Critical Failures VII

by Robert Bevan

  As humiliating an experience as it was, Stacy was at least relieved that she wasn't actually blind.

  “Where's Cooper?” Stacy demanded.

  Dolazar lifted the goggles to her forehead. “You are the captive. I am the captor. I shall be asking the questions.”

  “I'm not telling you shit until I know that Cooper's okay.”

  “What know you of the halfling on the poster? What is your business with him?”

  Stacy made a zipping gesture across her tightly-shut lips.

  Dolazar frowned. “What is that you're doing with your mouth?” Her confusion made sense now that Stacy thought about it. Zippers probably hadn't been invented yet in this world.

  “It means I'm not talking.”

  “I don't think it does,” said Dolazar. “I think you meant to do this.” She placed a finger over her mouth.

  “Whatever. The point is that if you want answers from me, I'm going to need some quid pro quo.”

  Dolazar looked even more dumbfounded than before. “What is that? Some type of soup?”

  Stacy sighed. “It means you give me the information I want in exchange for me giving you the information you want.”

  “It most certainly does not! You're making up nonsense words!”

  “I'm sorry,” said Stacy. “That's a saying where I come from.” She wasn't in the strongest position of leverage, but she didn't think Dolazar would keep her alive if she didn't think Stacy had information that was valuable to her. “If you can prove that my friend is alive and unharmed, I'll answer your questions about the halfling.”

  “Some friend! Why do you have such a low sense of self-worth? He told me himself that you are to him merely an object to fill with his dick.”

  Stacy took a moment to let that sink in. It didn't make sense for Cooper to say something like that about her. She'd never gotten anywhere near his dick. On the other hand, the word dick didn't sound like a word Dolazar was comfortable saying. That was definitely more in line with Cooper's vernacular. Was he trying some kind of reverse psychology? She means nothing to me. Do with her what you will. Surely he had the self-awareness to know that mind games weren't his strong suit. Then again, it was equally plausible that he'd watched enough crappy action movies to feel confident that he could sell it. She was sure his heart was in the right place, but she didn't like the idea of being his psychological bargaining chip.

  “He's obviously trying to feign indifference toward me so that you won't think I'm valuable enough to him to use as a hostage.”

  Dolazar frowned sympathetically. “Poor child. What is obvious is that he cares for you not in the least. You know it in your heart to be true, and yet you concoct this elaborate narrative in your mind to deny it. Tell me, if you truly believed this to be true, why would you tell me what his motivations are?”

  That was a good question. But the fact that Dolazar was engaging in the argument was evidence that a seed of doubt had been planted in her mind. The best fertilizer to nurture that seed was an added layer of bullshit.

  “I was just trying to trick you into confirming that he's alive and unharmed. You keep referring to him in the present tense. He cares for me not in the least. What his motivations are.”

  “That's not –”

  “You've told me exactly what I wanted to know,” Stacy continued. “Unfortunately, you didn't do so voluntarily, so I'm afraid that doesn't count toward our quid pro quo. If you want any information out of me, you'll have to answer another –”

  “I need you to fangleboop in my snarfdoodle,” said Dolazar as she marched back and forth along the edge of the pit, flapping her arms like a chicken.

  Stacy wondered if she'd broken her. “I beg your pardon?”

  Dolazar stopped marching and pointed down at Stacy. “That is what you sound like! We shall see how much fun your silly words and gestures are when the hunger starts to set in. You won't last three days before you beg me to listen to you tell me every last detail of what you know in exchange for a handful of dead cockroaches to eat.” She took the Hair Clip of Disguise out of her pocket, put it in her hair, and morphed into a perfect likeness of Stacy. “Think about that until I return tomorrow.” She even nailed Stacy's voice.

  As Dolazar walked away, the light from her glowing stick went with her. The underground chamber grew darker and darker until Stacy was effectively blind again.

  Dolazar had been right about one thing. Stacy wasn't going to make it three days in this pit. Not because she wasn't tough enough, but rather because she was an extremely intelligent woman with nothing to do but think.

  She was in a pit. There was nothing keeping her in but gravity. Surely there must be some simple way of escaping. She knew approximately how high the walls were, but she also knew that was too high to reach.

  After twenty more minutes of thinking, she still had nothing. The frustration she felt was part of the design of this prison. It was like a cell with a wide open door that was just out of reach.

  She put aside thoughts of jumping and climbing for now, focusing on what she had available to work with. The dagger in her boot was the most obvious asset to contemplate leveraging. But how?

  In her current situation, the best she could manage would be to throw it at Dolazar. But the chances of killing her with a single thrown dagger were slim. Even then, such a best-case scenario would leave her in the same situation she was in now, minus a dagger and plus a nearby rotting corpse to smell while she slowly died of thirst. The worst-case, and far more likely, scenario was that she'd just piss off Dolazar even more while giving her the satisfaction of knowing that Stacy had just blown her Hail Mary play.

  No, she needed something sneakier, something more subtle. Something that would take this rat bitch completely by surprise.

  She sat down against the wall on the side of the pit that Dolazar had been standing on and removed the dagger from her boot. As she stared into the darkness, an idea started to take shape in her mind. It wasn't foolproof by any means. There were a lot of variables which could cause it to end in humiliating defeat. But if she managed to pull it off, the look on Dolazar's face would be so worth the sacrifice.

  There were a lot of finer points to work out, but fortunately the most important one didn't require much thought. Just mundane time-consuming work, during which she could flesh out how everything else would go down.

  Pinching a half-centimeter-thick lock of hair, she sawed through it with her dagger as close to her scalp as she could manage. She divided that into two clusters, then licked her fingertips and rubbed the ends of each between her fingers until the follicles stuck together. With a series of spins and twists, and a considerable amount of saliva, she braided the two strands together to make the beginning of a cord. When she was halfway through, she cut off another lock of hair and wove in additional strands, adding to the cord's length.

  Cut. Weave. Lick. Spin. Twist. Repeat.

  By the time the cord had grown to about ten feet long, and Stacy was about a quarter bald, the process had become second nature. She smiled to herself as she thought about how clever she was.

  Chapter 12

  Katherine woke up on Nightwind's rear deck with her head cradled in Butterbean's soft fur. The eastern sky was pink, but the sun hadn't yet risen.

  She and Tanner had discussed the food issue the night before and decided between the two of them that they should wait until morning to bring the matter to everyone else's attention. If they'd brought it up the previous night, they were still close enough to Cardinia to turn around. And since Mordred was now aware they were on a boat, it was too risky to return to the harbor.

  Poor Tanner had to be starving. He had literally not eaten in his current lifetime. Katherine decided that they were far enough away from Cardinia now so that there wouldn't be any temptation to return. She had to wake everyone up and collect whatever food they had on them to be rationed out until they reached Nazere.

  She climbed up onto the ballista platform with Butterbean by
her side. With everyone sleeping on the deck, Nightwind didn't look a whole lot different from the floor at the Whore's Head Inn. The open sea air was fresher, of course, but they'd managed to bring some of their familiar musk on board. It was time to captain up. “Excuse me. If I could have everyone's attention.”

  The sleepy crew moaned and groaned. Only the elves at the bow who she'd left in charge of Mordred and the Bag of Holding were paying attention to her.

  One of Nightwind's features she'd been most curious about since acquiring the ship was the presence of a long-handled cowbell hanging from a peg on the mainmast. Her curiosity was now sated.

  She hopped down, swiped the cowbell from the peg, then climbed back onto the ballista platform.

  CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG

  She shook that bell like a stubborn ketchup bottle until every last one of those lazy assholes was on their feet. She felt a little bad for their familiars and animal companions, and for the elves who were already awake and had the most sensitive ears, but she would not be ignored aboard her ship.

  “Thank you,” she said curtly when she lowered the bell. “An important issue has been brought to my attention.”

  The sleepiness vanished from Frank's eyes as he turned to the elves. “Did we lose Mordred?”

  Tony the Elf shook his head. “Mordred's fine. I checked on him myself a few minutes ago.”

  Frank glared up at Katherine. “So what's this important issue? Did you make a list of chores for us? Are we going to do some team-building exercises? Is there a new policy regarding the coffee maker?”

  “You know what, Frank?” said Katherine. “I've been giving you the benefit of the doubt because I know you've had a rough go lately. But the more time I spend with you, the more I think you're just an asshole.”

  “You woke us up before dawn with a fucking cowbell. Excuse me if I'm not somersaulting with joy. We're all up now. Hit us with the big news.”

  Katherine couldn't see any point in putting it off any longer. “We don't have any food.”

  The crew exchanged concerned glances and muttered to each other.

  “It's nothing to panic about,” Katherine reassured them. “The trip is only a few days. I have a Create Water spell, as well as a Purify Food and Drink spell. And I'm sure there are other spellcasters on board who also have those spells. So we've got water covered. If everyone pools together all the food they've brought with them, I'm sure we can scrounge up enough to make it to Nazere.” She smiled encouragingly as she scanned the crew. None of them were smiling. They were glaring at her now.

  Katherine's smile wilted. “None of you brought anything to eat?” She turned to Rhonda and narrowed her eyes. “Really?” There was no way she didn't have the pockets of those voluminous wizard robes stuffed with jelly doughnuts or something.

  “What?” said Rhonda. “Why are you looking at me?”

  “We didn't plan for this trip,” said Frank. “We left in a hurry, faithful that our captain wouldn't set sail on a multi-day sea voyage without any food.”

  Katherine wondered how far she could kick that little gnome prick into the sea.

  Tanner climbed up to stand next to her. “There's no need to panic.” He pointed to a fish jumping out of the water not far away. “We are literally surrounded by food. All we need to do is figure out a way to get it from the sea to the ship.”

  “That's right,” said Katherine. She clapped her hand on Tanner's shoulder. “He's really clever.” She turned to him. “So what's the plan?”

  Tanner shrugged. “You have lines and hooks, do you not?”

  “Yeah,” said Katherine. “But we don't have any bait.” She scanned the crew again. “Do none of you have a single morsel of food that we can put on a hook?” Her gaze instinctively drifted to Rhonda again.

  Rhonda glared back at her. “Problem with your eyes?”

  “I think the solution here is obvious,” said Frank. “We're going to have to kill one of the animals.”

  Katherine gasped. “What the hell is your problem?”

  “And since the captain is responsible for the well-being of her crew, it only seems fitting that the captain be the one to make the sacrifice.”

  “I'm so glad you put a full two minutes into deciding that our only hope of survival is killing Butterbean.” She turned to Tony the Elf, whose big shaggy sheepdog was lying at his feet. “What do you think, Tony the Elf? You've got an animal companion.”

  “We're not killing Dave,” said Tony the Elf.

  Katherine smiled. “I wouldn't dream of it. I just thought you might have the perspective to advise Frank here on how wise it would be for him to try to take Butterbean from me.”

  Tony the Elf grimaced. “I wouldn't recommend it.”

  Frank held his hands up innocently. “I'm just saying. If it comes down to starving, we're going to have to make some difficult decisions.”

  “Let me make this decision a little easier for you, Frank. If you lay a single one of those stubby little fingers on Butterbean's fur, I'll cut it off and bait a hook with –”

  “Carbon Dioxide,” said one of the elves on the bow. His hair blew back as the Bag of Holding spewed out Mordred's most recent exhalations.

  “There's the solution!” Katherine said excitedly. “Mordred!”

  Frank frowned, the hostility on his face replaced with disgust. “You want to eat Mordred?”

  “Ew, no. But we could use him as bait.”

  “What are you trying to catch?” asked Rhonda. “A kraken?”

  Katherine felt a little sad that Cooper wasn't there to say, Or Dave's mom? “I'm not a monster. I'm not suggesting we kill another Mordred. I was just thinking maybe we could cut off one of his arms and chop it up for bait.” It sounded a lot worse when she said it aloud.

  Frank didn't bother to respond. He didn't have to. Everyone else's shocked silence said enough. She was a bloodthirsty psychopath, just like her brother. There might be a mutiny long before starvation started to kick in. She eyed the crew, waiting for one of them to pounce on her. She'd clobber them with her cowbell, then summon a couple of wolves. If she used a Spider Climb spell, she might be able to –

  “Not a bad idea,” said Tony the Elf.

  The frustration on Frank's face was almost worth the potential mutiny. “So now we're back to torture?”

  “This isn't torture. Mordred can't feel pain while he's occupying one of his other avatars. If we cut off an arm, and heal up the wound before he checks in, he won't feel a thing.”

  “You're talking about cutting a man's arm off!” cried Frank.

  Tony the Elf rubbed his chin and nodded. “There are other benefits as well. If he somehow manages to free himself of the ropes, having one less arm will probably hamper his ability to cast spells with somatic components. Maybe we should cut off both his arms, just as a precaution.”

  “He'll need a hand to hold the dice if we want to get back home,” said Fritz.

  “Good point.”

  Frank's little fists were trembling. “Have you all gone mad?”

  “It sends a message as well,” said Tony the Elf.

  “Isn't that, like, the textbook definition of torture? You're threatening to cut off a person's limbs if they don't do what you want.”

  “That's the beauty of it. We're not threatening anything. Think about it. What happens when Mordred wakes up and realizes he's missing an arm? He'll have no idea why we did it. That's way more terrifying than if we made some kind of threat. He'll be like, Oh shit! They cut my arm off for no reason. Those guys are savage as fuck. I'd better steer clear of them.”

  “I can't believe what I'm hearing,” said Frank. “I expect this from one of them.” He nodded in Katherine's direction. “But I expected better from you.”

  “Cool it with the dad lecture, Frank. We're in a tight spot, and it doesn't hurt to consider all our options. I don't like the idea of cutting someone's arm off any more than you do. But in this case, it's not going to
keep me up at night.”

  “Because he's a bad person?” Frank climbed up to join Katherine on the ballista platform, which Katherine found a little nervy of him. He addressed the crew. “Don't you see? We aren't supposed to only refrain from torturing nice people. Otherwise, it wouldn't even be an issue. If the thought of permanently maiming a man doesn't keep you up at night, then what kind of a person are you?”

  The crew looked down at the deck, avoiding Frank's judging stare.

  “Cut the drama, Frank,” said Tony the Elf. “The reason it's not going to keep me up at night isn't because I'm suddenly cool with permanently maiming a man. Mordred's got four more bodies, each with two perfectly functional arms. That's more than any of –”

  “Magic Misile!” cried Rhonda.

  Katherine ducked instinctively, but Rhonda was facing away from her, out to sea. The golden glowing arrow that flew out from her open palm sailed ten feet before turning sharply downward and plunging into the water.

  As the boat continued sailing, Katherine climbed onto the ballista to get a better view. In the pre-dawn light, she was barely able to make out a cluster of bubbles rise to the surface, followed by the remains of a partially-exploded fish.

  “Lower the sails!” cried Katherine. “Drop the anchor!” When they finally got the ship to stop moving, the distance they'd sailed past the dead fish was probably swimmable. Even if there wasn't any salvageable meat, those fish guts could bait a few hooks. They could put the matter of whether or not to cut Mordred's arm off behind them.

  “Shall I retrieve the fish?” asked Tanner.

  “No. I'm the captain. It's my responsibility to look after my crew.” She turned to the ship's bow. “Tony the Elf. Bring me the Bag of Holding.”