Chapter 2237 Gather ‘em Up
--- Kat ---
Kat called out to Appoline once she’d confirmed that everyone on the ground wasn’t going to spring back up and attack anytime soon. "Seems like you’re already finished. What do you need me for?" asked Appoline.
"I don’t have any way to contain these guys. Not really. Do you have like... a sleeping potion or something? Heck even if you just have some good rope..." Kat explained.
"I don’t have any on me right now but I could make some... or I could make a potion to strengthen some of the vines and use that as rope," Appoline offered.
Kat shrugged, "What’s better?"
Appoline shrugged back, "The vines probably because they can hold for as long as we need them to but it’s going to be a process. The brewing should only take me ten... maybe fifteen minutes, but then I have to gather the ingredients and let it all soak into the vines so it might be an hour or more before that’s all sorted."
"Can we put them to sleep first?" asked Kat.
"Sure... but that will still probably be thirty minutes of work," explained Appoline. "We’re saving at most half an hour and it’s possible they have some sort of antidote for the sleeping potion... or simply resistant to it. Some people are quite resistant to them for some reason."
"Is it all the same type?" asked Kat.
"No, it isn’t," confirmed Appoline.
Kat pursed her lips. "And we like... have no spare rope?"
"Do you have spare rope? I used mine to tie up Brook," Appoline countered.
Kat sighed and shook her head. "No. I probably should grab some at some point but you never realise how useful it is until you don’t have it. How secure would the vines be without the treatment?"
"Ehh... not as strong as normal rope but I suppose they’re better than nothing. It won’t harm the plants much to just grab a whole heap," offered Appoline.
Kat sighed but nodded, "Alright if you can get to work on that I’ll watch everyone here."
Appoline nodded and did as ask... but it meant the next hour was really boring. Nobody wanted to fight back. The few that remained conscious didn’t want to risk it and Kat’s simple presence was enough to keep the few that did wake up quiet. There was no trouble at all when they were finally all tied up... but of course there was still more ingredient gathering and potion brewing to do.
So once they were all secured Kat and Appoline went back to work. Kat did move the ones they’d tied up into the room just so they were easily spotted, something that was surprisingly awkward but she managed it. Turns out balancing a human body is a massive pain in the ass.
Lily would end up waking up before they finished with the herb gathering... but apparently she wasn’t willing to talk much. For all that she was technically awake, Lily found herself exceptionally tired. Attempts to go back to sleep were made but ultimately failed, leaving her simply resting her eyes while things went on around her.
Apparently the rest of the group was moving around once again. ’Brook’ had woken up at some point and immediately returned to sleep with a good whack to the head. The specifics though... that would require Lily to wake up properly enough to actually ask. Eventually, when Appoline finally finished with everything that could be done swiftly, it was time to head back and ask what was going on... they just had to work out how to move everyone else. Kat couldn’t fly them all one at a time after all.
In the end, there was five remaining living enemies, with Kat responsible for very few of those deaths. It was... weird to think about. Even if it further convinced her that everyone here was actually just Thyme in the end. Though... it was just now occurring to her. "Hey Appoline?"
’Yes Kat?" answered Appoline.
"Why don’t you have a suit on?" asked Kat.
"I’m testing my current best potion for dealing with the poison. It should be in such a low concentration that if issues crop up I can react to them quickly... but so far, it’s all been fine. Though that might be due to a lack of poison here instead of how effective my potion is," explained Appoline.
"Alright... how are we going to move these guys?" asked Kat deciding that she didn’t want to get into an argument about how unsafe it was to test that sort of thing on herself. Then again, it wasn’t like Kat knew anyone willing to volunteer and it probably DID need to be done.
"I saw a trolley thing when I was hiding. The one I found was broken, but perhaps if we look around we can find one that’s not? Otherwise we could just kill them," offered Appoline. Notably, none of the ’people’ they had tied up even commented on that. No freaking out, just... silence. *Unless they’re asleep instead of Thyme ignoring us?*
Looking around the room had Kat finding several more pieces of trolleys before finding one that was... mostly intact. One of the wheels had rusted completely shut and the others were on their way there... but it moved. Sadly, trying to get the fourth one to move may or may not have broken it... but that was fine. It was still attached to the corner, mostly, and that meant it could drive.
They piled the attackers up onto the trolley, and then Appoline applied another layer of vines to make sure they wouldn’t fall off in transit then off they went. The only real trouble was when they got to the broken room. In the end, Appoline simply agreed to help instead of just letting Kat do the work. Appoline lifted the whole thing above her head and relied on Kat flying above with a piece of vine in hand to keep it all steady.
It worked, and got them to the other side. Once there, they just needed to make their way down the corridor to the dorms. Stopping outside, they knocked on the door... and nothing happened for a bit. From Lily’s side of things she could hear some arguments going on... so Lily just reached over with a shadow and opened the door, cutting them off. Kat flew in with the trolley and glared at the researchers. "What’s the issue?"
Scar scoffed, "These idiots were just debating if it was safe to let you in or if you were another attacker. The fact Lily opened the door was good enough for me..."
"Well we’ve already had one traitor," grumbled Carl.
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Scar slapped him on the back of the head, pretty hard from the fact Carl nearly fell over. "We’ve got enough issues already," Scar then turned to face Kat and Appoline. "It turns out my fears were correct. A lot of the work has small imperfections in it. Easily forgivable as basic mistakes, stuff we’d overlook if we were checking each other’s work... but they are in such great numbers and rather subtle about it in most instances, so they’re very easy to miss. A casual glance wouldn’t spot them..."
"What does that mean?" asked Kat.
"Practically, it means we need to start over. Sand down the walls where we can and just completely start over. Which we’ve already done. This isn’t a hypothetical. The only stuff that’s safe is the last bits we were all working on before the attack happened, well those of us who were awake anyway. Seems like Fake Brook never had time to mess with our latest work."
"Ah... that’s not ideal. A lot of work... and I might need to leave to refresh my orbs," Kat commented.
"Nah we got a box of those for you," countered Scar. "It’s that one over there."
"Oh," intoned Kat as she glanced at the box in question. "Alright... what’s the eta then?"
"At least two days, forty-eight hours," admitted Scar. "Part of that is just the need to ensure that no further mistakes are made, and that the areas we’ve sanded down or carved out were done so properly. This is now going to be a slow and steady project. We can’t afford to rush anymore because this reset means we don’t really have extra supplies anymore. If we want it done, mistakes almost can’t happen," explained Scar.
Kat nodded in understand. "Alright... what do we want to do with these guys? I brought them around to interrogate or watch or something but..."
Scar winced and glanced over at Vanilla, who was standing nearby. Prompting her to speak up, "We don’t really have the spare food. Or well, we sort of do but it would be cutting things tight. Five extra people to feed is a LOT."
"If I get some time to make a proper sleeping potion I can ensure that they don’t need to be fed often," Appoline commented.
"We’ll look into it," agreed Vanilla.