The Welkin Weasels: Mystery of the Magic Rats

[Lutra]

OOC Discussion for this role play is here: http://redwallabbey.com/forum/index.php?topic=3074.0

All questions/concerns/comments should be posted there. OT posts are not recommended to keep the flow of the story going.

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Sylver looked out of Halfmoon Wood, hiding in cover, hoping a large oak concealed him.  The gloomy, rainy, day assured him not many beings would be out and about.  Things had gotten harder in Welkin in the years following the rats war.  The floods had receded some, but it was still a struggle for animals for many years.  It was no different for the band.  Food was not always easy to come by.  Various statues roamed the woods, looking for their resting places, disrupting the overall spirit of the wood.  Rats and bandits still roamed everywhere.  Sylver may have been a lord under Prince Poynt, but having giving up his lordship had been his best choice.  He loved his band of weasels too much and the relative tranquility provided by Halfmoon Wood.  A sudden snap of twigs behind him took Sylver out of his reverie.

He grasped a small dagger from his belt and turned ferociously, not knowing if it was friend or foe.  "Show yourself!" he barked out into the shadowy woods.  His eyes went this way and that.  From behind an elm, a familiar face peered around in fear.

"Sylver don't kill me!" gulped Mawk-the-doubter, one of Sylver's band.  The simplest of things frightened this weasel, roughly the same size as Sylver, though far less bold, and far more pessimistic.  "Seriously, I wasn't trying to sneak up on you or nothing, but I couldn't find you at camp and just had to tell you of the latest rumors brought by passerbys!  You must hear it now!" Mawk insisted Sylver listen, all cover now totally blown, with the weasel's shouting.

"What is it Mawk?" asked Sylver, putting his knife back in his belt, knowing that Mawk wouldn't leave until he had said everything.

"I heard..." whispered Mawk, closer now at Sylver's ears, "I heard they're COMING....COMING for us!"

"Who's coming?" demanded Sylver?

"Them!" cried Mawk, as if Sylver knew who 'them' ought to be.

"Them who?" asked Sylver, now fully annoyed and grabbed Mawk by the ear.

"Oh Gawd Sylver!" moaned the worrywart weasel, hardly noticing that his leader had pinched his ear. "The rats....they're coming!  And they got magic!"

[Tiria Wildlough]

'Who's got magic?' said Alysoun the fleet, leaning against a tree. The swift weasel had not been listening to Mawk's tales. 'What are you talking about, Mawk?' She frowned at the pessimistic weasel.

[Lutra]

Mawk flipped around at the sudden appearance of the soft-footed Alysoun.  "Don't scare me like that!" he hollered, angered at being snuck up on and frightened.  "THEY are coming, Alysoun!  They have magic and they will find us and destroy us all!  The rats!  The RATS!"  Mawk paced back and forth, rapidly mumbling about how terrible it was going to be.

Sylver frowned at his loyal, but often stupid companion.  "Mawk, shut up!" he demanded ferociously.  The weasel stopped pacing and murmuring and looked as if he was going to burst out sobbing from all the anxiety.  Sylver turned to Alysoun.  "Mawk says that passerbys have heard that the rats have gained some sort of magic.  Where they get it, who knows?  How do we even know we can trust these rumors?  For all we know it could be old Falshed spreading lies to worry us.  He was always like that, the old stoat."

Mawk stood quivering.  "What do we do about it Sylver?" he asked in earnest.

"Find out if the rumors are true for one thing," said Sylver, "and then, if they do indeed have magic, find out what it can do.  Maybe we're making a  mountain out of a molehill."  The rain started getting harder, and the three were now getting wetter.  "Back to the camp.  We need to talk with everyone."  With that, he started back, with Mawk cowering behind, still shaking.

"Oh Gawd!" he muttered.

[Romsca]

Bryony was in the camp. When she say them coming she asked, "What happened?"

[Lutra]

Before Sylver could even get a word out, Mawk had bound across the camp and grabbed onto Bryony and shouted in her face, "They're COMING! The RATS ARE COMING!"  Sylver quickly dashed over the ground and grabbed the crazed weasel and threw him to the ground.  He quickly placed a footpaw on him, a short knife only inches from Mawk's quivering whiskers.

"That is ENOUGH of your whining," growled the weasel leader, "now, if you don't stop blabbering loudly about the rats, I'll make sure you don't speak again.  Got it?"

Mawk didn't have to say anything, but nodded.  Sylver removed his paw, and let Mawk stand again.  Sylver quickly requested that all weasels gather around him for a meeting.

"Now, we don't know if this rat business is all heresay or if there is a real threat.  Mawk here insists that it is a real concern that some passerby told him.  Mawk, who told you the rats had mastered magic powers?"

"A statue," gulped Mawk.

Sylver glared at him.  "A statue?"

"Yes, a statue, a gryphon who had lost its wings," stammered Mawk, hoping the extra tidbit made his story more plausible.  When Sylver just continued to stare at him, Mawk added, "I could barely understand him, you know how statues are, always on the search for their resting place.  I think this guy wanted to find his wings."  Mawk stopped as he saw Sylver bring the knife up again, indicating he should get to the point really quickly.  "Oh, anyway, he said the rats knew magic that could help them find whatever they wanted, when they wanted it, and could make new things out of old things.  I think he said if he had the magic he would make new wings so he could fly again.  He's searched for his wings so long, I don't think he can find them.  That's all I got from him."

"This wasn't some fantasy wish of a gryphon hoping to fly again?" questioned Sylver.

"No, no its true!" cried Mawk.  "He seemed honest like this actually existed.  Why else would he tell me it?"  Mawk looked ready to go and grab another creature and shout in their face, in case they weren't listening the first time, but Sylver's knife pointed in Mawk's direction stopped any chance of it.

"So now the rats supposedly can create something new out of something old, perhaps rebuilding buildings, camps, weapons....it doesn't sound right," Sylver mused out loud.  He looked to the rest of the band.  "What do you all think?  I find it hard to believe this coming from a gryphon who longs for his wings and is lost in the woods."

[Romsca]

OOC: This is my 400th post!

BIC: Bryony glared at Mawk. "Well I sure don't believe him! Who's ever heard of a gryphon talking?"

[Lutra]

Even Sleek, the fashion clothier otter from Castle Rayn, down in Halfmoon Wood on business, scoffed at Mawk.

"What a disgusting idea," he grumbled, "the thought of those disgusting rats being able to do anything they want.  I vote they use the magic to take a bath."  With a gleam in his eye, he added, "Now if I had magic like that, I'd make it so I can get the perfect orangey color for that new line of hats that are to represent the summer sunset."

Mawk made as if he was going to go slap the naive otter for being so noncommittal and indifferent, but stopped halfway there once he realized the otter was bigger than him now, as Sleek was now much older than when they had first met him.  Mawk scoffed, "So even you don't believe me?  Humph!  Well what if those rats came with the magic and decided to turn all your expensive clothes to......brown!"

Sleek gulped on the berries he helped himself to from the bushes nearby.  "Brown?" he growled.  "What a despicable color!  They wouldn't dare do that to me once they realize just how well we might be able to work in business together--them with the magic spells, me with the business and creative sense..." he glamored, soon forgetting he was angry at the thought of rats turning his clothes to earthy browns.

"Well at least somebody is looking at this in a positive light," mumbled Sylver sarcastically.  Mawk thought he heard Sylver but didn't bother to say anything as Sleek finished his oral reverie of wealth and fame.  "Any other opinions?" the leader asked rather bluntly, personally glad to see that even the good-hearted, but often dreamy Sleek thought nothing serious of Mawk's fear.

[phoenixfoden]

skirf,who was picking dirt from between his toes said"honestly sleek,brown is a wonderful colour!some of the greatest things in the world are brown,like dung!"

[Skipper]

Breya stepped out of her little cottage and and hastily placed the pot of stew on to a tree stump, she waved the smoke away from the pot with her apron and coughed. It seemed the new ingredient she had aquired was nothing more than the latest money making scheme some fraud had thought up. She tipped the stew onto the ground and sighed, what a waste of suplies. Breya listened to the birds sing and skipped down to the  brook that lay at the bottom of the hill she lived on, she whistled a tune her mother had taught her at bent down to wash her dirty paws in the clear water. She froze suddenly as she heard what sounded like an angry voice, Breya was never one for minding her own buisness so letting her imagination run over what the creature was angry about she crept slowy through the bushes towards the voice. She moved the bushes apart slightly and peeped through the gap, it seemed she had sumbled among some sort of camp.

[Romsca]

Bryony looked at Skirf and walked away from him. "You're so disgusting! I don't mind the color brown much, but you didn't need to compare it to that!"

[Lutra]

Sleek looked mildly amused at the thought of brown dung, but only said, "Scirf, I swear your brains are made of dung" as he turned back to his wagon of robes, hats, and other luxury cloths for sale.

"Haaa!" boasted Mawk, pointing at Scirf.

Before anyone said another word, Sylver jumped into the middle of the group, "Are there any other CONSTRUCTIVE opinions?" he glared at the group.  "I'm all for fun and games usually, but right now I need to know if anyone truly has any belief in such a notion that rats could use magic."

"Well they sure can't fold laundry, so what makes you think they could actually do something smart like use magic?" called Sleek, from behind a burgundy robe he was folding.  He may have been naive and foolish when they first met him, but in the years, Sleek had developed a real cynical attitude when he wanted to show it.  The years in Rayn castle around the nobles made sure to that.

Mawk started laughing uncontrollably at such a comment, but then quickly realized that the otter didn't believe he was telling the truth.  "Hey, wait a minute...."

"Ok, so Sleek doesn't believe that its true," interrupted Sylver, before Mawk could object.  He pointed his sword at others around him.  "What do you all believe?"

[Romsca]

"I don't believe rats can use magic." Bryony answered.

[Tiria Wildlough]

Alysoun frowned. 'This doesn't make sense. Rats can't wield magic.'
'No, they're not smart enough to do that.' agreed Miniver.

[phoenixfoden]

"unless they had a wizard or witch to make them smart enouth to use magic!"he paused to watch mawk gulp."........you see i takes a brain of dung think like that!"

[Lutra]

Sylver turned to Mawk and frowned, "See?  They have very good reason to doubt this, and I for one, believe them."

Mawk just continued to babble. "Find me that statue!  I'll prove to you that they really do have magic and that we are going to be harmed!"  With that, he ran out of the camp and through the forest of Halfmoon Wood, absentmindedly looking for any sign of a gryphon statue, missing its wings.

Sylver just watched him go, and turned to the group.  "He won't stop until he's a legion away that pudding head.  The rats aren't exactly smart creatures and we have handily defeated them in year's past.  Even if they do show their faces around here, I don't see any cause for concern.  We have allies in the woods now that we have never had and food is plentiful here.  Mawk will soon realize how foolish he's been and stop jabbering about magic rats.  He hasn't been into any of our blackberry wine has he?" asked Sylver as an afterthought.

Meanwhile Mawk bumbled through the forest, calling "Gryphon! Gryphon! I have found your wings!" in hopes the statue was not far off, and could be coaxed back to the camp as proof.  He hadn't gotten far when a sudden crack to his right stopped the cowardly weasel in his tracks.  He pulled his short knife from his belt?  "W-w-who's t-t-there?" he quavered.

Nothing.

"I mean it!  No tricks!  I am a fearless weasel of Halfmoon Wood!" he yelled as loud as he could, hoping he sounded brave.  With another crack in front of him, a large stone foot appeared.  It looked like a large paw, then another appeared slowly beside the first.  The eagle head appeared through the branches, blinking wordlessly at the small weasel.  Mawk could hardly believe his luck!  "I found your wings!" he exclaimed excitedly, "Come follow me!"

"Vere....rings?" asked the gryphon, trying hard to form words with a tough beak and no tongue.

Mawk jumped high and said, "Wings this way," and he ran, hoping the gryphon would get the picture and follow him.  It couldn't move as fast as the weasel, but its big stone paws thundered as it moved and tried to keep up with Mawk.