{BFDI} The Poison in Boinks

Fortress

The long ride was most uncomfortable. The sun pierced and pushed its way into Match's wooden and ooze skin. She could practically feel it weaken and fall apart. For the first time in a long time she felt sick again. The sun was drying everything away from her into a husk. 

To help vent the pain, all of the remcamen groaned and moped the whole ride. Match also occasionally scratched herself to try and relive the pain but it did little to make what was everywhere go away. 

Eventually great flat farmlands coated the land, and as they got further in, houses made of stone and wood. Then, stone roads, and many houses. Markets of wereras selling salted beef and pork, vegetables and their version of chickens. 

Match had never seen so many wereras before. She, like Pencil, had only vaguely interacted with them. Boinks was the only object, werera city. Otherwise objects and wererawolves lived apart.

It was mostly for the conservation of natural life on Earth. As advanced as they were, the governments of the object city-states still declared wereras as animals. The idea of letting wereras into object society was still up for debate, as giving the wereras the technology the objects had would destroy their culture and possibly allow them to destroy themselves. 

As it stood objects of the world didn't yet trust wererawolves enough to use what they had, but Boinks wasn't the objects of the world. It was just a place where people decided to live at some point. 

Match was slightly glad that she wasn't in a position to talk to anyone here. She knew next to nothing about werera culture, and would feel out of place. Ironically she was already a fish out of water here, and no matter how much she thought, she always ended up thinking about how uncomfortable she was, and groaned just a little louder.

"Do they ever let up?" The young soldier asked, annoyed.
"Patience Max. We all know they're annoying. Reminding us ain't helping," the captain said. 
Some villagers came up close to the cart hoping to get an idea of what was going on. Match assumed most of them had never seen an object let alone a remcamen.

A young werera girl trailed with a bunch of other children. She wore a white dress dusted with dirt at the skirt. 
"Sir?! What are they?" The girl pointed with a clawed finger. 
"Yeah!" A smaller boy in overalls asked. He was missing a tooth. 

The soldiers smiled at the children's curiosity.
"They're corrupted objects called remcamen. The object crocodilian. Evil's pierced their hearts and caused em to go all ape," The captain said. Match barked out loudly in defiance. The captain kicked her face, so she stopped and held her injured mouth. 
"You don't have to worry though," Max, the young soldier said, "We are out there to protect you. Brave warriors under the king's mighty sight." A remcamen in a net behind him grabbed his tiny tail, "Ah!" He took his tail back.
The captain laughed. 

***

The wereras castle was built up of stone bricks with a wall surrounding the courtyard. It had a drawbridge with a moat underneath. The moat was as large as a lake going around the castle in a squiggly imperfect way. 

The soldiers rode into the grassy courtyard just outside the main structure and stopped. The wereras on the second cart jumped off and headed for a shed on the courtyard property. They talked amongst one another as they did.

All of the remcamen were trying to bite free from the rope including Match, but they had been doing this for hours and it was hopeless. The rope in the net had a core made of a thick wire. Match chewed and pulled all she wanted but it was going to take weeks to get out like this. By the looks of it she didn't have weeks.

In the shed the wereras brought out two steel cages along with a moveable staircase that was just as tall as the top of the cages. 

A tall plump werera wearing purple detailed robes stumbled out of the main structure.
"Oh cripes! You've got some!" The purple wearing werera said pointing to the remcamen. Match noticed he had a golden crown and earrings on. He must've been the king, at least of this land.
"You are right milord. They were right where you said they were!" The captain said. 
"Oh yes. Thank you kindly ErkTrout," The king said. He bit his nails and watched the remcamen from a distance. Two soldiers at a time lifted a bag of remcamen as the king watched the process anxiously.