Big Trouble

by Andrew Seiple

  “So, if you live a long time and you’re really hard to kill… then you know you’re going to be dealing with others like you for a long time, too.” Chase whispered, trying to chase— to pursue the wagon-train of thought. “You’re probably better off being nice to them. Conversely…” she tilted her head, ears fluttering as she paced, cards in one hand, forgotten. “Conversely, if you live long enough, you might start to see people who don’t live as long as you as worth less. Not worthless, not to everyone, but worth... less.”

  That was it. Maybe not all of it, maybe not the whole of it but enough to figure out who she was dealing with, here.

  It was the reason why Vaffanculo had seen nothing in her and Greta but two souls for his undead minions and then leverage to get Thomasi on his side. That was why Dijornos would have killed her in a heartbeat… almost had, really. He’d told her that she was nothing but a sack of experience to him, and he’d been truthful. That was why Speranza had charmed every last guard she could and thrown them away like fodder. Just useful tools, to be spent and broken.

  It was a horrifying way to look at the world. But Chase understood Vaffanculo now. Understood why they had to fight him, and why he’d never just let them be. They didn’t matter to him. Only one, and possibly three others mattered to him, in all the world. Everyone else was just… meat.

  But Thomasi seemed to think differently.

  Thomasi, who had gone with them, when he didn’t have to. Thomasi, who had traded his help and support to the Necromancer, in order to spare her lives. Thomasi who had pointed her the right way to save her Father and asked nothing in return.

  Thomasi, who, alone among his desperate and serious and grim peers wore bright colors and showed whimsy and imagination…

  Chase’s eyes flicked back to the Knight of Clerics. And a plan started to form. Just the seeds of one—

  Heavy thumping on the door. Chase started, hurried out from behind the counter, and stretched out a hand…

  …and cursed herself, as she realized what she was about to do. Chase withdrew her hand. She’d read too many horror stories to be the first victim, thank you very much!

  WIS+1

  Her eyes grew wide in alarm, as the words confirmed her suspicion. She backed toward the stairs. “Greta?” she whispered.

  More thumping on the door then, heavy banging that shook the bar in its socket. She looked around wildly and caught her breath as the hastily-affixed sheets started to slip from the windows.

  And at every window, white, slack-jawed faces stared inside, makeup rubbing off onto the glass as dead eyes glared over red rubber noses. Hands rose as they clawed, fingernails on glass, trying to grab the tantalizing morsel in the center of the room.

  “Chase!” Renny said, hurtling downstairs at full speed. “They snuck up on us! We have to—”

  BAM!

  A metal socket went flying past Chase as the bar flung wide, narrowly missing taking Chase’s head off, crashing into a rack, and showering the floor with dinoche. The door swung open loosely, revealing crouching forms in the darkness.

  And then, dead gloved hands and brightly-colored sleeves thrust inside, as the zombies searched for their prey…

  CHAPTER 19: HONKING DOOM

  For the second time in her life— and that day, to tell the truth— Chase had many, many questions and no desire to find their answers. Not at the minute, anyway.

  Certainly, the question “How had this many dead clowns managed to sneak up on a watched building?” was worth asking.

  Also, it wasn’t like “How did they know to come here?” wasn’t worthy of consideration.

  And while “Is it just zombies or is the Necromancer out there too?” would be a really useful thing to know, at the minute Chase had other priorities.

  Defying every instinct of her halven genes, Chase flew across the room like the world’s tiniest charging bull, and slammed into the door with the full force that her thirty-two pounds could muster.

  Maybe it was surprise. More likely it was luck. But for whatever reason, the door snapped back, as did a number of smaller bones in zombified clown wrists, as Chase tried to close it, cards flying from her hands to join the fallen pastries on the floor…

  …but she couldn’t quite manage to shut the portal, even in the face of rotting, honking doom. Some of the zombies had been hurt by the closing door, sure. A few broken fingers, maybe a snapped forearm at worst. But all of them were still fumbling around, and inexorably the door was being forced open again…

  “Renny!” Chase shouted, as glass broke to her side, and flapping, torn-sleeved arms reached in to grope confusedly at cakes and rolls. “Help!”

  Behind her air rushed and whirled. “Least Elemental!” Renny shouted. “Manipulate Air!”

  Least Air_Elemental_01 has joined your party!

  Suddenly Chase felt a massive hand on her back, as her hair puffed in her face, and her headscarf went flying. She flattened against the door, shuddering as she rode it shut again, severed arms and hands and fingers rattling in the mini-hurricane. She managed to get her face to the side without breaking her neck and saw a familiar-looking tornado with eyes speeding along the wall, holding back the zombies that tried to get through the display windows. As she’d hoped, the tighter quarters were hindering them, and the elemental had no physical body to grab.

  But impossibly, as they clawed at it, red numbers floated up out of its wide funnel shape. It seemed to shrink a bit with each hit, the angry lightning that danced around its eyespots snapping and escaping as it lost substance.

  “Oh no!” Greta said, taking in the scene from the top of the stairs. “Chase!”

  “Run!” Chase yelled. “Get out the window!”

  “They’re out back too!” Her sister replied, head whipping around, taking in the scene. Then she moved out of Chase’s vision, down into the room.

  “Careful!” Renny said. “Don’t get between me and the door!”

  Greta nodded. “That makes this a little harder. Does this look like ten feet to you?”

  “What? Oh! Good idea?”

  “What?” Chase screamed. “What’s a good idea?” The door was shaking again, the mob outside pounding on it with fury. The loss of a few arms had slowed them down, but they had smelled brains even through their squeezable rubber noses, and those clowns meant murder.

  Sawdust sprayed in Chase’s face, as a hammering, sawing, and pounding noise filled the air. Chase kept her eyes shut, as she tried to figure it out. Wait a minute! That’s the noise I hear when Copper Foomy works in his workshop!

  Precisely thirty seconds after it started, the noise stopped, and with a snap, the bar was on the door again, the socket back in place and reinforced. The pressure left Chase’s back then, and she backed away, shrieking as part of her hair ripped away too, caught between the bar and the door. Chase shot Greta a hurt look back and caught her sister putting away a few small carpentry tools.

  Greta had used a craft skill to fix the door from a distance.

  “When the heck did you get the Carpenter job?” Chase gasped.

  “Today. When you sent me to the Camerlengo I needed to recharge my stamina to get back to town quickly, so it’s all your fault. Besides, you took way more jobs than I did so that’s only fair.”

  Chase opened her mouth to retort…

  Least_Air_Elemental_01 has left your party!

  ...And remembered that she had other, bigger concerns right now.

  “Upstairs! Now!”

  She didn’t bother looking at the windows. She knew what she’d see. And behind her, she heard the wood starting to crack again, as the sockets creaked, metal groaning from the stress.

  The three of them made it upstairs, and Chase snapped, “Use that air push thing! Keep them from coming up here!”

  Renny whirled and stretched out his arms, making paw motions like he was playing an instrument. Behind her, she heard groans and thuds, and sad, hungry honks, as the zombie clowns who had managed to reach the
stairs met gale-force winds. Cards flew in a hurricane along with buns, pies, and bits of decomposed flesh. The remaining zombies, already stooped to navigate the halven-sized room, kept trying to push forward and up onto the stairs. And there were enough of them filling the room now, that it looked like they might make it, through sheer persistence.

  For reasons Chase couldn’t tell, an inordinate amount of cream pies seemed to be finding their way to clown faces, and she fought back the urge to giggle. It was one of those cases where she was sure she wouldn’t stop if she got started.

  Then a vase went sailing over her shoulder, caught the jet stream of pressurized air, and shot into one of the foremost zombies. It sent a red ‘155’ up through the floor, drifting into the upper story, right through a chest of drawers. The zombie dropped and blew backward into its friends, knocking them back.

  Chase shot Greta a look, found Greta reaching for a potted plant. “Good idea! Keep it up!” the Oracle yelled and went scrambling to find her own ammunition.

  Seconds later, with a heavy pile of plates under one arm and the other hand poised to throw the first deadly dish, Chase paused.

  Didn’t I take a job for this?

  “Status.”

  Why yes! Yes, she had!

  And Chase grinned wide, as she tapped into her hitherto unused batch of Archer skills.

  “Aim!” she called, delaying her throw.

  Your Aim Skill is now level 2!

  And the result from her delay was a headshot, and carried by the force of the wind, it caved in the clown-thing’s skull.

  “Rapid Fire!” No skill gain there, it didn’t have levels. But it DID result in the plate she threw splitting into three identical plates and making one heck of a mess as they squished into zombies below.

  “Ricochet Shot!”

  Your Ricochet Shot skill is now level 2!

  Chase threw plates until she was out, then went for small pieces of furniture, drawers from the dresser, and finally, pieces of firewood from the fireplace, tossing the poker in for good measure. She found that mixing aim and ricochet shot let her headshot a zombie and do collateral to his friends. Her skills climbed and climbed, but eventually she got an ominous message.

  Your Ricochet Shot skill is maxed! Level up your Archer job to increase this skill!

  She paused…

  …and only then realized just how tired and drained she was. The skills she was using ate up a lot of stamina and fortune. Well, no matter, they had food up here—

  A basket of bread went sailing past Chase, and boosted by the wind, thudded into a zombie. Hard rolls scattered, bouncing off the crowd and mixing with the general gore and mess on the floor.

  “You threw the food?” Chase shrieked at Greta. “What the hell were you thinking!”

  “I was thinking we’re out of stuff to throw, and we still have zombies!” Greta screamed back. “What do we do, Chase? What do we do?”

  “I should have leveled by now. Why haven’t I leveled?” Chase asked, looking around wildly. If she’d only level, she’d be re-energized and could maybe do something more.

  “We’re still in the same fight!” Renny said. “You only level once you’re out of a situation that gives you enough experience to level! I think that’s how it works anyway…”

  Chase stared around at the now empty room, then down into the mass of zombies. The wind had worked for a bit, but by itself, it wasn’t enough. She could see those endlessly grasping arms, clawing for purchase and finding it. The zombies were able to brace off each other and the fallen bodies of their former colleagues, pushing themselves forward, despite the blasting air. She watched eyeballs get torn from sockets, watched greasepainted cheeks flap until they tore, watched wigs peel away from bald scalps, and it wasn’t enough. Now that the rain of crockery and household goods had stopped, the undead were making progress. They’d reach the upper level in minutes.

  Unless…

  “Greta, can you use your carpentry skill? Board up the stairway?”

  “I don’t have any boards!”

  Wordlessly, Chase pointed up at the roof.

  Greta followed her gaze. “Ooooh… right.” Greta whipped out her tools and started making sawing motions. Chase coughed as sawdust rained down on her, spluttered, then moved over to stand next to Renny.

  “If they get close enough to grab you, I’ll haul you back, okay?”

  Renny nodded, saying nothing. His little fox face was screwed up in a look of fuzzy concentration, and Chase found him so adorable that her heart almost broke.

  Then Chase looked to the clowns not eight feet away and found the mood quite shattered. She had to concentrate. She had to trust in her sister and hope that there was enough time to finish the job.

  There almost wasn’t.

  But just as the first ragged arms were within range to snatch Renny, just as she was readying to grab her friend and jump back, Greta shouted,“Done!”

  With a slam and a hammering noise, a large, shingled cap of wood slammed into place, nailed over the stairwell. Several hands poked out from under it, groping around, arms caught by the mid-combat crafting.

  Chase reviewed her options. Her stamina was drained, her fortune was low, but she still had plenty of sanity, now didn’t she?

  The Oracle pointed at the nearest hand as she drew backward and said, “Lesser Healing!”

  There was a scorching noise, and the zombie shrieked.

  You have “healed” zombie_78 for 17 points!

  Your lesser healing skill is now level 15!

  “Ha! Take that! Lesser Healing!”

  Another scorch, more words, and Chase felt elation seize her. “I set up here to heal people, now didn’t I? I can do this all night! Come on you dead jerks!”

  Not until she’d maxed her skill at twenty-five, gained a point of wisdom to boot, and burned through most of her sanity, did she finally back off. By that time the only hands left poking out from the rough wooden plug were blackened and unmoving.

  “This is good,” Renny said, flopping down on his tail. “They’ll have to clear away the dead ones up by the plug if they want to try and break it down.”

  “Or they could just push on the bodies in front of them, and bull through it that way,” Chase said, shaking her head. “We haven’t leveled, so the fight’s still going on. If we can escape clean, or get to a spot of safety, we’ll level up then, right?”

  “I think so. I think that’s how it works. I hope so, because I sure could use level ten!”

  “I just need more energy. I can’t believe you threw the food!” She glared at Greta… a glare that turned to concern, as she saw her sister curled up into a ball on the floor and heard her sobbing. “Oh. Oh Greta.”

  Chase hugged Greta to her, and the burly halven girl returned the embrace with all her might. But Chase left the discomfort slide and focused her eyes on the jagged hole in the ceiling, where Greta had used her craft to strip out the boards and then turn them into the plug. “You saved us, it’s okay,” Chase whispered.

  Then, faster than Chase could react, a black shape shot in from the window, clawing and scrabbling for purchase. Chase opened her mouth to scream… then shut it, as she recognized a familiar dwarf. “Gadram!” she said instead, her voice squeaking. She cleared her throat. “Gadram. What the heck is this? You were supposed to be keeping watch out there!”

  “I know. I’m sorry,” he said, crouching down next to them. “I don’t know how I missed ‘em. Thirty of ‘em were on this place ‘fore I knew it.”

  “So why aren’t the others coming to our aid?”

  “They’ve got their own mobs! There’s more around the inn! And the church.”

  “What about Millie?” Greta snuffled, rubbing furiously at her eyes.

  “She’s safe. I saw that lot comin’ in time to warn her. She’s hiding in the cellar, behind closed doors. But listen, there’s dozens of ‘em. Maybe even a hundred or so.”

  Chase fought down her irritation. Greta and Renny
were keeping watch up here, and they didn’t see the zombies until it was too late. There are shenanigans at work here. This doesn’t seem like Vaffanculo’s style.

  Bam!

  She turned her head and saw the wooden plug shake. “We’re out of time. Gadram, can we escape through the window?”

  He shook his head. “Still about a dozen or so outside. The noise drew others. I kin make it. Ye lot?” He shook his head. “Not wi’out losing at least one of ya.”

  “Unacceptable. We need to… We need to get out of the fight,” Chase said. “Then we can level and regain our energy. And come at this problem better and tougher. But how can we do that?”

  Gadram looked at her. Then he looked up, and grinned. “Perfectly good hole in that roof up there.”

  “You’re a genius!” Chase said, then ran to drag the empty chest of drawers over. She clambered up on it, reached out to grab the edge of the hole and hoist herself up…

  …and paused. She had a little fortune left, now didn’t she? “Hey Greta?”

  “Yeah?” Her sister was composed again, face red but out of tears for the moment.

  “Come up here next to me. And if I give you a thumbs up, then climb up onto the roof. If it’s thumbs down, then don’t.”

  “Did I hear you right?”

  “It’s Oracle shenanigans. Trust me.”

  “All right…” Greta got up next to her.

  Chase smiled and said, “Foresight.”

  In the now-familiar stillness, she watched herself give Greta a thumbs up. Watched Greta haul herself up.

  And gasped as she watched some sort of black glowing energy slam into her, turning Greta into a charred husk.

  Chase watched herself scream, and scream, and scream…

  And the second that time snapped back into joint, Chase not only twisted her thumb down, she grabbed Greta’s arm with her free hand, moving her lips silently, staring at her sister with mute appeal.

  Your Foresight skill is now level 19!

  “Chase?” Greta said, with her own eyes widening. “Chase, you’re scaring me!”

  The familiar band of tension in her chest eased. Chase was getting better at handling the stress of this, she knew. Well, the stress of the skill, anyway. Seeing her sister die was stress all its own, and Chase took a moment to get her nerve back. “The Necromancer’s watching the roof,” she said, in a low voice. “He’s near. I’m assuming that was him, anyway.”