Strings.

[Glenn]

"Armor." Mary gave him a little look. She was a peasant girl, a farmgirl. A Myrken dirt farmer made good, or making good, or trying to make good. Armor was for rich people. Or maybe soldiers. Even that wasn't a sure thing here. "It should be simple enough. I've put on lots of different things in my life and that it's big doesn't hurt. But.. if you wanted to help.." and here she went just a little red. It was hard. She was welling all of her bravery in one direction, filled with the fuel of the cakes as she was; when other things came up, however, she found herself caught unawares. "Whatever's quickest. I just want this over and done with." Courage was courage, but sense was sense too.

[Cinnabar]

"It's the chestplate that's the trickiest, but there's a knack to it." In demonstration he picked up the larger piece, iron breastplate and backplate connected by a handful of straps; pulled on over his head like a shirt, albeit one made of rigid metal; a few quick shrugs settled the straps on his shoulders, and that was more or less that. Not exactly dignified, but it worked.

"Alright, your turn. Arms up, please." He couldn't help but grin as he noticed his tone echoing that of a similar routine performed at home, helping his children get dressed. Incongruous. He lifted the smaller chestplate high enough for her to duck under, lowering it carefully once he was sure she'd got her head and arms lined up with the right holes. Definitely a bit large on her, but maybe that was for the best. Spaulders and vambraces of stout leather next, and the rest was simple enough - a matter of tightening straps and fastening buckles to give a more secure fit - which he left to her while he finished his own preparations.

"You shouldn't need to do much more than hold the basket steady and close the lid once it's inside; it'll be my job to steer the creature in the right direction." Easier for him to do that with a static target. "And keep the lid between yourself and the creature as much as possible - it'll make a decent enough shield in a pinch. "

It didn't take him long to get himself ready, tugging at straps rolling his shoulders and stretching his arms to make sure he had enough freedom to move; once he'd finished adjusting his helm's chinstrap the final step was to tug on a pair of heavy leather gloves and take up the broom that was to be his weapon for the impending... well, hopefully not a battle.

"Ready, Miss Ford?"

[Glenn]

"How does anyone move around in this?" It was perhaps one of the thrills in her life to be helped into armor by Cinnabar Calomel. That said, all the cake in the world wouldn't make her feel like she was going off to glorious war. She mostly felt clumsy and awkward, hardly like the heroic warrior maidens of legend. To be fair, she was rather clumsy and awkward even without armor. This just didn't help. Still, she just had to hold a basket. Hold a basket. Not DROP the basket. She could do that.

A little flushed, a little pale, whether the former governor could see it with the helm or not, Mary gave a nod. Sheepish but firm enough. "As I'm going to be." Steady hand, that's all she had to be.

[Cinnabar]

"You get used to it." His own armour wasn't entirely the right size, meant for someone deeper in the chest and broader of shoulders, but he wore it well enough.

It was a little incongruous - the armour, the setting, the weapon in his hand, the less-than-enthusiastic assistance, the foe they were to face - but perhaps that's what kept the hint of amusement in his features, treating the task at hand as an entertaining adventure. It was a bit of a joke, really. Hopefully they'd be able to laugh about it afterwards.

"Door, please." He waved to one of the researchers, the slightly pompous one with the spectacles - Maxwell, was it? - to unlock the storage room, given that his heavy gloves would make it cumbersome. Broom already poised in case the creature inside decided to make a break for it, ready to step in as soon as the way was clear.

"Close it after us."

[Glenn]

Nothing funnier than festering poison-ridden spider-bites! Well, in Myrken, that wasn't ALL that bad. It was better than the Baie! Mary took a deep breath. It was a damn lucky thing that Catch didn't make the Baie into a giant Baie or anything like that. It'd gobble them all up and ... oh, Maxwell was saying something. Best to stop thinking about the Baie. Good timing for once.

The bespectacled young man seemed very unhappy with his position by the door. He'd be very happy in an obsever's role, on the other side of the room and he was letting them know that quite clearly, for the third or fourth time. Mary just gave him a scowl. He wasn't the one with a basket! He wasn't the one with armor! Stupid Maxwell. She managed to headbutt him slightly with her helm as she walked into position. He rubbed hishead with an "owgg!" But it served him right.

"Open the door already!" She hissed through her teeth. Maxwell complied, and yes, he was more than glad to slam the door behind them.

[catch]

The spider, she did not move. She hadn't moved, not since they had intruded on her reverie, and not since they have closed the door upon her in an undignified slam that set her sodden webs a-flutter. She was only a spider, after all, a creature unfortunate in the symbol of subterrean cultures, of stigma and dogma in the defense of self, nest, young. For a beat of their hearts, she did not move, but she would not stay still forever, for the Open Space was upsetting to a mind such as hers, and her forelegs began their gentle, blind probe, quizzical as to the light and the air, and the flapping edges of her web against the familiar contours of the Face on which she has dwelled.

[Cinnabar]

In the lair of the beast their situation was no less risible - here they were, cautious, armoured, advancing with trepidation upon a creature that had hardly demonstrated itself to be dangerous. But there was still the risk, the idea that by its association with the snarling statue it might have absorbed some of that artefact's undeniable menace; that by its association with Catch it might be somehow infected with whatever it was that carried madness and uncertainty in his footsteps.

"Move slowly; hold the basket on its side on the floor, so it looks like a shelter." The former Governor's experience with spiders was limited, so he was making some assumptions here. But despite this one's size it would probably be threatened by their advance; it would, hopefully, seek a shadowed corner in which to hide. Like, say, the container in which they hoped to capture it.

Once Mary was in place he would move in, brandishing the broom so as to carefully nudge the room's uninvited denizen towards its intended home.

"Come on. You can't stay there."

[Glenn]

Mary was so very happy to have Cinnabar there. On her own, she might freeze, but she could follow orders, could follow HIS orders. He was so calm and contained. He was a natural leader. It wasn't really something to be afraid of. They had prepared. The spider was less dangerous than lots of things any Myrkenite would have dealt with, but there was an air of magic and danger, and it was all she could do to keep a steady hand, to follow his instructions.

She took a deep breath. "Oh, I can do this, Cinnabar, but hurry if you can."

[catch]

Here was hard stimulus, the brush of bristles against the fur-that-was-not, sensitive, tactile feelers that tasted and tested air and currents, and saw things in that air that humans could never see. Thus it was that, ere the broom ever began it's gentle pressure, the spider has become alert, and lifted both forelegs high into the air, revealing the pale, baleful eyes that were grey, among the black, and the stretch of mandibles that lay within, nightmare fangs that, in miniature, inspired deathly fear, and were now swollen to the match the spider's monstrous proportions. So, too, it's voice, for there is a thin, weedy hiss that emerges, something no human ear could hear in a normal spider. It is frightened, in the way an animal is frightened, for here has intruded lights and hard, pushing things, and through the tremor of her web there comes sound, and in that fear she acts all in bluster, as fruitless as the dog's snarl before the club, and a cattle's struggling lows against the rope that binds him to the butcher's stall.

She resists, bracing her legs against that beautiful, marble face, pushing against the broom's gentle insistence with grim, animal purpose, and when she can no longer resist, she turns in a way her bulk should not let her turn, and strikes at the broom with grotesque, futile rage.

[Cinnabar]

It had perhaps been optimistic to hope that the spider might cooperate with their efforts to rehouse it, might scurry amenably into the basket to be kept safe from harm - its own and others'. That it found the broom's intrusion disagreeable was clear enough, and to be entirely expected. That it fought back so vehemently was unsettling, but in a way that made him glad that they had gone to such lengths to protect themselves. Particularly when the thing moved so quickly, and with such ferocity.

But for all that those fangs lashed out in defiance, they did no appreciable harm to the stiff bristles and thick twine that made up the broom's head; Calomel applied a few more insistent nudges, first from this side and then that, doing his best to herd the creature down from its perch. Hopefully just enough to make it uncomfortable, to encourage it to seek a spot where it wouldn't be so rudely disturbed.

"Be ready to get out of the way if it doesn't go in the basket."

[Glenn]

On the one hand, she was very glad she wasn't holding the broom as she watched it be attacked. On the other hand, the spider might be attacking the basket next, or her. She made an audible yelp, but not a particularly loud one. A yelp and a VERY deep breath. She could do this. All she had to do was stand still. Cinnabar Calomel was an EXPERT swordsman. Certainly he could handle a broom. Perhaps that's why she chose the bucket in the end. If she had chosen the broom she would have smashed the spider by now! Regardless, she was VERY ready to get out of the way at a moment's notice.

[catch]

The pressures of the broom were irresistible, her fangs and venom, useless. And so, she falls back to the only avenue left; escape, but not the escape they desire, not yet. She has a mind of her own, and first she tries one way, then another, no doubt haunted and hounded by the broom. For all her agility, in the end, she cannot move very fast, for the stone edifice upon which she has cast her webs is slippery, and her own webs could only do so much for a creature of her girth. So, she twists, and turns, and scuttles, and does her best to get away from the broom, her frustration rising so that, again and again, she attacks the only tormentor she is fully aware of, the inanimate bristles, until she must lower herself to the floor, and the waiting basket. This she feels, first, as another brush against her legs, and the spider hesitates, bunching all her legs together, hoping to appear dead, so the broom would give her a moment's, animal calculation. It is frightened of the basket. It may begin the poking.

[Cinnabar]

So far, so good; Calomel took care to make only the barest of contact with the broom, deft movements that sought to keep the spider moving through threat rather than actual harm.

"You've got the lid?" He spared a brief glance for Mary, flashing a reassuring grin despite the fact that she'd do better to keep her attention on the creature. Getting close, now, if all goes to plan.

"Stay still as you can until it's inside." Not wanting to startle the spider away from its intended home, he made certain that the best escape route from those goading bristles always lay in the direction of the basket. It was just a matter of making it seem more appealling than the alternative.

Unfortunately for the spider its tormentor wasn't taken in by the ruse, if anything prodding more insistently; the basket was sheltered and shadowed and wide enough to make a good bolt-hole. In the meantime Calomel watched closely, poised to head off any path that didn't agree with the one he had in mind: directly into the basket.

[Glenn]

Big, fat, spider. Big, fat, scary spider. Mary had the lid. Mary wanted to SQUISH the spider with the lid. Mary was willing to squish Cinnabar with it if he got in her way. HE was in armor though, so that probably wouldn't work. It was all she could do to stand there,t o ready the lid, to not shake, to not... Ah! It wasn't working right. The spider was attacking the broom. Maybe... just maybe, she could help more.

With a grit of her teeth, she started to slowly bring the basket forward, cutting off the spider's room to move. This had to end quickly. In a battle of attrition, she'd squash everything in sight!

[catch]

No chance to rest, no chance to think whatever thoughts a spider must go through, to make a decision. She utters one, last, defiant hiss, and lashes at the broom with a pegged leg, but she has worn herself out with fright and fight, and the basket - as frightening an object as it appeared - was dark, and quiet. Urged onward by the damnable broom, the grotesque spider scurries into the basket, finds the bottom, so that she may turn and face her tormentor. Her trailing front legs barely missed fitting, so that they jut at awkward angles, as she tries to hold them in her threatening posture. Yes. This basket was not so bad. The broom could not push her from here, and there is no insistent prodding at her bulbous abdomen. It was defensible, and she fully prepares to make her fighting stand.