Threadbare complete tr.., p.95
Threadbare - Complete Trilogy, page 95
“No! Well… that’s not exactly right. I knew that Grissle turned on everyone else, and used the Oblivion to try and gain power over the Kingdom. And that mother died stopping her. That’s what I learned, but it’s what everyone in the Cylvania learns.”
“Yeah. No mention of dwahves or how exactly the Oblivion wahked,” Madeline said. “Man, I remember dwahf zombie night. That was really freaking weahd.”
“I see,” Threadbare said, looking up at King Grundi. “Why didn’t you tell people about it?”
“Wouldn’t have done any good.” Grundi sighed. “I had a good talk about it with King Garamundi, before Melos pulled his coup. People knew all of the story they needed to know. Telling them about how dwarves had been involved would only make people blame dwarves. And telling them about how dungeon cores powered the Oblivion would just make people go and try to experiment with dungeon cores more. Which is how we got into this mess in the first place!”
“You’re not wrong,” Garon said. “But why exactly is the Oblivion still going? Grissle was defeated, right?”
“Aye. But…” Grundi shot a look over his shoulder, at the arguing ministers and the big blue giantess. “Ah, let’s discuss this inside. Dealing with giants always pisses me off.”
Once they got back to the tunnel leading back into the mountain, a cadre of his honor guard fell in around the small king. Working with long expertise, they pulled his blankets back, and used tools to pop apart the stone plinth that the Kneelchair used as a skirt, and uncoupled about half of the bulky machinery, until the king was down to just a small throne with wheels.
“Modular! Nice,” Cecelia looked it over. “It’d have to be, to fit through these tunnels.”
“Modju-what?” Graves asked.
“It’s tinker talk.”
“It’s a bit sleep-inducing for non-tinkers so we’re best keeping it short,” Grundi laughed. Two of his honor guard took the back of the throne, and wheeled him forward. Threadbare and Cecelia kept pace with him as he rolled back to the hold.
“This sounds like a fixable problem, though,” Threadbare said, still thinking about it. “If there’s a magical machine, and you have notes on it, then why can’t other wizards go in there and fix it?”
“We were trying to.” Grundi sighed. “But Grissle was a genius. Smart as a whip before he started stacking jobs is what I hear. Then he went and got twenty-five levels in alchemist, twenty-five in enchanter, twenty-five in wizard… and twenty-five in necromancer, as it turns out. But we were trying to line up the people to handle it, when Melos started getting skittish. He controlled access to the dungeon core. The main dungeon’s core, I mean. He was like a dog with a bone, suspicious and paranoid. And the daemon he brought in didn’t help matters none.”
“But wasn’t King Garamundi in charge?” Graves asked.
“Mm. In charge.” Grundi raised a withered hand, rubbed his beard. “It’s a nice idea. Smart kings know they’re only in charge so long as they can keep their vassals wrangled. Garamundi was smart enough to see Melos was on edge. One of his best friends had betrayed him, after all. Ordering him to stand down and stop guarding Grissle’s work would have been like throwing fire at a mining charge. We thought we had time. We thought that things were stable, that eventually he’d come around.” Grundi sighed. “Then Garamundi died, Melos took the throne, and told us we wouldn’t be touching the core device until he had enough skilled people of his own to ensure we wouldn’t try any funny business.” Grundi scowled. “About the same time, Ragnor went… missing.” The dwarf spat the word. “Along with his notes. Then Balmoran rebelled against Melos, and there was no talking to the man after that. Not that there was much in the way of cooperation before that.”
Grundi sighed again, ruffling his beard. “We figured it would end badly. We should have joined Balmoran when they begged us to. But we figured it was human affairs, and that they could sort it out themselves and there was no point in trying to fix things until they did. But here we are.”
“The core device is the key to all of this.” Threadbare said, thinking hard. “We need to go to Grissle’s lab and see what’s wrong with it.”
“The old labs have been sealed for years,” Graves said. “And to get there you’d have to get to the Capital City, go through Castle Cylvania, and hope that the entrance is somewhere down there in the sealed labs. With the most elite forces that the Crown has guarding it, including the king himself, and the Hand. Who are apparently the daemonic resurrections of the Seven?”
“The odds aren’t good to begin with,” Kayin said. “Then you have to figure out something that took a genius a hundred levels of the nerdiest jobs around to create. And hope that you have a way to fix it.”
“Aye,” said King Grundi. “We were grooming people for the task. Had a good start on it. Then Melos pulled his treachery, tried to kill one of our families, and we had to go to war. And between the Lurker and the war… we just don’t have the people anymore.” Grundi shook his head. “Dwarves aren’t exactly inclined to wizardry to begin with. Now we’re a shadow of what we were.”
Threadbare looked around at his friends. “We don’t really have any wizards,” the little bear said. “But we’ve got a few enchanters. We need to try.”
“And I think I know how we could do it,” Cecelia said, rubbing her hair. “But it’s not going to be easy.”
“Oh, well, when have we ever taken the easy way on something?” Garon said. “I’m in.”
“Psh, like any of us be out,” Zuula snorted. “We come dis far kicking ass and taking names. Not about to stop now.”
Threadbare smiled. “Thank you Zuula. Thank you everyone.”
“Dude, don’t mention it,” Glub said. “This is kinda fun when it’s not scary. And sometimes when it’s scary. And at least I’m not stuck in some weird cult where I have to bang women all the time anymore.”
“Wait, what?” King Grundi stared down at the little wooden fishman.
“Ah… nevermind. So here’s the plan-” Cecelia started.
“Wait,” King Grundi said. “Let’s discuss this in more secure quarters. Lurker might be dead for now, but there’s no harm in being cautious.”
The honor guard led them through the hold, to a large building they’d passed by last night, on their way to visit Beryl and Jarrik. Great foundries thundered in the halls surrounding the structure, hammers falling like raindrops as the din swelled and pulsed. This part of the dwarfhold never slept, forgefires burning hot as ore was converted into metal, and stone was shaped to the needs of their society.
Hidon was waiting out front for them, frowning.
“What do we have?” King Grundi stopped, and his Honor guard fell in around him, reassembling his Kneelchair, snapping back together the heavy pieces of the stone plinth that they’d been hauling around for the better part of a mile.
“We found Montag’s body sealed into the wall of his office. He’s been there a while.”
Grundi bowed his head. “I’ll arrange his coin. This was war he died in. His family gets the adamant due.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.” Hidon led the way inside, through long, curving halls with heavy metal doors sealing off side passages. “Here,” he said at last, opening the first wooden door any of them had seen in the place.
The office inside was covered in blood, with more hooded dwarves in heavy leather garments scrubbing it, and sorting through the stained piles of papers scattered everywhere.
But the golems eyes were drawn to the piles and heaps of gleaming yellow powder that lay scattered all over the place.
“Oh… my… goodness…” Madeline squeaked. “That’s… that’s easily wahth…”
“Shh,” King Grundi said. “Don’t remind me. Because I’m going to have to do something very undwarflike here in a bit.”
“The Lurker bought out the market last night, working through intermediaries,” Hidon shook his head. “Knew we’d find out sooner or later. Didn’t care. Which means that the Crown is close to their endgame.” Hidon sighed. “We had to disable some blasting charges to get in here. Oh, and we found those tinker parts you needed,” Hidon nodded to Cecelia.
“Thank you!” Cecelia smiled. “Now I can get to work.”
“Work fast,” Hidon sighed. “We’ve got a week, maybe two. That’s what our spies tell us. Then the Crown’s forces are going to march.”
“Oh. Oh no. I won’t have time to montage anyone. This…” Cecelia shook her head. “This is bad.”
“Actually it’s good. They were almost all set to go days back, but someone sabotaged the tunnelers they needed to break into our networks.” Hidon smiled under his beard. “Not sure who it was but they did us a good turn. Probably the Rangers, that’s their sort of thing.”
“Now you can tell me about your plan to fix the Oblivion,” King Grundi said, while Hidon and his agents cleaned up the yellow reagent, bottling it in vials and stacking it in crates.
“Well first we need to go get a look at it,” Cecelia said. “But I think I know how we can get inside the castle, at least, without having to fight our way to the city, then through the castle gates. Fort Bronze has a Greater Waymark inside it. There’s a station where waystones are kept. If we can get one of them, we can pile into Madeline’s pack and one of us can teleport right inside the Castle. Mind you, that chamber’s guarded too, but it isn’t set up to handle a merchant’s pack full of golem adventurers.”
“We had enough trouble getting into that place the first time around.” Garon shook his horns. “I can’t imagine they won’t have upped the security.”
“We couldn’t go in the same way, obviously,” Kayin said. “And they’ll be on the lookout for little golems now, desu.”
“Well, we’ll just have to fight our way in, then,” Threadbare said. “Because we’re going to be helping the dwarves anyway.”
The room fell silent.
“They turned us down,” Cecelia said.
“Aye. About that…” King Grundi coughed, his lungs rattling. “The situation has changed a mite. Namely, the Lurker ain’t here no more. So I don’t have to pretend that I don’t like your offer.”
“You were lying about that?” Threadbare frowned.
“Mmmm… it wasn’t so much lying, as it was… prevarication. We had an enemy agent around. Had to be careful, because anything we said would go back to Melos. Of COURSE I want three hundred golems marching alongside us! Which brings me back to that undwarflike thing I said I’d do.” He waved a scrawny arm around to the crates of yellow powder. “Take it. Take all of it. Along with any other thing you need.”
Every dwarf in the room stilled, and looked toward their king, eyes wide open.
“What? Can’t spend it if yer dead.” Grundi shrugged. “And Melos is out for blood. Whoever he might have been once, whatever he did, he’s in league with daemons now. There’s no way this won’t end with blood.” He leaned forward, staring down at Cecelia. “Which brings me to one big question, here. He’s your Father. If it comes down to it, comes down to his life versus all of ours and probably everyone else’s, what will you do?”
The rest of the dwarves looked to each other, slowing in their work as they tensed, and looked to Cecelia.
Cecelia looked down. “I…” She said, then stopped.
Threadbare took her hand in his paw, and she looked down at him, gazing into his button eyes. For a minute she stood there, thinking.
“I have to stop him. But I’m sorry, he’s my Father. I can’t kill him,” Cecelia told King Grundi. “I… if he won’t surrender I’ll try to capture him.”
“That answer…” King Grundi began, and Cecelia closed her eyes.
“…was completely correct!”
Cecelia opened her eyes.“Wait. What?”
The tension in the room had eased. The other dwarves were nodding, as they cleaned.
“Lass, I don’t care how undwarfy we’re getting here by giving up valuable reagents, there’s still a line. Asking family to kill family is just wrong.” Grundi snorted. “As far as I can see we’re in this mess because hard men made hard decisions over and over again, and look where that’s got us. Fuck that noise. You reminded me of that with the giants,” He said, looking down at Cecelia and Threadbare with a smile poking through the braids of his beard. “The only way we’re going to win is by helping each other, and saving lives. Not by doing MORE evil things, on top of what’s already been done.”
“I like you!” Fluffbear squeaked.
“Bahhahahahaha! Thanks, lass.” Grundi nodded to his honor guard. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go figure out who to appoint as my replacement minister of dangerous and new devices.” He sighed. “And talk with his family. That’s not going to be fun.”
“Sir,” Garon shared a glance with Jarrik. “I have a recommendation, if you don’t mind…”
*****
“I’m what?” Beryl said., a day later, after the details had been hammered out.
“In charge of the department. Oh, and if you need more yellow reagent we’re going to have a lot to spare,” Threadbare said, his golden laurels gleaming in the light of the glowstones. “The Lurker went a little crazy trying to keep it out of our hands.”
“Fuck me running with a pogo stick.”
“I’m sorry, to begin with I can’t do anything like that, besides it sounds really uncomfortable to try to run at the same time, and I really have no idea what that last thing is.”
“This is what you were hiding from me?” The purple-haired dwarven girl turned to Jarrik. “This is why you wouldn’t tell me what was going on? You, you, you…”
She grabbed his shirt, hauled him in and down, and locked her lips on his. “You wonderful boyfriend, you,” she murmured, when they came up for air. “Holy shitcakes with fucknuggets on top.”
“So that means you like it?” Threadbare guessed.
“Ohhh yeah.” She grinned up at Jarrik, who shot her a goofy, toothy grin right back. “Ah… you need anything from me, Threadbare?”
“No. Not really. Nothing that we can’t figure out later. We have some time yet.”
“Good. Me and Jarry are gonna go find my new office and break it in.” She ran out of the room, giggling, with Jarrik chasing after her.
Threadbare rubbed his head, and wandered out the door, back into the heart of the foundry district. The rhythm of the hammers had changed overnight, and the streets were full of dwarves and carts full of ingots, shipping them frantically to the forges and machine shops and enchanters. The dwarven way of war relied on metal, on things, on having the best equipment and the most gear, and by golly, every last dwarf who lived in this place was finding ways to help however they could.
He was doing his part. And his sanity was low because of it. Recharging faster, thanks to the skill the laurels granted him, but the fact remained that golems took a lot of sanity to prepare and animate. And Zuula was busy shuttling around between the other members of the group, dreamquesting them to recharge their pools faster, so Threadbare, for the moment, had a rare hour or two to himself where he wasn’t casting or sleeping.
Three streets down, he found the small chamber that Cecelia had requisitioned, and knocked on the door. After a few minutes, a viewslot slid open, and he found himself staring into Kayin’s glass eyes. The slot closed, and the door opened.
“Desu, boss,” she greeted him with a thumped salute, fuzzy hand to her chest.
“Hello. Is everything all right?”
She glanced to the rear of the chamber, where tools rattled, and an old suit of plate armor shook as a doll-sized figure worked within its opened breastplate. “I guess? Cecelia! Bear’s here!”
The rattling stopped. The plate shook. Cecelia’s grease-smeared face poked out of the armor, hair bound up in a kerchief. “Oh! Hi.”
“Hello. I wanted to see how you were doing.”
“Good. Working in smaller scale is harder, but… well, I’ve got access to dwarven engineers. You just missed a couple of them, they’re in here studying how I’m doing it. Since I’ve got them to handle the parts that require non-job tinkering, I can focus on just one part at a time and get it done quicker.”
Threadbare nodded, and stood there, feeling awkward for no reason he could tell. “That’s good.”
Cecelia considered him. “Clean and Press,” she said, and the smears vanished from her dress. She hopped down off the armor, and gathered the little bear into her arms. “Your sanity is low, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” He hugged her back. “I’m sorry if I’m imposing.”
“No, no, you’re not. Don’t even think of it. This…” Cecelia gestured around the workroom, and all the tools and gears and items that Threadbare didn’t know the names of. “This is all because of you. I’m here because of you. I’m alive because of you.”
“Are you really alive?”
She nodded, her chin moving against the top of his head. “I think so. It’s weirder than it used to be, but I’m still me. You saved me, and I’ll never forget that. You’ll never impose. You can always visit, always get a hug. I’ll always have time for you.”
The little bear leaned into her, buried his muzzle in the porcelain between her neck and shoulder. “Thank you.”
And there they sat for a while. Kayin busied herself cleaning up other parts of the workshop, giving them peace.
Finally, Threadbare stirred. “I should let you get to it.”
“Yeah. They’ll need me on the battlefield. And I’ll need the armor to do the most good.”
“I’m a little surprised you aren’t making it… well, bigger.”
“I thought of that. But there’s a lot of reasons not to do that. If I did, then the Hand would be after me. I’m a priority target that way, and I don’t think I could survive with all three of their active members on me at once. And also, this will let me get into the fort and bring it to the core chamber. Then there’s the fact it’s going together quicker, and actually? I think, if I’m lucky, that the strength reduction won’t be too bad. All of our calculations are indicating that. Though there are downsides. I’m going to burn through coal faster. No way around it.”
