Meanwhile, back at the militia base.
If you have been following the Militia Dungeon story arch then you might be wondering what ever happened with Toran the assassin fox and Fargo the merchant weasel.
Shortly after partying ways with Hershel, Razial, Rorgan and Derrin our party of mismatched adventurers come to the top of slope leading down into the dungeons. The hallway forks to the left and too the right. The stone hallway to the left leads to another hallway, the one to the right leads to a large oak door.
Toran sighs, looking at both hallways and weighing the different possibilities. So far, he hasn't been regretting going with Fargo, but things could always change quicker than one thought. The fox gives a small sigh, rubbing the bridge of his muzzle with a paw, thoroughly irritated with having so many branching passages in this place.
The very heavy set weasel appears behind the white furred fox. "So...this is an unexpected turn of events. B-but you have a way out right? I mean you got in alright, surly you can get us out." Fargo nervously rubs at his paws. The weasel can not hide the fear he is feeling and doesn't even bother too. This as they say, is the perfect time to panic.
Toran looks back at the weasel behind him, his irritation making him just a bit more snappy than he normally is. Sure, he usually was soft spoken when he actually said anything at all, but he'd been with Fargo for a bit, so he felt comfortable enough, plus anger can make a beast act outside their personality range. "Aye, of course I have a way out, because I had a way to magically remember every single inch of this place while I was wandering around looking for your tail." A small growl rises in the back of his throat, a warning that hopefully discourages further conversation.
Fargo feels his eyes widen, both at the fox's snarl and his comment. "B-but...how did you even get in here in the first place!" As the weasel chitters the door to the right opens. Two green clocked militia beasts armed with sheathed short swords take a step in to the room. The lead grey squirrel is flanked by a pure white mouse. Both have the usual and proper way one reacts to finding escaping prisoners. First, confusion, then panic, then the flight or fight response. They both reach for their swords, taking in a breath to sound the alarm.
With expert aim the blades find their marks. The squirrel falls backward making a "GAK!" sound and twitching his tail as he falls. The mouse's paw goes up to his neck, his free paw draws his blade. The mouse manages one or two steps before he slumps against the wall to his right, sliding down the wall and to the gates of the Dark Forrest. Fargo gulps at the sight but wisely decides not to complain about it.
Toran gives a small huff, happy that they had not had to engage in further combat with the creatures. Trotting to the fallen bodies, he rips his blades from the corpses with less than hidden savagery. After cleaning both blades on the clothing of the squirrel, he sheathes the daggers, then continues on towards the door, his mind made up, though admittedly mostly because he didn't want to be stuck speaking with Fargo.
"hey! Wait up!" Fargo continues after the fox, only pausing to retrieve the draw short sword of the mouse. The hallway beyond the door continues forward befor branching off into two more directions. "This looks...familier." The weasel pauses at the next intersection. "I think the path way to the left leads back to their great hall...not sure about the path to the right.
Toran raises an eyebrow. If they could make it back to the great hall, maybe they could find a way to get out, but then again, there are likely a high amount of beasts there, and there was no way they could get through without detection. With this in mind, Toran again elects to go down the right hallway, figuring whatever is behind there must be better than an army of vermin hating woodlanders.
The hallway to the right leads down to yet another door. The smell of cooked food drifts pleasantly through the air how ever faint it might be. Otherwise the hallway looks like all the others in this Militia maze. Fargo follows the fox along, without Toran around well, he has no doubt it would not go well for him.
Toran continues along without hesitation to the next door, opting to draw one dagger just in case they met any more interesting woodlanders. With a cautious paw, he slowly opens the next door, careful to try for silence.
The room beyond is a barracks, a large rectangular room filled with row upon row of bunk beds. There are about a dozen, maybe twenty beasts here. Squirrels, mice, voles, hares, rabbits, the list goes one, each dressed in various stages of armor and tunics. A few sit on their beds eating at bowels of stew. All enjoy a pleasant conversation. Behind Toran Fargo whispers, "What do you see? Is it safe?"
Toran is simply frozen in shock at the number of beasts sitting in the room and how bad it would've been had he not been stealthy, though his shock may turn out to go against them as he simply remains there, his head just slightly poking in, but very noticeable with its white color against the walls and door.
The room falls into silence. A long moment of shock crosses teh beasts as they each slowly one by one turn their heads to the stunned fox. A bowl of stew clamors to the floor. The militia beasts begin to draw their weapons...
Toran recovers from his shock just as the beasts begin to draw their weapons, and he pulls his head back and slams the door shut, backing up quickly. "F-Fargo, we need to move, now!" The last part he says in more of a shout as he turns and begins to run down the hall.
The weasel blinks in shock as the fox runs past him. Did he just stutter? "Toran what's wrong?" Fargo hazards a glance behind him as the door opens to reveal a horde of angry woodlanders. Fargo is only saved when they all try to leave the exit at once and get stuck. With a high pitched yelp the weasel takes off like a bullet after toran. For such a fat beast he moves surprisingly fast.
Toran goes straight through the door that had been left open and down the other hallway, no longer caring whether he ended up in the great hall as long as he could get himself away from the group of angry woodlanders. Five or so, he could deal with, but twenty was stretching it just a bit too far. The fox bursts through the door in the other hallway, coming out into a wide open space filled with beasts, though thankfully, most of the woodlanders, if not all, are women and children and so should hopefully pose no threat. So this is the great hall eh?
The woodlanders here turn their heads to see the fox and weasel enter the room. A wave of panic spreads through them, then anger. "Get them!" A shrew shouts. The beasts begin to pelt the fox and weasel with food, plates, silverware. A few beasts grab their steak knives and prepair to fight with them. The weasel can see only a paw full of exits before he is hit in the face with a bowl of stew. There are the other side hallways leading off into the base, the kitchens, and of course the large hallway leading up to the surface and the fort that guards it.
Toran grips Fargo's arm, tugging the weasel in the direction of the large hallway, which the fox remembers from when he came in before, but then again, maybe there was a different way to get out easily. Abandoning Fargo for a moment, he bolts towards a female squirrel and her twin dibbuns, both of whom are wailing as silverware and food pelts the approaching fox, a fork even impacting into his armor, sticking out like a small spike. However, since Toran had been avoiding the beasts with the steak knives, he swiftly grips one of the squirrel dibbuns straight from the mother's terrified grip, and he draws a dagger, holding the dibbun up with the dagger pointing at it.
Fargo deflects another bowl of stew with his short sword, "What in the blazes are you doing Toran?" he hisses. The hail of thrown objects continues but gradually comes to a hault. The squirrel maiden screams, "MY DIBBUN! You monster!" She has to be held back by a pair of mice to keep from clawing at Toran. It is here when the militia soldier arrive. The beast in charge holds up a paw for them to wait. Instead of attacking the millitia beasts begin to file out across the back of the room.
Toran growls, moving away from the maiden and standing closer to the middle of the room, careful to not get close to the soldiers. "You will all let us go peacefully, or this dibbun dies here and now." To emphasize his point, he prods the wailing dibbun with the tip of his dagger, though not to hard.
The room is filled with more hoots and shouts until a black furred hare steps up. "Just...every one calm down. Every just stay calm." The hare looks anything but calm as he takes a step forward. "Easy fellow, easy. No need to, well you know. Why don't we just put the dibbun down and..." The weasel chitteres angrily as he begins to back towards the exit. "So you can what? Slaughter us like sheep?"
Toran snarls, a loud guttural sound. "You /will/ let us out of here, or I will slay this dibbun right here and prove us to be the monsters you all think we are!" Toran is already being pushed just from being that close to death, though honestly he could say he's been through worse, but that doesn't make it enjoyable. "Don't come any closer hare!" He adds, noting the hare's approach.
Fargo will probably regret this in the morning but for now he is too terrified to care about the moral repercussions of taking a dibbun hostage. Score one for the vermin team right? The hare is quick to hold up his paws defensively. "Alright alright...just..." where is Luco when he needs him? He was never good at hostage negotiations. "Everyone clear a path!" An otter next to the hare begins to complain and is silence with a glare. The beasts clear a path to the hallway.
Toran slowly begins to back up, constantly looking around and behind him. "Come on Fargo, and watch behind me to make sure they don't try anything." He makes sure to let his voice carry so that the rest of the beasts in the great hall can hear. They were too close to fail now, and they didn't need anybeast trying something.
The climb is a harrowing one and not because of the slope. The militia follow the beasts up the hill step for step until they come to the opening. Once again the hare orders the beasts ontop to make way for the fugitives. "If the militia wanted me dead before I can only imagine what they want to do to me now..." The weasel curses Dylan Locke's name. There is light snow fall out here on the outside. Paw tracks are left in the muddy ground. The guards up here glare murder at the fox and weasel but refrain from acting on it.
For a long moment all that can be heard is the sound of the fox's and weasel's foot paws on the snow and the squirrels wailing. A few breathless moments later they are clear of the fort It's just a long twenty foot run to the woods now. The hare captain stops at the edge of the foot. He waits for a moment then shouts, "Take em down!" The woodland archers in the tower take aim at the fox and the weasel, they draw back on their bows, and then scream in pain as bolts of arrows appear in their chest. From the woods a loud cry goes up and vermin bandits begin loosing arrows at the fort from the wood line.
Toran's eyes widen as he watches arrows slam into the archers, and he drops the squirrel dibbun, sheathing his dagger and turning to sprint off towards the woods with a speed fueled by the adrenaline built up in his body from his near death experience.
Standing at the edge of the forrest Dylan can be seen in a heavy coat with his sword drawn, waving to them. Fargo runs for his life but lags far behind Toran. Eventually the two reach the edge of the woods, arrows trailing their foot steps. The squirrel stands there in the open crying. Once the Fox and Weasel reach the woods the bandits begin to retreat. Dylan snarls, "This way, come one. We need to make ourselves scarce...where are the others?"
Toran shakes his head, starting to run after the rest of the bandits. "They took a different route, and I had to take Fargo a different way for logistical purposes." For the moment, he is more concerned with getting away from the woodlanders. "They'll be fine I'm sure. Rorgan has three beasts in tow: Derrin, a wildcat, and a weasel I think."
Dylan gives the fox a shocked, "Toran! Fargo! You both had one job. ONE job! get Derrin and Rorgan out safely! Who in the blazes are..." he shakes his head as he runs, "Forget about it. New orders. Get fargo back to Ferreval. I'll deal with the milita and keep looking for Rorgan...sheesh..."
Toran growls, quite irritated that Dylan didn't seem to be appreciating what he had gone through just to get Fargo out along with himself. "Fargo couldn't fit through the passageway to escape with the rest, so I took him a different way."
Rolls his eyes, "Fargo!" The weasel whimpers. No respect. Just no respect. "Fine, thank you for getting fargo out safely. I'll pay you later when we aren't being hunted by militia." The lizard makes a turn and dissapears into the brush.
Toran turns along with the lizard, knowing Fargo would follow along, and the fox is unwilling to let the weasel die when he had gotten this far. Mostly though, Toran is quite unsure as to where he is and so following Dylan might be a good option for now.
