Know Your Roll

by Matthew Siege

  Hit Point Loss: 3

  Hit Points Remaining: 7

  If I kept trying, I’d kill myself with it even though it’d missed. Anyway, it was clear that I wasn’t going to be able to muster the Power required to budge it. The best I could do was knock the fletching off, which only succeeded in raining silver feathers uselessly down around my boots.

  “Patch?”

  “Yeah, boss?”

  “I’m going to go help Bingo. See if you can get this arrow out of the wall without getting shot.” She was wearing gloves, and hopefully that’d be enough to protect her from the aura. “And if it burns you too badly, stop trying.”

  “On it.”

  I admired her optimism. “If you do free it, bring it to me. Also without getting shot, mind…”

  “Gotcha. You go do your thing.”

  I left her in my dust and ran to the business end of the tunnel. Bingo was far enough ahead of me by now that he should be either dead or deep in combat, but I didn’t smell a corpse or hear a fight.

  Since both my ally and my enemy had found shadows to conceal themselves in, I decided to work a little Gearblin magic. “Warwick? You there, you limp little rat tail licker? You missed me, by the way. That red stripe of paint across your ugly eyes probably isn’t helping your aim much, huh? Maybe if you didn’t have your pants around your ankles thinking of Sanguine’s firm form…”

  That sort of thing usually worked, but not this time. Not yet, at least. If I’d lost a roll, I didn’t see it.

  That wasn’t going to stop me from trying, though. The longer we stayed down here in unfamiliar territory, the greater the chance that one of my crew was going to get sniped from the darkness again.

  I kept up the banter, worried that if I didn’t he’d single out Patch. Now that the Dregs prisoners had gone silent, she was the only one making noise as she struggled with the arrow in the wall. “No answer, Warwick?”

  Nothing.

  “Why’d you stop shooting? If you’re out of arrows you can probably string your skinny noodle and fire it instead. Come on, chicken. It’ll give me a chance to ram it up your a-”

  Contested Friskiness Roll

  Raze: 11

  Warwick: 19

  Result: Raze Failure

  That did it. It looked like I’d guessed right about his lack of ammunition, because the Paladin burst from cover and charged right at me.

  I hadn’t thought that he’d be so close. All I got was a glimpse of a fast-moving shape with a horrible grimace and a gleaming longsword poised to run me through.

  Right before he did, Bingo’s tremulous growl filled the tunnel. His sparking, malfunctioning mask ran the noise through a handful of octaves before cranking it up to a mind-numbing frenzy of feedback. The Gearblin was fully in the thrall of his bloodlust, and now that Warwick wasn’t hiding anymore he wasn’t going to waste his chance.

  I wasn’t privy to whatever roll he needed to make to intercept the Paladin, but he made it. Just before Bingo leapt at him, I finally caught a good look at Warwick.

  I’d been right about the paint, but that was the least shocking part of his new look. His once perfectly coiffed hair had been brunt to a frizzled crisp in the temple inferno. The flesh of his face, instead of being charred and black like the bodies I’d seen after the fire, had been scraped clean and was now hideously translucent.

  I could see the entirety of his clenched jawbone, as well as the swivel of his eyeballs through the side of his face as he took his focus off of Bingo’s launch and directed his attention at me.

  That was a mistake. Warwick’s undying lust for revenge made the thrust of his longsword swipe miss Bingo’s head by a couple of inches. The beefy Gearblin was already in the air, and he crashed into Warwick high and hard.

  The two of them went down in a thrashing, gnashing, head-bashing brawl. The Paladin couldn’t get to Bingo with his sword now that his opponent was so far inside his guard, but he was still stronger and better armored.

  Bingo fought like a thing possessed, though. He’d dropped his hammer somewhere along the way, and now he was ramming his hands into the gaps and joins of Warwick’s armor and Scrapping chunks of it right before my eyes.

  “Here ya go,” Patch said from beside me. “Anything else you need?” She was holding out the Arrow of Rightful Indignation, which she’d had the foresight to wrap it in a small swatch of bright pink fabric. I should be okay to grab it, if I was careful.

  I eyed the pink material. “Is that…”

  She shrugged. “I don’t mind having to go commando, for a good cause.”

  If I’d had more time I’d have asked her how she’d managed to roll high enough to free the arrow from the rock, though the twinkle in her exposed eye and the way her left hand drifted to her d20 pendant told me that I already had the answer, if I was willing to believe it.

  “Thanks,” I said. Bingo and Warwick were still trying to tear each other to pieces, and when I saw an opening I leapt in and

  Contested Friskiness Roll

  Raze: 14

  Warwick: 9

  Result: Raze Success

  Damage: 17 x 3 = 51

  Damage Type: Piercing

  Resistance: 3

  Hit Point Loss: 48

  Hit Points Remaining: 0

  made the most of it, waiting for an opening so as not to hit Bingo with the arrow as I rammed it through the Paladin’s heart.

  Experience Gained (after being split amongst Crew members) = 585

  Bingo didn’t stop attacking until I pulled him away, and the wild look on his face took even longer to fade. He was bruised and bleeding, the worst of his injuries being the one beneath the damaged mask.

  “Nice work,” he panted at me. “‘Ventually.”

  “You can thank Patch. She’s the one that got the arrow out of the wall.”

  Both of us turned to her, but she was already hurrying down the tunnel, handing out more keys and escorting Dregs toward the ramp so that we could all make our escape.

  I pointed at the stream of blood pouring from Bingo’s face. “Can’t you Cannibalize and get some hit points back?”

  Bingo’s side eye game was on point. “Ya know ‘bout dat?”

  “Yup.”

  “I can, but not dis one. I need ‘em raw, and he’s well an’ truly cooked. Help da rest an’ I’ll grab a snack ‘fore we ‘ead off.”

  Even though I was more than a little morbidly curious, I did as he asked. He was right about the others needing help, and if things went well I’d have plenty of chance to watch Bingo chow down after a fight.

  “Wait up” I called out to Zazzer, who was aiding a couple of gentles and a little along the tunnel. He stiffened, clearly not liking how his current actions would reflect on his well-curated image. “Was that all of the guards?”

  He turned and cackled that hyena giggle that always set my spine on edge. “It was. I’m surprised they wasted that many to watch us, actually.”

  “Me too. There were even more, but Botha and your guys tricked the rest of them out of the main building. If we’re fast, I think we’ll all make it to the mountain.”

  “That’s the plan, is it? Hiding in a hole?”

  “For now. Until the hole opens up at dawn tomorrow…”

  “Brilliant.”

  “It is what it is. You can stay here if you like, or you can swing by the temple and catch up with your boys. I’ve gifted them a cart for their earlier efforts, and by now they’ll have grabbed some horses and gotten them hitched.” I paused. “To the wagon, I mean. The horses won’t be married. Probably.”

  “What about this lot?” he asked, eyeing the Dregs that were, by now, all out of their chains.

  I pointed at Patch and Bingo, the latter beside me now, strapping his dinged-up mask back across his mouth. “The three of us will escort this batch up the hill. Stay away from ‘Neath, though. We saw a bunch of Heroes gathered down there, and that was before I started flinging matches at the powder keg.”


  “Good advice. And Raze?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I think I owe you one.”

  I grinned. “I’m glad to hear it, since I’ve got a feeling I’ll be taking you up on that sometime in the next nine hours or so.”

  Zazzer cackled again and hurried off as Patch flipped up her eyepatch and stared at me hard. “Don’t look now, but I think you’re really starting to care about what happens to the Dregs.”

  I wasn’t ready to admit it out loud, but I put on as heroic a face as I could muster and tried not to blush. I didn’t have it in me to simply abandon them to the mess that I started, even though so far I much preferred the fighting part of Hero-ing to the rest of it.

  “Be still my heart,” she breathed. “I think I’m going to need a second to take this all in.”

  “That’s what she said!”

  Patch bounced around excitedly. “He’s back, baby! Now no more moping around, okay? After all, guess what? The whole crew just fought the forces of good for the first time as a united front, and we won!”

  “Dey won’t tell da story dat way,” Bingo growled. “‘Aven’t ya worked out da code, yet? If dey win, it was in glorious battle. If we do, it was a devious massacre.”

  She turned her head west and stuck her tongue out toward the kingdoms of the Powers That Be. “I don’t care what they say. Never have and never will.”

  “My sentiments exactly,” I said. “Now let’s go before they get back and this little rebellion becomes even more short-lived than it’s already going to be.”

  Chapter 26

  Bingo gave me a long, appraising look as the last of the Dregs filed into a new, wider camouflaged side tunnel that Patch had spent Credits on to access the Rule of Cool base. “Tell me again ‘ow come nobody asked me if I was okay wit’ all dese newcomers crammin’ in da mountain.”

  His grumbling about it had gotten louder and louder the closer we’d gotten to his den of so many decades. Now that we were here, it sounded like this was going to come to a head.

  I sighed, more tired than I could remember being before. “Have you got a better idea?”

  “Well, no…”

  Of course he didn’t. I’d gamed this out over and over, and I didn’t have one either. “We can’t exactly leave this lot behind, and Patch already gave Mother an open invitation to bring the refugees here. Like it or not, every single Dreg’s an outlaw now.”

  “Some of us like the bandit life just fine,” Zazzer told me, licking his black lips on the way past. “The rest will get used to it.” He had the stolen cart I’d given him loaded up with his guys and our scrap. They’d swiped the unicorns from the pasture and were using them to pull the vehicle.

  The beasts looked miserable.

  “Zazz?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Once they get you there, find a spot in the mountain that we can use as a holding area and release the unicorns. Let the littles play with them or something. Thematically, I’d rather not start this off by putting anything in shackles.”

  He blinked a couple of times, trying to work out if I was being serious. “Thematically?”

  “Yep.”

  “Okay… Is that favor going to make us square?”

  “Nope. Let’s just call this a common kindness, shall we?”

  Zazzer made a wry face, but didn’t argue. When the unicorns heard me, I saw a bounce in their step that hadn’t been there before as they trotted off.

  I did my best to ignore Patch’s knowing smile as we ushered what was hopefully the last of the Dregs into our soon-to-be-vulnerable stronghold. She finally stopped trying to start an awkward conversation with me about my ‘new leaf’ when a group of dazed Dregs needed more guidance than the rest of them and she hurried off to help.

  Bingo’s heavy hand came down on my shoulder in a comradely gesture that was only a couple of PSI short of dislocating it. “Ya done good, boyo. Won’t matter in seven hours an’ twenty-six minutes, but ya done good.”

  I nodded absently, still watching Patch. She was holding on to a little Gearblin’s hand and singing softly to him, drying his eyes and calming him down. She was in her element, and I finally let myself feel the tiniest bit ‘safe’ now that we were just about back inside the mountain.

  Bingo ruined the moment, but at least I was pretty sure he didn’t do it on purpose. “Time fer dat sorta t’ing later.”

  “There’s probably not, to be honest.”

  “Oh. True. Daydream away, if daydreamin’s all ya got…”

  He was right about me needing to focus, though. “Do you think we can find another tunnel out of Rule of Cool, one that’ll take us far away? What if we could be escaping out the backdoor while they deal with some boobytraps on their way in the front?”

  He shook his head. “Sadly, dere ain’t. Da Barricade dat seals Hallow off from da rest extends deep inta da ground. Damn Heroes used to be meticulous.”

  “I figured it would, but a Gearblin can dream. I mean, I can now, at least.”

  Bingo snorted. “Dreams are overrated.” He sniffed the air, sucking it in hard through his gas mask and turning one of the knobs to finetune it. Patch had done some makeshift repairs on the device, and it was working better now. “Ya smell dat?”

  I paused, unable to work out what he was catching the scent of. “No.” He’d said something I wanted to pursue though, and if I let him off the hook now I might never get him back on it. “Hey Bingo, do you get dreams?”

  “Once ‘pon a time an’ way back when.” He tapped his temple with a dirty index finger. “But dat’s what da grog’s for; kills dem dead so I can forget.” His hand drifted to the pocket where he kept that silver ring he was always fidgeting with as his face went solemn.

  “Oh…” Now I felt even worse for preying on his weakness on the way in to Hallow. “Sorry to bug you about it, then. Patch is always asking me about mine, and I know how annoying it is to be hounded about it.”

  “Ya want some advice?” he asked wistfully.

  I had a smartass answer ready, but his sudden melancholy stole it from me. “Please.”

  He nodded after Patch. “If a girlie, ‘specially one like dat, wants ta know about yer dreams, ya *shtuck*ing tell them to her. Take it from me, boyo. Once dey stop askin’, dey don’t start back up again.”

  I shut up and let his words sink in. “You know what, you just might be right.”

  Bingo chuckled. “Dat’s da smartest thing outta yer mouth since we’ve met. Now let’s go. Somethin’ smells scrumptious up ahead, and I ‘aven’t got a decent feed in forever.”

  I’d seen him dash ahead of me in the tunnel fight, but now he surprised me by recreating his earlier speed, sprinting in the direction he thought the food was. I picked up the pace as well, suddenly not comfortable about being alone even though I was standing at the top of the ramp mere yards from the interior of the mountain.

  The vegetation that’d once so expertly camouflaged this side entrance was looking the worse for wear, and the hundreds of Dregs that’d used this passage had beaten a track right to our door.

  Anyone with a brain could track us now, which meant that roughly a third of the Heroes might be able to pull it off on their best day.

  It shouldn’t matter though, not once we were all inside and Source had closed the door behind me. As it rumbled shut, the scent didn’t have to compete with the outside air. It let a mouthwatering, familiar smell explode in my sinuses.

  Bingo’s gas mask must have some sort of odor-enhancing properties, since he’d been fiddling with the dials right before he’d picked up on the wonderful aroma of decaying garbage and savory slop. I’d know that delicious chorus of rot and runoff anywhere; it was the fragrant scent of Hallow’s dumpsters, and it was coming from inside the mountain.

  The other Dregs were starting to catch whiffs of the tempting tang as well, and all around me there were cheers of happiness. It reminded me exactly how little we all had, when the simple thought of a full belly was enough to blur
the fact that they were leaving their homes and possessions and trudging toward an uncertain future.

  Bingo was dancing for joy when I finally caught up to him, doing a happy little jig around Patch and then grabbing my hand when I got close so that he could spin me around. Embarrassingly, it didn’t stop there as he shimmied his shoulders and then dipped me low. “Tonight,” he shouted, his gas mask’s speakers crackling as they strained against the enormous boost in volume, “we *shtuck*ing feast!”

  Patch was beside him in the blink of an eye, bouncing her bunched up fist off his nose. “Language! There are innocent ears all around us, now!”

  I hid my smile. She sounded so much like Mother that I… Hang on. “Has anybody seen Mother?” I hadn’t spotted her yet, but I’d only just stepped foot in the base.

  Patch and Bingo both shook their heads, but that wasn’t much help since they’d been with me the whole time.

  “Source,” I called.

  “Sorry,” Patch said, “I couldn’t afford the upgrade to get him to answer us wherever we were. For the moment, we have to go up to his control room to talk to him.”

  “For him to talk back, you mean.” I was sure that Source had been watching and listening when Bingo and I’d gone through the first tunnel to get outside the first time, and I didn’t for a moment think that he wasn’t able to do it now. “Source? Inventory the new arrivals and find Mother Mayeye. She’ll be the oldest Gearblin here by far, and there’s bound to be a pack of kids nipping at her ankles.”

  “I’m sure she’s around,” Patch told me. “She’d have rounded up her lost boys and Peter Pan-ned them back long before we arrived. There’s a lot of us here now, and I didn’t have a good way to block off the tunnels inside the base. I’m sure she’s got her hands full trying to herd them to wherever it is they’re going to bunk down.”

  “They must have barracks here, as many employees as a place this size would’ve had. What do you say, Silvertongue? Do you know where they are?”