You have to put a paw over your nose as you approach, because my goodness the smell is just unbearable! You couldn’t help but feel bad for them, however, no one should be alone during the festivities. You were curious about what had happened, and the guilty and sad expression on his face had a story to tell. The smell you would just have to deal with, hopefully it wouldn’t kill you. After all, you know what they say about curiosity and cats.
“Let me start at the beginning… Then perhaps it will all make sense how I ended up in this…situation.”
The cats of clan clan banded together a few years ago to create a Festival of Fools, where every 1st of April there would be lighthearted jokes and silly games to participate in once the sun went down. For the third year in a row Stark was busy at work preparing for what would possibly be their greatest prank of all time. He was on the very outskirts of the forest surrounding the main village area collecting sticks. He had a nice pile going, what he was going to use them for was anyone's guess, however he seemed to be almost done when something glinting in the corner of his eye distracted him and piqued his interest.
A small,shiny object just out of reach in a medium sized hole in the side of a small mound of grass and dirt. What could it be? He obviously had to know! After several failed tries to reach his paw deep enough to grab it out he sighed, grabbed his sticks and made way back towards the village to maybe find something to help him get it out.
On his way back to the village he ran into Tansy and Mallow training on a nearby open field, and Verum sitting about 40 feet away on the stream with a small fishing rod in their mouth as they sat quietly, waiting and relaxing.
An idea popped into Stark’s head at that moment, a lightbulb visibly appearing over his head in a comical kind of way as he imagined using Verum’s fishing rod to dangle into the hole and grab whatever shiny treasure was buried in there. Dropping his sticks, and making note of where he left them he bounded his way over to Verum, who already looked visibly annoyed that their precious quiet time was being disturbed.
“Hey Verum!”
“Hello Stark, what could you possibly need from me that couldn’t wait?”
“I was hoping I could borrow your rod, I need it to grab something in a hole something really-”
“Okay okay I don’t care about the details, just stop. Sure, I'll let you borrow it but first you have to do something for me first.”
“Okay. anything. Shoot”
Quest Start
So off Stark went, leaving his pile of sticks behind in the field as he made his way into the heart of the village, where the medicine cats den lay. An old abandoned building that had long since been fixed up and decorated with many beautiful flowers and knick knacks that hung from the entrance way. Inside lay sprawled out on a large wooden table various herbs,flowers and stones. A small green kit with a determined look on her face as mixing and mashing different things together, likely trying to concoct some sort of medicine.
Stark looked around for a bit, and upon not seeing Caulli his eyes met with the small green kit, who was now looking directly at him.
“Do you always just let yourself in?”
“Who are you?” He asked, never seeing her around before”
“Who are YOU?” she replied back, eyeing him up and down as her movements slowed, staring at him with slight irritation.
“I’m just here to pick up something from Caulli, but I see she’s not here. Do you know where she went?”
“Maybe I do..Maybe I don’t, why should I tell you?” She seemed to be a little playful now, a slight smirk growing on her face as she responded again “What do I get out of telling you?”
“Well, what do you need?” he asked, immediately regretting his decision to ask when the small green kit’s eyes widened for a second then squinted with a sense of mischievousness.
“Well I suppose I do need something, for this uh…medicine I am making!”
Stark made his way from the medicine den with this new quest to be had, repeating the words that the small green kit said to him when explaining what herb he needed to grab.
The forests surrounding the main village were full of bright purple and green trees and plants that matched in color. It was going to be hard to find the exact herb that the small kit wanted, as everywhere he looked there were green plants.
He was determined to find the correct herb, but also figured it wouldn’t hurt to grab a few different ones just to make his odds greater. He went from green bush to darker green bush, plucking bits and pieces off of every single one. When he was satisfied with the amount and variety he gathered he started to slowly make his way back, holding the bundle of herbs gently in his mouth. At some point on his journey back over there, something began to happen.
He was itchy. Very very itchy.
+10 Mystery Green herbs
Shaking his head, thinking there were bugs crawling on him, he hoped to alleviate the unbearable itch that was overcoming him. And when that did not wor, he panicked thinking maybe he was having a reaction to the herbs so he moved quicker, bolting through the village and into the medicine den with haste.
The small green kit was startled, almost dropping a vial of crushed up herbs as the Stark bolted in, dropping the herbs quickly onto the table beside her, and then moving to the wall to rub his head on it, desperate to scratch the itch.
The green kit was confused at first before quickly glancing over the contents of the plants Stark brought her and once she realized what was going on she burst into laughter.
-9 Mystery Green Herbs
-1 Poison Ivy Plant
+1 Embarrassment
“Poison ivy!!! Hehehehe that's so funny! Wow! Hehehehe!” She all but fell onto the floor in laughter as she wiped away a tear, watching Stark struggle to stop the itching with a very disgruntled expression on his face.
“Don’t you know what poison ivy looks like! It’s such an easy and obvious plant!”
“Did I atleast get the right one you needed?”
His voice was desperate, hoping he would not have to venture back out into the forest like this.
“Yeah you managed to get it, I’m surprised! Well maybe not that surprised…as you grabbed almost every other kind of green herb out there…hehehehe.”
Sometimes during Stark’s painful display a very cheerful Caulli waltzed in, a basket full of flowers with her. She turned to look at Stark then turned to a laughing Redacted and frowned at her, causing her to shut up right away and go back to what she was doing.
Caulli, being the gentle soul that she was, took extra care to take care of Stark’s little problem. She mashed up some mysterious herbs and water to create some sort of..paste that she placed on him with her paw in all the affected areas, securing it with a bandage.
“There you go darling! That should make it itch less, although the effects will still last a little bit, this will help!”
She then shot a look at the small green kit, who looked a little scared when she did, smiling innocently.
“Don’t mind my student, I’m sure she didn’t mean to neglect to tell you to watch out for the many patches of poison ivy growing everywhere. Now what brought you by dear? Are you feeling okay otherwise?”
Stark nearly forgot what he was here for in the first place, his new condition being extremely distracting. The concoction that Caulli made for him was subsiding the itch significantly but it was still very annoying.
“Oh..yeah. Verum sent me to get some new bandages for her wounds.”
Caulli nodded simply, moving behind her table and leaning down to dig around for some bandages to hand over to Stark. He thanked Caulli profusely before heading out with them, wishing he had just waited for Caulli to show up in the first place. Maybe then he wouldn’t be suffering so badly now. He shook his head, headed out and forced his mind off the itchiness to instead focus on tonight’s plans. He was so close to getting back to working on his prank for the night's festivities.
When he finally made it back to Verum, Tansy and Mallow were now joined up with her, relaxing after an impromptu training session that probably lasted longer than it should have.
“Oh hi Stark! What happened to you?” Mallow spoke up, Ruff’ n’ Tuff walking over and sniffing him, also curious what was all over him.
“It’s a long story….but here, I got you your bandages” He replied, handing the bandages over to Verum.
“I won’t ask what took you so long, as I’m sure it has something to do with….that” She gestured at his face, where a bandage was strapped to it with small amounts of some putty-like substance oozing out.
“A deal is a deal, here you go. Do.not.break.it” Verum reluctantly handed over her fishing pole, giving him a glare as he warned him not to break her favorite toy.
+1 Fishing Pole
Stark said his goodbyes, pretty eager to finally see what the glinting in the ground was..his mind wandered as he imagined just what kinds of treasure would be buried there. It could be a long lost relic to some ancient magic civilization, or a really beautiful crown covered in sparkling jewels. The possibilities were endless and he just couldn’t contain his excitement as he bounded up to the hole in the ground, peeking in to make sure this was the right spot.
It took him several tries, every so often he would hook the mysterious object and pull it out of the hole ever so slightly before it would get unhooked and he would have to try again. He had no idea how Verum could sit so patiently all day and wait for a bite like she does.
Little by little he maneuvered the item closer and closer to the entrance of the hole, until he could finally reach his paw in and grab it. When he pulled his hand out, the item that came with it was a small, gold bracelet.
Just a simple, gold bangle. No jewels, no mysterious magic item just waiting to be discovered. Just a simple old gold bangle…at least it was shiny. He stared at it for a while, peeking into the hole some more to make sure there was nothing else before he was suddenly face to face with another black and white creature. Oh…great…
