Gearing Up (1/2)

The morning dawned, bright and cheery.

The young man groaned, tired and bleary.

“Oh good, you're awake,” Threadbare said.

Apollyon cracked an eye open. Then he blinked, sat up, banged his head on the ceiling, and fell back onto the bed.

He just lay there for a second.

“Do you, mmmm, think he'll be all right?” Dracosnack asked.

“Is he dressed yet?” Buttons called, her voice muffled, as if from behind a door.

“Not so loud, please,” Apollyon muttered. “Status.”

“He should be all right,” Threadbare said. “He kept telling us he would be.”

“Yeah, but he got a lot less coherent after every drink,” Glub said. “Lemme give him a song or two.”

“No—” Apollyon whimpered, and grabbed for the pillow.

Too late.

Glub's booming voice filled the room, as he happily mixed two different ballads, restoring the listeners' Stamina, Health, Moxie, and Sanity.

Neither song did a thing for the Skullthumping Hangover condition that Apollyon saw on his status screen.

But they sure did fire up his Easily Triggered Nausea condition.

After the gastric exodus had finished, and Threadbare had used Clean and Press to tidy up every cloth thing in the area, while Dracosnack and Glub held the door and told a gleeful Buttons that no, she couldn't come in and watch, they got Apollyon undressed and in the too-small tub and poured water over him until he felt a little better.

“Please,” Apollyon gasped as he came to himself, and the toys started handing over his clothing and helping him dress. “Please tell me I didn't dishonor my family.”

“I suppose it's hard to say,” Threadbare said, helping scoot the young man's socks over his feet. “Honor's a fairly personal thing, as far as I can tell. If it's any consolation, nobody pressed charges against you.”

Apollyon's head sunk into his hands.

“Yo man, this is Knight shit, yeah?” Glub asked.

Apollyon winced. “That's a bit crude, but it's mostly correct.”

“Check yo' vows.”

“Oh. Right. Status.”

The Knight job, while having a pretty good range of combat and battlefield-influencing skills, also incorporated a skill called Code of Chivalry that passively boosted every defensive stat the Knight had.

Code of Chivalry was powerful.

But just like Apollyon's head at the minute, it was also quite sensitive. Unlike most skills it didn't gain experience as it was used. Instead it grew slowly, over time... unless the code was violated. If the Knight did something that was against their code, then the skill reset, down to its starting value of one.

And that one glared out at Apollyon as he stared at it on his Status screen. “Oh no,” he whispered. “Oh no no no.”

“I'm so sorry,” Threadbare said, patting his hand.

“What did I do?” Apollyon said, tugging his pants up under his tunic, and numbly accepting his boots from Glub.

“Before or after the time we started dancing on the tables?”

“That must have been it. Oh gods. I've dishonored my family name.” he covered his eyes.

“Nah!” Buttons said cheerfully, through the door. “You didn't have your tunic on at the time. Nobody knew who you were.”

“Oh thank gods!” then his brow furrowed. “Then how did I break my code? That makes no sense.”

“You should be more worried about hmmmm, breaking your appointment,” Dracosnack commented. “We're going to be late for our meeting with the quartermaster.”

“The mission!” Apollyon scrambled, grabbed what gear he hadn't put on yet, and burst through the door.

Buttons caught a ride on his pants leg as he went, and squirmed up to his shoulders as the rest of the toys followed behind. “So you boned yourself somehow?”

“I... that's a vulgar way of putting it!” Apollyon called, as he ran out of the cheap tavern that they'd apparently holed up in, and charged down the street.

“Say ah!” Buttons yelled in his ear.

“Wha?”

“Close enough!” she jammed a piece of toast into his mouth.

“MFRM?” oh, he sounded offended at that.

“Breakfast! We gotta make sure our meatsack eats well!”

“Mreffack!” he was a bit offended at that one.

“OUR meatsack,” she said, then settled in for the ride, nudging him with her boots. “Hyah! Keep moving! We can just make it if you hustle!”