at the back of Adyna's head.
There's a noticeable delay before Adyna turns a death glare on - oh. She backs down from the unspoken promise to poison him in his sleep.
Kevi comes over to Baf's table, paws on hips, "You know that I hadn't seen my brother in forever--you could have told me he was in Collisel! Did you know?" She looks agitatedly on as the wing gets launched into the air. "Huh. You know, cooked chickens actually make decent casings for black powder grenades."
"You foxes 'n' y'r explosions," Jaksor grouches, rolling a keg of something good up from below with his hook-hand. "Always tryin' t' figure out how t' bedevil household objects 'n' ruin a perfectly good chicken."
Did he know? Bafaloukos' shoulders lurch in a disinterested shrug. He does not stop eating, at least until Jaksor lumps him in with the disfigured sibs. "Hey now," he protests, "I 'ad nothin' t'do with it. I like to eat my chickens and set m'fires the old fashioned way."
Kevi grins. "You, unresourceful and dull? Wouldn't have imagined it. Well, maybe the twerp 'as finally grown up then. Just.. I dunno, kind of, uh.. maybe.. miss him a tiny, insignificant amount." She mumbles the last parts, clearing her throat, "Anyway, doesn't matter if you knew. Need another drink?" She turns to Jaksor, "You stealin' from the tavern's stores, Jakkie? Tsk tsk."
Jaksor shakes his head, shoving the keg up the last edge of the ramp with a grunt. "No- just doin' m'ever-lovin' part t' keep a roof over our heads till we get th', uh, more... substantial aspects of our business operational." You know, like the scamming, extortion, and racketeering.
Bafaloukos decides to show the vixen just how dull and unresourceful he can be. Turning to old tricks, he lobs a chicken ribcage and the sundry organs still attached to it at her new frock. "A hero among us," he sings of Jaksor, wiping grease from his mouth before bringing that hand to salute.
Kevi is turned around and shrieks when it hits her, right on the bottom, a huge greasy stain exploding there on the white fabric, "You.. you savage! And I was the one wearing a loincloth not a season ago! Well, I'm not cleaning this up--and see if you don't order a drink at some point and find it tasting funny!"
Laughing, a grating, scratching noise that hardly anyone would describe as 'pleasant,' Jaksor maneuvers the barrel into position behind the bar, his thews straining mightily as he struggles not only to lift the beverage but also to control it using his hook. It's not nearly as dextrous as fingers, after all. "See, foxes, wastin' good chickens," he mutters.
Bafaloukos really tries to to not laugh as Kevi berates him; truly he does! But there is something about an angry woman with poultry grease smeared on her clothes that deeply tickles the old fox. "Aw--take it easy on me, love. Ye' act like there ain't a market half a day's walk north or south o' here. Th' company can buy ya' a fresh gown. Or ten." He then pauses, sucking at the chicken bits stuck among his fangs. "So either o' you two explored that ol' funny tunnel downstairs?"
The insulted vixen is looking over her shoulder with tail lifted to see the stain, and only catches part of what Baf says, namely the last part, "Tunnel? What in Mossflower.. ugh! Never gonna come out!" She stops fidgeting and examining the stain, "No, I haven't even noticed a tunnel. Tunnel where? There was a door that seemed drafty underneath; I always thought it was to keep some o' the booze chilled to temperature."
"No reason it couldn't be both," Jaksor sniffs, scratching gingerly at his shoulderblades with his hook. "Ain't gone down it yet, though."
Bafaloukos tilts his stool precariously onto two legs, his grip on the edge of the hightop the only thing to keep him from tumbling down. He rocks. "Aye. That's the one," the tod tells Kevi. "I pried th' door open a couple days ago. Didn't have a torch so after I got away from the cellar light I couldn't see spit 'n turned back. Runs deep, though." His tail flicks with impish curiosity. "Talked t' an old timer here who spoke of brewers' routes strewn beneath the forest."
Kevi doesn't mind this side of her vulpine companion, and it seems to have a calming effect after all the hijinx and indifference toward her brother, "That's very curious. See, I'd 'ave done it m'self, but I kind of didn't want to piss off the staff. Could you.. I dunno.." She comes closer, fixing something on the fox's collar, "Show a girl what's down there? Give me the tour o' this tunnel you set about explorin'? Be interesting to see what's there at the end, right?"
"Got some candles in the back, I seen," Jaksor offers helpfully, though whether he has a lantern attachment for his hook-arm has yet to be discovered. "Might could take us somewhere useful, get us a way outta here if things go really south."
Bafaloukos flinches. He does it every time she touches him, this one no exception; he tightens his hold on the table. Though the fox sputters some non-words in reply to Kevi, he recovers for Jaksor, saying, "An' we're no strangers t' real south." Then a grin, as Bafaloukos fondly remembers their many masterful getaways. "S'pose I should get my explorin' boots." His feet are still bare from when last we saw him.
The intrigued vixen can certainly imagine things going south if she doesn't pay the gang of stoats currently on her case. She leans in close, motioning Jaksor over, "So am I gettin' the hint right that we may just decide to take o'er this tunnel an' use it for ourselves? Maybe hire, if that's the word, some local moles to dig it out further an' use to stow loot?"
"Depends what's down there," Jaksor replies, shrugging noncommittally and spreading his paws. "If th' roof is half t' cavin' in, don't 'spect we'll do much with it at all, but if it looks good 'n' goes somewhere..." A thoughtful frown creases his face. "...don't see no harm in it."
Returning his stool to all four legs with an unceremonious clonk, Bafaloukos hops off and slinks up the stairs. Before long, he returns, navigating the final steps on one foot as he pulls the dang flappy boot on for real this time. He also wears his sword, because it is an uncharted, pitch black, spookily subterranean place, after all. Gold eyes dart from polecat to vixen, ready.
"We're really doing this now? Well, this is just about the most unsuitable thing I could wear.. I have the loincloth on under, so I'll ditch everything when we get down there." She seems to say this in particular to Bafaloukos, with a content smirk. "Ready otherwise."
Jaksor satisfies himself by shoving a dagger into his belt. He does have the hook, after all. "Which room's this door in, anyway?" the polecat muses, making his way around the counter. "Been too long since we had a good tunnel to creep around in."
"Th' side room--off th' cellar." Turns out the tavern is rife with architectural quirks. Bafaloukos trots after the polecat, maneuvering past him to dip into the kitchen. "I'll show ye'." His head briefly reappears at the kitchen doorframe. "Kevi! Candles!" And just to be sure: "Not th' exploding ones!"
Kevi goes into the back room to gather the candles, rummaging around for lanterns in which to put them. Well... she's the only one currently on duty who'd have occasion to be in the back room so.. she takes the one lantern in the room off of the wall, discreetly keeping it below bar-level as she crosses toward the kitchen. "We'd better make it back before next shift..."
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