The Tolling of the Bells (2/2)

Anne Bunny has left your party!

Well, that was no great loss, he thought and immediately chided himself for it. Was she dead? He hoped not, for all she was flawed and problematic. They were not truly enemies, just at cross purposes for far too long

And as they touched down on the deck, he heard Karey’s voice yelling, still a bit squeaky in its new shell. “Healer! We be needing a healer! Stormy’s down!”

Threadbare started that way, remembered he couldn’t do anything for the living, then remembered that he could certainly do something for the dead. “Soulstone,” he chanted and hurried up to the helm.

Just as he got up the stairs and saw Karey fighting with the wheel, getting the airship skyborne again, the wind puffed in his ear. Cagna’s voice. “Running! It’s after us. Help!”

“Where is he!” Missus Fluffbear squeaked as she bounded past him.

“Port side, aft corner!” Karey shouted.

“Where?”

“Back and to the left o’ me!”

“We need to get to the extraction point.” Threadbare told her, as Fluffbear ran to the crumpled mass of cloth barely visible in the smoke, fog and darkness. “Our friends need help.”

“Help me brother, and I’ll help yer friends!”

“All right, but get us there very quickly,” Threadbare told her and went to join Fluffbear.

“Lesser Healing? Lesser Healing!” Fluffbear cheered, as Stormanorm groaned and sat up. “Yay, you’re still alive!”

And Threadbare stared, as Stormanorm shook his head, face charred and robe falling off in tatters from the near-hit of the cannon.

“What?” Stormanorm snapped, staring down at the two little bears. “I mean... thank you...”

He stopped. He reached up and felt his face, which no longer had a veil covering it.

Then looked down at this chest and the two bound breasts that the robe had concealed very well.

“This is all very confusing,” Threadbare told him. “I thought you were male?”

Stormanorm pulled the tatters of his robe over himself... herself? They looked away.

“Okay, you’re alive, I’m going to go give out all the healing!” Fluffbear ran down to the lower deck.

“I am male,” Stormanorm muttered, so low that even Threadbare couldn’t hear it. “I just was born in the wrong body. That’s all. I’m trying to fix that.”

“Oh. Okay,” Threadbare said.

That brought him up short. “Okay?” The beastkin looked upon him, eyes startled and wide.

“I have a great many friends who are in bodies they didn’t start with. They’re still them,” Threadbare said. “And really, when it comes to gender, it all seems very arbitrary. Why can’t you be who you feel you ought to be?”

Stormanorm looked down, their face relieved. “Thank ye. Can ye keep this a secret, though? There’s many who wouldn’t understand.”

“At the moment I’ve got bigger worries,” Threadbare said, moving to the railing, looking over, and nearly getting his head taken off as a whooshing cannonball missed him by inches. “I’ll start repairing the ship if you help get us safely and quickly to the second team’s extraction site.”

“Deal,” Stormanorm said.

From what Threadbare understood of it later, it had been a very dicey run through the fading whispers of the fog. The Belltollians had extremely good hearing, which gave them an edge on shooting in the dark... but only for the first few shots, before the roar of the other cannon started throwing the gunners off.

Still, there were a few hits. And Threadbare spent a frantic eight minutes running around the ship, mending the hull and darting back every couple of dozen seconds to Tinker at the engines and keep them from catching on fire.

Afterward they told him of the expert piloting that Harey Karey used to zig zag across the city, dodging summoned flying beasts and the worst of the cannonfire. They told him how Stormanorm belted out a some serious sea chanties, barding it up to keep everyone alive as the cannons struck and the shrapnel splintered throughout the vessel. Zuula and Fluffbear went full on healing, and Madeline strafed and dove, drawing fire from them at risk to her own unlife.

But for Threadbare, it was just a lot of rushing and chanting, feeling his sanity dip low. Then the worst of it died out and they were descending, and for a brief moment he thought it was another crash. But a mad scramble to the deck showed them heading down at a controlled clip, towards a clearing not far below.

A clearing, where four people huddled, and something silvery and fast and human sized flowed through the trees like a ghost, arrowing straight toward his friends.

“Wind’s Whisper Renny. I’m coming down the hard way. Please catch me.”

And trusting to his friend, Threadbare hurled himself over the side.

It wasn’t as much of a gamble as most might think.

He was small and light, and he’d fallen similar distances before. At worst he’d have to heal himself before he got back up.

But the gamble paid off, as a whirlwind with eyes intercepted him. Renny’s summoned elemental broke his fall, and deposited him gently with the others.

“We can’t stop it!” the Muscle Wizaard said between coughs. “And if it gets too close...” the rest of his voice descended into a bubbling wheeze.

Cagna simply growled.

“We don’t breathe, so it’s up to us!” Glub said, grabbing a tree branch, and saying “Manipulate Water!” Moisture formed around it, freezing into jagged spikes as he jogged forward. “You with me and Renny for support?”

“Good plan,” Threadbare said, triggering his claws and heading out with him...

...only to stop cold as the thing emerged from the edge of the trees.

It shone silver in the weak moonlight, silvery and metallic and loose, with vague features where anyone else would normally have a face. It stopped and studied them, and wisps of vapor rose from it as it stepped forward.

“Create Water! Manipulate Water!” Glub yelled, as he brought icicles down on it from above, but they slurped through its liquid form and red ‘0’s rose to the sky.

The thing turned to Glub and stretched out a hand, the fingers elongating...

And Threadbare said “Command Golem. Deactivate.”

Your Command Golem spell has been resisted!

Glub tried to dodge, but the spikes were too fast, skewering him and flicking him off into the trees as it loped forward, the indentations that were its eyes fixed on Threadbare.

Threadbare backed up. He knew this thing.

And he knew his sanity was low, very low, and he could only try this a few more times.

“Command Golem. Deactivate.”

Your Command Golem spell has been resisted!

“Defensive Stance,” he barely had time to speak before those long, stabbing fingers came for him...

...and skewered an illusion, as a dozen Threadbares appeared and dodged in different directions. Renny was in play, and Threadbare took courage from that.

Courage and a precious second to try a new command. “Command Golem. Destroy yourself.”

There was a long pause.

The thing froze, quivering and shaking.

And Threadbare relaxed, as words rose in front of his eyes.

Your Command Golem skill is now level 35!

He went and checked on Glub as the golem shook, spraying droplets of itself around it, shrinking as it did so. It got smaller and smaller and smaller, until the area around it was a glinting puddle of poison.

Poison that Threadbare knew would taint the land for decades if he wasn’t responsible. Fortunately, he had enough sanity left to Clean and Press the grass until it was gone, and fortunately it was close enough to fabric that the spell didn’t misfire. Either that or Nurph was being kind and not standing on ceremony for once.

“What the hells was that?” Glub and Renny said, while the others clambered up a ladder to the airship behind them.

“A Mercury Golem,” said Threadbare.

“I’ve never heard of anything like that,” Glub said.

“As far as I know there’s only ever been one,” Threadbare said. “And I made it.”

And for the first time anyone could recall hearing, his voice held anger.

Silence for a moment, as the toy and the doll haunter looked to each other, then at him.

“Boss...” Glub began.

“Someone has been very sneaky and very malicious,” Threadbare said, that taut, controlled tone belying the raw anger beneath. “And now I think I shall have to take this personally.”

They were silent, as he finished cleaning, and not even the notifications of his level ups from the conflict and escape cheered him.

But the words that came across his view next did nothing more to help his mood.

GARON HAS ISSUED A NEW DECREE!

Castle’s fallen. Revolution underway. Retreat from Cylvania City, regroup at site 7.

He clambered up the ladder to see his friends gathered in a circle around Madeline, solemn and shocked as she relayed the news.

And through his anger, it tugged at his heartstrings to see his little girl slumped in her armor, sagged in the middle of the deck, legs sprawled, staring at her hands.

He moved to her, hugged her for all he was worth. And let his rage go, because she needed him, and that was more important.

“Threadbare,” she whispered, closing her arms around him too. “We were tricked. We were duped, this whole time. They just needed us out of the country so they could steal it away.”

“Maybe,” Threadbare said. “I don’t think we did things the way they expected us to. And nothing’s certain yet. This is not over.”

“There are no happy endings, because there are no endings,” Celia said, holding him up so she could look into his eyes. “Nothing ever really ends. But will you help me finish this properly once more?”

He patted her gauntlet. “Whenever and however many times I must.”

For now, they escaped into the night, putting the clamor and rage of Belltollia behind them. They left it a mess, but there was nothing to be done about that now.

Right now, they had a reckoning to deliver.