Critical Failures V

by Robert Bevan

  “Wha!” he cried, and Katherine felt him let go.

  The two Drow below him also shrieked as they all fell down the chute and crashed onto the hard stone floor. It probably wasn’t enough to kill them, but they were going to feel it.

  Katherine removed the filthy bag from her mouth and resumed climbing. “Keep the change, asshole.”

  The fresh evening woodland air was rejuvenating, and made her wonder how the guys were doing inside the Bag of Holding. First things first, though. She had to make sure this hatch stayed shut. It only locked from the inside, but Katherine had a spell prepared that she hoped would do the trick.

  “Entangle,” she said, then watched with fascination as vines snaked their way down branches and wrapped the hatch shut.

  She was a good twenty feet off the ground, but the big tree had strategically grown knots, made by driving spikes into the trunk and letting the tree heal itself over them, to use as hand and foot holds. Kind of a dick way to treat a tree.

  She reached into the Bag of Holding. “All the armor.” Captain Righteous and Bingam’s armor spilled out of the bag and into the weave of vines holding the hatch shut.

  She felt a small pang of guilt as she put her hand in once again. “All the clothes.” Both men’s clothes piled into a dirty sweaty heap atop the pile of armor, as did a couple of Katherine’s things, which she hurriedly picked out and shoved back into the bag.

  After scurrying halfway down the trunk and jumping the rest of the way to the ground, she reached into the bag and said, “Butterbean.”

  Butterbean rolled out onto the ground and started panting.

  “Sorry,” Katherine said, reaching into the bag again. “Sword.” The whole point of all this was to maintain the upper hand and escape without being pursued any further.

  “Bingam.”

  Bingam fell out of the bag gasping for air and covering his junk with his hands. “What’s... wrong... with... you?”

  “Captain Righteous.”

  The captain was also breathing heavily, but didn’t bother to cover his junk. Instead, he used his hands to aim a Kingsguard-issue crossbow at Katherine.

  “Shit,” said Katherine. Only now did she remember having shoved Bingam’s weapon into the bag. Double crossing him on the sword issue suddenly felt a bit less clever.

  Butterbean growled at the captain, but Katherine hushed him.

  “Where are my clothes?” asked Captain Righteous.

  “In the tree.” Katherine looked up to indicate more specifically where she was talking about, and to avoid checking out the captain’s junk. She admired his commitment to professionalism, and thought she could at least pay him that respect.

  “Why are our clothes in a tree?”

  “So you can’t follow me.”

  “My oath to enforce His Majesty’s laws means far more to me than modesty. Drop the sword, place your hands atop your head, and step away from the wolf.”

  “No.”

  The captain narrowed his eyes. “You are in no position to –” A banging noise came from up in the tree. Katherine’s spell was timing out, and it was only a matter of time before the Drow would be able to break through the now-inanimate vines. Captain Righteous glanced up, but kept his aim fixed on Katherine. “What was that?”

  “Some shit you’re about to have to deal with.” She didn’t want to part on a sour note. “Good luck. And listen, thanks for all your help down there. You’re a good man.”

  Katherine ran off into the woods, and Butterbean followed. She didn’t even bother worrying about direction. She’d figure that out after she put some distance between herself and the law and the Drow.

  Captain Righteous had had plenty of time to shoot her and reload his crossbow before the Drow managed to open the hatch, and Katherine thought it was sweet that he didn’t. She was growing on him.

  Chapter 27

  The ride through the Great Wood was an exhilarating one. Talirius, the centaur Stacy rode, was swift but gentle as he galloped gracefully along the center of the road. Though there was plenty of room on the road for the centaurs to travel two abreast, Julian’s ride, Nadia, made her way through the rougher area beside the road the side of the road. Jumping over roots and pine cones, she seemed to enjoy the experience much more than Julian did as he clutched onto her boobs for dear life.

  Cooper rode behind them. Whenever Stacy glanced back, Cooper and his mount, Dyril, both looked like they were plodding toward their own executions.

  A few hours passed by like a few minutes, at least for Stacy. As they traveled, silver threads in the forest canopy grew more and more visible as they concentrated closer together. Finally, the centaurs slowed to a stop in front of a tall iron gate, overgrown with vines. On either side of the gate, a fence stretched north and south as far as Stacy could see. The farther away from the gate the fence stretched, the thicker the vines tangled around it. Beyond twenty feet in either direction it became just a wall of vine. Beyond the gate lay a village in the most un-desert-like terrain she could imagine. It was like a botanical garden juiced up with an illegal version of Miracle-Gro.

  “Welcome, travelers, to Minswater,” said one of two elves with tufts of silver hair growing from their chins.

  “Thank you,” said Stacy. “But actually, we were looking for the Fertile Desert.”

  “You’ve found it!” said the other elf with the strange beard. “Minswater is but one of many ancient settlements along the edge of the Fertile Desert.”

  “Oh, okay then.” Stacy climbed off Talirius’s back and stopped herself just short of gasping at the sight of his raging horse boner. She looked up at Julian, who met her gaze with an ‘Oh right. You’re only now just noticing that’ kind of smile until Nadia reared up on her hind legs and dumped him off her back.

  “I can wait no longer,” said Nadia. “I must be satisfied at once.”

  Talirius placed a gentle finger on Stacy’s cheek. “Thank you for the ride. I sincerely hope we cross paths again.” He turned to Dyril. “Take care of this, will you?”

  Dyril pouted. “Yes, of course, damn my cursed hooves.”

  Nadia and Talirius trotted off into the Great Wood.

  “Would it be possible to hurry this up?” Dyril asked one of the silver-bearded elves. “I’d rather not stick around to watch this anymore than I have to.”

  “I’ll run and fetch Whistlewood right away.” Without warning, the elf shrank rapidly, morphing into a small brown bird, then flew over the gate and into the village.”

  “Whoa!” said Julian. “Is he a weresparrow?”

  The remaining elf smiled at him. “We are the Druids of Minswater. The Wild Shape is but one of the many gifts Nature bestows upon us after years of devotion and spiritual –”

  “YES!” cried Nadia.

  Stacy whirled around. She’d assumed that Talirius and Nadia had run into the woods seeking privacy, but that was clearly the least of their concerns. Apparently, all they were seeking was a low-enough-hanging branch for Talirius to hold himself up with as he impaled Nadia from behind.

  Stacy turned back to the bearded elf, but Julian and Cooper continued to gawk like they’d just discovered their dads’ porn stashes.

  The Druid of Minswater cleared his throat. “Come, allow me to show you to your guest quarters. Please step through the side entrance.” A curtain of vines parted next to the main gate.

  Stacy sensed something was off. Why was this guy treating them like they’d called ahead and booked reservations at this place? “Guest quarters?” she said. “We didn’t plan to stay that long.”

  The elf looked at Stacy with a hint of sternness in his eyes. “I’m afraid your plans will have to be postponed, young miss. You're a guest here. At least until you’ve served your sentence.”

  “Okay, that’s it. We’re out of here. Julian and Cooper, it’s time to go.”

  “Hang on a sec,” said Cooper. “I want to see what kind of load this guy shoots.”

  “Guys! It’s time to
– Hey!”

  Something wrapped tight around Stacy’s ankle and jerked her back so that she fell to the ground. Vines. They grabbed Cooper’s and Julian’s ankles as well, pulling them all through the side entrance they’d been instructed to go through.

  “Oomph!” said Julian.

  “What the fuck?” said Cooper.

  Stacy struggled to free herself, but more vines grabbed her wrists and continued pulling.

  Those vines which weren’t pulling her caressed her body from toe to head as she passed through the curtain.

  Once they were on the other side, Stacy felt something like a pin prick on her neck. “Ow!” she, Cooper, and Julian said simultaneously. The vines released their hold and retreated back to their original hanging position. Stacy ran a finger over the spot on her neck where she’d felt the prick, and found it had a small smear of blood on it.

  “What did that vine just do to me?” Stacy demanded from the elf who’d walked in unmolested by the vines hanging from the main gate. “Did I just get poisoned?”

  The bearded elf smiled his disconcertingly warm smile again. “Of course not, dear. The vines just needed a small sample of your blood with which to identify you as guests. Welcome to Minswater. My name is Gildon. Please follow me.” He turned around and started walking down a quaint red brick path between a thick patch of cucumbers on the left and an equally thick patch of eggplants on the right.

  Stacy looked at the curtain of vines hanging from the main gate. As if they could read her mind, they started spontaneously growing long thorns with barbed points.

  “Hey asshole!” Cooper shouted at Gildon’s back. When the elf ignored him, continuing to walk farther into the village, he plucked off a large cucumber and cocked his arm back to throw. “I’m talking to you!”

  “Cooper, no!” said Stacy. There was a reason this elf didn’t seem in the least bit threatened by them, even as he allowed them to remain armed, and she didn’t want to find out what that reason was the hard way.

  But Cooper had already committed to the throw. “Eat a dick pickle!” The cucumber hurtled end over end until Gildon snatched it out of the air without even turning around.

  To Cooper’s credit, he succeeded in getting Gildon’s attention without getting them all beaten to within an inch of their lives. Their host stopped walking, turned around, and took a small bite of the cucumber. “Your questions will be answered once you’re settled in.”

  Cooper and Julian looked to Stacy for guidance. She was stumped. “I guess we follow him.”

  Minswater was a beautiful little village. Every house was painted a different vibrant color, and all of them were surrounded by gardens positively bursting with vegetation. Their occupants cheerily picked ripe fruits and vegetables and put them in large wicker baskets, never seeming to put so much as a small dent in the available fruits and veggies left to pick.

  Two identical steel towers stood tall above the one-and-two-story buildings that populated the rest of the town. They looked like chalices with cones rising up out of the cups. All the threads from the Great Wood converged at the points of these cones. Billions of dew droplets ran down the cones and filled the cups with water, where there was presumably a system of pipes distributing the collected water into the ground.

  “That’s quite an irrigation system you’ve got set up,” said Stacy, hoping she might be able to get something useful out of their host if she could get him to first say anything at all.

  Gildon gazed fondly at one of the towers. “Aye, ‘tis that.”

  That was less of a response than Stacy was hoping for, but it was something. She decided to try a different angle. “It seems like a lot of effort for something that could easily be done magically.”

  “The Druids of Minswater frown upon the arcane arts.”

  “Oh?” Stacy looked back at Julian to make sure he was paying attention, then spoke very deliberately. “It’s fortunate that none of us practice arcane arts.”

  “Julian!” cried Ravenus, flapping down to land atop Julian’s staff.

  The host elf turned around and frowned at the big black bird.

  “Um...” Julian stammered. “Hello, strange talking bird. How do you know my name?”

  “Are you okay, sir? I sensed you were being gripped and stroked, but it felt somehow different than when you send me away so you can have your Julian time.”

  Stacy needed to know if these weirdos were going to try to burn Julian at the stake and, if necessary, adjust her strategy. “Is magic forbidden here?”

  “Not forbidden, no,” said Gildon. “Merely frowned upon. We believe the gods favor those who work hard and don’t take shortcuts.”

  “So you’re, like, Amish?” asked Cooper. “Is that what those beards are all about?”

  Stacy gave Cooper a look which she hoped successfully conveyed the message, “Shut up,” then quickly thought up something to say before their host could ask Cooper what the hell he was talking about. “Do you like... toast?” Shit.

  “At long last, here we are,” said Gildon, pretending to not have heard either of them. He’d led them to a quaint little cottage just like so many they’d passed along the way, if not a little larger. This one was pink, with a pale yellow door.

  “Shit,” said Cooper. “What kind of prison is this? This place is nicer than my house back home.”

  “Please don’t think of this as a prison.” Gildon led them into the sparsely furnished but very clean house. “Make yourselves at home. An elder shall be along shortly to pass sentencing.”

  “Sentencing for what?” asked Stacy. “We didn’t do anything.”

  “It’s not my place to judge. You will be given the opportunity to present evidence refuting the centaurs’ accusations.”

  “The centaurs! Those hornballing horsehumpers threw us under the bus?”

  Gildon frowned. “I don’t... I’ll be leaving now. Please enjoy your stay with us.” He stepped outside and closed the door behind him.

  As soon as the door closed, the light inside the room grew darker as vines crawled up the windows.

  Stacy tried the door. She saw no locking mechanism, but it was held firmly shut from the other side. “Don’t think of this as a prison, he says.”

  During the hours that passed, Stacy, Julian, and Cooper discussed their options. A number of ideas were proposed. The most ridiculous, Cooper’s idea of Raging out and hurling Julian over the fence so that he could go for help, inspired what turned out to be the best they could come up with, Julian’s counter-proposal of sending Ravenus off for help. The bird had flown into town without a problem. He could presumably fly back out.

  A gentle knock on the door preceded a flood of light into the house as the vines drew back from the windows.

  “Good evening,” said an old man’s voice. The door opened slowly, and two elves walked into the house. A strong young elf held a much older elf by the arm and escorted him to a humble wooden chair in the corner of the room. Both elves had the same tufts of hair growing from the bottom of their chins, but the old elf’s silver beard grew down past his chest.

  Stacy made eye contact with Julian, inviting him to take the Diplomacy lead.

  “Hello,” said Julian. A natural-born diplomat, he was.

  “Greetings, travelers,” said the old elf. “And how are you this fine evening?”

  Julian had gotten off to a shaky beginning, but Stacy nodded at him encouragingly to try again. Their freedom was on the line.

  “Kinda shitty, now that you mention it,” said Julian. “We’ve spent the past two hours trying to figure out the best way to escape this dump.”

  As shocked as Stacy was, the expression on Julian’s face suggested that he was even more so.

  “What the fuck kind of Diplomacy was that?” asked Cooper.

  The old elf smiled, then looked up at his younger companion. “The half-orc.”

  “You.” The younger elf extended his right hand toward Cooper and spoke in a no-nonsense tone. “Would yo
u like to kiss my ring?”

  Stacy could only imagine how Cooper might have responded under regular circumstances, but trusted him to suck up his pride and do what was best for all of them.

  “I’d rather shove my foot up your ass.” Cooper clapped his hands over his mouth, then gave them a small sniff.

  “What is wrong with you two?” asked Stacy.

  “Now the human girl,” the elder said to his companion.

  The younger elf looked at Stacy. “Is it true you wish to leave our village?”

  “Badly enough to consider jerking off your grandpa’s ancient withered elf dick.” Stacy gasped. “Hey! What the...”

  The old elf raised his bushy white eyebrows and smiled at Stacy. “I shall take that under advisement.”

  “I’m so sorry!” said Stacy. “I don’t know what... I would never... I...”

  “Do not be alarmed. We must be certain the Zone of Truth is effective before we begin our interrogation. As long as we’re all being honest, pre-interrogation is my favorite part of the process.”

  Stacy crossed her arms. “That’s fine. Keep the questions relevant and on point, and you’ll see that we’ve committed no crimes.”

  “Interesting.” The elder held out his hand. “Fallion, the charges, please.”

  The younger elf placed a rolled up piece of paper in the elder’s hand.

  The elder unrolled the paper and cleared his throat. “Let’s begin with setting an unattended fire in the Great Wood. How plead you?” He looked up from the paper at Stacy.

  “We didn’t know that was a crime. There weren’t any signs posted about fires being prohibited.”

  “Fire is a gift from the gods. Its power is great, however, and must be respected and wielded with responsibility.”

  “We were being responsible,” said Julian. “We cleared out a safety perimeter, and there was always someone near the fire.”

  The old elf looked back down at his paper, then at Julian. “The centaurs’ report states that when they found you, two of you were sleeping, and one of you was up in a tree. Yet the fire remained burning. Do you deny this?”

  Julian looked hopefully at Stacy. She knew the Zone of Truth would prohibit her from lying, but maybe she could lawyer her way out of the charge with her high Intelligence score.