Swamped

"Would you care to tell me what happened when you interrogated that prisoner earlier? Because he seems to have escaped."

"There's not much to say. I pressed him, he wouldn't talk, I handed him over to a guard. Pretty standard interrogation, really."

"Which guard?"

"I don't know her name offhand. Short lady. Grumpy. Seen her around before but we've never talked, in case you want to suggest that I handed him off to a Bogknight spy. I thought you just had one more question? Or do you need help with counting?"

He gives you a glare.

"I should be able to find her soon enough. We'll continue this conversation later. I suggest you be on time for your evening meal, Corvus; I think that would be an excellent time to discuss these matters."

Ugh. Well, that's going to put a damper on your appetite.

"Thank you sir," you say, straining yourself to sound as sincere as possible. He walks off, and you turn to your squad members.

"Well, that took longer than I would have liked. Let's get going..." You pause. "Shorty, please tell me you're sweating because Razor was just here, and not because you're coming down with desert fever."

"Grey-maw, too!" he shouts. "Who else are we going to run into down this hallway? Bigfoot? Clams? Are all the terrifying Marshguards getting together for some kind of conference?"

"Look on the bright side. Razor's given me a good excuse. Anyone else shows up asking questions, I can say I'm meeting with him later."

"Yeah, but what do we do if they notice Starling's got Grey-maw's keys?"

"We'll just... what?"

Starling smiles awkwardly.

'Well, I thought we'd want them if we're looking at the cells... and she was distracted by the arm-wrestling..."

"I can't believe this." You shake your head. "Well, nothing for it. Just keep those in your pocket. And if anyone asks, Gray-maw was so frustrated after the match that she didn't realize she'd dropped them. That's our story and we're sticking to it. Got it?"

"Got it," they both say. You press on. Fortunately, the rest of the walk is uneventful. Even more fortunately, everyone else is already there, though Rotmouth is looking bored and Legs seems really on edge. Rivers seems about as annoyed as usual.

"What took you so long?" Legs asks. "We've been waiting a good five minutes."

"Had a run-in with Grey-maw, and then Razor wanted to talk. Not exactly people I can ignore, you know. Any trouble on your end?"

"I was quite well-behaved," Rotmouth grumbles. "But this weasel doesn't seem to be happy with that."

"She's just waiting for the right moment," Legs says. "Hoping I'll let my guard down if she holds off."

"Can we just get moving already?" Rivers cuts in.

"Well, not so fast," Rotmouth says, grinning. "Shouldn't we tell the boss about that weird thing you saw on the way here first?"

"That wasn't anything important," Legs says. "No need to waste time on it."

"Wait, hang on," you say. "What did you see, Rivers? I need to know that before I can decide if it's worth taking another look."