Celia shook her head. “You always know how to cheer me up. And...” She bit her lip, as she looked back to the note. “On the other hand,” Celia said, staring at the note with hope so raw even the bear picked up on it, “If he says I’ve passed, then this is everything I ever wanted. I mean, out of this trip, anyway. But it could say either. And I don’t know which one it says. And I won’t until I go and read that note.”
The wind howled, then faded.
“And I’m afraid of it, and I don’t want to, because so long as I’m sitting here and the note’s unread then it’s not telling me what I’m afraid it’ll tell me. It’s stupid and it’s cowardly but that’s how I feel right now.”
Threadbare curled into her arms. She looked down at him, then back up at the note, and her face scrunched up. “Oh to... to hell with it.” She clapped her hand over her mouth, then looked around, and giggled. “To hell with it! No one out here to hear me say that! Let’s go read that fu—” training, discipline, and a lifetime of manner lessons warred with the exhilarating freedom of being finally out of earshot of anyone who cared, but a lifetime of good manners proved too hard to break. “—fumping. Yes, that fumping note. Let’s go read it.”
And before the little girl could lose her nerve, she tugged the knife free of the tree (it took a few tries and a strength increase), let the waterskin fall, pulled the paper away from the blade, and read it with her hands all-a-tremble.
Celia’s whoops of joy echoed around the mountaintop. “Yes! Yes! Whooo-hoo, yes! Look, look!” She said, thrusting the paper down to Threadbare.
Threadbare took it.
And instantly more squig— more WORDS appeared.
MORDECAI SKUNKTHUMPER HAS OFFERED YOU A TIMED QUEST!
DETAILS: GO HOME BEFORE TIME RUNS OUT
DEADLINE: 42 HOURS 32 MINUTES
REWARD: YOU WILL UNLOCK THE SCOUT JOB
COMPLETION: RETURN TO YOUR HOUSE TO QUALIFY
DO YOU WANT TO ACCEPT THIS QUEST? Y?N?
Threadbare looked at the words, tried to peer around them to the note, couldn’t quite do it.
Wait, Mordecai had written last night, using the charcoal stick like a quill, hadn’t he? There were sticks a plenty in the coals. Threadbare could easily grab one and copy the words he saw onto this handy piece of parchment...
INT +1
But the stick burned the parchment as he touched it to the paper.
“Threadbare!” She tugged it from his hands, and shook it out. Then reconsidered. “We probably should burn this. Even though it’s a timed quest, the quest is tied to the paper. So if the Raccants come up here and grab it they might come to my house and be scouts, and I don’t want either of those things to happen.” She shuddered. “Invisible little furry monsters. Horrible notion, huh?”
The little furry toy golem thought “Yes”, and nodded his head up and down as soon as the words disappeared.
“We’ve got two days. We reached this place in one. It should be easy to get back, right?”
Threadbare considered. He understood most of what Celia said. But this place was very new to him, and he had no clue where home was from here. So he shook his head instead.
“Don’t worry, I think I can do it. I have a really good memory. Animators get good intelligence boosts each level. But uh...” her stomach rumbled. “First we need breakfast. Did ah, did he leave us any food?” She looked around the camp hopefully. No food presented itself. Even the bones and offal from their baked coney skewers was gone. “Maybe he hid it. As a test. You go that way, I’ll go this way.” Celia started poking around through the little grove of trees.
Threadbare followed her suggestion, and went hunting around the tiny plateau. There wasn’t much up here, really. A few drifts of snow, the copse of trees that Celia had slept in, and that little pond.
That little pond did have those silvery things swimming around in it. Threadbare gave a nervous glance toward the stream that trickled from the pond to the waterfall, but it was pretty tiny.
He looked left. He looked right. And then he gave into his instincts, and waded into the shallow pond.
The salmon were young, recently spawned, and exhausted from hatching. In another day they would have worked up the strength to navigate the lip of the rocks between pond and stream, and made their way down the waterfall. As it was, they had no hope of dodging the fuzzy creature that waded into them, claws flashing out left and right. He wasn’t very dextrous but they were pretty tightly packed; it was a target-rich environment.
STR +1
Your Claw Swipes skill is now level 6!
Your Forage skill is now level 2!
Your Forage skill is now level 3!
Critical Hit!
LUCK +1
Your Forage skill is now level 4!
You have unlocked the Grizzly job! Level up to meet rank requirements!
You are now a level 3 Bear!
CON +3
STR +3
WIS +3
Armor +3
Endurance +3
Mental Fortitude +3
Threadbare paused, hip deep in the now-bloody water, as that good feeling rippled through him again. His stamina, drained from claw swipes filled up once more, and he felt a rightness to it, a satisfaction that he couldn’t put his finger on.
Then fingers wrapped around him. “Threadbare! What did you... oh.” Celia said, looking at the five small fish drifting on the surface of the water. “Oh! Breakfast! Thank you!”
Twenty minutes later, with the stoked fire drying him out and the fish sizzling on makeshift skewers, Celia’s eyes opened wide. “I just unlocked the Cook job. What should I do?”
Threadbare looked at her. What was a cook? What was a job? He shrugged.
“Is this all it takes to unlock that job? No wonder Daddy never let me cook.” She bit her lip. “There’s only so many jobs you can learn, and I know that the adventuring ones and the profession ones are different. I'm a human so I can learn up to three profession jobs without cutting into the adventuring ones. But...” She sighed. “No. No I won’t be a cook right now. If I change my mind I can select it from my status screen, I think. Status!” She checked. “Yes, we’re good.” She hauled the salmon skewers, slightly charred, out of the fire and ate them. “Ugh. Well, it’s better than nothing. Thank you Threadbare!” She ruffled his soggy head.
Once he was dry and the salmon were consumed, the sticks and bones were hurled into the Oblivion to dispose of them. Celia and Threadbare started down the mountain, with Threadbare poking out of the top of her pack, watching as she carefully climbed down the steep slope, backing down and moving from handhold to handhold.
It worked pretty well until her foot slipped. She managed to catch herself but the sudden jolt threw Threadbare out of the pack, and rolling madly down the cliff.
She shrieked, as he banged off of one rock after another, and wound up at the treeline, caught up in a tangle of thorny bushes and down a few hit points.
He sat up with more annoyance than anything else, and tried to pull himself free.
And the bush pulled back.
Gropevines were a hazard in this region, even in the highest mountains. They usually subsisted on all sorts of birds, small animals, and even bugs. They were also attributed all sorts of questionable actions and had a lurid reputation that was entirely out of keeping with their motivations and modus operandi. All they wanted to do to people was rip them up with thorns and strangle them, it’s not like they were weird about it.
All of this was lost on Threadbare, as the bush opened up to reveal masses of vines, long thorns, and two clusters of white and black berries that looked like eyes. The bear glowered at his attacker, and drew back his hand for a swipe—
—and promptly got a dagger stuck through it as one fell bladefirst into his paw.
The little bear and his viny foe looked at it. Then they both looked up, ignoring the red ‘3’ that floated away from them.
“Oops! Oh no! Uh, sorry, I was
aiming for right next to you. Just use that to fight it!” Celia shouted from above. “I’ll be down as fast as I can! Hang in there!”
Threadbare pulled the dagger out of his paw, looked at the vines trying to wrap around him, and got to slashing. He’d seen how Celia had used the knife to gut the fish, so that was probably how it worked, right?
INT +1
Well, he tried, anyway. The vines were all thorny and covered in bark, and he was pretty clumsy with the blade. It was more like a sword to him, not that he knew what those were.
Fortunately, his armor was more than enough to ward off the worst of the vine’s efforts. A few squeezes and 4 points of damage later, he got a good cut in.
Your actions have unlocked the generic skill: Dagger!
Your Dagger skill is now level 1!
The gropevine sizzled, sounding like the fish had as they fried on the fire, and swept Threadbare’s legs out from under him with one quick sweep. Then it piled vine on vine, binding his arms, and trying to keep that blade from nicking it again...
...to no avail, as Threadbare twisted his dagger, snapping through the vines binding him. The little bear didn’t look it, but he was about as strong as the average teenage human now, and the gropevine couldn’t match his concentrated muscles.
STR +1
Your Dagger skill is now level 2!
Then more noise from above, as Celia reached a safe spot, yanked out her toys, animated and invited them into her party. They rained down from above, and waded into the gropevine, pummeling it relentlessly. The gropevine tried to peel its vines away from Threadbare to deal with the new threats, but Threadbare well-remembered the lesson of the rats and team-fighting with Pulsivar, down in the cellar.
INT +1
Threadbare dropped the dagger and pulled the vines to him, as many as he could get. With him tying up the enemy, his friends were free to beat it up with impunity.
Your Brawling skill is now level 9!
This allowed his toy allies to get past the exterior vines and attack the interior. It sizzled again as they laid into its vulnerable berries, then fell silent and limp, amidst a cloud of red numbers.
“Woohoo!” Celia shouted, from above. “Level six!”
Threadbare let the vines drop, just as his little girl got to the bottom of the cliff, and ran up behind him. “Mend!”
You have been healed for 18 points!
She considered him. “Are you okay?”
Threadbare nodded, and offered her the dagger back.
“Why don’t you keep it until we’re back home,” she said. “You always seem to end up in trouble way more than I do.”
Threadbare shrugged, and rested the blade over his shoulder.
“I figured you’d be okay. Gropevines aren’t that big a deal unless they’re really big.” Celia collected her toys. “But we should—”
A drum sounded in the distance. Celia froze, and peered into the trees.
“Threadbare?” She said, eventually, “Does that sound to you like a big raccant banging on a stolen bucket with a stick as it charges and leads seven other raccants this way?” She bent down and gathered up her toys as she spoke, stuffing them into her pack.
Threadbare looked up at her and shrugged.
“Well it should because that’s what’s coming towards us.” She knelt and grabbed up the little bear, and ran for her life.
CHAPTER 7: RANDAHM ENCOUNTAHS
The Raccants chased Celia and Threadbare around the hills for the better part of a day. It had the side-benefit of unlocking Threadbare’s generic stealth skill and raising it a few levels, but it was mostly an annoyance. From his safe haven of Celia’s arms he waved his knife at any who got too close, and the little wooden-masked varmints steered clear.
At some point during the chase Threadbare unlocked the qualification for Black Bear, and got told he needed more experience. But he barely had time to notice it as he watched the pursuing monsters with fascination.
Celia, on the other hand, was terrified. The irony of it was that she shouldn’t have been. Raccants were territorial creatures, but not aggressive. They were trying to scare her off from their claimed turf, that was all. Mind you, if she dropped any interesting trinkets or slowed down enough to the point where they could nick her pack, they would’ve in a heartbeat. But they wouldn’t have hurt her. After all, maybe they could fool her into adopting them someday! Then they’d have easy lives...
But the chase went on far more than it should have, because Celia kept getting hopelessly lost, and turning back into their little valley. She was smart, and her perception wasn’t lacking, but fear and exhaustion did a number on her, and she made mistakes.
Threadbare had a different sort of brain, one that... well, it did have fear, but it wasn’t the same sort as most organic types knew. It was afraid of something bad happening to Celia, or to Daddy, or Pulsivar, but that was about it, really. He wasn’t afraid for himself.
So when he noticed her turning around to pass the same boulder for the third time that day, he knew that they were going the wrong way.
PER +1
He tugged on her sleeve.
“Wh-wh-what?” Celia chattered, simultaneously drenched in sweat and cold from the chill air of the peaks.
Threadbare tugged on her sleeve again, and pointed with the dagger.
“That way? You’re, huff, you’re certain?”
Behind her a stick banged a bucket again, and she flinched. “That way it, ha, it is!” Exhausted, barely jogging, she set off past the boulder, and down a winding deer path that vanished into a mass of tangled scrub.
She didn’t see the lone Raccant Chief heave a sigh of relief behind his BLLDOGY mask, and put away his bucket. Finally she’d gotten the message. He looked back to where he’d left his minions behind, and waddled back to find them. For a second he considered keeping a watch, to make sure she didn’t come back. But then he decided against it. She’d gone down into that valley. She wouldn’t be back.
Five minutes later, peering out at a slope full of dead trees, Celia knew she was well and truly lost. She turned to head back...
...and Threadbare stirred in her arms, shaking his head.
“No?”
Threadbare put the dagger under one arm, and covered his face, then pretended to drum an imaginary bucket.
“You’re right. They haven’t followed me down here. But they’re probably waiting for me up top.” Celia swallowed, and looked around. “I don’t know where this is. I didn’t see this place on the walk up.” She swallowed. “And my throat’s dry.” She reached to her side, then froze. “I totally left Mister Mordecai’s water skin up at Oblivion Point, didn’t I?”
Threadbare nodded.
“Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid.” She palmed her face.
Threadbare patted her arm. He’d forgotten about it too.
“Um. Well, finding water is totally a thing a scout would do. And Daddy’s books said to only drink from moving streams and rivers. There’s tons of little brooks all through these parts, we crossed enough of them. Just have to keep an eye out.” The pair descended into the dead trees. Celia put Threadbare down after a bit, tired enough from even his small weight.
Eventually the slope evened out, but the dead trees didn’t. Celia eyed the murky puddles of rainwater and cold marsh, that started to crop up but thought it best to find water elsewhere. It didn’t look, oh what was the word... Patable? No, that wasn’t it.
Dusk was coming on quickly. The light was fading, sun setting behind the western mountains.
So naturally, that’s when she found the graveyard.
“Ohhh boy.” Celia whispered, as she realized that the rows of rocks among the dead trees were actually tombstones. “Yeah, not drinking water here.” Her voice was a rasp at this point, but she knew what graveyards meant, and there was no way she was drinking water that was anywhere near dead people.
Threadbare tottered over to one of the tombstones, and saw there were words carved into
it. He squinted, but didn’t see any that usually appeared when he did things. No, no wait, there was one.
Threadbare pointed at the stone. Celia came over and read it. “Here lies Axey Dent. Like most barbarians he shorted Int.”
The little bear pondered, then looked at it again, trying to match up the symbols with the words she’d just said. He was close, he knew, so very very close...
“Okay, somebody’s got a weird sense of humor,” Celia said, still spooked.
Threadbare moved to the next stone, and checked it for words. Celia followed, reading as she went. “Here lies Sandra Schtupp. Pissed off a vampire, never looked up. Here lies Barry the Bold. Went into my mausoleum to get out of the cold. Here lies Dorothy Gunn. Looted my lair but failed to run.”
Words started to repeat, here and there as she went, and Threadbare’s mind expanded.
INT +1
Midway through the morbid recitals, Celia stopped, as a spreading look of horror crossed her face. “Oh. Oh no.”
And from behind her, from the darkest part of the trees, she heard the slow, steady sound of leather smacking on leather, as someone clapped their gloved hands. Trembling like a leaf, she turned...
...to see a girl just a bit shorter than her, leaning against a tree.
She looked about the same age as Celia, but even skinnier, with short brown hair covered by a polka-dotted green and purple bandanna. She had an apron very like Celia’s daddy wore, only hers had hammers and chisels and measuring tape sticking out of it. She wore a sturdy pair of work boots on her feet, and had tough leather gloves on each hand. Short, poofy trousers and a simple bloodstained white shirt that was three sizes too big completed the picture.
“Finally, somewahn gets it!” The strange girl said with a nasal accent. “Good on yah! Four stahs! Now scram, kid, befahre I eat yah.”
Celia shrieked, ran, tripped over a tombstone, struggled back up, ran back for Threadbare, scooped him back up, and ran.
The girl laughed hard, clutching her belly and doubling over. Then her belly grumbled “Mff. Your bad luck, I guess. Sorry kid, but mama’s hangry.” She straightened up, giving the tree next to her a pat. “Looks like yah’re on the menu tonight-”
Threadbare Volume 1 Page 11