“No, look, you need to stop beating yourself up over it,” Buttons said, her soulstone flickering in the spooky afterimages that the Speak with Dead skill provided. “You didn't have my perspective on things. There were a bunch of teeny tendrils that were hanging from the ceiling, they only showed up because I moved to a point where they were backlist against the rune glow. If you'd used Magic Fingers to move the mouse it probably would have brushed one of them, and then FOOMP.”
“Even so,” Dracosnack said, peering at the orb in his claws, “I, hmm... forgot a skill that was applicable to the situation. A Wizard should not do such things! At the very least I could have grabbed you after you threw your mouse into the stairwell.”
“Yeah, but again, those tendrils were everywhere. I probably wouldn't have made it back. Look, Snacky, it's fine. This is my job. The Guild will hook me up with a new body, I'll spend some time re-leveling my shit, and life goes on. Well, except we're heroes now.”
A short distance away, two teddy bears were feeling very much like the opposite of heroes. With Apollyon's help they had dug a deep grave. With some work and her mason skills, Fluffbear had whipped up a tombstone.
It said, simply
MOPSY.
GOOD CAT.
MOTHER TO MANY, FRIEND TO ALL.
It stood there on the hill in front of the castle golem, which had now settled back into its resting position. Most of the stonework had sloughed from it, and lay in heaps nearby. It would never be a habitable building again, not so long as it stayed a golem, anyway.
“It's hard for Tamers,” Fluffbear said, breaking the silence finally. She was still looking down at the grave though, standing before it and staring down at the smoothed earth. “There's no way to train your babies to go into soulstones. People keep trying to teach them that trick, but you can't do it without a few examples. And only a monster would kill their babies to teach them a lesson.”
Threadbare put his arm around her shoulder. He had to lean down a bit to do it, but he didn't mind.
Fluffbear leaned into his hug, and buried her face in his fur. “That's the problem with the soulstone method. The soul has to want to go into the soulstone. Or else they move on. And how do you explain soulstones to an animal? Shamans have tried Beast Speech, tried to get the idea across, and it just doesn't work too well. Because beasts live in the now, and don't always remember words, and dying is very disorienting, and there's only a short time to act, and... and... and...”
Threadbare hugged her tighter, shifting to put both arms around his sister.
She sobbed, and he patted her back. Sat down on the ground to take her into his lap, as he rubbed the back of her head.
We have become very much like the people we live with, Threadbare reflected, looking down the hill to Apollyon, where he sat silently next to Glub and the two talked in low tones about everything and nothing. The young man looked exhausted, dirty and with a freshly-patched tabard, his wounds healed but the scars from them still fresh and red where they could be seen on his exposed skin. Apollyon was done. He had worked hard and Threadbare couldn't blame him. His emotions were writ large on his face and form. Most people's were, and a good part of golem development was simply watching humans, and dwarves, and halvens, and the other species that made Cylvania home. Watching them and learning how to express the feelings that filled you up, and made you wonder how to deal with them.
It was good, though, he thought as he looked down at Fluffbear crying. Threadbare vaguely remembered the before times, when he had first gained sapience but without understanding or a frame of reference for the things that were happening around him and to him. There were times back then when he would have sobbed, if he had known how. And eventually he did learn how, and it had helped him when he lost everything. If he hadn't been able to cry he would have gone mad, he knew. Or done something very, very foolish.
So he held his sister and rocked her, as she cried. And as night fell over that silent and lonely forest, eventually she was drained of grief for the dead, and in the void it left responsibility and care for the living filled her once more.
“Thank you,” Missus Fluffbear whispered, before standing up and surveying the hill, the churned earth, the rubble, and the treeline a good half-kilometer away. “Okay. Is everyone here? Where's Pulsivar? No, never mind, that's a silly question. Okay...” she did a quick count. “Has anyone seen the new guy?”
“I'm here!” a teeny voice chirped. And there it was, six legs churning as it dragged a familiar-looking backpack up the hill. “Had to go back for this thingy. Wossname. Figured you all might like some supplies!”
“What's your name, sorry?” Fluffbear asked, toddling over. It was very strange for her to be looking down on someone, but he was just that small. “I was a bit upset when you told me, and it slipped out of my memory.”
“No problem, been a day, been a day, knowhowitgoes. I'm Spackle. Garon sent me.” it offered one of its fingerless legs for a shake.
“He sent you? Did something happen after we left?” Threadbare walked closer so he could hear the little creature a bit better.
“No, no, I'm your secret weapon! Hiding in the pack! Supposed to make sure you survive, boss bear!” The creature pointed a plush leg at him. “Either save your butt or get you the waystone to bop out of there! Or grab your soulstone and waystone back if it got REALLY bad.”
Threadbare recalled the waystone the creature had tossed him in the middle of the fight. He took it out and examined it carefully. “I know this type. These markings are for the Castle Cylvania waystone.”
“Dude, that's a greater,” Glub said, peering over his shoulder.
“Why me, though?” Threadbare asked. “Wouldn't you help the others if it came down to it?”
“Hey what do you think I was doing! I stood and helped hold the line, buddy! I was like wo-pah, and frosted bitchnuts flakes was like Imma hit you, and I was like hahaha, who's your mother's aunt's nephew's third cousin!”
There was a moment of silence. The bears looked at each other. Fluffbear shrugged, and Threadbare cleared his throat. “I'm not sure mimics have family trees like that.”
“No no, it's a taunt! That gets them mad and makes them attack me more! Which is useless because I don't die.”
“You have the taunt skill?” Apollyon asked, as he and Glub found their way over to the others.
“No! Don't got no skills I can use. Have to taunt the old fashioned way. Gotta be an asshole and yell a lot!”
“You got no skills?” Glub looked confused. “Didn't Garon send you?”
“I got skills! Just they're all passive and stuff. Except like Bodyguard. And that other Toy Golem stuff!”
“Excuse me and I don't mean to be rude, but what exactly are you?” Fluffbear said. “I'm a Tamer so I try to find out what animals are out there, and you look kind of like an animal but you're not any type I've seen before. What was your body's maker trying to copy? Or did they make something up?”
“I'm real! I'm a tardigrade!”
The rest of the group looked at each other. Then to Dracosnack.
Dracosnack adjusted his spectacles, then paused. “Wait. I believe... are you what they call a water bear?”
“Yeh! Yeh!” Spackle literally jumped up and down in joy. “You know them! Smart guy! Woo!”
“It was an effort,” Dracosnack said. “I just got an intelligence rank up from that, which indicates a critical success. Without that I don't think I would have recalled.”
“A water bear? I don't know that type,” Threadbare scratched his chin. “I thought I knew every type of bear there was.”
“We're like little guys that live in moss. You need special lenses to see us!”
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
“Special lenses... ah, Rowan made you.” Threadbare smiled. “How is she doing these days?”
Rowan had been a student of his, one of the humans in the guild who wanted to become a Golemist. He'd taught her all he could, then gotten busy with Council stuff and lost track of where she'd gone once she was ready to work on her own. She had a background as an Alchemist, he recalled.
“She was pretty sick for a while there, but she's doing better! Didn't have to become a doll haunter after all!”
“Doll haunter? Oh dear!” Threadbare put his paw to his mouth. “What's wrong? She looked healthy enough when I last saw her.”
“So she was making a bunch of us, making golems out of the teeny little critters she saw under her microscope, and it turns out some of those teeny little critters are kinda dangerous,” Spackle said, scratching behind what the others assumed was his head. “It was a good thing we were in the Rumpus Room. Coulda started a plague.”
“Oh. Oh my. I never heard anything about that,” Threadbare said.
“It was a while back I guess. But yeah! Garon told me I had a job, and that job was to lurk and jump in if you needed me!”
“Why didn't he tell us about you directly?” Fluffbear asked.
“I 'unno.”
“We can ask him when we see him,” Threadbare said, handing the waystone back. “There's no need for me to use this now. Thank you for doing your job well, and helping us against the mimic.”
“You're welcome boss!”
“So what other jobs you got, man?” Glub sat down next to the little golem.
“Ain't got any! Just toy golem and tardigrade! Got no other job slots what-so-evah!”
“What? That's not right,” Threadbare said, rubbing his chin. “Depending on when Rowan made you, you should at least have three or four.”
“It's this skill I got called Nice Try. Says I get to keep all my tardigrade skills, but can't have any other adventuring or crafting jobs, ever unless I stop being a tardigrade. Rowan thinks Nurph put it in there. Fuck that guy, seriously!”
“Why would Nurph even do that?” Glub asked. “I mean yeah, he's kind of a dick sometimes, but that seems a bit much even for that dude.”
“It's prolly 'cause of my Nigh-Invulnerable skill. Or maybe my Self-revive skill. Or could be the Survive Fucking Anything skill. They're pretty nice.”
“I'm starting to see why Garon sent you along as a failsafe,” Threadbare nodded. “If we hit something that killed us all quickly, you'd stand a far better chance of surviving it.”
“Yeah I'm baller that way.”
“I don't know what that means,” Threadbare said.
“I think I see why Garon tried to keep him a secret, too,” Buttons said, her soulstone flickering with gravelight. “He might have all that defense, but he's still tiny and has no combat jobs. If we were up against smart opponents they could like stuff him in a jar or something and he'd be boned.”
“Hey! Nobody stuffs me!”
“Yeah, you should try dating more,” Buttons retorted.
“Nah your mom's all I need.”
“That might work better on someone who's actually got a mom.”
“I get plenty of moms! But yours is my favorite! She totally does butt stuff!”
“Do you even know what butt stuff is?”
“Your mom does, and boy howdy she rocks it!”
Threadbare noted that Apollyon was slowly turning red, Dracosnack was taking notes, and Glub was laughing, trying his best to keep his mouse covered.
Buttons wasn't giving up. “You're arguing with a dead chick and losing. It's kinda sad.”
“Not as sad as your mom when I'm not fuckin' her! Oh snap!”
“I'm thinking we should get moving,” Fluffbear decided. “Dracosnack, you're the smartest one here. Is there anything we need to watch out for?”
“Hmmm... not right away,” he decided, after a moment of pondering. “From what I remember about mimics, severed parts of them can eventually become smaller mimics. But it takes time. So some of those long root tendrils may eventually turn into a, mmmm... threat, but for now they're probably dormant.”
“We'll have to get Garon to send hunting squads out this way to get them while they're still relatively small,” Fluffbear decided. “Shamans to fix the land and get the right critters in, Scouts to hide and ambush any mimic spawn, all sorts of things. We don't want them regaining their foothold.”
“If we camp here tonight I can program the castle to defend itself and smash any mimics it sees,” Threadbare offered. Then he wrinkled his muzzle. “Actually given what mimics do, it's probably best not to have it try to find and attack mimics. Never mind. I'll just give it orders to self-defend and we can be on our way shortly.”
That didn't take long at all, and soon the group was picking its way back east. The mimic had cleared out every other threat from the forest long ago, and they made it back to the edge before Apollyon needed a rest. Camp that night was mostly a sombre affair, though Threadbare got some good practice maintaining the speak with dead effect so that Buttons and Spackle could keep insulting each other. They seemed to be having fun with that.
That was one of the things that the RAGs, and indeed Threadbare before that had found out years ago.
Being stuck in a soulstone was rough. You were conscious, but bodiless. You had a mind, but no way to affect the world without assistance. And you couldn't even speak unless there was a cooperative Necromancer around.
This was one reason why Threadbare was secretly relieved they hadn't found any other intact soulstones in the mimic's lair. The odds were very good that after being left to their own devices for months or years, any soulstoned survivors would have been horribly insane. The guild didn't have too many ways to help with that. Insanity wasn't always a condition that could be cured by a Cleric or a quick, muttered skill from a more specialized job. Sometimes it was permanent.
But this time it wasn't as much of a worry. If anyone had ended up a soulstone, then they had gone with the escapees, teleported off to wherever the waystone generator had sent them. The RAGs who were traveling with them would get them to Necromancers, and in the worst case they could be converted into undead so they'd at least have a body until they could get back home.
Though they had permanently lost Mopsy, and that was sad, the little group had accomplished their quest and taken out a major threat to the western expansion. Buttons had lost her body temporarily and been set back several levels, but time and work would amend both of those.
He would call this one a win, Threadbare decided as the fire burned, and Apollyon snored. Not exactly a happy ending, but they had dealt with the problem permanently. And sometimes the best victory you could score in life was not having to worry about something ever again.
That was the end of that quest.
But their troubles were far from over, as they found out three days later.
The second they crested the ridge to the west of Bigstump Outpost and came into view of the walls, Fluffbear stiffened up and looked wildly around to Threadbare. “She's back!”
Then she ran like the wind, little legs pounding the earth as the others stared after her.
For a moment Threadbare thought she'd meant Mopsy. Thought that by some miracle that the cat who'd been her steed, friend, and surrogate child for over three years had found a way to return from wherever the veil of death had taken her.
And then it rose from the fort.
Wings flapping, tail lashing, head turning on a serpentine neck. Small, yes, but with that profile there was only one thing it could be.
“Dragon!” yelled Apollyon. He drew his sword and charged after Fluffbear.
“No, it's all right!” Threadbare shouted, and it was, because he recognized that dragon.
And indeed, it flew closer and they chased after the charging Fluffbear, the details became clearer. The wings were leather, not dragonhide. The body was made of wood, with glass eyes, red-painted wood that had seen a lot of wear and tear.
“Theah you ah!” Madeline shouted with joy, as she descended to tackle Fluffbear to the ground, and the two of them rolled over and over as the others grabbed hold of Apollyon before he made a serious mistake.
They didn't need to explain much, and Apollyon sheathed his sword and apologized profusely. Threadbare didn't pay too much attention because by that point it was his turn to literally have the stuffing hugged out of him.
“So gahd dammed good to see ya again, mistah beah. It's been a lahng, lahng time.”
Eventually they got past the welcomes, and made their way back into the fort. Fluffbear thanked the Scouts on the wall for whispering news of Madeline's arrival at the first opportunity. The group settled down, rested, got their human properly fed and cared for, and talked.
“We've figured out most of it, we think,” Threadbare said. “Where did the waystone take you?”
“Oh I didn't use that thing. Garon had given me a compass tied to one of the membahs who survived. I gaht to the faht and the compass still pointed west, so I flew. It was long ways out theah. Found some new settlements and nations to add to the atlas.”
“But you did find our people?” Fluffbear squeaked.
“Kind of. Sahm of them.” Madeline grimaced, an odd expression on her carved draconic face. “I ended up getting nahticed by the locals and had to bullshit my way into theah caht. I pretended to be an ambassadah from Cylvania. Which I technically kinda was, I got a treaty or two to bring to the cahncil. But yah heah now, so I suppose I can give it to you.”
“Actually I'm not on the Council anymore,” Threadbare said. “How are the survivors doing?”
“The ones I found? Doing okay. Theah's a big whomping mountain range between wheah they ended up and heah, so it's no wondah they haven't made it back yet. Well, except for the crew I was escorting. We were making good tahm, but then they got captured by pirates.”
“Captured by... you're the dragon that attacked their airship!” Glub burst out. “Whoa! Dude, we should have been way more suspicious.”
“You ran into them?”
“We helped them fix their ship,” Threadbare removed his hat and rubbed his head. “We didn't know any of this, and they seemed friendly.”
“Fahtunately they ah, as pirates go,” Madeline shrugged. “Cagna, my current pahty's Scout, was keeping me infahmed on theah plans. They just grabbed my friends because they were boahed, and they were theah. They're gonna drahp 'em off at the edge of a town once theah done with theah current job.” Madeline frowned. “Which is a problem and a half, but we got a day or two to stop them, and you got a waystone heah, so I'm really glahd ya got here right after I did.”
“Your friends must have been the ones who tossed down cards to us,” Threadbare nodded. “They'll whisper to Garon or Cecelia, if things go as planned. Just what is the job that they're planning?”
“It's fahnny you should mention Celia,” Madeline said. “Theah planning to kidnahp her.”
Three minutes later after they'd talked Threadbare down from immediately using the waystone, they questioned Madeline closely for every detail that might help them.
Those were a bit sparing, sadly.
“All that my crew gaht was that somewan's paying them a laht of money to grab Celia and take her East. Theah gonna be using a festival as coveah, and given the timing, theah's only one festival it could be.” Madeline grinned. “And since the Midsummer festival is always on the thard weekend of June, we gaht a full day befoah we gotta worry... wait. Yah frowning. What's wrong?”
“The festival got really big the last few years,” Glub said. “They're starting it on Thursday now. Which is today.”
Madeline stared at them. Then up at the sky, where the sun was sinking fast toward the horizon.
“Well shit,” she said.
This time nobody stopped Threadbare from going for the waystone.
“We'll get the other one and send backup!” Fluffbear squeaked, but Threadbare only caught part of that, as the world flickered around him...