The Tolling of the Bells (1/2)
“We need to go,” Threadbare said, starting toward the exit...
...only to haul up short as Anne darted in front of him, two pistols leveled at his head. “What did ye DO, bear? What half-arsed treachery did you try?”
“We didn’t. You were there for every bit of the planning. Someone else attacked the Bad Still, and he thinks it was us.”
“We should tell him that!” Fluffbear squeaked.
“Yeah no, I just told him to go to hell and broke his little doll of me,” Celia said, backing away from the shattered jar. “I don’t think he’ll listen. I hurt his pride.”
“Someone be playin’ let’s you and him fight,” Zuula said. “Dreadbear got de right of it. We...” her face twisted in frustration and rage. “We should not fight him... now. GAH! Zuula hate dis!”
“There will be other fights!” Thomasi called, running for the exit.
“Was me ship involved in this here attack?” Anne said, still keeping her guns on Threadbare.
“No,” he told her.
“Well then.” Anne said, tucking the guns away and sitting on stage. “This be sounding like it’s a YOU problem. Have fun wi’ that.”
“You’re betraying us now? Here?” Celia snapped.
“Nay. I told ye I’d help ye as I could after I got paid. I ain’t been paid yet. And if I fight him with ye, I won’t be.”
While she spoke, Threadbare tried to nudge people toward the door, waving and getting them moving. Slowly they started to get into gear, following Thomasi.
He knew what they were in. He knew they had to leave the dungeon before the Phantom resumed his place in the core chamber.
“In fact...” Anne said, tapping an earring, “I’ll do ye one better. ActivateWind’s Whisper Stormanorm III. Dealing with somethin’ complex. Ye have the helm. Help the princess escape.”
Threadbare felt a surge of relief and turned and fled with the others.
The relief didn’t last long.
NO MASTER DETECTED IN DUNGEON 01010111 01100001 01111001 00100000 01001111 01100110 01100110 00100000 01000010 01110010 01101111 01100001 01100100 01110111 01100001 01111001
PLEASE ASSIGN NEW MOB TO COMMAND VARIABLE TO CONTINUE OPERATION.
Whomever the Phantom had put in the column had stepped out of it.
Threadbare put on a burst of speed. The door was only a hundred feet away now. If they could reach it before—
NEW MASTER DETECTED!
No. No they couldn’t.
Sixty feet.
The doors ahead of them, the doors with nothing but darkness beyond, slowly started to swing shut.
“Boosters!” Celia called, and the roar of flames filled Threadbare’s ears, as a metal hand closed around him, and he was speeding forward...
Twenty feet now, but the doors were halfway shut, and he twisted to look behind him, looked and saw the Fandom starting to pour in from the sides of the theater, weapons at the ready, turned to see that his friends were falling behind, almost seeming to run in slow motion, getting slower by every second...
No. Wait.
They were slowing. Everything was slowing and stuttering to a stop, frozen where it was. The jets of flames from Celia’s boosters were turning into solids, evenly shaped horizontal pyramids of burning orange, and the steam clouds above were still pillows of vapor.
What had happened here?
“Threadbare,” whispered a voice to the side, and he looked over to see a face that he very much hadn’t expected to see here.
“Oh. Hello, Midian.”
She sat there in a seat, wearing a black dress, slathered with diamonds. In her hand she held a bag of popcorn. As he watched she brought up a handful in slow motion and devoured it, and the kernels that fell as she chomped carelessly fell about a foot from her face before they slowed and stopped midair.
“You did this?” he asked.
“Some of it. But someone else did more of it. You’ve been... you’re being... you will be played. It’s how he works. How they work.”
“I’m a toy. I’m used to being played with,” Threadbare said, looking back to the closing door, now stopped half open. “Are you going to play with me, too?”
Midian turned her head away a bit but not before he caught a flash of grief. “I’m out of options. Out of time. It’s all broken, and now I’m broken too, and I really need someone who’s good at mending things. And I think you’re it.”
“I can try,” Threadbare said, looking back at the door. “I think we’ll make it, but can you get my friends out of here?”
“Yes. But then I’ll have to leave. You’re going to have to escape the city on your own.”
“We can do that.”
“Good. And after we’re both safe, I’ll find you again. And we’ll see about mending a world. Maybe two.”
“Agreed,” Threadbare said.
And Midian stood, and walked to each of his friends, in that frozen time, and tapped them on the shoulder. And as she did so, she said “Haste.”
She finished with Celia, then booped him on the nose, and when she pulled her finger back, she was moving in slow motion, before she tapped herself and said “Hhhhhhhaaaaaaaasssssstttte.”
And then she sprinted for the door and was gone, and the second she left, the world began moving again.
The popcorn fell to the floor, drifting down like snow.
The Fandom mobs were audible again, roaring their anger at those who had dared to disparage their idol.
Anne sat on stage, finally touching a slowly burning match to the pipe she’d hauled out to pass the time with puffing.
And Threadbare and all his friends ran the hell out of the dungeon.
The air was cool; the night was as dark and fog-filled as they’d left it, but bells were ringing all across the city. Belltollia was living up to its name, and Threadbare knew that the city would be out in force within minutes. He could tell the spell Midian had cast on him was already wearing off by the way the bells went from long, deep wailing tones to more frantic, spastic peals, so he used the time on the buff that he had left to send messages.
“Wind’s Whisper Cagna. We need to escape. Fall back to the pickup point, advise if you cannot.Wind’s Whisper Madeline, we are running for our lives. Pick us up, please.”
Your Wind’s Whisper skill is now level 29!
Noise from overhead, engine noise, and Threadbare nodded. This was expected. The silencing enchantments he’d put on the engines weren’t powerful enough to run full-time, they’d need to recharge before they could be used again. Eight or nine hours would probably do it, but they didn’t have that kind of time.
A whisper of air past his face was followed by a sharp CRACK, and Thomasi gasped in pain as he rocked backward, blood spraying.
“Musketeers on the walls!” Jean cried out. “Get to cover!”
“Oh no you don’t! Greater Healing!” Fluffbear yelled, rushing over and leaping on Thomasi’s back. “And Bodyguard Thomasi, too!”
The group ran to the nearest pile of rubble, as Fluffbear darted back and forth like a fish on a line, her armor spanging and ringing as bullets ricocheted from it.
“Stop that!” Celia yelled, adding her own miniature cannon to the mix, and part of the wall went up in smoke as someone yelled. “See what that gets you!” The cylinder of her gun arm revolved, and a smoking cartridge the size of a mug of beer spat out the side of her armor.
“We fighting? We fighting! YES! WE FINALLY DO DIS TING!” Zuula roared. “Beast Shape Four Utahraptor!” she yelled, instantly bulging into something towering, plush, and pointy that Threadbare had never seen before. It hissed in joy and was simply gone, in a blur of feathers and scales, moving so fast that for a second he wondered if her haste spell was still going.
And then the dragon roared fire.
Madeline swept the northern wall like a comet, leathery wings illuminated in the backdraft as rabbit beastkin in fancy outfits screamed and leaped down to avoid the flames. Some survived the fall, some didn’t. Threadbare winced to see it. Not only was this pointless, but each and every death would make straightening this mess out harder.
Then he looked west and saw Zuula using her form’s spiky bits to very great effect and sighed. This was going to be messy regardless.
But maybe there were a few things he could do to minimize the slaughter, without risking his friends lives.
And so as the bullets whined past and occasionally into him, he pointed at the unmoving bodies both at the bottom of the wall and left in Zuula’s wake.
“Zombies. Zombies, zombies, zombies, zombies...”
Your Zombies skill is now level 9!
Your Zombies skill is now level 10!
Your Zombies skill is now level 11!
And once he felt there were enough on the battle field, he drew in a deep breath and shouted “Command the Dead! Give every living musketeer really tight hugs!”
Your Command the Dead skill is now level 30!
The dead rose and sought to embrace the living.
The living were less thrilled with the idea, and the musketfire pinning the group down slowed, as the ones still alive turned to dealing with the undead in their ranks.
“The landing zone’s as cleah as we can get it!” Madeline bellowed. “Drop the laddahs!”
And as the airship came to a stop twenty feet up, filling the sky with its bulk, rope ladders rolled off the sides. Scattered shots rang out from the deck as the few crew who had free hands plinked at the musketeers.
“Go, go, go!” yelled Fluffbear, as she steered Thomasi up to the ladder. He scrambled, got his hat shot off, nearly fell as he tore a hand loose to catch it, then kept climbing.
A bit slow, Threadbare felt. “Animus,” he commanded, hopping over and slapping the ladder. “Command Animi, carry them up faster.”
The rope ladder shuddered and drew up on its own, as musket balls whipped through the space they’d just occupied.
Threadbare nodded in satisfaction. “Everyone, we are leaving. On board, please!”
That’s when the first cannon roared, and the airship shuddered in the air, turning to the side as the impact sprayed planks and forced it into the wall. The wall gave first, crumbling at the top as the horrible groan of crackling wood and falling stone filled the night.
“Fump!” shouted Celia, and once more Threadbare felt her gauntlet close around him, as she flopped on her back and yelled “Boosters!”
They shot into the sky, and Threadbare had enough of a field of view to see Jean scrambling madly onto deck, barely just in time to avoid being crushed against the wall. And across the way he saw the thing that was Zuula making a ludicrously far leap onto the deck.
That was everyone.