The large leverett approached the table she sat at, and, clutching soft cap in paws, coughed politely to attract the Fox mage's attention.
"What do you desire?" The fox looked round, her face shielded by a white mask. Whether this made her more or less scary than the scars it hid was a matter of debate.
The leverett whispered quietly, and placed some pennies on the table. The vixen mage smiled, almost kindly, reached into her cloak, and with a flourish of sparks, placed a silver necklace embedded with semi-precious stones on a cloth in front of the wide-eyed hare. It glowed slightly with a white and green aura, "It will help her, but won't cure her fully, she needs a proper priest and lots of fresh air and baths for that..."
The young hare n9dded, took the proffered item, and scuttled off. The Vixen made a sign to Roddy Pewt, the Newt, the owner and (partial) namesake of the bar. He reached under the counter, and produced the crystal goblet and bottle of very expensive white wine that some part of him knew he did not have in his stocks five minutes previously, nor did he own any fine crystal goblet either, especially ones that ' frosted itself when placed on the counter. Placing them in front of the vixen, he scuttled back to the bar, with his apron pockets jingling with new pennies heavily.
After a few minutes, three more foxes drifted in, a lace and satin clad knight, his heraldy obscured, came in from the upper rooms, where no doubt his bath water was being reused by less rich cliental. The ranger shook off the rain from outside, hung her purple cloak up with a flourish, and plonked herself down with a leather tankard of ale. The warrior, looking round cautiously, came from the back area of the bar where the kitchens and private dining areas were. As he sat, the lanterns round their booth dimmed, and their voices muffled as they jesticulated at the table centre, as if discussing something important.
Shortly, Roddy was beckoned over, for fresh drinks and snacks, as he did, their voices became louder and more jovial as they were now obviously discussing events the public might know too.
"Well, it wasn't my fault it was so gloomy," the Vixen mage was protesting, "I'm not an elementalist.
"Thankfully, we found the Duke of Duckingham in Duckington before the rains set in." The Ranger continued, wiping the foam of her fresh beer from her muzzle, "you know what they say about water and ducks."
"Thing is with a duck," The Warrior mused, twiddling the stem of his red wine glass in his paws, "is you think you have them cornered, and the flap off making such a din. Thats what they did the first time we met them" He sniffed the wine carefully, before taking a sip, "Good vintage."
The Ranger grinned, showing maybe a few too many teeth to the other punters in the bar, maybe deliberately, "Easy enough to track down though, hardly stealth ducks."
"They do make a lot of noise," The Knight agreed, catching the eye of a young dormouse could, obviously in for a nice meal, and smiled., "allowed us to mass on two edges of the village, without attracting too much attention."
"Not like now, I think that dormouse has fainted!"
"Oh, his girlfriend will pick him up."
Taking a sip from her flaggon, The Ranger looked at the Knight and the Warrior, "Nice of you two to herd his grace towards me, pity I was tied up with dueling one of his guards to shoot him full of arrows "
The Warrior's head shot back, and he let out a barking laugh, paws pounding the table, "My dear hunting cousin, it allowed me to catch up to him and serve him his dues!"
"Is that you trying to talk in metaphors, it doesn't suit you." The Ranger quipped.
"No, literally, his court summons for unpaid accounts. I slapped them on his back, our benefactor paid us fir that. You could say, his bill was overdue " The Warrior smirked, pleased with himself and the pun.
The others groaned, "But it got us extra goodies," the Warrior was now protesting
"While you were busy being a mesanger boy, m" the Knight snarled, "some of us got to business! One hit and down."
"Yeah, we notice a loud, distraught, quack and a veritable snowstorm of feathers after you hit The Dukebsith your axe!" The Ranger smirked.
"Pity it was then the rest of his retainers appeared," The Mage moaned. "One immediately perched up on the mill chimney pot!"
"Another duck went fir me," the Warrior noted, "might have been a mistake on his part."
"Think they were winging it once their leader was down?" The Knight winked.
The Ranger shuddered, 'I finally took my opponent down," she looked at tye Knight, "make any feather jokes, and I will shoot you in your sleep!"
"I was too busy being goadedby a duck.who thought he was untouchable," the Knight replied.
"He should have realised us Foxes can climb up things!" The Knight looked smug
"And that ducks fall as hard as anyone else!"
"While you were doing that, I was facing off versus two waterfowl!" The Warrior moaned.
"Although one did not last long!" He giggled.
"Unfortunately, I was divebombed by the Duke's son and heir, which took me out the fight rather," The Mage complained.
"Thankfully, the Ducks fled at this point." The Warrior added, supping from his flaggon. "we need to put it on his bill!"
"Yeah, didn;t get to see that, I was floored by a passing duck," The Mage grinned.
"I heard that most of them were out for the next fight! Lots of feathers spilt."
"Yeah, and none of you lot bothered to help me down from that rooftop," The Knight protested.
"Yiu said foxes could climb!" The Ranger quipped
"No, I said foxes could climb UP!"
'So, what did we get out of all of this?' The Mage enquired, "We picked up 33 pennies for winning, and got us food by helping out the locals. No one was injured, so all good. I only went and found corpses, not much there apart from ten pennies, a roundal dagger, a hand weapon."
"I helped out on a toll road," the Knight grinned, "a fair few pennies for that, seven in fact."
"I had a close call in a mine", the Warrior added, "nearly got caught in a collapse, but I did find twelve pennies, three materials and this little ring..."
"Let me see that," The Mage demanded, "ohh, pretty. Oh, ouch! It's a ring of blocking. No magic will get through that, mine or anyone else's."
"And you, what did you do, as you didn't wander?" the Knight looked at the Ranger.
"Erm, well, about that... I tried labouring, but didn't get very far. Got kind of distracted."
"Waht do you mean, distracted?"
"I might have found us a new team member."
"Another fox?" The Warrior enquired.
"Erm... no, we are allowed other creatures you know. Meet, erm... you know, I never got his name."
An armadillo in a green poncho, carrying a pair of pistols, tipped the rim of his hat in their direction.
"But his joining fee, that's all our cash!"
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