Critical Failures VII

by Robert Bevan

  Dolazar's eyes widened. “You and I working together?” She laughed. “What reason have you to trust me, or I you?”

  “We don't have to rely on trust,” said Stacy. “Cooper and I can easily beat the shit out of your gang, and you have insights into the Rat Bastards and criminal underworld that we need. It's like you said. We're after the same thing. When it's all done, I'll get Tim, and you'll get the credit for taking him down.”

  Dolazar thought about it, then gave Stacy a steely cold stare. “I also want the hair clip.”

  “No.”

  “The goggles?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Fine,” said Dolazar with an exasperated sigh. “I'll do it.”

  “Very good. Now give me a boost so I can climb out of here.”

  “How do I know you won't just leave me?” Dolazar narrowed her eyes and folded her arms. “Why don't you give me a boost?”

  Stacy sighed. Ten seconds into their partnership, Dolazar was already trying to fuck her over.

  “You can climb out. I saw you climbing up the wall a few minutes ago. The only reason you'd want me to let you out first is so that you could make me your prisoner again. We're not getting off to a very good start.”

  “I had to try.” Dolazar took a knee and cupped her hands together for Stacy's foot.

  “You should stop trying,” said Stacy. “Deceit isn't your strong suit, and it's just going to piss me off if you keep it up.” She stepped into Dolazar's hands, then climbed up onto her shoulders, and finally her head. It took some Dexterity, but she managed to jump from Dolazar's head high enough to catch the edge of the pit.

  When she was all the way out, Stacy sat on the edge to catch her breath and take in the rest of the room. There wasn't much to see. The air was musty and dusty, and the walls were made of the same crumbly bricks that formed the walls of the pit. A wooden door on the other side of the room was the only obvious exit. She looked back down into the pit.

  For a second, it appeared as though there was no pit and Stacy's legs were cut off at the knees, but her eyes soon adjusted as she discovered that there was an illusory floor covering the pit. Now that she knew it was there, it was barely visible.

  Then she couldn't see anything at all as the light from Dolazar's magic stick faded out.

  “Hurry!” whispered Dolazar. “Help me up!” Stacy didn't know why Dolazar was whispering. This was her dungeon, after all.

  Now seemed like a perfect time to test out her new night vision goggles. Or rather – what was that Dolazar had called them? – Goggles of the Night. Stacy pulled them down over her eyes and felt a twinge of annoyance as her hands brushed over the mowed remains of her hair. She opened her eyes. Her vision was black and white and kind of grainy like a cheap CCTV monitor, but she could see.

  She looked down at Dolazar, who was staring blindly back at her in wide-eyed terror. She was afraid of the dark. Stacy briefly fantasized about how satisfying it would be to leave her down there, but didn't seriously consider it.

  “Throw up the rope.”

  Dolazar pawed at the ground, feeling for the rope. She wasn't even close to it.

  “To the right,” said Stacy. “Sorry, that was my right. Your left. A little more... a little more... There you go.”

  Stacy caught the rope and held it as Dolazar climbed out of the pit. Her hands were trembling when they grabbed Stacy's, and she didn't let go even after she was completely out.

  On one hand, Stacy thought it kind of extra-shitty of Dolazar to trap someone in a place that terrified her this much. On the other hand, however, she could sort of understand because the power she currently felt over Dolazar was a little bit intoxicating.

  “Calm down,” said Stacy as she led Dolazar across the room. “We're almost to the door.”

  Chapter 17

  There were only a few Strength-based skills in the game, so Cooper used the few skill points he earned at each level to max those out. By doing so, mostly out of laziness, he sacrificed some skills generally thought to be more useful, such as Search, Survival, or Literacy. But every once in a while, he was thankful to have a maxed-out Strength-based skill. Right now was one of those times.

  “Fuck,” he said between pants. His arms burned with exhaustion from hours of treading water, and he still had so much further to go before he had any hope of being able to reach the top of the pit.

  The water was rising so slowly that he'd swum down at least five times already to make sure the Decanter of Endless Water was still functioning properly in geyser mode.

  He rested his arms and let himself sink to the bottom of the pit to check on it one more time. Sure enough, he only had to sink a couple of feet down to feel the force of the water gushing out of the decanter on his feet. He let himself keep sinking anyway to touch base with Nabi.

  “I don't think I'm going to make it,” he said through a burst of bubbles from his mouth. “I'm so fucking exhausted.” He knew he didn't actually have to speak out loud, but thinking required more energy than he currently had to spend.

  Do not be such a baby. It has not been that long.

  “Easy for you to say, Miss I-don't-have-to-breathe.” That reminded Cooper that he had to breathe. He let go of Nabi and pushed up from the floor with his legs. When he broke the surface, he breathed in as much air as his lungs could hold and reflected some more about how much this plan sucked. The worst part of it was that, now that it had risen over his head, there was no turning back. Even if he stopped the decanter, he'd still have to tread water indefinitely. There was no reverse setting on it.

  Or was there? Just because he'd never tried it before didn't mean it wasn't a feature.

  Cooper shook the thought out of his mind. If Decanters of Endless Water had a reverse setting, then some asshole or extraordinarily lazy fisherman would have drained all the world's oceans by now.

  He farted. He'd been farting a lot, and shitting quite a bit too if the taste of the water was a reliable indicator. The anxiety of not knowing if he'd be able to hold out long enough to avoid drowning was making him gassy. He liked to think that each fart gave him a little upward propulsion and each shit made him that much lighter and easier to stay buoyant, but his arms and legs weren't buying it. Any effect his ass was having on his chances of survival were negligible at best.

  Sometime between five minutes and eight hours later, Cooper couldn't take it anymore. His arms felt like wet noodles which were somehow also on fire, like he'd just come out of a –

  That was it. Jump and Climb were the other Strength-based skills he'd been maxing out. If he were to sink to the bottom of the pit, invoke his Barbarian Rage, and launch himself upward, the combinations of Jump, Swim, and Climb might be enough to break the surface with enough force to reach the edge, like a shark going airborne with a seal in its mouth.

  Again, he relaxed his arms and legs, savoring the relief he traded off for air as he sank to the bottom of the pit. The jet from the Decanter of Endless Water ran up his ass and spine until it was massaging his head when his feet touched the floor.

  If this didn't work, he would come out of his Rage even more fatigued than he was now. He considered the wisdom of laying all his cards down on the table, then nodded. They were good cards. This situation felt like it was custom tailored to his every specific ability, skill, and class feature. If he couldn't pull this off, he might as well have given up on life a long time ago and blown two skill points on Literacy.

  “I'M REALLY ANGRY!” he bubbled. His black and white darkvision took on a pinkish tint as blood pumped harder and faster through his expanding body. He crouched, then pushed furiously against the floor, feeling like that shark who was about to fuck up some dumbshit seal's day. Kicking his feet and scooping water downward with his hands, he was swimming like a motherfucker. He didn't launch quite high enough out of the water to reach the pit's edge, but he did manage to catch his claws between some bricks where the mortar was weak. It supported him long enough for him to seek out a si
milarly weak-mortared gap with his other hand. Doing the same with his toes, he was able to push himself upward far enough to reach the top. He pulled himself up over the edge, then let out a long low fart as the Barbarian Rage flowed out of his body. As the smell of it hit his nostrils, he reflected on how much fresher the musty basement air was outside the pit than inside, where his farts and shit fumes had been coalescing above the water's surface. How had he even been able to breathe in there? Jesus, how did he still have friends? He was so exhausted, he barely had the strength to stand.

  “Dolazar?” called one of her goons from the top of the stairs. “Are you still down there?”

  Shit.

  Cooper had to get out of there. He could go further into the basement and search for Stacy, but he might run into Dolazar. He could barrel through whoever these assholes on the stairs were, but that would probably mean abandoning Stacy. He wished he could ask Nabi, but she was still down at the bottom of the –

  Shit.

  He'd left Nabi in the pit. Now not only could he not go anywhere. He was going to have to jump back into that goddamn stink tank to retrieve her and Katherine's Decanter of Endless Water.

  A light shone from the stairwell, and footsteps of at least two people started coming down the creaky wooden stairs.

  Shit.

  Mustering all the strength he had in him, Cooper pushed himself up off the floor and staggered to the pit room across the corridor from the one he'd been stuck in. He leaned back against the wall and caught his breath.

  “What's that smell?” said one of the wererats.

  “The half-orc's pit,” said another. “It's flooded.”

  “Is Dolazar in there?”

  “I don't know. The water's all brown and murky. I can't see more than a couple of inches into it.”

  Cooper chanced a peek through the doorway. Two wererats, both in their human forms, knelt next to his pit, peering into his shitwater. He considered it a blessing in disguise. They might raise the water level high enough so that it would be easier for Cooper to get back out once he picked up the axe and decanter.

  He knew stealth wasn't his strong suit, so he put that effort into speed instead.

  “FUCK YOU!” he cried as he charged across the corridor.

  The wererat on the right turned around just in time to get kicked hard in the face. He backflipped into the shitwater.

  “Wait! No!” cried the other. “I –”

  If he'd intended to follow that with “want to get punched in the face,” Cooper saved him the trouble.

  Still fatigued, Cooper took another moment to catch his breath while the two assholes coughed and splashed in the putrid water.

  One of them morphed into a dire rat and swam effortlessly to the far wall, which he started to climb. The other one followed suit.

  “Fuck that,” said Cooper. He leaped into the pit, grabbed both giant rats by the tails and let himself sink while they struggled to swim upward. It felt like he was falling gently to the ground while holding two hairy balloons. He considered waiting it out like that, confident that with his high Constitution score, he could hold his breath longer than they could. But that seemed unnecessarily cruel, and he owed Nabi some blood.

  Bending over to grab the axe with his left hand, he felt a searing pain in his right and lost his grip on the rat tails. One of those fuckers had bitten him. As they swam up to the surface, Cooper's foot landed on Nabi's shaft.

  Don't let them get away!

  Cooper crouched down to pick up Nabi. He had one more Barbarian Rage available for the day. If he couldn't manage to kill the wererats and climb out of the pit before it timed out, he would surely –

  HURRY!

  Fuck it. “I'm really angry!”

  Once again, he furiously launched himself upward. He surfaced to find the two rats gasping for air as they scrambled up the slick wall. Cooper was barely able to catch one by the tip of its tail, but the other one was beyond his reach.

  Not beyond mine.

  Cooper swung Nabi high and lodged her blade deep into the big rat's hairy ass.

  It screamed as it let go of the wall and fell back down into the water, which became even more cloudy with blood as Cooper hacked at the rats with Nabi.

  When both rats stopped struggling to flee, Cooper knew the battle was over. He felt his Barbarian rage flow out through his ass and bubble to the surface of the reddish-brown water. Overcome with exhaustion, Nabi felt heavy in his hands.

  Just hold on a little while longer, Cooper. You can do this.

  He really couldn't. He stopped kicking his legs and let himself sink.

  Come on, Cooper. One more try.

  When Cooper's feet touched the pit floor, he nodded. He'd hold his breath as long as he could, and hope that it was long enough for the Decanter of Endless water to make enough of a difference. He decided to grab the decanter as well, because fuck if he was going to come back down here again.

  He took it out of the corner he'd nestled it into to keep it from flying around all over the place when he activated its geyser mode. In Cooper's fatigued state, the force of water gushing out of it made it difficult to dislodge, but he managed. He yanked it out of the corner and hugged it to his chest to keep it from going berserk. It was upside down, and the force of the water propelled him straight up much faster than he'd been able to do with his legs. When he surfaced, he was embarrassed to not have done this much earlier.

  Time passed much more quickly now that he wasn't struggling to tread water. The two wererats had morphed back into their human forms after they died, and Cooper idly watched their mutilated corpses bob up and down while he waited for the water to rise high enough for him to climb out.

  When he finally climbed out of the pit again, Cooper deactivated the Decanter of Endless Water and shoved it back into his soaking wet bag. Enough time had passed for the post-Rage fatigue to wear off, and he was feeling like his old self again. Now it was time to look for Stacy.

  Remembering that his pit was pretty close to the beginning of the dungeon, it made sense to look for her further in. He hoped there wouldn't be a lot of twists and turns.

  Walking through the doorway leading further into the dungeon, Cooper felt the strange sensation of being deaf. There wasn't a whole lot of noise down here to begin with, but he didn't need a backdrop of cannon fire and elephant trumpeting to know complete and utter deafness when it hit him.

  “Hello?” he said, just to make sure. There was no sound. He put his fingers in his ears and pulled out an impressive glob of hairy orange wax from each, but his hearing didn't improve. “Fuck.” He didn't hear that either.

  He started walking again, and the white noise of the dark and empty dungeon came back to him.

  “Hello?” he said again. It was loud as fuck.

  “Cooper?” Stacy's voice called back, also loud as fuck. Pulling out that wax had indeed made a difference.

  “Stacy?”

  Stacy stepped into range of Cooper's Darkvision. Her head was shaved, she was wearing some kind of mad scientist goggles, and she was accompanied by a wererat who she wasn't beating the shit out of.

  “Stop right there,” said Cooper. “What the fuck is going on?”

  “I was just coming to rescue you,” said the one who most resembled Stacy. “But I guess you managed to escape on your own.”

  Something wasn't right, and Cooper didn't want to give away any information to the wrong person. “Maybe I did, and maybe I didn't.”

  “You obviously did. You're not in the pit.” Stacy eyed him up and down. “Why are you all wet?”

  More questions. Cooper narrowed his eyes and folded his arms. “I'm asking the questions here. First, which one of you is the real Stacy?”

  The one trying to pass herself off as Stacy looked at the one who hadn't spoken yet, then back at Cooper. “The one who's not a fucking rat monster.”

  The fucking rat monster morphed into the woman Stacy had been disguised as when he fell into the pit. “That
was unnecessarily rude. I am a wererat.” She was even doing the voice.

  “Stacy!” said Cooper.

  Cooper, we have been over this a number of times now.

  “Quiet, Nabi. I've got a lot of shit I'm trying to keep track of right now.”

  Real Stacy groped blindly at empty air until she found Britney Spears-gone-off-the-rails Stacy's shoulder. “This is your friend. I am the one who trapped you in a pit.”

  Are you satisfied now?

  Cooper thought about it for a moment, then the pieces fell into place. “If that's true, then why should I believe anything you say, Stacy?” He grinned in his logical triumph. “Game. Set. Checkmate.”

  “Cooper!” said Fake Stacy. “I'm Stacy!”

  “Don't think I can't see through your magical hair clip disguise. It's not even convincing. Stacy has hair.”

  She sighed and put her hands on her hips, glaring at Cooper through her goofy dark goggles. Then she relaxed, and actually smiled.

  “Since I don't have any hair, how can I be wearing a hair clip?”

  Cooper stood silent and dumbfounded, like the Little Pig who'd built his house out of shitty logic.

  “So you're Stacy?”

  Bald Stacy nodded.

  “What the hell happened to your hair?”

  She held up a shitty-looking rope. “I had to cut it off to make this rope.”

  Cooper felt bad for judging the rope so harshly. Good on her for taking up a hobby during her incarceration.

  “It looks really good. I saw it, and I was like, Whoa! What store did she buy that rope at?”

  “How did you get out of your pit?” asked Stacy.

  “I used the Decanter of Endless Water. I filled up the pit until I could climb out.”

  Stacy gave him a friendly grin. “What a clever idea!”

  Cooper looked at his feet. “It was Nabi's.”

  “That's nothing to be ashamed of. You two make a good team.”

  Nabi didn't say anything, but Cooper felt a sense of warmth from her.

  “Speaking of teams,” said Cooper. “Who's your new pal here?”