Our current priority should be to GTFO.
No doubt Legano is going to notice his seal missing quite soon. He'll likely start looking for you with the cubs, the other wolves, and probably the mice. You've also got falcons to worry about, though they may be of limited use at night.

A! Out the window, bandit-style. The wall looks rough enough for your claws to grip.

the window is probably the worst option as there is a) a deep fall awaiting, letting you LIMP away and b) a guard just underneath the window.

Well... backdoor or frontdoor? ramp or kitchen ropes? They will expecting a thief at the backdoor to get out, so I'm tempting to say front door.
However, they will be on guard at all exits, so we might be controlled anyway...

A, that guard already passed the window, this is the best time for it.

Also need to get out quick that's the fastest way.

Jump like a boss.

Don't hurt yourself.

Satis Giilin 2012/12/16(Sun)16:43 No. 479248 ID: adef41
File 135570499750.png - (94.49KB , 500x500 , B2B 65.png )

A, jump out the window!

You tell the mice to sneak out on their own—they won’t be caught as suspicious, no matter what they do. You, though, you need a special way out of here.

Stoats bounce, right?

You twist and twirl through the air, rolling to absorb the impact. This should be fine so long as you don’t think about your neck snapping or your legs cracking or oh God this was a bad idea you start to panic and fre-------

OW

OW

OW

You’re vaguely aware of a throbbing pain in all of your body before you stop being aware of your body entirely.

Jashbireth 2012/12/16(Sun)16:43 No. 479249 ID: adef41
File 135570502297.png - (48.92KB , 500x500 , B2B 66.png )

You don’t know where Pocket is. Crallow already came back with the stolen seal, and the mice from the manor returned, only saying that Pocket sent them back on their own.

You have a vague sense of unease.

A: Send Crallow back to see what happened!
B: Send Hanshah over to see what happened!
C: Send some mice over to see what happened!
D: Go yourself and see what happened!
E: She’s a good bandit, she’ll be fine! Get back to Hanshah’s place to plot your next step.

>>479249
C, Mice have been really been good at this bandit shit lately, let 'em scout.
Hanshah is a terrilbe bandit.
I don't trust Crallow alone.
We shouldn't compromise you.

Send Crallow or Hanny, since you shouldnt be seen there again to avoid getting your friend in trouble and they're strong enough to grab her and run if she's hurt.

>>479248
That move made her suspicious, draw attention and injured her to the point of loosing consciousness...
So, don't try that at home, kids!

A! Mice'll take too long.

>>479256

I thought "the window" meant "climb down the outside wall stealthily," not "act like a drunk guy who thinks he's Superman"

Crallow 2012/12/16(Sun)18:12 No. 479265 ID: adef41
File 135571037229.png - (63.85KB , 500x500 , B2B 67.png )

A, send Crallow back

“… so did Pocket forget to leave?”

“I can return to the manor and see if she is still there?”

“Yeah. Yeah, do it.”

You take up into the sky and fly high over the wolf manor. You know there are falcons in there, and you haven’t enjoyed the idea of them catching your sight, but you risk it this time.

You circle the manor a few times. You don’t see a hint of any weasel outside, or at any of the windows. You’re not sure what to do.

A: Fly into the front hallway of the manor.
B: Fly into the… falcon aviary.
C: Fly into the meeting room window.
D: Fly into the library window.
E: Give up!

D! It's the only room with someone we kinda-sorta trust.

Crallow 2012/12/16(Sun)18:51 No. 479282 ID: adef41
File 135571269149.png - (26.20KB , 500x500 , B2B 68.png )

D, the library!

You haven’t actually met her yourself, but you know the wolf papernose is friendly. You’ve been meeting Pocket at this window a bunch, at least!

You fly into the library window. The papernose is huddled over in a corner. You don’t see Pocket around anywhere.

“Excuse me, papernose?”

“Hmm? Oh. Oh, who are you?”

“I’m a companion of Jashbireth, who knows you, I believe.”

“Oh. The fox. Yes. What uhm. Hello.”

You decide you might as well ask her!

“We cannot find the weasel we travel with. Has she come by here?”

“Oh. I haven’t seen anyone. Hm.”

She turns to the mice.

“Have any of you seen a weasel in here?”

“I didn’t smell a weasel! But I saw one! It came in here a bunch! It was talking to the crow!”

“… oh. Then you know she was here.”

“... is she still here?”

“I don’t know that.”

“Oh.”

You both stare at one another very awkwardly.

A: Fly into the front hallway of the manor.
B: Fly into the… falcon aviary.
C: Fly into the meeting room window.
D: Give up!

hmm she may have been carried off by one of the wolves so try C

Sheesh, I go away for a day and you have lost Pocket! You are all fail at questing!

Also C, I guess. But we should look through the window first and not go inside if we see a room full of wolves.

Crallow 2012/12/16(Sun)19:36 No. 479297 ID: adef41
File 135571541850.png - (33.32KB , 500x500 , B2B 69.png )

C, fly into the meeting room window

“I will look for her elsewhere.”

“Okay.”

You abandon the uncomfortable encounter and flap down to the meeting-room window.

There is a wolf cub there, sitting down. Between her forepaws is Pocket.

“And then what?”

“And then he fell down the entire side of the hill and all the mice spilled out! Two of them died.”

“Hah! He’s the worst bandit ever isn’t he?”

“He then got his paw stuck in a root and I had to bring him water for days until he was skinny enough from not eating to get his foot out!”

“I didn’t even know that could happen!”

“It did so that is how you know it could happen!”

You think she might have this under control.

A: Try to get her out of here.
B: She can handle herself from here.

B. She seems to be enjoying herself, too.

I'm torn. On the one hand, Pocket is the brains of the operation. On the other hand, the wolves don't need to know there's a crow involved.

*flips a coin* Mr. Lincoln says B!

Hang around and listen to more Jashbireth stories. Take her away if she starts on stories about crows.

We should keep a low profile.
These two seem to be getting along alright, let's leave them be.

>>479297
Shouldn't we at least like ask how she plans to get out?

Jashbireth 2012/12/16(Sun)22:33 No. 479346 ID: c4089a
File 135572601665.png - (69.69KB , 500x500 , B2B 70.png )

B, she can handle herself!

Crallow returns. Your heart stops beating as he lands on the back of your saddle.

“She is with a wolf cub. She is telling her stories of how you are a poor bandit.”

“I am going to eat her face when she’s back.”

You all settle in some distance away, under a tree, to plan your framing!

“This note Pocket stole from the raccoon is written in Raccoon. It is not by our raccoon’s hand. It is addressed to him, instead, from the One Stream central organizer.”

“You can read raccoon?”

“I have a passing understanding of all languages.”

“Oh! So what does it say?”

“Nothing at all interesting.”

“So it’s worthless.”

“I can emulate its writing. We can make a letter of our own, to send to the raccoon, to incriminate him.”

“Sweet meat.”

“So, let me hear this scheme. We write a letter to the raccoon, yes, pretending to be raccoons ourselves, asking him to steal the seal?”

“I think so?”

“And we have your… wolf paramour find it, so she can win the manor boss’ favor.”

“That was the plan?”

“And what do we do with this seal?”

“I guess we can sneak it back into the raccoon’s possession, or…”

“We can “find” it ourselves, and be, to the wolves, heroes as well, can’t we?”

“Hmm! But what about Pocket? Won’t they think she stole it?”

“She is playing with that wolf pup. The one you said outsmarted you. It should suffice as an alibi.”

Your (currently present) companions and you have come up with a scheme for sure! But the plan is only as good as the companions you had around to come up with it!

You forge a letter to the raccoon, arrange for Pallia to intercept it, and have her be the hero. Then you return the seal, say you wrested it from raccoon paws, and be heroes yourselves!

If there are any flaws or details to this plan that need to be chewed out, this is the one chance to do it!

Well, some mice saw Pocket take the note, and saw her running around all over the place, but the wolves will notice quite readily that she has no scent. Also, she was witnessed talking to a crow.

How do we explain that? Also, I find myself wondering if there is any raccoon scent recent enough to place him at the scene of the crime? Plus, can't they smell where the new note has been? We'd need foreign-raccoon scent on the new note, and be careful not to get any of our scents on it.

Maybe we could claim that Pocket was paid to give the note to a crow as a messenger's service. Like, maybe the note we stole was saying that he was gonna steal it?

>>479352

wait until the potion on Pocket wears off. oh shit, get her out of there before it does. and then you can say it was another stoat because Pocket's scent is not there. and we can include a scentless stoat in the letter who works with the raccoon and is an Ivory-Sands agent or something.

I'd also not be a hero. don't be involved. arrange things from the shadows. you're already all kinds of suspicious as is. just plant the seal in the raccoon's possessions and GTFO.

>>479383
The potion is supposed to last for days so there is no need to panic that she'll be scented.

Actually if we could have pocket sneak back in tomorrow evening and plant our fake note while having no scent we could word the note to make it seem like the stoat that had snuck in tonight hadn't so much stolen the note we have but had taken a note meant for her while pretending to steal it to give the raccoon plausible deniability. Make our planted note sound like the seal had been extracted from the manor successfully but was intercepted in transit, then we show up that next day, probably leaving pocket behind, to deliver the seal back to them explaining how we found it in the possession of some thief. The only question is what hint do we leave for Pallia to lead her to search the workshop and find our planted note.

>Trusting a bird
>Almost 2013

Just might be paranoia but is it not surprisingly convenient that the Crow can speak and read the language no one else can? And the letter has nothing worth reading to us?

There is probably no need to act now, could be that Crallow is telling the thruth just be sure to stay alert.

Pocket has been seen acting very suspicious at the exact time the stamp disappeared. No one saw crallow make off with it that we know of, but crallow revealed his connection to pocket. We would be idiotic to assume no one will call us out on all this. We need a believable story in case something goes wrong.

What that should be, I don't know...

>>479399
We can try to find somebody else who can read raccoon, then pay him to read the plant letter (plus a little bonus to ensure his silence).

Planting a note written in raccoon for Pallia to find is useless unless Pallia can read raccoon and know that it it something she should report. If we're doing this we need to find out whether she can read it.

>>479501
She doesn't necessarily need to be able to read it as long as it seems suspicious enough to have the note checked by someone who can that should be enough. Considering it will have been left in his workshop by someone who recently broke in and stole something important from the manor that would be suspicious enough we just need to figure out a way for her to conveniently find out about the drop off.

>>479526
A note containing instructions from One-Stream to steal the seal would not be delivered by the person doing the thieving. It has to appear to have been delivered some time before the theft took place, by channels unrelated to the theft.

Ideally, Pallia finds the note before the wolves discover that anything has been stolen, so that when they go and check and discover the seal is really missing this will appear to confirm the authenticity of the note.

>>479501
I think any papernose worth a damn would be able to read raccoon.

>>479549
That's not what I meant to make it look like happen the note we would be dropping of would look like a progress report letting him know One Stream didn't get the stamp because it was intercepted. What I'm saying is to make it look like what happened is the raccoon had a currently unidentified stoat sneak in and take a message from him while making it look like the note had actually been stolen. She then used the notes instructions, which they don't know the contents of, to take the stamp and get it out of the mansion. The new letter, the one we'd drop of in a night or two, would indicate that someone, who would be us, ended up intercepting the stamp before it reached One Stream which would be when we arrive the next morning with the stolen stamp and then Pallia finds the note Pocket 'delivered' the previous evening implicating One Stream and the raccoon while confirming our story about catching someone, who managed to escape, who was carrying it. The only thing I'm unsure of is how to prompt Pallia to check the workshop for the planted note without making it look like an obvious set-up.

>>479588
She kinda isn't though.

>>479592
Let's call that plan B. I prefer the original idea where the note is instructions to the raccoon to have the seal stolen. The simpler the story we have to tell the better.

Suggestion 2012/12/19(Wed)08:28 No. 479836 ID: ac24b2
File 135593452220.png - (54.28KB , 500x500 , B2B 71.png )

You decide a bunch of things, to flesh out the plan, make it meaty

The biggest issue is how to get Pallia to find the planted note that implicates the raccoon.

“So okay. Pallia finds the note, and we show up with the seal, and we’re all heroes. Pocket will have her smell back later, but while she’s scentless we can pretend she’s been the raccoon’s messenger. Or something. Right?”

“Sure.”

“The only real hole left is how Pallia finds the note telling the raccoon to steal the darn thing. Or what we do with that.”

“Can’t we just include her in the scheme? Can she not be trusted?”

“Mice. The answer is always mice, you know? Have the mice bring the letter to her. “Oh,” they will say, “We found this, and it has writing on it, so doesn’t it belong in the library?”

“Huh, that could almost work, but can we be sure Pallia would actually think to act on it? We want her to find the note before they notice it’s missing, right? Or maybe we have the letter say the seal was intercepted, so they think something is up?”

The others give you their equivalents of shrugs.

“The new note we make, that has to smell like raccoon, too, or it won’t be as believable.”

“I need half a day to write the note. I can find some raccoon and rub it about on their body, steal their smell.”

“Haha, okay then. It still doesn’t leave us with how to get the note under Pallia’s nose before we show up with the seal.”

A: Have mice infiltrate the manor again. Have them bring the note to Pallia, pretending they think it belongs in the library because it has writing on it. Hope she reads (and can read) it and brings it to Legano’s attention!
B: Wait for Pocket to return; have her deliver the letter, in a day or so, saying the seal was intercepted, but have Pallia “catch” her mid-delivery, and then escape, leaving the note behind! They’re already suspecting a stoat has been messing around in the manor, and it looks like Andria just kept Pocket to herself to play with, instead of turning her in, so…
C: Don’t take too many risks; just have Crallow include Pallia in on the plan, so she knows what’s up and can play along.

I don't think we should include Pallia in the plan as she isn't really the scheming type and may unintentionally give herself away or heavily disapprove of our methods of getting her acceptance considering it involves damning the raccoon for no real reason, I mean we sort of have a reason but it has nothing to do with her and it is pretty selfish. The problem with A is there may not be any reason for her to just randomly read a note the mice handed her for no other reason than it was a note and she was in the library and if she can't read it herself she may just hand it over to the raccoon unless she has a reason to be suspicious of the contents. B would be extremely risky without a properly fleshed out exit strategy but I think it has the most potential, probably have Crallow drop her off at the library window late at night to avoid patrols, maybe have her picked back up in the aviary window for extraction.

>>479836
A. We can't use pocket anymore. Palia knows pocket is with us because of crallow. In this case mice is the only way to go.

That's a kinda scary thought.

A, I guess.

A.

I think Pallia would disapprove of our schemings, so not C. B seems overly dangerous (Pallia may be a somewhat pathetic wolf, but she is still a wolf, and if she manages to actually catch Pocket and turn her in along with the note, we are down one stoat.)

A.

B pallia will probably see the letter is in raccoon then ask the raccoon to translate it.

Pallia's heroism will be more genuine if she legitimately knows nothing. B is tricky, because if pressured she will have to admit she knows the stoat works with Jashbireth. That only leaves A!

>>479899
This.

>>479844
That.

>>479938
>>479994
The other.

A.

But go visit her coincidentally at the same time, so that the mice give it to her while you're there and you can deal with any problems that arise.