Catastrophe 3 (1/2)
Eventually, the laughter faded. Beryl resumed her resting scowlface. ”All right, fun time's over. Jarrik, do your thing, okay?”
”On it. Camouflage,” he whispered, and faded, as his skin took on the colors and patterns of the surrounding rocks and darkness. Threadbare could just make out his outline, as he jogged toward the winding tunnel exit that led into darkness, at the end of the chasm.
There were two more exits out of here, the little bear saw. Both had daylight filtering down into the tunnel. The bigger one had a massive grate set across it, with glowing red runes carved into it. SEALED BY ORDER OF THE CROWN a nearby sign instructed.
”Jarrik's going to go see if the boss we just beat has respawned. Well, bosses, I guess,” Celia said, as she brushed dirt and dust from Threadbare.
”Boss,” Beryl said. ”My Ma told me about the Cataphracts. They think and fight as one. Which is why we can't go back through there again unless-”
Jarrik faded back into view. He did not look happy. ”They're back.”
”-fuck a duck we waited too long.” Beryl rubbed her eyes. ”I wish you'd been a little earlier Threadbare.”
Threadbare walked over and gave her a hug. Beryl glared down at him suspiciously, then deigned to rub his head. In some ways she reminded the little bear of Pulsivar. Lots of noise and swagger, but good to have at your back.
”Well. Now what?” Celia asked.
”First things first, get those dumb clothes off of your bear. I can't look at him without laughing. Second, let me think...”
”We could always run past the Cataphracts,” Garon suggested.
Jarrik shook his head. ”Naw. They're set up in a formation that puts most of 'em between us and tha exit. And they're spread out enough I can't camo past them and go get help. They'd detect me an' well, SHUNK.”
Shunk sounded pretty bad to Threadbare.
”And even if we get through, there's tha rest a tha dungeon. Tha other bosses will 'ave respawned. An' most a tha monsters.”
The group chewed their lips. The odds were very, very bad.
”How about the chasm Threadbare came out of? We got rope,” Bak'Shaz pointed down into the pit.
Garon shook his head this time. ”We've got rope but nothing to attach it to. That grate will fry anything it touches, and the closest tie-off point is in the Cataphract room. And even if we did, those Stalagmites are set really close together. I don't know about the rest of you, but I haven't been grinding agility. They'd flat out kill me if I fell on them. And if they'd kill me, sorry, but they'd turn any of the rest of you into gibs.”
”And there's no telling what Threadbare went through to get here,” Celia said, stripping off Threadbare's 'clothes'. ”His sewing kit's out of all the patches that came with it, it looks like he had to resort to cutting patches from, uh, from... ahem.”
”What?” Garon asked.
”Nevermind,” Celia hastily tucked away the frilly remnants of her best set of panties. ”Oh hey, he made little packs for himself. How cute!”
”Smart bear.” Garon sighed. ”Beryl?”
”Coming up empty. It kills me, Clerics get Divine Transit at level ten. That would solve all of our problems! But I'm one level short, just one friggin' level!” She pounded her chainmail skirt, with a jingling clash. ”If only we had a couple of decent fights, or maybe one big one, I could get there. But there's no monsters in here. And the Cataphracts are too tough. We burned up all our coins so Garon can't use his twisted rage-blood is gold combo, so there's no way we'd get the experience without fatalities. They're just too smart and too tough.”
Threadbare walked over and tugged on Garon's leggings, then pointed to the remaining exit.
”What? No. That goes to a puzzle, but I don't think we have the components for it.”
Threadbare started ambling that way. ”Oh gods! No, hold on!” Celia said, and gave up sorting through his clothing as she hurried to catch up.
”Don't go far!” Beryl yelled.
”Relax, it's just a catapult,” Garon said. ”Nothing else out there.”
The cave opened up onto a high ledge, far up the second mountain. It overlooked the final mountain, about five hundred feet away. On an opposite ledge, some sort of large tarp secured to a matching cave entrance flapped in the wind.
To the side, Threadbare could see a long stone bridge, stretching over to another, larger entrance into the mountain. A pair of Flaming Tygers paced back and forth there, not that they had anything to guard against. Judging by the angle of the bridge, it led to a corridor that ended at the runed grating.
Sitting on the ledge, pointing toward the opposite cave, was a heavy wooden device. It had a bunch of ropes rolled up on a tightly bound crank, and a wooden arm with something like a huge spoon on the end. However the spoon had no back to it, just a bunch of hooks on its inner rim. It was like a ring on a stick.
On its side, burned into the wood, was the word RACKET.
”I've seen pictures of these in books,” Celia explained. ”Beryl's a tinker, she knows machines, and she thinks it can throw people across, but it's broken.” She tapped the ring. ”We don't know how to fix it. It's probably a shortcut to the Dungeon's Master, so I don't know if that would help our situation any even if it was.”
Threadbare ambled to the edge of the ledge, knocking a pebble with his paw, as he did so. It tumbled off the cliff and fell hundreds of feet, disappearing into fog.
”Yeah, that's probably instant death,” Celia said, keeping a careful hold on his arm. ”Come on, let's go back inside.”
”Oh!” She said as she got in. The rest of the group was huddled around Threadbare's packs, sorting through his loot.
”Hey, that's...”
”Keep your knickers on. The few you've got left, anyway. We're looking for something to help us survive this,” Beryl snapped.
”Of course, that's fine. What did he pick up, anyway? I didn't look too closely.”
”Well, he got a kick-ass dagger for you to animate, so you're getting that for now,” Beryl slid it across the ground to her, and Celia picked it up and frowned at it.
”Status. Oh, wow! Yeah, this will be great for an animus blade.”
”It improves our chances a bit. Let's see...” Beryl slid open the scroll, and her eyes went wide. Her gauntlets shook, rattling the chain mail sleeves coating her arms as she surveyed the paper. ”This is a tinkering recipe! Holy fucking shit he found a tinkering recipe!”
”Really? That's good?”
”Those things are really rare,” Garon explained. ”Beryl's a tinker, and most of the rest of her family are smiths and tinkers. That recipe, whatever it is, is worth a whole lot of money to them.”
Beryl whooped! The dwarven girl shot to her feet and literally jumped for joy. Maybe. It was hard to tell under the chain mail skirt. ”It's a flying machine!”
Instantly Jarrik laughed and scooped her into a hug, kissing her passionately. She kissed him back, grabbing his ass as she did so, and still laughing into his mouth.
Celia turned beet red and looked away, clearing her throat.
”Get a room,” Bak'Shaz whined.
”Bitch, I've got a cave and no reason to keep quiet so don't tempt me,” Beryl said, popping her mouth off of Jarrik's.
”Okay. If we're really lucky, let's see... here... well, shit.”
”What?” Jarrik said, squinting at the paper.
”It's a single seater. And it takes wood and cloth. Lots of wood and cloth.”
”Well.” Celia said. ”We've got our clothes. And the wood from the catapult.”
”And it takes a flight skill to manage.”
”Um...”
”Yeah, I didn't know that was a thing either.”
”I did,” Garon said. ”Mom can shapeshift. She told me if I stuck with shaman I'd learn that skill eventually.”
”Ah-huh. And how many crashes did she say you'd have when you were starting out?”
”Let me put it this way. She said the best way to survive and learn the skill is to cast slow regeneration before I tried.”
”Doesn't matter,” Beryl sighed, as she read further down. ”It also takes a Mark I Fizznocker engine. This is too high end for me to build, guys, even if I had the parts. Hell, it might be too high end for my Da. Which is a pity, because we've been looking for something like this for years.”
”Won't the guards just take it like the other magic items?” Celia asked.
”Nope. It's nonmagical. Their wizard's scan won't detect it. Yeah, technically this belongs to Threadbare since he's not in the party. We'll have to do some formal negotiations with you Celia, see if we can buy it from you. This is too valuable to us, no matter how much it'll cost Da.”
Celia considered. They'd had a pretty big argument, when she tried to convince the dwarf to help save Threadbare.
Technically, Celia's conviction had been the one to land them in this situation. So... ”Then it's yours for free when we get out of here, no negotiations necessary.” Celia decided.
Beryl's jaw dropped. ”What? You... you're just GIVING it to me?”
”Yes.”
”But... I...” Beryl stared straight ahead, and for a second Celia thought she'd done something wrong.
Then Beryl lifted up in her strong arms, and hugged the hell out of her. Celia squeaked, and tried to avoid being grated like cheese against the other girl's chainmail.
”Thank you,” Beryl choked out. ”We owe you a debt. Know now you're a friend to clan Wirebeard.”
”Can she do that?” Garon whispered behind her.
”Sssh,” Jarrik cautioned.
Finally, Beryl put her down. ”Right. Right, ahem.” She cleared her throat, mopped away something that she stoicly pretended wasn't a tear, and glanced back to the little pile of loot. ”What else do we have?”
Oblivious to the drama, Bak'Shaz had kept sorting through the loot. ”A tigerseye gem. Worth some money but no help. Unless you can blood is gold it, bro?”
”Nah. Only works on coin,” Garon shrugged.
”Um, we got his cape. Which sized to him when he picked it up. I don't think we can wear it.”
”His cape does something?” Beryl asked.
”Yeah, bullet time.”
Jarrik's eyes got wide. He snatched up the little blanket, tried to button it around his wrist. ”Nothin'. Damn. Woulda been nice.”
”Yeah, he's the only one who can use it, so...” Bak'shaz handed it back to the little bear, who put it back around his neck with a gravitas he hadn't had before the model job.
”It's really that good?”
”It would let bro here dodge a massive spell,” Bak'Shaz hooked a thumb back towards Jarrik. ”Or let him stop time, fire a dozen arrows, then start time and the arrows would all hit at once.”
”Wow.” Celia studied Threadbare, who waved back. ”What's a bullet, anyway?”
”Beats me,” Jarrik shrugged.
”The only other thing he's got in there is these.” Bak'Shaz held up the two balled up tangles of intestines.
”Ick. Why did you even touch those, Threadbare?” Celia made a face.
Threadbare shrugged. It had seemed like a good idea at the time.
”Wait, hold on,” Garon said, leaning in. ”I found one of those on that Lion Eyes midboss we took out. I left it there because I thought it was just a tanner component-”
”It is. It's catgut,” Bak'Shaz interrupted.
”-right, but it looked exactly like these. I think we're looking at a key item, here. Key items, anyway.”
”Key items?” Celia blinked.
”They open up new sections of the dungeon, or you need them to solve puzzles,” Beryl said. ”It's a long shot, but maybe there's a hidden puzzle around here.”
Celia stared at her. And behind her eyes, gears turned, and the young animator's 89 intelligence earned its keep.
”Beryl?” She asked, very carefully, ”this dungeon is big on puns, right?”
”Yeah, it's one of the silly ones. They do stuff like this.”
”What if that catapult isn't a racket. What if it's an unstrung racquet?”
Celia's grin shone in her moment of triumph.
The rest of the group was silent.
Finally Beryl asked ”What's a racquet, then?”
Twenty minutes later, they finished stringing the catgut through the hooks around the enormous catapult's ring.
”Wait!” Garon said.
”What?” Celia asked, her throat dry. It had taken about five minutes to explain the concept of badminton racquets and another five to sell them on the notion of, well, this.
”Just so we're clear, we're hurling ourselves across the gap to fight the boss, in hopes that he's less of a lethal fight than the Cataphracts were, in the hopes that he'll provide enough experience to level Beryl up so she can cast her dungeon escapey spell.”
”Divine transit,” Beryl clarified.
”Right, that.”
”Yeah,” Celia nodded. ”I know. It's really bad odds, but-”
”Okay. Give me a quest and offer the tigerseye as a reward.”
”What?”
”I get bonuses when I'm on quests with material rewards.”
That was a good idea, so she did it.
”Do the Job!” Garon intoned. Then he smiled. ”There we go! Hey, skill up! Mff. Not much. I haven't had much chance to level this yet. But hey, every bit helps. Then once we get in there I'll use fight the battles, that'll help us all more.”
”That's the party buff, right?” Celia asked.
”Yeah. Oh, wait... Do you want any of your little pets out for this?”
”Just the dagger. Which leaves... crud, I guess I could stuff a pet in there, otherwise that leaves us with six.”
”Nah. There's a little guy here who's earned his place,” Beryl said. ”Invite Threadbare.”
”That won't work,” Celia said. ”You'd need one of Daddy's scrolls to-”
Threadbare has joined the party!
There was a pause. Celia stared at the little bear, mouth open.
”Guess it does work,” Beryl grunted. ”Okay, party screen.” She stared at the air in front of her, eyes getting wider and wider as she went. ”The fuck?”
”What?”
”Okay, Greater Toy Golem you told me about.”
”Yeah.”
”Bear makes sense.”
”Uh-huh.”
”Bak'Shaz, you said he had scout levels, right? And Celia, you taught him tailor?”
”Yes. I'm very glad that worked,” Celia said, still trying to wrap her head around the fact that the golem had just done something she'd been repeatedly told he couldn't do.
”So why in the ninety-nine hells does he have ruler and model and necromancer levels?”
That brought silence.
They all stared at the little bear.
He shrugged.
Garon broke it. ”Models get that thing where they get bonuses or something from wearing clothes, right?”
”I think so. Don't know much about them,” Beryl said, eyes unblinking on the teddy bear. She'd poked a molehill and been blindsided by a mountain.
”Well then, give him his clothes back,” Garon said. ”We need every edge we can get right now.”
”But they're made of my-” Celia broke off.
”What?”
”My... I mean...”
”You can get new crotchrags,” Beryl told her. ”Sew his gear back on him.”
Blushing, Celia did so. Then they piled into the catapult.
”Necromancer,” Celia said, staring down at the bear, clutched tight in her arms. ”So you can cast spells too, now?”
Threadbare shook his head and tapped his mouth.
”Right. We'll do something about that.” Visions of teddy-bear led zombie apocalypses filled her mind. ”After I talk with Daddy. Most definitely after that. This is... yeah, I think something's gone off the rails here.”
”Yeah,” Garon said, unslinging his battle-axe, and gripping the side of the racket. ”Us.”
And he cut the rope holding the arm in place.
”You could have just thrown the levvEEERRRRRRRRRRR!!!!” Beryl screeched, as the party went flying.
WHUMP! The tarp against the cave entrance on the opposite cliff gave way, billowing inward, as they fell into a pile of thousands of balls of yarn. The tarp flapped, loose, as the youths sorted themselves out.
Celia cast Animus Blade, and sent the magical dagger whirling around her, dancing with grace far beyond her normal blades. Then she checked her static rod, and took a deep breath. ”Ready.”
Garon pulled out the Cataphract shield he'd earned from the last fight, and hefted his well-used battle axe. ”I'm good.”
Bak'Shaz waved his slingshot and shrugged. But he was wearing the Lion Mane he'd snagged from the Lion Eyes boss earlier in the day.
And Jarrik nocked an arrow, and shared one last kiss with Beryl.
”Right,” Beryl said, smacking her lips and clearing away the last remnants of her black lipstick, ”Let's go get this fucker.”
A flight of stairs later, they came to the Master's Chamber.
Tall, vaulted ceilings filled a Cathedral like-hall, complete with an altar up front, covered with well-thumbed copies of ”Cat Fancier”. Balls of yarn were strung across and around the candle-sconces, hanging between the pillars and draping down, ends blowing in the draft from the high windows. It had the reek of a thousand thousand litterboxes, and as the group stood coughing, Threadbare took the bump up to his Scents and Sensibility level, and shut his nose off as fast as it could go. To either side of the altar stood large chests, overflowing with coins.
”Hoomins!” A voice boomed from above. ”Ceiling Cat is watching you!”
A blur of white above, that shifted away as a door slammed open, next to the altar. Greenish eyes glared out. ”And Basement Cat will swallow your souls!” Came a hiss that would have put Pulsivar to shame.
”Oh sweet Aeterna,” Beryl gasped. ”A two part boss!”
”Um, excuse me?” Celia raised her hand.
”What?” The white blob above in the ceiling poked out through its hatch, silvery eyes shining with a gentle light, extending into a halo that surrounded its head. ”What is it, my child?”
”I'm the only human here.”
There came a pause.
”Right, sorry,” Ceiling Cat apologized. ”Hoomin, I am watching meOWWW!” A red '43' drifted up as Jarrik pegged it with an arrow, and then there was no more time for grammar correction.
”Holy Smite!” Shouted Ceiling Cat, dropping from the ceiling, paw glowing as it became surrounded by a silvery outline of a much bigger appendage. It aimed for Jarrik, but the scout dodged, and Garon took it on his shield, grunting as a red 25 drifted up from him. ”Fight the Battles!” he roared.
Instantly, Threadbare felt... heavier.
You are affected by a temporary party buff!
+7 STR
+7 CON
+7 Armor!
+7 to all weapon skills!
Ceiling Cat flipped off the shield, landed, and darted back in clawing and scratching-
-just as Bak'Shaz screamed. He was on the floor, being dragged backwards. Basement Cat had charged out, nabbed him, and was trying to carry him off into the darkness.
”Oh no you don't! Come on Threadbare!” The dagger zipped out at Basement Cat, and Celia angled for a clear shot, readying her static rod. Threadbare, for his part, simply dashed in and unleashed his ultimate attack! Before Basement cat could react, the little bear hugged him!
You healed Basement Cat 80 points!
Your Innocent Embrace skill is now level 8!
Basement Cat paused. He dropped the squirming Bak'Shaz and stared at the little bear. ”Thank you?”
Threadbare let go of him, puzzled. That hadn't worked.
”Uh, what the hell are you even wearing?” Basement Cat continued, thoroughly distracted by the bizarre figure's garb.
Your Fascination skill is now level 2!
Then a static orb slammed into the cat, and he howled again, lashing out at Bak'Shaz and Threadbare.
Well, Threadbare had claws too, didn't he?
Basement Cat blurred, fading in and out of sight, striking from unexpected angles, aiming for critical points on the little bear.
He found none.
Your Golem Body skill is now level 15!
Con +1
Your Golem Body skill is now level 16!
”Celia! Switch fire to Ceiling Cat!” Beryl called. ”Basement's a rogue type, keep the dagger on him!”
”Got it!”
Threadbare didn't care about the long claws sliding into places his organs should have been, and the damage drifting up was a secondary concern. Celia would keep him healed there, if he needed it. So the little teddy bear swiped and clawed back, aided by the magical dagger which whirred by and cut into the boss' side every now and then, and Bak'Shaz, who got to safety behind the altar and pelted it with slingstones.
Five more brawling levels, two more strength, a point of luck, and six more Claw Swipes levels later, Basement Cat staggered back. Threadbare spared a glance to the others, found Garon tanking Ceiling Cat next to Beryl, supported by shots from Jarrik and Celia's static orbs.
”Lesser Healing!” The white cat mewed, flying just out of reach for a second.