Critical Failures V

by Robert Bevan

  The room was the very definition of sparse. If she hadn’t specifically requested a bath, the only furnishing would have been the wicker mat and threadbare sheet on the floor. There weren’t even any windows. But that was probably for the best, seeing as how she was planning to bathe.

  Her sensitive half-elven ears picked up the sound of a chair scooting softly against the floor in the next room over. That was strange, as she didn’t think there were any other guests staying there.

  Maybe she was being paranoid, but Katherine decided it couldn’t hurt to inspect the wall for secret peepholes before she started taking her clothes off.

  It wasn’t a big room, and so there wasn’t a whole lot of wall to inspect. She poked and prodded at knots in the wood, finding them all to be natural and solidly in place.

  Satisfied, she undressed next to the washtub. The water was still far too hot for her to get in, so she decided to take care of laundry first. She bunched up her clothes and her big black cloak and shoved them to the bottom, clouding the water with swamp filth. When she pulled her arms out, they were red like boiled lobster claws. She wished she hadn’t lost her scythe in the swamp.

  Taking one last look around the room to see if there was anything else that could use a wash, she spotted the bedsheet that came with the room. Who knew who might have used it before her, or when it had last been washed? But without a fast means of drying it, she’d just be rendering it useless for her to sleep under. And peepholes or no peepholes in the walls, she didn’t fancy the idea of sleeping completely bare-ass naked.

  “Purify,” said Katherine as she quickly touched a finger to the scalding hot water. It did the trick. The water was suddenly crystal clear, and all her clothes were spotlessly clean.

  After hanging up her clothes on wall pegs to dry, she tested the water again. It was still really hot, but she thought she could take it. Once it cooled too much, it would be on a fast path to unpleasantly tepid.

  Easing her feet in first, she bent over and splashed a bit of water on her arms and breasts to acclimatize herself.

  Hearing another chair-scooting from the direction her naked ass was pointed at, she couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching her. It gave her a chill that prompted her to kneel down and submerge herself as far down into the water as she could.

  With her arms crossed over her breasts, she glanced behind her. The wall was still as solid as before. Could there be some kind of sliding window that she’d missed? She didn’t think so, but the point of such a window would be to remain hidden beyond careful scrutiny.

  Katherine would neither enjoy her bath nor willingly go to sleep until she had satisfied herself that she wasn’t being peeped at. How to proceed?

  She could whip her head around quick and try to catch the open window, but then she might spook whoever was behind it, and they might just wait for a while and watch her while she was sleeping. Somehow, that thought creeped her out way more than someone watching her bathe. Another idea suddenly occurred to her.

  “Butterbean,” she said. “Come here, boy.”

  Butterbean hopped to attention, trotted over, and placed his front paws on the tub rim.

  Katherine stroked the fur on his head and neck. “That’s a good boy!” She leaned in close and whispered the incantation in his ear. “Speak.”

  “Hello, Katherine,” said Butterbean.

  “Is this uncomfortable for you?”

  “Not at all.”

  “I mean, me hugging you while naked.”

  “It wasn’t until you just said it like that. I mean, I’m always naked. Why are we whispering?”

  “I need you to look at the wall behind me. Do you see a hole?”

  “Yes,” said Butterbean. “Someone appears to be watching you. It smells like the dwarf with the eye covering.”

  “Figures. I’m starting to develop an alternative theory as to how he lost that eye.”

  “Shall I bark at him?”

  “No. Do you have to pee right now?”

  “I wouldn’t mind, but I can wait for a more convenient time.”

  “Is the hole too high for you to pee through?”

  Butterbean wagged his tail. “It’s higher than I usually go, but I believe I’m up to the task.”

  “Good boy. Casually walk around the room, sticking close to the walls. I’ll keep him distracted. When you have a clean shot, take it.”

  “With pleasure.”

  Butterbean disengaged and began circumnavigating the room and sniffing at the walls.

  Katherine didn’t know how this would play out, but she was determined not to waste this opportunity to get clean. She sat in the washtub, lifted her feet out, and submerged her torso and head.

  Underwater, she bubbled out another incantation. “Purify.” She felt instantaneously cleaner, more than she’d ever felt in her life. Every pore on her body soaked in clear hot water. It was at the same time invigorating and almost painful.

  She wished that she could linger in the bath a bit longer, but she had a rat to flush out. She sat up, careful not to look in the direction of the secret peephole, but offered a bit of sparkly-clean side boob that way as she started to wring out her hair with both hands in a manner which she hoped was distractingly sexy.

  “WYOW!” cried a voice from the next room, accompanied by a chair-scooting and followed immediately by a loud crash.

  Katherine hopped out of the tub, wrapped herself in her sopping wet cloak, ran out of her room to the next one over, and kicked in the door. She was still reflexively thinking like a vampire, which made for a more-than-powerful-enough kick to swing the door in, but also for a sore foot.

  Papa Dwarf was writhing on the floor, trying to scrub wolf piss out of his eye and pull up his pants at the same time. His genitals were slathered with a bright orange paste, which Katherine recognized as having come from crushed kavi nut, known for both its soothing and lubricating properties. It was a popular masturbatory aid among dwarves who, through years of working with stone, tended to have considerably rougher skin on their hands than they had on their junk.

  Katherine resolved then and there to put no further ranks in any Knowledge skills.

  “How dare you invade my privacy!” cried Papa Dwarf. “Get out of here at once!”

  “Don’t even try to turn this around on me, Purvy Smurf. You’ve been caught red-handed and orange-dicked.” Katherine stomped across the room, ignoring the tenderness in the bottom of her right foot.

  Papa Dwarf abandoned his attempts to pull his pants up, and reached up for a two inch square hole in the wall.

  Katherine slapped his hand away. “You move another muscle, and I swear to God I’ll crush your kavi nuts.” She was more curious than angry though. How had she missed such a big hole? How was it hidden? Feeling around the edge of the hole, she was surprised to find that it peeled away like an old Band-Aid, turning black as it lost contact with the surface. When she was done, she was holding an ordinary-looking piece of black fabric.

  “That’s mine!” said the dwarf.

  “What the hell is it?”

  “It’s my son’s future.”

  Katherine looked down at him, still struggling to pull up his pants. “You’re purposely raising your son to be a sad old pervert?”

  “No, I meant that I plan to sell that to contribute to my son’s education.”

  “Good news, Papa,” said Katherine. “Today’s the day you cash in.”

  The dwarf got to his feet and pulled his suspenders over his shoulders. “Do you know how much that’s worth? What have you to pay for it?”

  “It’s one of those long-term investment things,” said Katherine. “Think about it like this. If I let you keep this... whatever this is, sooner or later you’re going to lose your other eye, effectively making you more useless than you already are, unable to work and a burden to your family. So I’m going to do the opposite. Think of all the money you’ll save on medical bills and jerk-off cream.”

  The dwar
f smiled and held out an open palm. “Very funny, young lass, but I’ll be having my hole back now.”

  “You’ll be shutting your hole, you fat one-eyed shitbag.”

  “Now take it easy, Miss Mouthy.” The dwarf pulled a long, thin-bladed dagger out of his boot. “Just hand over the hole, and we can pretend that none of this ever happened.”

  Katherine put her hands on her hips. “With all the shit I’ve been through, you think that little blade scares me?”

  “It ought to, unless you’re hiding a bigger one under that wet cloak.” His single eye was wide, staring at the cloak where it clung to her breasts. “Doubtful.”

  “I’ve got something better. Something you’ll never have.”

  “Is that so, Missy? And what might that be?”

  “Depth perception, motherfucker!” Katherine kicked the dwarf’s wrist, sending the dagger flying straight up, where it stuck in the ceiling.

  She was relieved that had worked, because she was pretty sure she’d just flashed her cooch at him. It was worth it because she’d disarmed him. But failure would have meant showing this little creep even more of the goods than he’d already seen right after having delivered an action movie quip, which might have been more humiliation than she could handle. And she probably would have gotten stabbed in the foot as well.

  But for now, all the humiliation in the room was squarely on the shoulders of her host as he made repeated futile efforts to jump up and grab his dagger. A dwarf’s body wasn’t made for high jumps. His boots were barely leaving the floor.

  “Please stop,” said Katherine. “You’re embarrassing yourself.” She was tempted to sidekick him to the floor while he was in the air, but she found herself feeling a little sad for him after this little display. “You know what? Here, let me help.” She reached up and plucked the dagger out of the ceiling.

  Papa Dwarf pulled a coin purse out of his pocket. “Please, m’lady. Those are the two most valuable things I own. Take my gold, but leave me the dagger and the hole. My son’s future.”

  “In the future, you should try offering the money before you threaten to murder a person.”

  “Yes ma’am.” He nodded humbly.

  In spite of everything she knew about this dwarf, Katherine felt herself growing even more compassionate toward him. “Set your chair upright and take a seat. I want to talk to you.”

  The dwarf did as he was told, then looked up at her attentively with his one sad eye.

  “You keep bringing up your son’s future. Given the circumstances, a lot of people would dismiss that as the desperate Hail Mary pleading of someone staring down the barrel of certain defeat. But I truly believe that your son is the most important thing in your life.”

  “He is.”

  “I know. I could see it in your eye when he retold your horseshit tale of fighting off the bandit who was going to murder your family.”

  The dwarf lowered his eye, but made no attempt to defend the truth of his story.

  Katherine continued. “Your little boy sees a hero in you. He’s still young enough for you to become the man he thinks you are before he discovers you for the piece of shit you are now. With regard to his future, that’s worth more than anything gold can buy.”

  “You’re right, m’lady,” said the dwarf. “I want to be the man he thinks I am. I’m going to change.”

  “I believe you. Now toss over the gold.”

  The dwarf held his coin purse close to his chest with both hands. “How can I trust that you won’t just run off with my gold and my possessions?”

  Katherine smiled. “On the contrary. You can trust that that’s exactly what I’m going to do.” Without taking her eyes off the dwarf, she leaned back and called out, “Butterbean!”

  In less than five seconds, her wolf was standing by her side, looking formidable and growling softly.

  Papa Dwarf scowled as he tossed the coin purse to Katherine. “After all that talk about being a good person, you’re nothing but a lowlife thief.”

  “How can you say that after all I’ve done for you?” asked Katherine. “I’m taking this hole thing to help you avoid temptation. I’m taking your dagger because you threatened to murder me with it. I think we can agree that that’s fair.”

  “And my gold?”

  “I need it to rent a room in a nicer inn. My room here smells like wolf piss.”

  Chapter 18

  Randy threw another stick on the fire, which crackled and flared as it greedily began to consume the new wood. One thing this desert didn’t lack was plenty of fire wood. Randy and Denise were on the edge of what looked like a small mummified forest. Being bone dry, the wood burned pretty quickly, but that also made it easy to start. Randy guessed that these dead trees had been called to life the same way their pissberries had been, only on a much larger scale. Something must have dumped a ton of water onto this spot at some point in the past. But when that something moved on, the desert sucked out all the moisture.

  “This desert fuckin’ sucks,” said Denise. “Why ain’t we seen a snake or a lizard or some shit we can kill and eat? I’m so goddamn sick of piss-flavored fruit. I feel like I got the runs, but I ain’t got enough liquid left in my body to let it go.”

  “We only been walkin’ a few hours now, and this ain’t so bad, as deserts go. Sure it’s hot during the day, but it ain’t so cold at night. I prefer this to all the humidity back home.”

  “Jesus Christ, Randy. How is it that you got your head in the clouds when there ain’t no clouds for hundreds of miles from here?”

  Randy lay on his back and looked up at the cloudless night sky. “I ain’t never seen so many stars in all my life.”

  “And you ain’t never likely to again, on account of we’re gonna die in this goddamn desert.”

  “Have some faith, Denise. Jesus spent forty days in the desert. We ain’t gonna die in just one night, and once we get back to the city, you’re gonna regret not having taken the time to appreciate all this natural beauty. Take a look at that moon, so big and full.”

  “I’m tired, I’m thirsty, I’m hungry, and I got sand all up in my vag. When I get back to the city, all I’m gonna appreciate is a hot bath and a cold beer. That moon can suck my big and full dwarf titties.” Denise raised two middle fingers toward the moon. He slowly lowered his hands as his jaw dropped open. “Holy shit, Randy. I don’t fuckin’ believe it!”

  “Well that’s quite the sudden turnaround.”

  “No, you dumb shit. Get up off your ass and take a look at this.”

  The dark barren landscape didn’t offer a lot of distractions, so Randy was able to spot what Denise was so worked up about almost immediately. The moon appeared to have a twin at ground level... a reflection.

  “You don’t s’pose...”

  “I do s’pose!” shouted Denise. “That’s fuckin’ water!” She ran as fast as her short thick legs would take her.

  Randy walked briskly after her, keeping up with relative ease. “Hang on, Denise! It might just be a mirage.”

  Denise shook her head. “You are one dumb motherfucker. You know that, Randy? A mirage is what you call an optimal allusion.”

  “You mean an optical illusion?”

  “What the fuck ever, Mr. Rand McNally.”

  “Don’t they make maps?”

  “Goddammit, Randy! Would you shut the fuck up and listen for a minute? The point is that a mirage is caused by sunlight. Everybody knows that. Ain’t no mirages at night.”

  “I still don’t feel good about this.” In truth, Randy felt almost as good as Denise seemed to about this. He hadn’t realized how parched he was until there was actually some promise of water. But this seemed like one of those too-good-to-be-true things, and he didn’t want Denise to get her hopes up. “Why didn’t we see this during the day?”

  “We just wasn’t lookin’ hard enough. Think about it. We ain’t really seein’ it now. We’s just seein’ a big fat fuckin’ moon reflection on the ground, and that ain’t too h
ard to spot.”

  Randy supposed that made some kind of sense. Denise was probably right, and Randy certainly hoped she was. But there wasn’t any harm in playing Devil’s Advocate if it occasionally kept them out of any potential... Oh shit.

  “Denise,” said Randy. “Stop right there.”

  Denise stopped dead in her tracks. “Oh man, what is it? Do I got spiders on my back?”

  “No. I just had a thought is all.”

  “Well I’m real fuckin’ proud of you, Randy. But I’m thirsty as shit and I got a coochie full of sand.”

  “Just hear me out, will you? Think back to when we took a piss on the ground earlier, and all them berries grew out of the dirt.”

  “Yeah? So what?”

  “If that’s really water over there, then why’s it just sittin’ there, instead of bringing forth a forest full of fruit trees or somethin’?”

  “Don’t ask me, Randy. You was the one who dismissed my magical piss theory so quickly.”

  “I didn’t dismiss it. I tested it scientific like. My piss also made plants sprout out of the ground.”

  “Well maybe we both got magical piss,” snapped Denise. “Or maybe it don’t work with water. Maybe there’s a chemical in piss that causes the phenomenon. You ever think of that, Professor?”

  Randy hadn’t thought of either of those theories, but he remained skeptical.

  “You stay here and drink sand if you want,” Denise continued. “But if you fancy a drink of water before I scrub out my hoo-ha, you best not lollygag too long.”

  With a refreshing oasis mere yards away, Randy knew he wasn’t going to stop Denise. He plodded along behind her toward the palm tree lined pool of glistening water, ready for the worst.

  Sure enough, as soon as Denise stepped into the water, the whole oasis vanished. In its place stood a large red pavilion-style tent, three camels, and two grinning scorpion people.

  “Aw shit!” said Denise.

  Randy silently agreed with Denise’s assessment of their situation, but was surprised to find that he wasn’t afraid. He should have been afraid. With the lower half of giant scorpions, and the torsos and heads of muscular humanoids, these creatures looked like fear incarnate. They had a set of normal human-like arms at the shoulders, with which they brandished large scimitars. But much more frightening – at least objectively – were the massive scorpion claws extending from where the two body styles met. They wore plated metal armor on their upper halves which matched the exoskeleton on their lower halves. A single drop of what Randy confidently assumed to be venom glinted at the tip of the stingers at the end of their raised tails.