Swamped

"Well, I need to go check in with my squad," you say. "I left them checking the cells and then got ambushed by your new friend. So they'll probably want to know what's going on. As for you... may as well come with me for now. Someone's got to keep an eye on you."

Crook nods awkwardly. Oh dammit, he'd better not be scared of you, that's the last thing you need.

"I, er, was taking care of the laundry, though..."

"Yeah, fine, we'll drop it off on the way. Or after. I don't really care."

You lead Crook through the halls. You think you spot something moving in the laundry basket, but that doesn't seem worth commenting on. In time, you come to the cells.

"Boss!" Shorty yells, rushing up to you. "What happened? There was an alarm, you didn't come back, I didn't know what to do..."

"We'll talk about that after you let me know what's been going on here."

You glance around the cells, taking stock of your squad and the actual guards on duty. First thing to do is check if there are any obvious problems to ask about.

Wait, what's that you see?

This lock doesn't even work, it's just two broken parts placed together gently

Apparently the prisoners are just finishing up an amazing game of swamp rats. Even Rotmouth is impressed.

"Shorty," you say. "Why are none of the prisoners in their cells, and why is everyone watching them play cards?"

"Because we've got a busted lock," Butterfly suddenly says. You suddenly realize you hadn't noticed her up to now. She has a tendency to blend into the background.

"So we just don't lock anybody in that cell? How come we've got to let the others out?"

"Feldspar's going to come by and take a look at all the locks. We don't check them often enough, so now seems as good a time as any. And since we had so many Marshguards here at once, we figured we had plenty of eyes to watch the prisoners with. Now hush up, I don't want to miss the end of this round."

You take a closer look. One of the prisoners is asleep... the same one you saw sleeping in the halls before. Two others don't have any cards in front of them... oh, one's the one with the shield, the other is Jackson.

The other three seem to be down to two cards each in their hands. The big burly one draws his next card and puts it down on the floor. He looks thoughtful.

"Mary, Rank," he says, putting both cards down as his bet.

"Oh, going all or nothing, Walter?" Mary says. "Daring! But I'm afraid you're wrong. And now you've got no cards left."

"Except the most important one," Walter says, smiling.

"Yeah, but if Dean or I call a challenge, you're out. And I probably will, because what have I got to lose?"

"Unless I take your cards," Dean says, drawing. He puts a Three of Blades on the floor. He puts down two cards. "Let's make this an interesting finish, shall we? Mary, I think this matches your card's rank."

"Damn," she says, putting down her two cards. "Good choice. Now I suppose my only move is to guess somebody's cards."

She thinks for a while, then points at Dean.

"Scholar of Wings," she says.

"Right," Dean says, sounding impressed. "Well, Walter, it all comes down to your turn."

"Well, thanks to you I know it's a three," Walter says. "But as luck would have it, nobody picked her when they got a leaf or stone."

"And I know exactly what you have now," Mary says, smirking. "So you'd better get it right."

Damn, that's a tight game. No wonder it's caught everyone's attention.

It'd be a real good diversion, honestly... but the Bogknights seem just as caught up in it, too.

"What the hell's going on here?" you hear Feldspar shout suddenly. "I thought this was a dungeon, not a card club!"

"Butterfly said you were planning on checking all the locks," you say.

"Yeah, but I probably won't need to work on all of 'em at once. This seems like it's just asking for trouble."

You do a quick headcount. Six in your squad, including you; then there's Rotmouth, Crosswinds, Crook, Butterfly, Ringer, now Feldspar...

And Marshall hiding in the laundry. You'd nearly forgotten. Better keep a close eye there.

"Well there's twelve of us in here right now," you say. "You think that's not enough?"

"I think you ought to be keeping prisoners in their cells," Feldspar grumbles. "But what do I know? I'm just the smith."

"Fair enough. But we're just waiting on one turn, so may as well let 'em finish before we lock them back up."

"Fine. I'll take a look at the one that's actually been reported while you do that."

It occurs to you that you do, in fact, have quite a lot of people in here. And even though you know what happened to Marshall, you should probably be getting reports from some of them, if only to keep up appearances.

So, who are you going to talk to first when the game wraps up?

marshall

just remind him to keep his cool in there.

Might as well find out how Stacy got captured.

You feel like Marshall might be getting nervous. You slip over and mumble under your breath, "keep your cool, we'll take care of this soon". Quiet enough that anyone who overhears you will hopefully think you're talking to yourself.

"Three of Leaves," Walter finally says.

"Stones," Mary says with a laugh. "Came close, but you couldn't quite do it. Now show everyone your Six of Blades, would you?"

Walter holds it up, shrugging.

"Ah well! Can't win 'em all. Good game, everyone."

"Yes, it was a very good game," you agree, stepping in. "But we're going to have to put you all back in the cells now. Preferably without a fuss - bear in mind, there's twelve of us here right now."

"No need to worry!" Dean says, holding up his hands and standing up. "We're not looking to escape, we won't give you any trouble."

"Whose cards are these?"

"Mine," Dean says. "I can pick them up, or you can, whatever works for you. Like I said, no trouble."

"Shorty, you take care of the cards," you say. "Greeneye, I want to talk to you. Everyone else, help our guests to their cells. I'm sure you can divide up that task in a reasonable way."

You lead Greeneye away from the rest as the Bogknights are led back into their holding cells.

"Greeneye, I thought you were supposed to be resting. Why'd you head out there? And how'd you catch that swimmer?"

"I was resting! But when the alarm sounded, I figured I'd pick up the slack on patrol duty. Wasn't expecting to do anything except keep a lookout, and it was day so I thought it'd be manageable even if there was some kind of trouble."

"You hadn't heard about the swimmer?"

"I've been in bed since Doc caught me after our second debriefing. Haven't had time to hear about anything. What exactly is going on, sir? Why'd they sound the alarm?"

"I'll fill you in on that later. How did you catch the swimmer?"

"She surprised me last night because it was dark and she was under the water. But this time, I saw the splashes a ways off. Thought it was a gator at first, to be honest. So I started pounding my pike against the walkway as loud as I could to scare it away. Then it got closer, and I could just make out the shape of a helmet before it dove deep. That was enough for me to realize who I was dealing with."

"And then what did you do?"

"She ambushed me from under the walkway last night. So I tapped my pike more lightly, so it'd sound like footsteps and confuse her about where I was. When she leapt up, I was ready and I grabbed her. It was a close fight, but luckily Crosswinds stopped by just as I was getting out of breath."

"I think she would have won even if I hadn't, honestly," Crosswinds says suddenly. You give them a glare for interrupting.

"Well. You should go see Doc, wouldn't want you overexerting yourself."

"I'm fine, sir," Greeneye says.

"I'm not taking chances. Not after Mudviper collapsed today."

"She what?"

"Get to Doc's. That's an order."

"Yes, sir," Greeneye sighs, walking off. "But really, I'm fine."

"So, if you're done talking to her," Crosswinds says, "I've got a few things you probably ought to know about."

"Bad news, right?" you sigh.

"I'll let you decide that for yourself."

"Fine. What do you have to report?"

SpoilerShow

So I asked Jackie to answer this one without sharing the context of the prompt.

"We're all out of plain marshmallows for the hot cocoa, but we have plenty of rainbow marshmallows."

"Y'know the mallows? Harmless little puffy things, always swimmin' through the muck? I passed by their breeding grounds earlier."

"Are you going somewhere with this, Crosswinds?"

"They all had rainbow feathers. Couldn't see a single regular one in the lot. Now, I'm not an animal expert, but I've only heard about rainbow mallows being in the jungle."

"The jungle," you say. It takes you a while to fully process what he's saying. "You mean to tell me, whatever's bringing animals in from the desert is taking them from the jungle too now?"

"Could be. Could be they migrate here and nobody's noticed before. I'm just tellin' you what I saw, before I go and tell the Council about it. If you've got any thoughts on it, now's the time to share them with me."

Well. Do you have anything to say?

This is actually a good chance to start up a dialogue with our Dean friend...er prisoner.

Really interesting how this batch of Bogknights seem more or less amiable. Maybe building some good will here could help the marshguards out in the long run.

"Well, I don't know much about them myself, but I remember we've got an animal expert among our prisoners."

"You aren't suggesting I share potentially sensitive information with a Bogknight, I trust," Crosswinds says.

"Oh, no, of course not. Just that maybe someone, like his pen pal Shrike, could have a talk with him about, I don't know, the nesting habits of mallows. Or whatever."

Crosswinds nods.

"I'll stop by Shrike's room, then. Should be on the way to the Council chamber. There shouldn't be anything else I have to do before giving them my report, right?"

You can tell right away that question's not nearly as rhetorical as it sounds. And you don't think Crosswinds is just stalling; they want to check if you've got any doubts about giving this info to any Council members.

Well. Off the top of your head, you don't see why you would... but maybe you should give this a little thought first.

honesty is the best policy

Well animals are normally rainbow colored to attract mates or to prove to predators that they are just choc-full of poison. Both of those are things Corvus wouldn't be likely to know, however.

Kandahar has some jungle territory doesn't it? Well lots of Nations do, and it doesn't make sense for these to be related to some plot...it might be they're just abandoned pets that some rich aquarium owner dumped when they became bored.

There are a lot of possibilities...but wait all the plain mallows were gone from their breeding grounds? Even if there was some invasive species it shouldn't have gotten rid of all the normal ones...

...unless someone had harvested them. And harvested them to intentionally prevent someone else from using them.

The only other person who may know something about the mallows would be Doc...hm...It's not on the way to the council chambers but youre looking a little tired, maybe you should check in with Doc just to make sure.

Well. You don't see a reason to keep this from the Council. Even if there's something sinister going on behind the scenes, jungle animals aren't likely to affect it.

But wait... Crosswinds didn't just notice the presence of jungle mallows, but the absence of regular ones. You haven't heard about desert creatures replacing creatures from the local ecosystem before. What if it's not the same phenomenon?

But what else could it be? Some sort of poaching operation?

That doesn't seem likely. Poachers don't usually come to the swamp; it's dangerous, and the safer areas are well-patrolled. On the rare occasions when it's happened, it's always been some Marshguards or Bogknights looking to do a little dirty business.

And how would anyone here get ahold of rainbow mallows? At that, why replace the mallows if your goal was to poach them?

Well. The last time someone was caught poaching, they were passing off leaf viper scales as medicine. You remember that Doc made a point afterwards of asking her outside contacts about similar con jobs. She might have heard something here.

"May want to stop in at Doc's," you say. "You're looking a bit worn out. Can't be too careful."

Crosswinds shrugs.

"I'm feeling fine, but if you say so."

With that, they take off. You still don't know how they get around so fast.

Well. Who are you talking to next?

Heh. Looks like Shorty decided to escort the big guy, Walter? Let's check in on them. Might be a good time to ask Shorty (and maybe even the Bogknight, if they've been around long enough) what that one story about Silver was again.

...huh, sounds like Feldspar's work is slowing...is he eavesdropping?

You decide to talk to Shorty. He's escorting the largest of the prisoners... all by himself?

"Let me help you out there, Shorty," you say. "Then we'll have a little talk."

You lead Walter into the cell. It's good that he's cooperative; you get the distinct impression he doesn't need a weapon to cause trouble. Definitely better keep an eye on him.

"Thanks, boss," Shorty says. "What's on your mind? I think between me and Butterfly, we already summed up what you missed here."

"Well, I'm going to want details on that, but right now I want to talk to you about Silver."

Shorty's eyes light up.

"Silver! I've got a lot of stories about him, sir. Which one would you like to hear?"

"Well, that's the thing. There's one I'm trying to remember. All I recall is, something about, uh, water."

You don't really like thinking about the rain. You're not superstitious about the rainspawn, exactly, but you don't like being reminded of them.

"Hmm... Oh, yeah," Shorty says, thoughtfully. "I think I know the one you're talking about, it's one of Silver's greatest moments. Of course, there's a lot of versions of the story, so that's probably what's getting you mixed up."

"Could be," you mumble. You might also have only heard the story when you were drunk, but that doesn't seem worth bringing up.

"Okay, well, get ready to hear it. This is a little story that I like to call..."

Oh, right, Shorty's got names for all of his tales of Silver's escapades. You forgot about this.

So what is this one called, anyhow?

The Day We Saved A Baby

Cue Shorty Story time!

(In the style of Dr. Seuss or other children's authors please! The rhymes and marginaly condescending tone help Shorty remember.)

"...The Day We Saved A Baby," Shorty says.

"We?"

"Yeah, I'm in this story! This was back before I got sent here. I was... hang on, I've got to tell this right."

Oh hells, he's going to rhyme it, isn't he.

"A year into my second marriage,
It was my job to drive a carriage.
From Goll to Groft, from Groft to Gaile,
Wherever the place, I'd go without fail.

One bright day, I packed up my load,
And started down the Lacran road.
Three hours later, I heard a sound,
So I stopped, and to the back went round.

And then I stared on in disbelief,
For who did I see but Silver the thief.
He'd caught me in his clever trap,
And gave my back a hearty slap.

'Fear not, my tiny friend,
No harm to you do I intend.
My band here only wants your cargo,
Once it's ours, we'll let your car go.'

Now, back then I couldn't fight,
I had to just let might make right.
Silver's bandits grabbed their loot,
And I was sure I'd get the boot."

Shorty pauses.

"Hang on a second, I don't quite have the rhymes down for this next part. I mean, I know them, but I need to think about the order for a moment."

You're not sure if you should let him keep going. Although, you think you might remember something about what happens next; maybe you should just remind him to get this over with sooner.

What are you going to do?

remind him about the drown/brown rhyme

Beautiful.

Shorty just because you were driving the cart where Silver found his trademark grapple doesn't mean you were personally involved in every escapade he had with it.

Wait...this baby doesn't happen to now be the current queen does she?

"Wait, wait," you say. "I think I remember this part. This was when he stole that grapple thing. One of Flame's, wasn't it?"

"Oh! Yeah, that's right. Now I remember where I was." Shorty clears his throat and continues with the rhyme.

"But Silver himself ignored the gold.
He picked up a box that looked quite old.
At first I thought he'd gone quite mad,
What could be in the box that he'd want so bad?

Then I saw the label with the sender's name.
'Twas none other than Jonathan Flame.
I could see the glee in Silver's eyes
As he tore into the box to claim his prize.

I felt lost, as though I were in a dream,
That's when we all heard a scream.
'Let's check that out!' Silver called to his band,
Before dragging me off by the hand.

As the bandits rushed along the plain,
We were beset by heavy rain.
I caught a frown under Silver's hood,
But he said nothing as we drew near the wood.

The rain picked up, and amidst the trees,
A young babe lay, doomed to freeze.
Or perhaps, among the rising muddy brown,
Fate had condemned her poor soul to drown."

Shorty pauses again.

"Okay, now this is a really important part, so I've got to be sure I get it right."

Maybe he needs another reminder.

remind him about the down/clown rhyme

She had some kind of jewel right? Sparkling in the rain?

You're starting to remember a few more bits and pieces of the story.

"She had... a jewel, right?"

"Ah! Yeah, that's what it was. Give me a moment, I've got to get back into my storytelling voice."

Shorty clears his throat and continues.

"But this was no mere vagrant child,
Left by herself in the heartless wild.
She wore a jewel upon her head,
A sure sign she was noble-bred.

The raindrops seemed to make it glow,
Shining every color from pitch to snow.
The bandits all stared on with greed,
But Silver focused on the girl's need.

'The water's rising far too fast,
The poor babe will never last.
You'll all wish I'd never let you join
If you let that child die for coin.'

'I'd really love to help her, Chief,'
said a most conniving thief.
'But look, she's deep under that bush;
I can't fit in there, however hard I push.'

Silver was angry, but he knew it was true.
There were only tall folk among his crew.
'No one can fit among us forty?
Very well then. It's your move, Shorty.'

That's when the entire band looked down,
and said things like 'he trusts this clown?'
I was mad, but could not refute;
Only I was that minute."

Shorty seems nervous all of a sudden.

"Oh dammit, this happens every time. I remember that cold, clammy rain, and, it's just so hard to think straight about what happened next."

Looks like he needs another reminder. Have you got one, or was this about when you passed out?