by Robert Bevan
Critical Failures V
V is for Five
By Robert Bevan
Copyright 2017 Robert Bevan
Special Thanks to:
My editor, Joan Reginaldo.
My wife No Young Sook.
My cover designer, No Hyun Jun.
My ARC team.
My fans who like my Facebook page and subscribe to my newsletter.
(Even if the latter only do so to get a FREE copy of Multiple Orc Chasms)
Chapter 1
“Go fuck yourself,” said Tanner as he held up Tim’s silver scroll tube.
“Excuse me?” Tim gave up on his fruitless effort to scrub the hardened black grime off the steel serving tray. There was no way that shit had accumulated in one day. If it was good enough for the dishwasher before him, it was good enough for Tim. He dropped the tray into the rinse bin and accepted the scroll tube.
Tanner shrugged. “I apologize. The gnome would only surrender your character sheets on two conditions. The first was that I personally tell you to go fuck yourself upon delivery.”
“What was the second?” Tim began twisting the cap off his tube. “And why’s this thing so fucking heavy?”
The latter question was answered when a clumpy brown liquid flowed out of the tube into the rinse bin. The smell was like releasing a genie who’d been farting in a lamp for a thousand years.
“Jesus Christ!” Tim dropped the tube. The relatively clean water of the rinse bin grew murky and brown. He looked up at Tanner. “What the fuck, man?”
“That was the second condition.”
“Any surprises in my tube?” asked Katherine. She was sitting on the stained wooden floor against the back wall, sucking back a bottle of The Piss Bucket Tavern’s cheapest vintage and stroking Butterbean’s fur.
“I don’t think so.” Tanner took a step toward Katherine, tube in hand, but stopped as her wolf picked up his head and growled at him.
“Stop it, Butterbean!” said Katherine. “We don’t judge people by the color of their skin.”
Tim reached into the poo water for his character sheet. “I think he’s just a little distrustful of your taste in men. Your last boyfriend tried to eat him, after all.”
Katherine hugged Butterbean around the neck with one arm and held out the other to accept her scroll tube.
To Tim’s surprise, his character sheet came out of the water dry and clean. Not even the ink or pencil marks were smudged. He was less impressed with the actual stats on the paper. He was a Level 4 Rogue, with about a quarter of the Experience Points required to reach Level 5. That meant he probably hadn’t gained a whole lot since they’d returned to this world. Still, he was able to confirm that his Dexterity score had risen to 18, so that was something. He rolled up his sheet, returned it to its tube, and pulled a dish out of the sludge-filled wash bin.
“I don’t understand this,” said Katherine, looking at her character sheet. “Druid 2 means I’m still a second level druid, right?”
“Yeah,” said Tim. “Sorry, that sucks.”
“So what’s Fighter 3?”
Tim stopped scrubbing. “You’ve got three levels of Fighter? How the fuck did you...” Then it occurred to him. She couldn’t gain levels in Druid while she was a vampire, but she was still getting Experience Points. They had to go toward something. The game must have credited her with Fighter levels for all the animals and monsters she’d beaten the shit out of. “You’re a fifth level character now. I’m still only fourth. This is bullshit.”
“I guess you don’t get a lot of Character Points for getting drunk and pissing yourself.”
“See what I mean? They’re called Experience Points. You don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
“I don’t know what either of you are talking about,” said Tanner. “What are these papers you sent me to retrieve? Why are they so important?”
“You wouldn’t understand.” Tim deemed his current dish clean enough and dropped it into the rinse bin.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” asked Katherine.
“The fuck does it look like I’m doing? I’m doing the same goddamn thing I’ve been doing for the past seven fucking hours. I’m washing dishes.”
“Your rinse bin is full of shit water.”
Tim frowned at the rinse bin. “It’s more water than shit.” He pulled out a dish. It still looked clean. “See? You can’t even tell.”
Katherine shook her head. “No way, little bro. You have to fill that with clean water and wash all those dishes again.”
“No fucking way! Why don’t you get off your ass and help out?”
“I’ve been waiting tables all day. My ass has been grabbed more times than a Tickle Me Elmo on Black Friday. And apparently tipping isn’t a thing in this world.”
“Come on, Kat. I’m exhausted. I need a drink.”
“You should have thought about that before you murdered Mordred... again.”
“I understand you’re pissed, but punishing me with extra bullshit work isn’t going to change our situation.”
“Bullshit work?” said Katherine. “The dishes are literally swimming in shit! How long do you think it’s going to take Morty to figure out why everyone in his tavern is puking and shitting themselves the day after we start working here?”
“Have you seen the quality of the food in this place? Trace elements of half-orc shit aren’t going to make any difference.”
“I’m not taking that chance. We are homeless in a fantasy world because you’re an insecure little drunk shit. If Morty comes in here and sees you putting dishes in shitwater, he’s going to kick us out of here. How many other places do you think are going to board a wolf and a black man?”
Tanner cleared his throat. “Half-drow.”
Tim wiped the sweat from his brow. “You’ve got your druid powers back, right? Don’t you have a water purification spell or something?”
Katherine looked at the back of her character sheet. “Purify Food and Water. It’s a Level 0 spell.” She looked up at Tim. “You think that’ll work?”
“It’s worth a shot.”
Katherine stood up and walked over to the rinse bin. “So what do I do?”
“Did you prepare your spells like I told you?”
“Yes, but all I’ve ever done is summon a wolf.”
“Just touch the water and say something like ‘purify’.”
Katherine grimaced at the brown water. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.” She touched the surface with the very tip of one finger. “Purify.”
The water instantly turned crystal clear. A faint scent of shit, which Tim supposed he’d just grown accustomed to, was now noticeably absent. Not only that, but the dishes were clean as well. Like, dishwasher detergent commercial clean. They were so clean beneath the surface of the water that the stark contrast above the surface only served to illustrate what a piss poor job Tim had been doing this whole time. Even that hard black shit on the serving tray had vanished. Well, half of it anyway.
“Holy shit!” said Tim. “That’s incredible.” He started putting the clean dishes back into the wash bin with the ones he hadn’t washed yet.
“Tim!” said Katherine. “What are you doing?”
“We’re better off serving food on shitwater dishes than these two-tone dishes. Get ready to fire up another spell.” Once he’d stuffed all the dishes back into the wash bin, Tim scooped clean water from the rinse bin and dumped it into the sludge in the wash bin.
When all of the dishes were completely submerged, he raised his eyebrows at Katherine.
“Purify.” As soon as she spoke the word, a shockwave of cleanliness blasted out from her finger, wiping out every last scrap of uneaten food, every b
it of dried blood, phlegm, and whatever, which Tim had been working for hours to scrub away, in the blink of an eye.
Tim stepped back and admired Katherine’s handiwork. “You could serve a fucking god on these dishes.”
“What a peculiar thing to say,” said Tanner.
Stupid NPCs. They always take everything so literally. “That was hyperbole,” Tim explained. “I just meant that the dishes are very clean.”
“I know what hyperbole is.” Tanner’s tone suggested that he didn’t appreciate being condescended to. “I’m interested in learning more of this other world that you claim to come from. The other night was the first time I’d ever heard of anyone eating the flesh of a god. I’ve never even thought to consider it. But you speak so casually of the act, going so far as to suggest serving them on dishes. Is this so common a practice where you come from? Are all your gods made of food?”
“That’s not what I –”
The door leading out to the bar and common area swung open. Morty’s hoofsteps and bovine eyes were heavy with exhaustion. Given the recent improvement in the smell of the back room, the stench of cow sweat was all the more salient when he entered.
“That’s the last of them.” He set four glasses down on the table, each with the dark remnants of ‘well-sludge’, the beverage of choice for those patrons who commonly stayed out this late at night, clinging to the bottom.
“Rough night?” asked Katherine.
Morty grabbed his horns and used them to twist his head left and right until his meaty neck cracked on both sides. “Any night I don’t have to kill anyone is a blessing from the – Good gods!” He gawked at the dishes in the wash bin. “Those are the cleanest dishes I’ve ever seen!”
Tim dried his hands on a towel which he wished he’d thought to throw into the bin before Katherine cast her spell. “Any job worth doing is worth doing right.” An asshole boss of his, from before he’d started at the Chicken Hut, had always said that.
“I’m impressed,” said Morty. “You’ve done a fine job. Katherine, you were very popular with the customers as well.”
Katherine raised her wineskin. “That’s one way of putting it.”
Morty looked at Tanner. “And you did a fine job of... well... staying out of sight.”
Tanner smiled. “We all have our gifts.”
“No offense intended. It’s just that my patrons have a distrust of...”
“Do you distrust me?”
“I distrust everyone who walks into my tavern,” said Morty. “I’m an eight hundred pound minotaur. Whether I trust you or not is inconsequential as long as we both know I could kill you without breaking a sweat.”
“I certainly can’t argue with that.”
Morty frowned. “That came out wrong. I didn’t mean to single out you in particular. I mean any of you.”
Tim and Katherine exchanged a nervous glance.
“No no no!” said Morty. “This is why I can never keep good help. I meant to say that I’m grateful for all the hard work you’ve done. Why don’t the three of you join me for a drink out front?”
“Fuck yes,” said Tim.
Morty led them to the table where he sometimes sat with special guests of the tavern.
“What’ll you boys have?” asked Katherine, reverting back to server mode.
“You sit down, dear,” said Morty. “You’ve worked hard enough for one night. It would be my pleasure to serve you.”
Katherine took a seat at the table. “If you insist.”
Tim emptied his bag onto the table. “You should pack your character sheet at the bottom of your bag,” he said to Katherine. “Keep it safe.”
“I’ll do that tomorrow.” Katherine opened Tim’s pouch of caltrops and dumped them on the table. She rolled the pouch into a tight ball and wrapped the cord around it. Tossing it up into the air, she grabbed a caltrop before catching the ball with the same hand.
“Those aren’t jacks,” said Tim. “They’re caltrops.”
“I know what they are. But I’m using them for a different purpose. You should see Tanner at work. He’s like MacGyver.”
“What’s a MacGyver?” asked Tanner. “And what purpose are you using those for?”
Katherine tossed her ball up and scooped up two caltrops before catching it again. “It’s just a game I used to play when I was a little girl.”
“Were you raised in a mercenary camp?”
“No, I went to a Catholic school.” Katherine failed her attempt to scoop up three caltrops, knocking a few of them off the table.
“Nice going, Kat,” said Tim.
Katherine picked up the caltrops off the floor and placed them on the table. “You think you can do better with your tiny little bitch hands?”
“Of course I can. I’ve got an 18 Dexterity.”
Katherine smiled. “Let’s make it interesting.” She looked over at Morty, who was filling a pitcher with beer. “Can you bring us, like, twenty shot glasses?”
Morty’s nostrils flared briefly. “Glad to see you’re not shy about taking advantage of my generosity. What would you like in them?”
“Beer is fine.” Katherine sat across the table from Tanner with Tim’s caltrops and balled-up pouch. “We take turns around the table. Toss the ball in the air, pick up a jack, and catch the ball. Everyone else drinks one shot of beer.”
Tanner frowned. “This seems like an overly complicated means of not getting very drunk.”
“Toss the ball in the air again and scoop up two jacks.” Katherine demonstrated. “Everyone drinks two shots.”
“I see how this could escalate.”
Morty returned with two pitchers of beer and a tray full of shot glasses, also full of beer. He sat on the larger, reinforced stool opposite from Tim, pushed the shot glasses to the middle of the table, and kept the pitchers for himself.
“You’re not playing?” Katherine asked.
“Minotaurs do not play children’s games, nor do we drink beer from tiny glasses. I shall observe, and drink as I please.”
As Tim, Katherine, and Tanner took their turns, growing steadily more intoxicated, a flaw in the game revealed itself. Caltrops are sharp. When trying to scoop them up, the drunker they got, the more frequently they punctured their hands.
Before long, the old dried blood from the countless bar fights of years gone by was painted over with fresh streaks of red. The shot glasses soon became smeared with red fingerprints.
“Son of a bitch!” said Tim, resisting the urge to fling away the four caltrops digging in to his bleeding hand.
Morty snorted like an enraged bull. For whatever reason, he seemed to find Tim’s injuries – and subsequent swearing – the funniest of anyone’s.
“Tim, are you okay?” Katherine’s head swayed as she struggled to focus on Tim’s hand. “That looks pretty bad.”
“I can barely even feel it,” said Tim. It was half-true. His hand was torn to shreds, but it didn’t hurt nearly as much as those initial pricks had. “That’s four shots each. Drink up, motherfuckers.”
Morty laughed even louder. He pounded the table with his fist and wiped tears from his big cow eyes. It must have been the novelty of a halfling swearing. Well, that and the booze. After his two pitchers of beer were gone, he’d switched over to stonepiss, but was still drinking it out of a pitcher. For as much as he was doing for them, Tim could live with this small indignity. In fact, he’d even ham it up for the big guy. It was nice to hear some genuine hearty laughter, and to know that he was the cause of it. Morty was laughing at his performance, rather than at his existence.
“Get ready for five, you shit-nosed pigfuckers!”
Tanner looked at Katherine, then back at Tim. “That seems uncalled for.”
But Morty didn’t think so. He was choking on his stonepiss.
Tim stood on his stool, threw the balled-up bloodied pouch, then brought his hand down quick to scoop up his five caltrops. The table was a little higher than he’d remembered, and his hand c
ame down hard on three caltrops.
“FUCK!” he cried, this time unable to resist jerking his hand away. The caltrops flew upward as something wet and squishy hit Tim in the face from above.
“The fuck?” said Tim as he lost his balance and fell off his stool. He landed on his backpack, which he hadn’t closed properly, and his shit spilled out all over the floor.
“Stop! Please!” Morty wheezed between snorts. “It’s too much. I can’t...”
Tim didn’t begrudge Morty his good time, but his head and ass hurt from where he’d hit the floor, and he was starting to get some feeling back in his hand. It would probably be a good idea for him to switch over to stonepiss himself, to dull the pain and to tolerate Morty’s obnoxious bovine laughter.
“You’re not going to be laughing when you get a caltrop in your hoof,” said Tim, picking himself up off the floor. “Would you guys mind helping me find the ones that fell on the – Goddammit!”
Katherine stood up. “What’s wrong?”
“I found one.” Tim winced as he plucked the caltrop out of his foot.
Morty slammed his empty pitcher down as he wheezed with his wildest and most obnoxious laughter yet.
“Screw you, dude,” said Tim. “That fucking hurts.”
“I found the second one,” said Tanner, rising to his feet from the other side of the table. “I cheated and used my eyes instead of my foot.”
Tim gave him the finger. “Laugh it up, Fuck-o. Real fucking funny.”
Morty seemed to think so. He was wheezing even harder, pounding the table with both fists.
Tim had had about enough. He needed either to suck down some stonepiss or kick Morty in the nuts. He climbed back up on his stool and grabbed one of Morty’s stonepiss bottles.
“As long as you’re feeling so fucking jolly, I think I’ll help myself to some of your – WAH!”
Just as Tim grabbed the neck of a bottle, Morty grabbed the neck of Tim. Still wheezing, he lifted Tim into the air by the throat. His cow eyes were mad and terrifying.
“Sorry!” Tim croaked. “It’s... empty...” Tim dropped the bottle.