Big Trouble

by Andrew Seiple

  “Well, yes! Of course.”

  “So which is more important? One of your crafting job slots, or your friends?”

  The little fox looked down, chagrined. “You’re right, of course. Okay, here.” He shut his cloth lids over his glass eyes, then opened them after a few seconds. “Status,” he commanded, then spoke the commands he needed to say.

  For her part, Chase forced herself to be still and wait as patiently as she could.

  But Renny’s ears drooped, and Chase felt her hopes go with them. “No?” she asked.

  “No. The skill that let him skim books quickly must have been a higher level skill. I can only scribe and catalogue written works.”

  Chase felt like grinding her teeth. She could feel that this clue was important, knew it was important, but the universe was thwarting her in little ways every time she tried to follow up with it. But... she wasn’t quite done yet.

  “Tell me about scribe and catalogue.”

  “Scribe lets me copy written works.”

  “Could you say something like; ‘I want to scribe out the information about the secret cache?’ Fool the skill into finding it for you?”

  Renny grabbed some paper and one of the pens and tried it. After a second, he shook his head. “It was good for a skill up, but no, sorry. It just copied what I was looking at.”

  “All right, all right. Tell me about catalogue.”

  “It lets me sort written works into a new order. Any new order I want, including subjects... so maybe...” Renny studied the air, probably looking at his status. “So, this might work, if the information were spread out among different books. It would narrow it down, at least.”

  Chase stared at the book, her mind churning.

  And after a few seconds, an audacious idea came to her. It was a drastic one, though, and it might not work.

  But I have a skill that helps with checking that sort of thing, don’t I?

  INT+1

  Chase looked at the crossbow she’d set on the desk while they were checking the room, then at the quiver of bolts slung at her side. She pulled one out. Then she picked up the little book.

  “Chase?”

  “Renny, in a second I’ll raise one of my hands. If I raise the left one, use that catalogue trick to sort them, try to find that secret cache. Do it quickly. You can do it within ten seconds, all right?”

  “Yes. It’s instant. Says it is, anyway.”

  “If I raise my right one, don’t do it. Oh, and get that magnifying glass up right now, okay?”

  “All right. Phantasm.” Renny pulled the glass out again.

  “Foresight,” Chase intoned, and studied the results of her plan. Then, with a pang of remorse, she ran the sharp head of the crossbow bolt down the book’s spine and tore the pages out in one smooth motion.

  Renny gasped in horror, eyes wide, and Chase knew the feeling. It was a book! You don’t destroy books! But she put her feelings aside and threw her left hand skyward, shouting “Now! Do it now!”

  “Catalogue by mentions of secret cache!” Renny said, touching the pages in her hand.

  They shifted, and squirmed, and it was all the halven girl could do to keep ahold of the suddenly relocating pages. They blurred, tickling her fingers, and counting the seconds, she shoved them under the magnifying glass.

  Seven seconds... eight... nine...

  And at two her eyes lit on the words that she needed to see. Chase smiled and gave a double thumbs up to her past self. Just as she’d seen her ghost-form do not too long ago.

  Your Foresight skill is now level 11!

  “What just happened?” Renny asked.

  “It worked, is what happened. By taking the pages out, we turned one book into lots of notes. Your skill functions for any written works, so the catalogue did its thing. I figured what I was going to try would either render the book useless or make it work with your skill, so I used foresight to check it out beforehand. We’re good. Now let’s see what we have...”

  Five minutes and some careful research later, Chase and Renny retraced their steps up the stairs, counting the lantern sconces as they went. Under the fifth one, they found the loose block in the wall, and it slid open silently, revealing oiled hinges and a ring of keys on a hook.

  Several more slow minutes later, Chase and Renny snuck past the guards, burning Renny’s sanity and Chase’s fortune to get through the withered-looking men they’d painstakingly bypassed the first time.

  Slowly, they approached the last bend, and Chase dared a peek around...

  But her luck held true. No suspicions had been raised yet. The door to the confiscation room remained unguarded.

  “Foresight,” Chase whispered as she raised her newly-acquired keys to the lock and tried one. Two more shots of the skill and two skill ups later, Chase felt herself dragging, her fortune trickling away like water. But it was necessary. The third key was the right key, and unlike how things had faired with her ghost self the first couple of times, this time the alarm did NOT sound. This time the door opened silently, and Chase closed it just as carefully once they were both inside.

  The halven girl felt her breath leave her in a whoosh, as she stared around the cluttered room. Great piles of gear and goods and things she couldn’t name filled sagging shelves. Suits of armor sat next to racks of clothing, swords taller than Chase leaned next to staves made of bone, wood, and in one case taxidermied snakes. Piles of seemingly mundane objects spilled out of boxes next to glowing, clearly-magical crystals. Multicolored vials of dust, liquid, and stranger things shed a rainbow light through the room.

  “I have absolutely no idea what most of this is,” Chase whispered to Renny. “Do you?”

  Renny’s glass eyes glinted in the rainbow light as he shook his head back and forth. “No. I’m regretting that I never took those Enchanter lessons when I had the chance. That would make this easy.”

  “It would,” Chase said glumly, staring at a nicer crossbow than the one she was carrying over her shoulder. It had crystals at the ends of the bow, and a quiver full of bolts with heads shaped like crossed angel wings. It glowed the brightest aura of any item in the room, and for a second she was tempted to grab it and trust to her luck to keep her safe.

  But only a second.

  Halven common sense reasserted itself at that point, and she shook her head, turning away... and staring right at something absolutely fascinating.

  “Renny?” She whispered, “Do those look like a miniature set of circus wagons to you?”

  “What’s a circus?” He asked, hopping up on the shelf, and investigating the brightly-colored wagons sitting in a display box, each neatly tagged, each about the size of Chase’s palm.

  “It’s like a traveling festival. It’s what Mister Thomasi said he was in charge of.” She narrowed her eyes. “He would probably want these back, don’t you think?”

  “I do think. But I also think we don’t know what they do, and they might be dangerous.”

  Chase chewed on the inside of her cheek. I could use foresight, but I’ve only got enough fortune left for five shots of it. And what harm could a bunch of circus toys do?

  The answer, as she scooped them up before she lost her nerve, was nothing. Nothing at all. Chase smiled, shucked her pack off, and put them in. They filled up the rest of the open space, and she took care to tie the strings around the torn patch.

  “That was a pretty big risk,” Renny said, hopping to the ground.

  “Yeah. But they’ll be useful if we run into him again.” Chase put her pack back on and shouldered the crossbow again. “Now let’s—”

  An alarm wailed, and she jumped back, staring wildly around. Bells rang and clamored, and for a split second she thought it was because of what she’d done...

  ...but no, the bells weren’t coming from inside the room. Something was going on outside.

  Just as she realized that, a door on the opposite end of the room slammed open, spilling lantern-light into the chamber as two uniformed guard
s, shrunken like the others, rushed in. They paused, and for a wild-moment, Chase stared at them, and they back at her.

  “It wasn’t me!” Chase said, spreading her hands to the side.

  Only when she saw their eyes snap to the crossbow did she realize that she’d just waved it in their direction. Without a word, the guards drew their swords and charged.

  CHAPTER 12: CORNERED CHAOS

  It happened so fast.

  Chase fought to bring the crossbow up, grabbed for the trigger, missed it, then found it.

  SNAP!

  The next thing she knew she was flat on her butt, and the crossbow was crashing off a shelf nearby, knocking the stack of staves over.

  Critical Hit!

  Your Archery skill is now level 1!

  LUCK+1

  From somewhere far away, she heard someone coughing and choking, hard, like he was vomiting. A red ‘143’ drifted up into the air, and she blinked in surprise. I killed him?

  Then something hit her side, hard, and she screamed. The force of the strike rolled her over and she crashed into a shelf as the last of the staves clattered and rattled down, thumping off her. She heard a muffled curse from behind her, near, so near, and scrambled for all she was worth. Her side was on fire, and it hurt to move, but they’d drawn swords and she thought that getting stabbed would hurt far more.

  “Chase!” She heard Renny yell, then there was a rip of cloth, and she felt cold pain lick against one calf as she pushed aside a box of things that clattered and hummed and shattered and crawled back into the space. There behind the shelf she crouched and listened to cursing as whoever was behind her tried to maneuver through. She blinked, confused at the words that showed up in her sight as she went.

  You have been afflicted with the Bleeding condition!

  “Manipulate Air!” Renny called, and Chase shook, feeling cold, wondering why...

  ...until the pain blossomed from her leg, cold pain and warm wetness, and she gasped as she realized she was bleeding.

  How? How hurt am I?

  “Phantasmal Picture!” Renny called, and her attacker yelled in alarm, heading further away from her shelf. Renny had bought her time, Chase knew. Time to... what? The crossbow was out there, and she didn’t have enough room to draw and use her hurler stones, and... and...

  Wow, it was hard to think.

  She pulled her legs up, and her side flashed with pain, and Chase gasped. Something. She had something for this. It was just so hard to remember. Healing. It was healing something.

  “Healing?”

  Nothing.

  “Minor healing...”

  No, no, that wasn’t it. Now it was getting harder to see. Renny was shouting something outside, and someone was shouting back, and everything was darkened.

  “Less... healing...” That was close, that was so close, Chase thought, feeling the blood around her breasts now, where she lay. I’m in a puddle of my own blood, Chase realized. I’m going to die.

  No!

  I am NOT going to die here! Not like this!

  She forced her mind back, forced herself to ignore the grinding pain in her side, and the throbbing wet pulse from her leg, and cast her mind back to the last time she’d seen her status sheet.

  And Chase remembered.

  INT+1

  “Lesser.... Heal... ing.” She sighed.

  You have healed yourself 12 points!

  Your Lesser Healing skill is now level 4!

  Her head unmuddled, just a bit, and her leg throbbed, and Chase gasped again, “Lesser Healing!”

  WIS+1

  You have healed yourself 13 points!

  Your Lesser Healing skill is now level 5!

  You are no longer bleeding!

  Twice more she shouted her skill, almost sobbing with relief, and each time the skill rose and the pain eased.

  “Chase no!” Renny’s voice came... and Chase flinched, as a sword stabbed straight through the boxes in front of her, and narrowly missed shearing her nose clean off. “Be quiet! I’ll get him eventually!”

  Eventually, Chase thought, squirming back along the shelf, as the guard jabbed the sword around, clearly trying to catch her. Eventually was such a loaded word. And those alarms weren’t stopping, which meant that more guards would show up. They’d show up eventually, which meant that eventually wasn’t at all a good idea.

  But Renny telling her to be quiet had given her an idea. She had a skill to help with that sort of thing, now didn’t she.

  Chase took a second, took two, then took a deep breath and mouthed the words, “Silent Activation, Foresight.”

  Your Silent Activation skill is now level 3!

  Your Foresight skill is now level 12!

  Everything slowed. Chase watched her ghostly self go, scrambling out to fight the ghostly guard... and she gasped as she watched herself die horribly.

  This time there was no backlash, and she rode out the tightening pain with no consequence other than discomfort. Blasts of air rocked the room as she waited it out, armor clanging to the ground, shelves rocking and spilling their contents all over, the guard yelling incoherently as he struck at shadows and illusions.

  And even the shelf Chase was behind rocked, making her tuck in tight, to avoid being crushed.

  Avoid being crushed... Chase thought, and there was the spark of an idea there.

  Silently she activated another foresight and watched herself go... and the second it was done, she twisted, braced her feet against the middle of the shelf above her, and pushed.

  Then Chase rolled to the side and covered her head.

  A cacophony of sound, a despairing wail, and some nasty crunches later, Chase dared to stand up and look around.

  She was in time to see Renny sinking a nasty looking knife into the squirming guard. The halven covered her mouth as blood sprayed high, coating the fox’s face. It was swift, brutal, and Chase knew she’d never look at the little golem in the same way again. But after a second, she put that from her mind, as her halven mental fortitude did its trick. Now was not for panicking. Now was for—

  “We need to go!” Chase burst out, looking back at the door they’d come through. The alarms were still going, and they’d passed several guards in the halls just outside. Out through there wasn’t an option, so she grabbed the nearest stick, smashed things out of her way haphazardly, and charged toward the door on the opposite side of the room. “Come on!” she said to Renny. “We’ll have company any second now!”

  “Do we need a distraction?” Renny asked.

  “Yes!”

  “Least Air Elemental!” Renny said, waving his hands. A tiny tornado spiraled out of them, catching up papers and underwear and coins and candles and all sorts of light junk from the shambles around them and opening yellow glowing eyes as it glared around.

  It might have been a bit more impressive if it was larger than a housecat. But Chase tore her gaze away and stepped into the next room, wary and watchful.

  Once Renny was in she shut the door, inspected the heavy brackets on it, and cast about until she found the locking bar. “Come on, help me put this in place!”

  It was a struggle. Chase felt stamina literally pouring out of her as she sweated and struggled, until...

  You are now a level 4 Oracle!

  CHA+3

  LUCK+3

  WIS+3

  You are now a level 2 Archer!

  DEX+3

  PER+3

  STR+3

  With that, Chase gave a surge and slammed the bar home, then collapsed on the ground, panting. Renny sat down next to her.

  “Two levels... at once...” Chase said, regaining her breath bit by bit.

  “That was a really dangerous situation.” The fox looked about. “This just looks like a guardpost, but there’s a corridor that goes further back. And a few of those speaking tube things.”

  “Open?” Chaseasked, hearing her voice crack, knowing it was nerves.

  “Shut,” Renny said, and Chase closed her eyes
in relief.

  But only for a moment. Over the alarm, she could hear angry voices, and they were quite near. Now there was pounding from the other room. Someone was trying to get in through the door she’d unlocked, the one that was now blocked with piles of random stuff. No time to rest, barely any time to think. Still... they had a little time, she thought.

  “The alarm’s not coming from here. We didn’t set it off. Something else did,” Chase reasoned. “I’m luckier now, way luckier, so I’ve got about ten percent of a plan that might work. Keep quiet and follow my lead.”

  “It’s been working so far,” Renny said. “Well, kind of.”

  “Hey, we’ve survived,” Chase replied, getting to her feet. There was a paper-wrapped loaf of bread on a nearby desk and she snagged it, tore into it with her teeth as she moved to the speaking tubes. Then, chewing as quietly as she could, she flipped up the ends one by one and pressed her ear close.

  She half didn’t expect it to work. Knew this was pushing it, knew that she was gambling, and wasting precious seconds...

  And she believed that up until the fifth tube.

  “...can’t win this,” a woman’s voice spoke, cold and clipped.” You’re going to cause a lot of pain and suffering for no reason. Not that you care, I suppose. Your kind never do.”

  A different voice replied. This one was female as well, but it made the other sound plain and cruel by comparison. It was throaty, full and warm. It was a voice that made Chase want to hear more... and that made her distrust it, just on principle.

  “If you think I’m going to give up my only shot in a decade, you’re the mad one,” the stranger said to the harsh woman. “I have a mountain full of guards.”

  “You have a handful of guards that you’ve enslaved, Speranza. You haven’t had nearly the time to charm them all. Or else you would have met us with a force that my guards couldn’t handle.”

  Speranza! Chase recognized the name. The warm voice must be the siren, the other prisoner that remained. It was dangerous to listen to her. Chase raised a hand to cap the tube... then paused. Who was the other woman?

  “Or perhaps I’m merely waiting for the right moment?” Speranza continued. “Come closer, Zenobia. Find out for yourself. I promised that I’d strangle you with my own hands.”