Threadbare complete tr.., p.35
Threadbare - Complete Trilogy, page 35
Missus Fluffbear seemed to recognize them, and took great joy in whipping and shanking them, aiming at them with long expertise. They seemed to focus mainly on her, though a few wayward shots hit Threadbare and mostly ricocheted. They fell or fled, as the toys fought them, and Threadbare went through a few more mendings. And also got some mileage out of a skill he hadn’t leveled in a while.
Your Magic Resistance skill is now level 5!
Your Magic Resistance skill is now level 6!
Then it was another gropevine, which Threadbare was certain hadn’t been there when he ran through.
The third screaming eagle actually managed to get its claws around Fluffbear and haul her up-
-only to be pounced upon by Pulsivar, who dropped from a high tree and broke its back with his weight.
“This is getting ridiculous,” Threadbare said, as they finally got back to the little stockade. “And I think I know why. Eye for Detail.”
Your Eye for Detail skill is now level 7!
Her luck had actually gone up a point since the last time he checked it. But it was still pretty lousy, at 26.
“Come on,” he patted Pulsivar, and took Missus Fluffbear’s paw. “I think I know someone who can help.” Beanarella fell in behind them as they walked, leaving the buried raccants to their rest.
As they went, he selected a few more skills to level along the way. Better now, than in the heat and stress of combat. Harden, Guard Stance, and Emboldening Speech seemed like good ones to practice. And so he cautiously crept through the woods with his paws up ready to block punches, enhancing Missus Fluffbear’s hide, and rambling on about duty, bravery, and the right to arm bears. He also kicked on Noblesse Oblige, which he’d been thoroughly forgetting about, and watched it slowly start leveling as his party benefited from the buff. His primary attribute seemed to be wisdom, and with luck as miserable as Fluffbear had, she could use every bit of common sense she could get.
It DID keep her horn honks to a minimum, for which he was thankful.
It had been a long time since he’d been this way, but he still knew the route. He lead them through the woods, to a large boulder, and down a goat trail to a valley down below the wooded slope. Eventually the trees grew more weathered and worn, and as the afternoon wore on, he could see the first gray line of stones there in the dead trees.
The strange girl who lived around here had a card game, he knew, one that had helped him when his luck was pretty abysmal. Maybe she could help again?
A few more creatures approached as they found their way down into the swampy valley, but Pulsivar’s presence seemed to keep them at bay, and none of the screaming eagles that occasionally swooped by seemed inclined to attack. They all knew the Black Death, by sight or by smell, and there were better ways to die than by getting within leaping distance of the region’s apex predator.
They came to the stones as he had long ago, and Missus Fluffbear grew interested, toddling around and staring at the writing that filled them. Threadbare followed behind her, reading each one as he went, and tracing the letters with his paw. This had helped him, he remembered, back when he was trying to figure out letters and words, figure out the world.
Celia did this for me, he thought, and bowed his head as his paw shook on the stone. For a second the despair crept on him again-
HONK
-but only a second. He smiled down at Fluffbear’s anxious face, and patted her head. “See? This one says here lies William Walt, I got hungry and it wasn’t his fault.”
But the girl he’d met here was nowhere in sight. He even checked around with Scents and Sensibility…
…and caught a strange smell, coming from the east.
PER +1
It was like Pulsivar, but not Pulsivar. Like a couple of Pulsivars, because the scents were subtly different.
The big black bobcat perked up instantly as soon as he smelled it, bounding off that way, excited.
“Wait!” Threadbare insisted, running to keep up….
…which is about when the first skeletal hand leaped out from behind a gravestone, and tried to strangle Missus Fluffbear. Not a skeleton, just a bony hand, moving of its own accord.
She didn’t much care about getting strangled and it was dispatched easily enough, but by the time they were done with it, Pulsivar was gone from sight. Missus Fluffbear, for her part, was oblivious to Threadbare’s distress, waving her arms in the air excitedly.
Her Toy Golem level had gone up to six on the party screen, Threadbare saw. Not too surprising given how much fighting they’d been doing all that day.
“Pulsivar?” Threadbare called, hauling out the Minorphone and triggering its magic. “PULSIVAR?”
The sound was much louder than expected, and it rolled off the hills, echoing back and forth. But the black cat did not return.
So Threadbare fired up his sniffer and followed his scent. It was pretty easy, after all. His friend stuck to the strange cats’ trail like a close-knit stitch in a seam.
Your Scents and Sensibility skill is now level 17!
He didn’t know why Pulsivar was so worked up about this. He had no way of knowing that it was smack in the middle of bobcat mating season, and one of the scents that Pulsivar had picked up belonged to a female close to heat. If he’d known that, he probably wouldn’t have understood it in the first place. Toy golems didn’t generally have to worry about hormones, and in any case, he already had a method of reproduction that involved a lot less drama and biology.
Another dead hand later, they came to a place where the ground was torn up. Muddy stone boxes lay in deep holes, lids off, and the stones above were crooked and fallen. The scent of cats was all around-
-and then Fluffbear was falling into the pits, and that took a while to sort out. Fortunately Threadbare had plenty of string, and eventually he just tied her to him and kept on walking whenever he felt the string tug and jerk. Seriously, she was lucky to have him along for this.
In more ways than he knew, actually. Every time he helped her out of a predicament, she ground a little more experience for her luck. She’d already gone up a couple of times since the day started.
Eventually, Threadbare came to a deep set of ruts in the ground, straight and surrounded with pawmarks. Big ones. The ground was torn up here, by something Threadbare had never seen before. It smelled of… death. Old wood and old death, very old. And… rusted metal? And cats. Really strongly of cats.
And sure enough, Pulsivar was following it. He’d stopped to piss on one of the gravestones, but after that, ZOOM, if Threadbare’s nose was right.
Sighing, the little bear gathered his party and marched on after the tracks.
Oddly enough, they didn’t have any encounters on the way. He was uncertain if this was because Fluffbear’s luck had hit a certain point, or if Pulsivar had cleared the way for them.
The actual answer was due to a completely different factor, but he had no way of knowing that yet.
They broke new ground, walked through land that meandered between the hills, past the occasional fallen shack or burned out barn, and Threadbare activated Keen Eye whenever the trail got too near them, making sure there wasn’t anything lurking in ambush and skilling it up a bit. Twice they snuck past bears, actual honest-to-gods black bears, foraging peacefully. That was good for another two levels of stealth.
And a level of Scout. This one brought some surprises with it.
You are now a level 5 Scout!
AGL +3
PER +3
WIS +3
You have unlocked the Alertness skill!
Your Alertness skill is now level 1!
You have unlocked the Best Route skill!
Your Best Route skill is now level 1!
You have unlocked the Forage skill!
You already know the Forage skill… +5 levels added to it instead.
Two new skills, and his spent energy refreshed? Yes please!
Curious, he pulled them up on his status screen.
NEW SKILLS
ALERTNESS Level 5 Cost: N/A Duration: Passive Constant Alertness has a chance to auto-activate all your sensory-enhancing skills for free in the event that you are ambushed or about to encounter unseen danger.
BEST ROUTE Level 5 Cost: 15 San Duration: One hour per scout level Activate while examining a visible terrain feature. Examines the best route from your current location to your destination, and marks it visibly. Everyone in your party can see the best route trail. The higher the skill, the better the route found. At high levels it will detect and detour around dangerous monsters and towards treasure and resources.
Okay, that Alertness one was handy as heck. The other one he could see using sometimes, maybe. Right now it didn’t matter, because he had tracks to follow.
Night fell as they walked. To Threadbare it made little difference, thanks to his new cave bear eyes. But Missus Fluffbear was having a bit of trouble, so they slowed down a bit.
Then they crested a ridge, and he saw lights.
The glowing lights of windows. There was a big building out there, and several shapes beyond it, which his darkvision revealed to be wrecked and scorched buildings. A few of them were intact, though, but they were all dark, save for that big one.
He knew this place. It was Taylor’s Delve. What had happened to it? Why was only one building lit up, and most of the rest smashed up?
Threadbare debated. The trail he was following went past the town, veered away from it. But those lights were intriguing. Then his string pulled tight again, and he sighed as he hauled Missus Fluffbear out of a ditch. It was getting too dark for her to see well, and her perception needed work. Pulsivar was still visible on his party screen, and he was doing fine.
That decided him… the big cat could take care of himself for a night or two, if it became necessary. He had for five years, after all. He’d be fine.
So Threadbare untied the string, took missus Fluffbear by hand, and with Beanarella stomping stoically behind, led the group down the hill and into town.
Once it had planks in the street, but now they were scattered and rotten, overgrown with lichen and the first shoots of new spring plants. But the toys were light and noiseless, as they crept up on the lit building.
Your Stealth skill is now level 9!
Threadbare debated, then waved Beanarella over to one of the windows as an idea struck him. He guided her to just under the windowsill, then climbed up on her back and peered in.
It was a big room inside, with a staircase going up to another floor. Candles lit the room, and a big bar filled the back of it, with stools lining the run of it. A mirror behind the bar had been thoroughly broken, and a pale man with overlarge fangs polished a glass.
At the tables, a rough-looking woman in a breastplate arm-wrestled a sturdy-looking man wearing a miller’s apron. They too were pale, and their fangs stuck out inches from their lips as they grinned at each other. The woman kept winning.
Then, someone howled upstairs, and the building shook. Threadbare barely kept his balance. The patrons inside looked up nervously, then looked back at each other once it subsided.
The voice that howled seemed almost familiar, though Threadbare couldn’t put his finger on it.
Threadbare hopped down. It seemed all right. Maybe these people could help him find Pulsivar, or tell him what was going on.
He rejoined the nervous Missus Fluffbear, and lead her around to the door. It didn’t budge when he pushed it, so he hauled out his scepter and poked at the door handle, trying to turn it. That didn’t work, so he tapped the heavy club against the door instead.
Noise from inside, some hushed discussion, and the man behind the bar opened the door, his lower face covered with a cloth mask. “Why hello there… travelers…” his voice trailed off, as he saw no one in front of him. Then gold flashed in the edge of the vision, and he followed his eyes down to the little bear’s top hat, and the immaculately dressed teddy bear under it.
Your Work it Baby skill is now level 7!
“Hello,” the foot-tall toy said, looking up into the man’s red, red eyes. “Can we come in?”
“…sure? Ah, wait… uh… enter freely and of your own pill.”
“You got it wrong Steve,” the woman said, her voice muffled from her own mask. “It’s will.”
“No, I don’t think this guy is Will.” The bartender stepped aside, as the little toys toddled into the room, two of them peering around curiously. The miller had a mask on too, now.
The woman laughed, wringing her hands together at the unexpected parade. “So cute!”
Your Adorable skill is now level 18!
Your Work it Baby skill is now level 8!
For a long minute there was silence. The door shut, and the bartender coughed. “Ah, there’s a… cold going around. That’s why the masks.”
“Yep,” the miller nodded, his eyes red against his pale face. “So we don’t give you colds! Although…”
“Yeah, what are you?” The armored woman said. “You monsters?”
“We’re golems,” Threadbare said, and instantly the atmosphere in the room seemed to lighten.
“Whew, that’s a relief!” The bartender said, sliding his mask off. “So are we!”
“Yeah, come on and belly up to the bar,” The armored woman said, taking a seat and shifting a spear on her back so she could sit down comfortably. “We thought you were travelers. Like we were, once.”
The three little toys moved up to the bar. Threadbare and Fluffbear looked at each other, and scrambled up to the stools, then on to the counter when they couldn’t see above the bar. Beanarella stood placidly below, until the woman reached down and scooped her up, depositing her next to her party members.
“I’m glad you’re not adventurers,” The guy in the miller’s apron said, taking a seat next to Missus Fluffbear. “Most of the time they either run or fight. All but the very stupid ones.”
“Hey!” The woman snapped. “I was tired, okay?”
“Oh no no, it wasn’t a knock on you, I’m just saying-”
“And the light was low! My astigmatism was acting up.”
“Right, right, sorry.”
“Hmph.” She flipped her blonde ponytail back, and stared back at Threadbare. “You are just the cutest thing, you know that? I bet you sucker people in that way, and then SHUNK!”
“No,” Threadbare shook his head. “No shunking. Mostly hugging.”
“Weird, but with that much gear on you I guess it’s working out well.” The bartender shrugged, and took a bottle down. “Do you drink?”
“No.”
“We don’t drink… wine, either.” The bartender grinned. He had a friendly face, with two curly mustaches.
“Gods, don’t remind me,” the woman sighed. “At least I found us that goat a few hours back. You’re all welcome, by the way. Not naming names. Barret and Grimble.”
“Thank you Darla,” the miller said. The bartender just rolled his eyes.
Then the building shook again, as whatever was upstairs howled a breathless scream, that went on for minutes. Missus Fluffbear put her hands over her ears, and Threadbare patted her sympathetically.
When it was done, he asked “What was that?”
“Oh, uh, that’s one of us who didn’t wake up right.” Darla said, shuddering. “Pity, too. He’d be a hell of a fighter, but… eh, he wasn’t human. Gets weird sometimes when you’re not. Racial skills get stuck, and bad things happen. That’s what the mistress says.”
Boards creaked overhead. “Oh, here she comes now!”
“So you must be a pretty high-level golem,” the bartender said. “Only ones I ever heard of aren’t supposed to be smart. Did you luck out and get a monster job that lets you have a class level, too? We get one, but only because we had them to start, and only one comes across.”
“Your best one.” Darla said. “Gods I miss my berserker levels. But at least I’ve got the knight stuff, so I’m somewhat useful in a fight. Not naming names here. Barret.”
“Shut up!” The miller said. “What was I supposed to do? Not my fault my parents literally made me grind miller before I ran away to wizard school! Then I got vamped, and ten wizard levels went straight down the drain, just like that!”
“Guys, guys…” The bartender made shushing motions.
“Oh, I’ve got eight adventuring jobs,” The little bear said. “And two crafting ones.”
The room fell silent.
“That uh, that sounds like you’re an adventurer to me,” the miller said, edging back a little.
“Maybe? I don’t know. I don’t think I’m a monster.”
“Barret, Grimble, ease up,” Darla said, as the miller drew out a stone club and the bartender slipped a hand under the counter. “He’s weird, okay, but it’s not like he’s a necromancer or anything.”
“Oh, I’m one of those too,” Threadbare offered, helpfully.
Darla’s face froze. “Oh boy. Tell me you’re joking.”
“Nope.” There were feet on the creaking stairs now as someone descended, but Threadbare’s attention was on the little trio around him. “See? Assess Corpse.”
Your Assess Corpse skill is now level 2!
Instantly words appeared over all of the humans’ heads. Darla was a level 4 lesser vampire spawn and a level 9 knight. Grimble the bartender was a level 5 vampire spawn and a level 7 grifter. Barret was a level 8 vampire spawn and a level 21 miller. And for some reason, they’d all lost their smiles, and drawn their weapons.
“What’s wrong?” Threadbare asked, sliding his hand down to his pocket, where he’d tucked the scepter.
“You!” A voice squealed, and Threadbare turned, to see the mysterious girl he’d met so long ago! She still wore the green-and-poka-dotted scarf around her head, but now she had a ragged black dress to go with it, and some big black boots that stomped as she charged him, scooping him up into a hug. “Mistah baah! Gahd, it’s been so lahng, how ah yah?”
“Hello!” Threadbare said.
“You can tauk now? Holy shit!”
“I made my mouth myself,” said Threadbare, and hugged her back.
