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“These past few years,” Cecelia heard Emmet rumble and nearly lost her footing on the crates she’d stacked together. She knew that voice well!
Sure enough, a backward glance showed a somewhat-familiar armored form, half visible in the light coming in from the portcullis. Right about where Threadbare was.
“Yes,” she could just make out the tiny bear’s voice in the darkness. “The last time I saw you, everything was on fire, and you were falling over a bannister. Well, through it, I suppose. It was rather flimsy to you I think.”
“It was. Then there were soldiers, and I fought them. But then King Melos was there, and I could not fight him, for he was stronger than I. And he took me back to Castle Cylvania.”
“I see. I was stuck under a lot of rubble for a few years. Then I got out and found my old friends and made some new ones, and now I am here.”
Oh, Threadbare. Cecelia palmed her face with her free hand. Then she shook her head, and looked up at the boxes. She had a job to do, and he was... buying her time? Having an innocent conversation? Hard to say.
Emmet. Emmet was a surprise. She’d never thought to ask after him, assumed he was sitting deactivated in a storeroom somewhere. But here he was, talking, and his words sounded an awful lot like he was smart now, too. Another Greater Golem... She thought, as she scrambled up the boxes.
And then she was hopping off the last box and scrambling up Reason.
“I was not done,” said Emmet. “King Melos told me of my destiny and personally took me through many dungeons. I fought many foes at his side, and learned to become strong. Even though I must pretend to be stupid, and follow Anise Layd’i around and obey her commands, I am smart, too.”
“Anise Layd’i. Is she about? That could be trouble,” Threadbare said.
“She is in the Fortress somewhere. Speaking with the Hand. And Princess Cecelia.”
Cecelia froze.
What?
BOOM!
Once the echoes faded, the little bear continued. “Princess Cecelia? Are you sure?” Threadbare asked.
“I am sure. I was awaiting here as ordered when she came in her Steam Knight suit which is strong but not as strong as me. She came out, and Anise bowed to her and smiled in a way that should have been pleasant, but I thought seemed unpleasant.”
“And you are certain it was her?”
“I have seen her face, her armor, heard her voice many times before. King Melos told me I must guard her with my life and do as she instructs, even if Anise Layd’i does not want me to. And I am certain that was Princess Cecelia.”
Cecelia felt a sick premonition welling up in her gut. She remembered rumors, barracks whispers, and old tales.
Old tales about daemons, and what they could do with people.
But I’m here! My soul is here in my new body, right? Sick to her stomach, she scrambled back to the hatch and wrapped her fingers around the handle.
“Oh. That’s strange. I saw Anise Layd’i kill her.” Threadbare said.
Metal shrieked, as Emmet stirred, restless. “Impossible. That would be treason.”
“And yet she did.”
Cecelia’s hands shook, and she pushed hesitation aside, twisted at the handle, and got it half open...
And then her eyes opened wide, as something inside twisted back. The handle ground shut again.
“You are fooled or lying. I am a representative of the Crown. It is treason to lie to me,” Emmet ground out, and there was a hint of frustration in his voice.
“I think Anise Layd’I has been fooling a lot of people,” said Threadbare.
“And she has told me that is what traitors would say. Are you a traitor to the crown?”
“No,” Threadbare said after some consideration. “But the King killed Caradon, you know.”
“Caradon?”
“The old man who made us.”
BOOM!
Cecelia closed her eyes, let the old sorrow wash over her, to be replaced with new resolve.
Reason was hers, dammit! And since Reason was dormant, she had a trump card.
“Animus!” She whispered, touching the hatch. “Invite door!” And then she gave it a sharp tug, putting her will into the animi as she did so, and it sprang open—
—as flesh tore, and a spray of blood hit her face.
Something inside screamed, louder than any steam. She staggered back, got the glowgleam rod up, and shined it in...
Into a mass of writhing tentacles, and wires, and nonsensical gears, and glowing sigils that she’d never seen before. Eyeless faces sobbed at her, as the thing that filled Reason like a hermit crab filled its shell, whined and shrieked over the tendrils that she’d torn free with the hatch and lashed out after her.
She fell off Reason, hitting the ground, feeling her body crack a bit, as a red ‘34’ floated up.
“What?” Emmet said, voice gaining volume as he rose. “No! I must guard Reason!”
The hatch slammed shut, and gears groaned, as Reason stirred, rising in jerky motion, turning toward Cecelia as she crawled backward, watching the parasite-filled mecha up its massive blade.
Reason needed no guards, as it turned out.
Not that it was Reason, any more. No, they were far, far past reason here, Cecelia realized...
*****
“So you’re Graves’ old man,” Arxus smiled, as he paced around the barracks, looking over the junk scattered hither and yon. “I hear he turned traitor.”
“I wouldn’t know. He don’t exactly call home no more.” Graves said. “Ran away to the big city cause he was too good for pickin’ beets the rest of his life.”
The necromancer chuckled as he nudged the overfull catbox with his toe. “Looks like someone’s been keeping pets against the rules. Sorry for the mess. It was here when you got here I suppose?”
“Yes. Eh, it don’t smell worse than the barn on a hot day. I reckon.”
Gods, he was laying it on thick. Madeline kept her camouflage going, feeling the sanity drain.
“Well, it’s no worry,” said Arxus. “The Crown makes war on traitors, not their relatives. So you were bringing supplies in?”
“Yessir. Bunch of fishermen came through Pads and traded for stuff. We’re simple farm folk and fish disagrees with us so we decided to tithe it to tha troops.”
“How patriotic. You know, I’m from Riversend, myself. My folks weren’t peasants, but they weren’t far from it, and I don’t ever recall knowing any peasants who would give up food.”
Graves shrugged, uncomfy. “Well, I didn’t make the choice. New Alderman’s a shit, probably wanted to kiss up to the Crown.”
“New Alderman?”
“Baron down there went bad. Royal Knights rooted him out. Put in an Alderman in his place.”
“Oh? See, that’s interesting. Because I heard that my old colleague Graves was one of those royal knights who did that, back before he went traitor.”
BOOM.
Madeline studied Graves’ face. He was sweating, and using the time to think, she could tell. But if she could tell, she rather thought Arxus could, too.
“Yeah. I did talk to my son after he did that,” Graves said, bowing his head. “Didn’t want to mention it to ya because he went traitor a few weeks after.”
“Mm. I know why you’re here.” Arxus said.
“You do?”
Madeline shifted slowly, slowly under the bed, angling for a good pounce.
“You’re here looking for news of your son.”
She relaxed a bit.
“I am,” Graves admitted. “Do you know anything?”
“Honestly, I don’t know if I’d tell you if I did. He thought he was better than us. Felt bad about the soulstone archives. Kept asking questions about where the bodies came from.” Arxus chuckled, an oily sound. “First rule of the necromancer corps, you never ask about that. He thought he was above that rule. Better than us. But we got him back.”
“Did you?” Graves asked, and there was something in his voice, something that Madeline had never heard from the thoughtful, nervous Necromancer she’d come to like.
“Oh yes. His fiancée came back from the front, dead. One of MY friends had a contact in the morgue. Guess which body we had shipped over for training, when Wight day came?”
“You— you did that,” Graves said, forgetting to put the quaver of old age in his tone. There was a quaver there all right, but it wasn’t from age.
“And guess which trainee ended up with her body, staring up at him, when he pulled the sheet off?” Arxus said, sneering.
“You son of a bitch,” Graves said, standing.
“Hello, Bertie,” sneered Arxus, whipping a wand from a holster, and pointing it straight at him. “How’s tricks?”
BOOM
"Chomp!" Madeline lunged. Arxus screamed as Madeline’s fangs went into his calf. The wand fired and black energy went wild, and Graves shouted words that were lost in the thunder of the cannon, as red life burst from Arxus and flowed into him. Over and over again he stomped forward, pounding his cane on the ground, shouting until the echoes of the cannon faded, and Arxus was a shriveled husk on the floor. “-Life! Drain Life! Drain Life!”
“Stop!” Madeline howled, crashing into him, and sending him off balance.
“You jackass!” howled a spectral voice, and both of them whipped their heads around to see Arxus’ spirit, standing over his corpse. “You are so fucked!” And then he dove through the floor.
“He’ll get help,” Graves said, and from outside, down the corridor, shouts were already starting to rise. “I’m sorry. I’m...”
“Glub!” yelled Madeline, grabbing up her pack. “Get ready to move!”
Wind’s Whisper Threadbare, she thought. “We’re made! Need an escape route!”
And then it was Garon’s turn...
*****
“She hated me,” Mastoya said, slurring her words. The second bottle, empty, crashed to the floor as she fumbled for it. “Nuts. That’s alcohol abuse, it is.”
“She didn’t hate you,” Garon said. “She loved you; she was just awful at showing it.”
“No. It was... it would have been fine, I guess, if it was just us, y’know? But she let Dad take me into th’ town to play. An’ I had friends. An’...” Mastoya slumped back in her chair. “An’ they got to play with dolls, and wear pretty dresses, an’... but not me. Not Nasty Masty. Had to wear furs and loincloths, an’ get my ears pierced early even though it hurt, and fight off the rats she called to eat me. The rats. Garon. She tried to eat me. With rats.”
“Yeah. We, uh, we got her to stop doing that after they nearly got Jarrik that one time.”
“I... shit. And Dad... what’s he do? He like acted all supportive and stuff, but whenever it was him ‘gainst her, he’d crumble. Weak. Just... good man. She didn’t deserve, him, him. Hm?” She reached for the bottle, found nothing there. “Shit.”
“Yeah. Listen, do you believe me? Believe what I said about what Anise is doing?”
“Oh yeah. She’s a shit. Thing is...” Mastoya chortled. “The King is strong. He’s just... just giving her rope. He needs ’er now. Needs ’er till the dwarves’r dead. Then she’s nexx, nexp on the chokking blopp.”
“But what if she’s not? What if she’s playing him? From what you told me about Taylor’s Delve, it sounds like SHE was giving the order to scrub it.”
“You. You have no idea how much that hurt, Gar.” Mastoya said, staring at her hands. “My ol’ friends? Gone. Dead. But... it was... final test. It was what I had to do, to finish HER. To move on from ‘th past. In the end... Anise, the King... in the end it was gonna happen. An’ if I didn’t, then someone else would. So why shoodn’t I benefit from it?”
He opened his mouth...
...and Fluffbear squeaked up. “Because it’s wrong. It doesn’t matter who ordered it, it’s wrong either way. Killing innocents is never okay.”
“Yeah, well, Ritaxis don’t care. War happens,” Mastoya said, glaring at her.
“That’s bull hockey! Those were the people you were fighting to protect! What good is a war if you kill your own people? That’s worse than losing!”
“Wash your mouth, li’l bear!”
“You’ll never be a paladin that way!”
“Psh, what’d you know ovvit. Ain’t no paladins no—”
“Clarifying Aura!” said the little bear, and the office filled with light as she glowed, holy radiance easing in and around the toys and the drunken half-orc.
BOOM!
“There are,” Fluffbear said, as the echoes faded. Her aura did its thing, buffing mental fortitude and restoring sanity, bit by bit. “And I am one. And I tell you now, there’s good ways to wage war, but the ends never, ever, ever justify the means.”
Mastoya looked at her, mouth opening and closing.
And Garon stiffened, as Madeline’s message screamed in his ear. “Oh hell. Look, Mastoya... this isn’t right. You know it. At the heart of it, you haven’t changed!” He said, the words tumbling, coming faster. “You’re still my sister, you still don’t deserve the crap you go through, and you still want to be an awesome paladin! You can! Come with us! We’re fixing things! We’re putting it right! Come with us and help!”
Mastoya looked at him. Then she stood, wobbling. “Gar...” She sighed, and put her hand to her head, rubbing the crewcut black hair, and the scars under it. “Curative.” She said and instantly straightened up, cold sober. “Innocents. Good men. Yeah. Thing is... I’m commanding a lot of’em. Not all innocents, but...” She moved around to where she’d put her sword and picked it up. “They’re relying on ME.”
“Masty... don’t do this...”
“They swore to the Crown, but they’re my family now, Gar. The one I chose. And if I turned? I could never look them in the eye again. Yeah, I killed my mother, and it didn’t help like I thought it would. I just felt bad. I killed you too, and I’m sorry, and I can never make that up to you. But them? They’re my redemption. They’re the one good thing I did, the one thing I tried that hasn’t turned to shit. They TRUST me. They know I’ll have their back. Just as I know they’ll have mine.” She sighed. “Holy Smite. Divine Conduit!” She said, and light burst from her, eyes erupting with holy glow, as a halo formed around her head, and she raised the shining golden sword high.
“Now surrender, Garon,” She said, in a voice that reverberated like thunder. “I don’t want to have to kill you a second time.”
And then Reason screamed, and all hell broke loose.
Long and high, like some sort of undersea crustacean thrown in a fire, Reason screamed, and the wail tore out of the machine bay, breaking the silence between cannon shots. And like everyone else in the fort, Mastoya’s head whipped around toward the window.
“A distraction!” She assumed, turning back toward Garon and the toys...
...to find an empty office and dissipating green flickers, as the golems’ waystones did their work.
Garon materialized at the foot of the bed...
...which was no longer there. Graves was rummaging inside the pack, pulling out different soulstones, looking for the right one. Glub and Madeline were shoving the bed, along with a few others, in front of the only door out.
From beyond the makeshift barricade, the group could clearly hear approaching metal-shod feet.
BOOM!
For a bit, anyway. Reason might be wailing, but the guns weren’t stopping.
“Threadbare’s not answering!” Madeline shouted.
Garon thought quickly. “Trouble. He’ll need our help and we can’t stay here.”
“I’m sorry,” Graves said. “I fucked up.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Glub insisted. “Dude had it out for you. Speaking of that, here.” The fishman grabbed the withered corpse on the floor, jumped up, and slam-dunked it into the pack. Graves nearly dropped the pack and cursed.
“What the heck?” Fluffbear squeaked.
“Evil dude. Magic items. Search later,” Glub summed up, then went back to building the barricade. There was hammering against the door now and angry voices.
Garon growled low in his throat. “Right. Graves, Madeline, get in my party.” He threw invites, then he threw a quest.
“Follow you?” Madeline said.
“Yep. That simple. Do the Job. Organize minions to follow me!” He pointed at the barricade, and the door slamming against it repeatedly, as the guards battered against the recalcitrant portal. “Burninate that, buy us some time.”
“Bahninate!” Madeline yelled, and then there was fire. Glub screamed and jumped clear, barely.
“Dude! Warn a bro first!”
The angry shouts outside turned to panicked shouts, and Garon nodded, pointed to the window. “Out we go. We get to Threadbare as fast as possible.”
“We’re four stories up, give or take!” Graves said, gesturing at his withered arms. “I can’t climb!”
“Fff... can you fit in the pack?”
“No,” Graves said, sparing it a glance. “It’s just a bit too small. Pulsivar barely got in there.”
“I could adjust it with tailoring.” Fluffbear offered.
Graves coughed, as the smoke from the burning beds started filling the room.
“No,” Madeline snapped. “Can’t alter the pack when it’s enchanted or it’ll lose the magic. No way weah getting the cats back in now if they get out!”
“Okay. Waystone shenanigans with Graves, would they work? Get clear, make a waymark somewhere else, and get him a waystone?” Garon looked to Glub.
“Dude, those things cost fortune. I’m low. And we’d still have to get him the waystone, how are we gonna do that?”
“Shit.” Garon hopped up, looked out the window. The courtyard below was distracted, with civilians getting clear and armored men advancing on the portcullis of the machine bay. A flash of metal, then the portcullis groaned and bent outward, as something heavy slammed against it.
“I have a different idea,” said Graves, coughing. “Fluffbear, can you quickly sew me a pair of gloves? Garon, please kick me out of the party.”
A minute later, Graves was coughing helplessly, unable to move a muscle as he cleared his lungs of smoke.
But he didn’t have to, because he was an animator, and his gloves, shoes, pants, and tunic were all animated, and they climbed him down the wall with slow and careful grace.
Garon watched as a few fleeing civilians paused, then came over to help, offering hands up to the rogue necromancer and helping him down once he got to the courtyard. He pointed up to the window, which now had smoke oozing out of it, and Garon ducked. “We’re good! He can blend in with the crowd. Madeline, you ready?”
“Get ahn!” She said, just as the door sizzled and burned to nothing in the space of a second. A bare female hand pushed through the ashes where a door had been, and a beautiful woman wearing a diaphanous red halter top and harem pants pushed through the barricade contemptuously, black eyes narrowed behind her red domino mask...
...just in time to see a small wooden dragon with its back full of toys go careening out the window.
The creature who the knights knew as the fifth member of the Hand, called only “The Cataclysm”, sighed and turned her attention to extinguishing the flames. Really, calling her in here had been like asking a sledgehammer to crush a cockroach.
As to the culprits who had fled, well, she’d leave them to her friends. That should be more than enough to take care of the matter.
*****
Reason screamed, the sound filling the machine bay with the shrieks of the damned, and Cecelia ran for cover.
“Celia!” Threadbare shouted, staring as the great Steam Knight suit rose, and started stabbing its sword into the piles of junk around it. “No!”
“Cecelia?” Emmet rumbled, loudly this time, voice rising as he managed to shake off the command keeping him quiet. “She is here?”
“Yes!” Threadbare said, running toward Reason...
...which turned.
Yellow light glimmered inside its helm, and tendrils poked out, slimy tendrils, with glowing orbs like eyes that trained down upon the little bear as he smacked his scepter on the moving barricades. “Hi! Over here!” he called. “I challenge you! Er, Guard Stance!”
Your Challenge skill is now level 10!
Your Guard Stance skill is now level 20!
But as he did, there were heavy footsteps behind him.
“No!” Emmet said. “I must guard Reason!”
“That’s not Reason!” Cecelia wailed, as the massive machine turned from her and glared its eyestalks down at Threadbare. “There’s a monster in it!”
Emmet stared at her, gems glittering under its helm. “You... are Cecelia!”
“Yes!”
WHAM! Threadbare twisted desperately to the side as Reason shuffled toward him and tried to kick the little bear. It missed, barely-
Your Dodge skill is now level 9!
I don’t have nearly the skill to keep doing that, Threadbare knew. So he ran past a row of barricades, slapping them with his paw. “Animus Animus Animus Animus, invite barricades one through four, get that thing,” he said, calming a bit now that Cecelia was out of danger.
Your Animus skill is now level 36!
Your Creator’s Guardians skill is now level 27!
The heavy barricades rolled on their sturdy wheels, slamming into Reason’s legs as it stepped back, surprised.
“What has happened to you?” Emmet said, gazing upon the little porcelain doll. “You are smaller and not armored!”
BOOM!
“It’s a long story and we don’t have-”
WHAM! Reason brought its wrecker blade down on an animated barricade, splitting it asunder and sending a red ‘303’ up into the air. Then it turned to the rest of the barricades and drew back the ten-foot-long sword for a wide sweep. Hastily Threadbare directed them to scatter, but Reason just turned toward Threadbare, lunging forward and sending more barricades into the air, chopping through chains and resting siege engines alike as it tried to skewer the little bear.
“I command you to kill the monster inside Reason!” Cecelia shouted, desperation making her voice squeak as its strings stressed to their limit.
“Alright,” Emmet decided. “I can do that.”
On anyone else it would be a boast. But there was nothing boastful in his tone, nothing save for quiet confirmation of a thing self-evident.
And so as Threadbare ran from Reason as it wrecked its way across the machine bay. The little bear used barricades to slow it down and animated new ones just as fast as they were destroyed.
Emmet thumped his chest with a hollow CLANG and started toward the infested machine that stood twice his size, speaking with his booming voice as he went.
“Always in Uniform. Shield Saint.” Emmet said, for his forearms WERE shields, with gauntlets on the end of them. “Unyielding. Fight the Battles. Take the Hits. Get that Guy! Build up—” he finished with the first run of buffs, drawing a hand back as he broke into a sprint. “The Bigger They Are... Fast as Death.” He intoned, running through all the applicable tier one melee buffs.
And then he switched over to his melee tier two skills. “Ablative Armor,” he commanded, and barricades flew up to coat him, along with broken chains and other surrounding metal items. He continued as they slammed into him, forming a shell of his own. “Unbreakable. Unmoveable. Unstoppable. Always Angry...” Then a dip back into tier one, for the last skill. “Rage!”
Emmet roared, and Reason twisted to face him and nailed him point-blank with an arbalest bolt.
It hadn’t shot at Threadbare because the target in question was tiny. But Emmet? Emmet was big.
The bolt, which could punch through plate armor like a longbow through cardboard, hit Emmet... and sent a spray of barricades from the armor golem’s back.
A big, fat ‘0’ drifted up.
Realizing too late its danger, Reason twisted, tried to get out of the line of Emmet’s lumbering charge—
—to no avail. “Clench!” Emmet roared and latched his hand around one of the pistons in its calves.
The wrecker blade bounced off his head, as Reason tried to cut him down. A red ‘17’ drifted up, and more barricades sprayed away.
“Siegebreaker Strike!” Emmet roared and drew back his free arm. Then with terrible, slow force, he punched towards Reason’s knee.
Reason wanted to dodge it.
Should have dodged it.
And it would have, if it could have. But Emmet had it in a deathgrip, and no matter what the heavier machine tried, it couldn’t shake the armor golem free. He was unmoveable. Desperate, Reason slammed the Wrecker blade down between its leg and the oncoming fist, trying to parry it.
But Emmet was not only unmoveable, he was unstoppable.
In slow motion his fist hit the Wrecker blade. And went right on through six inches of forged steel as the blade crumbled and splintered, went right through Reason’s knee beyond, snapping through clockwork and armor, and tearing through the fleshy thing inside it.
Threadbare and Cecelia watched Emmet pull his fist back, sighed in relief as Reason toppled, bloody tendrils whipping from the stump of its thigh.
“End Rage,” Emmet said, stomping up toward the cockpit, ignoring the flailing arms. “Please stay clear, Princess Cecelia!” he called. “I shall end its threat.”
“Holy shit,” Garon gasped, and Cecelia and Threadbare turned to see the rest of the group dismounting from Madeline’s back.
“No wondah you didn’t ansah yah whispahs,” Madeline said, watching in mixed horror and awe as Emmet slowly, relentlessly, beat in Reason’s helm with his metal fists. The tainted machine whined as it scrabbled, trying to drag itself away from him, but every time it made headway Emmet just grabbed it and yanked it back to him.
“That’s Juggernaut stuff,” Garon said. “Got to be. Knight Berserker hybrid stuff, holy shit.”
“That’s my brother, more or less,” Threadbare said, dusting himself off, and dismissing the barricades. “I’m sorry to say we can’t take Reason out of here.”
“Where’s Graves?” Cecelia asked.
Shouts from outside, as a figure ran up to the portcullis, wiggled through some of the warped bars from Reason’s kick and ran to them. “I’m here!” Graves shouted. “What the...”
“The Hand is here, too!” Cecelia yelled back. “We need to escape!”
“Too late,” someone whispered in her ear, and she jumped in surprise, as a knife stabbed straight through her skull—
—and she gained another golem body level, because you can’t kill golems that way.
The toys whirled to see a woman clad in tight-fitting black clothes from head to toe, all save a scarlet sash around its waist. The figure stepped back in surprise as Cecelia tore the knife from her skull and tossed it in the air.
“Mine now!” snarled the porcelain princess. “Animus Blade!” Then the red ‘124’ drifted into the air, and she staggered. “Woo.” But the dagger arrowed after the figure, who suddenly exploded into smoke and was gone.
“Mend Golem!” Shouted Threadbare.
You have healed Cecelia 120 points!
Your Mend Golem skill is now level 28!
“That’s the Ninja! That was the fucking Ninja!” Garon freaked out. “Yeah, it’s escape time!”
Fire flared from behind them, in the courtyard, and the portcullis started to melt.
“And theah’s tha Cataclysm and why ah we still sitting heah talking?” Madeline said, rushing toward the doors on the far side of the room.
BOOM!
In the afterechoes, the central door out of the machine bay slammed open, and Cecelia gasped as a white-armored form pushed through. She knew that armor well, from the horn cresting its helm to the royal crest on its greaves.
And then she saw who was behind it.
Anise Layd’i stepped into the room, her face roiling with rage, staring around at the mess—
—and fixing on Threadbare’s silhouette as he stared back at her.
“Can’t go that way!” Madeline shouted, skidding to a halt and coming back around.
“Up here!” Zuula called from the stairs. “Quickly!”
Graves and the golems ran, ran for their lives, all but Threadbare. He paused, on the last step, looked toward Emmet. “Invite Golem,” he finally decided.
Emmet looked up, surprised.
Your Invite Golem skill is now level 12!
Threadbare stretched out his free paw, offering it...
...and then a shuriken blossomed in the center of it, as stuffing sprayed.
CON+1
Your Golem Body skill is now level 27!
Your Toughness skill is now level 20!
Max HP +2!
“Stop! Emmet, stop you stupid thing!” Threadbare heard the other Cecelia say and jumped in surprise as the white-armored form lifted her visor and ran forward. “Oh what did you... oh rot, there go the ventral flukes! I’ll be days repairing that!”
Reason whimpered and stretched its hand toward its mistress.
And as Emmet stopped pounding, Threadbare sighed. “Mend Golem,” he said, on the way up the stairs, as another shuriken whizzed past his head.
WILL+1
Your Mend Golem skill is now level 29!
As soon as he got all the way up the long stairs, Zuula and Garon slammed the hatch down behind him and shot the bolts. “Animus! Invite Shelves!” Graves yelled, and a heavy set of shelves, with gears and parts falling off of it at every step, shuffled over to weigh down the hatch.
“That won’t stop Emmet for long,” Threadbare cautioned. “He’s their warmachine now.”
“And the fucking Hand’s behind him!” Garon said. “Once the Legion shows up we’re dead!”
“Where are we, any... way...” Threadbare drifted off, as he looked around and realized that the room was full of dead people.
A great cannon stood in the center of it, and a bronze dome capped it up top, its workings filled with chains and pulleys, with metal spheres the size of Zuula’s hut suspended and swaying like evil, looming fruit.
The shelves all around were filled with mixtures and jars, metal jars. But from several of them, evil-looking thorny vines extruded, growing into the shelves and walls, and through about ten men wearing goggles and facemasks and heavy aprons. Some of them were still twitching, but all were plainly dead.
“Zuula been busy. Tanks for distraction downstairs.” The little half-orc said, mopping blood free from her tiny spear. “Now what escape plan?”
Threadbare stared toward the view slits at the far end of the room. They could fit through them. Graves couldn’t.
Cecelia was investigating the shells and the cannon. “Huh! This isn’t complicated. The firing solution’s the trickiest part. Looks like these guys were Tinkers. Maybe a few Alchemists. Uh, Graves, stay away from those vines. Don’t touch anything.”
“Yes, dose vines from poison seeds,” Zuula said. “Only vegetation stuff to work with up here.”
“It’s gone silent downstairs,” Kayin said, cat-ear pressed to the floor. “I think.”
Threadbare shook his head. “I’m open to ideas. This is a bad spot. We could waystone back to the room.”
“It’s compromised; I’m sorry,” Graves said.
“Oh. Hm.”
“Wait,” Cecelia said, glancing up at the spheres overhead. “I have a crazy idea... Madeline, how tough is that pack?”
“What?”
“Your merchant’s pack!”
“Eh, it’s leather.”
“I mean if it gets destroyed, what happens?”
“Everything inside comes out at once.”
Cecelia gnawed her lip. “Can you put a pack inside a pack?”
“Oh sweet Hoon no, the skill’s explicit about that. And I can only have one at a time anyway.”
“What are you thinking?” Threadbare asked.
“That you all get inside her pack; we stick the pack into one of the shells, and fire it past the lines over to dwarven territory.” Cecelia started cranking levers and wheels, and the counter-weighted cannon swung around.
“Whoa.” Garon said. “Don’t you need someone outside to pull you out, though?”
“Yeah, or yah stuck waiting until the spell expires.”
“Could one of us survive the impact?” Threadbare said, looking up at the giant brass orbs.
“Maybe.” Cecelia said. “It’d be one big hit, but I mean a BIG hit. They’re not made for force, they’re made for delivering gas and other stuff.” She took a breath. “But we don’t have organs, or bones, so if one of our plush types does it... oh shoot. Graves.”
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s all right. I’ll stay behind to fire the cannon. I fucked it up; I’ll pay the price.”
“No, you didn’t!” Garon and Cecelia chorused. They shared a glance.
“It went wrong on my end,” Garon said. “Maybe. I have an idea of how to reach Mastoya now.”
“It went way wrong on my end, too” Cecelia said. “Besides, you’re not a Tinker. You need to be one to fire this thing.”
“Feet on the stairs!” Kayin called back. A siren started up, wailing throughout the fort. “And there’s the general alarm,” Cecelia said. “We’re out of time. Graves, get in the pack.”
“I can’t. It’s not big enough.”
“No,” Threadbare decided. “Nobody stays behind. Nobody dies. Unless...”
“Unless?” Cecelia said.
“Glub, do you have enough fortune left for another waymark and waystone?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Graves, do you have any merchants you can borrow skills from in your soulstone collection?”
“Yes.” He rummaged around in the pack, drew out a soulstone. “Why?”
“There’s no time, so I’ll try to be concise.” Threadbare said. “Here, hold my pants.”
And with that, the little bear started stripping, as he told them his plan...
Two minutes later, the cannon belched, and filled the room with BOOM.
Threadbare grimaced, then relaxed as Kayin’s whisper filled his ears. “Survived the launch,” the catgirl whispered. “Also, OW.”
“Get in!” He motioned to his side, and Cecelia dove into the very large pack below him, vanishing to join Graves inside. The sturdy pack was some of Missus Fluffbear’s best work. Though not the only bit of work she’d done in the last minute, since the rest of their cloth supplies had gone into the padding necessary to keep Kayin alive. Fluffbear had made her a very, very thick pillow, since Kayin was a wooden type.
This part had actually been the biggest gamble of the whole affair.
CLANG! “Ow!” a woman called. He turned in time to see the shelves fall through the burned-out hatch, and listened as they crashed down the stairs.
Sighing, Threadbare sat on the large pack that he’d had Fluffbear make, and waited. Maybe not the biggest gamble, he thought, as he waited. Waited and counted.
Tendrils of fire burst from the hatch, clearing away the vines and wreckage, rupturing pots and spraying poison smoke into the domed chamber.
But Threadbare had no lungs.
Your Golem Body skill is now level 28!
Emmet was up and through next, a massive arm raised to shield himself, peering over the edge with his gemstone eyes. Threadbare waved to him.
“The bear is alone here,” Emmet ground out.
“Oh, yes. My name is Threadbare, actually. I don’t remember if I mentioned that or not.” He held up a teapot. “Would you like to have a tea party?”
Emmet’s free hand snapped forward, and the teapot shattered. Threadbare looked at the handle in his paw, over to the hollow finger that Emmet had used to fling the bolt, then back to the bronze dome, and the footlong iron spike buried into it. “I would have taken no for an answer,” he said.
“The real Princess Cecelia tells me you are a traitor who tricked me.”
“No,” Threadbare said, shoving the two teacups he’d set out back into his pack before Emmet could get trigger happy again. “You can only betray something if you were on its side in the first place. I am on Cecelia’s side, and not the King’s side. The King killed our maker. I don’t like the King very much.”
“That is still treason,” Emmet said, taking a step forward, training his finger on the bear.
“Command Golem. Please stand down,” Threadbare said.
And he felt the spell fizzle. He remembered how Caradon had griped about the magic resistance skill, many a time. “He was right. It is annoying.”
Emmet advanced upon him, and Threadbare simply sat, staring up at him with button eyes.
“Do you surrender?”
“I will not fight you,” Threadbare said, hoping that Emmet didn’t question him further.
“It is safe,” Emmet called back.
“Wait for the smoke to disperse first,” Anise said. “Unless...”
“I’m on it,” a man said. He was nobody Threadbare had ever heard speak before.
Doors slammed open in midair, above the hatch, doors to someplace full of blackness broken by red light. THINGS crawled out of the holes, things like wasps made of metal that darted upward, slamming into the roof, and tearing at it with mandibles. Bronze shrieked and gave way, and the smoke eddied up, as the draft drew it out.
And all through it, Threadbare counted. He hit the goal he was trying for, hesitated, then decided to give it a bit more.
“Kill the fire, dear,” Anise said.
“Aw. Wasting so much of my time stopping fires,” a woman griped, in an exotic accent.
Fifteen seconds crawled by as the fires shrunk and vanished, and the draft pulled the smoke out and away.
Then wind whipped past Threadbare, and he turned to see the black-clad woman who’d thrown a metal star through his hand, crouched behind him, twenty feet away and ready to cut him down.
“Hello,” he said to her. She squinted at him, over the mask that covered everything but her eyes.
“Well well well,” Anise said, heels clicking as she strolled up the stairs. “The little bear. Naked and alone.”
“Not alone. You’re here.” Threadbare said, placidly. “But I am naked, yes.”
“I suppose you wanted to leave your magic items to your friends.” She smiled, then glanced down at the pack. “What’s in there?”
“Two of my friends. We had to stay behind for this to work.”
“Stay behind?” She arched an eyebrow.
“Oh yes. Everyone else went into the cannon shell.”
“Desperate,” the ninja whispered.
“And you would be one of the Hand?” Threadbare asked. “Or is it the finger? I’m not sure how this goes.”
“Three fingers, I suppose, is a good way of putting it,” said the red-robed man as he walked through the hatch. An iron, grilled mask covered his face, and scar tissue showed around the points it didn’t cover. “She’s the Ninja. I’m the Legion. The Cataclysm is waiting to cook you if you escape.”
“And the Princess is waiting below,” said Anise, smiling. “Trying to salvage some Reason from the situation. And here I am, Amelia Gearhart, ready to unmask myself to the kingdom... with Emmet’s help, to sell it, of course.”
“Of course,” Threadbare said. “It seems very clever. But isn’t there one more?”
“He’s busy,” said the Legion, gesturing the wasps down to patrol around the dome, blocking the vision slits out. “You’re a clever one, aren’t you? You see how we’re going to play this?”
“Garon told me about the Hand. How the entire country thinks they’re the surviving heroes of the Seven, yes. I suppose you’re all going to unmask and show them that yes, that’s true?”
“A new Seven. Now that Cecelia is grown enough to take her place with us,” Anise smiled. “I’m the secret thumb, you could say. And she’s two extra digits, her and Reason combined.”
“Except she’s not Cecelia, is she? Just as you’re not Amelia?”
Emmet shifted, restless.
“Don’t be ridiculous, who else would we be?” Anise smiled, but her eyes were hard now. “And you’re a little bear who knows too much.”
“All I know is that you’re not a nice lady, not at all.”
“No dear. That’s part of the irony.” Anise smiled. “Ready to die now?” She asked, eyes flicking past him, looking for the trick, looking for the trap.
“I suppose so.” Threadbare hopped down. “Do you mind if I put my clothes on? I’d rather not die naked.”
“Be my guest. Ranshax, kill him if he gets stupid.”
The ninja nodded.
“Call Outfit,” Threadbare said and was clad in his clothes once more. He lifted the pack up and settled it on his shoulders.
“Your hat,” said Emmet. “It was different before.”
“Yes,” said Threadbare, putting his paw to the waystone that had been sewn into it. “I suppose it was. Goodbye.”
He saw Anise’s eyes widen, and then everything was green, and his view distorted as shurikens whipped through it...
...and he was fading in, right in the middle of a crater.
Kayin, battered and scorched, grinned happily at him and waved. “One life down, boss! Glad to see it was worth it!”
Next to her, a burned, holed, but intact pack was open, and Glub was pulling a very cranky Pulsivar out. Next to him, Fluffbear put away her sewing supplies. Then Madeline was hugging him.
“Ah! Thank you!” He pushed her away after a second. “I need to get Cecelia and Graves out. Excuse me. Oh, hold on. Clean and Press.”
He did himself and the pack, raising levels twice. Both it and he had been dosed with toxic smoke, after all. No sense to going to all this trouble just to kill the man as he emerged.
Threadbare rummaged around in HIS pack, and pulled them out one after the other. First Cecelia, then Graves.
“Everything went to plan?” Graves asked, sweat stained from the evening’s efforts.
Threadbare looked at Kayin.
She grinned. “Perfectly. I shoved the pack into the padding, and when the shell hit I used Nine Lives to survive the impact. Then I pulled Glub and Fluffbear and your clothes out. He made the waymark and the waystone, and she sewed it into the brim of your hat.”
“I finished like ten seconds before it disappeared,” Fluffbear squeaked. “You cut it really close. What happened?”
“My teapot got broken.” Threadbare sighed. “Too scattered to mend it, I fear. Oh, and the Hand are going to reveal themselves as the surviving members of the Seven and reunite the kingdom.”
Everyone went silent.
Then Pulsivar hissed and backed into the center of the group, as a man cleared his voice from up above the crater.
“Aye, perhaps ye’d better tell us more about that?” A stranger said, and Threadbare looked up, to see about a dozen dwarves in heavy armor, leveling guns down at the golems and their living friends. “Later. After ye’re properly in a cell.”
“Oh, good!” Threadbare said. “NOW we can surrender.”
