Threadbare Volume 2

by Andrew Seiple

“What? She give you de talk, you work out fine!”

  “Normally yes, Mom, but right now you’re running on half-orc mental stats, mostly. You’re level one.”

  “So is you!”

  “Yes, but... oh geeze, just let me do it, okay? Please Mom? You can jump in at any time if I miss something or you want to add something.” Because I can’t stop you from doing that anyway, Garon added, mentally.

  “Hmf!” Zuula crossed her arms. “Fine. Make it good. And short. We got stuff to do.”

  “Okay, so nobody ever gave you the talk,” Garon said.

  “What talk?” Missus Fluffbear asked.

  “The talk of planning out your future. Finding your focus, figuring out how to make your jobs work for you, instead of you working for your jobs.”

  “I did work for my jobs,” Threadbare took off his top hat and rubbed his forehead. “That’s not making much sense.”

  “Okay, no, look—”

  Zuula jumped in. “You need to figure out which jobs you want, get dem, den work on you focus first. Everyt’ing else wait until you got enough to survive an’ get by. What you want to do, Dreadbear?”

  “Save Celia,” he replied, instantly.

  “From what?”

  “The King and his armies, probably. And Anise Layd’i.”

  “A nice lady?”

  “Yes, her too.”

  “Bah, whatever. Look, you no do dis by bumbling about and pulling up little level one tricks. You do dis by making youself walking badass who know his focus and sharpen things until they bleed you enemies just by looking at dem.”

  “I... don’t think I can actually do that.”

  “You don’t t’ink, but maybe in higher level job skill unlock you CAN! But you only get to higher level if you focus on leveling de good jobs and leaving de crap jobs for later. Like necromancer. Remember how Zuula make you grind necromancer?”

  “Well, yes, and I’m glad because I used a lot of command undeads, and the soulstones were good for—”

  “You keep grinding necromancer!”

  “Right. And you’re not just saying that because he might make us stronger if he figures something else out with it,” Garon said, shoving his mother off the tabletop with his tail.

  “Hey!”

  “Hay is for horses,” Garon snapped. “Okay, look. What have you got to stop people from killing you up close? Jobwise, I mean, what’s good at it?”

  “Well, Duelist and Bear seem to be working out so far.”

  “Good. Your Duelist job is what, three? That’s only two away from leveling that. It’s always useful to have a fighting job, so go for that.”

  “I don’t have a fighting job!” Missus Fluffbear, who had been listening raptly, spoke up. “I need something like that so I don’t almost get my head popped off again!”

  “Right, let’s talk about that after I’m done,” Garon said, watching his mother grimly climb the table leg, heading his way with the angriest of eyebrows. “So Necromancer’s a good one for you Threadbare, and Duelist, so that covers fighting and casting. What else do you want to focus on?”

  “Well, Golemist, so I can make you stronger. Beyond that, I don’t know. I haven’t really had time to give it much thought.”

  “Enchanter!” Zuula burst out, leaping on Garon and trying to bite his muzzle. Unsuccessfully, as her mouth wasn’t set up for biting and Garon just knocked her back with one paw. But she clung to his wing and swung around. “You need reagents to make de golems! Learn enchanter up, at some point you get disenchant! Dat makes de reagents.”

  “Okay,” Garon said, thumping Zuula on the table until she let go, “So Golemist, Necromancer, Duelist, Enchanter. That’s four, that’s half your jobs. Are there any you can safely neglect?”

  “Well...” Threadbare watched Garon and his mother fight. “Scout is at level five. It’s handy, but I don’t use it much. Ruler’s at level five, too. So I guess I can leave it. Animator’s nice, but Golems are more important right now. Oh! Model’s at four! I need to level it, and see what new skills I get!”

  “Wait.” Zuula froze, in the act of failing to put Garon in a leglock. “You got Ruler? Seriously?”

  “Model?” Madeline snorted. “Seriously?”

  “Scout?” Missus Fluffbear asked. “Seriously?” Then she spoiled it by giggling. “Sorry, everyone else was doing it.”

  “Oh yes. I got Ruler when I killed a big rat with a crown.”

  Garon facewinged. “Because of course you did.”

  “And I got Model when I made my own clothes in the dungeon that time. Though I didn’t really know what I was doing, I was just sewing cloth on to make carrying it easier.”

  “Yeah dat sound like you,” Zuula said, snorting. “Model. Bah. Weak.”

  “I’m getting plus forty to all my pools from one skill out of it.”

  THAT got their attention. “Wait. What.” Madeline said, hopping down from her chair to stare up at him.

  There was a fairly long stunned silence after he explained how the dietary restrictions skill worked. Madeline spent most of it laughing her ass off.

  “Yeah, definitely grind that, at least to five. Shoot, if you level it just by wearing clothes and doing buffs, go for it,” Garon said. “I never knew it had that much useful stuff.”

  “Still weak. Bad by itself...” Zuula said, and then she gained a point to her anemic intelligence. “But it not MEANT to be by itself, is it? Zuula have to rethink this. Muchly.” Then she shook her head. “Wait. Go back to Ruler?”

  “What about it? It gives an okay free buff, but only to people in my party, or my subjects. And I don’t have any subjects. Although...” He checked his status. “I suppose I can give buffs to people if they share the same quest. Oh, and people can swear fealty to me and become my subjects. Do you want to do that?”

  Another long silence.

  “It comes with a free buff that’s always on?” Madeline asked.

  And so, there in the basement, they knelt and swore fealty to King Threadbare the first of his name, ruler of the basement, at least until they were done and ready to leave the town.

  “Ought to be good for some experience. Now you go and put on fashion show,” Zuula said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “We got you sorted. Got to talk with Fluffbear about future. She get talk too. Meanwhile, you level Model by showing off new clothes, yes?”

  “Oh. Yes, that’s one way.”

  “So go upstairs, make new clothes, den come down here and let us see them. Do it enough, probably get you to level five.”

  “Okay.” Threadbare headed upstairs, stopped, then walked over to Madeline’s rack of half-charred clothing. “May I?”

  “Of course, yer majesty!” Madeline curtseyed deeply. “Anything for the king!”

  “Hilarious,” Garon tried to roll his eyes, but they were beads and the best he could manage was wiggling them a bit. “Naaahahahah, that’s a weird feeling.”

  Threadbare, with a bit of difficulty and some brute strength, finally lifted up the clothes rack and climbed upstairs, dragging it behind him. The cats winced and growled as it banged every step of the way.

  “So I know I want a fighting job,” Missus Fluffbear said. “The whip worked okay until the man got too close. So I want to use my dagger better. And the whip.”

  “All right, so Duelist is probably out,” Garon said. “Those guys focus and you want to use different weapons. Um... if you go through the fighting class, the other three jobs there are Berserker, Knight, and Archer.”

  “Bearserker?” Missus Fluffbear asked, bouncing up and down. “That sounds like it was made for me!”

  “Um.” The three doll haunters shared a glance, and a long headshake. “No. Trust me, that one’s a bad one. Especially for healers. Which, by the way, how are you using mend anyway? That’s not a cleric spell, I didn’t think.”

  “No, but it’s Yorgum’s godspell. Every god gets a spell to give to his clerics, that’s what he told me. And me
nd is his.”

  “Huh, that’s handy, not gonna lie. But the fact is you’re built to heal right now, and maybe use undead if you lean into necro, and definitely tamer if you use Mopsy here, and when you’re raging all you can do is beat things up. Which means no casting spells and probably no ordering undead or Mopsy unless you drop the rage. So I’d recommend no on that.”

  “Besides, you not have it in you to get unlock,” Zuula pointed out. “Have to kill in amger.”

  “Yeah, I ain’t seein’ you or tha big beah ever doin’ anything like thaht,” Madeline said. “Just don’t have it in yah.”

  “So archer’s next... but we don’t have a bow. Though you’re a carpenter, you could try to make one. Though a bow your size would have a piddly pull, so...”

  “What’s a bow?”

  He explained it. Missus Fluffbear shook her head. “It sounds really complicated.”

  “Right. So Archer’s probably out. Besides, you want something for up close, so—”

  Padded paws pounded on the stairs, and they whipped around to see Threadbare leap out, clad in a potato sack with holes in it for his arms and head, wearing one of Madeline’s scarves on his head.

  Your Adorable skill is now level 21!

  Your Work it Baby skill is now level 10!

  They watched him, as he solemnly flexed, and strutted with self-esteem. Then they howled with laughter. Threadbare beamed to see them so happy.

  “Ah. Uh. Ah...” Madeline said, “Yeah, tell me you leveled from that.”

  “No. Though my Work it Baby skill is boosting one of my items a little now.”

  “You have a skill called Work it... Baby...” Garon doubled over laughing again, for a time. “Oh wow. Uh, yeah. Goodbye Threadbare. Anyway...” He turned back to Fluffbear, as Threadbare trundled upstairs again. “I think you need to pick up Knight.”

  “Knight?”

  “Yeah. Mercenary’s another option but it’s fiddly and you have to know how to get the most out of it. Knight is pretty good defensively, and has a few tricks that dovetail nicely with cleric. My sister was training as a knight and cleric, trying for paladin, I think.”

  “Yes. She was,” Zuula said, shortly.

  “Oh hush, it made HER strong, didn’t it? We wouldn’t be here otherwise. So yeah, Knight’s a solid combo for you there.”

  “Best of all, we still got Darla’s ahmah and shield and speah,” Madeline pointed out. “So how do we get her the jahb unlock?”

  “Oh, you’ll love this,” Garon grinned and pointed over at the sleeping form of Mopsy. “All she has to do is win a fight while mounted.”

  Missus Fluffbear jumped up, hands to her face in horror. “I’m not killing Mopsy!”

  “What? No, no, you just need to—”

  “Forget it! I won’t be a knight! That’s horrible!”

  “No, listen, I—”

  “You need to ride Mopsy and kill something else while on her,” Zuula explained.

  The little black bear calmed down instantly. “Oh. Okay.” Fluffbear frowned. “What does ride mean?”

  Pad pad pad on the stairs, and... “Dazzling Entrance!” Threadbare yelled, and leaped into the basement. The baggy legs of his pants fluttered behind him as he jumped, empty and loose since he’d buckled the pants around his head. His apron was on like Zuula’s loincloth, and he was wearing an oversized pair of bunny slippers on his arms.

  Your Dazzling Entrance skill is now level 2!

  Your Work it Baby skill is now level 11!

  More laughter. “No, just no,” Madeline gasped as he flexed and strutted. “Go... just go back and try again. Please. And for tha love of Agnes, pants don’t go theah.”

  Threadbare hurried off. Meanwhile, Garon explained riding to Fluffbear. “Easy enough for Threadbare to make a saddle when he’s done with... this... Normally they’re leather, but you’re light enough heavy cloth would work.”

  “Okay! I’ll be a knight!”

  “Cool, now all we need to do is—”

  Slam! Pad pad pad pad pad...

  “Dazzling Entrance!”

  About a dozen more fashion shows later, Threadbare was almost out of moxie, when all of a sudden...

  You are now a level 5 Model!

  +3 AGL

  +3 CHA

  +3 PER

  You have unlocked the Call Outfit skill!

  Your Call Outfit skill is now level 1!

  You have unlocked the Makeup skill!

  Your Makeup skill is now level 1!

  You have unlocked the Strong Pose skill!

  Your Strong Pose is now level 1!

  Checking Dietary Restrictions....

  Your Dietary Restrictions Skill is now level 25!

  With a sigh of relief, Threadbare pulled off the black spiky wig, and shucked off the see-through teddy. “Here’s your whip back, thanks for the loan,” he said as he gave it back to Missus Fluffbear.

  “I can’t look,” Madeline whimpered, from under the table.

  Next to her, Garon’s tail poked out, lashing back and forth like Pulsivar’s. “Is he changed? Please tell me he’s changed.”

  “Hm? What?” Zuula put down the parchment she was using to take notes, as she studied Threadbare. “Oh yeah, he done.”

  “In more ways than one,” Threadbare said. “Status. Oh my. Yes, these will do nicely.”

  “Good. Please never weah my lingerie again,” Madeline pleaded.

  Garon stared at her.

  “What?”

  “You said that word without your accent.”

  “What? Lingerie? I’m a vampaiah. We get a pass on saying sexy words.”

  “You’re just making that up.”

  She chucked him under the chin. “You wanna put me to tha test, tall green and scaly?”

  “ANYWAY,” Zuula said. “Dreadbare, Missus Fluffbear here gonna be knight. So we gonna make her a saddle so she can ride Mopsy. Maybe you make one for Pulsivar, too, so you can ride as well?”

  “Oh, sure.” Threadbare hesitated, his regular coat halfway buttoned. “What’s a saddle?”

  A few minutes later, he nodded. “That’s a good idea. I had a real problem getting to where I needed to be in that battle where every undead died.”

  “Not all of dem,” Zuula chortled.

  “Shaddup.” Madeline poked her in the arm, and Zuula backhanded her off the table.

  “Hey!” A faint red ‘0’ worked its way up from where she’d fallen.

  Threadbare ignored it. “But if I’m riding Pulsivar, he can get me around faster. If he wants to. And I can show him where he needs to be. And he listens to me.” He rubbed his forehead. “Oh dear. Maybe this isn’t a good idea.”

  “He loves you,” Missus Fluffbear said, “And I can show you how to teach him. I think.”

  “Zuula can speak wit’ nature, and he nature,” Zuula pointed out. “We set him straight. Practice tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Yes. Enough dilly dally and fashion shows and stupid fucking grindluck. Zuula fed up wit’ level one! We gonna level tomorrow!”

  “Mom?” Garon surreptitiously dangled his tail off the table, letting Madeline grab it and swing back up. “Our luck’s still not great. A few more days of grindluck...” he made a face. “Yeah no, you’re right. what’s your idea?”

  “Zuula know a place that still be full of skeleton bits, and a necromancer to animate dem for us.” She pointed at Threadbare. “Tomorrow we go dere and he make dem fight us, and we practice as party!”

  “Why wait?” Threadbare asked.

  “Well, you need to refit Fluffbear’s armor and shield and spear... no, wait. You said you wanted to use the whip and dagger?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “That leaves a spear.”

  “Zuula take it.”

  “What? How come you get thaht?” Madeline shook a wooden finger.

  “You got teeth to bite with and a bitey job. Zuula got not’ing.”

  “Oh, so ya agreeing that vampaia
hs is bettah than orcs?”

  The basement fell silent, as the toys watched Zuula shake, wordless. Her eyebrows twisted until they tore, seams pop pop popping as they gave way.

  Madeline realized, too late, that she’d crossed a line. “Whoa, hey, I’m sahrry—”

  Zuula hopped down, grabbed the broken bottle she’d made a few days back, and chased the marionette around the room, howling incoherently.

  “Please, stop!” Missus Fluffbear called, and Threadbare stepped forward—

  —and stopped, as Garon raised a paw. “Let them work it out. Better this way.”

  A few hours later, after everyone had been mended, and Sparky’s fires were out (he’d taken the assault on his mistress a bit personally,) the teddy bears rode their groggy and disgruntled cats into the pre-dawn darkness, with the doll haunters and Sparky following after.

  “See? If she’d had twisted rage, one of you would be dead, right now,” Garon admonished.

  “I don’t know if this is going to work out,” Threadbare said.

  “What? Zuula apologize and give back eye. It only wood chip with paint anyway.”

  “No, I mean this riding thing.Pulsivar keeps going off to look at things,” Threadbare said from fifty feet away.

  Most of the party could see him fine in the darkness, and Fluffbear had Sparky to see by, so they watched as Pulsivar ambled back, ignored them, as he followed a scent trail from one side to the other.

  “Do you smell anything?” Fluffbear asked.

  Threadbare took a sniff. “Yes, but I don’t know what. Never smelled it before.”

  Zuula shook her head. “No matter. We almost dere.”

  They crossed the creek, keeping an eye out just in case.

  And right before the bonefield, they stopped, staring up the hill, with shadows flickering at the limits of Sparky’s light.

  “Tell me,” Threadbare said, staring at a round shape in the darkness, “Was there a boulder there before?”

  The boulder stood up.

  The boulder turned, gray rock revealed to be gray flesh as it turned around, eyes wide and moonlike in the darkness, club clenched in one hand. It considered the toys below it on the slope.

  And then it roared, and fetid air washed over them, and the doll haunters were very, very glad that they didn’t have noses.

  “Dreadbear! It be an Ogre! Quick, we gots to—”