The Warren: Polygon Wood
An Actual Play
July - Sept 2016
Rabbits
Michael Siebold |GM
Craig W. |Eik
Jonah E. |Winthrop
By the Black Rabbit, what was that? Did the others get away? Where’s Winthrop? Eik stops. Lost and lathered with sweat and panic. Acutely aware that he is alone.
Another popping sound in the distance.
He lays flat on the ground; half buried in the fallen leaves that crunch under his body. For the first time in a long while, Eik wishes he was back inside the warren. The cool nip in the air no longer feels good on his ears and nose. He wishes he was home.
Instead, he waits.
Winthrop crashes through the underbrush. That horrible sound ringing in his ears.
Feast was dead. What about Boof? Can’t go back. Can’t look back. Curses.
He’d lost Eik. Again. He stops in the wood. What’s he to do now? Why must he always run? Why can’t he be brave, like Eik? Winthrop bites back the tears. No, not tears. Screams.
“I don’t want to be scared no more,” he tells himself. He stands up and shakes himself off, “not no more.”
Winthrop musters his courage and goes in search of a friend in need.
He came in the night.
Eik was awoken to the crunching sound of leaves and a whisper.
“Eik. Eik? Is that you?”
Eik’s ears perked up to the familiar voice. In a hushed response, “Winnie? Winnie. Yes, it’s me.”
The two friends find one another in the cold dark night.
Winnie greets his friend with a nuzzle and a sigh of relief. “It’s cold,” Winthrop whispers, “let’s dig in for the night. We’ll find the farm in the morning.”
Eik agrees and stands back as Winthrop digs a hole, big enough for two, to wait out the night.
The day to follow was a somber one.
Neither spoke of Feast. Neither ventured to guess the fate of Boof. Neither acknowledged the now frequent, almost ceaseless, popping and crackling noise in the distance. At least they were headed south, away from the terrible sound.
First they crossed the stream and then the road. By the time they reached the fence the sun was high in the overcast sky. There it was, the farm. Just as the rats had said. Hopefully that’s not all they were right about.
The rabbits peered through the fence at the strange place.
Two large man-homes, built atop the ground, dominated the space. The larger of the two, the color of rust with a great big door. The smaller of the two, white with faded blue trim. A dull green monstrosity set on huge black round feet lay dormant behind the structure. Eik called it a “Tract-Tore”. Winthrop wasn’t sure how he knew that, but he thought it best not to ask.
Behind the man-homes were fields. Wide flat spaces where corn and other plants grew in neat and orderly rows. Though the corn in this field did not look so neat and orderly. Much of it was so tall that it had begun the double over. Some of it had already started to rot on the stalk.
Winthrop looks to his companion, “Where do they keep the food?”
Eik nods to the large red barn, “in there. The big red door.”
“Oh. Alright,” Winthrop takes a sharp breath and hops over the fence. “I’ll go first.”
Eik watches his friend move across the open spaces straight for the big red door, “carefully Winnie.”
Winthrop darts towards the big red door. He freezes when the front door to the farm house flings open. The screen door lists lazily on the hinges. A cold gust takes the door again and slams it shut.
It was nothing. No man.
He continues on to the barn. As he gets closer he sees that the large door is slightly ajar. Inside the big red building is dark. The musty smell of clay and straw from inside reminds Winthrop of the warren. He looks back towards the fence. Eik is moving cautiously across the yard towards the barn.
Winthrop wrinkles his nose and slips inside, behind the big red door, and into the darkness.
The air inside the barn was hot, still and musty. It reminded him of home. Home. This place was worlds different from home. Bands of sunlight crept in through gaps in the roof and splashed in strange patterns on the hard packed dirt floor.
The walls of the building were decorated with all manner of foreign and fiendish devices. Hooks and blades. Ropes and chains. Long wooden poles with metal fingers spread wide attached to the ends. Winthrop’s mind raced. Ever horrible story he’d ever heard about man must be true and then some.
A noise comes from behind the enraptured rabbit. He spins.
Eik sides past the big red door.
“There,” Eik said, motioning to a stack of burlap bags along the far wall.
The two crossed the smattering of light and shadow and approached the sacks. It certainly smelled like grain.
With a reassuring nod from Eik, Winthrop goes to chewing a hole in the corner of one of the bags. The fibers are coarse and tough. The taste is bitter in Winthrop’s mouth. With some effort the bag gives way and a steady flow of milled grain comes pouring out of the tiny hole; pooling on the ground at the rabbit’s feet.
“Eik!” Winthrop squeals, “Eik! They weren’t lying.”
Eik exhales and smiles slightly, “Appears that they weren't, friend.”
The grain continues to seep out of the bag until the hole is blocked by the mound of grain on the ground. Even so the sack looms over the rabbits and weighs many times what they could hope to carry.
Winthrop’s excitement turns sour, “It’s so, big. How will we ever get it back to the warren?”
Eik ponders the question, silently.
Winthrop’s ears droop.
“Sometimes,” Eik says, “the Girl would bring food from the house.”
Winthrop slowly turns to Eik.
“From the steps below the house,” he continues.
Winthrop’s cocks his head in confusion, “Eik?”
“There’s more food in the other building. Quickly,” Eik doesn’t wait for the inevitable questions.
Winthrop stands thunderstruck in the barn as Eik scampers out the door, “Eik?”
Moving quickly to catch up, Winthrop finds Eik stopped at the back corner of the white house with faded blue trim.
“Eik?”
Eik, wheels on Winthrop and with concern in his eyes, “hush. No time.”
Eik motions for Winthrop to peer around the corner.
“Oh!” Gasps Winthrop.
“Hush,” shushes Eik.
Around the back of the house, next to the tract-tore, was an oak tree. Under that oak tree lay a large tan and white lump of fur, teeth and jowls. A hound dog. Soundly asleep.
Winthrop jumps back around the corner. He looks to EIk. He’ll know what to do.
Eik looks tired. Worn. Scared.
That sight cut worse than any fear.
“It’s okay, Eik.” Winthrop says unconvincingly, “it’s just a dog.”
Is he serious?
Winthrop braces himself and hops around the corner, towards the hound.
He’s serious.
“Winnie!” Eik cries out, “Please. Wait. Stop.”
Too late.
“Uh,” starts Winthrop, “Hello. My name is Winthrop. But my friends call me Winnie.”
The hound lazily rolls over at the sound of Winthrop’s squeaking voice. One eye opens under a droopy brow.
“What’s your name?” Winthrop stammers.
The dog rolls over completely, planting his large paws under his sizable body. Both eyes open and focus on the peculiar rabbit. He yawns.
“Boy, you’ve got, he swallows hard, “a lot of teeth.”
The hound extends his rickety old legs and rises up above the rabbit.
“Oh, boy,” Winthrop blurts out.
The hound shakes his head violently. His long floppy ears smacking against the sides of his face. His jowls jiggle and a strand of slobber lets loose.
“Corp - Corporal Reginald Quatrell,” the hound says in a rich, proud but raspy voice. “But my friends call me Patches.”
“Hi, Patches,” smiles Winthrop.
Patches leans forward in a long pronounced stretch but he’s tugged back by the lead tethering him to the tree. Winthrop can count his ribs and the bumps along his back and tail. He’d be an impressive sight if not for the skin that hangs loose on his frame and his mangy fur. Poor thing.
Patches sighs and slumps back down to the dirt.
He looks planely at the rabbit, “I don’t think they’re coming back.”
Winthrop had seen this look before. The dog was half starved and wasting away.
Eik approaches cautiously, “Come Winnie. The food will be inside the house.”
“Eik,” Winthrop begs, “we can’t just leave him. He needs help.”
Eik looks away off into the fields and tries to find the cold spot inside him that does not care if the dog lives or dies.
He can’t find it.
“Yes. Fine,” he says. “I’ll go for food while you work on getting him free.”
Winthrop smiles.
Eik turns and hops towards the building. Up the porch steps and through the open door.
Winthrop turns back to the hound, “Hear that? We’re going to help.”
Patches’ tail thumps on the ground in approval.
Winthrop inspected the tether, thick metal links looped together. There’d be no getting through. The collar. The thick brown strap of worn leather around the dog’s neck. That was they key. Winthrop cautiously moves towards the lethargic hound offering soothing platitudes as he nuzzles right up to the dog’s neck.
Winthrop’s cheeks press against the dog’s course fur. His nose presses into the folds of the dog’s neck. Waves of hot, wet, stinking panting pummel Winthrop’s senses. The taste of the collar in Winthrop’s mouth is sharp and tart. The leather instantly saps the moisture from his mouth. Worse than chewing on a burlap bag, for certain.
Patches whimpers and squirms.
“Mruhp - stay still,” says a muffled Winthrop with a mouth full of leather.
After finding a few scraps of dried food, Eik circles back around the side of the farmhouse towards Winnie. He stops cold.
Pressed against the farmhouse wall, standing silent and still, a scene from a life he left behind.
The hutch.
A wood framed box with an angled roof, all wrapped in rough wire mesh, sitting atop four tall posts. The narrow wood rung ramp was left down. The small square door, left closed. Eik had hoped to never see that place again.
How long had it been? Not long enough to forget smell of the wooden cubby. Not long enough to forget the clanging sound of kibble pouring into the dingy metal bowl. Not long enough to forget that something was different.
As he stalked closer to the looming enclosure it occurred to him. It was silent.
He moved closer. Not yet to the plank.
It was more than silent. It was still. That was the difference.
And then the twinge filled his nose. A sad smell that told him to stop, turn away and do not look back.
For he knew, what awaited him.
When Eik finally returned to the tree, he found Patches padding around and Winthrop smiling that stupid, sincere smile.
“Hi Eik,” beamed Winthrop.
Eik offered up the scraps of food to Patches. He takes them readily.
“Hello, Winnie,” he replies.
Patches with tail wagging, circles around back to Winnie, and gives him a wet lick as a sign of affection.
“Eik, I’ve got an idea,” smiles Winnie.
He looks so proud of himself. He should. It was a good idea.
The rabbits trek along the path back towards the warren. The dog plodding along dutifully behind; dragging a sack heavy grain in his wake.
Winthrop smiling all the while.
Eik looks back to Winnie, “what are you planning on doing with him?”
“Who?” he responds quizzically.
Eik stops and ponders Winthrop. At this point he figures he shouldn’t expect anything different. “The dog. What are you going to do about the dog?”
“Oh! Yeah,” he chuckles. “Patches, his name is Patches. I figured he’d stay with us. In the warren.”
“That so?” Eik smirks. “Can’t wait,” as he continues along the trail home.
The pair moved with a newfound confidence through the wood. Traveling with a hound can do that for two rabbits. But even the dog’s presence did nothing to ease the feeling the trio as they looked over a smog covered wood. Cracking sounds popped in the distance. Streaks of fiery light arched high above what was left of the forest.
“Oh,” Winnie says sadly. “I wish they’d leave the wood.”
“To too Winnie. Me too,” answers Eik.
But they both knew that to be a wasted wish.
It was dark by the time the trio finally returned to the the warren with food, and dog, in hand.
Winthrop and Eik were met by Sumac and Toadstool, lazily on sentry duty.
“Now, just wait a minute!” Sumac proclaims as the approaching group take shape in the distance.
“Keep the beast back,” demands Toadstool.
“Beast?” Winthrop questions. “His name is Patches. He’s a helper.”
Patches swings the bag of seed down in front of him and nuzzles his head against Winthrop.
“And,” Winthrop continues, “I’m keeping him.”
Sumac and Toadstool erupted in a flurry of objections, retorts and curses to the Black Rabbit.
Stuttering and back towards the portal, “I’m. I’m going to fetch Foxtrot now. He’ll know what to to do.”
Until now, Eik had been silent. He steps from the shadows into a pool of twilight and urges the patsies to run along, “Oh by all means! Get Foxtrot. Drag his fat hide out here.”
He continues
“And tell the others that we’ve brought enough food for the winter. Yes, tell everybody that.”
Eik waits.
Up Next The Winter Without Regret
Actual Play by Michael Siebold
The Warren a roleplaying game by Marshall Miller. © 2015 Bully Pulpit Games LLC
“Polygon Wood” playbook written by Jason Morningstar
