“Hello?” Threadbare asked.
“Yo,” a strange voice said from the direction of the underground lake. It was deep and smooth, and like all of the dead, it spoke to their minds and not their ears. “What’s up? Why’d you murder me, little dudes?”
“You’re not Hatecraft.” Threadbare frowned.
“Who? Oh, the weird little mean guy? Naw, dude, naw.”
“That leaves one person. Are you the fishman?”
“I guess so. Yeah, that’s a good word for me.”
“Why did you fight us?” Garon asked.
“Buncha freaky ass little monsters and a motherfucking miniature dragon come outta nowhere? Fff, like you wouldn’t.”
“Ya got a point theah,” Madeline said.
“Why did you help the evil cultist hurt all these people?” Fluffbear said.
“Was that what he was doing? Didn’t look like it to me,” The fishman said, poking his head up from the water where he’d been resting his ectoplasm. “It was hard to tell with that guy. He was intense. And I never learned the language, so I didn’t really know what his deal was.”
“Why don’t you tell us what you do here?” Zuula asked. “You don’t look eldritch to Zuula, but dere cult involved so she want full facts before we err on de side of smacking old ones.”
“Old ones? Nah, just one. My man YGlnargle’blah. We be chilling with him under the sea. Used to rule around here, y’know? But the ocean over this place started shrinking, so when he said come with me if you want to live, we went.”
“Ocean? There’s never been an ocean around here,” Garon said.
But Zuula was shaking her head. “Dere was. Long ago. Way long ago.”
“Yeah, it’s been a while. So he called his children home, and we’ve been chilling in his airless realm of cool darkness ever since. But me, my family got on my case, wanted me to grow up and learn a trade. I tried to tell them music IS a trade and the band would take off any day now, but shit, man, they didn’t listen. So I went exploring, trying to find some good seaweed I could harvest, or maybe some new kind of fish I could sell, and I found kind of a door. It dumped me out in this weird-ass place. It was rough for a while, and I got pretty sick. Crawled into this cave, thought I was gonna die. That’s when weirdo found me.”
“Called his children home...” Garon slapped his face with one paw. “He won’t call the cultists home at all. YOU’RE his children, not the human cultists.”
“Yeah. Wouldn’t be a good place for humans, where I come from. It’d be kind of drowny.”
“So why you making fish babies?” Zuula asked. “You horny or somet’ing?”
“Gh. Yuk. Don’t remind me.” The fishman sighed. “That little weird dude insisted I get it on with half this freaking village. Those, urk, smooth bodies, and ulp, hair everywhere... Blrp... mf. Man, I guess I’m glad ghosts can’t vomit but I kind of want to, y’know? At least he started letting me have a bag I could put over their heads. I think he convinced them it was part of a ritual or something. And he kept summoning tentacles and things while I was trying to get it over with. Some messed up stuff, I tell you.”
“I don’t understand,” said Missus Fluffbear. “Not any of that.”
“We’ll tell you later!” The doll haunters chorused.
Fluffbear pouted. “Well, okay. I had a question anyway—”
“Whoa. I’m dissolving. Is this good?” The fishman interrupted.
“You going to you afterlife.” Said Zuula. “Is normal dead stuff.”
“But my afterlife ain’t here!” The fishman’s voice rose. “How will YGlnargle’blah find me!”
Zuula considered. “Soulstone him, Dreadbear.”
“What? Oh. Good idea. Soulstone.”
“What’s that?” The fishman spirit walked out of the water, and stared. “Dude, it’s like an angler trap, only a lot more interesting...” He reached out to touch it... and flowed into the stone.
“Weird,” The soulstone pulsed blue. “It’s tight in here, but comfy.”
“We can put you into a new body, if you like,” Said Threadbare, politely. “Or we can take you to YGlnargle’blah’s circle. He seems to be acting up lately.”
“Oh, that ring of stones thing? I’ve been looking for that! It’s not in the lake anywhere, and it’s supposed to be underwater, that’s what the old writings say.”
“Old writings from when ocean be here?” Zuula asked.
“Yeah.”
“See, dis why you not trust books. Ocean be long gone, remember?”
“Oh. Right.”
“Do you know why YGlnargle’blah is awake?” Madeline asked.
“He’s awake? Aw shoot. I was worried he’d notice me leaving. He’s like... think of a really protective grandfather. He used to walk the world and get it on with hot scaly chicks back in the day, most of us are descended from him. Then that Konol guy, the new god, did his thing and YGlnargle’blah had to go to the aether. So I think maybe YGlnargle’blah finally came looking for me. Man, I’m in so much trouble.”
“No so much,” Zuula said. “You dead now. But wait, more blood of yours is around.”
“The little nippers? Yeah, they’re cuties. Even if some of them have... urg... hair.”
“What will he do if he comes through the dolmen circle?” Garon asked.
“Who, YGlnargle’blah? He can’t. Not until the walls are way thinner and Konol’s all the way dead. But I guess he can stand on the edge and yell until I come back.”
“Okay, dat not add up,” Zuula said. “Zuula definitely had visions that humans be wiped out in a couple days, here. Mediocre old one standing on t’reshold and being cranky not do dat.”
“If not the old one, then perhaps something else?” Threadbare asked. “What could kill everyone here in a day?”
They thought.
Thanks to Threadbare’s noblesse oblige boosting their wisdom, they didn’t have to think too hard.
“This village, which recently rebelled against the Crown? And killed every garrison member who didn’t run? And revealed their forbidden religious beliefs for all to see?” Garon said, flapping his wings. “Oh lordy, the army’s on its way.”
“I still have a question,” Fluffbear squeaked.
“What?” Threadbare turned to her, and everyone else glanced over.
“What’s a paladin?”
*****
A little later, the group came upstairs to the church. Smoke filled the air, and through the open doors they could see a burning pile of robes and fezzes. The fish children sat glumly around it, watching their tea party stuff burn. The now-regularly-clothed ex-cultists were standing around in small groups, talking. All save Marva, who was sitting on a stone bench, with two of the little fish children curled up next to her, sleeping. Threadbare could tell they were asleep by the way their eyes didn’t glow.
“Hello sir,” Marva cleared her throat as Threadbare walked out, cleaned from the fight. Immediately all eyes shifted to him. He coughed into one paw, nervously, as his “Work It Baby” skill shot up to its maximum level.
“Ah, hello. I apologize for fooling you with the dummy.”
“No, no, it’s all right. We talked it over, and we’re just glad you showed us the truth. That man—” Marva snarled the word, “—tricked us all.”
“Oh. Well, yes. Um... there’s no easy way to say this. We think the army’s coming to kill everyone here.”
“We know.” Marva rocked her fishbabies.
“You do?” Madeline asked. “Why you still heah, then?”
“We have nowhere to go. This is our home, and all we know is fishing. No other settlement would offer aid to people who used to be cultists, and with the kingdom as shrunken as it is, there’s no civilized place to hide. The wars ground everyone down. And we’d die in the wilds, if we tried that. Assuming the army just let us go.”
Threadbare considered. He turned to his little group of toys. “Are they right?”
“Yeah,” Zuula sa
id. “King not hesitate to wipe out villages. Taylor’s Delve proof of dat, and wasn’t any cult shenanigans involved.”
“The army will mow through this town like a scythe through wheat,” Garon said. “Most of these guys are level eight or under. I mean, we’re not much farther than that, after that fight, but we’ve got jobs and golem advantages over them.”
“Golem advantages.” Threadbare rubbed his chin. “Marva, I saw a lot of treasure on that boat below. Are there any reagents and crystals in there?”
“Why, yes. The trade mostly dried up since Catamountain closed, but we used to be quite the black market hub back in the day.” The middle-aged fishwife smiled. “We donated everything we had to the... society... but nobody was an enchanter so it went unused.”
“I see.” Threadbare said. “You have nowhere to run. How would you like to fight?”
“Fight for what?” Marva said. “Our pastor’s dead. We have no one to lead us.”
“You do,” said Zuula, standing her full eight inches tall. “Bend your knee and swear, and Dreadbear save you all!” Then she went downstairs to smash open barrels full of loot from the boat, because she’d been right about barrels, dammit.
The ex-cultists muttered. They discussed. And in the end, they decided, they had nothing left to lose.
One by one, with more trickling in from the rest of the town, including most of the folk who assumed they’d be slaughtered along with the cultists, the people gathered to place their hope and their dreams in the paws of one small teddy bear.
And on that day, Dreadbear, Lord of Outsmouth, first of his name, swore in subject after subject and gained three ruler levels.
He’d need them, for the ordeal ahead.
CECELIA’S QUEST 3: FIRST ENGAGEMENT
“Good of you to finally join us, Dame Ragandor,” the half-orc said. Heavyset and clad in white armor that had once been pristine but was marred with countless scratches and nicks, the green woman’s face could have been marble for all the emotion it showed.
“Thank you. The rangers delayed us—”
“Your sergeant has already filled me in on that and I wasn’t asking you for excuses anyway.”
Cecelia felt her cheeks tighten. They’d told her the CO of Fort Bronze was a hardass. Her father had warned her she’d find people in the military that would be rude to her on purpose, to test her, and that she’d have to find a balance between sticking up for herself and letting stuff go.
So instead of stammering or apologizing or fussing like the old, weak Celia would have done, Cecelia stood there at attention, keeping her eyes fixed on the General in charge of the Eastern Front.
General Mastoya sighed and rose, looking out the window. Her hair clicked together, the fingerbones braided into it rattling. She was the first Knight that Cecelia had ever seen with long hair.
Well, besides her father, at any rate, but when you got that high a level in all those classes, you more or less made your own rules.
“You’re greener than I am,” Mastoya said out the window, looking into the courtyard. “But I’m supposed to teach you how to be a proper officer AND run a war at the same time. I don’t like that.”
Cecelia stayed silent. It stretched on, on enough that she eventually thought it safe to speak. “Why not, Ma’am?”
“Because it’s pointless.” Mastoya turned to face her, scorn written into every scar on her face. “You’re going to grow up and be a queen. You’re not going to have an officer’s career, or troops to look after, or have to worry about whether or not the enemies are tunneling under you right now, or where your next meal’s coming from. Officer? Bah. First you’ll have to convince me you’re not just daddy’s little girl out playing at toy soldiers.”
“It’s precisely because I’m going to grow up to be a queen,” Cecelia said. “How can I ask people to fight, or even to die for me, if I don’t know what that involves? What kind of queen would ask her people to do something she wouldn’t?”
“Go on.”
“I won’t have an officer’s career, but the wars will come regardless so I might as well know how to fight them. I won’t have specific troops to look after because I’ll have a nation full of subjects to look after. And our enemies will always try to undermine me, and I’ll always worry about my next meal because we’re putting so much stress on the farms and not enough on the fat nobles that we’re one bad harvest away from a famine.”
“Ha!” Mastoya seemed to like the “fat nobles” dig.
“And as far as toy soldiers go...” Cecelia looked away, and sighed. “You know, when I was a little girl and first started adventuring, I animated my toys. And they fought for me. But I never threw them away, or let them get ripped up to the point I couldn’t mend them. We were a team. But I always knew they weren’t PEOPLE.”
A lump rose in her throat. There had been one exception, but now wasn’t the time, and she forced that lump down. “But I grew up, and I put aside childish things.” She closed her eyes, pushed the burning house, pushed her grandfather’s bruised face from her memory. “People are not toys. They never will be toys to me. I’m not the little girl I used to be.” She opened them again, in control of herself once more. “My father saw to that. And as you’re sworn to him, I certainly hope you have faith in his methods.”
Mastoya was nodding now. The scorn had faded from her face... mostly.
“Well, nothing can make or break you like family. I should know that. I owe everything I am to my father, as well. Well, that and surviving the barn fire that was my mother. Fucking green bitch.” Mastoya barked laughter. “Guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the rotten tree.”
“I’m sorry. The only half-orc woman I ever knew was a good mother”
“Would have been nice to have that kind of mom,” Mastoya said. “Ah well. The past is past. All right, Dame Ragandor, you’ll have your shot.”
Mastoya settled into her chair, and pulled out a handful of scrolls. “The Town’s name is Outsmouth. Not too far from where I grew up, and about the same kind of shithole. Small place, about six or seven hundred people. Only reason they’re important is because they supply about half of the fish we eat in this valley, and they aren’t as dependent on field hands, so we can levy troops faster than we can elsewhere. Easy life, right? Hard as hell for even country bumpkins to fuck up. So of course they went and started a fucking unsanctioned cult.”
“Daemons or old ones?”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s probably not going to be djinn because we don’t have a history of that here, so of the known cult types we’re probably dealing with daemons or old ones.”
“It’s old ones,” Anise said, from the doorway. Mastoya jumped, and her face darkened.
Cecelia closed her eyes. “Hello, Anise.”
“Inquisitor Layd’i,” Mastoya ground out. “So nice of you to join us.”
Movement behind her, then Cecelia clenched her teeth as two strong, thin hands descended to grip her shoulders, thumbs rubbing gently against her spine. “I simply couldn’t stay away. Not after your messenger gave me your eloquent summons. And since the rest of me is attached to my ass, I brought it as well, I hope you don’t mind?”
“There are days I do.” Mastoya said.
Cecelia opened her eyes.
“It’s an old one cult,” Anise said. “The worst kind. At least half the town’s converted, which means the settlement is beyond saving.”
“Really.” Cecelia had her doubts, given the source of the information.
“Really, Dame.” Mastoya surprised her. “A cult like this gets a foothold this size, there’s no saving it. It’ll hurt us for years until the area’s safe enough to resettle, but we have to put the entire town to the sword.”
“We’re one bad harvest away from famine,” Cecelia said, softly. “And it’s only half the town corrupted...”
“Half that we know about,” Mastoya said, sighing, and pulling a bottle out from her desk. She bit the cork off, spat i
t out, and took a slug. “And insidious. Pacifying them’s no good. Even if we had the scouts to vet them, even if we COULD spare the scouts to vet them, cultists can fiddle with their status screens. They can hide their information. I’m sure you know all about that.”
“Actually I don’t. I’m not a cultist.”
Mastoya’s eyes widened, and flicked to Anise. “But your father—” She started, then stopped, looking over Cecelia carefully. “Huh. Not what I expected.”
“You didn’t let your mother limit you,” Cecelia said, “So why should I let my father limit me?” Anise’s hands tensed on her shoulders, just for a second. Then they withdrew. The girl kept her sigh of relief silent.
“Well, nobody’s perfect,” Anise said, cheerfully. “Anyway, I hate to interrupt your bonding, but there’s genocide to plan.”
“The Inquisitor is right,” Mastoya said. “Much as I hate it, there’s tentacles involved. There will be abominations, things that should not be, weird magic, and lots of sanity damage involved.”
“Yes. Daemons just want to show people the folly of virtue and torment the weak until they either get stronger or perish so that they stop sucking down resources,” Anise said, matter-of-factly. “The Old Ones want to corrupt Generica, inserting their own reality and overwriting ours. Unlike daemons, who are currently proving they can co-exist peacefully with mortals in Cylvanian society, old ones and their spawn have no place in a sane and reasonable land.”
“If they win, if they even get enough of a foothold here in Cylvania, we’re dead or worse,” Mastoya sighed, taking another slug of drink. The smell made Cecelia’s eyes water. “I hate it, but everyone in that town has to die.”
“There’s really no other way?” Cecelia asked, not caring if it made Mastoya think less of her.
It didn’t seem to. The half-orc’s eyes were sad and old, as she gazed at her future queen. “No. Which is why I’m assigning you to this. You are your father’s daughter, and if you want to be a good queen, mercy alone won’t cut it. You have to be able to bring down the fist, not just offer the open palm.”
Threadbare Volume 2 Page 26
