Critical Failures V

by Robert Bevan

  “Sticks and stones, fuck-o. I don’t believe that. He’s my friend, and he’s going through some rough shit right now.” Cooper swallowed hard, feeling a sudden pang of guilt for having abandoned Tim. He should have left the Whore’s Head with him. He shouldn’t have left him alone on the south road. He should have maybe beat the shit out of him and dragged him along, but he shouldn’t have left him. Tim’s too self-destructive to be left on his own.

  Cooper stared despondently at a conspicuously smooth hole in the scorched door frame.

  Lever.

  It was something like a thought. It came from inside his head, but he didn’t think it was his. Another something-like-a-thought occurred to him as to what he might stick inside the hole, and the fact that it wasn’t his dick made him all the more suspicious.

  His hand found his axe handle, and he was overcome with an irresistible urge to shove the handle into the hole. Seeing no reason to bother resisting, he gave in to the urge. It was a good snug fit.

  Another urge followed, as innocent as an itch wanting to be scratched. Cooper scratched his balls and pulled down on the axe.

  “Shit!” cried Tony the Elf as the smell of concentrated ass filled the air. There was a shallow splash, then Tony the Elf shouted “Shit!” again. Also, there was a big rectangular hole in the floor where there hadn’t been one just a second ago. Dave, Tony the Elf’s sheepdog Animal Companion, was looking down into the hole and barking.

  “No, Dave! Stay! STAY!” Dave jumped into the hole. “Damn it!”

  “Tony the Elf?” Cooper called into the room.

  “Cooper! What the hell did you do?”

  “Nothing. I was just scratching my nuts.”

  “Get us out of here!”

  Cooper walked over to the edge of the hole and looked in. Tony the Elf was soaked in liquid shit from the waist down. His dog was completely covered in it.

  “Dude, what the fuck are you doing down there?”

  “The floor just vanished out from under me. Stop asking me stupid questions and lower a rope or something.”

  Cooper pursed his lips. “Why do you want to get out?”

  Tony the Elf balled up his fists. “Why the hell do you think? I’m in a goddamn sewer!”

  “Well, well,” said Cooper, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “That presents quite the condumbum... cumyumyum... condom drum?”

  “Conundrum?”

  “That’s the one.”

  Tony the Elf put his fists on his hips and tilted his head. “What are you getting at?”

  “I’m no scholar, but it appears to me that we’ve discovered where Tim and Katherine and that other dude escaped to. Are you suggesting we abandon the hunt?”

  Leave him. Go!

  “I’m getting to that, voice in my head.”

  Tony the Elf’s expression changed from disgust and annoyance to genuine concern. “What are you talking about?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just this thing. Hang on a minute.” Cooper walked back toward the stairs.

  “Cooper!” cried Tony the Elf. “Where are you going? Don’t you leave me down –”

  Sudden and absolute silence. That was weird. Cooper looked back. The floor of the room was solid again. His axe was still sticking out of the hole in the door frame, but it was tilted upward.

  Cooper nodded slowly. Interesting. I guess it works like a toilet.

  He didn’t want to leave Tony the Elf to die alone in the sewer. That shit wasn’t cool. But he couldn’t risk being followed either, especially since he didn’t know where he was planning to go.

  He raced up the stairs to tie up one loose end.

  The fire hadn’t spread like Cooper had feared. He imagined he’d be rushing into a blazing inferno, but the place actually appeared to be less on fire than it had been when he’d first arrived. Judging by all the broken glass on the floor, he guessed Tim had tried to use booze to light the place up. As Cooper knew from personal experience, the effects of that were hit or miss. Sometimes you get a big initial flare-up, but it burns itself out before the wood really gets going. That looked like what had happened here. The beams were too robust, and separated by too much brickwork.

  It was still smokey as fuck though. Whoever took the place over was going to want to air it out a bit first.

  Back to the task at hand. There was a big-ass minotaur corpse on the floor, whose death Tim may or may not have had something to do with. Cooper needed to get to Tim and shake the shit out of him before the king issued an arrest warrant on him. This body had to go.

  Cooper grabbed it by the horns and dragged it back toward the secret door leading down to the sewer dump. Dude was heavy as fuck.

  The body proved to be much easier getting down the stairs, so much so that Cooper nearly gored himself on the horns.

  He tested the floor with his toe, making sure it was solid, before dragging the minotaur’s body onto the middle of it, then retreated back to the staircase to pull the axe handle down once more.

  “–OOOOOOPEEE–” Tony the Elf’s shout blared out of the reopened floor until it was interrupted by a dead minotaur. “Jesus Christ! What the hell?”

  “Sorry, dude. If somebody found that, they might think Tim was responsible.”

  “Tim was responsible!”

  “Tim’s just a halfling. That’s a fucking minotaur. No way Tim did this. I need to go find him before he gets himself hurt.” He started back up the stairs.

  “Cooper! Please don’t leave me down here. Come on, man. Come ba–”

  As he was trying to figure out his next move, it occurred to Cooper that Tony the Elf might think he was abandoning him right now. He could go back and tell him just to sit tight for a second.

  Nah, let him sweat.

  Cooper returned to the bottom of the staircase with a short stool from one of the nearby tables, and a longer bar stool. Just as he’d hoped, the short stool’s legs were about the same girth as his axe’s handle, and fit nicely into the hole in the door frame. He pushed down on the stool.

  “–orry!” Tony the Elf was shouting hysterically. He might have even been crying. “Okay? I’m so so sorry!”

  “Dude,” said Cooper. “You’re making this weird.”

  “Cooper! Thank God you're back. You've got to help us. We’re not alone down here.”

  “‘We’ kind of implies that, dumbass.”

  “No, I meant something besides me and Dave.”

  “Well there’s –”

  “And Morty,” said Tony the Elf. “There’s something alive down here. I can hear them squeaking and hissing.”

  “They’re probably just dire rats. You’re in a sewer.”

  “I know I’m in a fucking sewer. I need you to let me out of the fucking sewer.”

  Cooper wedged the bar stool into place so that it held the smaller stool in the down position. “What the fuck do you think I’m doing?”

  “I honestly don’t know. You’re almost certainly making this more complicated than it needs to be. All I need you to do is throw down a rope and pull me out.”

  Cooper grabbed his coil of rope from his bag, along with two flasks of oil. “I’m going to rub the rope down with oil, then I’ll tie one end to the portcullis and throw the other end down to you.”

  “May I ask why you’re doing that?”

  “So you can climb out, dumbass.”

  “No.” Tony the Elf took a deep breath, like he was trying to maintain his cool. “I meant why are you rubbing it down with oil first?”

  “So you’ll have a harder time climbing up. You’re lucky I remembered the oil. My first idea was just to piss all over it.”

  “Why do you always have to be like that? And don’t give me any bullshit about your low Charisma score.”

  “Dude. I’m trying to help you out.”

  “You would be decidedly more helpful by throwing down a rope without first slathering it in oil or urine.”

  Two flasks may have been overkill for the amount of rope required
for the task at hand, but too much was better than too little. “I need to find Tim. I can’t have you follow me.”

  “Believe me, I have no intention of following you anywhere. Go on and run back to that tiny sociopath. You deserve each other, and I’ll be thrilled to be rid of you. We have gone from bad to worse since your lot showed up. You may very well be the Everest of stupid assholes, but your friends are the rest of the Himalayas.”

  Cooper frowned. “You know what?”

  “What?” snapped Tony the Elf.

  “I think I’m gonna go ahead and piss on the rope after all.”

  When his business was complete, Cooper lay the portcullis diagonal on the other side of the door frame so that Tony the Elf wouldn’t just pull it into the sewer with him. He started up the stairs when the strange intruder inside his head cleared its throat.

  He noticed his axe leaning against the corner of the stairwell. He picked it up and ran up the stairs. After making sure the secret door leading downstairs was closed and looking as secret as he could get it, he ran out of the tavern, directionless, into the night.

  Chapter 10

  The rhythmic pattern of hooves pounding against hard-packed dirt hadn’t been interrupted since Katherine passed through the city walls. More than one group of travelers had moved aside to allow her to pass.

  The small pouch of gold coins that Tanner had given her went further than she’d expected, and she hadn’t been stingy about using it. She bought the most formidable-looking horse the stable master had available, and replaced her old sickle with a hefty scythe, wearing it strapped on her back such that the long curved blade was very visible.

  Despite the fact that she could once again enjoy the sun’s warmth on her face without bursting into flames, losing the powers and near-invincibility of a vampire made her all too aware of her vulnerability as a half-elf. She hoped the horse and weapon would continue to keep opportunistic would-be attackers at bay, as she felt less like a confident warrior, and more like a wad of glue holding a few badass accessories together.

  Her jeans-and-turtleneck combo did little to aid her intended visage as a Reaper of Asses, so she’d invested in a sturdy black cloak as well. The shadow of its hood would conceal the fact that she was a half-elven woman. But when the chill of the morning wore off, it started to get hot in there. She told herself that was reason enough to lower the hood, but she knew that if she was honest with herself, she kind of wanted a fight. Maybe she hadn’t quite shaken her vampire mentality, or maybe it had something to do with the three levels of Fighter Tim had mentioned. She had a new weapon and she was itching to use it.

  With the hood lowered, the wind on her face and in her hair was refreshing. She let herself enjoy the sweet fresh air, and tried not to think about the pain her brother must be going through right now. About ten minutes later, she spotted a mule-drawn cart on the horizon. She bit her lower lip with anticipation that someone might fuck with her.

  What are you doing, Katherine? You’re intentionally trying to lure someone into giving you justification to murder them. That’s kind of fucked up, don’t you think?

  Yeah, maybe it was a little fucked up. But on the other hand, why should she need to hide who she was. If some motherfucker tries to pick a fight with her, that’s on him, right?

  Tim doesn’t have time for this.

  Katherine growled to herself and yanked the hood back up over her head. The traveler steering the mule cart pulled completely off the road as she passed. The fat little fucker even looked the other way when she approached, as if there was something more interesting than her on this all-but-featureless stretch of road.

  “Asshole!” she shouted as she passed him. Butterbean barked in agreement. When they had put enough distance behind them, Katherine pulled her hood down, shook out her hair, and rode on.

  A few smaller roads branched off to the left. Even fewer to the right. But somehow, though she’d never been this way before, she knew that none of them would lead her where she needed to go... until she found the one that would.

  Katherine reined in her horse to a stop. Butterbean looked up at her expectantly, his tongue hanging out. He was panting heavily. Exhausted, but eager to keep serving. She was exhausted too, and all she’d been doing was sitting on a horse. She closed her eyes and rubbed her temples.

  Butterbean let out a small whine.

  “It’s okay,” said Katherine. “This game’s just fucking with my brain, that’s all. I can’t explain why I know exactly where I am. It's something to do with my character’s knowledge, I think. She – or I – might have grown up around here or something.” She sighed. “And now I’m talking to a dog.”

  Butterbean barked.

  “Sorry, wolf. Jesus I need some sleep.”

  Her Animal Companion lay down on the road.

  Katherine laughed. “No, not here. It’s too dangerous. Besides, we’ve still got work to do. You ready?”

  Butterbean growled.

  “Yeah, me too. Let’s get moving.”

  They traveled east while the sun began to set in the opposite direction. This smaller road wasn’t as well-kept as the main one. The forest loomed close on both sides, threatening to obliterate the path completely with branch and vine. Part of Katherine felt comforted at being so close to nature, but she was also keenly aware of what dangers might be lurking just a few yards beyond her ever-shrinking field of vision.

  Butterbean and the horse, however, didn’t seem to mind the slower pace they were forced to travel at.

  The thick tangle of twisted oaks and gnarled elms began to thin out a little as the light faded into darkness.

  Eventually, it grew too dark even for Katherine’s enhanced half-elven night vision to see the path in front of her. She dismounted her horse and pulled a torch out of her bag. She was about to search for her set of flint and steel, but remembered she knew a spell that was just as effective and less likely to burn down a forest.

  She could cast it on anything, but since she already had the torch out, why not?

  “Light,” she said, touching the business end of the torch. It instantly glowed with a soft white light, illuminating her surroundings. They weren’t exactly what she was expecting.

  Just beyond the edge of the path, a scum-filtered image of herself holding a lit torch stared up at her. A reflection. The path was an artificially raised dirt mound with stagnant water on both sides. She was in the Swamp of Shadows.

  Cypress knees poked out of the water. Purple vines hung like the entrails of impaled giants from the trees’ great branches. Here and there, the still film of green scum coating the surface of the water was disturbed by something moving underneath it.

  Katherine swapped out her magically lit torch for her scythe, holding the latter and strapping the former to her back so that the glowing head peeked out over her shoulder. She looked down at Butterbean.

  “Stay close.”

  Leading her horse on foot, she kept a wary eye out for anything that might want to jump out and eat them while scanning her surroundings for signs of a fenberry vine.

  Fenberries, also known colloquially as deadberries in regions where they flourish due to their high toxicity, are not actually true berries. Like strawberries and raspberries, they are an aggregate fruit, developed from the merger of several ovaries in a single –

  “Jesus Christ, I don’t give a fuck!” said Katherine. “Is there any way to turn off Knowledge Nature? I just need to find the goddamn berries and get the hell out of here!”

  A few moments later, that very same Knowledge Nature skill allowed her to recognize the slender, three-pointed leaves of the species of vine she’d been seeking. The vine itself was wrapped around the trunk of a particularly tall cypress tree about ten yards away from the path she was on, but didn’t appear to have any berries growing on it. That was odd. It should be bursting with fruit this time of year. Was it an unhealthy vine? Or was someone, or something, foraging for fenberries around here?

  She cou
ld keep going and try to find a more productive vine, or she could investigate this one more closely in the hope of finding some fruit. Both options felt simultaneously like they could be wasting time that her brother didn’t have.

  Fuck it. Her indecision was certainly an even greater waste of time. She set her bag and cloak down next to Butterbean.

  “Stay here and watch the horse. I’ll be right back.”

  Butterbean growled his halfhearted obedience.

  Katherine stepped into the stagnant water. It was warm and gritty as it soaked her jeans and filled her boots. Breaking the surface released a more pungent smell of centuries-old rot and death, but it was a natural smell that she found almost pleasant. The piled-up dirt forming the path sloped down at a fairly steep angle, but leveled off to a squishy floor when she was about waist deep. At least that would allow her to keep both hands on her weapon.

  When she reached the tree, she examined the fenberry vine more closely. It had been fruitful after all. Broken stems revealed where clusters of fruit had been torn away. Who would do that? Could it have been the lizardfolk that Tanner had mentioned? Were they making poisons, or might they be using them for some ceremonial purpose?

  Who gives a shit? Stay focused, Kat.

  She traced the vine up the trunk until she spotted a cluster of those piss-yellow motherfuckers, ripe as could be and bursting with juice that could make an elephant shit itself to death.

  Standing on her toes, holding her scythe by the very end of the handle, she still couldn’t quite reach the berry cluster.

  Not a big problem. The vine was thick enough to support her weight easily.

  She used her scythe blade to cut the vine where it submerged into the water, then unwrapped it around the tree trunk until she reached the part with the fruit.

  The climbing was easy but slow. Leaf stems provided enough resistance such that her hands didn’t slip. But her boots were too slippery to gain traction on the trunk. She had to shimmy up with her thighs.

  About halfway to her goal, she spotted a disturbance on the water’s surface scum. A slow-moving log, though not so slow as the nigh-imperceptible current of the swamp.