Critical Failures VII

by Robert Bevan

  Tim's eyes lit up in a way that Cooper couldn't remember seeing for a long time. “Are you fucking serious?”

  Cooper frowned, sorry to have to break the bad news to him. “Don't get your hopes up, dude. I don't think it works after you've already turned.”

  “Who gives a shit about that?” said Tim, his mirth undeterred. “Don't you see? We're going to be best friends again.”

  “Come on, man. We never weren't best friends. That's the whole reason I was trying to track you down in the first place.”

  “But now we'll be on the same team, working together.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Nabi sighed in Cooper's head. He's going to leave you here in the desert until you turn.

  That couldn't be true. Tim wouldn't –

  “I'm going to leave you here in the desert until you turn.”

  “What? No!” said Cooper. “Don't fucking do that!” He stood up and pretended he wasn't about to tackle Tim again.

  “Will you relax?” Tim slipped his ring off his finger then put it back on and promptly turned invisible. “Being a shape-shifter is awesome. You get Damage Reduction, you scare the shit out of people, you get to turn into a giant rat whenever you want.”

  “I don't want to turn into a giant fucking rat!” said Cooper, then pounced on the spot where Tim was standing. All he got for his effort was a kicked-up spray of sand in his face. He sat up and tried to find Tim's footprints to see where he'd gone.

  Keep him talking.

  “And I don't want to turn evil.”

  “There it is.” Tim's voice was coming from behind Cooper. “It's not what you think, Cooper. Alignment is a joke in this game. Good and Evil are about as meaningful as sports teams here. They're just tags that make you susceptible to magic that targets them. Changing your alignment isn't going to change who you are.”

  He is too far away to reach before he can teleport away. Your only hope is to hit him with the Decanter of Endless Water. Perhaps engage him with a question first to distract him.

  Cooper nodded. “Where'd you get those new shoes, motherfucker!” He whirled around and aimed the decanter at an empty patch of sand. “Geyser!”

  There was nothing at first, and Cooper feared he had misjudged Tim's location. Then the water began to betray a form. Cooper kept the stream as steady as he could as he lunged toward it. Tim's rib cage cracked and collapsed in his overzealous embrace. He could feel his friends gooey insides all over his arms and chest.

  “SHIT!” cried Cooper. “Tim! I'm sorry! I... What the fuck?”

  Deactivating the Decanter of Endless Water, Cooper discovered that he had not, in fact, crushed Tim to death, but rather a large orange pumpkin that had sprouted out of the Fertile Desert sand. He was sitting in a tangle of lush green pumpkin vines that were now beginning to wither.

  Not exactly what I had in mind.

  “I stole them off an acquaintance who was trying to doublecross me after I shot him point blank in the face,” said Tim from about ten yards away. “Just like I bit Dave's finger off and stole his ring when he doublecrossed me. Notice a pattern here?”

  He is getting impatient. He won't give you many more opportunities. Take your time and wait until you are certain of his location.

  “You said a new alignment wouldn't change you,” said Cooper. “Those don't sound like the sort of things you would have done before you turned.”

  Tim laughed. “What, you mean like killing a guy? I seem to recall an instance of me doing just that. It caused a bit of a tizzy at the Whore's Head, if I recall correctly.”

  Cooper had a rough idea of Tim's general direction, but didn't feel confident enough yet to take another shot at him.

  “That was a heat-of-the-moment thing, and you were drunk. I'm not saying that excuses it, but it was a hell of a lot different than a cold-blooded fucking execution. Besides, what about Dave?”

  “Oh please,” said Tim. “Dave sucks. He's always sucked. You know that. You've never liked him.”

  “I've never bitten his fucking finger off!”

  “So maybe alignment changes you a little, but it's for the better. I've got, like, zero inhibitions now.”

  Cooper snorted. “Inhibitions have never been that big an obstacle for me.”

  “You say that, but take a look at what you've accomplished in life. You're in your late thirties and still delivering pizza, for fuck's sake.”

  “Well excuse me for not being able to climb the high ivory walls of the Chicken Hut, Mr. Fortune 500.”

  “That's exactly what I'm talking about,” said Tim. “I'm not that same loser anymore. Life can't push me around the way it used to. This is the new and improved Tim. Now when life tries to fuck me out of my own game, I shoot it in the fucking face. When life thinks it can tell me what to do without repercussions, I bite its fucking finger off. I've never felt so optimistic about the future.”

  “What are you so fucking optimistic about?” said Cooper. “You've alienated yourself from all the people who care about you. Hell, you even alienated yourself from your own fucking rat club.”

  “So I fucked up. It happens. The old Tim would use that as an excuse to crawl into a bottle and feel sorry for himself, but the new Tim learns from his mistakes.”

  Cooper frowned. “I honestly can't say I see that as what's happening here.”

  “The gun-running plan is still solid. I've got the boots and I've got the business model down. All I need now is the muscle, someone strong and loyal who I know isn't going to betray me.”

  “Well, you'd better look elsewhere,” said Cooper. “Because I'm going to betray the fuck out of you.”

  Tim laughed. “I know you will, buddy. Your Good alignment has you thinking you're acting in the best interest of your friends, but you're too dumb to see the bigger picture. That's why I need you to turn. Once you're Evil and I lay out my plan for you, your horse blinders will fall away and you'll be super stoked to be a part of it.”

  That was exactly what Cooper was afraid of.

  “I don't want to be super stoked to be a part of your shitty plan.”

  Tim sighed. “I understand that. But you will want it after you... You know what? We're arguing in circles now. In a couple of weeks, you'll see that I was right. Sorry you're going to have to live on a vegan diet until then, but the Decanter of Endless Water should keep you alive at least. I'll treat you to a big steak dinner after the next full moon.”

  A vegan diet was a horror that Cooper hadn't even considered. “Tim, wait!” Cooper had been so wrapped up in their conversation that he forgot he was trying to pinpoint Tim's location.

  “I've missed you, Cooper. I can't wait to have you ba–”

  “GEYSER!” shouted Cooper. Water gushed out of the decanter, bringing forth zucchinis and eggplants, watermelons, cabbages, and some kind of fucked-up blue gourds, but showing no trace of Tim.

  “Sorry about that,” he said as he deactivated the decanter. “My tongue slipped.” Tim still seemed to value their friendship. Maybe he could use that to talk some sense into him. “I missed you too, man. I want us back the way we used to be. Who gives a shit that we were both slackers? We were best friends.”

  He waited for an answer, but the desert was silent.

  “Tim?”

  I am sorry, Cooper. Your friend has abandoned you.

  Cooper sighed. “I know.”

  Chapter 36

  “Katherine?” called Tony the Elf's voice from outside. “Is that you?”

  “Yeah,” Katherine shouted back. “I found Tanner. He's okay.”

  “Oh. That's great.” Tony the Elf sounded a little less excited by the news than Katherine thought was appropriate.

  Katherine examined the debris, looking for the gap she'd entered through. “Tony the Elf and I moved one of these beams so I could get down here. If we find the gap, I can stand on your shoulders and –”

  SNAP!

  Tanner yanked Katherine back by the arm as the whole pi
le of debris shifted above her.

  “Are you okay?” asked Tony the Elf.

  “We're fine,” said Katherine.

  “It's been doing that since you went down there. I don't know how we're going to get you out.” If Katherine was reading his tone right, he sounded just a little bit smug. “I told you this was going to happen.”

  “Congratulations, Nostradamus. Now could you go back to the beach and get some people to help you move some of this shit out of the way?”

  “That will take far too long,” said Tanner. “Why not just burn it down?”

  Tony the Elf laughed. “That's brilliant. Are you sure you're an NPC?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Never mind,” said Katherine. “It's just nerd talk.” She peered up at the debris pile. “I like Tanner's idea.”

  Tony the Elf sighed. “Of course you do.”

  “Seriously. That pile is unstable. If you try to move it, somebody might get hurt. If we let it burn until it collapses, then it will stabilize itself. We can douse the flames and use whatever's left to build a ladder or something for easier access.”

  Tanner nodded approvingly. “Good idea. I hadn't thought about that.”

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” said Tony the Elf. “I've got a torch and some lamp oil, but I really don't like the idea of –”

  “Excellent,” said Tanner. “That will make things much easier. If you don't mind, would you please light the torch and drop it down here before applying the oil? I'd prefer to get the fire started from the bottom.”

  “Right away, sir. Is there anything else I can get you?”

  “Perhaps some smaller logs and sticks?” Either Tanner wasn't picking up on Tony the Elf's sarcasm, or he was being intentionally obtuse. “It is rather cold and damp down here. A small secondary fire would be –”

  “Just send down the torch,” said Katherine.

  “Fine,” grumbled Tony the Elf. “Give me a minute to get it lit.”

  Katherine watched with amusement at the impatience in Tanner's face while they listened to the scraping sounds from Tony the Elf's flint and steel. She knew he was itching to tell him to just send those down with the torch so he could light it himself, but he swallowed his frustration when she shook her head at him.

  “Okay, I've got it,” Tony the Elf finally said. “Are you ready?”

  “No, please. We were just getting comfortable.” If Tanner didn't get sarcasm a few minutes ago, he was picking it up at an impressive rate.

  “Do you want the torch or not?”

  Tanner tread carefully under the unstable debris pile, then looked up. “I am ready.”

  The flaming end of the torch poked through a small gap, then flipped over as it fell. Tanner caught it by the shaft, then hurried back to join Katherine in the tunnel. Long, dark shadows danced and lurched on the walls, then relaxed as the torch's flame steadied.

  Katherine rubbed her hands next to the torch fire. “Fuck, that feels good.”

  “Would you kindly ask him to sprinkle his lamp oil on the pile now?” Tanner whispered to her.

  It seemed like an odd request, considering that he'd demonstrated himself as being quite capable of communicating with Tony the Elf. She didn't mind relaying his instructions, but she was curious.

  “Why don't you ask him yourself?”

  “He grows more impatient with me with every command I give him. I do not wish to stretch his patience too thin. I feel he would be much more receptive taking the order from his captain.”

  That sounded fair enough to Katherine, though she'd been enjoying their interactions.

  “Go ahead and sprinkle your lamp oil on the wood now,” she called up to Tony the Elf.

  “You got it,” he called back, his tone sounding much more eager to please.

  Katherine and Tanner enjoyed what little warmth the torch fire provided while they waited for Tony the Elf to apply his oil.

  Tanner's gaze followed a single drop of oil as it fell from the debris pile to the ground below. “Excellent. We'll give that a moment to soak into the wood, then it should get a bit warmer in here.”

  That was welcome news to Katherine. She was tempted to ask Tanner to turn around so that she could use the Bag of Holding to extract all the moisture out of her clothes, but she had no doubt that it would only lead to the debris pile collapsing prematurely, leaving her standing bare-ass naked next to Tanner while Tony the Elf gawked at them. She'd suffer a soggy ass for now and dry out the old-fashioned way.

  “Are you originally from Cardinia?” Katherine asked in an effort to pass the time.

  Tanner shrugged. “Who knows? The drow are a proud race who value greatly the purity of their bloodline, almost as much as non-drow races fear and revile any apparent trace of drow blood. Half-breeds like me seldom live to see a full cycle of the moon. In the entirety of my life so far, I've only run into a small handful of my kind.”

  Katherine frowned. “That's so sad.”

  “That all depends on how you look at it.” Tanner smiled. “I prefer to see myself as fortunate to have beaten those odds. No doubt my blessed mother, whoever she was, felt she was doing me a great kindness by selling me into slavery rather than leaving me in the wilderness to be devoured by wolves.”

  “She sold you into slavery as a baby?”

  “I can only assume so. My earliest memories – I must have been about four or five years old – were of giant armored men swooping in on horseback to slaughter our masters at the elzonite quarry where we lived and worked.”

  “That must have been terrifying for a five-year-old, but at least you were free.”

  Tanner laughed. “Far from it. The men on horseback were rival slavers, and much less pleasant to work for. Not a thing changed for us, except that the next day's work was much more brutal, especially after having our sleep interrupted.”

  “I'm really sorry to hear that,” said Katherine. “I always thought my life was shitty, working with my brother at the Chicken Hut, with nothing on the horizon to look forward to.”

  “There's always something to look forward to if you envision the life you want and set realistic goals toward achieving it.”

  Katherine smirked at him. He was beginning to sound like a corny motivational speaker. “And you had this insight as a five-year-old quarry slave?”

  “By the gods no,” said Tanner. “I acted upon only what was necessary to keep me alive. The new masters had different policies than our old ones. Instead of shouting at us and beating us, they would weigh the elzonite crystals we produced at the end of each day. Whoever had produced the least, they fed to their pack of dire wolves.”

  Katherine gasped. “That's horrible!”

  “To their credit, we all produced significantly more elzonite crystals than we had under the old way of doing things.”

  “But that doesn't make any sense. What's the point of killing one of your own slaves every day? Sooner or later, they're going to run out.”

  “When the numbers get too low, they take their most motivated workers and raid a new slave camp to replenish their numbers. It was a more effective system than it seems at first. Those who had survived several such purges began to take pride in it. Continuing to be counted among the most elite slaves became the life goal they strived for. Often times I've seen that it's possible to wield full control over weak-minded men simply by telling them they are in a class above others.”

  “I hate to keep coming back to this,” said Katherine. “But as a five-year-old boy, how did you manage to compete with these elite slaves?”

  “I didn't have to compete with them,” said Tanner. “At least, not at first. I simply had to compete with the weakest, oldest, and laziest. As those thinned out, I started to apply my imagination toward more efficient means of quarrying crystals rather than relying entirely on brute labor. While others slept away their exhaustion during their off hours, I devoted a part of every night to developing new methods and tools to make the process more ef
ficient and less labor intensive. I built myself a small box with a sieve at the bottom with which I could sift through the dirt that stronger men had loosened and find elzonite crystals they had missed.”

  Katherine smiled. “That was very clever of you.”

  “The master assigned to my division thought so as well. He sent for me late one night. When I arrived at his tent, he was slobbering drunk. I feared that he wanted to use me to satisfy his twisted carnal fetishes.”

  “That would have been my first assumption too,” said Katherine. “But instead, he wanted to discuss your invention, right?” She hoped she was right.

  “Not instead of. In addition to.”

  “Oh.” Katherine wasn't sure she wanted to hear the rest of this story, but if he wanted to get it off his chest, she owed it to him to listen. “So what did you do?”

  “I stabbed him in the throat with a concealed dagger I'd made from an elzonite crystal, set fire to his tent, and rode off on his horse in the ensuing chaos.”

  “That's...” Katherine wasn't exactly sure what to say. “...incredible.”

  Tanner shrugged. “Elzonite crystals are very sharp.” He looked up at the debris. “That has probably had enough time to soak now. Ready?”

  Katherine nodded.

  Tanner swung the torch down, then back up again, releasing it up toward the debris, then grabbed Katherine's arm to pull her back.

  WOOSH!

  A rush of wind from behind threatened to push Katherine directly under the massive eruption of heat and light emanating from the suddenly flaming debris pile.

  “YAAAAA!” cried Tony the Elf from the other side, his voice faint through the roar of flames.

  “Tony the Elf?” Katherine called out to him.

  “What the fuck?”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, but what the fuck?”

  “How much lamp oil did you use?” Tanner shouted.

  “I don't know! Whatever I had! Five or six vials, maybe!”

  “One would have been suffici–”

  CRACK!

  “Watch out!” cried Katherine, shoving Tanner hard in the chest to avoid the flaming debris pile as it came crashing down into the mine.