Shocked, Threadbare stumbled back, and the boss burst out of the pillar, reaching out to grab and claw at the interloper—
—and got promptly jumped by Pulsivar.
He went down a lot easier this time. A lot easier. And his corpse didn’t disappear.
A soft chime echoed everywhere and nowhere, and words, green words writ large across the... sky? They were made of numbers, all zeroes and ones, and Threadbare shook to see them. They felt... wrong. Strange. If he’d known the word, he would have called them unholy.
NO MASTER DETECTED IN DUNGEON 01010010 01000001 01000011 01000011 01001111 01001111 01001110 01010010 01010101 01001101 01010000 01010101 01010011
PLEASE ASSIGN NEW MOB TO COMMAND VARIABLE TO CONTINUE OPERATION.
Threadbare stared at the words. They made no sense.
He went back and tried to pull Missus Fluffbear out again... and again, his paws got zapped. No, no, that would do something bad. He didn’t know what, but it would be bad, his advanced wisdom told him.
What could he do?
The bleak landscape shuddered. For a second, there were stone walls all around, an old mine cart off to one side, and then it was the black and green weirdscape again. Pulsivar howled in fear, and ran to the bear, nudging him with his face. It was time to go, Pulsivar insisted, in cat.
But there was nowhere to go.
Was there?
The words above shifted. ERROR! NO MASTER DETECTED. DUNGEON SEALING IN 30.
Then the 30 changed to 29. Then to a 28.
Threadbare hugged Pulsivar, and held on tight. Was this the end?
It wasn’t.
When the numbers reached zero, the world changed.
It was a dark mineshaft, dingy, just one central cavern with a few small tunnels off of it. Threadbare looked around, his new darkvision drinking everything in perfect detail, as scents once again filled his nose. Raccant, mostly, but under it all, the welcome odor of sandalwood.
He ignored the chittering raccant bard and the other midboss as the two of them fled, ignored the minion raccants who followed them out at top speed, with Pulsivar in hot pursuit. He ignored the various bits of loot littering the ground, and even ignored his Scepter, lying there, golden in the darkness.
No, Threadbare ignored them all as he walked up to the tiny bear, half his size. She stood trembling, dazed and looking around in the darkness. And Threadbare hugged her. She stiffened, but then golden light flared from his innocent embrace—
You have healed Missus Fluffbear for 100 points!
Your Innocent Embrace skill is now level 11!
And a smaller golden light flared, as she hugged him back.
Missus Fluffbear has healed you for 10 points!
And while there was a lot to sort out, for now, he knew that all was well with the world. The loot could wait. He’d been too long in here already, here and wherever that... other place had been.
Scooping Missus Fluffbear up, he carried her out of the shallow mineshaft, and back into the daylight.
CHAPTER 3: A PAW FULL OF UNDEAD
The last spadeful of dirt went over the raccant corpses, and Threadbare watched as Missus Fluffbear solemnly tamped it down with her jury-rigged spade. She’d gotten quite good at digging, if he was any judge of the matter.
He still didn’t know why she’d buried the raccants that Threadbare had killed in their fortified camp, or why she shrunk back and trembled whenever Pulsivar was around. For some reason she feared the big cat.
Well, to be fair, he was pretty scary if you didn’t know him. Or if you were something small and edible. Or if he wanted to play with you and got rough. Or when he loomed out of the night, with only yellow eyes visible and glaring.
But Pulsivar had accepted her well enough after Threadbare cleaned and pressed her, and anointed her with the last of his soap powder from their old home. The scent had a calming effect on Pulsivar. So eventually she stopped trying to hide from him and got on with the raccant burial.
It was hard to tell, but he thought she looked sad. Had the raccants treated her well? She’d gotten that broken spade from somewhere, and the tiny knots in the twine that bound the fork to the remnants of the handle were small enough to be of raccant doing.
Perhaps it was best she didn’t know that he and Pulsivar had killed this bunch out front. Yes, that seemed wise. Threadbare was glad his wisdom was getting up to large numbers quickly, life would have been difficult or short without it.
Letting his new companion finish her job, Threadbare checked the party screen again, Missus Fluffbear was a level five toy golem, and a level two bear, and also a tailor and a miner. She’d figured out the secret of “yes,” then. He’d guessed that, from how she’d accepted his party invite instantly.
Which meant that she could probably use some equipment. Threadbare looked back to the loot that he’d gotten from the cave. He’d spent some time using his enchanter skill, the one called “Appraise,” leveling it up to five and investigating each object that wasn’t total trash.
Most of it was junk.
But the things that weren't, were welcome sights. His scepter went into his pants pocket, fitting in despite its size thanks to the miracle of hammerspace. He was glad to have that back.
The Ringtail Master’s corpse had yielded a coat and that cone thing he was shouting from, which was evidently called a “Minorphone.” he also had a whip that Threadbare didn’t know how to use, that did small amounts of moxie damage to big cats with every strike. The little bear only knew one big cat and he liked him, so Threadbare pushed the whip to the side, with the rest of the pile he was making. He added the rubber and brass clown horn to that pile as well, then he came to the last item, which was the Ringtail Master’s coat. It was red with mismatched bright buttons up the front, and had two triangular tails on its backside. It was heavier than it looked, and it had a ton of pockets, and Threadbare fell in love with it on sight. He pulled it on, and felt the usual mental readjustment as his attributes shifted.
The Minorphone got tied with string, to hang over his back. It was kind of bulky compared to his size, but it let him activate its magic to amplify his voice twice a day, which had the side effect of enhancing his voice-related skills. Since he was soft-spoken, it was bound to be useful.
That left the whip and the clown horn, and a few of Celia’s knives. He took one dagger for himself, then set the rest aside for Missus Fluffbear.
Four things left, then. The first was another couple of doses of that glittery dust, red this time, and also some vials to keep it in. Threadbare knew this reagent stuff was the component for another of his enchanter abilities, as was the second item, a level one red crystal. According to his appraise, it could be used to enchant permanent magic items, but he had no idea how.
The third item was Cecelia’s old doll, Beanarella. She was very torn, very chewed, and dirty, so he hastily mended her and cleaned and pressed her back to her original condition. If nothing else she could be an animi, even if she was about his size and rather bulky. Maybe he could jury rig a harness, or a back-pack like Celia had?
The fourth item was a red octahedron the size of one of his paws, cool to the touch, and glowing with flickering green numbers. It looked very much like a miniature version of the the red crystal, that had been in the strange place with the green pillars and the blackness all around. He’d thought it a crystal for enchantment at first, but... the appraise hadn’t worked right. All it had turned up was the name of the item.
64756e67656f6e207365656420636c617373206f6e65
Threadbare tucked it away, for later research.
With the item sorting done, he looked at Missus Fluffbear, who looked back, smiling because she had no choice. She couldn’t talk, and her mouth was stuck in a little yarn grin. He could fix that, given time, but... his common sense told him that coming at her throat with scissors wouldn’t go too well.
And with Eye for Detail confirming her mediocre intelligence, he knew that explaining a lot of things to her was goi
ng to be tricky. She needed an education. A better one than he’d gotten.
Well. He could help with that. But first things first...
One quick tailoring job, using the scraps of leather and cloth retrieved from the junk, and he had a backpack. Another tailoring job, and a skill up this time, and he had a miniature version of his own apron, modified with a few extra straps sized for the whip and the horn.
“I have something for you,” Threadbare told Missus Fluffbear. She took it, turned it over, examining it from every angle. Then she tried to tie it around herself, and he winced as her paws dropped it over and over again.
He resisted the urge to help. This is how she could get better at dexterity, by trying over and over again.
Finally she managed, and he showed her how to tuck the coiled-up whip in its pocket, the dagger in its sheath, and the horn through the buckled loop meant to carry it. The horn itself was almost as big as she was, so it dragged on the ground when she walked.
“Here, it does this.” Threadbare pressed his paws against the bulb of the horn, and squeezed.
HONK
She took it almost reverently.
“So if you have to make noise—”
HONK HONK
“Not all the time, please—”
HONK HONK HONK HONKITTY HONK HONKLY HONKS
Threadbare was starting to see a flaw in his plan.
Pulsivar, unnoticed at the edge of the clearing, flattened his ears and slunk off into the woods.
Threadbare tried to get her to stop honking, and after a few minutes she did. She still seemed quite happy with the gifts overall though, pulling her dagger with one hand and her whip with the other, and waving them around in excitement.
He left her to that, and turned back to Beanarella. She really would eat up a lot of packspace if he carried her along, and he didn’t like that notion.
So why not do something about that? Have her walk under her own power? Not as an animi, but as something more permanent, and hopefully more powerful?
He put the doll down on the ground, got out a dose of yellow reagents and the red crystal, and whispered “Toy Golem.”
The little bear watched as his hands moved of their own accord, and a yellow bar appeared before his vision, hollow but filling up as his appendages worked. They sprinkled the glittering reagent in patterns over Beanarella, before putting the crystal right over her heart.
Your Toy Golem skill is now level 2!
He sagged, as about a third of his sanity went out of him. But he was successful, oh was he successful.
You have created an (average) Toy Golem Shell!
As first tries went, he thought it wasn’t so bad.
Well. One more step to go, then.
Laying his paws on Beanarella’s forehead, he stared into her painted eyes.
“Golem Animus.”
WILL +1
Your Golem Animus skill is now level 2!
She stirred under his hands, and Missus Fluffbear left off flopping the whip around and shanking weeds to come stare at the newly-risen doll, as it sat up. Beanarella’s thick neckless head twisted on its cloth body, looking around left and right, before fixing on her creator’s button eyes.
But there was nothing behind her painted eyes. No spark of life. She just sat there, looking up at him, and waiting.
Well, he had expected that. But still, there was a sense of disappointment. For a little while longer, at least, he and Fluffbear were the only ones of their own kind. That he knew of, anyway.
“Invite Golem,” he told Beanarella, and then she was in his party.
Your Invite Golem skill is now level 2!
You are now a level 2 Golemist!
INT+5
WILL+5
One Eye for Detail (and skill up) later, he checked out her stats. Her physical stats were... average. Better than he’d had starting out, he thought, and he didn’t know why that was so. She had solid thirties in all her physical stats plus perception and luck, and a decent armor and great endurance.
But on the other hand, she had nothing mentally. No moxie, no cool, no mental fortitude, no sanity. And her fate was N/A. He didn’t know what that meant. She did have the adorable, innocent embrace, and bodyguard skills, along with magic resistance and golem body, so that was good. And a little confusing.
“Why are you like this?” Threadbare asked her in his tiny voice, and she didn’t answer.
Missus Fluffbear, sensing his confusion, tried to cheer him up.
HONK HONK HONK HONK HONK—
She was interrupted, as a piercing scream shook the heavens. And before any of the little toys could react, a screaming eagle drawn by both the shriek of the horn and Fluffbear’s abysmal luck plummeted from the heavens and snatched her up, just like that!
“No!” Threadbare shouted, running after it as it flew away. “Stop! Stop!” To lose her, just like that, after everything they’d gone through was an unbearable thought!
But the eagle flew on, its prey in its claws. Threadbare had nothing, no skills or spells that would work at range. Nothing that would help him at a distance.
So he ran after the bird, despairing as it flew high... then despairing more, as a small black speck dropped away from it, straight toward a rocky slope.
“Guard Stance!” he snapped, doing everything he could to maximize his ground speed and skilling up at the same time. Then gritting his teeth and pushing his agility to the limits, Threadbare ran!
He burst out of the treeline in time to see Missus Fluffbear on her feet, trying to snap the whip at the plummeting form of the screaming eagle. With a wince, he saw the whip rebound on her and flick one of her button eyes clean off, as a red ’10’ floated out of the poor toy. “Mend! Mend!” he yelled, restoring some health to her.
The eagle, amazingly, failed to scoop her up. And as it passed overhead, Threadbare gave a mighty leap—
—and caught its lower talon, dropping guard stance to secure his grip, hanging on with both paws.
The Screaming Eagle was caught entirely by surprise. It was also no match for a teddy bear who had the strength of a muscular human at this point, much less one who had sharp, sharp claws. With a cry of despair it tumbled and crashed as he tore at its wings.
Somewhat battered but no worse for it the little bear stood up—
—just in time to catch Missus Fluffbear’s whip in his face as she hurried over to help.
He would have rolled his eyes if he could, as the sad little ‘0’ drifted up from him, but instead he settled for mauling the heck out of the Eagle. Fluffbear stabbed it repeatedly as well, and in short order it stopped moving.
Happily, she honked the horn again, and Threadbare put his hand on her shoulder, shook his head. She got the message and stopped.
“Let’s go back to camp.”
The gropevine wasn’t an entirely unexpected encounter, when it lashed out and caught Missus Fluffbear a few minutes later. Threadbare knew they were native to the area, so it made sense. The second screaming eagle was annoying when it came in, but they were in the trees so it couldn’t make a good grab in time to escape as Threadbare pounded it until it fled.
Beanarella caught up to the group at that point too, and she helped a bit with the kicking.
And then the Wizz-blizzards following in Beanarella’s wake caught up, too. Little solid clouds made of ice with mean eyes and pointy blue hats, they came in dropping force blasts and hovering around and generally being obnoxious. Missus Fluffbear seemed to recognize them, and took great joy in whipping and shanking them, aiming at them with long expertise. They seemed to focus mainly on her, though a few wayward shots hit Threadbare and mostly ricocheted. They fell or fled, as the toys fought them, and Threadbare went through a few more mendings. And also got some mileage out of a skill he hadn’t leveled in a while.
Your Magic Resistance skill is now level 5!
Your Magic Resistance skill is now level 6!
Then it was another gropevine, which Thread
bare was certain hadn’t been there when he ran through.
The third screaming eagle actually managed to get its claws around Fluffbear and haul her up—
—only to be pounced upon by Pulsivar, who dropped from a high tree and broke its back with his weight.
“This is getting ridiculous,” Threadbare said, as they finally got back to the little stockade. “And I think I know why. Eye for Detail.”
Your Eye for Detail skill is now level 7!
Her luck had actually gone up a point since the last time he checked it. But it was still pretty lousy, at twenty-six.
“Come on,” he patted Pulsivar, and took Missus Fluffbear’s paw. “I think I know someone who can help.” Beanarella fell in behind them as they walked, leaving the buried raccants to their rest.
As they went, Threadbare selected a few more skills to level along the way. Better now, than in the heat and stress of combat. Harden, Guard Stance, and Emboldening Speech seemed like good ones to practice. And so he cautiously crept through the woods with his paws up ready to block punches, enhancing Missus Fluffbear’s hide, and rambling on about duty, bravery, and the right to arm bears. He also kicked on Noblesse Oblige, which he’d been thoroughly forgetting about, and watched it slowly start leveling as his party benefited from the buff. His primary attribute seemed to be wisdom, and with luck as miserable as Fluffbear had, she could use every bit of common sense she could get.
It DID keep her horn honks to a minimum, for which he was thankful.
It had been a long time since he’d been this way, but he still knew the route. He led them through the woods, to a large boulder, and down a goat trail to a valley below the wooded slope. Eventually the trees grew more weathered and worn, and as the afternoon went on, he could see the first gray line of stones there in the dead trees.
The strange girl who lived around here had a card game, Threadbare knew, one that had helped him when his luck was pretty abysmal. Maybe she could help again?
A few more creatures approached as they found their way down into the swampy valley, but Pulsivar’s presence seemed to keep them at bay, and none of the screaming eagles that occasionally swooped by seemed inclined to attack. They all knew the Black Death, by sight or by smell, and there were better ways to die than by getting within leaping distance of the region’s apex predator.
Threadbare Volume 2 Page 6