Of Course it's Safe! Or, How to Contact a Qualified Tree-Whiffler

Players

- Krystal

- Mirabella

-Castus

Begins in Cavern Hole

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Krystal is sitting at one of the far tables and eatting her oatmeal with some fresh fruit and nuts. Her "friend" a bee, is crawling on the table top near her bowl andshe is carefull not to bump into the bee.

Although she still walks with a limp, when Mirabella comes gimping into the room it is without her cane, and her foot and ankle are unwrapped. She's looking much like her former self, and a large smile is freely distributed to anyone who might be in range. Her eyes light on Krystal, and the squirrel gets a positively glowing beam from the pretty mousemaid. "Miss Krystal!" Mira's voice chimes out brightly across the space between them, and a cheery wave goes up to greet her friend. "It's ever so wonderful to see you today!"

Krystal smiles "Hello there, you seem in a good mood today. My day is good today so far and its not raining so thats nice as well"

"Oh, I'm /always/ in a good mood when my friends are around," Mirabella coos, just now remembering the basket she's carrying in her other paw. "I see you're eating breakfast. Breakfast is just frightfully delicious today, Brother Friar and his helpers are really just the most wonderful cooks that I've ever seen." She smiles warmly, coming closer and setting her basket on the table, making a marked point of steering clear of the bee.

Krystal nods, the bee on the table moves and flies ontoKrystal and then into a pocket she has, "It will be fall soon and the abbey will be busy gathering crops and I will help with gathering honey, but not all the honey as some must be saved for the bees"

Mirabella nods enthusiastically, tucking her paws into the slit pockets around her hips. "Autumn is a positively marvelous time of year. I love watching all the leaves and colors change from green to red, and yellow, and orange. I think it'

"I think it's just wondrous." The mousemaid closes her eyes to revel in the thought, letting her imagination festoon her with colorful leaves. When she opens her eyes again, she grins at the squirrel, pointing at the pocket the bee vanished into. "And all that wonderful honey, of course."

Krystal smiles, she seems to not be bothered by the bee at all"Yes honey for many things..cooking, and you can use honey in healing as well, as well as the bees wax for candles and I know someone who uses it on bow strings."

"Oh yes, it's just terribly useful stuff," Mirabella agrees, nodding still, her short tresses bouncing around her pretty head as she does so. "You know, I'm going out into the woods just now to look for some herbs we don't grow in our garden. Would you like to come with me?"

Krystal blinks "Into the woods? Is that safe to do so? Then again maybe there is some wild honey in the woods."

"Of course it's safe!" Mirabella laughs softly at the inclination that it could be anything otherwise, a gentle tinkling sound that rings in the cavernous space. "This is Redwall, after all. The woods around here are just frightfully safe, thanks to our guards and whatnot." Not always true, but the mousemaid's naivete is charming, in a way.

Krystal smiles "That is true, the guards do help keep trouble away and we woudl not have to go too far."

"Let's go then!" Mirabella grabs her basket up off the table, positively wriggling with excitement. "There's a whole forest of adventure just waiting for us, Miss Krystal!" The mousemaid makes for the kitchen door, a bounce in her step despite the shambling limp. Jul 27, 2015 at 7:10 a.m.

Krystal at first seems she is unsure on followingand then she gos ahead and follows her on out the door.Well least it doesn't look like rain today.

"I just love going outside the walls," Mirabella chatters as she enters the kitchen, the squirrelmaid in tow. "I love the Abbey more than anything, and it's such a wonderful place to live, but it's terribly nice to get outside every now and then, don't you think?"

Krystal says, "I have not been outside too much, the one trip was the first time and there was one place that was very scary, that vermin village Ferravale. Usuallly I stay inside the abbey""

The pair practically burst out of the kitchen onto the path, Mirabella in the lead. "I'm not sure about that place. I've always heard dreadfully nasty things about it," the mousemaid opines, looking a bit concerned for once. "I always worry when my friends have to go there."

Krystal nods as she speaks "It is mostly vermin, and I think the only reason no one seemed to try and harm us was because the cat in charge made th others leave us alone. It was hard to sleep at night there, even if it was only a couple days time there. I liked the otter camp much better, though the food was spicy."

Mirabella jimmies the latch of the wallgate, and soon the pair are outside the walls, heading for the forest, the mousemaid swinging her basket cheerily. "I just /love/ the otter's spicy food," she comments, turning over her shoulder to look at the squirrel. "It's so hot and you just feel as if your mouth is about to burn right up!"

Krystal chuckles, "I wonder how the otters handle eatting it, some add so much of it its like s little fish a lot of hotroot. But they are funny sometimes" She walks along and looks at the trees as they pass them and smiles more.

(Unfortunately, some pieces of this story have been lost to the ages. Krystal and Mira discuss their culinary preferences and spy a rare herb, Lady’s Mantle, growing high in a tree.)

Meanwhile Mirabella has already grounded her basket and begun to clamber up the side of the tree, apparently forgetting about her injury in her excitement. She makes it to the first limb, scrabbling up and over, her dress catching on the rough bark as she goes. "It's a medicinal herb," she calls out, getting to her feet where she teeters off-balance on the branch. "Very useful."

Krystal frowns "Should you realy be climbing, maybe I should get it fir you?"She looks worried and goes to climb the tree to try and get the herb for the mousemaid"You wouldn;t want to fall after all"

"We. need. this. herb," Mirabella grunts in her most dulcet tones, struggling up to the next branch, just out of reach of the herb and its mossy nesting place. The mousemaid hangs gamely onto the bark, reaching out with her other arm to try to nab the little plant, but missing on her first try.

Krystal goes just above her and manages to get the herbs and some moss as well and hangs upside down to offer it to the mousemaid and smiles."Here....I think I got it all"

Mirabella looks a bit disappointed as she accepts the herbs, ears drooping as she gives a soft "oh", taking them from the squirrel. "Thank you." She turns to look down the way she came, but doesn't try to descend; instead, she just... looks. "Uh. How do we get down?"

Krystal looks down as she is still hanging upside down"Ummm...slowly I guess?" She says and frowns, this is the first time she has really been upside down and she slowly reaches for the trunk and gets to the lower branch, now upright again.

"Well first of all," a voice calls up, "you don't climb trees you're not sure you can get /up./" Castus is several branches back down, peering up at the others as he leans on the trunk. "I wouldn't try a maze like this on a good day. Hello Mira," he says, favoring the mousemaid with a charming smile and then tugging his forelock at Krystal. "Miss. You look like you're in need of help."

"Oh!" It's Mirabella's turn to be surprised by Castus' appearance this time, and the shock nearly sends the mousemaid tumbling from the tree. Her arms windmill wildly before latching onto the trunk, anchoring herself to the bark and giving the tree a big friendly hug. "Mr. Castus! Goodness, you gave me a fright. How long have you been watching us?"

Krystal frowns as her friend falls and she goes to carefully slip down,gee it seemed so easy to go up but down is another issue and she doesnt go climbing trees that often,she tests on branch and then another as she slowly gets down more, she eeps as the tip of her tail gets stuck in some annoying smaller branches and tugs onto it to stumble backwards, luckly onto a bigger branch, once the tail tip is free and frowns as now the tip of her tail is not so bushy anymore.

"Oh, long enough to realize that you both made a mistake!" Castus says with a cheeky grin. "When it comes to trees, you should refer to an expert." He unfurls a spool of rope he had wound around his shoulders. "Forutnately, I was out here on a job and came prepared. Miss, you may not want to go *that* way, it's a tangle," he warns Krystal. "You realize some of those branches are dead, I hope. Don't move too much!"

Mirabella seems a bit too caught up in her present predicament to be wound in by Castus's charm, missing his grin entirely as her face is firmly planted against the side of the trunk. The rope goes unnoticed as well. "Just... just please help me get down, Mr. Castus," she politely requests, managing not to devolve into panic.

Krystal steps onto one of the dead branches just as he says this "Its ok I..." Her eyes go wide and she screams as she finds a bad faster way down from the tree, she hits one branch on the way down and then another and the thing that stops her is her footpaw gets stuck in a tangle of branches now and she shivers as she is once more upside down, this time not her own doing.

"It is *not* okay! No, wait, I said DON'T-!" Castus can only gape as Krystal goes down like a stone. "This time, do NOT move!" he barks, latching onto the tree trunk and darting up the very same tree he just told everyone not to even try climbing. He moves with purpose until he reaches Krystal's level, quickly tossing his rope around a higher branch and then tossing the other end to Krystal. "Grab that and pull yourself up," he commands her. "I'll be out to untangle you in a moment... how are you doing, Mira? Hanging in there?"

Krystal gets the rope and gulps as this is sad since she is a squirrel, but she is one unuse to a lot of climbing also, She does go to pull onto the rope and manages to pull herself up somewhat till she is more upright, though her footpaw is still stuck in the branches.

"I am hanging in there," comes Mirabella's voice, the mousemaid clutching the trunk of the tree even more tightly than before after watching Krystal's ill-fated tumble.

"All right," Castus huffs as he helps pull Krystal into a more or less standing position. "Now you'll be hanging by the rope when I do this," Castus says. "Use it to climb across that branch to the other tree. She's much more stable." He inchworms his way across the tangle of old limbs, his tongue sticking out in concentration. The branches creak and sag worryingly. "This is going to happen rather fast," he tells Krystal, wrapping his paws around the branches. "There's a lot of tension on that rope. I'll lever these apart, your footpaw will come loose." He glances up at Krystal while he hangs upside-down. "Do *not* let go. Ready?" Or not, here she comes. "And... *heave!*" Muscles straining he pulls the branches as far as he can, hopefully releasing Krystal without her swinging off into oblivion...

Krystal hangs onto the rope tightlyand eeeps as she almsot falls or least feels like she is, and maybe she did a little ways eith the rope. She shivers and does as she is told as a way to get to the more stable tree. Her footpaw is swollen and there is a couple deep cuts from the fall on her lower leg, she frowns but manages to get to a safe areaand most likely can get down a lot better, and slowly since she is injured.

Castus gets a wee bit overconfident after his first rescue. He swungs up on the very precarious branches he was just so cautious about. There's a snap and a crack. "Uh oh." He reaches up for the rope he used to secure Krystal and hops up just in time to watch *both* branches collapse noisily, swinging down like a great pendulum and creating a great cleared space between the trees, passing Krystal on the way down in a flurry of leaves and sticks. "... Well," says Castus when the ruckus ends. "Don't worry Mira! We weren't gonna use those anyway!"

"Oh my goodness gracious!" Mirabella gushes from her perch/clutch, letting go with one paw in order to point at Krystal's injured leg. "Miss Krystal! Your leg!" Then Castus commences with further shenanigans. "...Just please get me down."

Krystal slowly and painfully gets down and looks at her swollen footpaw and the couple deep and bleeding cuts on her lower leg. She frowns and looks up at the messof twisted branches and how high she felll the first time and frowns more, this has been a bad morning and she sways and her eyes close as she passses out cold. Yes she is alive she just passed out!

Mirabella points down at the squirrelmaid from up in the tree. "Is she dead?"

"Just keep breathing. And stop looking down!" Castus calls back, pulling the rope to himself again. "And she's not /dead./ I've seen dead beasts before and that's not dead. " He's pretty sure she isn't. He's never heard of anyone dying from a bruised paw. "All right, your turn." He decides to save a little time by performing another feat of derring-do, shimmying along the /even thinner branches/ above Mira's level to take a flying leap onto the opposite tree. His footpaw slips at the last moment and he more tumbles than lands gracefully into a crook between trunk and branch, showering Mira with loose leaves. Castus grunts. "Good thing Magramba isn't watching. He'd kill me for being this cavalier," he says as he begins the slow, wandering climb between branches *far* too thinly spaced for his liking down to Mira. "Actually, scratch that. He'd let the tree kill me."

"She's dead," Mirabella decides, turning grimly back to the tree and hugging it tightly. "She's dead, and you killed her," she continues, her voice rising in pitch rather than volume. "It's my turn to die, you mean!" She shouts this last one, just as the squirrel showers her with leaves.

"Mira," Castus says, his voice coming from directly behind her. "Deep breaths. You're not going to die. I'm going to get you down safely. But the way to survive is to be *calm.*" He managed to make it to her branch during her latest outburst.

"I'm going to die, I'm going to /die,/" Mira chants softly in a small prayer to herself. Maybe she can make peace with it by repeating it enough times. "This was supposed to be a fun morning walk to get some herbs, and now I'm going to /die!/"

Castus whistles a gentle tune, preparing the rope to see where he can anchor it properly. Whilst Mira is busy chanting, he tosses it here and there, pulling it around certain branches, testing the weight and give of each one in particular. In between 'I'm gonna die's he starts to loop it around his waist and then taps Mira on the shoulder. "Ahem. Mira? Would you mind making an about face and hopping up on my back real quick?"

"Get on your back?" Oh, so this is how she's going to die; riding the squirrel who killed her friend to the forest floor, collecting branches on the way. "Why not?" the mousemaid replies, laughing with a tinge of hysteria. "I'll just turn /right around/ like it's /nothing!/" The really odd thing is that, as she says so, she does so. Blinking, the mousemaid takes a moment to realize that she has actually accomplished the maneuver, and gives another half-manic disbelieving giggle.

Castus smiles indulgently. "*Very* good, you're doing excellently," he says, and helps Mira around by wrapping a paw around her waist until they're both secured by the rope. Don't want her to giggle her way right to her death. He leaves just enough give to turn around before tightening it. "Hop on," he encourages her. "And close your eyes. This *should* only take a few seconds."

"Why do I have to do that?" Mirabella balks on the branch, anchored by nothing but the rope, gesturing vaguely at Castus's back. "Why do I have to get on your back? Can't you just lower me down somehow? Like in the stories when the princess is stuck in a tower."

"We are going to lower you down, via me," Castus says. "The rope won't go down far enough from here, and going back up to secure it to new branches once you reach the limit will just make things even riskier. I only trust my own paws when it comes to climbing." He glances over his shoulder. "The question now is if you're going to trust me."

"You killed my friend," Mirabella notes, pointing downwards at the out-cold squirrelmaid, and glancing around at his hasty knotwork. "And the whole thing seems frightfully dangerous. But I suppose I don't have much other choice." Closing her eyes tightly, she climbs onto his back, clasping her paws together around his neck and squeezing much more tightly than necessary.

"Once I get you down there, alive and well, you will see that she is not dead," Castus notes calmly. He doesn't say that he doesn't trust *any* of the branches on this tree, and the rope is there more for peace of mind than actual security. He takes a deep breath and looks downward, then slowly but surely begins swinging his way down, minding to look back up and make sure none of the branches they're attached to are sagging too much. "You climb many trees, Mira?" he asks to keep her mind off the ground. "It's rather impressive you even got all the way up there."

"I don't, no," the mousemaid replies, prying one eyelid open to peek at their progress before thinking better of it and clamping it back shut. "It was dreadfully high; I just wanted to get to the Lady's Mantle that was growing in a spot of moss," Mirabella explains innocently. "I didn't mean for anyone to get hurt."

"Oh. Did you managed to snatch it at least?" Castus asks, looking back up the tree. No way he's going further up again! Then the wind picks up, and the entire trunk sways ever so slightly. Castus purses his lips and climbs a little faster, skipping a few branches and dropping a few stomach-turning feet before landing square on a larger one, crouched carefully. "What does Lady's Mantle do?"

There's a distinct loosening of Mirabella's grasp at his question, as though she thought about letting go for a moment. "I... I think it's in my pocket," she gasps out, tightening her grip again. Castus's second question gets a longer answer, after the drop. "Why, it's good for lots of things. It's just wonderful for cuts and bruises, and it keeps you young, and it- well, it's good for- Well, it's called /Lady's/ Mantle, isn't it?"

Castus hides a smirk as he judges the next stretch down. He walks out on the branch a frighteningly long way. "Well. Just think how impressed Nurse Linette and all the others will be once you come back with *that* in your paw." He glances up and sees they've almost reached the end of the rope. "Right. I think we'll have to go back *up* a ways to-" There's a snap beneath his paws. The branch sags terribly. Castus' reaction is lightning-quick: he turns away from the trunk rather than towards it... and takes three bounding steps on the sagging branch before taking a flying leap at the next tree over. All sensation of being supported by something solid is swept away for a few vertiginous seconds.

"Maybe it'll fix her ghastly attitu-ahhh!" Mirabella's response is cut off by a shriek as the pair hurtle between the trees.

The wind rushes in their ears and there's a terrible arcing feeling - first they go up, then come down. They collide face first with a mess of twiggy and green outgrowths on a long branch, which Castus hugs in his paws like his life depended on it - and in these precious seconds it sort of does. He slides down the leaves like he would rappel down a rope as the entire branch bends with them, the forest a blur of blue and green and snapping twigs, and then, oh goodness, there's more free-falling until Castus snatches a branch just beneath that one, acrobatically swings off it, lands on another, and glances down. "Oh," he says, and lets them both drop... the final six feet to the ground. He stands up with a smile. "Look at that! We're done." The branch that broke and started this whole mess lands with a crash not long after. Castus hardly flinches.

"Done?" The ground? Mirabella slowly relinquishes her stranglehold around Castus's neck, stepping down onto the forest floor once more. "We're /alive!/" she cheers, throwing her paws in the air and then wrapping them, again, around Castus's neck, perhaps more tightly than before.

"Well it was simple really, you just - hurk." Castus leans back as Mira crashes into him, reaching up to wrap his paws around her and make sure they don't fall again. "All in a day's work," he says proudly, because it kind of is. "You're gonna have a heck of a story to tell the rest of the Abbey." He glances over Mira to make sure - yes, Krystal is indeed still breathing. Two for two. Castus privately congratulates himself.

"The Abbey, yes, it'll be just /fantastic/ to tell them about how... how.." Mirabella trails off, pulling herself away from the squirrel and glancing over at Krystal's fallen form. "About how you killed Krystal! Gracious, is she alright? That did look like a terribly nasty fall."

"She's fine," Castus says, walking over to Krystal and lifting her up in his paws. "Just overwhelmed by the shock of so many near-death experiences at once... and she's gonna want that paw looked at. Don't worry, I've got her." Nevertheless, he smiles charmingly at Mirabella as they start the walk back. "First time I've had to rescue a squirrel from a tree. Or a mouse for that matter. I had fun! ... But seriously, that thing is a death trap and you should get a qualified tree-whiffler for something like that next time."

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Groups:

• Order of Redwall