The rest of the trip across the field went a lot easier. Refreshed and refilled for the most part by their level-ups, the party dispatched the remaining, fairly-small Wooly Bully herd with little trouble.
About the only thing that gave them pause was a herd of sheep-like humanoids in bikinis pursued by a very excited giant in a kilt waving a barrel of alcohol that Graves announced to be watered-down scotch, after the fight was done. But the wandering scotchman and the beautiful sheeple weren’t that hard to put down, and the group was through the distant archway and into the far tower of Jotunher before anything else found them.
CHAPTER 9: LARGE AND IN CHARGE
The party was confronted by a stairwell, with signs pointing up and down. The one pointing up read “Tightens.” The one pointing down read “Luusens.”
And immediately, Threadbare’s nose flared at a familiar odor.
Your Scents and Sensibility skill is now level 21!
“I smell gunpowder,” he announced. “The Lurker is close.”
“Up or down?” Cecelia asked.
“I don’t know.” Threadbare said, sniffing at the stairs going in both directions. “All I know is that a gun got fired around here at some point.”
“Up,” said Madeline. “This dungeon, tallah is bettah, right? So the dungeon wants you to go to the tallest place. That’s wheah he’s heading.”
“If you want, I can scout ahead,” Kayin offered. “But...”
“Yeah. It might not be you who returns, just The Lurker wearing your face. Since he’s near, we need to stick together. Come on.”
“One minute,” said Threadbare, patting Pulsivar’s back. “Bodyguard Pulsivar.”
Your Bodyguard skill is now level 9!
The big cat had come way too near to losing another life against that wolf. He might not have many ways to help protect him, but Threadbare would take what hits he could for his fuzzy brother.
Thus readied, he led the way up the stairs, with Missus Fluffbear falling in on the flank.
When they found the first enormous giant corpse, he knew they were on the right track.
“Hurry!” He urged, eyes hunting around, buffed and keen, looking for the sneakiest of the Hand.
BANG!
The gunshot sounded close! Threadbare and the rest upped the pace.
Through an opened set of double doors, past a few wine presses, over a few screws and giant-sized screwdrivers, past a giant-sized set of furniture currently disassembled with some incomprehensible instructions and a plate of meatballs next to it, the group made their way through the now-emptied giant-sized living area that for no reason they could tell had blue arrows on the floor. Occasionally they passed common household items with little namecards next to them, on which were written symbols that were presumably words in the giant tongue. Either that, or someone had really disliked an incorrectly-assembled wardrobe and very much misspelled the name they’d given it when they called it a DOMBAS.
Finally, they burst through a set of double doors, to witness the tail-end of an epic battle.
A three-foot tall teddy bear, with a wicked grin, leaped from floating rock to floating block, dancing around a blue-shirted giant wielding a pick. On the back of the shirt was a simple name tag that read “Steve.” Below the ruins of what once was a floor, lay a void of inky blackness... the flagstones that were remaining were floating in midair, suspended by nothing in particular. As they watched, the giant brought the pick down in a flurry of chops, narrowly missing the teddy bear as he backflipped to a new set of blocks. The picked block crumbled and fell into nothingness...
...and a series of knives sunk into the flagstone Steve was standing on, destroying it in a rush of red numbers. Steve fell silently into the abyss, and a door across the hall shuddered open, revealing a treasure chest.
Then, as the toys started to head into the room, hopping gingerly from block to block, the teddy bear glanced over and grinned, quickdrawing his pistol. “Too easy!”
BANG!
Cecelia squawked as her block got shot out from under her, and she fell into the abyss...
“Call Golem!” Threadbare shouted.
Your Call Golem skill is now level 3!
...and instantly appeared in Threadbare’s arms. He sat her on Pulsivar’s back, as he urged the cat toward The Lurker.
“You cheater!” The bad parody of him yelled, in a horrible imitation of his voice. Then it hopped with incredible agility, making long bounds across widely-separated blocks, before darting through the newly-opened door.
“Don’t take risks!” Garon urged, and the toys, along with their living companions, made it slowly around the mostly-intact outer edge of the arena, hurrying through the door just before it started to close.
“What is spleef?” Zuula wondered, as she held up a t-shirt emblazoned with the words SPLEEF CHAMPION
“Where did you get that?” Glub asked.
“Treasure chest tucked in one corner. Shame to let it be.”
Garon shook his head, looking around the room. “Mom, that was risky.”
“Dis is not risky?” Zuula pointed straight ahead.
Before them lay a long hall, at the very top of Jotunher. The stone room was full of pillars upon pillars, some wooden and some stone. To either side, diamond-shaped windows let in light, lining the hall and casting golden beams down at the end, on the massive throne and its giant occupant. Easily twenty feet tall, with a club half her size at her side, the massive blue woman was draped in a toga and wearing a set of golden laurels. She had one massive foot up on the opposite knee and was busy filing her toenails. Her waistline and stomach betokened many a good meal, but her arms were no less muscled than the guards downstairs had been.
“Where did he get to?” Threadbare said, looking around, at the many, many sight-obstructing pillars, and the countless patches of shadow broken by bright light. It was an ambusher’s paradise.
But Threadbare and his party weren’t the ones being ambushed, as it turned out.
“Hey! My name is Threadbare!” The Lurker shouted, stepping out from behind a pillar and doffing his hat to the giant.
“No!” Garon shouted, running forward, waving his arms. “He’s a—”
The giant lady looked up at The Lurker’s disguised form and stared with confusion... that turned to a grin. Such an adorable little thing!
“Fuck you, fartsniffer!” Fake Threadbare shot her in the face, turned around, slapped his bear ass, and ran giggling out of sight behind a different pillar.
“Oh shit,” Glub said, as the lady rose to her feet, grabbing up the club, and slamming it against the floor so hard the entire room shook. “It’s on!” he went flying, tumbling to the ground... as did most of the rest of the toys and Graves, too.
And Threadbare as well, rolling out into the light and looking up just in time to see the giant matron’s gaze fix on his, blood dripping out of the bullet wound in her cheek, and murder writ large in her eyes...
The Giant Jarl strode toward the little bear, club raised high. It was stone, an ancient column of some sort that had grips hammered into it, and it whistled as it came down at Threadbare.
Who, fortunately, was agile enough to not be there when it struck down so hard that the floor shook again.
AGI+1
Your Dodge skill is now level 13!
He looked back to see Pulsivar scrambling away, and sighed, chasing after the cat. Though as giant footsteps echoed behind him, he wasn’t sure he was doing Pulsivar any favors at all.
“Over here! Quickly!” He heard his voice call and saw a furry hand beckon from behind a pillar... then looked past him to see Kayin and Graves hesitating.
“That’s not me!” he shouted. Then threw in “Guard Stance!” because here came that club again—
—and this time he didn’t escape.
It caught him in the back, knocking him into the air, to thump against the wall, then bounce to the floor. A red ‘139’ drifted up, and he gasped, rolled to the sid
e, and stood up.
Grinning, the giant pulled her club back and took a few more steps toward him—
—and then his friends swarmed her from all sides.
“I challenge you!” He called to her, dusting his shoulder off—
Jarl Greta Sumvonesdottir resisted your Challenge!
—but his efforts didn’t get through her Cool. Unlike The Lurker, he hadn’t honed his social skills to insanely good levels.
Which was a problem, because he saw, from his slightly removed perspective, that another Graves had entered the fight.
“Look out! A fake Graves!” But his small voice was lost in the din, and the bellowing, and the clamor of the fight. Horrified, he saw one of the Graves move up behind Cecelia and glance down at her unguarded back...
“I Challenge you, Lurker!” He yelled through the Minorphone.
Your Challenge skill is now level 11!
Startled, the false Graves and Cecelia whipped around to stare at him, and both caught a giant boot for their trouble—
—as what he’d thought was the real Graves shanked Zuula in the back of the head and ran off giggling, shape blurring as he darted behind a pillar. Zuula, enraged, pulled the dagger from her head and threw it at the giant.
“Um...” Threadbare canceled his challenge against the very real Graves, and started dropping Mend Golem spells instead.
Graves, for his part, stood up painfully and whipped out the wand he’d prepared, triggering a three-charge burst and healing himself up to full.
And also getting the giant’s full attention.
The Jarl threw off Kayin, who’d been climbing her with claws out the whole way, swept her club around until the cats and Fluffbear backed off, ignored Garon hacking into her boot, and strode toward Graves and Cecelia. She swung the club high in the air...
...and then the Wherewolf ghoul made its attack.
Graves had kept it in the back, Threadbare realized. Waited until the others were clear. He wondered why that was so, for a second...
...then the ghoul leaped up, grabbed her toga, and spewed rancid filth all over her face, and Threadbare stopped wondering.
The blue giant backhanded the ghoul away, then staggered, and as the party watched, her face turned green. Red numbers started slinking up from her... not huge, but it was having an effect.
“Don’t just stand there!” Graves yelled, waving the ghoul in again, this time biting and clawing, “Get her!”
Threadbare closed the distance—
—and a trio of knives sunk into his belly, knocking him across the floor. He rose, glaring past the columns, to see his own face grinning back at him, holding up another set of knives, before juggling them into the air and sending them winging at him one at a time. “Dance, golem!” The Lurker shouted.
He tried, but the guy had good aim. Threadbare managed to make it behind a pillar while he had HP left and skilled up a few times while he mended himself. The fight raged past him while he did so. The little bear winced as the ghoul got turned to pulp under one giant heel and checked out the Jarl’s hit points with his deathsight.
She’d lost a fifth, all told. Threadbare shook his head. They needed to coordinate. This wasn’t undoable... but unfortunately The Lurker realized that, too.
“New plan—” He heard his voice call through the Minorphone. What? No, the magic cone was still on his belt... This had to be another thing the daemon could do.
“—Everyone scatter, I’ll tank her for a bit!” He heard The Lurker finish.
“Ignore that!” He yelled through his own minorphone. “Stay on her together!” He said, running forward... and cringing as his own friends shot him suspicious glares. Glares that faded, as he used the last of the Minorphone’s juice to shout at the giant. “I challenge you!”
And this time it stuck.
CHA +1
Your Challenge skill is now level 12!
“I’ve had enough ov hyu leetle bear!” The giant roared, whirling her club in the air and breaking cleanly through a few pillars. “FIMBULVINTER FROST!” She bellowed.
And the world turned white.
A snowstorm roared in through the windows, filling the air with flakes and ice, and sending visibility straight to hell.
No! This is the sort of thing The Lurker will...
Will use to get Cecelia, he realized.
“Call Golem,” he whispered, and grabbed onto her arm the second she materialized, almost catching her sword in his belly for his troubles.
Your Call Golem skill is now level 4!
She shouted something, but it was lost in the storm.
And then the storm was fading, as fast as it had come, leaving half his party frozen in ice... and a shadow around him, spreading, growing as Cecelia screamed and pointed up—
—then braced herself and shouted, “Corps a Corps!”
And it worked.
A foot above Threadbare, her rising blade met the Giant’s descending club, and Threadbare gasped as the stone ground on metal above his head, Cecelia’s skill allowing her to effectively parry a ten-foot-tall column with an eight-inch-long steel blade.
“Hold her!” Threadbare yelled, heading toward his frozen friends. “I’ll free them!”
“I gaht this!” Madeline said. “Call Faia! Shape Faiah! Minah Elemental!” Madeline ripped flames into the air, spun them in spirals, de-icing Glub, Zuula, Garon, and Mopsy and Fluffbear, and sending a roiling, bonfire-sized elemental towards the Jarl, who yelped and pulled her club away from Cecelia’s desperate clench. The giant backed up, swinging at the fire elemental, trying to simultaneously tag it and stay out of reach of the flames.
“Ectoplasm!” Graves shouted, and a sticky ball of gooey translucent stuff splattered against her boot, binding it to a nearby pillar. The giant stumbled, then shrieked as the flames burned her...
...until knives shot out from behind her, whistling through the fire elemental and dispersing it. Angrily, the giant started to pull her boot away from the sticky ghost goo.
And Threadbare jumped, as wood clattered up behind him, turned as Garon waved. “We need to shut down The Lurker!” he whispered. “We can’t fight him and this giant at the same time! Ideas! Give me some!”
Threadbare thought. He racked his brain, put his high intelligence and wisdom to work, ignoring the raging battle behind him, ignoring the yelps of his friends and the bellows of the enraged giant.
And finally, he came up with something he thought might work.
“I’ll have to leave the party. For a minute. And I’ll need you to do something. Here’s what...”
After he heard it, Garon grimaced and looked at the group. “I can give you half a minute. Beyond that we’ll have casualties!”
“Half a minute it is!” Threadbare said, rummaging in his clothes and running over to Cecelia. “Tell me when!”
Cecelia was very surprised when he asked for her help, but she nodded when she heard what he wanted. “In my pouch! Just tear the whole thing off my belt!” she said, lunging forward to shield Madeline against a nasty club strike and sucking down a red ‘52’ for her trouble.
Threadbare chased after her, grabbed her pouch, and ran away, rummaging through it.
“Now!” Garon yelled, and Threadbare hoped that it WAS Garon, because if not...
...no time to worry about it. He left the party, and started casting, whispering under his breath, and dropping things in his hat.
“Hold her!” he called back to Garon, as he moved into the light of one of the big windows. “I’ve almost got the daemon ward enchanted—”
And abruptly the hat was whisked from his hands, as The Lurker darted out of hiding and snapped it onto his own head. “I think not!”
The Lurker’s triumphant grin lasted for all of a second.
And then it turned to a horrified rictus, as things squirmed under the hat and bit into his head.
Animated mice. Five little cloth mice. The things he’d used to scout ahead, through dollseye, now
animated and with the full force of his will backing their bites.
The hat stuck, as The Lurker found when he tried to remove it, clamping to his head with animated fury. The daemon panicked, twisting and struggling, managing to get part of the brim free as it wrapped around him, struggling to keep him grappled...
“Now!” Threadbare yelled, whipping aside when he heard the hooves clattering behind him—
—And Garon yelled “Rammit!” as he collided headfirst into The Lurker...
...knocking him through the window and away.
Garon has invited you to his party!
“Oh good!” Threadbare said, running back to the fight. “Nobody died!”
Though it wasn’t for lack of trying, a glance at the party screen told him. He settled in to tanking and healing his friends up.
And without The Lurker interfering, it went much more smoothly. Fluffbear switched on her Clarifying Aura, using Righteous Taunt to switch attention to her whenever the damage got too much for him. Glub doubled up on that with his Song of Clarity, and between the two of them, the healers had enough juice to keep things going so that the rest of the group could focus on damage.
It still wasn’t an easy task. All the knights and the bears had to get a rotation going, swap tanking duties so the rest could recover. And Graves ended up burning every last charge in his drain life wand, recovering from a critical hit. But they made it work, and though there were a few close calls, the Jarl’s hit points dropped, and dropped, and dropped.
But while it was going on, Threadbare kept a keen eye on the entrance. The Lurker would be back, he was certain of it. But he’d have to take the long way around. If he could’ve climbed up via a shortcut he would’ve, Threadbare knew, but he’d moved through the dungeon like anyone else. So sooner or later, he’d be back.
It did turn out to be later, as Madeline, flagging, and low on Moxie, managed to recharge just enough to get off one last Burninate.
The flames died, and there was a big-sized Threadbare, three-feet tall, looking in at the scene.
He saw a giant on her last legs, a group that was battered and drained but still going, and two resting cats, licking their wounds.
Threadbare Volume 3 Page 19
