Threadbare Volume 2

by Andrew Seiple

  ...oh. Oh right. Repeated peaceful contact with undead. First the vampires, and now Zuula’s ghost. And she’d auto-yes’d the job prompt when it came up. That must have been what happened.

  Well, at least she’d gotten some good mental stats out of it, but Threadbare realized he’d have to be careful with what he dragged her into. She was literally very impressionable. If she wasn’t careful she’d end up like he had, with all her options filled before she could speak or have much of a choice in the matter.

  “You have to be careful, okay?” He told her, giving her paw a squeeze. She nodded at him, and honked her horn a few times.

  “Does that mean you understand?”

  HONKITY HONK HONK

  He supposed that was the best he could hope for. At least until he taught her how to write. Or figured out a way to do the stuff necessary to give her a voice without scaring her. So many things to do, so little time!

  It took about an hour to get back to where he’d left the scent trail last night. Firing up his sniffer, he managed to locate it again.

  PER +1

  Your Scents and Sensibility skill is now level 18!

  He followed the trail past the town, back up into the hills, and the well-worn ruts picked their way up a stony path. Ramshackle remnants of wooden towers and metal tracks interrupted the trail every now and then, overlooking a large pit with steps leading down into it.

  But up above the pit, at the base of the tallest mountain in the area, a mine shaft gaped open. Four times the size of the one that the raccants had occupied, it was lit from within by an eerie, glowing green light. It also had two bonikitties out front, staring solemnly ahead. One Assess Corpse and a skill up later, and he found that they were level ten skeletons.

  Well. This was troublesome. He approached, cautiously, gesturing for Missus Fluffbear to stay behind Beanarella.

  He needn’t have bothered. As soon as he got within a few hundred feet of the mine, a blue glow interrupted the green, and a familiar voice called out. “Oh, hello there, you precious little thing! Oh look at your tiny hat, it’s so fitting!”

  Your Work it Baby skill is now level 9!

  You are now a level 4 Model!

  AGL+3

  CHA+3

  PER+3

  Checking Dietary Restrictions timer....

  Your Dietary Restrictions skill is now level 20! Buff adjusted accordingly

  He waved. That was the nice lady ghost he’d met in the Catacombs, back in the Catamountain. That had been a good tea party, he remembered.

  “Oh come in, come in out of the sun! It’s so hard to see you with these old eyes. Do come closer, my dear.” The bonikitties stepped to either side of the mine entrance, and waved their skeletal paws.

  Well, that was a good sign. And Pulsivar’s trail did go straight to that mine. Threadbare checked the party screen, found the cat in good health, and wandered in, with Fluffbear and Beanarella tromping behind him.

  “And you’ve brought some little friends!” The cat lady was much as he remembered her. See-through, still clad in her spectral crooked top hat and gingham dress. She also had two very large creatures to either side, cats so big they dwarfed even Pulsivar, with dead flesh drawn tightly over bones, and blue glowing light where their eyes should be. Assess Undead turned up the truth of her, and her minions.

  TOCKSY P. LASMOSIS – LEVEL ???? SPECTROMANCER

  The big cats were both level ???? Wight Tigers.

  “So what brings you to my neck of the woods, hmmmm?” She said, bustling about a small living space set up in the opening of the mine, opening cupboards that looked like she’d salvaged them from burned and fallen houses, and taking out broken crockery, laying it on a table that had definitely seen better days.

  From further in the mine, Threadbare could hear the wailing of cats, big and small. He started that way, but stopped when the tigers moved in unison and blocked his path.

  “I’m looking for Pulsivar,” he said. “The vampires said you had him. He’s a big black bobcat.”

  “Oh! You mean Spookums!” The cat lady smiled, and turned to him. Her eyes were wild, now, and Threadbare got the distinct feeling he had to tread carefully. “He’s having ever so much fun here, entertaining the ladies. Well, the ones I haven’t had to wake up to their full potential yet, anyway. Like I woke Rajah and Regal, here.” She stroked one of the Wight Tigers, spectral hand sinking into its head. It purred, arching its neck, and its breath smelled of dried meat that had spoiled.

  “Okay, but can he come back when he’s done?” Threadbare asked. “I really need his help. He’s my friend.”

  “Mmm. Why don’t we have tea and discuss that,” the old woman smiled.

  Threadbare nodded.

  Beanarella was easily guided through mental commands, but he had to show Fluffbear how to sit. The old woman chuckled fondly, finding both toys thoroughly adorable. They had a good tea party, even if Fluffbear did keep dropping her cup.

  CHA +1

  Your Adorable skill is now level 19!

  At the end of it, she sighed. “The vampires have told you all sorts of nasty things about me, I imagine. Really, I’m not so bad. I just want the Catamountain back, that’s all. But those nasty vampires, and their impudent little girl want the same thing! And neither of us can start a dungeon with the other still here. It’d be far too easy to raid into it, and catch me alone in the Core Chamber, with all our friends locked away into the variable slots.”

  “What’s a variable slot?”

  “I don’t know, that’s what Nekochan called them. Weird little girl, but just so cute! She killed me, when I tried to raid her dungeon, but I didn’t hold a grudge. After all, it became my home! It was... it was my proper place.” The cat lady stared over her teacup. “Have you ever had a proper place, little bear? A place where everything was all right with the world?”

  Threadbare remembered Celia’s arms, and the hours of play, and how the little girl laughed when he danced for her, and how she liked it when he hugged her. “Yes,” he said, and the sorrow came over him again. “And I’ll get back there again, some day. No matter what. But for that I need my friends. I need Pulsivar,” he rallied, remembering his mission. “Please can I have him back?”

  She sighed. “Right now? No. I need his help. He’s just too strong, he’d be a vampire killing machine, properly supported. But...” She scratched her chin. “I’ll make you a deal. If you can bring me a dungeon core, or wipe out the vampires, I’ll see about getting him away from my girls.” She smiled, as she brought the teacup up to her face, considering him with gleaming eyes. “Assuming he wants to go, of course. If it turns out he... has an awakening... and wants to stay here, well, you might just have to leave him in his proper place, hmmm?”

  Her tone was different, Threadbare noted. A bit more smug. Awakening... she’d put emphasis on that word, and she said she’d awakened the wight tigers, and they were undead now.

  PER +1

  Was this lying? He thought it over, and the very wise little bear decided that it might be bad to ask her that.

  He needed to talk to Zuula, though. He was swimming in dark depths and didn’t have a clear way ahead. “Thank you. I’ll see what I can do. They are not nice vampires.”

  “So glad we’ve come to an agreement!” The woman beamed. “And now I’m afraid you must be going. My ghouls will be coming back from... scavenging the village... shortly. They might react poorly if they find you here.”

  “Okay,” Threadbare jumped down, and tugged at Missus Fluffbear until she followed. “No, you can’t keep the cup. It’s hers.”

  That took a little explaining, and a few angry honks, but he finally got the point across. The little bear headed off back down the trail, just managing to clear it before a shambling group of rotting forms started up the hillside path. These were humanoid, but he didn’t stick around to look.

  Your Stealth skill is now level 10!

  “Zuula! Zuula!” He yelled, running back towards th
e hut as soon as he got into the clearing. “Oh, right. Speak With Dead. Zuula! Zuula! She’s going to kill Pulsivar and turn him into an undead—”

  He stopped.

  The clearing in front of the charred hut ruin was filled with skeletons, every one of them wielding a club. Behind them, Zuula stood, arms folded.

  “Um... is everything all right?”

  “Been t’inking about ways to train up you necromancy, little Dreadbear. But t’inking hard work. Orc already know how to get strong. You want to be more than little level two bone diddler?”

  “I don’t even know what that last word means.”

  “Just say yes.”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. We train de orky way! Use necromancy and fight!”

  And as one, the skeletons advanced on him, raising their clubs.

  ******

  Five hours, six necromancer levels, and three new skills later, his training was interrupted by new words scrolling across his vision.

  By slaying over a hundred undead creatures, you have unlocked the cleric job!

  You cannot become a cleric at this time!

  Cleric? Beryl had been a cleric, he remembered. But he was too busy to think on it, as he shouted out commands to his controlled undead, while running away from the still active skeletons. In the back, Zuula yawned and reanimated one of the ones he’d knocked to bits earlier, and sent it back into the fray.

  Then a brilliant light flared. Zuula stopped. Threadbare stopped. The skeletons froze.

  And every eye, spectral eye, or hollow eyesocket in the clearing turned to look at the hovering form of Missus Fluffbear, as she lifted off the ground, turning slowly in a column of light.

  Missus Fluffbear, who had cracked the secret of “yes” to make the prompts disappear. And whom Threadbare realized, calling up the party screen, was now a level one Cleric.

  “Speak with Dead,” Threadbare muttered. “Wait, give us a minute here Zuula. Please, I... I don’t know what’s happening.”

  “Puny gods be touching her, is what,” Zuula said, waving a hand as the skeletons slithered back underground, to their graves. “She be choosing now. Hope she chooses wisely. Hope you taught her well.”

  “I’ve barely taught her anything at all.”

  “You taught her enough for now,” a voice that wasn’t his whispered in his ear. It was like a Scout’s Wind’s Whisper, but so much louder, and the voice that spoke it shook him in every part of his stuffing, as it spoke. “You taught her enough. But soon you can teach each other. Go with my grace.”

  Then the light shuddered and disappeared, and Fluffbear floated to the ground. She stared around wildly, and ran up to him.

  “What is it? Did you hear the voice too?”

  She nodded frantically, and pawed at his mouth. Then pawed at hers.

  “Do you want me to stop talking?”

  No, no, no, went her head, and HONK HONK HONKILY HONK HONKS went her horn.

  Light dawned. “You want a mouth so you can talk!”

  Yes, yes, yes went her head.

  “Okay, but it’s going to take a little while. I’m going to have to cut part of you open to do this, are you okay with that?”

  She was. And she sat still bravely, as he took his scissors and made the cuts, then fiddled around with his tailoring materials until he could get everything just right. Then he sewed her up again, and stepped back. “Give it a try.”

  “Op. Akka. Pom. Bukkle.”

  “Try saying what I say.”

  “I aying at I ay.”

  “No, use your lips. Oh, hang on.”

  “Pie Aying Pot I Pay.”

  “Right, your tongue is different because you’re so small. Let me adjust that...” A few snips and some new structures later, and she was mimicking his words pretty well.

  “What happened? When you became a cleric?” He asked, once she had a pretty good grasp of talking.

  “There was a light. A lot of big things looking at me. Then a man came forward and said he would help me. He had a big hammer like my old friend Scoops used to. His name was Yorgum, and he said he was the god of builders.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  “He said to pester you until you made me a mouth. He said the monsters have to leave this town so it can grow again someday. And that we’re really special because there’s so very few like us, at least right now. And that he couldn’t tell us too much because of rules, but we should ask the nice lady about some of the weird stuff you found. And to go smite all of their asses. What’s an ass?”

  “I think it’s the part you sit on.” Threadbare concentrated. The rest of it didn’t make much sense. “Weird stuff? I don’t have too much of— oh, wait a minute.” He turned back to Zuula, and rummaged in his pack, pulling out the red crystal with flickering numbers. “You’re a nice lady. Do you know what this is?”

  Zuula’s ghostly eyes grew wide. “Dat be a dungeon core! How you get dat, little bear?”

  “This is what they both want?” He asked, confused. “How do you even make dungeons with this? There’s no help prompt.”

  “Wait,” Zuula said, her eyes getting even wider. “Dey both want a dungeon core? Who dey?”

  “The Cat Lady and the Vampires.”

  Zuula stood there, thinking for a bit.

  And then she shook her head. “No, no. Wouldn’t work. Zuula be bound here. Got no way to come along with. If she could come with you, would work. But she can’t, so... no. Pity. Was awesome idea, too. Big violence, many asses smote.”

  “I want to do that!” Missus Fluffbear spoke up. “The nice god told me to!”

  “Wait. You’re stuck here?” Threadbare asked.

  “Yes. Bound to hut. No way to go, no vessel to carry her.”

  “Hmm... Status.” Yes, yes that worked the way he thought it did. “I may have a way around that. Soulstone.”

  Your Soulstone skill is now level 2!

  A black crystal materialized in his paw. About the size of a small apple, it seemed to draw in the light around it.

  “Oh...” Zuula said, approaching it. “Wimpy. Can feel it tugging, but so weak, so weak. Still, if she don’t resist...” She touched it, and her form blurred, oozed into the stone, and was gone. A fleck of green light flickered, deep in the crystal.

  There was a pause.

  “Level fucking one?” Zuula’s voice shrieked, bouncing around inside the stone. “No. Huh-uh.” She shook, and the soulstone shattered as she burst out of it. “Not gonna ride in such a puny vessel. Total refuse. Professional orc pride on line.” The spirit folded her arms and pouted, which looked weird on her tusked face.

  “Maybe it’s that low because my skill with it is so low,” Threadbare mused. “Or because I’m only a level seven Necromancer.”

  “Well! Zuula know cure for dat!” She grinned, and up came the skeletons again.

  They trained well into the night, but soon hit diminishing returns. Fluffbear got some good cleric levels, but Threadbare only got two necromancer level-ups, which didn’t seem to affect the Soulstone quality. So he switched to casting Soulstone over and over again, skilling up as far as he could given his sanity limitations. In frustration he appraised it using his neglected Enchanter skill... and leveling that job up as well.

  You are now a level 2 Enchanter!

  DEX +3

  INT +3

  WILL +3

  That was nice, but the appraise turned up bad news for Zuula. “Well, my skill’s at twenty-four now. So your effective level in the soulstone is going to be a three. I think it’s one level for every ten or fraction of ten,” Threadbare said, showing her the crystal. He knew what fractions were now, he realized. And a lot more math besides. Such were the benefits of sudden intelligence boosts, he supposed.

  Zuula wasn’t any happier with level three than she was with level one. “What! No. No, a t’ousand times no!”

  It took a lot of pleading, every bit of charisma he had, and finally pointing out that her son was on the line
to get her to relent. Finally, begrudgingly, she oozed into the crystal. Threadbare blinked, as new information came up on his appraisal. “It’s a level one crystal now.”

  “Which mean what?”

  “I could use it to make a toy golem. Or do enchanting stuff with. Maybe.”

  There was a long pause. “Maybe don’t try dat while Zuula in it.”

  “Yeah, I don’t know what that would do.”

  “I could ask Yorgum,” Fluffbear offered.

  “Bah, what do gods know of it? No, listen, Zuula got more important stuff on how to kick all undead asses. Zuula got great idea. Now she go with you, and we make sure both sides lose, and we get you friends back. Interested?”

  “Of course I am,” Threadbare said.

  “So you got de dungeon core, right? And dey both want it, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “So let us give it to dem. At de same time...”

  CHAPTER 5: THE BEAR, THE VAMP, AND THE CATLADY

  The vampires of Taylor’s Delve had learned long ago, and at great cost, that they couldn’t spread out and sleep through the day with individual coffins. The Cat Queen hunted them by day, and her minions had good enough senses of smell that they could find the graves. And once the necormancer had found a reliable source of bodies to make ghouls from, it was easy for the enemy to dig them up, and dump the shrieking vampires out into the sunlight to sizzle. Madeline had lost too many spawn that way, before the Angst caught on. (An Angst is the proper word for a group of vampires. Crows have murders, wolves have packs, vampires have angsts.)

  So now they spent days under the tavern, in the tunnel network they’d hollowed out with time, patience, and strong undead hands. It had multiple escape routes, and it was big enough that they could team up against any ghouls who managed to dig their way into the tunnels, and dispose of them. One on one, the Cat Queen’s minions were no match for the vampires. But it was never a one on one scenario, which was why they were down to Mads and her three spawn.

  Well, four, but that last one wasn’t much use. Still, she’d taken the trouble to drag him downstairs, lashed to his bed, as usual. Thank Nebs for small favors that the original owner of this building believed in wide staircases.