The Cat Ran Away with the Spoon

The Cat Ran Away with the Spoon

Players

- Jaksor

- Ferilla

- Bindi

- Kevi

- Flicktail

- Lee

FV: Town Center

+==============================================================================+

The gravelly path through the village gets wider the further into the village it travels until at the centre of the village it splits off into four around a large firepit just waiting for any excuse for a feast or celebration and still showing the bones and a few broken mugs from the last one around the edges. A large longhouse for meetings has been built on one side of the road, standing important, decorated with carved wood, shields, weapons, furs and a large skull over the door with the large similarly fearsomely decorated house of the chief sitting proudly beside it.

Meek in comparison across the road a smaller wooden building bares a misspelled sign over the door naming it the 'Infermery'. A few trees dot the edges of the clearing but buildings take over in most directions, only the north showing some vegetation within the village walls. To the west houses seem to spring up and take over the land while noise and masses of beasts take over the south around the market and shops. Down the eastern trail the village gates can just be seen with the tavern close by.

+==============================================================================+

Dusk steals over the town of Ferravale as the sun slips, unnoticed, below the treeline. The streets are washed with the eerie glow of twilight, the last ambience of the sunset fading from the sky, tinging the underbellies of the clouds a dark rose. Lights from windows slowly assert their dominance over the sun that held sway all day, their squares and rectangles making a patchwork of dingy radiance out on the pathways. It is through this magical twilight time that Jaksor roams, his tunic tinged dark with dirt from a nearby ditch, hook gleaming dully as he makes his way towards the town hall. The rapturous joy of the hunt, the thrill of the night, stave off the pounding in his skull from his earlier shenanigans. Casting an eye over his shoulder, the polecat checks to see if his partner still follows.

The slim ermine is just behind him, several empty burlap sacks slung over one shoulder. Well, they won't be empty long. Her violet eyes meet Jaksor's as he glances back at her, nodding slightly. They're all good to go. She tilts her neck side to side in a little idle stretch, making certain she's limber for the night's action. (Ferilla)

Bindi is already at the Town Hall, slumped outside it's entry with a small tin cup held loosely in his paws. He has planted himself here since his arrival in the small town of Ferrivale, despite best efforts to drive him off, he's always returned, lending the pretense of a beggar. Or maybe it's not so much of a pretense.

And then there's the vixen. She stretches, almost upsetting a tin pail set atop a barrel, steadying it again with her paw. She crowds the angle formed by the barrel and the brick and mortar of one of the buildings in the darkened alley where she sits, the multi-paned illumination from the windows never reaching her, only once coming close when a beast in an upstairs window raises their lamp high to cast the light nearer the ground below. She looks up, pulling a hood over her features, and hears the approach of the polecat and his ghostly companion. Hm, her again. (Kevi)

Jaksor gives the ermine a short nod of confirmation, gathering the sacks in his own possession up tighter under his arm. They've got extra, because odds are good if things go south he may need to drop them in favor of the sword. The hook and all that. As the town hall comes into sight, the polecat ducks into an alleyway, within earshot of the front entrance. He peers out around the corner of the building, eying the target. "Bindi's in place," comes the rough mutter to his companion behind him. "Should be able t' get th' signal from 'ere."

In her focus on the front of the town hall building, Ferilla doesn't notice the vixen from the previous night, despite being noticed herself. She's more concentrated on moving as silently as possible, which includes holding her sword to her side to keep it from banging into things. That's happened before. Wasn't good. Entering the alleyway, she peers over, studying the guard. Her ears prick a little at Jaksor's soft report. "Good. Let's go." she whispers back, leaning in to touch his back. "You still want to kill the guard?" she asks, casually, as if she was asking him if he was still a bit peckish after a large meal.

Flicktail walks in and stands around..looking around (though foxes have HYPER sensitivenoses)

Aware that his part in this whole shindig is approaching, Bindi shuffles slowly to his feet and makes a lavish show of stretching, yawning loudly as he does so. The guard, who looks tired, glances at him dubiously. Bindi gives his most winning smile and holds his tin cup out, "Beautiful evenin' for a donation, ain't it?"

From deep inside the alleyway, comes a 'tsk tsk'-ing, "Kill a guard? Surely you can find better things to do with that big lumbering beauty. He owes me a drink, actually." The vixen had no doubt cut behind the buildings and into that adjacent alley from the other side, underneath an arch and several rather creepy stone gargoyles. She squints her eyes at Jaksor, holding the pail by her side, "I don't suppose you need a distraction, but I rather wouldn't like to risk my reputation as a small-time thief around here. Then again, this whole affair reeks of something that might affect all of us small-time thieves. I get a share, or maybe I bang on this pail?" She holds the pail up just beneath muzzle-level, her paw at the ready.

"Good thing we remembered t' disguise our scents," Jaksor notes to Ferilla as the Champion of Redwall emerges into the town center. A famous nose like that has a reputation, of course. And then the vixen appears with her little pail and shtick. The polecat blinks at her veiled threats and odd flirtatious manner, then gives a wry grin. "Actually, lass, that's jus' abou' th' best possible situation." A cobblestone magicks into his paw, and he chucks it abruptly at Kevi's bucket. Now, Bindi!

Flicktail looks at the commotion, walking along his green cloak fluttering and covering his sword, the silver acorn of RedWall abbey closing the cloak at the neck, the while fox begins walking toward Bindi, as he does not know her and she seems to be someone he can meet, a new friend

The ermine's eyes are still following the champion, trying to judge where the best place for her sword might be, when Kevi speaks up. Turning sharply with a paw on her sword hilt, she recognizes the vixen from the night before with a little jolt. She seems content to let Jaksor speak, but suddenly he's blowing their cover, and with enemies on both sides of them now. With a muffled curse that's particularly descriptive, she whips her sword out, the balde making a very faint hiss as it exits the sheath. Assuming Jaksor is probably going to be bolting towards the town hall door, she extends her sword arm towards Kevi, hoping to keep the fox and her questionable motives at bay.

The guard gives Bindi a nonplused snort, "I 'ardly 'ave money fer myself; I most certainly ain't gonna share it with you." After standing for so long in frustrated silence and being subjected to smelling Bindi's pungent odor, the guard has finally found his tongue, "Furthermore, would it 'urt you to take a ba-" He stops sharply to look towards the source of the sound. It's in this instant that Bindi strikes. Yanking his dagger out of it's sheath, the little rat leaps onto the guard, whom, not expecting the full force of the rat to come bumbling into him, stumbles back onto the ground, with Bindi atop him, holding his dagger to the guard's throat. Bindi is about to deleiver a stinging one-liner to the downed guard, when he catches sight of Flicktail and instead opts for muttering some choice words.

"Easy, darling, easy there. We're not friends yet, then I take it?" Kevi smirks, gently holding out the open end of the pail in an attempt to house the tip of the blade safely inside of it, making no other sudden moves. "Do I seem stupid to you? We could do great things, you and I. Without the males." She leans over, looking after Jaksor, "Though, that one's quite a catch, and quite a good arm. They like hearing that they have a good arm, especially the hooked ones." She chuckles. "I'm in--and I put in my skills as a thief, and did I mention powderkeg expert?"

Flicktail blinks seeing The movement that Bindi makes, under his cloak unseen by anyonehis paw grasps tehhaft of Martin's blade, he DOES know this is a VERMINtown as he quickens his pace...a town guard, thats Scioto's hired..without knowing more he'd side with the Guard he clears his throat "This is not a night for volence...what goes here" he says warily looking about, his ears sweveling for any sound

The ermine's assumption is nearly correct; Jaksor takes off across the town center, but not in a direct line. He's careful to move in cover, clinging to the shadows like glue, wrapping them around him like a cloak. It's almost as if he is part of them, and a little light shed would dispel his presence from the world. Nevertheless, he is moving fast, and making a little more noise than he'd like, especially when his bare footpaws hit the wooden deck of the wide portico before the town hall. He's far enough from Bindi to avoid detection by association, however, and makes his way towards one of the large, low-slung windows, pausing to grapple with the frame.

The ermine's blade draws back towards her body to keep it from being entrapped by the vixen's pail, by proxy giving Kevi a little more space in which to advance. She studies the vixen intensely, violet eyes poring over her. "Fine, but we need to move. An' put that thing down." she turns slightly, surveying the scene with a wary gaze. She chooses to trust the vixen for now mostly because she's not armed and because Kevi's motives seem most aligned with her own. Then there's the factor of Flicktail. "We're gonna have to kill that fox." she surmises quietly, motioning Kevi to get down. She doesn't know where Jaksor is. Her sword remains drawn, and she seems to crouch on coiled springs in case Bindi gets into trouble.

Bindi snarls at Flicktail, his eyes taking on a wild madness as he presses the dagger further onto the guard's throat, "This doesn't concern you, foxface! STAY BACK!" He slashes the dagger across the guard's throat and stands to face the fox.

Kevi ducks behind the white-furred mustelid bandit--gee, well that was easy. She'll try not to undo so carelessly this lucky turn of events. "Lead on, then--I'm only your shadow." She tests some of those pouches on the ermine's belt, though, "And let me know if you'll be needing anything from back here. I have two free paws, after all." She chuckles, "Just fooling with you, dear."

Flicktail Shows no fear, and advances confidently, sighing, he does not know if teh Guard will die, but he so HATES death. he keeps the mustic blade along his leg so he looks unarmed as he sighs "I am sorry you did that, we came for happiness not death..I am Flicktail Champion of Redwall Abbey and friend to Chieftian Scioto, and if you do not think my Archer squirrels and Guard Sparras are just waiting my signal....you are in for an..unpleasant surprise...Allow me to elp that guard....and you may live

An elbow to the glass knocks a nice quiet hole in the window, and Jaksor's paw slips in, carefully avoiding the jagged glass to undo the latch, only to poke his arm into the shards with the upward movement. He gives a startled hiss, controlling the noise, and eases the frame upwards. One ear rolled back to listen to the fox's threats, he makes his way inside, deciding that Flicktail is bluffing. There's no possible way that a legion of squirrel snipers made it onto the rooftops completely unnoticed, and besides, he's been checking. The polecat lands inside, well, like a cat, dark brown eyes casting about in the gloom of an unlit office for the door. On finding it, he tries the knob and finds it... open. "Marvelous."

"Paws off." the ermine hisses. See, she might be more agreeable to the vixen's playful demeanor in other circumstances, but she's interrupting business, and that's unacceptable. "Be a quieter shadow." she tells her, before slipping out of the alley and working her way along the shadows of the adjacent buildings in a similar manner to how her boss did it, except moving a little slower to keep her white fur from making an obvious flash of movement. Ah, the hardships of an ermine thief. She finally gets to the corner of the longhouse, pressing her back against the wall so that she looks almost like a shadowy marble statue. Her stealthy arrival coincides with the end of Flicktail's threats, which she finds quite frankly laughable. She doesn't seem particularly interested in how well Kevi fares in the crossing, as long as she makes no noise.

"Have at it, ya threadbare wastrel." Bindi takes a step away from Flicktail and the lifeless body of the guard, his arms open in a welcoming gesture. Little does he know, his words describe himself quite well, rather then the white fox. After a quick pause, Bindi darts through the doors of the Town Hall.

"Okay, okay. Quiet as the dead, I'll be.." Kevi keeps low--she feels a bit bad for the ermine and so takes off her cloak and hood, "Might you have use for this? You're... a great deal brighter than me. I insist." It reeks of vixen, but the idea might have merit? Otherwise, she's silent, creeping along at the same careful pace, spotting the polecat making his way inside up ahead.

Flicktail sighs and mves to the Guard, trying to help....if needbe and safe he will pick up the guard to take to the Infirmary as Flicky knows nothing about healing

Inside the town hall, Jaksor shoves the end of his hook through the lip of his sack, finally putting the hardware to good use. The polecat stalks the surprisingly empty halls, ducking into odd rooms and looking for anything valuable. Into the bag go silver candlesticks, knives, forks, and various flatware, a gravy boat, a statue of the chieftain himself, even. That's a little pretentious. When the sack starts to get heavy enough to put an uncomfortable strain on his prosthetic, the polecat makes his way to a window, peering outside to see how his compatriots outside are making out with the fox.

Ferilla doesn't take up the vixen's offer until they reach the wall safely, reaching out a paw and grabbing it. "You're right, I am brighter than you," she says quietly, unable to resist the slight jab. Yeesh, that smell is strong. The ermine shakes it gently and is about to pull it on when she sees the window where Jaksor smashed in and gets a better idea. "Here's our entrance." she informs the vixen, throwing the cloak over the fragments of broken window to pad her entry and she hops up and slips into the window, vanishing, at least from the vixen's point of view, into the darkened office. One paw grabs a sack for filling while the other slips into her jacket pocket and removes a short curved blade, just in case. "Jaks?" she whispers, trying to find the polecat. Her paw appears at the window, gesturing Kevi inwards.

"I suppose that slight came deserving." She grins at the multipurposing of the cloak, and waits for the ermine to reach up and pull herself through, looking side to side, especially for any unwelcome guards and handsome fox champions. Those can really get you. She sees somebeast, though, and yanks the cloak down, covering herself backwards with the cloak as she's pressed as tightly as possible to the wall beneath the ledge. The beast crosses the street, and she swings the cloak back up and hops up after, tail swaying side to side as she wriggles her way up and into the darkened interior. (Kevi)

Bindi enters the Town Hall and ducks to the side of the doorframe, taking a moment to let his eyes adjust to the darker interior of the building. Not waiting to see if he's been followed, the little rat scuttles over to a door and tries the handle. Locked. He curses quietly and moves on to another door, this one being open, thankfully. He dodges into the room only to find himself in a small broom closet. Perfect. There is going to be plenty of treasures in here.

Flicktail looks around to make sure no one can sneak up on him while he lifts the poor Guard beast, some one must care for him...he gets the beast under the legs and shoulders and lifts and begins hurrying toward the first healer beast or the Furravle Infirmary "Injured Beast we need ELP ere!" he callsout

It's really not uncommon for someone to be injured in Ferravale. It's almost a weekly occurrence. No one rushes into the streets to help the fox and his charge, but if he goes far enough to where the Redwallers are staying, his calls for help may fall on more sympathetic ears. Within the town hall, Jaksor watches the Champion retreat and decides the time has come to make good his escape. The polecat fumbles briefly with the window latch before making a rapid exit onto the town hall grounds, sack of swag in tow.

"Jaksor?" Ferilla hisses, working her way through the darkened building. She drops a couple of the empty burlap sacks near Kevi. "Here, use these, I should find our boss and that stupid rat." she says. Moving slowly, she eventually finds her way into the wedding room. Unable to find the polecat, she decides this will suffice. Scooping up silverware, candlesticks, and even some of the fine lacework pieces that adorn the place of matrimony, she shoves them all in the bag. Jaksor may not find the intricate lace as valuable as the silver, but Ferilla.. well, she knows a guy. This room clear of loot, she works down the hallway, opening a door to find.. a broom closet? And Bindi. Ugh. Her face shows plain disgust. "What're you doing in there?" she asks, the curved knife still held high.

Bindi is about to leave his temporary abode when his packrat instinct kicks in. The closet is stuffed with some very lovely mops and various invaluable rags and buckets. As a result, when Ferilla opens the door on the little rat, he can be seen clutching a mop to his chest, a wild glint to his eye. He picks up one of the buckets and starts to shove past the ermine, saying, "Comm'on, let's go. This room is looted.”

Kevi is left with bags. In a room full of stuff. Is this even real? She doesn't waste time with philosophical questions now--the vixen grabs whatever she can from the office and then spots it. A small vault underneath a desk. She crawls underneath, squinting at the keyhole. Simple enough--the key ought to be nearby if the typical scenario is to be assumed. She stands up on a chair, stretching to see above shelves. Nothing. She tries to pull out a drawer of a desk--locked. She reaches back... there's a latch. She undoes the latch and opens the drawers. Lots of letters, notes--she stuffs these into the bags, oddly. And the key. There it is. She unlocks the vault, and stares. She takes ALL of it. It goes into several bags and the vixen doesn't wait around. This was the first room, and boring as it seemed at first glance, it's boring again as Kevi puts everything back in place and, tossing the bags down first, slips out.

Flicktail of course is moving toward hisown friends hollering, there woudl be blood everywhere as teh fox hurris "Somone elp me wi this beastthere is a mouse murder about! Sound th Alarm!

In a nearby alley, Jaksor peers out from around the corner of a run-down jewelry store that seems to have seen better days and better wares. He watches Flicktail run away, his sack thrown casually over one shoulder, like a sinister, skinny Santa Claus down on his luck and running in reverse to take back all his gifts. After a moment of mental debate, he puts his hook next to his mouth in a movement more habitual than functional and shouts loudly, "Tha' fox 'as off'd ol' Gerald an's draggin' 'is body through th' streets!" Assuming, of course, that it was ol' Gerald on duty tonight. A little birdy said it was, but little birdies will say anything to line their pockets. With that, he's off through the back-alleys, heading towards the group's undisclosed rendezvous point.

Seriously? Ferilla knows a lot of fences, but none of them take stolen cleaning supplies. "Why don't you steal a sponge and some soap, while you're at it?" she calls as he pushes past her. "Filthy git." She sees Kevi come out of the office, now doubly raided, and waves at her. "That room's clear, and i' looks like Jaks got to the kitchen already." she says, gesturing to the doorway of the marriage room. "I think it's time we made ourselves scarce." she suggests.

Bindi scowls. He's only just gotten started! Leaving would be...well, against his very beliefs as himself. However, the sense in Ferilla's words are not lost to him. While he heads for the main door, he grabs a flower pot that had been sitting on a small side table, and sets it in his bucket. There. Now it's not a complete waist.

Kevi listens up at the open window and frowns. That's Ferilla, and if Kevi is still inside, then... who on earth is she?! The vixen looks up, noting that her cloak is gone! Well that's spooky. The vixen waits beneath the ledge for something to happen. Hopefully it's Ferilla and a Bindi pretending to be a vixen.

Ever since Flicktail had taken off with the dead guard, the streets had fallen silent again. The bandits likely were grateful for the quiet. But then, out of nowhere, there came a... whistling. A jaunty sea ditty about killing countless vermin. The whistler can be heard approaching, footsteps, and whistling, growing ever louder. (Lee)

As Ferilla looks closer, it's clear that the vixen with Kevi's cloak is just one of the hired help here, having emerged from her small room behind the kitchen. Ferilla curses. Even she'd feel bad about killing the fox, who's done no wrong and really has no clue what's going on. But she doesn't want to take the risk of being seen. In the end, she settles for raising her arm to hide her face and slamming into the vixen. Much less intimidating than Kevi, the maid slams against the wall and Ferilla slips past, yelling "Rat, let's go!" She has the common decency to not give away Bindi's name, seeing as he's already had his face seen, and that's bad enough. She barrels through the window, landing on the ground outside with a roll, and then takes off, white lightning on the still streets.

Bindi starts to run after Ferilla, though, not being very experienced in running with a mop, he trips up in the doorway to the escape office. He manages to recover and continues into the office, trundling along at as fast a pace as he can manage. Finally he makes it to the window, where he chucks his mop out first, then scrambles through with the bucket. He then takes off into one of the alley ways, looking not unlike a hotel main gone rogue.

Kevi is getting the heck out of here before she's further seduced by the sounds of sailor tunes. Some things are not easily resisted by the vixen. Grabbing her things, leaving the cloak to whatever fate befell it, she steals away her own way--up into the back alleys, her white eye catching the moon while the free-spirited femme fatale lets the inertia of the sacks of loot help propel her over obstacles while not running with them over her shoulder. She'll catch up with the group later to repair any temporary loss of trust, and it certainly helps that she wasn't seen in any room besides the seemingly raided office. She's no longer poor, at least, for now.

A lone otter soon saunters by, whistling. "Hmmph. Nobeasts robbing here... Flick must be imagining things again." With that, he wanders off into the night once more. (Lee)

+==============================================================================+

Groups:

• Reavers