Explorers had once been an uncommon job within the valley of Cylvania. With the Oblivion walling off the entire kingdom, there had been few good reasons to learn a job that had limited growth potential. But now that the Oblivion was gone, the demand was high, and Glub had gotten an early start on the matter.
So early, in fact, that he had gotten to sufficient level to gain the Expedition Leader skill. Which meant that all of his personal buffs now affected the members of his party... at least those who were within range.
Threadbare happily deactivated his Camouflage, Renny took down his illusion, and after Glub set up a temporary waymark and handed each of them a lesser waystone, the three set out toward the settlement.
Or rather, what remained of the settlement.
At the bottom of a slight rolling slope with scattered trees and a few sheds that looked to be used to tend nearby fields, was a large, walled village. Well, it had been walled. There was still a wall around it, on the sides that didn't face the airship. A river ran through it, and through the large hole in what had been the western wall, Threadbare could see a number of very close wooden buildings, some three or four stories high, with thin planks running between them.
A number of these structures had been knocked to pieces as well. Fires raged and smoke billowed into the sky. Not a lot, but enough that the haze obscured the frantic figures who ran and flew through the smoke. From the motions, it looked like they were trying to put their homes out.
“How do we find them once we're inside?” Renny asked.
“I have a feeling that won't be a problem. Anne isn't exactly subtle,” Threadbare said, heading toward the hole in the wall.
He was wrong about that. The place was compact and close, with streets that twisted around in patterns that doubtless made sense to the inhabitants, but didn't help for the visiting toys. After a few minutes of fruitless searching, and numerous pauses to back out of the street and let bucket brigades through, Threadbare tried activating his Scents and Sensibility skill. Perhaps he could catch a whiff of the pirates? They did tend to smell like gunpowder and fur, after all. It was fairly distinctive.
It was fairly distinctive on the airship, that was true. But in the middle of a strange town, full of the alien odors of species he'd never encountered before, and with a smoky fire burning and drowning out subtler scents, he just couldn't seem to acquire the smell he was looking for.
Threadbare: This is bad. Does anyone have any ideas?
Renny: We could try asking them if anyone has seen her. I'm a little bit of a Grifter, and I can put up illusions of one of the townsfolk we've seen so it looks like they're asking the questions.
Glub: Naw, got to be careful with these backwoods villages, man. Everyone knows everyone else. If you act funny they notice. Besides, most of the people we've seen are those beefolk and flappies. Do you know how they talk? Accents and stuff?
Renny: No, not really...
Threadbare: Actually it might not be a bad idea to ask. Just in a way that the rest of the villagers won't notice.
Glub: Like go listen to someone then mimic their voice and ask a question when the guy we're talking to can't see us?
Renny: That's good!
Glub: It's your idea, with some changes. Didn't say it was a BAD idea. Just needed a little work is all.
Threadbare: It is a good idea but that isn't quite what I was thinking. I was more thinking about that body we saw over towards the bakery.
Glub: Oh. OH! Yeah, that'd work, maybe.
“Speak With Dead,” Threadbare intoned, as they gathered around the body of a fellow who'd been facing south when a northbound support beam had succumbed to gravity.
Your Speak with Dead skill is now level 31!
“Well, it's about time somebody showed!” a peevish looking man wearing spectacles and a waistcoat materialized, and stood up from where he lay. “I've been calling for help for ages! I could have been dying on the ground, for all you lot cared!”
“Oh dear,” Threadbare said. “This part is always awkward. Well... perhaps I should ask first. Have you seen a pirate come this way?”
“Pirate! You mean that rabbit rapscallion who swaggered in and wanted to talk to the four queens? Bah, I don't know what she expected! She'll get her audience, sure, and be executed come the dawn. Piracy is against the law, same as banditry!”
“The four queens? Where might I find them?” Threadbare asked, feeling a sinking sensation somewhere around where his heart might have been if he'd been a living bear.
“Well down in the hive, of course! You just go there and ask to speak with them, and the soldiers escort you to their chambers.” The man squinted down at him, then did a double-take. “I say. Did you er... were you aware that you are in fact a teddy bear, my good sir?”
“So I'm told,” Threadbare replied. “Now I think it's only fair I should let you know that it's a little late for help in your situation...”
All things considered, the man, whose name happened to be Radish Clayborne, took it reasonably well. He was a bit worried about how the village would get on, since he was the only cobbler in town, but when pressed, admitted that neither the beefolk nor the flappies really had much use for shoes to begin with. Threadbare did accept his last request, which was to send a message to his daughter telling her where his small stash of gold was hidden in his house, and faded away to whatever afterlife awaited him.
Threadbare sent a Wind's Whisper to Agatha Clayborne with the location fo the hiding spot, and looked to the others. They were shimmering outlines still, thanks to Glub's Camouflage, but he could make out their rough shapes in the smoke.
Threadbare: Do you think you can get us to the four queens, Glub?
Glub: Only one way to find out, dudes. Stick close.
It wasn't hard to find their way down into the hive. The main entrance was right in the center of town. It had been a building once, but cannonballs had reduced it to a rubble-strewn pit lined with papery substance.
Getting into the hive was not a problem.
Figuring out where to go from there was a bit trickier.
It wasn't hard at first, because of the corpses. Anne or Harey had come this way, judging by the chopped up and pistol-shot bee bodies. There were only one or two of the humanoid ones, Threadbare noted. The rest looked similar to the ground bees he had seen in his vision.
But he soon found out that the bodies only appeared at chokepoints. And the tunnels weren't laid out in a way that made any sense to him.
Fortunately, it made a bit more sense to Renny.
Renny: I'm noticing that the angles are similar to the streets up above.
Glub: Yeah. Only there's up and down added in. Multiple floors, kinda. My magic map is working overtime here.
Threadbare: The queen is usually at the center of the hive. Can we descend and try to get to the center of the deepest part?
Glub: Maybe. You got that sniffy stuff, yeah?
Renny: I do!
Glub: I'm thinking they'll keep the honey near the queens.
Threadbare: That would make sense. I'll turn my nose on as well. There is less smoke down here, maybe it will be easier.
To his joy, it was. For when he activated Scents and Sensibility, not only did he get a whiff of that familiar pirate scent, but he also found that the air was full of scent trails, too neat and orderly to be anything but deliberate.
He did recall hearing that bees did this sort of thing. And after a few minutes down twisty tunnels, he whispered.
Threadbare: I think the pirates are following the sweet with a hint of salty trail. Renny, do you smell it?
Renny: I do! I wonder if rabbit beastkin have scenting skill too?
Threadbare: I don't think so, but Pirates are Mercenaries as well. And there's a skill that helps them find their way with quests and similar things. They might be using that.
Renny: If the bees use smell to find things, our Camouflage might not help us stealth as much. I'll cover over our scents with illusions.
Threadbare: That is a very good idea. Thank you. This will help me focus on following the scent trail, too.
Glub: Alright man. Take the lead then, I'll speak up if the map gets weird.
It wasn't long after that they encountered their first patrol. Dozens of ground bees, with a few larger, spikier warriors among them, and a single humanoid beefolk in the middle, bearing a pair of wands in two of her four hands. But the camouflage and the illusions seemed to do their job, and they remained undetected, even as they shifted to let the bees pass.
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After that they made much faster time, as they descended down into the depths of the earth. Down to where the papery stuff of the walls grew thin and brittle, hanging in strips from the ceiling. This was the older hive, the part that had been around before the burning, Threadbare judged. It was still tended, he could tell that by the sharp scents of resin on the fresher patches as they went, but the stuff was so old that it only slowed the inevitable.
Hanging patches whispered at the slight breeze of their movement, and only the dead bore witness as they went, stabbed and shot corpses staring blankly past them with empty compound eyes, as ichor pooled and spread across the floors.
Renny: I smell blood.
They halted, and Threadbare snuffed until his nose caught it, too. A small patch, and nearby lay one of the larger warrior bees, its stinger coated in the stuff.
Renny: I don't have good eyes in the dark. You two do. What's this?
Glub: Looks like a warrior got a lucky crit in.
Threadbare: Perhaps. Pirates don't wear armor, usually. This could have just been a good strike.
Glub: Either way, now we got more of a trail to follow. Lead on, my dudes.
Three more minutes down, they came to a main shaft. There were no obvious stairs here, but the clawmarks in the side of the wall made its navigation obvious enough. The little group dug their claws in and started down.
At the bottom they found one of the pirate crew, lying still and limp, with a few bees crushed beneath her and stingers protruding from her chest.
It bothered Threadbare that he didn't know her name.
But they had no time to dwell on her dead form, as the sound of a musket shot echoed through the chambers of the hive.
Glub: This way!
A shimmer of motion passed him, and Threadbare followed, until they found a set of massive bronze double doors, embossed with scenes of bees and flappies and humans living and working together. They were very impressive, but there was no time to admire them, and so they slipped through the slightly-open doors to see what awaited within.
It was a large chamber, there in the center of the hive. Tapestries hung on the walls, and curved benches lined the wooden steps that filled the hexagonal room. On the opposite side from the bronze double doors were wooden ones, heavy and thick, and by the slope of the floor they led deeper down into the hive.
On each of the four walls that didn't have a door sat a large, gleaming wooden throne. They shone as if coated with something shiny and translucent... wax, perhaps. For the first time Threadbare realized that he was standing in light once more, light from thousands on thousands of candles that warmed the chamber and made yellow light dance on every polished surface.
And then there were the corpses.
Threadbare had to turn his nose off, because of the smell. Hundreds of ground bee warriors were heaped across the floor, on the steps that climbed up the ledges to the thrones, and around the thrones themselves. Their bodies, thick and bumbly and interwoven, made a sort of hedge maze effect across the chamber, and there was no part of it that was unsplattered with their ichor.
It was within this makeshift maze of death, that the pirates hunted their captain.
“Ye think I wouldn't know what ye were about?” Anne's voice rang out, from the far end of the chamber.
One of the crew stood, and leveled her musket, but Threadbare was high up enough to see Karey reach up and pull her down.
Just in time, too, as a pistol sounded, and the bronze doors rang like a gong as a ball bounced off them.
“I knew, Ma,” Karey called back, once her fellow mutineers were huddled down next to her, and safely within cover. “It's time. Ye pushed us too far wi' this fool's journey. Did ye think we'd let ye whittle us down bit by bit?”
“That was never the goal, ye fool of a girl!”
“And what was? What WAS, then?” Karey yelled. “Dragging us off to this strange land, not letting us raid along the way, and kidnapping someone for payment AFTER? Ye always get paid up front! Ye always share with the crew! How are we supposed to work wi' no gold ye tin-hearted tyrant!”
The second she stopped yelling, Threadbare watched her shoot hand gestures to her crew, then low crawl behind the corpses. She wasn't nearly as angry as she was pretending, he thought.
Threadbare: Let's keep the high ground and go around the top of the room. I want to try to find Anne.
Glub: Alright man. Hold still.
A second later, he felt Glub's wooden hand grasp his own.
Glub: Got you both. Step carefully, I'll lead you.
“That's why I came down here, ye wayward kit,” Anne called back. “To plunder'em silly! Help me get through yonder door, and there shall be be riches for us all!”
“Aye, a likely story. We're in the middle of a hive. What use have bees for gold that ain't honey?”
“Beefolk, ye lost lollygagger!” Anne called. “They'll have gold in their treasury! They asked about wages when I asked fer crew, so they have to value the stuff!”
“A likely story, ye askin' fer crew!” Karey called back, from a different point in the corpse maze as she waved her people out and around towards the center. “Ye were knee deep in the dead when we got here, ye damned daft dollymop! Were ye gonna get Jenny Bones here to raise them up?”
By this time they'd come to the left-most of the thrones. And to his surprise, Threadbare felt himself lifted onto Glub's shoulders, then with a leap, the fishman hopped up onto the seat of the throne.
His flippers slapped against the wood, and Threadbare saw the crew down below freeze, then glance around. They'd heard the noise.
Threadbare: Renny? Can you give us an illusion?
He breathed a sigh of relief as he saw one of the bee corpses on the nearest ledge slip and fall free, hitting the wooden bench below, stinger clattering as it struck the wood. The sounds was close to Glub's flippers.
Renny: There. I'll leave the illusion of the body for a bit then let it go when they're not looking.
Glub: I see Anne.
Threadbare: Where?
“Yer in this foolishness too, Jenny?” Anne said, and Threadbare finally saw her. She was towards the back, over by the wooden door. There was a semi-circle of bodies stacked high around her crouching frame, and a wide open space between her and the rest of the maze. Threadbare's assessment was that it was a small killing ground. Anyone trying to rush her would have to break cover.
It was uncommonly defensive, given Anne's usual attitude. But looking more carefully at her, Threadbare understood why.
Anne was hurt.
Her clothing was torn, her fur was stained red, and her bandolier of potions was empty. There was a small puddle of blood where she crouched, and more running down her shoulders. There was something off about her too, some difference to her form that Threadbare didn't catch until Glub spoke up.
Glub: Has she like gone down a few cup sizes?
Renny: Is this really the time for that?
Glub: Dude, I don't wanna check her out but I'm a Bard. I notice stuff like this.
That was it. Her bosom had shrunk. That seemed a strange thing to happen to her, but perhaps there was a logical explanation. Either way, Threadbare had more pressing worries.
From atop the throne, he could see Karey's strategy. She was moving where her team wasn't, calling out taunts and provocation to hold Anne's attention. While she did so, the four crew spread out, keeping within sight of each other, crawling slowly but surely through the corpse maze.
And once they were in a good position, one big rush. They would hit her with everything they had, and hope that at the end of it Anne was dead. Because if she wasn't, then they would be in very short order.
“Ye think I haven't seen this before?” Anne bellowed, and Threadbare noted how she slid an ear out from cover, turning her head, trying to get a bead on her foes. “Ye lot always think in the short term, never o' tomorrow! We finish this job, we live like queens!”
“Oh, who said anything about not finishing the job?” Karey called back. “And our share will be all the bigger, without ye dippin' yer paws into it!”
And that decided Threadbare.
He had been sympathetic to Karey's situation, but living with the pirates over the last few days had let him do a fair amount of thinking about their lives in general. And while Anne was not a very good mother to her children, at least not by his standards, he was wise enough to understand that all parties involved in it were, if not entirely happy with the relationship, at least accepting of it.
So he couldn't choose his side by going with the better person. They were all questionable.
Now, with Karey's statement, he'd been presented with proof that whichever side he chose, the pirates would still be trying to trade him for their payoff. He'd been hoping that he might find her more amenable to a deal than Anne, but that had never been on the table, now had it?
They were too even, too equal.
Since that was the case, then he knew which one he wanted on his side, when he went to confront the Phantom that Jean was certain awaited him. And he knew how this would have to end.
“Soulstone,” he whispered, feeling a crystal materialize in his paw.
Glub: Boss?
Threadbare: We need to get within about twenty feet of Harey Karey, please. Be ready to run, she's about to strike. Renny, please use your illusions to help Anne survive this.
They descended in silence...
...but just a bit too late.
Threadbare had just enough of a vantage point to see Karey's lips moving, enough to realize that she was using a Wind's Whisper or Party Whisper, and then came shouts as her three crewmates sprang into action.
The first wore a top hat and a necklace of bones, and she chanted “Zombies! Command the Dead run towards me!”
And in a heartbeat, Anne's cover dissolved as the bee corpses around her bolted towards the Necromancer Pirate.
But she paid the price, as Anne bolted upright and fired. The Necromancer's top hat flew off her head as she screamed and fell back clutching her face.
A split-second later, the musket fired again, as the second crewbunny shouted “Crippling Shot, Scatter Shot!”
The air rippled as bullets multiplied, moving too fast to track. Anne dodged... too late. A cry and a spray of blood marked where she was hit, and Threadbare whipped his head around to see long gashes along her side and right arm.
“Blood is Gold!” Anne snarled, and from his angle, Threadbare saw her bodice shrink, and hang more loosely from her chest. At the same time, the gashes on her side shrunk and mended.
Oh, that explained it! She kept her gold in her bosom. He rather thought her upper back strength must be unbelievable if she was padding her brassiere with gold coins to that extent.
But there was no more time to muse as the third crewbunny was on her, shouting her skills as she charged, rapier extended. “Guard Stance! Riposte! Disarm!”
And a thought struck Threadbare while this was going on, while Anne fast-drew a pistol only to have it go flying, and was forced to go blade to blade with the fencer.
Where was Karey?
INT+1
He turned, but she was nowhere to be seen.
Metal rang on metal, as the two Pirates fought, and gasps of pain from the Crewbunny told him she wouldn't last long. The musketeer was reloading frantically, and working for a better angle, but there was no sign of Karey.
Threadbare: Does anyone see Harey Karey?
Renny: I smelled her. She just moved past us! She's invisible, I think it was a potion or something.
And Threadbare knew what he had to do.
“Wind's Whisper Anne, I'm on your side. Don't kill the Teddy Bear.”
He didn't wait to see if she'd noticed the whisper. Instead he ran straight toward the fight, giving orders to his friends as he went.
Threadbare: Glub, please disarm the musketeer. Renny, make duplicates of Anne.
And as he ran, he called out “Bodyguard Anne.”
He felt Glub's Camouflage scatter, felt the magic disperse as he drew attention to himself with a skill, felt Anne's eyes hot on him as she ran her opponent through, and the crewbunny jerked and fell...
And felt himself pulled into the air, pulled in front of Anne as his chest exploded outward and a pistol boomed behind him.
Your Bodyguard Skill is now level 20!
Your Golem Body skill is now level 58!
Your Toughness skill is now level 26!
Max HP+2!
Threadbare fell to the ground, observing the red '462' floating above him with worried relief. then sat up, staring at the hole in his chest. Quite a lot of stuffing.
He also saw a horrified looking Karey, smoking pistol in hand, staring down at him in confusion.
And then there was no more time, as Anne was upon her, blade flashing, and form multiplying as Renny made illusory duplicates of the pirate captain.
“Wind's Whisper Karey, please get in the stone!” Threadbare said, holding it out in both paws behind the two of them, as Anne did her bloody work.
It didn't take long. Threadbare used the opportunity to mend himself. He hadn't been this badly hurt in quite a long time, really.
Karey gurgled, and Threadbare felt the soulstone in his hand pulse. He tucked it quickly under his hat. A glance to the side showed Glub sitting on the musketeer's back, with Renny binding the Necromancer's injuries.
Anne leaned on her cutlass, and turned to stare down at him. Slowly the images of her popped like soap bubbles, until only a single battered, bloody, but unbowed Pirate gazed into his button eyes, with something between wonder and confusion.
“What be this?” she whispered finally, and the words hung in the empty and death-filled chamber as blood dripped out to mix and blend with the ichor.
“A long overdue discussion,” said Threadbare. “Let's talk about the future, and what we need to do to both get a happy ending from this mess.”