Critical Failures V (Caverns and Creatures Book 5)

by Robert Bevan

  Randy crouched down and tried to peek through the creature’s forest of legs. He didn’t spot anything immediately recognizable as genitalia. “I s’pose if it turns out to be a female, we can call it Lisa.”

  “Why Lisa?”

  “It’s Basil spelled backwards, only without the B.”

  Denise looked suddenly panicked.

  Randy frowned. “If you have a different girl name you’d prefer...”

  “I don’t give a shit about the name, Randy.” Denise looked into Randy’s eyes. “I think I forgot how to read.”

  Chapter 25

  While Stacy used the Decanter of Endless Water’s geyser setting to get Cooper as clean as anything short of a Charisma-boosting magical item was likely to get him, Julian was assigned to the task of building a fire.

  “One of those big pine cones should burn nicely,” Stacy had suggested, and Julian had just the one in mind.

  By the time they’d slain the dire boar, the sun had set, Cooper had been hurt pretty bad, and they had two thousand pounds’ worth of fresh dire pork waiting to be cut up and eaten. If ever there was a perfect time to call it a day and set up camp, this was it.

  They had moved a little farther off the road to avoid calling attention to themselves, but if Stacy and injured Cooper could drag a dead boar with them, then Julian could roll a pine cone.

  Big as it was, the weight was less of a problem than the shape. Being conical, it kept wanting to roll off to the left of where Julian tried to push it. And the scales were pointed at the tips, forcing Julian to push from under his serape, which made maneuvering the thing even more difficult.

  But after more time and effort than resentment toward a pine cone should have warranted, Julian had his assailant back at the campsite and was ready for vengeance.

  The ground was nothing if not a vast carpet of kindling, so much so that Julian spent more time clearing away pine needles in a wide enough radius around the pine cone than he did stuffing them under it.

  As expected, the dry needles lit up with ease, producing big orange flames, copious amounts of white smoke, and a nice smokey pine scent. When the flames began to settle down, however, the pine cone itself didn’t seem to be catching.

  Julian sent Ravenus off to gather up any fallen twigs or branches that he could carry back, hoping they might burn longer and hotter than pine needles. In the meantime, he kept the fire going by scooping up armfuls of pine needles from the perimeter and piling them on top of the cone until they started falling down the sides and catching. No harm in widening the safety zone, after all. When the new needles caught, the flames were impressively large, and gave off a lot of heat. But the flare-up didn’t last long, and that stubborn pine cone still mocked him with its refusal to submit to the flames.

  “You’ll burn, you big bastard,” Julian said as he scooped up another armful of needles. “You can’t hold out forever.”

  “What are you doing?” asked Stacy. She and Cooper stood at the edge of the safety zone. Cooper’s abdomen was bandaged up nicely, and he looked like he was feeling better.

  “I’m getting a fire started, just like you said.”

  “I said that an hour ago.”

  Julian dumped his new load onto the fire, and watched the needles flare up. “It’s just taking a little time to catch.”

  “That’s because you’re using the worst pine cone you could have possibly picked. That one’s way too green and dense. All the scales are still pressed together. It doesn’t have any air flow.”

  “It’ll burn. Just give it a minute.”

  Stacy walked off into the woods. Cooper helped Julian dump more pine needles onto the fire, probably not as a show of solidarity, but just because he enjoyed watching shit burn.

  When Stacy returned, she was dragging a shorter, wider, browner pine cone with her. The scales were very wide apart from each other. She set it upright near Julian’s effort. When she started stuffing needles between the scales, Julian understood immediately that his efforts had been bested.

  “Nice idea,” said Cooper. “That thing’s gonna light up like a motherfucker.”

  Indeed, it lit up like a motherfucker. The flames spread quickly around the loosely packed pine needles at the base, then up to the more densely packed needles at the top. It was a perfect cone of flame, as if these giant cones had evolved toward the goal of being set on fire.

  This small victory was enough to raise everyone’s spirits, except for Ravenus, who was worn out from dragging back an impressively large branch, only to discover that his efforts had been unnecessary.

  Conversation was next to nonexistent. Everyone’s attention was fixed on the flames and the intense red glow of the smoldering pine cone scales.

  When it was hot enough, Stacy asked Cooper to tip the burning pine cone over with his axe.

  Cooper asked the axe’s permission first, which was weird. But ‘Nabi’ apparently had no objections to being shoved into a fire. She was tough that way.

  Stacy led Cooper into the woods and came back with two more dry cones, which they laid on either side of the burning one, wide bottoms adjacent to its pointed top. When they pushed the cones toward each other, their scales interlocked with the one in the middle, and the fire soon tripled in volume.

  Standing back with her hands on her hips, Stacy gave the fire a satisfied nod. “Do either of you know how to slice up a boar?”

  Julian shook his head.

  “How hard could it be?” asked Cooper. He walked over to the giant pig carcass and swung his axe down hard into the beast’s side. After a few more whacks, Stacy interjected.

  “Cooper!” When Cooper stopped swinging, she continued. “Just in case the goal was unclear, we’re trying to eat this thing.”

  “I know that,” said Cooper. “I was trying to remove its ribs.” He licked his lips. “Can you imagine grilled dire pork ribs?”

  “That does sound good. Let me give it a try.” Stacy took a more surgical approach with her dagger, tracing a line around where she thought she should cut the hide. Actually cutting through proved a greater challenge. She sawed furiously with her dagger for at least five minutes, but didn’t get more than six inches before giving up. “Okay, this isn’t happening. Cooper, just chop a hind leg off. We’ll throw it onto the fire and see what happens.”

  Spreading the boar’s hind legs apart for Cooper to get a better chopping angle, they discovered the beast was male. At least it was until a few of Cooper’s less careful chops. The bone proved a real bitch to get through, and Cooper had to use up his remaining Barbarian Rage for the day in order to hack through it. Even then it took quite a few whacks, not all of which were delivered with pinpoint accuracy. By the time he finally succeeded in separating the leg from the body, the boar’s genital area was such a minced and mangled mess that future discoverers of the body would no doubt suspect its killer’s motivations as having been deeply personal.

  Cooking provided its own set of challenges. There wasn’t time to build a spit and slow roast the beast, so they simply hefted the big leg onto the fire. The smell of scorched boar hair was nearly enough to sour Julian’s appetite, but it didn’t last too long.

  The meat didn’t cook evenly at all. The line between charred and raw leg muscle was a thin one, and the few edible bits they managed to tear away were so chewy that they were almost certainly spending more calories digesting than the meat was providing.

  “Okay, I’m done,” said Stacy, her voice heavy with exhaustion and defeat. She scooped up a big bundle of pine needles to use as a pillow, snuggled down against a giant root, covered herself in her Cloak of Elvenkind, and all but disappeared into the tree bark.

  Cooper stayed up a little while longer to throw more pine needles on the fire and watch them burn. Together, he and Julian threw the soot-blackened cone which had fallen on Julian’s head onto the fire. It once again produced a ton of white smoke, but still didn’t appear to be getting consumed.

  Cooper eventually drifted off to
sleep as well, lulled there either by the mesmerizing flickers of flame or smoke inhalation.

  Even Ravenus lay snoring in a soft bed of pine needles.

  Being the only elf in a party was lonely at night. Not being able to sleep, it was expected that Julian would keep watch over the others. His nightly meditation killed half the time, but those other four hours were brutally dull. He whiled away the hours preparing his spells and throwing more pine needles onto the fire. By the time dawn finally broke, he’d widened the fire safety perimeter by 150%.

  As the twinkles of stars faded, new twinkles took their places in the sky. Billions of dew drops hung in mid-air until they coalesced into larger drops which were apparently too heavy for the invisible force which kept them suspended. And when they finally did fall, they fell sideways, like they were traveling on invisible rail lines. It was a mystery well worth checking out.

  After taking a few minutes to find a tree which he judged most easy to climb, Julian got to climbing. He was about fifty feet off the ground when he came to the first line of strangely suspended dew drops. The line they hung from wasn’t invisible after all, but only very nearly so, much like spider silk.

  Taking into account how many such threads lined the forest canopy, this place could be crawling with giant spiders at any minute.

  Julian ran a finger along the thread. It wasn’t sticky like a spider’s web should be to catch prey. And now that he thought about it, there wasn’t really any web-like formation of threads. All of them were running parallel.

  Feeling the thread to where it met the tree trunk, he felt a small bulge and a trail of line dangling down from it. He wound the dangling line around his finger and gave it a little tug. The entire line of dewdrops fell to the forest floor.

  Oops.

  These nigh-invisible threads were all tied to the trees. Who would go to that kind of effort? And for what purpose? Definitely something to discuss with Cooper and Stacy. It was probably a good time to wake them up anyway. Not knowing how much ground they had to cover, it was best to get as early a start as possible.

  Julian climbed down the tree and discovered that Cooper and Stacy were already awake, and that they weren’t alone. Five centaurs stared sternly down at them. They were impressive specimens, their human-like and horse-like halves both lean and muscular. Three males and two females, made evident enough by their lack of clothes or armor. Each of them held spears twice as tall as themselves. Julian could imagine any one of them being able to charge down a dire boar at full gallop and skewer it through the heart with no effort at all.

  Stacy was likely having similar thoughts as she stared blankly back at the visitors. Cooper also stared blankly, but Julian strongly suspected his thoughts were completely composed of centaur tits.

  The last thing Julian wanted was to surprise or alarm these... people. If they thought he was trying to sneak up on them, it might instigate retaliatory action before he was able to use his Diplomacy skill. Staying on his low branch, he addressed the centaurs.

  “Good morning!” he said loudly and clearly. All five centaurs looked at him in unison, their expressions no less stern.

  The largest of the male centaurs stepped forward and pointed his spear at Julian. “You there. Come down from the tree.” He was at least half a foot taller than any of the others, and his broad shoulders and chest made him look like one of those people who actually look forward to going to the gym.

  Julian climbed the rest of the way down as non-threateningly as he could. When he reached the ground, he spread his arms wide and gave them a friendly smile. “How may we assist you gentlemen?” His lips twitched as he felt a sudden jolt of panic. Ravenus had just woken up and taken in the scene.

  “State your purpose for being in the Great Wood,” demanded the spokesman of the centaurs.

  So captivated was he by centaur breasts, Cooper had no reaction to the term Great Wood.

  “We were merely passing through, sir,” said Julian, “in search of the...” What was the name? “Desert of Fertility?”

  Stacy cleared her throat. “The Fertile Desert.”

  “Oh, right,” said Julian. “That’s the one.”

  The lead centaur exchanged glances with his companions, then looked back at Julian. “The Fertile Desert is half a day's walk west of here.”

  Now they were getting somewhere. Stacy nodded encouragingly at Julian.

  Julian bowed. “Thank you, kind sirs. We are grateful for the information.”

  “We are on our way to the Fertile Desert ourselves,” said the lead centaur. “We can gallop there in a quarter of the time it would take you to walk. May we offer you a ride?”

  Julian seemed to recall hearing or reading somewhere that centaurs almost never allowed people to ride them, and were extremely offended at being treated in any way like a horse. He must have had a hell of a Diplomacy roll. He looked to Stacy and Cooper for their reactions.

  Stacy was nodding enthusiastically with a wide-eyed expression that screamed, How many opportunities does one get to ride a centaur?

  Cooper was still gawking at the female centaurs’ boobs.

  Julian turned to the centaurs. “We gratefully accept your offer.”

  All five centaurs formed a circle, facing each other, and pounded their front right hooves on the ground. Four of them repeated the process again. Then three, then two. Julian wasn’t sure exactly what they were doing, but going on their reactions, he suspected it was some centaur version of Rock-Paper-Scissors.

  A female centaur, one of the two who had competed in the final match, brushed back her light green hair and smiled at Julian. “I’ll take the elf.” She lowered herself until her horse-belly touched the ground. “Climb on and take hold of my breasts.”

  Julian climbed onto her back as he was ordered, but hesitated before following the rest of her ‘instructions. Where was he supposed to put his hands? Palms over nipples? Underboob? He awkwardly attempted a few different holds and felt her heart beating faster in her chest. This was not the reaction he’d been going for, and wasn’t helping his efforts to control his own body’s reactions at all.

  Ravenus landed on his shoulder. “I don’t know what’s come over me, Master Julian. I suddenly feel lightheaded and tingly around the clo–”

  “You’re fine. Shut up.”

  The lead centaur knelt before Stacy. “You may ride upon my back.”

  “Don’t mind if I do,” said Stacy, smiling at Julian.

  “Take hold of me wherever it please you. But hold tight, for the ride may be rough.”

  “Thank you. I’ll feel around for the most comfortable grip.”

  As Stacy groped him from his bulging chest down to his rock-hard abs, the centaur stood up. His massive horse dong was nearly touching the ground, and he seemed not the least bit ashamed of it.

  “I think you’re a fine fellow indeed,” said Ravenus.

  “Thank you.” Julian wasn’t sure what his familiar’s motivations were for complimenting him out of the blue like that, but he welcomed the distraction.

  “Don’

  t burden yourself with these feelings of jealousy and crippling inadequacy.”

  “SHUT UP, RAVENUS!” Everyone’s gaze turned to Julian. Everyone except the centaur he was riding, who moaned as his grip on her breasts inadvertently tightened, and Cooper, whose attention was still shifting between the other female centaur’s breasts and the leader’s giant horse dick. Julian composed himself and loosened his grip. “I mean, why don’t you go scout ahead?”

  The riderless female centaur kept her head turned at an awkward angle to avoid meeeting Cooper’s hopeful gaze. “I’ll stay behind and put the fire out.”

  “I’’ll help!” said the loser of the second match of the centaur game.

  Cooper and the remaining centaur hung their heads low. Neither of them spoke as Cooper climbed onto the centaur’s back and awkwardly gripped him by the shoulders.

  Cooper’s mount glared at his snickering friends. “
Let’s get this over with.”

  Chapter 26

  By the light of Stavros’s torch, Katherine led the way down the hall until it stopped at a T intersection. She thought she remembered having come this way before, and that there should be some doors to the right. After a few minutes of walking in silence, aside from the sound of Bingam’s whimpering, she found one.

  As delicately as she could, Katherine tested the handle. “It’s locked,” she whispered.

  “Excellent,” Captain Righteous whispered back. “That means it’s occupied by someone who won’t be ready for visitors. Stand aside.”

  Katherine stepped to the side, unsure of the captain’s logic, but satisfied that he was at least trying to help.

  Captain Righteous pressed his fingers on various parts of the door for a few moments while Katherine and Bingam kept looking left and right for signs of any wandering Drow.

  “Dead center it is,” said the captain. He took a step back, then slammed the sole of his boot into the center of the door, which seemed to offer almost no resistance as it swung wide open. “They should have hired dwarves.”

  He and Katherine stormed into the room, and Bingam followed and closed the door behind him.

  A handsome naked Drow sat bolt upright in a large bed. His junk was covered by a silk sheet, but he was pitching a pretty good tent. His face showed a mixture of terror and confusion, and his gaze darted toward a sword sheathed in a belt on a nearby chair.

  Captain Righteous’s face, meanwhile, showed an expression of ‘Just give me an excuse.’

  “Alessandro?” called a female voice from behind a closed door in the interior of the room. The door opened, revealing a female Drow in an open satin robe. “Are you talking to –” Upon seeing the intruders, she pulled the sides of her robe together.

  Katherine glared at the elf on the bed. “You’re Alessandro?”

  The elf nodded. “I am.”

  “And who the fuck is that whore?” asked Katherine, pointing at the woman in the robe.