Baashin Breakout

The bhasin cowered, even though the cage's door was wide open. Its wide eyes darted every which way, its panicked breathing made its sides move as fast as a hummingbird's wings. 

"Come out." Bucci coaxed the shaking creature, as was his specialty. "No one's going to hurt you."

The bhasin didn't respond, so Bucci sighed and stood up. 

"Do you all really need to crowd around like that?" Bucci asked loudly at the gathered rescuers. They gave a variety of embarrassed mutters and murmurs in response. 

"Come onn, we did all that work to free them and we gotta turn around for them to actually go back into the wild?" Blahaj complained. 

"I beg your damn PARDON." Ghighi elbowed him. "YOU didn't do any fighting, outside of making our medics a lot worse off!" 

"I think you gave more frostbite injuries than I did bitemarks--!" 

"AHEM." The giant wolf was back from getting looked at by the elsin. The two squabblers fell silent. 

"This really isn't getting anywhere...Alright, everyone!" Bucci clapped his big pawed hands to gether their attention. "If anyone has veterinary experience, we need someone to look over these bhasin and make sure we only release the healthy ones! Any that have sustained injury, we'll take back to camp and give them whatever medical attention we can afford. Is that alright?"

Silence, for just a bit, then a small hand raised.

"I wouldn't call it veterinary experience," A black aphex with flower markings elbowed his way to the front. "But I've lived here long enough to know when a bhasin is acting weird. If one of them is looking too sick to be let out, I'll tell you why."

"Well," Bucci smiled. "That's very kind of you stranger."

"Stranger?" Nor blinked and stood up straighter. "We've met!"

"Shh, secret!" Bucci waved for the aphex to follow him to the cages with bhasin who hadn't left their entrapment.

Nor looked at the bhasin, circling around them all as best he could. A handful of the other adventurers who weren't concerning themselves with the captives or cleaning up injuries were forming a much looser circle around them. 

"These guys all lost their tails." Nor reported, his tone grave despite his young age. "The cuts are way too close to the base of the tail, they can't grow back."

"I recall those tails can explode if the bhasin is agitated enough." Bucci replied, paw on his chin. "Seems odd that they'd cut them off preemtively."

"Well, that's part of it." Nor said. "There's like...I dunno how it works, exactly, but their tails are supposed to explode when they come off. If you cut them off before then, they won't explode for awhile, and they can be used as like...natural-grown bombs." 

Bucci felt a chill go up his spine. "How long do they take to explode?"

"Uhh..." Nor glanced around the campsite, suddenly nervous. "...They can last up to a week, i think? We're not allowed near dead bhasin who still have their tails, even rats and vultures avoid them for awhile."

"Someone interrogate those poachers!" Bucci commanded. 

"Shouldn't we just tell everyone to run?!" Nor tugged on Bucci's arm, the half-scream made everyone around them tense up. "What if that was the plan all along?!"

"I don't know about you, but these ones didn't seem very keen to die when our wolf friend plowed through them all." Bucci mused. "We may still have time. If anyone has the strength, it may be for the best to move the bhasin without tails back to the new campsite. They might be too injured to return to the wild at all." 

"On it!"

"O-okay!"

"Don't worry, we haven't exploded yet...!" 

Bucci left the other adventurers to their muttering, taking one of the cages and hiking it on his back. Nor hesitated to follow, which Bucci noticed.

"You can follow me back." Bucci reassured him. "I don't think I have the strength to carry both of you, though."

Nor seemed to steel himself, then shook his head. "I'll be right behind you, but I'll be taking one of the cages with me!"

Bucci smiled back at him, then took off running back to town. Nor memorized the direction of the dust cloud, then turned back to the cage pile. 

"Come ON." Ghighi had to stand on one of the other poachers to look the most intimidating one in the eye. "Just tell us what you were doing with those tails!"

"Hell if I know, we were just cutting them off!" The one-armed aphex growled. "We skin em for hides and remove the tails for safety. I don't know anything else! Hell, I'm not even in charge of trappin them, so I couldn't even tell you how to get more!"

"Liar!" Blahaj called. "You hit me with a blowdart! That's hunting gear!"

The aphex looked away. "Well, I'll tell you what, if there were any tail-bombs around, this spot wouldn't be nearly important enough to booby-trap. All you lot are doing here is alerting HQ that they need to be more underground than before."

Nor tried to ignore the queasy feeling in his gut as he hoisted a cage on his back. The bhasin inside was breathing loud enough for him to hear, it wasn't a noise he'd normally hear from one of these creatures. 

"Maybe we oughta lock you in one of those cages, see how you like it!"

"We can walk, idiot!" 

"Wait, I wanna be carried..."