“You don’t know the whole story.”
“What’s there to know? Oh, I forgot. Your contribution to the resistance was hiring a shitty employee. Kudos, Illgott. Really impressive. Dregs dying in the street every day, Heroes tearing our world apart at the seams but fear not, everybody! The ogre’s planted his fat ass behind the bar and chained a Gearblin to the desk, so he’s done his part!” I spat a wad of phlegm at his feet. “There you go. Clean it up, same as you did with the rest of the Heroes you spent your life serving, you fucking apathetic weakling.”
“Raze,” Patch called, “enough.”
“Not by half.”
“Leave him alone. You’re just being ugly for no reason.”
“Illgott knows what he is,” I said, panting with exertion. The rage had left me, and now that it had I was left with the disconcerting certainty that I’d taken things too far.
Patch was looking at me like I was dirt, flanked by her aghast repair team. I swapped my gaze back to the ogre so that she didn’t have a chance to stare me down.
He and I’d argued many times before, but never like this. In the past Illgott had always weathered my storms with nonchalance, chuckling or waddling off and waving my words away like flies.
Not this time.
He did that thing where only I could hear his voice. It was raw and ragged, and a chill went through me as I realized just how close I was to the edge of the plateau. If he wanted to, there was nothing to stop Illgott from tossing me into the magma sea.
“Are you finished, you know-nothing runt?”
“I think so,” I muttered. “For now…”
“Good. Now lock your jaw and shut your face. My purpose was keeping you alive, as hateful a job as it was sometimes. You’ll never know how much gold I spent, or how many Heroes I secretly did away with, or the dreadful lengths I went to in order to get the VC to look the other way when their docket was full of complaints about you. It wasn’t happenstance that brought you to my arcade when you threw everything Mother offered you back in her face. You ran your mouth like you owned the place, despite the fact that I’d had to mortgage it on day one to buy you your Identify Knack.”
I flinched. Was that true? “I… I didn’t know…”
“Don’t pretend you would’ve given a greasy shit if you did. Your whole ‘adult’ life you made trouble, Raze, and I made do. I looked the other way when you snuck rat tails and tried to keep you alive by keeping you out of the streets.”
“With a chain, you mean.”
“Yes, but what choice did I have? All we could do was hope that you and Patch found a way, and we couldn’t help because we didn’t have any idea what that way would be!”
“So you forced me to live in squalor and simply crossed your fingers?”
Illgott smirked. “The rest of us were wallowing right beside you. Worse, we had you as a neighbor.”
“Whatever.”
“Look, I won’t deny that you’ve had it hard, but it would’ve been a lot worse if I wasn’t grinding away behind the bar, doing my best to keep my promise to Mother Mayeye and look after your worthless hide.” He wiped at his face angrily, his pink eyes tearing up in frustration at the insults I’d slung.
I swallowed hard. “I had no idea how complicated I made your life. I wouldn’t have cared even if I did, not back then, but I do now.”
He snorted. “You’ve as silver a tongue as the drunk. Fuck off, Raze.”
Patch was at my side when words failed me. “He won’t let you down, Illgott. None of us will, not even Bingo.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I’m always right!”
Even her plea wasn’t enough for him, since talk wasn’t going to change our situation. The only proof Illgott would accept was action, and fair enough too. “We’ll see,” he said to me. “You always bitch and moan when the Heroes tell you their backstories, but has it dawned on you yet that you’re right in the middle of your own?”
I’d never thought myself worthy of an origin story. The thought struck me like lightning and stole my voice.
“Well said,” Patch told him. “One thing, though. I’ve got an extremely vivid imagination, so you can you never use the phrase ‘grinding away behind the bar’ again, not ever in your whole life?”
Illgott laughed, her charm and pluck making his anger evaporate. “Deal.”
Chapter 31
If all of that had gone done between me and anyone other than Illgott, the angst and anguish would’ve put an end to our collaboration. He obviously considered the matter settled though, and the lack of further teeth gnashing and bitterness was a testament to how long and how closely the ogre and I had worked together.
Now that the air was clear, we could finish the Mech’s cockpit without having to be awkward about it.
Rule of Cool’s electrical engineers had done a thorough job of squashing bugs and wiring up a stable and efficient system, but in the process they’d remained admirably restrained. In a word they’d been ‘professional’ in their design, staying on the straight and narrow whilst ignoring hundreds of corners just begging to be cut.
It was a durable foundation, and I had no qualms about making alterations. I felt The Zone kick in as I lost myself in the changes I envisioned, adapting and refitting the work of careful experts to suit my own wild whims.
I was putting the last of the finishing touches on my modifications when Illgott tapped me on the shoulder. He scared the crap out of me, since I’d been too involved to notice him lug his bulk up the Mech’s support frame and peer in with his moon face. “Come down,” he said.
“In a sec.” I’d had Patch install ejector rockets beneath all three of our seats, and at the moment I was sprawled out underneath mine checking on it.
“Please, Raze.”
I glanced up, pawing sweat out of my eyes. “You can have a break, but I’ll keep going.” I finally worked out that his tone and expression were grim, not tired. “Wait, what’s wrong?”
“Zazzer’s here. You need to come talk to him.”
That probably meant that the Gnoll had found some new niggle for me to deal with, and I was already drowning in potential headaches and complications. “Great,” I said, fixating on my work again. “Send him up. He can hang off the side of the Mech while he’s trying to haggle over a price for whatever information he thinks he has.”
“It’s about Mother.”
I didn’t remember downing tools or climbing to the hangar floor. I must have though, since a moment later I was standing on the ground in front of Zazzer and Illgott.
The Gnoll looked away, a worrying show of resignation that made me catch my breath. I’d seen this guy strongarm a third of the Dregs in Hallow at one time or another. If he was feeling helpless, then the news he brought was disastrous.
“What’s wrong with Mother?” I demanded.
Zazzer shifted his weight nervously. “It’s looking like she never made it here.”
“And you’re just telling me this now?”
“We knew she went back for some littles. A few of my thuggos found a couple of her waifs already in the mountain when we arrived, so they assumed-”
“Wrongly,” Illgott interjected.
Zazzer sighed. “They wrongly assumed that meant Mother was back as well, when in reality she’d rescued the kids and sent them here on their own. My guys made a bad guess and didn’t pursue it, and that’s on me. They’ll be disciplined.”
“That’s for later. What I want to know is what you’re doing about it now.”
“Botha and the rest are out there looking for her, but it’s pitch black and the moons aren’t cooperating. We think Mother was headed for ‘Neath, but that was a day ago. The hills are swarming with Heroes now, and they’ve completely infested the digs. If she’s in there, they have her.”
“You don’t know her like I do. She’s never failed at anything, and she isn’t going to start now.”
“Maybe. If you want me to order my guys to t
ry and get her, I’m willing. You should know that the Platform spat out a bunch of Mages an hour or two ago, though. Sanguine’s ritual is going to start soon, and if we bust into ‘Neath things are going to go sideways fast.”
I glanced across the hangar at Patch, hard at work with her team by the forges. If I kept my voice down and dealt with this fast, I’d be gone before she realized it. “Okay. Illgott, go get Bingo and have him meet me just outside the hangar. Zazzer, give me as many details as you can as quickly as you’re able.”
The ogre faithfully hurried off.
Zazzer held out his paw and traced some shapes on it with one of his claws. “This is us, right? And this is ‘Neath. Near as we can figure, they were holding the littles here,” he poked the pad and drew blood as a marker. “You live near the black-market alchemist warrens, right? The shitfuckers are holed up there, using those materials for their magics now that the Less is Mortar caught a bad case of the explosions. Nice work, by the way.”
“I thought so too, at the time.”
“You want me to get my boys ready?”
I shook my head. “No. Those warrens are the cheapest because they’re the narrowest. It’ll be too cramped for the ogre and your gang’s too unpredictable. Bingo and I will go. He’ll cover my back and I’ll stealth mission it in and out as fast as I can.”
“What do you need from me, Raze?”
“I want your guys to sweep everywhere else, because the shit and the fan are getting real close to kissing. Once the air’s full of flying feces, anybody not inside the mountain is going to, hopefully, have a very short, extraordinarily eventful life.”
“You’re the boss.”
“Maybe. But if you do have some bloodthirsty members of your troop who happen to be hiding Hero status from the rest of us, let them know they’ll be very well compensated if they go after a few of those new Mages.”
Zazzer narrowed his eyes. “If there are Heroes amongst my guys, they’re concealing it from me. Anyway, there’s a reason the old standbys are so popular. Poisons and potions still work on Heroes. I’ll make a couple of their magic users dead myself, and see that the tally goes up from there before the Smash hits.”
“Do it.”
He rushed off, I turned on my heel and headed toward the hangar doors, casually eavesdropping on Patch along the way.
It was easy enough to do, as absorbed as she was with managing a small army of laborers, former questgivers, and artisans. I’d always known that her mind could run in a thousand directions at once and right now she was completely in her element, multi-tasking in the extreme.
If I dragged her away from this, the Mech’s repair would grind to a halt. Saving Mother wouldn’t mean anything if it meant that we were dead in the water when the base opened to the outside world.
I ducked out through the hangar door before she could spot me and almost ran right into Illgott and Bingo. “Thanks for finding him,” I said to the ogre. “Zazzer may be looking for you. I sent him to find Dregs willing to-”
“He found me. I’m on the way to flatten some Mages right now.”
“Give ‘em hell.” He nodded and left, and I glanced over my shoulder at Patch before continuing the conversation with Bingo. “I need your help.”
“Wit’ da Mages?”
“No. Something a bit more specialized. I’d have asked Illgott, but he’d just get us spotted a mile away.”
“What’s da job?”
I stole another look at Patch, just in case. She caught me looking and waved. “Just a little stroll down the hill,” I told him.
His mask rattled with tangible disappointment. “Boring…”
I faked a smile in Patch’s direction and said, “Killing Heroes,” out of the side of my mouth.
He pointed at the Mech. “Get dat runnin’, den. Way more efficient.”
“We need to rescue Mother, okay?”
He scowled. “Shoulda led wit’ dat. Outta my way,” he said, pushing past before beckoning me to follow. “Getta move one.” There was a determined set to his shoulders, and it suddenly wasn’t hard to envision him as the driven young man on the coin Mother had given Patch. “Gotta grab some gear ‘fore we ‘ead off.”
“Okay. We need to be fast, though.”
“You’re da one bein’ slow. Follow me. Da stuff’s in da boardroom, an’ I don’t like goin’ in dere alone. Bad memories…”
I jogged along behind the bigger Gearblin as he strode through the Rule of Cool base, past the feeding troughs and up a side tunnel that led to a narrow ramp that spiraled upward. There were seams of silver in the wall, and the higher we went the wider they became.
As we ascended, I caught him pulling the ring from his pocket yet again. He held it tightly in his palm, replaced it, and then plucked it out again.
I was desperate to know what the deal was with that thing, but I couldn’t risk getting Bingo’s nose out of joint right before we went after Mother. My confrontation with Illgott had reminded me that I still had a long way to go when it came to Diplomacy, and now wasn’t they time to try my hand at improving it.
“You first,” he told me as a massive granite door with ‘Rule of Cool’ inlaid across it in silver came into view and then slid into the wall. The room was well-appointed, with a large roundtable in the middle of five luxurious chairs.
“How come?”
“Dere’s only three of us on da board right now, and a Leadfoot’s always been da CEO.”
I shrugged. “If you say so.” It was hard for me to be gracious and pretend that maybe I should give leadership to him, considering how badly he’d already admitted to mismanaging everything in the past.
Not that I was a paragon of wonderful decision-making, but this was all going to come crashing down on us in a few hours anyway.
Before I went in, I said, “‘Executrix’ Patch has been spending all the Credits, so I suppose that makes her Chief Financial Officer.”
Bingo pointed at me. “If you’re da CEO and she’s CFO, what’s my title? I got no interest in runnin’ things, but a few fancy words in fronta my name’ll never go astray.”
I thought for a second, and then snapped my fingers. “You can be our EG.”
“What’s dat?”
“Escape Goat.”
His grin was so wide that I could see the corners of it peek out from behind the edges of his gas mask. “I like dat!” He bowed and made a flourish toward the door. “Now get in dere.”
Old habits die hard, and there was part of me that was always ready for a trap to go off in my face. It was a pleasant surprise whenever it didn’t, and I stepped in and found myself immediately surrounded by airconditioned splendor.
Before I could admire the furniture or the fixtures, Bingo went to the table and reached underneath. There must have been a hidden counterweight down there, because after he unlocked it the whole thing spun 180° and then held firm.
There was a wide array of weapons strapped to the wood. “Never say I gave ya nothin’,” he chortled. “Take yer pick an’ lead on, Mr. CEO.”
After taking a moment to run my hands over the goodies I grabbed a
Firefew Gat
Damage: 1d10+2
Damage Type: Kinetic Impact
Additional Effects: A hole big enough to stick your head through, should you be so inclined
Weight: 4 pounds
Durability: 10/10
Ammunition: 6 rounds, stored in a revolving mechanism
Description: The original point-and-click interface
Minimum Level Required to Equip: 1
Base Resale Value: 10 gold 91 silver
Base Dismantle Result: 12 Iron Bars
Base Alchemical Result: Don’t even think of it
Base Decantation Result: N/A
in a holster of tooled leather and a
Peerless Cuisinart Stiletto
Damage: 1d4+2
Damage Type: Stabbing
Weight: 400 grams
Durability: 10/10
Minimum Level Required to Equip: 1
Base Resale Value: 3 gold, 28 silver
Base Dismantle Result: 2 Iron Bars
Base Alchemical Result: 2 Acts of Aggression
Base Decantation Result: N/A
that practically had my name on them. The Gat didn’t come with any extra bullets, perhaps due to the ore shortage he’d talked about.
Bingo hefted a heavily modified
Supercharged Pickax of Gouging
Damage: 1d12
Damage Type: Bludgeoning or Stabbing, depending on martial style used
Additional Effects: Criticals triple damage instead of doubling it.
Weight: 11 pounds
Durability: 10/10
Description: Not just for mining ore, now it’ll let you get to the squishy center of your enemies.
Minimum Level Required to Equip: 5
Base Resale Value: 8 gold, 74 silver
Base Dismantle Result: 6 Iron Bars
Base Alchemical Result: 3 Acts of Aggression, 1 Deadly Improvement
Base Decantation Result: N/A
He was Level 6, which meant that the hefty level requirement didn’t slow him down. “I keep meaning to ask. Between your involvement in Rule of Cool before the Smash and the experience points we’ve earned since…”
He cracked his knuckles and leaned the pickax against his shoulder. “I know where dis is going and no, I can’t help ya level up. All I know is dat da old way don’t work anymore.”
“What was the old way?”
Know Your Roll Page 29
