Threadbare Volume 3

by Andrew Seiple

  “I suppose that could have been true,” Threadbare said, “But when Graves called your pistol a musket you didn’t correct him. On top of everything else, it looks very suspicious.”

  “I.. I was just flustered,” Gudrun said, taking a step back, looking at the solemn-faced group behind her. “In fact, I—”

  A blur of motion, Threadbare tried to get in its way, but was just too slow. Bazdra shouted a warning—

  —and then Cecelia yelled, as she was scooped up, and Gudrun was backing up to the door, teeth bared, holding the little doll high. “No closer,” Gudrun said, her voice rippling, and changing, losing the grandmotherly tone, as it was replaced with something oily. “Or she goes over the edge. If she dies down there, you can’t revive her, can you?”

  Hidon twitched, but Garon slapped his arm. “No!”

  “Clever boy. She’s coming with me,” The Lurker sneered. “I was very glad you came to this dungeon. It’s one of my goals with this infiltration. You handed me two of them in one fell swoop, really, how could I resist?” Gudrun’s form rippled, swirling and rearranging, growing until it was a handsome, smiling man, nude for a second until fine, flashy clothes swelled out of his skin and wrapped around him.

  “Those ain’t clothes, are they? They weren’t earliah, eithah?” Madeline asked.

  “Nope. And that wasn’t a mend spell. I can talk like this at will,” The Deceiver smirked.

  Cecelia twisted, looked to Threadbare for help. “Stay calm,” he whispered through the wind. “We’ll save you.”

  With absolute faith she nodded and got shaken for her trouble. “Ah ah ah! Sit still, do nothing, and you might survive this, Your Highness,” The Lurker hissed, as he tucked the pistol under his arm and opened the door to the giants’ hall with his free hand.

  “And Gudrun?” Hidon’s hands shook, gloved hands clenching around the daggers.

  “I let her go.” The Lurker said, gazing back to the steps leading down the cliff... and the misty gorge beyond. “Long drop. Short stop. Down there somewhere.”

  “You bastard!” Bazdra snarled. “Why shouldn’t we kill you now!”

  “Because I WILL throw Princess Cecelia, and I’m smart enough to do it where your dragon and witch can’t catch her, and where the vines aren’t. And because if you let me go now, you’ll have a shot at me when I leave. One way out, one way in, hm?”

  “And exactly what do you mean to do here?” Threadbare asked, but without another word the daemon slipped through the door and slammed it behind him.

  BANG!

  The muffled shot resounded from inside. Hidon turned to Threadbare, furious. “What! You honestly think you can trust a word that thing said? Your princess is as good as dead if you give that thing time, and you’re just letting it go?”

  “You’re wrong on three counts,” Threadbar said. “First, I don’t trust it, second, we won’t give it time, and third... well, that wasn’t my princess.”

  Graves’ pack stirred, and a porcelain arm poked out, followed by the rest of Cecelia. “No, but it’s almost as bad. We need to get moving or he might kill Marva.”

  “What?” Bazdra blinked. “Two of you? Oh. Oh, clever.”

  Threadbare shrugged. “I baked a new clay golem this morning and asked our dead for volunteers. We just needed someone who had unlocked knight at some point, everything else could be faked. Especially since they could modify their status screens to hide things. Marva was it.”

  “Your whole dungeon run was to lure him out.” Hidon said, as light dawned.

  “Don’t mean to be a poop, but we need ta hurry,” Madeline said, staring at rippling patches of air. “The gahds are coming back.”

  Cecelia pointed at Hidon and Bazdra. “You two, out. Tell the King what happened. We took care to Lurker-proof our people, so he shouldn’t be able to impersonate us, but we’ve no preparations with you. If you’re still around, he’ll try shenanigans.”

  Bazdra started to protest, looked at the now roiling patches of empty space, and nodded. “We’ll get word to the King.”

  “Good. We’ll go after The Lurker, try to get him to flee without time to prepare. We’ve got an edge there; we know what he’s doing.”

  At the edge of the bridge, Hidon stopped and looked back. “What? What’s he doing?”

  “I have an idea,” said Threadbare. “Get in Madeline’s pack, everyone except for Graves and Madeline. I’ll whisper the plan. Go! Oh, and be careful leaving the dungeon, we’ve got a friend out there. Go out slowly with your hands up, both at once.”

  “What’s the Lurker doing? Simple. He’s going to seal the dungeon,” Cecelia said, before hopping out of one pack to another, as the dwarves’ stunned faces went pale.

  CHAPTER 8: JOTUNHER

  Giants, though rare creatures throughout the bulk of Generica, are fairly common in the Northlands. Like the dwarves, this particular batch had migrated down from Mighty Hallas, seeking opportunity and a new start away from their more troublesome associates, enemies and allies alike.

  Originally, Jotunher was supposed to be a twin settlement to Jotunhim, a steading ruled by the Jarl’s brother.

  Then she’d gotten her hands on a dungeon core, and the original plan had gone... a bit out of the window.

  Giants have the “Living Large” skill. Which means that they usually alternate between two attitudes: hangry, and lazy.

  So when the Jarl, after playing with the dungeon core a bit, figured out how it worked, she’d seen some of the benefits right away. Unlike most giants, who are— to put it charitably— rather slow, she’d managed to grind her intelligence up to a respectable fifty-two.

  Which let her realize “Hey, if I stick all these delicious foods and alcohol stuff in the loot pillars and put my friends in the midboss and mob pillars, then we can pretty much eat forever in a never-ending party without doing a lick of work!”

  And so when the dwarves finally tunneled back to that end of the mountain, they found Jotunher nestled just inside the Oblivion and full of happy, torpid giants. Dwarves being dwarves and the old enmity being what it was, they sent in raiding parties. Some of them survived; some of them didn’t, and the chief shrugged her shoulders and begin setting up a proper dungeon, adding to it as her whimsy took her. After all, the little hairy ones sometimes dropped good loot and that got added to her hall of treasures. And it wasn’t like they could REALLY kill her people. Best Jarl ever!

  Okay, so she might not have figured out ALL of how the dungeon worked but whatever. It worked, and that was enough. She’d come to appreciate the benefits of life as a dungeon master.

  Her subjects, on the other hand, had not.

  Though she had no way of knowing it, being stuck in a dungeon slot for long has a way of wearing on one’s perceptions. It ups aggression, tries to mold behavior and urges, and pushes those in the slots into acting in accordance with a script that tries to encourage and provide dramatic conflict with visitors.

  All else falls by the wayside.

  Some monsters, such as strong-willed undead or daemons can resist it. Dragons don’t usually notice, because they’re used to the unending weariness caused by the march of time anyway. But for most mortal races, it wears the people in those slots down, especially if they’re not mentally strong...

  ...like, for example, most giants.

  The ones in the feast hall, gorging themselves, had barely noticed when the doors slammed shut. They did that sometimes, as people came and went. No big deal.

  They hadn’t even looked up when the handsome stranger stood there, holding a frightened doll in one hand and a pistol in the other, taking stock of the situation. Nor had they noticed when he shook himself and shrunk down to the shape of a three-foot-tall teddy bear in a red coat and a black top hat.

  They sure as fuck had noticed when he shot Hralph in the face, though. Especially Hralph.

  The entire long table had gone silent, as the gunshot echoed, and the feasters stared at the murderous stranger.

&n
bsp; “My name is Threadbare, and I think all of you are stupid fartsniffers!” He cheerfully announced.

  As one, they rose and charged him, bellowing in rage.

  And after a few injuries, some broken furniture, and a slight divergence into a food fight after Hregina accidentally beaned Hronda with a hurled ham, they realized that the little bastard had disappeared in the confusion. Angered, the mob of giants spread out throughout the hall and began looking under chairs, lifting the covers of serving dishes, and peering behind tapestries for a small bear who desperately needed to be flattened. And maybe farted on, because who’s the fartsniffer NOW, huh?

  (That’s about the extent of witty retorts among giants, as they go.)

  With one shot and a little trickery, the Lurker had created a sticky situation indeed for Threadbare’s group.

  He didn’t realize, however, that they’d been told about the entry hall by Hidon, just prior to his arrival.

  And while they didn’t know just what he’d done, they’d heard the gunshot through the doors and guessed the gist of his plan.

  So when the doors slammed open again, about thirty giants, giuncles, and a couple of ginephews and ginieces whirled around with axes and clubs out, but they didn’t see an adventuring group led by a small bear who desperately needed pounding. They saw two badly wounded guards, staggering in, leaning on each other. “Get help...” one of them croaked, before slipping from her compatriot’s grasp and hitting the ground.

  Well, that wouldn’t do!

  The giants surged forward to help the fallen one up, firing questions at the still-standing guard, who shrugged.

  Unnoticed, a tiny red dragon wrapped around a totally silent knight ran from the door to the nearest side-passage. As they reached it, the knight glanced back, and the remaining guard’s eyes rolled up in her head as she collapsed.

  They made it down the hall, around a few corners and came to a stop.

  “I can’t believe that wahked,” Madeline said.

  “...” Graves replied, lips moving without sound. He frowned and sound returned to him. “I’m just glad the bear had that silent killer bead left over from the infiltration run. I’m not a stealthy person.”

  Madeline plopped her pack down and started drawing out their friends while Graves listened back the way they came.

  “Were there any problems?” Threadbare asked as he came out.

  “No. It worked perfectly. The zombies distracted them, and we got past.”

  “Good. Garon? Can you check?”

  “Sure thing. Follow the Dotted Line.” He looked down, then shook his head. “The Lurker’s resistant or something.”

  One of Garon’s mercenary skills let him find the shortest path to a given quest objective. Before they’d entered the dungeon, before they’d even left their quarters, Threadbare had given them all a King’s Quest to take down The Lurker. Then to give himself the quest, he’d sworn fealty to Garon, who had shared the quest that Threadbare had given him BACK to its originator.

  They’d done that last part mainly to see if they could. It was possible and raised some interesting notions for ruler-based shenanigans later.

  “I suppose that makes sense,” Threadbare said, after a bit of thought. “If it were that easy to find him, he wouldn’t have caused so much trouble.”

  Kayin cleared her throat, as she faded into sight, losing her camouflage. “There’s one guard at the junction up the hall, and a lot of doors off. It’s like a maze back there, from what I can see.”

  “You think they’ll hear us in the main hall if we take him out?” Graves asked.

  “It’s a her,” Kayin said. “I think.”

  “Nah,” Madeline said. “I know how dungeon mobs think. They’ll stick to theah paht of things and not go roaming unless we draw ’em.”

  “There’s a question, though. The guard, is she actively searching or hurt?” Cecelia asked.

  “No,” Kayin confirmed.

  “Then it’s almost certain The Lurker didn’t come this way.”

  “Or he slipped by with stealth,” Garon said. “But we need to go deeper in, regardless.”

  Cecelia sighed. “Remember, our goal isn’t to ‘win’ this dungeon; it’s to catch him before he seals it. We need to catch him before he gets to the final boss.”

  “Not what I meant. Mads?”

  “Dungeons have a way of funneling you to the end regahdless of how you go,” the red wooden dragon spoke. “If we don’t follow his path exactly that’s fine, so long as we can make it in time to catch him when the paths convahge.”

  “Let’s go, then,” Threadbare decided, mounting up on Pulsivar’s back and waving the rest along with his scepter. “Kayin, any way to sneak past this one?”

  “Not without risks. It’s a narrow junction and she seems pretty sharp.”

  “Down she goes then.”

  There was a time when that would have bothered me, Threadbare reflected as he rode Pulsivar into a charge, ambushing the surprised guard.

  AGI +1

  Your Ride skill is now level 9!

  Most of his early life had been spent fighting for survival. First against the cat who he’d soon befriended, then against a horde of ravenous rats, and eventually graduating to struggles against undead and weirder things.

  But giants were people of a sort, and with every claw swipe he landed on them, with every bruise his scepter left on her skin, he was reminded that he was helping kill something that was like his little girl, just on a bigger scale.

  Your Clubs and Maces skill is now level 10!

  To that end he forgave the occasional axe hit or kick the giantess got in on him, because it was quite understandable, really. But he was happy to switch over to support once the rest of his crew followed him in and took over the slashy duties.

  She IS a dungeon monster. That does make a difference. What he’d seen so far seemed to suggest that dungeon monsters weren’t truly alive in the first place, that you could kill them and they’d just come back time and again.

  Like The Lurker. And a connection teased in his mind there, before he brought it back to the fight.

  Garon brought the guard to her knees, screaming, and Threadbare had a very hard time remembering that she was a projection of the dungeon, and nothing more—

  But that wasn’t quite right, was it? Not all dungeon monsters were that way. Madeline was a dungeon monster who’d developed, escaped, and gone on to be a... well, you couldn’t call her a good person, not with a straight face, but a decent one given the fact she knew she was a monster and never felt the slightest guilt about it.

  At the end of it, when the guard toppled and fell, swarmed by small foes who overwhelmed her with bodies and attacks, he knew that it didn’t matter. This was what Cecelia needed, to save her kingdom, and her people.

  He sure would be happy when it was all done, though. Perhaps then they could get back to tea parties and hugs.

  Though it WAS good to see his friends rejoice and get more powerful and confident as they went from victory to victory.

  Speaking of which...

  You are now a level 7 Duelist!

  AGI+3

  DEX+3

  STR+3

  You are now a level 15 Golemist!

  INT+5

  WILL +5

  You have unlocked the Bone Golem skill!

  Your Bone Golem skill is now level 1!

  You have unlocked the Call Golem skill!

  Your Call Golem skill is now level 1!

  “Anothah one down!” Madeline cheered. “Goldfindah!” she chanted, and coins popped out of the giant’s pockets. Then Zuula took over searching duties, while Kayin nodded and faded into camouflage again.

  “Any route, desu?” The catgirl asked as she stared down three identical corridors.

  “Look for the larjah passage,” Madeline advised. “Main routes are the way to go.” She nuzzled her coins greedily. “There we go! High Dragon level tree! Woo!”

  “Cecelia?” Threadb
are said, “I think I just got a skill that could save Marva here and now. Do you see any problem with me doing that immediately?”

  “Not a bit,” Cecelia said. “Please do!”

  “Call Golem,” Threadbare said, staring at the first Cecelia’s name in his party screen.

  Your Call Golem skill is now level 2!

  Immediately, Cecelia’s body double stumbled forward, appearing from thin air. She cringed, then looked around... and immediately glomped Threadbare. “Thank you, lord! I was so scared!”

  “It’s all right,” he said, hugging her back. “Where was he?”

  “I... don’t know. He’s running around looking like you, King Dreadbear!”

  “Not unexpected.” The teddy bear gently pried the ex-cultist loose, just as Kayin rematerialized. “That way,” the catgirl said. “Just past two more guards it opens up onto a hillside for a bit. There’s some giant shepherds and herds of giant sheep and goats and stuff. It looks like there’s an entrance to a tower of the hall across the way, but if we step careful we might be able to evade most of the herds.”

  “I, I lost the sword and shield you gave me,” Marva said, turning to Cecelia. “I’m sorry.”

  “No, no, you’ve got nothing to apologize for!” Cecelia said, taking her shoulder with one hand, and touching her face as Marva tried to look away. “If anything I’M the sorry one. You risked your neck for me, because of me, and it almost went bad. I owe you a big favor. Garon, can we get her spares?”

  “Oh yeah. Mads?”

  Madeline rummaged in the pack, and pulled out a few spare doll-sized weapons. The temple of Yorgum had been good for grinding their craft skills last night, in more ways than one.

  Once Marva was armed and re-equipped, Threadbare slapped a few mend golems on those who needed it, and the group hurried to the next set of guards.

  That fight didn’t go quite as well.

  Even with the same tactics that they’d employed against the gate guards, handling two at a time was rough. Especially without a pair of experienced and sturdy dwarves there to help take the pressure off of them.

  And in the more confined space of the hallway, it was harder to encircle and swarm the guards, harder to dance out of the way of their clubs. Threadbare was very glad he’d gained a level and refilled his sanity in the last fight, because he was stuck tanking as best he could and casting mend golem over and over again.