Threadbare Volume 3

by Andrew Seiple

  Dark, haunting organ music skirled high to the rafters, sending swarms of bats screeching out into the night, flowing through and past the intrepid vampire hunters who had come to put paid to the darkest of vampires; the dread Count Joculah!

  “And so you are here...” said the vampire, brown fingers lifting from white keys, as the organ fell silent. The vampire’s brown hands wormed his way over his brown suit, and smoothed brown hair, testing and touching as only those who never see themselves in mirrors do, making sure that he looked his best for his would-be slayers.

  “Die Monster!” Melos bellowed, leveling a blade that glowed with the leering faces of the trapped daemons within, red and hellish and surging with raw power as he led the charge. “I’m your Challenge! Come face my Entropic Strike!”

  “You don’t belong in this world!” Rezzak yelled from behind the charging demon knight, raising his feathered staff high, and slamming it to the ground. “Angelic Pact! Summon Greater Cherub! Summon Greater Cherub! Summon Greater Cherub!”

  “Fools! It was mortal men who— gah!” the vampire yelled, dodging as Melos’ red blade came way too close to splitting him right down his widow’s peak. “Can’t a man monologue first?”

  “A man? Yes!” The woman in green stepped out from behind Rezzak, pointing at him with a wand in each hand. “A monster? No. Get him, Emmet!”

  As glowing, silvery babies with bows and arrows faded in all around the group, a hulking suit of armor shambled through the doorway and came in on Melos’ flank. The Demon Knight grinned to see it, grinned behind his helm as he fought the vampire, laying into him with strikes that left dust and scars with every slash. The wounds from Entropic Strike couldn’t be healed, not while the spell was active.

  Then flames wisped around him, as Sabi went into business. The red-silk-garbed woman slid out from behind a tapestry, twisting her hands, as she directed the flames to sear the elder undead. Brown cheeks quirked in a smile under a red veil as the creature burned... burned until he folded his cloak around him, and his flesh started to ripple.

  “You think you have a chance?” Count Joculah chuckled, then exploded into bats. Melos brought his shield up, and the daemon faces in it gobbled and chomped at the flying rodents as they swirled around him. So long as they stay out of my helmet, it’s good. It’s fine. Besides, the fool’s played right into our hands. Come on Sabi...

  “Fireball!”

  Even with his flame resistant gear, he felt the blast wave, grunted as a red ‘146’ whipped out of him. But as bad as it was for Melos, it was leagues worse for the vampire. Bats shrieked and screamed and swirled in all directions.

  “This is the point where I miss Grissle the most!” Graham shouted, as he put down a rain of crossbow-flung stakes. “Rapid Fire! Rapid Fire!” Vampire bats shrieked and fell, dead or paralyzed from their wood allergies. “Grissle would have been telling us how many hit points the thing had left by now!”

  “Oh, I’ll just pick up Necromancer then!” Melos called over, jauntily. “Got to give you SOME reason to hate me, after all.”

  “Don’t get me started,” Rezzak sighed, as his summoned cherubs went about their business, flapping after the farther-ranging bats and shooting at them with arrows of angelic light. “That’s like a drunkard switching over to chewing brainburn weed.”

  “Leave the arguments for the tavern!” Amelia snapped, keeping her wands going and firing lightning bolts through the few bats that came her way, crisping them with scarcely a glance. In among them, Emmet swung his massive metal gauntlets, trying to catch and crush what bats he could.

  And occasionally, from the shadows, a throwing star would spin out and catch a bat on the wing, turning it into a bat pinned to the wall. It was Jane, Just Jane, doing her thing.

  Melos simply waited.

  And when the Count reformed, the demon knight yelled “Ears!” before dropping his weapon and shield and clapping both gauntlets to his own ears, then ordering the demons writhing within his armor to scream.

  And scream they did, as the sound ripped through his skull at point blank range, scrambling his sanity, sending him to his knees...

  ...but safe, as he saw the count mouth words, words he couldn’t hear.

  The Count’s Command had been the doom of many an adventuring party. Many had fought their way up through the secret entrance in Cylvania City’s catacombs, up to the impossible castle that loomed over a nightmare version of the city, up to the very topmost tower through hordes of vampires, bats, werewolves, lesser undead, and weird snake-tentacled heads that always seemed to try to attack you when you were climbing narrow and slippery stairs.

  It was easy to die in the Count’s domain, to any number of horrible monsters.

  But those who managed to survive until they’d found the Count himself?

  All too often, they died at the hands of their friends. The count’s charisma was undeniable and his patterns well-mapped. After he went to bats, then would come the commands...

  Once the count finished speaking, Melos popped a pill from his pouch and swallowed it, scooping up his sword and shield, and his hearing returned...

  ...just in time to hear a man’s voice laughing maniacally.

  “Oh for fuck’s sake Graham,” Melos said, taking a big risk and taking his eyes off Count Joculah. “This is what happens when you don’t wear earplugs!”

  “Everyone dies! So commands the master!” Graham hissed, dropping his crossbow, and making a yanking motion with one arm.

  No! “Slot machine!” Melos yelled, and he and the four remaining sane friends jumped clear, as a metal slot machine as tall and broad around as an elephant slammed through the roof, right onto the ground. The handle jerked, and symbols clicked by...

  ...8...

  ....9....

  Melos held his breath. If it was a ten, they were all dead. It was that simple.

  ...8... DING!

  “We’ll need heals! Get healing!” he called to Rezzak—

  —and then the wave hit. He watched ‘160’ rise from everyone’s skull, then the pain struck him, and he gasped. Straight through armor, straight through everything. The cherubs poofed back to their home plane, and even Emmet groaned in pain.

  “Muahhhahahhahha!” wheezed the count.

  “I’ll get Graham! The rest of you on the old bastard! Watch it, he’ll go full daemon when he starts to lose,” Melos shouted over his shoulder.

  Graham under the enemy’s control wasn’t a worst-case scenario. But it was close. The man had started his adventuring career as a conman, a Grifter, and a good one. They’d had a run in with him in Upper Derope, when he tried to talk Sabi out of her pants... in both ways, as after he’d enjoyed a night with her, he’d tried to abscond with her enchanted trousers. Melos and the rest had woken to the smell of burning, an irate innkeeper, and a very chastened and nude Graham, quite sorry for the whole affair.

  Sabi had dragged him along as a translator to help pay off his debt to the innkeeper, and the man had eventually matured, expanding his horizons. Like Melos had, he’d given up an empty and... unsavory... existence in order for a life of adventure and heroics.

  And along the way he’d become an Archer. Then, when he got high enough level to accidentally unlock it, he had become a Gambler.

  Which, when combined with a Grifter’s trick of Silent Activation, made for some nasty times.

  The trick with Gamblers, Melos had worked out, was to not give them time to fire off their big skills. Get them focusing less on the things that could wipe out your party, and more on defending themselves.

  And also, since the bastards were so hard to hit, to target pools that weren’t so well-defended as their hit points and agility.

  “I’m Challenge-ing you, Graham. Aura of Fear. Staredown.” He said, advancing as Graham backpedaled and groaned as a green ‘67’ ripped loose from his skull. That was sixty-seven points of Moxie he WOULDN’T have for Silent Activations. Melos stomped after him, chasing him around the gothic cat
hedral that capped the tower, ignoring his friends fighting the vampire behind him. His wife had Emmet, and Emmet was enough. The fight would be there when Melos was done. He trusted everyone at his back... hell, he trusted Graham, too. At least when the man was in his right mind, anyway.

  Normally Graham was unflappable. That was the name of the class feature that boosted his cool, anyway. But that aura ate into his defense, rendered his normal cocky self-assuredness much reduced.

  Still, the Gambler hadn’t gotten this far by being a pushover.

  “Good thing I’ve got an Ace in the Hole!” Graham said, snapping a handful of glowing cards out of nowhere. “Razor Cards! Crippling Shot! Rapid Fire!” The handful of cards blurred, as Graham edged away, backing around, throwing cards into Melos, cards that sliced into his shield and armor, making them bleed and scream.

  The daemons within the armor took the hits, took the pain, and Melos didn’t. “Mend,” Melos chanted, as he weathered the storm of cards, ignoring it as best he could, ignoring the one that split his helm and came half an inch to cleaving through his eyes. “Mend. Mend.” He said over and over again.

  Graham was nimble. Graham was lightly armored.

  And Graham didn’t look out behind him.

  “Dispel Magic!” Rezzak shouted, as soon as Graham was within range. Graham froze, eyes open. “Got him!” Rezzak confirmed.

  “Welcome back,” Melos said. “Next time put your damned earplugs in.”

  “You’re the last person to advise anyone on damned anything,” Graham snarked and ran back toward the Count and the rest of the fight.

  “I think he means thank you,” Rezzak said.

  “You’re very welcome, Graham,” Melos smiled, then moved up to take some of the heat off Emmet. The Count had reached one of his final forms already and was busy leaping around the room and breathing vaguely-daemonic fire at the Seven.

  “Hey, snaggletooth!” Melos yelled, as the maws on his armor yawned open and glowed with their own flame, and he ran faster... “You’re doing it wrong!”

  Finally, it was all over. The Count fell, as he had several times before to the most skilled of adventuring groups, and collapsed into a heap of ashes with loot items sticking out.

  “Appraise,” Amelia snapped. “No curses. Jane?”

  Their ninja, Just Jane, materialized out of the darkness. After a few experiences squabbling over loot and dealing with respawning bosses, they’d all agreed it was best to let the Ninja grab the loot. She would anyway.

  “Snaggletooth?” Amelia said, moving over and giving Melos a look.

  “Best I could do in the heat of the moment.”

  “Come on, you’ve got more charisma than that.”

  “Well, this is the third time I’ve dusted the Count. Motivation tends to fade once you’ve got it down to a science. Speaking of which...” Melos glanced around. “Spread out! Look for the glow! You know the drill, people.”

  It was Graham who found it, ironically. The patch of Green under a thoroughly desecrated altar. Emmet got to work shoving it aside, a task that took even the mighty golem’s full strength. One by one, the Seven stepped into the portal, emerging into the Dungeon Core Chamber.

  Melos was the last, and as he took one last glance around the room, a flicker of movement caught his eye by the door. A small brown-haired girl, wearing a purple-and-green head scarf. Clearly one of the Bloodsuckah Urchins they’d cleared out in the orphanage level. She’d strayed far.

  “Run, little girl,” he commanded, whispering “Staredown” behind his visor as he glared.

  A green ‘207’ burst out from her, and she screamed, dropped the tea service she was carrying, spilled cups of blood over the floor, and fled for her life.

  “Still got it,” Melos chuckled, as he stepped into the place where logic went to die. Not that he minded... his former life had been good training for places like these.

  He joined the rest of the party, as they wove their way through the green pillars, past midbosses and mobs and piles of loot, so many piles of loot. Count Joculah’s Castle had been going for years, and so many adventurers had perished here.

  And by the time he caught up with his wife, she was standing in front of the Dungeon Master’s column, wands ready, Emmet by her side, and the rest of the Seven around the rather disturbed-looking undead. His face was green in the light, and he was older, paunchier than his projection had been.

  “You would have gotten away with it, you know,” Amelia spoke. The Count stared at her, through the column, saying nothing. He couldn’t, as far as Melos could tell. Nobody in the light could talk.

  “You could have stayed hidden here, stayed safe. But you let your monsters out to play, and they came out of the catacombs and murdered people above.” Amelia shook her head. “Was that vampiric hunger? Driving you and your spawn to seek out flesh blood? Or was it vampiric pride, the colossal arrogance that made you think we wouldn’t come for you, once we found your lair?”

  Slowly, and with a shaking hand, the Count raised a fist and extended one brown middle finger.

  “Oh. So you were just an asshole.” Amelia snorted. “Goodbye, Joculah.”

  Emmet punched into the light, grabbed the Count, and hauled him out. The vampire fought the whole way, but he was weaker, so much weaker than his ideal form had been.

  Reality rippled around them as they dusted the vampire.

  “Get ready!” Amelia shouted, with ten seconds left on the clock. “Rezzak?”

  “On it!” The Invoker slammed a hand to the floor, the second they came back into reality. “This Hallowed Ground! Circle of Protection!” Light flared around them, resolved into a six-pointed star in a circle, and Melos winced, as his daemon-infested armor and weapons screamed in unison. He hastily banished them before the metal ruptured entirely, leaving his armor black and dull again.

  “Ward against Undead!” Amelia yelled, slamming a vial on the ground. Green dust puffed up and fell into patterns...

  ...and not a moment too soon, as shrieking vampires, skeletons, ghouls, and worse faded in to the large catacomb chamber that the dungeon had vacated.

  There was a pause, as the dungeon creatures looked at each other.

  Then at the Seven.

  Then down to the floor, emblazoned and glowing with holy symbols.

  And with a scream, they burst into flames as the heroes sat back and watched their spells do the work for a change.

  At the end of it, Melos was the one to find it. A purple crystal, the size of a small apple, flickering with green numbers. “Such a small thing, to cause so much trouble,” he sighed. Then Jane was glaring over his shoulder. “What? I was going to give it to you.” He handed it back to the ninja. “Good day, good work,” the demon knight said, straightening up. “Waffles?”

  “Waffles!” Graham yelled.

  And so the mightiest heroes of the realm went and had waffles. And Melos and Amelia went and paid their babysitter, rocked their girl to sleep, and made love sweetly once she was out.

  “That’s another one down,” Amelia whispered, clutching him tight, resting in the afterglow.

  “Mm.” Melos said, laying still as her fingers traced through his beard. “And how many more will we find next month? I swear, for every one we seal, three more spring up.”

  Her arms tightened around him. “It’ll work out. We’ll find a solution.”

  “Maybe.” Melos puffed, feeling his sweat dry on his bare skin. “We’ve lost so many people. So many promising young adventurers gone to these things. I don’t know if there’ll be much of a country left if we don’t.”

  “We will,” Amelia promised, kissing him.

  And a few days later, they did.

  *****

  “To sum it up, Cylvania will shatter in a matter of years if this keeps going,” King Garamundi said, leaning over the table, his gut spreading out around the edge. Eyes harder than flint flicked around the seven spaces of the table, and as they passed over Melos, the King’s lips twist
ed in the way they always did.

  The son of a bitch still doesn’t trust me. Never will, Melos smiled back, keeping cool, keeping cool. Unconsciously he reached out, rubbed Amelia between the shoulderblades. His wife leaned back into it, but flicked her eyes his way, with what he called her ‘srs bznss’ look.

  And yes, it was, but whatever. The Seven gathered at this table had overcome every difficulty thrown their way. This one would be no different.

  Garamundi pointed at the map, moving his finger from the foothills in the north, to the spine of the Wintersgate Mountains curving it to the south as he went. “We’re mostly stable along the axis, here. We’ve got Taylor’s Delve holding the Thundering Pass, against the worst of the orc incursions. And the more ambitious Canites, for that matter. Balmor’s anchored the north. We’ve got the center, but...” he gestured to the Raxin plains and drew his finger east. Past Brokeshale Valley, past the steppes, and out all the way to Bharstool. “They’re coming west,” the King sighed. “They’ve cracked the riddle of guilds; they’re not sharing, and they’re coming west, armies spearheaded by loyal troops whom no one else in Disland can match.”

  “Even so, even with various movement buffs, they’re still decades off,” Graham said. “Why are you saying years?” Graham was handsome. Graham dressed immaculately. Graham’s silver tongue had talked the Seven out of many an unwinnable crisis over the course of their adventures. Graham’s charisma was very high...

  ...but Graham, sadly, had never bothered grinding his intelligence, much. Melos shot Amelia a glance, and she rolled her eyes in response, then glanced back to the King. “Sire? Care to explain it?”

  Garamundi shook his head and drew his finger west, naming each land his finger crossed. “Nevergreen. Lower Derope. Canticle. Kai-tan, the Wicked City. And that’s BEFORE you get into the Brokecrown Borderlands. None of them can stand against Bharstool without a miracle. They WON’T work together, and all the refugees and fleeing monsters from those nations are going to come west. We’re the gate between eastern and western Disland. Us. They’re going to flood through the passes, and we don’t have the numbers to stop them.”