Critical Failures II (Caverns and Creatures Book 2) (22 page)

“Dammit, Cooper!” said Tim.

Cooper put his arm in the bag again. “What’s the bard’s name?”

“Wasn’t it something like ‘Jazz’?” asked Julian.

“Shit,” said Tim. “It’s not ‘Jazz’, but yeah, it’s something like that.”

“Jizz?” suggested Cooper.

His suggestion was met only with disapproving glares.

“Fuck it,” said Cooper. “Bard!” He pulled the bard out of the bag. The air rushing into his mouth sounded like a hurricane wind.

“Thanks,” the bard said weakly.

“Butterballs!” said Cooper. The wolf fell out of the bag, panting and sleepy-eyed.

Tim stroked the wolf’s fur. “You okay, big guy?”

“Should I let your sister out?” Cooper asked Tim.

“Get Dave, you ass!”

“Oh yeah,” Cooper chuckled to himself. “Forgot about Dave.” He reached under his loincloth and gave his ass a good, solid scratch. He sniffed his hand. “Fuck, that’s grim.”

He reached his ass-hand into the bag. “Dave,” he muttered. He felt Dave’s arm materialize in his hand. Even without having just summoned him, he would have recognized Dave’s arm for it being covered in leopard fur. He pulled him out and dropped him unceremoniously on the ground.

Dave gasped and sucked in air. When he was able to speak, he croaked out a “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” said Cooper. He switched the bag to his right hand, and reached in with his left. “Kat.”

When he felt her cold, slender forearm in his hand, he pulled her out gently. She was only halfway out of the bag when her skin started to blister and smoke.

“FUCK!” she screamed. “Put me back!”

Cooper immediately shoved her back in the bag. “What the fuck just happened?”

“She’s a vampire, you idiot!” said Tim. “She can’t go out in the sunlight.”

“Sorry,” said Cooper.

“Let me in there,” said Tim. “I need to see if she’s okay.”

Cooper held the bag open for Tim.

“Give me one minute, and then pull me back out.” Tim stepped into the bag and disappeared.

“Great job, Ravenus,” Julian said to Ravenus. “You really came through for us.”

“Like fuck he did,” said Cooper. “We almost suffocated in there? What the hell took him so long?”

Julian talked some gibberish that Cooper couldn’t understand, and Ravenus screeched and cawed his response.

“He said the bag landed upside down,” explained Julian. “It took him some time to wrestle the opening out from underneath.”

Cooper grinned and sighed. “Takes me back to the night I spent with Dave’s –”

Thwack!
Cooper found himself staring at the fletching of an arrow poking out of a tree inches away from his face.

“That was a warning shot,” said a voice behind him. The voice was more calm and confident than Cooper would have liked. “The next one doesn’t have to miss.” Cooper believed the voice. He turned around.

No one was standing in the patch of forest where the voice had come from. From the looks on the others’ faces, Cooper guessed that they, too, had heard the voice, but were also having trouble identifying the source.

“Up here,” said the voice. Cooper looked up. A halfling crouched in the branches of a tree. He wore a green and brown cloak, decked out with twigs and leaves. Even though Cooper was staring right at him, the little bastard was nearly invisible against his surroundings. He had an arrow nocked and pointed right at Cooper.

“What do you want?” asked Cooper.

“That’s a nifty bag you’ve got there,” said the halfling. “How much do you want for it?”

“It’s not for sale,” said Julian.

“Everything’s negotiable.” The halfling chuckled to himself. “But I’m afraid the only currency we’ve got is arrows.” Mirthful chuckles came from at least two other trees, but Cooper dared not take his eyes off the only adversary he’d already spotted, lest he not be able to find him again. “So how many will it take before you’re willing to make a deal?”

“You’re thieves?” asked Dave.

“We’re opportunists,” said the halfling. “We were just out for a leisurely hunt, and noticed you gentlemen passing by completely unarmed. I must say, that’s not too wise a practice in this stretch of wood. You might run into someone dangerous.”

More high-pitched laughter chattered out from two of the nearby trees.

“I have to get my friend out first,” said Cooper. He began to reach into the bag.

“Uh uh,” said the halfling. He pulled his arrow back threateningly. “Not so fast. We’re going to do this nice and slow, like. No tricks. Now, what’s your friend’s name?”

“Um… Dildo,” said Cooper.

The halfling laughed. His laughter was joined by his friends in the other trees. “What kind of name is that?”

“It’s sort of a nickname, really. We call him Dildo Daggins. It’s an inside joke.”

The laughter stopped abruptly. “Fine. Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to reach very slowly into the bag and say the word ‘Dildo’. You’re going to pull him out of the bag just as slowly. And then you’re going to put the bag on the ground and you’re all going to walk away. Is that clear?”

“Crystal.”

Cooper reached with exaggerated slowness into the Bag of Holding. “Dildo,” he said. Cooper felt the hard, veiny wooden cock materialize in his hand. It still had a greasy residue on it. He felt down the shaft to make sure he was holding the penis end, and mentally braced himself for the coming pain.

“Fuck you, hobbit!” Cooper shouted as he whipped the stake out of the bag and flung it at the halfling.

The halfling, true to his word, released his arrow, catching Cooper in the chest.

Pain seared through his pectoral muscles. “Fuck, that hurts!”

The stake had also found its mark, and it pleased Cooper to imagine that the little bastard in the tree was suffering a lot more than he was.

“Magic Miss –” An arrow in the shoulder cut Julian off. Sparks fizzled out of his open palm, but no Magic Missiles shot out.

The halfling screamed and dropped his bow. He looked down in horror at the massive wooden dick poking out of his abdomen. “Why’s it so slippery?” he said, pulling it out. He dropped the dildo and grabbed at the branch he was sitting on. His hand slipped. He lost his balance and fell out of the tree.

Cooper jumped on the halfling, ignoring the pain from the two more arrows which struck him in the back. He wrapped one massive hand around his tiny throat and punched him in the nuts with the other.

“Oooooh,” the halfling groaned.

“Game’s over, little fucker,” said Cooper. “Call off your friends.” He gave the little guy a moment to comply, knowing all too well how difficult it can be to articulate one’s thoughts right after a punch in the stones. He grunted as another arrow struck him in the back, and one more in his ass.

“Bingbobble! Snickers!” the halfling cried out. “Stand down!”

The arrows stopped.

“Now,” said Cooper. His words were directed at the halfling he had pinned on the ground, but he spoke loudly enough for the others to hear. He gripped the little man’s throat even tighter. “Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to tell your little friends to drop their weapons and fuck off. I will not suffer the indignity of dying at the hands of people named Bingbobble and Snickers.”

“Do what he says!” the halfling croaked.

Bingbobble and Snickers obediently jumped down from their respective trees and held their bows out as non-threateningly as they could.

“Yah!” said Julian, plucking the arrow out of his shoulder. He walked briskly up to the one nearest to him. “I’ll take that, thank you very much.” He swiped the bow out of the frightened halfling’s hand. The other halfling simply dropped his bow on the ground and held his hands up. “You two run along.”

The two halflings didn’t need to be asked twice. They disappeared into the forest like cockroaches when the lights go on.

Cooper was satisfied at the look of defeat that spread over his captive’s face. “Dave,” he called out. “I could use some help here.”

“Of course,” said Dave. He waddled over to Cooper and lay a hand on his shoulder. “I heal thee.”

Cooper breathed a sigh of relief as arrows fell out of him like needles on a shoddy Christmas tree. His wounds were far less than completely healed, but he’d live to fight another battle. “Thanks. Grab Tim, would you?”

“Sure thing,” said Dave. He reached into the Bag of Holding. “Tim.”

Tim spilled out of the bag. “What took you guys so – what the hell happened here?”

“Ambush,” said Cooper. He stood up, lifting the halfling off the ground by his throat. “It’s been taken care of. How’s Kat?”

“She’s in pretty bad shape,” said Tim. “She needs blood.”

Cooper looked at the frightened prisoner squirming in his hand. “Sorry, dude.”

“Wait, Cooper,” said Julian. “We should really consider the ethical ramifications of feeding an unarmed prisoner to –”

“Wha–” said the halfling as Cooper shoved it into the Bag of Holding. Cooper looked at Julian and raised his eyebrows.

“Or not,” said Julian.

“Come on, guys,” said Tim. “Let’s make our way back to town before we run into anything else out here.”

“We have to wait for Stuart,” said Dave.

Everyone looked up. Stuart was a tiny speck about a third of the way down the cliff face from Millard’s fort.

“Think there’s any way we could speed this up?” asked Tim.

“I don’t see how,” said Dave. “He’s up there, and we’re down here. The only way to speed it up that I can think of would be to make him fall and try to catch him, which I don’t advise.”

“Crap.”

“I’m going to go pray,” said Dave.

“Good idea,” said Tim. “Stay where we can see you.”

Dave waddled to a tree about twenty feet away and took a knee.

“That’s a good idea,” said Julian. “I’m going to zone out for about twenty minutes, get my spells back.”

“I’ll get my daily allotment of songs ready,” said the bard.

“Well I guess that just leaves you and me,” said Cooper. When Tim didn’t respond, Cooper looked over to find him curled up on the ground, fast asleep. “Poor little guy.”

Cooper looked up. It appeared that Stuart hadn’t moved an inch. Nature, he reflected to himself, is boring as shit. He found a stick and spent the next twenty minutes playing fetch with Butterbean.

“Hey,” said Julian when he’d finally snapped out of his trance. “This is weird. I used to only be able to cast five first-level spells in a day, and now I can cast six. Also, and I can’t be sure about this until I try, but I think I know how to play the violin.”

“My ass is noticeably less sore,” said Cooper. “And now that I think about it, I get the feeling that if we ever came across a trap of some kind, I would be marginally better at avoiding it. This can only mean one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“We leveled up!”

“Awesome!”

“Wait a second,” said Cooper. “You wasted a skill point learning how to play the violin?”

“I’ve always wanted to learn.”

“What good is that going to do us out here? You don’t even have a fucking violin!”

“What did you spend your Skill Points on?”

“I always dump them into Climb and Swim.”

“That’s it?”

“I only get two points per level.”

“That sucks. Why so few?”

“Because I’m a barbarian. We hit shit with axes. We don’t tend to do a lot of violin playing. Also, I get a penalty for being stupid.”

“Hey guess what guys!” said the bard, sauntering back with his lute.

“You leveled up,” said Cooper.

“Yeah,” said the bard. “How’d you know?”

“We all did,” said Cooper. “We must have gotten a bunch of Experience Points when we took down a vampire.”

“I can inspire competence now,” said the bard.

“There’s a certain irony in that,” said Cooper.

“How so?”

“A bard is about the least competent class there is.” Cooper looked up at Stuart. “Outside of monk.”

“I’m a support character,” said the bard. “A jack-of-all-trades.”

“And if being a jack-off was useful, you’d be awesome.”

“What’s going on?” said Tim, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

“Oh, hey,” said Cooper. “I thought you were sleeping.”

“I was,” said Tim. “I had a dream that a bunch of assholes were arguing about… oh wait…”

“We all leveled up!” said Julian. “Did you?”

“How should I know,” asked Tim. “We left our character sheets at the Whore’s Head.”

“Cooper can sense traps and I can play the violin!”

“Why the hell did you learn to play the violin?”

“I’ll do what I want with my own skill points, thank you very much,” Julian snapped. “So what about you, Tim? You notice anything different about yourself?”

“I don’t know,” said Tim. “I think I may have a better understanding of how kidneys work. It’s kind of vague.”