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The mountains shivered at the caress of spring. Warm winds blew from the west, peeling away the snow, sending the ice shuddering down the lower parts of the hills, and freeing the trees from their long slumber. Hardy mountain pines stood as solemn vanguards, as leaves and shoots started to stir below them, tasting sunlight, and finding it good.
And below the peaks, on the downslope of a gentle rise, a single teddy bear waddled through the woods, carrying a bundle of tools and cloth in his arms. His name was Threadbare, and he was on a mission.
But after only a few hundred yards, he realized something pretty important;
These woods were really dangerous, and he would probably need his arms free to deal with whatever trouble came.
So Threadbare turned back, and found his way to a pile of timber and rubble. From the outside it didn’t look like much... the remnants of a house, fallen to fire, as a few weathered and charred beams attested. The beams poked loose from stones that had once been a foundation. A wrecked shed nearby, half-buried in an avalanche, seemed an exclamation point and lonely witness to what had once been a stately manor.
At least, that’s what a bard might say. But the bear wasn’t a bard. He was a hell of a lot of other things, but not a bard.
Crouching low, and worming his way through a muddy tunnel that twisted under the foundation, he found himself again in the crawlspace that had been his unwilling home for the last few years. Five years it had been, broken by hibernation, and the torturous act of worming his way from the ruins. Five years it had taken to get free. It was here he’d lost his family, and here he’d sworn to get them back.
But that was a very big thing, and very big things are made up of very small steps. And right now, the first step was to make himself a harness or something to carry his tailoring tools in.
Threadbare needed those tools, needed them badly. He had magical means of healing himself, but magic could run out. The spell he knew to heal himself worked from a resource called sanity, and generally the less you had of it, the worse your focus and judgment got.
So he dug around in the darkness, until he found the part of his creator’s apron that remained. And for lack of any better ideas, he sat down and sewed an apron of his own.
It was harder than he thought, and it took a couple of tries, but perseverance paid off.
DEX +1
Your tailoring skill is now level 37!
He watched the words roll past with long familiarity, by now. They came up whenever he did something well enough to improve himself. They did that for everyone.
Slipping on his apron, not quite a twin to his creator’s own thanks to the proportionate size of the tools to his body, he put the scissors into the back sheath he’d made for them, and nodded. This would do.
You have equipped an Apprentice Tailor’s Apron!
Oh, nice! Maybe he could get more leather, to make a spare?
Then he caught a glimpse of cloth under his creator’s apron, sunken in. Old wormtrails led into it, and Threadbare looked away.
His creator was dead, these five years. Threadbare had lost what was essentially his father, even if they’d never spoken a word to each other. Not that the little bear could talk back then.
“But I can talk now,” he said, in his small, soft voice, and paused as an idea grabbed his mind and wouldn’t let go.
Didn’t he have a spell for this?
“Status,” he said, and nodded in satisfaction. Why yes, yes he did! “Speak with Dead,” he chanted, and the air seemed to shift, shift and dance. Everything seemed to go stark monotone, the light got brighter and the shadows turned solid black. “Caradon? Are you there?” he asked.
Nothing. And he noticed he hadn’t skilled up from it. Thinking carefully, it seemed to him that maybe this spell wouldn’t get better unless you actually talked to dead people with it.
Strange, that Caradon wasn’t here, though. Where else would he be? Maybe he’d passed on to wherever dead spirits go.
“Status,” the bear said again, and looked at his sanity. It had cost five to cast speak with dead. He was about to turn and leave, when another thought struck him;
How did he regain sanity?
Previously, he’d regained it by leveling up, he thought. But that took time and a lot of work. From what he’d seen of other people, and by hearing his little girl’s friends talk, it came back naturally, faster if you had something to drink. But he didn’t need to eat or drink or sleep, so...
This was going to be important. He sat down and looked at his status screen, calling it up again whenever it started to fade away. After a few minutes the lighting returned to normal, as speak with dead faded. And after about ten minutes or so, he watched his sanity recover by a point.
Slow. Very slow, but he wouldn’t run himself dry and have no way to recover it. That was good. Presumably moxie and endurance worked the same way. He could test those in the field.
Since it was easy to regain, he decided it was time to do the other thing he’d thought of, on his aborted walk into the woods. Threadbare bent low to the ground, and sniffed carefully around the little hollow in what was left of the basement.
Your Scents and Sensibility Skill is now level 11!
Odors filled his nose. Dankness, rot, his own scent... and an odd one. Sandalwood, he would have called it, if he knew the name for it. He had no way of knowing the proper terms, but he knew he’d recognize it again if he smelled it.
Threadbare had been trapped down here with the only other one of his kind in existence that he knew of. She’d dug them free, and been kidnapped for her troubles. But the things that had taken her weren’t highly malicious, as far as he knew, so odds were pretty good she was still alive. Well, as alive as little toy golems were, anyway.
Threadbare thought he knew where he could find her, but it would be much, much easier to do so if he had her scent. And now he thought he did.
He waited hopefully, but no attributes rose. His wisdom was pretty high already, it’d take a few more good common sense ideas to raise it, he supposed.
Just before he was about to go out, his nose caught one more thing... the familiar smell of the laundry soap that Celia and her father, Caradon, used to do the wash with. It was a good smell, and one that reminded him of good times, so he hunted around until he found a few pinches of the spilled soap powder and tucked it into an apron pocket. If he got glum he could wash with it later, and it might make him feel better.
Outside the hole, he got the odor of the things that had taken her. He’d never gotten close enough to smell them before, and they were pretty distinctive. Also pretty rank by human standards. Which was good, because the smell was old, old enough he lost the scent trail a few yards away from the foundation.
Well, that was fine. He had something to check on first before he went trying to mount a rescue mission, anyway.
Threadbare started off into the woods again, checking his sanity one last time... and realizing, with his very good wisdom, that he had an opportunity, here.
If sanity and all the other pools for his abilities came back over time, then he could practice abilities as he walked, simple stuff to get their ranks up. He could activate something low cost, then wait until his pools refilled, then activate them again. It seemed simple and easy enough, and he did have a whole lot of stuff that was really far behind, due to his old speech impediments.
WIS +1
Okay, that settled it! That was a good idea, now it was time to put it into practice.
“Status,” he said again, and considered his options.
Threadbare had a ton of weird jobs, spread all over the metaphorical chart, mainly due to accepting every job unlock that had come his way. So thankfully, he had an easy time picking out stuff that sounded neat and wouldn’t slow him down too much.
The things he settled on were Flex, which was a simple model trick that used stamina; Self-esteem, a similar model trick that used moxie; and Animus, which he well remembered. His little girl had used it quite a lot, back before times got bad, and it was a spell that used sanity. He eyed his fortune pool, but unless he was missing something, he didn’t have anything that used fortune. Maybe he’d find something later.
In the meantime, three was pretty good to start with.
So Threadbare took the scissors out of their sheath, put them on the ground, and said “Animus,” laying a paw on them.
Golden light blossomed!
Your Animus skill is now level 2!
The scissors twisted on the ground, opening and closing mindlessly.
“Invite Scissors,” Threadbare said. Nothing happened.
What was he missing?
Oh, right. “Form Party,” he intoned.
You have created a party!
You are now the party leader, and can access the party screen!
“Invite Scissors,” Threadbare said.
Scissors_1 has joined your party!
Your Creator’s Guardians skill is now level 2!
Threadbare started walking. Now if the skill description was right, he should be able to mentally command the scissors. He called them to follow.
They tried. To their credit, they tried, squirming and clacking across the ground awkwardly. But they didn’t have limbs, or anything else good for walking or even crawling.
No wonder Celia used plush toys, Threadbare thought, and bowed his head at the memory. Good times then. Good times gone.
Good times back again someday, if he had any say in the matter! Threadbare scooped up the scissors and sheathed them again. Okay, so they were useless as animi, but they were still good to practice his skill with.
Speaking of practicing...
“Flex,” he commanded, and instantly felt confined, like his insides were bigger than his outsides. Threadbare squirmed, trying to get sorted... and unwittingly went into a brawny pose, legs wide, little arms out to each side and popping tiny biceps. Almost, he thought, but not quite, and twisted at the waist, flexing his back too, feeling the stuffing form into muscles there as well.
Your Flex skill is now level 2!
Wow, that felt weird. But a check of his status screen showed that it had buffed his armor and endurance by one. Well worth the price of discomfort, he thought.
That left one thing to try.
“Self-Esteem,” he whispered—
—and instantly felt a bit more confident.
Your Self-Esteem skill is now level 2!
Threadbare checked his status again, and smiled to see that it worked much like flex had, only buffing his cool and mental fortitude instead.
He could smile now, he just realized. Having a flexible mouth opened up so many possibilities.
If he’d been a bit less innocent and more worldly, that thought would have probably sent his mind into some rather bawdy places. But he was a golem, and didn’t have any particular urges that way anyway, so the connection went unmade. Which was probably for the best, all things considered.
Threadbare waddled off into the woods once more.
With his compatriot, the inestimable Missus Fluffbear missing, the next logical step was to get help. Although chances were slim, his little girl’s friends had told her to rendezvous at Oblivion Point when she’d saved her Caradon. Well, her Daddy was dead and a lot of time had passed, but maybe they were still up there? The place had fish to eat, and everything. It was... possible...
Not really likely, but possible.
Threadbare retraced the path he’d taken five years ago, finding it overgrown, barely what Mordecai, his old scout master would call a deer trail. But he was small, and his hide was now thick enough that the underbrush didn’t bother him much. He was getting a little muddy, but he knew a trick for that too. Tailors had a skill that let them instantly clean things like wayward teddy bears, and since he was a wayward teddy bear he was happy to have access to it.
Threadbare meandered over the hills, actually scrambling in a few places. Before, Celia had been carrying him. Now he had to manage on his own. But he was much stronger and more competent now, and he managed. The exertion cost him a couple of stamina, and gained him two levels of the climb skill, along with three agility boosts. And along the way he cast his spell and used his buffs whenever his stamina, moxie, and sanity got back to full. The skills slowly rose, as did his intelligence by a point, after one successful casting of animus.
Finally, he stopped to pause at the jutting boulder high up on the second cliffside, which overlooked the route he’d taken. He didn’t need to rest, not really, but Celia and Mordecai and he had rested here the first time, and he liked the view.
It was night now, but the moon was out, and he could see relatively fine. He debated using his glow gleam spell, but... well, common sense said that was a bad thing. He was a tough bear, but he was a small bear, and the light would be seen a long way away. Better to run dark for now.
As he settled on the rock, his nose twitched. Scents and Sensibility fired up, and he smelled a strong scent. Some animal had marked this spot. Something big. Something familiar, though he couldn’t quite put his finger on how he knew it.
Your Scents and Sensibility skill is now level 12!
It wasn’t too old, which made up his mind. He’d been planning to shelter here for the night, but if a large creature had marked this territory, that was a bad idea. Threadbare glanced up at the full moon, and the cold stars above. So long as he stayed to the ridges, he thought, he should be able to see fine.
He’d be better off sticking to the ridges anyway. The big tree was next, and that should be easy enough to spot from high up, and then there was the little hollow where the raccants had lived. If they were still there, he wanted to stay out of that hollow anyway. At least until he’d gotten help.
It took longer to navigate through the darkness. He flexed, self-esteemed, and animated his way across the high hills, taking well into the morning to do it. Little legs didn’t go as fast as he had with Celia, but he didn’t stop to rest or even feel a lot of fatigue thanks to his golem/bear fueled endurance.
Not long into his walk, he cast animus, and did the invite again, and got the following messages;
Your Animus skill is maxed! Level up your animator job to increase this skill.
Your Creator’s Guardians skill is maxed! Level up your animator job to increase this skill.
He checked his status. Those skills were only at level five. Curious, he stopped for his regular dose of flexing and self-esteem.
Your Flex skill is now level 6!
Your Self-esteem skill is now level 6!
Those weren’t maxed. Why was that?
No, wait, his model job was higher level than animator. That was it. The higher your job level, the higher your skills could go.
Well, that was fine. If he did more animator stuff, maybe actually used the spells when they mattered, then he’d raise his animator level. From what he could recall of his relatively short life, (the conscious parts of it anyway,) he usually got levels after he survived really lethal situations, or killed enemy monsters. Maybe that was what he needed to do?
He waited hopefully, but neither his intelligence nor his wisdom leveled up. The little bear sighed. It was so hard having high stats in that area, finally. He couldn’t just use them as a guide to figure out what to do. But then, he’d gotten a whole lot more reflective ever since his early days, so maybe high wisdom was a blessing there, at least.
Clearly, to be the most efficient at surviving the stuff coming his way, he’d want to have his skills leveled up before he hit trouble. So when he was moving around and not in clear and present danger, he should be practicing something he could gain skills at for every pool that had it.
“Status,” he whispered into the night, and took another look to find something else that used sanity.
Well, being a bear (of sorts) had worked out great for him so far, hadn’t it? He didn’t think he would have survived if he didn’t have the bear job. So he decided to fire up Scents and Sensibility, and see how that went.
“Scents and Sensibility,” he whispered. And again the world of advanced odors opened up to him. But he didn’t level the skill.
Threadbare walked, peering into the night, freezing every time he heard noise that seemed like it was approaching, keeping an eye out. He needn’t have worried. Though he didn’t know it, the area he was in was prime hunting grounds for Screaming Eagles, which had gotten more numerous since their main predator moved out of the region. Since Screaming Eagles were daytime hunters, the night actually saved him a ton of trouble. (As did the fact he actually had an average luck score, rather than the sucking mess of horrible karma that had been following him around for his early days.)
He did level stealth up twice, and once he came upon something that fled from him, that he never got a good look at. When he went to investigate where it had been, he smelled deer.
Your Scents and Sensibility skill is now level 13!
Okay, that made sense. Just casting it wasn’t enough to level it, you had to smell stuff with it to increase the skill.
He found the big tree, peering at through the moonlight, remembering the branches. Remembering the honey he’d dug out of the hive there, and been unable to eat.
The little bear considered. He had a mouth now... and he also had dietary restrictions, and no idea if honey was unhealthy or not. If it was, it’d blow his dietary restriction skill away.
Man, being a model was tough.
He got his bearings, checked his course, climbed a tree for good measure so he could sight the course he wanted to follow...
AGL +1
Your Climb skill is now level 9!
...and found the peak he needed. Not far from what looked like a mass of campfires.
Threadbare would have blinked if he could have. There were people out here?
He got closer, keeping his Scents and Sensibility up, keeping to the thicker parts of cover. It took an hour, but his stealth crawled up two more points as groups of chattering things crashed through the underbrush ignoring him, and his Scents and Sensibility picked up a familiar smell.
These had to be raccants.
Your Scents and Sensibility skill is now level 14!
He didn’t know why they had campfires now. But it looked like there were a lot more of them than the last time he’d been here.
Threadbare got just close enough to see the sharp fence of pointy sticks they’d made around the area in front of the old mine entrance, and the collection of patchwork tents around several fires, then he slunk back into the shadows, heading for high ground once more. There were at least a dozen raccants out, masked in wood and carrying clubs. Nothing he wanted to face right now.
He took it slow, gained another stealth level when a patrol nearly caught him, and managed to get out of their patrol radius without being detected.
You are now a level 4 Scout!
+3 AGL
+3 PER
+3 WIS
Awesome! Come to think of it, scout skills like keen eye and camouflage would have probably been really helpful in that situation. He resolved to try them next time.
Finally, he came to the mountain cliff that led up to Oblivion Point. No Celia to help him this time, and it was pretty steep... “Status,” he declared. Maybe there was something to help with this.
No, not really. Nothing that buffed climb or agility. But flexing would help endurance, which would keep him from getting tired. He flexed, and for the first time in a while, he didn’t level it. It stayed at nine.
He decided that he had enough stamina to experiment, flexed again, and there it went.
Your Flex skill is now level 10!
Maybe the higher up you got in a skill, the more usages it took to level it?
INT +1
Yeah, that was it! It made sense, he supposed. Otherwise it’d be trivial to hole up somewhere and exercise your skills repeatedly until they maxed out. That sounded thoroughly boring, and he had stuff to do anyway, so it was kind of a relief to know he didn’t have to do that. And you couldn’t, anyway, not for all of them because things like Scents and Sensibility and Speak with Dead required stuff around to practice with.
Threadbare thought he might be getting the hang of how things worked. All it had taken was the loss of everyone and everything he ever held dear, forcing him into isolation in the wilderness, surrounded by hostile and uncaring monsters, and—
—the little toy sat down with a bump, as events caught up to him. The flex buff faded and expired, as he put his head in his paws and just sat there for a time. The stuffing behind his eyes hurt, and he knew that if he could have, he would have been crying. But he couldn’t. Button eyes didn’t cry. Instead he opened his mouth and sobbed, little rasping gasps.
He really, really missed Celia.
He wanted to go home.
But he had neither Celia nor home anymore, and after a while after the pressure left he stopped sobbing and stood back up. He flexed again, restored his self-esteem, which made him feel a bit better, and started climbing up the cliff.
AGL +1
Your Climb skill is now level 10!
Your Climb skill is now level 11!
Your Climb skill is now level 12!
Occasionally he’d slide down, or lose his grip and tumble downslope a bit, but he was very strong now compared to his size, so stopping his fall wasn’t a big deal. He just caught ahold of the ground and pushed, until he slowed, and then it was back to climbing.
But during the climb, Threabare completely forgot about his buffs. Which was a pity, because otherwise his nose would have told him that he was going straight into the lair of the region’s biggest predator.
The sky brightened as he reached the top, moon sunk below the mountains. Dawn soon, he knew. The bear hauled himself up over the cliff, got to the little plateau, and there was the curtain of blackness, dividing the mountain peak in half. There was the little pond... no so little now, swelled with the first of the season’s snowmelt, and roiling with silvery fish. And there was the stand of pine trees, where Celia had sheltered and they’d built a small fire.
But no sign of either of the half-orc brothers. If they’d ever made it here, they were long gone.
Threadbare’s heart sank, and the terrible despair that had struck him down at the bottom of the cliff came rushing back. He staggered to the trees, calling out as he went, “Jarrik? Garon? Bak’shaz?”
But his little voice fell into silence. The snow crunched underfoot, warm and... yellow?
Yes, there was a patch of yellow snow. Someone had peed here!
“Scents and Sensibility!”
Predator stink filled his nose, the same predator that had marked the rock. Big and deadly, and familiar, and...
Oh. Oh!
For the first time since he’d arrived, hope, that fragile thing with wings soared in his chest. He looked at the sky.
It had been so long. Would he remember Threadbare?
The little bear got to work, brushing snow away until he found the old firepit. Damp wood, pine wood went into a pile, and the little bear pointed at it.
“Firestarter.”
Your Firestarter skill is now level 2!
A tiny spark leaped out, and the wood smoldered, but nothing happened.
No! He would NOT be denied!
“Firestarter! Firestarter! Firestarter!”
That did it. Around skill level four, the wood caught. Threadbare kept a few pointy pieces of wood aside. Then he glanced over at the pond, shucked off his apron, and stomped toward it with bearly determination. “Forage,” he said, leveling the skill up, and wading into the school of newly-born salmon.
Twenty minutes and one dexterity boost later, the sky was light, so light, and he knew the sun was just behind the eastern mountains. He eyed his eight fish, and decided they’d have to do. He tossed them over by the fire, and stuck them on the skewers, then put them over the flames. It took some fiddling, but soon he had them cooking.
You have unlocked the cook job!
Would you like to be a cook at this time? y/n?
No, that was pretty silly, he decided. The words went away, and he breathed a sigh of relief. What use was cooking to something that didn’t eat?
Besides, he wasn’t trying to cook them. He was just trying to get the smell into the air.
“Clean and Press,” he decided, tapping his noggin. And instantly the fish blood and guts and grime and mud and dirt from traveling whisked away from him. He put on his apron again, buckled it, turned around—
—and there it was, looming over him in the predawn light. Twice as tall as he was, black as pitch, with suspicious yellow eyes fixated on Threadbare. A pair of high, pointed ears poked out from its skull.
Though Threadbare had no word for it, humans would call this beast a bobcat.
And while every instinct shouted at the bobcat to chase the little creature away from its good-smelling dinner, to assert dominance and steal its food, the big feline hesitated.
Because something about this little thing seemed familiar.
It leaned in, animalistic instincts activating its own Scents and Sensibility, and it sniffed the teddy bear. It sniffed him carefully...
...until it came to the apron pocket that Threadbare had tucked soap powder into.
And its eyes opened wide, as a rumbling purr burst from its chest!
He had not ALWAYS been a bobcat, after all, and he too had lost his home, his home that smelled of soap powder and hoomins and polished wood and comfortable napping spots in the sun and warm places in winter and that little toy bear—
It WAS the little toy bear!
“Pulsivar,” said Threadbare, hugging the big cat, and then Pulsivar was purring and licking the little bear over and over again, and rolling around on the ground and purring and getting up and running in circles in pure joy.
CHA +1
LUCK +1
Well, Pulsivar celebrated for a little while, anyway. As much time as he could give the matter. Those fish smelled delicious and you had to have priorities, after all.
Threadbare watched happily as Pulsivar gobbled up the catch, even helping remove them from the skewers so the black bobcat could properly enjoy breakfast. Afterwards it simply flopped down next to the fire, half-on top of Threadbare, grooming him for all he was worth.
By befriending a wild beast you have unlocked the Tamer job!
You cannot become a Tamer at this time. Seek out your guild to change jobs.
The words faded as Threadbare laughed for the first time, tiny little giggles completely lost against the massive feline’s purr. It didn’t matter. Not one bit, because though everything wasn’t right with the world, this, right now, made everything a bit better.
And though there was a lot to do, though so much bad had happened and he still needed to go and save everyone else he could, Threadbare sighed and relaxed against the warm, purring lump of fur and muscle that was his first foe, and first ally, and just enjoyed being cuddled again.
For now, this was enough.
And it was enough for Pulsivar, too.
Threadbare wanted to stay that way forever, but as the hours rolled by, his mind turned toward the next person he had to find.
A certain small bear...
*****
Raccants had a number of advantages over their base species. Raccoons were mostly nocturnal, and avoided doing anything in the day if they could help it. But raccants were a bit more flexible, and had more energy on the whole, thanks to a good endurance bump from their upgraded job. They could operate in the day or night or both, so long as they got some sleep at SOME point.
Which was a good thing, since the creature they knew as the Black Death mostly came out at night. Mostly. Over the last year, as it had started preying upon them, the fuzzy ring-tailed garbage hoarders had been forced to make a somewhat-fortified camp outside of their lair. To any passing human it would have looked like a teeny, half-hearted, randomly-built fence around a few kids tents. To the raccants it was their castle, their bastion to defend to the last, a masterpiece and triumph of engineering that would make any humans who saw it fall in love with it and adopt them all out of respect for their ingenuity!
Not that there were many humans around anymore. At all. Which sucked, and made for some hard winters. And a lot less interesting trash. They’d been forced to forage further and further afield because of that, with mixed results.
But the simple truth of the matter was that between the fortifications, the fires, and the noisy patrols they sent out at night to walk around the perimeter, the Black Death had only picked off a few of them over the winter. So it was working, and they were proud of it.
Which was why it was a bit of a shock when a small brown teddy bear fell from an overhanging tree branch, straight into the middle of camp, into the smoldering coals of the campfire. Hurriedly he got up and patted the embers away from him.
It was a good thing he had an apron. The sturdy little garment kept coals from his soft belly, otherwise he might have caught on fire right then and there.
A few of the raccants appreciated the craftsmanship, even as they reached for weapons.
Your Work It Baby skill is now level 3!
Threadbare tried a smile. He had been trying to get to the pole of the nearest tent to slide down it, but the end result was the same. This whole effort was because he wanted to try talking to the funny creatures, first. They were only about two or three times his size, and perhaps he could sort out things without a misunderstanding.
“Hello,” he said, in his soft, quiet voice. With an air cavity about the size of a pair of grapes to work with, it was barely audible, even to the relatively good hearing of the raccants. “I’m looking for Missus Fluffbear. She’s like me but black, and this big.” He put his hand at about his waist. Or where his waist would be if he had one.
This was kind of exciting, he’d never been able to talk things out before! The raccants gathered around him, poking at him curiously with clubs. He pushed one away before it could rap him on the ear. “Please can you give her back?”
The largest of the raccants, one with a pair of stars made out of wet and dirty wood on his shoulders, tied there by uneven strings, swaggered up to him and chattered something that Threadbare completely failed to understand.
“I’m sorry. I don’t speak that.”
The raccant leaned over, grabbed his apron, and examined it. His wooden mask, which looked like a fat-cheeked blunt-nosed fuzzy thing, read “HMSTR,” and it was very close to Threadbare’s face.
“Yes, that is my apron.”
The raccant plucked the scissors out of their sheath, and started picking out the other tools and items, handing them back to his subordinates. Threadbare, with a strength that surprised the big raccant, yanked his apron back and smoothed it.
“No,” the little bear said.
Instantly the raccants closed ranks, pointing with sharp sticks and brandishing clubs. Threadbare shook his head.
Well, he’d tried.
The big raccant brought his club bashing down on the tiny bear—
—and blinked behind his mask as a crimson ‘1’ rolled up from Threadbare’s noggin.
Threadbare hauled back and punched the raccant in the mask, sending him staggering back, as a red ‘18’ rose into the air.
Your Brawling skill is now level 21!
Your Weapon Specialization skill is now level 2!
And then the rest of the raccants, thoroughly spooked by the little creature, and aggravated at the intrusion, piled in on the teddy bear.
They might as well have been attacking a wall. Threadbare had flexed before he went up the tree, and between the buff and his thickened hide and stuffing, their clubs and spears did little. Still, there were many of them, and they had decent hit points, so his own counterattacks weren’t thinning the numbers by much. And every now and then, one of them would get lucky and crit, and sneak anywhere from five to fifteen points of damage through.
Finally Threadbare accepted that he was going to have to play for keeps... especially when he saw a black from materialize out of nowhere, leaping over the fence and moving up to the back of the group he was fighting. These raccants were dead, Threadbare knew. He might as well get some practice in before they went down.
And the next time he got a chance to fight back, he went for a swipe instead of a punch.
The raccant fell back, staring at its slashed arm, and the ‘26’ oozing out of it. The bear had claws!
Your Claw Swipes skill is now level 17!
Your Weapon Specialization skill is now level 3!
Your Weapon Specialization skill is now level 4!
Your Weapon Specialization skill is now level 5!
Your Brawling skill is now level 22!
Critical Hit!
DEX +1
LUCK +1
The claw swipes helped, but it was still a slog. But as Threadbare struggled, Pulsivar went to work. The big cat took down three of them one by one, swift, silent pounces that ended in blood and corpses. Finally, the remaining raccants noticed, and the second they did, they panicked!
The Black Death was upon them!
This was far too much. Raccants didn’t have much in the way of moxie to begin with, and caught between a bear and a dark face, they broke like twigs and ran in all directions, scrambling over, around, or in some cases THROUGH their shoddily-prepared fence.
Threadbare nodded. Pulsivar, however, wasn’t done. He started to bound off after one fleeing varmint, paused as another one stumbled, and fell behind—
“No,” said Threadbare, walking up to him and putting his paws on the big black bobcat’s chest.
CHA +1
Pulsivar paused, eyes narrowed, then sat down nonchalantly, and gave his fur a few good licks. Proper grooming was important before a meal. And during a meal. And sometimes after.
Threadbare smiled in relief, and petted Pulsivar. And smiled even wider, when his experience from the fight and comforting his friend rolled a long-awaiting pair of jobs into their next level.
You are now a level 10 Toy Golem!
All Attributes +2!
You have learned the Bodyguard skill!
Your Bodyguard skill is now level 1!
You are now a level 3 Model!
AGL+3
CHA+3
PER+3
Checking Dietary Restrictions time counter...
Your Dietary Restrictions skill is now level 15!
Buff adjusted accordingly!
Threadbare watched the words flash by, then breathed a sigh of relief. As interesting and invigorating as all that had been, he couldn’t pause now. He was in unknown territory, and the best scout he’d ever met had taught him that you don’t waste time in unknown territory. He needed to repair, regroup, and renew his search for his missing friend. “Mend,” he whispered.
You have mended Threadbare!
You have been healed for 5 points!
Your Mend skill is now level 2!
Wow, that was pretty pathetic. He tried it a few more times, skilling up to level five and getting an int boost before he was fully repaired. He’d caught a few of critical hits back there. Small crits, but crits nonetheless. At least the amount he mended himself by varied, and it even broke double digits a few times.
At the end of his healing, he got another notice;
You are now a level 2 animator!
DEX+3
INT+3
WILL+3
He shook his head. Why was he leveling so much? Compared to the things he’d been through, that had barely been trouble.
But then Threadbare stopped and thought about it. There had been a good dozen raccants in the camp, and they’d all jumped him at once, fighting well together despite their relative weakness. He hadn’t dropped any of them, really, Pulsivar had done most of the work toward the end of the fight. Yeah, if that had gone on a few more minutes they would have battered him down, or put him in a bad spot. Threadbare had some stuff that he could try if things got desperate, but... well, he had no idea how most of it would work.
As far as leveling up went, he thought that what was happening was that he was getting experience in the jobs that he used to get through each particular fight or tough spot. Golem, now, that was understandable. It had been a long time since he leveled golem, and since he’d done that he’d been hurt the worst he’d ever been, and only survived years by dint of being what he was. Model? Well, his apron had made a positive first impression and he’d been talking a lot at them. So social skills helped level him there. And he had flex and self-esteem going, though it was hard to tell if those counted as well. Duelist had probably gotten a little bit. And bear as well, though that hadn’t leveled. Animator made sense because he was doing some actual healing with actual consequences using the animator skill, mend. And it was low level so a few spells and the animating practice he’d done to date were enough to bring the overall job to level two.
And here he was woolgathering again! In an unsafe location, too. He turned to Pulsivar, ready to get him rolling—
—only to find the cat messily devouring the choice bits of one of the raccant corpses.
Oh. Well, uh, they’d be here a little while then.
So instead Threadbare gathered up the trampled and muddy supplies that the raccants had taken from him, used Clean and Press on them, (skilling up twice,) and put them back in his pockets. The scissors were last, and they didn’t need cleaning, thankfully.
Then he paused and looked around.
The raccants that had fled into the woods were long gone. Whether they’d be back or not, he couldn’t say. But the mine entrance loomed, and that was where they’d have Missus Fluffbear, if indeed they had her at all.
Threadbare was pretty good at taking hits, but unless Pulsivar’s new form had gotten a lot sturdier, then the big cat wasn’t. And in that mine, in tight quarters, the big cat would have a harder time using his mobility and sneakiness.
“Party Screen,” Threadbare whispered again, checking out the cat’s hit points. Still One hundred and forty-five. He was level twenty one, and he had only a little better than half Threadbare’s hit points. Given how nasty things could get, the little bear didn’t want to risk his friend’s death.
They needed something to stack the odds.
Well, he was a necromancer, wasn’t he? And there were corpses a-plenty around, with probably some spirits he’d just made? That was how it worked, right?
So Threadbare reached out and poked one of the dead raccants. “Zombies,” the little bear whispered.
Your Zombies skill is now level 2!
The corpse got up, groaning—
—and died as Pulsivar pounced it, ripping it open.
“Um,” Threadbare said. “No, it is okay, see? Zombies.”
Your Zombies skill is now level 3!
Another corpse risen, and another corpse put down as the cat bit it and shook until things snapped.
Okay. That wouldn’t work. Pulsivar didn’t understand the whole undead thing. Come to think of it, neither did Threadbare, not completely. Maybe he’d practice it later, when the cat was out hunting or something. Though Pulsivar showed no inclination to leave Threadbare’s side, not since the morning. Finally the bear had just invited him to his party, and to his surprise, had instantly been joined. Threadbare wasn’t sure how, since he was pretty sure the big cat couldn’t read.
(He had no way of knowing that Pulsivar had found the secret to make the annoying words go away years ago, just like Threadbare had.)
The cat, proud of itself for taking care of the renewed threat, which had obviously just been a couple of the stupid prey playing dead, groomed himself smugly.
Stuck, Threadbare looked around the campsite. Fortunately, he found something suitable in short order. The head raccant in charge of the camp had his own throne in one of the tents. In actuality, most humans would have taken a look and recognized that it was a salvaged high chair, for babies to eat from.
But it had legs, and it was wood, and by golly it would do.
“Animus,” Threadbare breathed as he touched it. “Invite Chair.”
Your Animus skill is now level 6!
Your Creator’s Guardians skill is now level 6!
Oddly enough, the tug from the casting was a little more draining than usual. Threadbare checked his status screen, and sure enough, he was down fifteen points instead of ten. Maybe because the high chair was big, bigger than him and made of wood?
Then, on his status screen, he saw his new bodyguard skill, and opened up its help prompt.
Oh, perfect!
BODYGUARD
Level: 10 Cost: 25 Sta Duration: 1 minute per toy golem level
Name a target party member when activating this skill. For the duration, you have a chance of intercepting each attack aimed at them, so long as you remain within two yards of them. Multiple attackers or overwhelming amounts of strikes may reduce the effectiveness of this defense.
Feeling a lot better, Threadbare marched out of the tent. The chair followed, creaking and rocking as its legs stumped along. He was a little worried as they approached Pulsivar and the cat glanced up...
...then went back to grooming. He’d been an animator’s pet, after all, and would have been a familiar if Caradon hadn’t stopped leveling the Wizard job years ago. Chairs could move, so what? That was just a thing that happened.
“Bodyguard Pulsivar,” Threadbare said, and toddled toward the cave, his high chair following behind.
Your Bodyguard skill is now level 2!
After a few minutes, Pulsivar followed. That little bear was being stupid again. Looks like it was up to the only adult around here to take charge of things.
Five steps into the mine, The darkness rose around them. Threadbare moved on cautiously, ready to cast a spell—
—and everything shifted.
