Critical Failures VII

by Robert Bevan

  She looked back to check on Tanner and Tony the Elf's progress. Fortunately, they were catching up to her.

  “Look what I found,” she said.

  Tony the Elf squinted past her. “What is that?”

  “Looks like an entrance to a mine shaft,” said Tanner.

  “Oh?” Katherine moved closer and caught a whiff of something foul in the air. The bloated human body floating face down in the pool of water inside the columns provided evidence both to support Tanner's theory and corroborate the story the dwarf on the beach had told her about what happened here.

  “Look on the bright side,” said Tony the Elf, joining Katherine as she stared at the floating corpse. “We've found a mine. That's one item we can cross off the list.”

  “Maybe more than one,” said Tanner. “If this flooding was caused by snow and ice from the melted palace, it's probably fresh water.”

  Tony the Elf grimaced. “There's a fucking dead body in it!”

  “That's not necessarily a deal-breaker,” said Katherine. She ignored Tony the Elf's even more horrified grimace as she elaborated. “I might be able to use my Bag of Holding to separate contamination from – Holy shit! I've got an idea!” She pulled out the Bag of Holding as she ran toward the mine shaft, then held it upside down over the pool and reached inside. “Dead bodies!”

  She quickly pulled her hand away as all the dead bodies they'd collected on the beach spilled out, making the nasty, putrid-smelling water splash and flow over the sides.

  “I'm just playing Devil's Advocate here,” said Tony the Elf. “But I feel that you might only be exacerbating the problem now.”

  When the bag was all cleared of corpses, Katherine rejoined Tanner and Tony the Elf. “We'll come back for them.” She spread the Bag of Holding open on the ground between them. “I need you two in the bag, pronto.”

  “Oh come on. That was just full of dead bodies.”

  “And you just saw me dump out all of the dead bodies, which I did specifically so you wouldn't have to float around in there with them.”

  “That was very thoughtful of you,” said Tanner. He stepped into the bag and appeared to fall into the earth beneath it.

  Katherine gave Tony the Elf an impatient look. “Time's ticking away. You can get in the bag, or you can walk back to the beach by yourself.”

  Tony the Elf sighed. “Just don't forget to pull us out.”

  After he stepped into the bag, Katherine rolled it up and turned into a wolf. The bag, her clothes, and all of her other belongings melded into her wolf form with her. Butterbean stared at her in a similar manner that Tony the Elf had when she'd asked him to come look for fresh water with her. She gave Butterbean a warning growl, then started running back toward the beach. Butterbean and Tony the Elf's dog followed.

  Whether it was the rush of wind in her face as she ran, or the fact that she wasn't semi-tethered to a boat, Katherine found her wolf form the most satisfying of all the animal forms she'd tried so far. She almost regretted blowing her daily usage of this ability on such a short run, but she was more excited to test her new theory. Maybe tomorrow, after they'd done as much work as they were going to do toward getting situated on the island, she would devote a few hours to running up and down the beach and howling at the moon with Butterbean.

  She arrived back at the beach to find a few more of her crew awake and groggily walking around. They became instantly alert at the sight of two wolves and a sheepdog running at them, but relaxed again when Katherine returned to her normal form.

  “Tony the Elf,” she said after shoving her hand into the Bag of Holding.

  Tony the Elf spilled out onto the sand gasping for air.

  Katherine hurriedly reached in again. “Tanner!”

  Tanner fell out next to Tony the Elf, breathing heavily but not quite so dramatically.

  “That was quite a ride,” he said when he caught his breath. “So what is this big idea of yours?”

  Katherine grinned. “Check this out.” She kicked off her boots, then ran into the water. Being cooler than she'd expected, it gave her a slight chill. Nevertheless, she dunked the Bag of Holding under the surface and held it down against the sandy sea bottom for about a minute, letting water flow into it.

  When she was satisfied she had enough water for a properly impressive demonstration, she pulled it up and returned to her companions. “Water is no longer an issue. We're fucking surrounded by it!”

  Tony the Elf frowned as the familiar glint of condescension returned to his eyes. “We're on an island.”

  Tanner stood up and brushed the sand off his ass. “Perhaps you should allow her to –”

  “We almost suffocated in that bag because it just occurred to her that the ocean is full of water.” He turned sharply to Katherine. “Saltwater, which will only hasten our dehydration.”

  Katherine glared back at him as she reached into the bag. “Salt.”

  As coarse white crystals poured out of the bag into a pile on the beach, nearly indistinguishable from the sand, she watched with extreme satisfaction as Tony the Elf's expression softened, then turn panicky, like a rotting peach.

  He looked up at her with remorseful eyes. “I'm such an asshole. I didn't mean... I didn't think... I –”

  “Fish shit,” said Katherine, prompting a small brown blob to drop down onto the pile of salt. “Let's take a walk to the dinghy, shall we?”

  Tanner and Tony the Elf followed her to the small vessel. She could practically feel the former's smugness and the latter's embarrassment like heat lamps on her back.

  She turned the bag upside down over the dinghy. “Water.” Water flowed out of the bag until the little boat was overflowing. “Any volunteers to try it?”

  Tanner cupped his hands in the water, then brought them to his mouth to drink. When his hands were empty, he shrugged. “It is unpleasant, but not salty. I believe it will keep us alive.”

  Katherine beamed at him. She was almost able to fool herself into believing she knew what she was doing.

  “That's water solved. That should buy us a couple of days to get food sorted out.”

  “We could ferry a boatload of these rotting fish out to the ship,” suggested Tony the Elf enthusiastically, no doubt trying to make up for being a douche a few minutes ago. “If we chum the water with them, maybe we could lure in some fresh fish, or a shark, or something.”

  Katherine grimaced at the thought of eating shark again. Of course it was preferable to starving to death or eating dead people, but Tony the Elf's idea would involve using a lot of the rotted fish that had washed up on the beach, which she already had earmarked for fertilizing the interior of the island with. Plus, there was no guarantee it would work.

  “Why go to all the effort of making so many small trips to the ship and back?” said Fritz. “Would it not be easier to have the fish come to us?”

  “Do you have a fish-summoning flute or something?” Katherine asked him.

  Fritz smiled. “I do not, in fact. But I do have a knack for basic engineering, and what I'm proposing is a relatively simple, if not labor-intensive endeavor.”

  “What is it?”

  “While the tide is high like it is now, all manner of fish will be swimming about freely in the same places we'll be able to walk when the tide lowers in the morning. If we were to dig a large trench, we may be able to trap some.”

  Katherine nodded. “That sounds like an interesting idea, but also like a lot of time and effort. We'll have to wait at least another full day to see how well it works. If it only nabs us a couple of fish, our time might have been better spent trying something different.”

  “We could use Tony the Elf's idea of chumming the water with rotten fish to entice more fish to swim into our trap,” said Fritz. “The best part is, though, that if it works too well, and we find ourselves with more fish than we can eat, they'll still be swimming in sea water. So we needn't fear them spoiling.”

  “That's true,” said Katherine. “But even if
they started to spoil, I could always cast a – Holy shit! I've got an idea!”

  Tony the Elf stood straight like a soldier at attention. “I have every confidence that it's a brilliant one.”

  “We're surrounded by dead fish! To think that we've just been talking about using them as bait this whole time, while we should have been talking about using them as food.”

  Tony the Elf frowned as his gaze fell to the putrid decaying fish on the beach. “I still believe in you.”

  Katherine removed her cloak, which was much too hot to be wearing in this climate anyway, and spread it out on the sand.

  “Pile as many fish on here as you can,” she said.

  “Just to be clear,” said Fritz. “You want us to dump a bunch of dead fish on your cloak?”

  Katherine nodded. “That is correct.”

  “Which you are proposing we will use as food?”

  “We'll all have more than we could possibly eat, and there will still be plenty left over to use as fertilizer.”

  Fritz frowned. “Neither of those are my primary concerns.”

  Tony the Elf dumped an armload of dead fish into the dinghy, then dropped to his knees to throw up. When he regained his composure, he stood up. “Just let her do her thing.”

  By the time others had hauled armfuls of dead fish onto her cloak, dawn was beginning to break, and even more people were waking up.

  Katherine placed one hand on the pile. “Purify!”

  The fish didn't regrow any flesh that they'd lost in the decomposition process, but what blackened flesh they had turned white or pink, depending upon the fish, and the foul smell instantly disappeared.

  “Any volunteers to try it?” Katherine directed the question specifically toward Tony the Elf.

  Tony the Elf looked at the fish doubtfully at first, then shifted his gaze toward his fire that was still barely burning. “Would you mind if I cooked it a bit first?”

  “Not at all.”

  While Tony the Elf carried a few purified fish to his fire, Katherine turned her attention to Mordred, still tied to his chair.

  “He's probably about due for a feeding.”

  “We can ground up some fish,” said Fritz. “That should be enough to keep him going.”

  “I'm not comfortable with the way we've been treating him,” said Katherine. “We've been letting him shit himself since we've captured him, and he's had a shit bag on his head this whole time. However bad a person he is, I think we should treat him with a little more humanity.”

  “I understand where you're coming from,” said Frank, rubbing his eyes as he waddled her way. “You're the captain, of course, and I gladly relinquish all leadership responsibilities to you. But if you would hear my thoughts on the matter...”

  “I would.”

  “Under normal circumstances, I would agree with you that this is a cruel and unusual way to treat a prisoner. And I understand that you're going through some feelings about certain things that have happened on this island.”

  “I ordered that you be informed,” said Katherine. “Say what you have to say.”

  “First and foremost, Mordred is extremely dangerous. If we give him an inch, there's no telling how many miles he might take from it.”

  “I understand.”

  “Secondly, this isn't as inhumane a punishment as you think it is.”

  “Would you feel that way if I kept you tied to a chair, stewing in your own shit while I kept a bag of someone else's shit over your head?”

  “No, I would not,” said Frank. “But Mordred isn't like the rest of us.”

  “Because he's the bad guy?' asked Katherine. “If the tables ever turn, aren't we just giving him more justification to treat us even worse?”

  “I agree with you that, on the surface, it seems like a horrible way to treat someone. But this is different. Mordred has multiple bodies to inhabit. Making this one as unpleasant as possible merely forces him to choose between this existence and several more comfortable ones. It may be one of the only things keeping us alive at present. But as long as he stays in another one of his avatars, he isn't suffering any of the stench or butt rash that this particular avatar is going through. We need to keep him as uncomfortable as possible in this body so that he wants to stay out of it. And if we need any information from him, we need him to want to be so riddled with butt rash that he'll do anything to be able to jump into a new body at the nearest opportunity.”

  “So you're saying it's like an electric fence?”

  Frank frowned. “Am I?”

  “An electric fence isn't a cruel means of keeping someone out of a place as long as you're not forcing that person up against it.”

  “Yeah. That analogy works.”

  Katherine thought about it, then nodded. “It works for now. I'll give it more consideration after we get the mine cleared.” She glanced at Mordred, then back in the direction of the mine where she'd dumped all the dead bodies. “Speaking of unpleasant, that job's only going to get worse and worse the longer I put it off.”

  “Do you need some help?” asked Frank.

  “I'll take Tanner and Tony the Elf with me.” It was enough for them to know what had happened in the mines and on the beach. Katherine didn't think it would benefit anyone who hadn't already seen all the gory details to do so. “The rest of you can stay here and get things organized on the beach.”

  “You guys aren't going to believe this,” said Tony the Elf as he returned from his fire with a crispy dead fish on piece of bark.

  Katherine eyed the fish warily. “Is it edible?”

  “It's freaking delicious!”

  Picking off a tiny piece of white meat, Katherine nibbled it cautiously while the others watched with morbid curiosity. Except for Tony the Elf, who was watching with eager anticipation.

  He was right. It was delicious. In fact, it was some of the best grilled fish Katherine had ever tasted. She could only dream of what it would taste like battered and fried.

  “Fritz,” she said. “Do you think you can expand that fire and whip up a grill to go over the top of it?”

  “Not a problem,” said Fritz. “I'll dig a trench for the fire.”

  “What is it with you and trenches?” asked Tony the Elf. “Do you feel like you missed out on World War I or something?”

  Fritz frowned up at him with annoyance. “The trench serves a multitude of purposes. It protects the fire from the wind, makes it easy to conceal at night, easy to put out in case the need should arise, and obviates the need for a raised grill.”

  “Okay okay, I was just busting your balls. Dig your trench with my full blessings. I'll even get Dave to help out if you want.”

  “Dave?” said Katherine, confused. Tony the Elf had been at the Whore's Head when Dave went berserk and ripped that old wizard's throat out.

  “That's what I named my dog after your friend turned it into my Animal Companion.”

  “Oh, that's nice.” Now that she remembered what he was talking about, Katherine didn't give a shit. “I need you and Tanner to accompany me back to the mine. I'd like to clear it out as much as we can while we've got daylight.”

  “Oh,” said Tony the Elf. “Sure.”

  Katherine could see the apprehension in his face and hear it in his voice. Scooping dead bodies out of a pool of rancid water wasn't his assignment of choice.

  “Don't worry. My Bag of Holding is going to do most of the heavy lifting. I just don't want to be alone out there. It's kind of creepy, you know?”

  “We would be delighted to accompany you,” said Tanner. Katherine believed him. He didn't know the others that well, and he had a particularly prickly relationship with Frank.

  Katherine nodded, then addressed Frank. “We'll be back before sundown. Do what you can to make this place more habitable.” She, Tony the Elf, and Tanner filled their wineskins from the dinghy, then headed back toward the mine.

  Chapter 29

  Happy Cock was a dingy looking place for sure, but not nece
ssarily in a bad way. The tables and chairs were made of simple unfinished wood, and the pale blue paint on the walls was peeling. But Randy was willing to give the place the benefit of the doubt. He figured they didn't bother sprucing it up on account of they didn't need to impress anyone with fancy adornments. Instead, they drew in customers with the quality of the product they served. This theory was supported by the amount of customers they had and the smell of the chicken they were all thoroughly enjoying. He'd seen places like this back in Mississippi. They looked like shitholes, but that was because they'd been operating for close to a hundred years and had earned reputations that would be corrupted by trying to modernize.

  The rear door swung open, and a large sweaty man in a blood-smeared apron rushed through with a tray holding four whole fried chickens, which he set down on a table in front of greedy-eyed dwarves and gnomes. When they happily began tearing into their birds with forks and daggers, the big man turned to Randy.

  “Please, good folk. Seat yourselves at any available table.” He indicated such a table next to the wall, and Randy, Denise, and Jay took their seats. “What will you have?”

  “The sign outside says cock,” said Denise with a wink. Her gaze fell to the crotch area of the man's apron. “I reckon my friend Randy and I would like two of the biggest cocks you got.”

  “I apologize if you feel you've been misled, good lady. But we actually only serve hens here.”

  Denise grinned at Randy. “Tough luck, big guy. Looks like only ladies are served the Happy Cock.”

  “Hens are typically larger,” the man explained. “There is more meat on them.”