Critical Failures II (Caverns and Creatures Book 2) (23 page)

“Okay,” said Julian. “So maybe you put some Skill Points into healing?”

Tim yawned. “No, I don’t think so. It’s kind of the opposite of that. I feel like I know how to stab them more effectively. My Sneak Attack damage must have gone up.”

They all sat for a while, staring up at Stuart as he ever-so-slowly climbed down the cliff. In fact, he may not have even been moving at all.

“This is taking forever,” said Tim.

“Is he stuck?” asked Julian.

“It’s a tricky thing,” said Cooper. “That’s a steep cliff and a long drop. One misstep could be the end of you.”

They all stared for a few more minutes before Cooper continued. “But yeah, this is boring as shit. I’m going up after him.”

“What makes you think you’ll do any better than him?” asked Julian.

“I’ve maxed out my ranks in Climb,” said Cooper. “And I’ve also got a massive Strength bonus.”

“Hold on, Cooper,” said Dave, waddling briskly back to the others. “I might be able to help you. Guess what, guys!”

“You leveled up,” said Tim.

“Yeah,” said Dave. “I guess you all did as well?”

“Uh-huh,” said Tim.

“I just picked my first second-level spell, Bull’s Strength!” He turned to Cooper. “I can give you an even bigger Strength bonus to help you climb.”

Cooper nodded. “Not bad. Thanks. Come to think of it, I can boost my Strength as well if I go into a rage. I’ll be able to climb like a motherfucker!”

“I can inspire competence!” said the bard.

Cooper wanted to laugh at him, but it was quite a climb, and he’d take whatever help he could get.

“I can,” Julian started enthusiastically, but it quickly faded. “I’m pretty much the same. I can cast Magic Missiles and summon horses.”

“I can’t see that as being of much use in this particular situation,” said Tim. “Why don’t you just hang back with me and watch the show. It’ll be interesting to see what Cooper looks like with a Strength of 28.”

They walked toward the cliff until the incline increased enough so that it was more climbing than walking.

“Let’s do this,” said Cooper.

The bard readied his lute and started strumming the beginning of ‘Eye of the Tiger’.

Cooper nodded in rhythm with the music. “Yeah!” he shouted. “Good choice.” He his heart rate picked up, and he knew he was about to climb like he’d never climbed before. “Come on, Dave! Give it to me!” He held up his hand for a high-five.

“I um,” said Dave. “I imbue thee with Bull’s Strength.” He high-fived Cooper.

Cooper suddenly began to feel like a shaken up beer can as his blood fizzed inside him. If he’d been wearing a shirt before, he’d be tearing the shit out of it right now. His biceps grew to the size of watermelons. His man-tits ballooned out into firm pectoral muscles. His legs grew as thick as punching bags. “Fuck yeah!”

“Get moving,” said Dave. “I’m not sure how long this lasts.”

“I’m really angry!” said Cooper. His vision went red and blurry. His muscles expanded so much that he couldn’t even put his arms down. His friends backed away from him, wide-eyed and open-mouthed.

Cooper looked up and found Stuart. He loped up the cliff face like a lion runs on the open savannah. It felt less like climbing and more like shoving a mountain out of his way. He was halfway up to Stuart in no time.

“Hey, Stuart!” he tried to say, but it came out as “WWWRRRAAAAAAUUUURRGGHH!!!”

Stuart looked down at him, nearly lost his already-tenuous hold on the rock, and shrieked. He immediately started trying to scramble back up to Millard’s Fort. He didn’t stand a chance. Cooper was on him within seconds.

Cooper scooped up Stuart with an arm bigger than the monk’s whole body and threw him over his shoulder. Descending the cliff was a breeze. It was more a matter of letting himself fall, grabbing a random handhold every now and again to slow him down.

Once they were safely on the ground, Cooper dropped Stuart and ripped the nearest tree out of the ground, just because he could.

“Cooper!” Tim shouted. It was barely audible through the noise of blood rushing through his ears.

“BRRAAAUUUUHHHH!!” He answered. And the tree started to get heavier. His body was shrinking. He came out of his rage. “Wha?” Still hugging the tree, he collapsed under its weight and fell backwards. “Fuck.”

“What the hell are you doing?” asked Tim.

“Sorry,” said Cooper. “I got carried away. Can you guys get this fucking tree off me?”

Chapter 22

Dave’s entire body ached. They were just a few blocks away from the Whore’s Head, and he wanted nothing more than a shot glass, and a nice big bottle of stonepiss.

The cool evening breeze on his face provided little relief against the heat of the cast-iron pot he felt like he was wearing. If he ever had to go through this again, he’d be a rogue, or maybe even a monk. Any class that didn’t wear armor was fine with him. He was sweating up a swamp. His scalp and face itched. He was probably crawling with lice. And the smell! He was nearly as bad as Cooper. It wasn’t just the usual sweat and body odor, though that was certainly present. The leopard fur on his forearm reeked of something worse than shit… like supershit or something. And smoke? Wait… why did he smell like…

“Guys!” Dave said. “Look ahead.” A column of black smoke cut through the pink twilit sky. “Is that coming from where I think it’s coming from?”

“The Whore’s Head!” said Stuart. “Rose!” He bolted ahead like a bipedal cheetah. That monk could move.

“Shit!” said Tim. “Come on, guys. Move your asses!” He took off after Stuart.

“Tim, wait!” said Cooper. “You don’t know what’s… ah, fuck.” Cooper followed Tim.

One by one, they each disappeared around a corner.

“Come on, Dave,” said Julian, picking up his own pace to a brisk walk.

“I’m going as fast as I can,” said Dave. He tried to ignore the pain in his knees and the weight of his armor.

Dave’s worries were confirmed when he rounded the corner. The Whore’s Head Inn was on fire. Or at least it had been very recently. No open flames were visible, but the smoke was thick and black. Bodies lined the street outside. Some were squirming and moaning. It was the ones which were doing neither that Dave worried most about.

The only person Dave recognized immediately was Frank. Whatever had happened, he had taken some of it. The little gnome hobbled among the injured on a makeshift crutch, barking orders at the few clerics in the group who were able to move.

“Tend to the other clerics first!” shouted Frank. “And then to anyone who has any ranks in the Heal skill. Somebody get a head count!”

Cooper ran out of the front entrance with a body tucked under each arm. He was hacking and coughing. He set the bodies on the ground and turned away to throw up. No sooner did he spill his guts than he was running back inside.

One of the front windows exploded into a billion glass shards as a barstool sailed out through it. The window vomited yet another plume of black smoke. Stuart poked his head out through the smoke and sucked in some air. Then he disappeared into the smoke once more. Seconds later, a Halfling flew out of the same window and landed hard on the ground among the broken glass. Dave winced.

An elf was kneeling over the body of a fat human woman. It must have been that girl Rhonda. “I think she’s dead,” he said, patting her forehead with a wet cloth.

“Then there’s nothing you can do for her, goddammit!” shouted Frank. “Move on to someone else!”

The shaken elf hurried off to find another patient to attend to.

Frank’s eyes met Dave’s. “Don’t just stand around!” he said. “Heal someone!”

“I’m sorry,” said Dave. “I’m… I’m all tapped out.”

“Then do something,” said Frank. “Anything!”

Dave waddled up to the first body he came across. A gnome.

“Help me,” said the gnome, reaching a hand out to Dave.

Dave’s heart dropped into his stomach as he pretended not to see or hear him. The poor bastard looked to be in a lot of pain, but the fact that he could call out for help at all put him at a lower priority than a lot of the people lying around here.

He found an elf, his face black with soot except for the stream of blood which flowed out from his forehead. This guy wasn’t moving. Dave ripped off the elf’s shirtsleeve and wrapped it tight around the wound on his head. He hoped it would be enough.

The second window exploded in the front of the building. The barstool responsible didn’t fly out this time. Instead it swiped back and forth a couple of times against the bottom of the frame, removing any jagged pieces of glass. The stool then disappeared into the smoke, and a human body fell backward out of the window and landed unconsciously on the ground. Stuart poked his head through the newly formed avenue of smoke, sucked in some air, and disappeared again.

Dave scrambled around, looking for someone else to help, when he spotted Stuart once more. This time he was inching backward out of the doorway. He had Tim’s limp body tucked under one arm, and he was dragging what Dave was certain was Cooper’s foot with his other hand. Dave hurried toward him.

Stuart dropped Tim on the ground and grabbed Cooper’s other foot. They were all well out of the door by the time Dave reached them, and the smoke was beginning to thin out.

“Where’s Julian?” asked Dave.

Stuart coughed hard until he finally spat out a gob of dark brown phlegm. “He’s still in there. He’s putting out the last of the small fires.”

Dave moved as fast as he could toward the doorway, only to be tackled by Julian as he burst through the smoke. He fell backward with a
splat
. He didn’t even have to look. He knew he had just fallen into Cooper’s vomit puddle.

Julian rolled off of Dave, took a few deep breaths, and stood up. “That’s it,” he said. “The fires are all out, and there’s nobody else in there.”

“Are you sure?” asked Frank.

“Yeah,” said Julian, his eyes red and watery. “You can see through the smoke now, and I used a Light spell to scan the whole place. It’s clear.”

“He’s right,” said Tony the Elf. “I just finished counting. Everyone is accounted for.”

“How bad is it?” asked Frank.

Tony the Elf frowned. “It’s not good,” he murmured. “Thirteen injured. Eighteen unconscious but stable.” He hung his head. “Two dead.”

Frank sighed. “I saw Rhonda. Who’s the other one?”

“Gorgonzola.”

“Goddammit!” shouted Frank. He threw down the scrap of wood he’d been using for a crutch. His left leg must have been burnt pretty bad under his tattered pants, as he lost his balance and had to be supported by Tony the Elf.

The clatter of wood against the cobblestoned road woke Tim. “Huh?” he said. “What happened?”

“Those fucking
horsemen
happened,” said Frank. “All four of them burst in this time, demanding to know what happened to Mordred. Said they didn’t buy the story about him being in Pensacola. When we denied knowing anything about it, the wizard – ‘War’, he calls himself now – fucking Fireballed us. We were so surprised, our group didn’t get so much as a Magic Missile off before they sealed the door shut from the outside.” He gestured at the ground.

A heavy chain was wrapped around a support beam of a different building at one end, and locked to the door’s iron window bars, which had since been ripped out of the door and were lying in the street.

“That chain was just long enough to be taut,” said Frank. “You know what that tells me?”

Tim wiped away wet soot from under his eye. “They measured it beforehand.”

“Too fucking right they did,” said Frank. “This was pre-fucking-meditated.”

“We should have just told them about these new guys,” said Tony the Elf. “They killed Mordred, and this idiot,” he kicked Cooper’s prone body in the gut. “He went and antagonized them.”

Cooper farted.

“Knock it off!” said Frank, still holding onto Tony the Elf for support. “If you want to blame somebody, you can blame the bastards who set the place on fire!” He yanked hard on Tony the Elf’s tunic until the elf looked down at him. “That half-dead half-orc on the ground there, he pulled out at least three people out of this place. Now I saw that with my own two eyes.”

“I don’t think –”

“I don’t give a fuck what you think,” said Frank. “Don’t even tell me you didn’t know it was going to come to this sooner or later. As soon as those fuckers leveled up to the point where they thought they could take out all of us, that’s exactly what they were going to do.” He pointed a finger at Cooper. “If this guy hadn’t shown a little backbone when he did, they might have waited a couple more weeks, but then they surely would have killed us all.”

“You don’t know that,” said Tony the Elf. “And even if it’s true, what’s to keep them from doing that anyway? They’re no weaker for the effort, but we sure as hell are.”

Frank frowned. The elf had a point. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe we can be more prepared next time… or something.”

“How are we going to be more prepared?” said Tony the Elf. “Two of our number are dead. Half of the rest are a paper-cut away from death, and we don’t even have a place to stay anymore.”

“I said I don’t fucking know, all right?” Frank let go of Tony the Elf and sat on the ground.

“Hey, um… Frank?” said Tim. “I might be able to help with Rhonda and Gorgonzola.”

Anger flashed through Frank’s eyes, but he didn’t have the energy to sustain it. The anger withered to a look of exhaustion. “Oh yeah? How’s that?”

“Could I speak to you inside?”

Frank furrowed his bushy eyebrows. “You want to go back in there?” He looked past Tim into the smoky remains of the Whore’s Head Inn.

“We can talk in the arms cellar,” said Tim. “It should be less smoky in there. This isn’t something I’d like to discuss out here on the street.”

Frank sighed. “Fine.”

“Dave,” said Tim. “Help him up, would you?”

“Sure,” said Dave. He reached down, and Frank accepted his help.

“Tony,” Frank said wearily. “I’m sorry I snapped at you. Do you mind keeping an eye on things up here for a minute.”

“Sure thing,” said Tony the Elf.

“Julian,” said Tim. “You keep an eye on Cooper. His gaze flickered toward Tony the Elf and back. Julian nodded.

The cellar was indeed less smoky than the ground floor, but it was still far from pleasant. Dave’s eyes stung as he helped the crippled gnome down the creaky wooden stairs.

“So what’s this help you speak of?” asked Frank, not sounding at all hopeful.

“It’s just like you said before,” said Tim. “We can get them resurrected.”

Frank let go of Dave and hopped to a wooden crate. He sat down. “About that.” He looked down at the dirt floor. “I was kind of just blowing smoke up your ass. I felt bad for you, losing your sister and all, and I just didn’t know what else to say. Truth is, I shouldn’t have filled you with false hope.”

“I don’t understand,” said Tim. “What’s the problem?”

“Wherever you go,” said Frank. “Whoever you are. Money. That’s the problem. That’s always the problem. Sure, you can go down to the Temple of Rapha and get your buddy brought back from the dead… for a price. Even the weakest spell, Raise Dead, is gonna set you back a good six grand a pop. Even if we sold the goddamn building, we wouldn’t get half that much. Especially considering the state it’s in.”

“What if I told you I could get the money?”

“Where the fuck are you going to come up with twelve thousand gold pieces?”

Tim reached inside the Bag of Holding. “Twelve thousand gold pieces,” he said. Gold coins spilled out over his hand like a slot-machine jackpot. It seemed to continue forever, piling up in a mound of gold on the floor, until it finally did stop.

“Holy fucking hell,” said Frank. “What the fuck have you boys been up to?”

“Just what we set out to do,” said Tim, flashing a white toothy grin across his soot-stained face. “We killed a vampire.”

Frank shook his head. “You crazy sons of bitches. Your scrotum must be made of two Bags of Holding.”

Tim laughed, which was something Dave couldn’t recall seeing in a long time.

“Listen,” said Tim. “If you take those two down to the Temple of Rapha, it’s probably not a good idea to mention any association with us.”

“Should I ask?”

“Probably not.”

“And you’re sister? She’s…”

Tim looked down at the bag. “She’s been in better states.”

“I’m really sorry, man.”

“I’ll be all right,” said Tim. “It’s just not something I want to talk about right now.”

“Of course not.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” said Frank. “I guess we’re going to clear out the smoke, fortify the entrance, and lick our wounds. Getting Rhonda and Gorgonzola back will boost morale. That’s for sure. What about you?”

“We should have a bit of gold left in this bag,” said Tim. “I’m going to shop around tomorrow and see if it’s enough to buy our way back home.”

“I spoke at length with Tony the Elf about your Teleport idea,” said Frank. “He thinks it’s a little far-fetched.”

“Yeah?”

“And I’m sorry, man. I know he’s not really a basket of sunshine and optimism, but I’ve got to agree with him.”

“If it works, it works,” said Tim. “All we can do is try.”

“I just don’t want you to go and get your hopes up again,” said Frank. “Especially after… well, you know.”