Critical Failures VII

by Robert Bevan

  “Then what the fuck were you doing for the past four hours?”

  “I was resting. I need fifteen minutes of concentration to prepare my spells.”

  Chaz stared hopelessly up at the Crescent Shadow. Had it only stayed put this long to inflict the maximum possible damage to Chaz's already fractured psyche by disappearing in the next fifteen minutes?

  “Hurry up and do whatever you've got to do!”

  Julian closed his eyes and went back into another trance.

  Ravenus blinked up at Chaz. “As long as we've got the time to kill, can you tell me –”

  “No!” snapped Chaz. “I'm not talking about dicks and pussies with you anymore. Leave me alone.”

  The next fifteen minutes were excruciating. With every second that passed, he was sure that the island was going to blink out of existence. Or even worse. It was going to stay there until Julian reawakened, but Julian wouldn't have any spells to get them up there.

  “Good news,” said Julian, staring up at the Crescent Shadow with a look on his face that didn't quite resonate with his words.

  “Can you teleport us?” Chaz knew that he was being woefully optimistic to even ask the question.

  Julian bit his lower lip but wouldn't meet his gaze. “Yes.”

  That was absolutely not the answer Chaz was expecting to hear. “Really?”

  Julian nodded as he got to his feet. “Turn around and close your eyes.”

  Chaz narrowed his eyes at him. “What do I have to do that for? Goosewaddle never made us do anything like that.”

  “Professor Goosewaddle was using Advanced Teleport,” said Julian. “Mine is only a Level 3 spell. It works differently. I need to focus on a specific location, and I can't have your vision contaminating my targeting magic.”

  That sounded reasonable to Chaz. He remembered Goosewaddle saying something about a margin of error in the spell that could teleport them to the wrong place. He wasn't thrilled about trusting a novice sorcerer with that kind of accuracy, but it was better than any of the other options he'd come up with in the past four hours and fifteen minutes. He turned around and closed his eyes.

  “Okay, I'm ready. Are you sure you know what you're doing?”

  “Absolutely.”

  The next thing Chaz knew, Julian's arms snaked under his armpits and wrapped tight around his chest, and Julian's entire body was pressed against his back.

  “Um... Julian?”

  “Trust me. This isn't weird.”

  “I'm sorry, but it kinda is.”

  “Fly.”

  “What?” Chaz felt Julian's arms pressing up hard against his armpits. But even more alarmingly, he could no longer feel the sand beneath his feet. “What's going on?” He totally knew what was going on but couldn't bring himself to open his eyes and confirm it.

  “Sorry, man,” said Julian. “I didn't want to lie to you, but we didn't have time to argue. Just keep your eyes closed.”

  “Why did you make me turn around? I'd feel much more secure if I was holding onto you too!”

  “I thought you might think it was weird.”

  “It is fucking weird! But it's better than being dead.”

  “You're flying, sir!” cried Ravenus cheerfully.

  “Yes,” said Julian. “It's my first time, and I'm a little nervous about it. So maybe you could be quiet until we get to the Crescent Shadow?”

  Chaz opened his eyes and saw a whole lot more of the Fertile Desert than he wanted to see. They were so fucking high above the ground.

  “Stop squirming!” said Julian. “You're heavy enough as it is.”

  Chaz went as rigid as he could. “I'm sorry,” he said, moving his mouth as little as possible. “I opened my eyes.”

  “I told you not to do that.”

  “I couldn't help it.”

  “Look,” said Julian. “I'm not the biggest fan of heights either. But have some faith in the spell. It's working, and we're almost there. Just hang on a little longer, and – What the...”

  Chaz's stomach lurched as they took a sudden dip in altitude. He closed his eyes again, thinking that opening them might have disrupted the magic somehow. “What happened?”

  “Cake,” said Julian. “They're throwing food at us.”

  The faint drunken laughter of assholes grew gradually louder as Julian re-established his concentration and he and Chaz continued to ascend.

  Chaz could feel the increasingly frequent sensation of being pelted with food. Some of it was soft, like cake or other pastries. Some of it was harder, like bones or maybe even dishes.

  “Why do people have to be such assholes?” Chaz muttered to himself as more and more food and howling laughter rained down on them.

  “I think it's a rich-person thing,” said Julian. “Or maybe it's just a hazing ceremony they do for people trying to get onto the island. They do seem to be really enjoying themselves. And let's face it. If they really didn't want us up there, they'd be throwing Fireballs instead of food. Oh hey, that reminds me. I can cast Fireball now!”

  Chaz spat out something which had just splattered all over his face. It had the consistency of mashed potatoes, but the taste of soy sauce and pickles. “I'm really happy for you.”

  “I think I see a good spot to land,” said Julian. A shift in their direction drew boos and jeers from the wizards who were greeting them, which probably had a correlation to the diminished quantity of food they were currently being pelted with.

  The asshole wizards' voices faded as either they lost interest or Julian and Chaz flew farther away from them. A few seconds later, Julian let go of him.

  “SHI–” Chaz landed on solid ground before he had time to finish the word or his heart had time to explode. He opened his eyes and clutched fistfuls of the beautiful dirt of the small forest they'd landed in, then rolled onto his back and glared up at Julian. “You could have given me a heads-up before you dropped me.”

  Julian smiled. “It was more fun this way.”

  Chaz wiped the orange mashed whatever off his face, then stood on shaky legs with the support of a nearby tree trunk. “I can't believe I need to pee.”

  Julian's expression turned grim. “You had quite a bit to drink.”

  Chaz had hoped that Julian hadn't noticed that he'd finished off Julian's drink as well as his own while Julian was meditating. He could see now that this probably wasn't the case. Still, if Julian wasn't going to come right out and say it, neither was Chaz.

  “I meant that I was surprised I didn't piss myself on the way up here.”

  “I am, too,” said Julian. “That's another reason I asked you to turn around.”

  Chaz felt like he would be remiss to not piss off the side of the island, but he couldn't bring himself to go that close to the edge. Instead, he pissed on a tree trunk. All of the anxiety from the flight drained out through his dick.

  “So what's the plan now?” he said when he was done.

  “I don't expect we'll find anything useful tonight,” said Julian. “You've got to be exhausted.”

  “I am.”

  “Then we should probably call it a night, and get to work looking for the dice first thing in the morning.”

  “And what are our sleeping arrangements?”

  “Stacy and I spent a night here in this little forest. It's free, and we didn't get harassed or eaten or anything. I was thinking we could just crash here for the night.”

  Chaz nodded. “That's what I was hoping you'd say.” He fell to his knees, fell forward, then fell into a much needed slumber.

  Chapter 16

  Stacy stewed in her pit, nurturing the anger within her, letting it grow and strengthen. She'd liked her hair. It had perfect shine and bounce. Now it was gone, and all she had to show for it was about forty feet of handmade rope. Sure, it would grow back, but she didn't want to think about that. She needed the anger. With all the time and monotony of making her rope, the anger was the only thing keeping her awake.

  Sleep wasn't an option. Stac
y had no idea how long it had been since Dolazar visited her, or how long it would be before she visited again. But if Dolazar caught her asleep with a shaved head, she'd know Stacy had a dagger. She and her goons would take the dagger and the rope. Stacy had to stay awake until Dolazar returned.

  She tested the slipknot for what must have been the hundredth time. It slid smoothly up and down the rope, expanding and contracting the loop of her lasso.

  Keeping perfectly still against the wall with the rope coiled by her side, she listened for a sign of Dolazar's approach. Dolazar would have to make a hell of a Stealth check to surprise her. But why would she even bother? What would be the point? It made sense the first time to catch Stacy off guard and establish a paranoia in her that she could be being watched at any time. But to keep up that same shtick with every visit. That would just be obnoxious. It would also be difficult to pull off without some kind of white noise to cover her footfalls.

  No. A better strategy would be to broadcast her next few visits from a mile away. Make the prisoner think she'll always be warned of an upcoming visit. Then make a sneaky visit or two, making just enough noise for the prisoner to wonder if someone was there or not. If someone was there, how long had they been there? Why weren't they saying anything? A good hard mindfuck.

  Stacy thought she'd make an excellent prison torturer if she ever decided to be evil. She didn't think she had the stomach for the physical stuff, but she could get all up in people's psyches. And that was probably the most effective –

  “What happened to your hair?” said Dolazar.

  Fucking amateur.

  Stacy turned to face the direction Dolazar's voice had come from, keeping the rope hidden behind her back and closing her eyes to shield them from the coming light. “I'm trying out a new look. What do you think?”

  SNAP

  Stacy opened her eyes. It only took them a second to adjust to the light shining from Dolazar's stick.

  While Dolazar was lifting her magic night vision goggles, Stacy made her move. She swung her hair-rope around once, then tossed the loop up at Dolazar.

  “How did you even manage to cut it without a – Oh!”

  Stacy yanked hard on the rope, pulling Dolazar off balance. She could have easily caught her, but since she was planning on giving her a good beating anyway, Stacy stepped aside and let the hard pit floor get the beating started for her.

  Dolazar landed with a hard thud and an unbecoming grunt. The Cloak of Elvenkind she had stolen from Stacy faded to match the dull grey color of the floor beneath her. It rose like a mound of dirt as she morphed into her hybrid ratperson form.

  Stacy had been hoping she'd go that route. Kicking her ass in her human form would be easier, especially with the rope and dagger at her disposal, but Stacy wasn't interested in ease. She had some pent up aggression to work out and welcomed the challenge.

  Dolazar tried to scurry away from Stacy when she had fully transformed, but Stacy leaped onto her back and punched her a few times in the back of the head. Dolazar snarled and hissed as she twisted and squirmed out from under Stacy.

  Stacy tried to grab her, but Dolazar kicked her with both feet, then made a run for the wall. Then she actually started climbing.

  Stacy couldn't believe it. She was awesome in every conceivable way, but she couldn't climb a vertical wall. The claws on Dolazar's little rat hands and rat feet must have been able to latch onto the edges of the bricks.

  Whatever. She's not going anywhere.

  Stacy allowed her to get a few feet up before grabbing her tail and yanking her down.

  While Dolazar picked herself up from another hard fall, Stacy pulled her dagger from her boot. Time to stop fucking around.

  Dolazar backed away, eyeing the dagger. She shoved both of her hands into her long rat mouth, licking them and slobbering profusely. Then she removed her hands from her mouth and brandished her dripping claws at Stacy. The threat was obvious.

  “Go ahead and turn me into one of you if you want,” said Stacy. “What do you think that's going to accomplish? You have to look at this situation from my point of view. Then you'll understand that I have no choice but to attack you with everything I've got, even if it means contracting your disease.”

  Dolazar morphed back into her half-elf form. “Disease? What I have is a gift.” She sneered at Stacy's dagger. “Steel?”

  Stacy glanced doubtfully at the dagger. “I think so. Why? What's wrong with steel?”

  “Did you fall out of a whore's womb only yesterday?”

  Stacy gasped. “What a horrible thing to say!”

  “You would threaten a lycanthrope with an ordinary steel blade?”

  Stacy thought back to trashy urban fantasy novels. “You're only susceptible to silver.”

  “At the very least,” said Dolazar. “Have you any idea how many times you would have to stab me with that worthless instrument to kill me?”

  “If the answer is a finite number, then it's not completely worthless.” Stacy smiled. “And that's why you're still talking instead of attacking, isn't it? What a horrible way to go. I mean, getting stabbed to death is bad enough, but if it takes a couple of hundred stabs to finish the job... Yikes. Better you than me.”

  Dolazar's facade of confidence disappeared. She scowled at Stacy. “What do you want?”

  “First of all, I want my stuff back.”

  Dolazar took off Stacy's Cloak of Elvenkind, crumpled it into a ball, and threw it at her. “The rest of it is upstairs.”

  “What about the hair clip?” Stacy distinctly remembered seeing her wearing it when she landed in the pit.

  “But you don't even have any hair.”

  Stacy didn't know if she was being serious or if she just really wanted to get stabbed. “This isn't a negotiation. I want those night vision goggles, too.”

  Dolazar felt the goggles on her head. “You can't take my Goggles of the Night. They were a gift from Victor.”

  “Who's Victor?”

  “My late husband.”

  “Oh.” Stacy felt a twinge of guilt for taking the goggles, but she would need them to get out of this basement. Maybe she would leave them upstairs for when Dolazar eventually escaped. “I'm sorry for your loss, but –”

  “Don't be. He was a vile, unfaithful little man. I poisoned him.”

  Stacy rolled her eyes and held out her hand. “Hand over the hair clip and the goggles.” She would not be leaving the goggles upstairs.

  Dolazar tossed them over. Stacy put the goggles on her head but didn't pull them down over her eyes. Her hair too was short for the hair clip to hold on to, so she bitterly shoved it into her back pocket.

  “Now tell me where my friend is.”

  “The half-orc?” said Dolazar. “He's in another pit. I tried to interrogate him, but he yielded no useful information. I'm afraid he isn't handling his incarceration well. He speaks to his axe.”

  Stacy nodded, satisfied that Cooper was alive and unharmed. “Speaking of interrogation, I need you to tell me everything you know about Tim.”

  “I don't know what that is.”

  “The halfling.”

  “What makes you think I know any more than you do about him?” said Dolazar. “The only reason I took you and the half-orc alive is because I thought you might have information about him or those new weapons he's equipped his cell with.”

  “Guns?”

  “There, see? You are vastly more knowledgeable than me in these matters. What information could I possibly give you that you don't already know?”

  “All I want to know is where to find him. You said he's operating as part of a cell. Do they have a headquarters or hideout, or some other base of operations?”

  Dolazar shrugged. “I would assume so, but I don't know where it is.”

  “Bullshit,” said Stacy. She shifted her dagger so that its blade reflected light into Dolazar's eyes, just to remind her it was there, then took a step toward her.

  Dolazar took a step back and raised her
hands defensively. “Please. Wererats are notoriously cowardly and easy to extract information from. That's why I'm talking to you now instead of fighting, in spite of the fact that you're threatening me with a nigh-useless weapon and I could probably easily defeat you.”

  “Don't be too sure about that.”

  “Cowardice is the reason the Rat Bastards' hierarchy is structured as it is. The less we know about each other's comings and goings, the less information can be extracted from us.”

  Stacy remembered one of Dolazar's underlings saying something similar after their last encounter, and he had been pretty easy to extract information from.

  “Your hideout was easy enough to find. What territory does Tim's cell control?”

  “It started as a small part of the market district in the eastern part of the city, but since they got those new weapons, they've been expanding aggressively.”

  “So what am I looking for?” asked Stacy. “Another phony storefront like the one you run out of?”

  “Not likely. It would be too much hassle to run a shop in an actual crowded marketplace, and wererats, on the whole, tend not to be predisposed toward good customer service. They would need a place to escape to after grabbing someone's coin purse, a place their pursuers would hesitate to them into. A filthy dark alley, perhaps. Or a hideout in the sewers. If I were you, I'd make myself look like an easy mark, then be ready to –”

  “Yeah, yeah,” said Stacy. “I know the trick. That's how I found you the first time. But let me ask you this. Why are you suddenly being so helpful? The advice you're giving me is above and beyond what I've asked of you.”

  “Simple,” said Dolazar. “You and the halfling obviously have some kind of history. If he doesn't want you to find him, then it stands to reason that you pose some kind of unique threat to him. He's caused a major disruption in the relationship between the Rat Bastards and the city's other rogues' guilds. And while it would be nice to be known as the one who took him down, I'll happily settle for you taking him out of the picture. Or, more likely, he'll kill you. Either way, I win.”

  “That's really shitty of you, but I appreciate your honesty.” Stacy thought for a moment, then lowered her dagger. “What if we worked together?”