Pugmire: Cat v Cat

Once more into the lands of dogness! Here's last time.

Our heroes are way out southeast of Pugmire, following a lead they found in the Underneath: a mural depicting a lithe, orange-red dog-like creature, under which was written "WHAT DOES IT SAY?" They went out to find this mysterious "fox" and couldn't but did meet a cat named Dmitri Mainecoon von Siberian. Dmitri pointed them towards a plastic quarry nearby (probably to get them to sod off). 

They find the plastic quarry in question, and Boomer and Dire immediately scamper down into it and start loading up their pockets. And then a group of mercenaries attack! Chaos erupts, Sausagedog manages to wreck some scaffolding doing barkour, and Petunia yells that they're Royal Pioneers and should get themselves under control!

But the battle is joined. Six mercenaries engage the Pioneers, three archers perched on the edge of the quarry and three ax-wielding warrior dogs getting up close and personal. They yell about "killing the Pitbull," but they don't seem to know which one (Petunia or Boomer). The archers fire at Petunia and she responds with a lightning bolt spell. Peppa casts a spell to speed Petunia up but otherwise remains in a support role, not wanting to hurt anyone. Boomer left his weapons at the top of the quarry and so climbs up the side to get them, while Dire engages the enemies with his war-hammer.

The miners, meanwhile, join the battle in various capacity, usually with a punch here or a shove there, but they aren't armed and they don't really know what's happening. One of them pushes one of the archers into the quarry and tries the same thing on Petunia, but Peppa's Haste spell makes her basically untouchable. The remaining archers, one of whom is masked and cowled and clearly in charge, aim their arrows at Petunia and nearly fell her, but down in the quarry things aren't going the mercs' way. 

Boomer, up on the edge of the quarry, retrieves his maul and rages. He leaps into the quarry and bashes one of the mercs' head in, and then a followup blow snaps another's neck. The third swings on Dire but loses his grip on his ax and it flies into the dirt. He goes scrabbling for it and Dire finishes him off. 

The mercenary leader, at this point, turns tail and flees. The other two archers try to run, but Dire charges at them, yelling "YOU DON'T GET TO RUN FROM ME!" Sausagedog, not wishing to see Dire murder someone in cold blood today, trips him and Petunia throws a Web spell to incapacitate these two.

The immediate threat over, the miners yell at the Pioneers (mainly Dire and Boomer) for stealing from them - if they come in under quota they are the ones that suffer, not the boss-man. Dire drops his ill-gotten gains immediately; he's not down with stealing from the little guys, and Boomer allows himself to be convinced. The Pioneers interrogate the webbed-up mercs, and learn that they were hired by the dog(?) in the mask to kill "the Pitbull," but then they got here and there were two. They don't know why, and they don't know who hired them. 

The characters follow the merc leader's trail off into the woods, and shortly come across said leader locked in single combat with another masked figure of similar build. Peppa susses out which is which and directs the others to capture the one they're chasing, which everyone utterly fails to do until Boomer just walks up behind her and grabs her in a big bear hug. They yank down her mask to reveal a cat! Not one they recognize, though. The other combatant lowers her mask, too - also a cat. 

She introduces herself as Amaranth von Rex, and says that the one they've captured is Pickles von Shadow. She (Amaranth) is a bounty hunter, and has been tracking Pickles for quite a while. She's wanted on a number of crimes in the Monarchies, but the most serious one is consorting with the Unseen. She doesn't know why Pickles has it out for Pitbulls, though. Boomer squeezes her a bit and she finally talks.

There's a prophecy that a warrior will rise from the Pitbull family and lead Pugmire against its "greatest enemy" - cats. Pickles says that these dogs have gotten attention lately and has some reason for thinking that either Boomer or Petunia might be this Pitbull, but isn't saying why. Amaranth doesn't know anything about this, but then, she's a tracker, not a mancer. She asks if the Pioneers would be willing to help her get Pickles back to a population center, somewhere she can get transport home and hire some muscle.

As they're talking, the plan evolves further. Peppa has heard whispers of similar prophecy from the Friends of Man, although they of course have much more favorable views of the "Pitbull Warrior." In the end, they decide they need some more information about the cat side of things, and offer to escort Amaranth all the way back to the Monarchies. They want to stop off in Pugmire first to gear up and touch base with the Guild, though, so they start heading north...