Threadbare Volume 2 Read online

  THREADBARE

  Volume 2: Sew You Want to be a Hero

  By Andrew Seiple

  Cover by Amelia Parris

  Edited by Beth Lyons

  Warning! Contains profanity and violence, and a creepy villain who likes tentacles way too much.

  Text copyright © Andrew Seiple 2018

  All Rights Reserved

  With thanks to my online readers. Your feedback was invaluable!

  Table of Contents

  PROLOGUE..............................................................................................................5

  CHAPTER 1: GETTING YOUR BEARINGS.....................................................8

  CHAPTER 2: RACCOON RUMPUS TIME.....................................................23

  CHAPTER 3: A PAW FULL OF UNDEAD......................................................39

  CHAPTER 4: FOR A FEW UNDEAD MORE.................................................51

  CHAPTER 5: THE BEAR, THE VAMP, AND THE CATLADY...................63

  CECELIA’S QUEST 1: A HARD KNIGHT’S DAY.........................................78

  CHAPTER 6: BORN AGAIN..............................................................................88

  CHAPTER 7: CAREER PLANNING..............................................................102

  CHAPTER 8: OGRE BATTLE..........................................................................114

  CECELIA’S QUEST 2: BAD COMFORT......................................................124

  CHAPTER 9: MEDIOCRE OLD ONES.........................................................136

  CHAPTER 10: THE SHADOW UNDER OUTSMOUTH...........................146

  CHAPTER 11: UNSAFE SECTS....................................................................156

  CECELIA’S QUEST 3: FIRST ENGAGEMENT..........................................169

  CECELIA’S QUEST 4: THE FALL OF OUTSMOUTH.............................177

  CECELIA’S QUEST 5: WINNING HEARTS AND MINDS......................190

  CHAPTER 12: THE DAEMON’S DEADLY DANCE..................................199

  CHAPTER 13: AND YET SHE PERSISTED................................................206

  DAEMON’S QUEST: THE WOMAN SHE NEEDS TO BE......................212

  KING’S QUEST: TORMENT...........................................................................215

  EPILOGUE...........................................................................................................218

  APPENDIX I: THREADBARE’S JOBS AND SKILLS.................................222

  AUTHOR’S NOTE..............................................................................................236

  PROLOGUE

  Once upon a time, there was a teddy bear.

  He befriended a little girl, and went on adventures with her. She was his whole world, and he felt safe and loved in her arms.

  Then one day her father came and took her away from all childish things, and the little bear was left behind.

  But he was no ordinary teddy bear. He was powered and strengthened by magic, and the many adventures he’d had with the little girl and her friends. It took years, but he got free of the trap that held him.

  He pulled himself together, and made a voice from strings and things, and then he spoke the word “Status.”

  And this is what he saw.

  Name: Threadbare

  Age: 5

  Jobs:

  Greater Toy Golem Level 9

  Bear Level 8

  Ruler Level 4

  Scout Level 3

  Tailor Level 8

  Model Level 2

  Necromancer Level 1

  Duelist Level 1

  Animator Level 1

  Enchanter Level 1

  Golemist Level 1

  Smith Level 1

  Attributes Pools Defenses

  Strength: 79 Constitution: 83 Hit Points: 216(236) Armor: 34

  Intelligence: 58 Wisdom: 89 Sanity: 147(167) Mental Fortitude: 24

  Dexterity: 41 Agility: 51 Stamina: 102(122) Endurance: 44

  Charisma: 56 Willpower: 47 Moxie: 103(123) Cool: 20

  Perception: 57 Luck: 53 Fortune: 110(130) Fate: 9

  Generic Skills

  Brawling - Level 20 (21)

  Climb - Level 6

  Clubs and Maces - Level 9

  Dagger - Level 9

  Dodge - Level 2

  Fishing - Level 1

  Ride - Level 7

  Stealth - Level 3

  Swim - Level 2

  Greater Toy Golem Skills

  Adorable - Level 15

  Gift of Sapience - Level NA

  Golem Body - Level 20

  Innocent Embrace - Level 8

  Magic Resistance -Level 4

  Bear Skills

  Animalistic Interface - NA

  Claw Swipes - 16

  Forage - 7

  Growl - 1

  Hibernate - 37

  Scents and Sensibility - 10

  Stubborn - 7

  Toughness - 12

  Ruler Skills

  Emboldening Speech - Level 1

  Identify Subject - Level 1

  Noblesse Oblige - Level 1

  Royal Request - Level 1

  Simple Decree - Level 1

  Scout Skills

  Camouflage - Level 1

  Firestarter - Level 1

  Keen Eye - Level 1

  Sturdy Back - Level 5

  Wind’s Whisper - Level 1

  Tailor Skills

  Tailoring - Level 36

  Clean and Press - Level 1

  Adjust Outfit - Level 1

  Model Skills

  Dietary Restriction - Level 10 (+20 to all pools)

  Fascination - Level 2

  Flex - Level 1

  Self-Esteem - Level 1

  Work it Baby - Level 2

  Necromancer Skills

  Assess Corpse - Level 1

  Command the Dead - Level 1

  Soulstone - Level 1

  Speak With Dead -Level 1

  Zombies - Level 1

  Duelist Skills

  Challenge - Level 1

  Dazzling Entrance - Level 1

  Fancy Flourish - Level 1

  Guard Stance - Level 1

  Weapon Specialist - Level 1 (Brawling +1)

  Animator Skills

  Animus - Level 1

  Command Animus - Level 1

  Creator’s Guardians - Level 1

  Eye for Detail - Level 1

  Mend - Level 1

  Enchanter Skills

  Appraise - Level 1

  Glowgleam - Level 1

  Harden - Level 1

  Soften - Level 1

  Spellstore - Level 1

  Golemist Skills

  Command Golem - Level 1

  Golem Animus - Level 1

  Invite Golem - Level 1

  Toy Golem - Level 1

  Smith Skills

  Refine Ore - Level 1

  Equipment

  Inventory

  Tailoring supplies

  Quests

  Save Celia

  But even though he could talk now, and even though he had many skills, he knew he could not save his little girl alone. And so the little teddy bear went looking for help...

  CHAPTER 1: GETTING YOUR BEARINGS

  The mountains shivered at the caress of spring. Warm winds blew from the west, peeling away the snow, sending the ice shuddering down the lower parts of the hills, and freeing the trees from their long slumber. Hardy mountain pines stood as solemn vanguards, as leaves and shoots started to stir below them, tasting sunlight, and finding it good.
/>   And below the peaks, on the downslope of a gentle rise, a single teddy bear waddled through the woods, carrying a bundle of tools and cloth in his arms. His name was Threadbare, and he was on a mission.

  But after only a few hundred yards, he realized something pretty important;

  These woods were really dangerous, and he would probably need his arms free to deal with whatever trouble came.

  So Threadbare turned back, and found his way to a pile of timber and rubble. From the outside it didn’t look like much... the remnants of a house, fallen to fire, as a few weathered and charred beams attested. The beams poked loose from stones that had once been a foundation. A wrecked shed nearby, half-buried in an avalanche, seemed an exclamation point and lonely witness to what had once been a stately manor.

  At least, that’s what a bard might say. But the bear wasn’t a bard. He was a hell of a lot of other things, but not a bard.

  Crouching low, and worming his way through a muddy tunnel that twisted under the foundation, he found himself again in the crawlspace that had been his unwilling home for the last few years. Five years it had been, broken by hibernation, and the torturous act of worming his way from the ruins. Five years it had taken to get free. It was here he’d lost his family, and here he’d sworn to get them back.

  But that was a very big thing, and very big things are made up of very small steps. And right now, the first step was to make himself a harness or something to carry his tailoring tools in.

  Threadbare needed those tools, needed them badly. He had magical means of healing himself, but magic could run out. The spell he knew to heal himself worked from a resource called sanity, and generally the less you had of it, the worse your focus and judgment got.

  So he dug around in the darkness, until he found the part of his creator’s apron that remained. And for lack of any better ideas, he sat down and sewed an apron of his own.

  It was harder than he thought, and it took a couple of tries, but perseverance paid off.

  DEX +1

  Your tailoring skill is now level 37!

  He watched the words roll past with long familiarity, by now. They came up whenever he did something well enough to improve himself. They did that for everyone.

  Slipping on his apron, not quite a twin to his creator’s own thanks to the proportionate size of the tools to his body, he put the scissors into the back sheath he’d made for them, and nodded. This would do.

  You have equipped an Apprentice Tailor’s Apron!

  Oh, nice! Maybe he could get more leather, to make a spare?

  Then he caught a glimpse of cloth under his creator’s apron, sunken in. Old wormtrails led into it, and Threadbare looked away.

  His creator was dead, these five years. Threadbare had lost what was essentially his father, even if they’d never spoken a word to each other. Not that the little bear could talk back then.

  “But I can talk now,” he said, in his small, soft voice, and paused as an idea grabbed his mind and wouldn’t let go.

  Didn’t he have a spell for this?

  “Status,” he said, and nodded in satisfaction. Why yes, yes he did! “Speak with Dead,” he chanted, and the air seemed to shift, shift and dance. Everything seemed to go stark monotone, the light got brighter and the shadows turned solid black. “Caradon? Are you there?” he asked.

  Nothing. And he noticed he hadn’t skilled up from it. Thinking carefully, it seemed to him that maybe this spell wouldn’t get better unless you actually talked to dead people with it.

  Strange, that Caradon wasn’t here, though. Where else would he be? Maybe he’d passed on to wherever dead spirits go.

  “Status,” the bear said again, and looked at his sanity. It had cost five to cast speak with dead. He was about to turn and leave, when another thought struck him;

  How did he regain sanity?

  Previously, he’d regained it by leveling up, he thought. But that took time and a lot of work. From what he’d seen of other people, and by hearing his little girl’s friends talk, it came back naturally, faster if you had something to drink. But he didn’t need to eat or drink or sleep, so...

  This was going to be important. He sat down and looked at his status screen, calling it up again whenever it started to fade away. After a few minutes the lighting returned to normal, as speak with dead faded. And after about ten minutes or so, he watched his sanity recover by a point.

  Slow. Very slow, but he wouldn’t run himself dry and have no way to recover it. That was good. Presumably moxie and endurance worked the same way. He could test those in the field.

  Since it was easy to regain, he decided it was time to do the other thing he’d thought of, on his aborted walk into the woods. Threadbare bent low to the ground, and sniffed carefully around the little hollow in what was left of the basement.

  Your Scents and Sensibility Skill is now level 11!

  Odors filled his nose. Dankness, rot, his own scent... and an odd one. Sandalwood, he would have called it, if he knew the name for it. He had no way of knowing the proper terms, but he knew he’d recognize it again if he smelled it.

  Threadbare had been trapped down here with the only other one of his kind in existence that he knew of. She’d dug them free, and been kidnapped for her troubles. But the things that had taken her weren’t highly malicious, as far as he knew, so odds were pretty good she was still alive. Well, as alive as little toy golems were, anyway.

  Threadbare thought he knew where he could find her, but it would be much, much easier to do so if he had her scent. And now he thought he did.

  He waited hopefully, but no attributes rose. His wisdom was pretty high already, it’d take a few more good common sense ideas to raise it, he supposed.

  Just before he was about to go out, his nose caught one more thing... the familiar smell of the laundry soap that Celia and her father, Caradon, used to do the wash with. It was a good smell, and one that reminded him of good times, so he hunted around until he found a few pinches of the spilled soap powder and tucked it into an apron pocket. If he got glum he could wash with it later, and it might make him feel better.

  Outside the hole, he got the odor of the things that had taken her. He’d never gotten close enough to smell them before, and they were pretty distinctive. Also pretty rank by human standards. Which was good, because the smell was old, old enough he lost the scent trail a few yards away from the foundation.

  Well, that was fine. He had something to check on first before he went trying to mount a rescue mission, anyway.

  Threadbare started off into the woods again, checking his sanity one last time... and realizing, with his very good wisdom, that he had an opportunity, here.

  If sanity and all the other pools for his abilities came back over time, then he could practice abilities as he walked, simple stuff to get their ranks up. He could activate something low cost, then wait until his pools refilled, then activate them again. It seemed simple and easy enough, and he did have a whole lot of stuff that was really far behind, due to his old speech impediments.

  WIS +1

  Okay, that settled it! That was a good idea, now it was time to put it into practice.

  “Status,” he said again, and considered his options.

  Threadbare had a ton of weird jobs, spread all over the metaphorical chart, mainly due to accepting every job unlock that had come his way. So thankfully, he had an easy time picking out stuff that sounded neat and wouldn’t slow him down too much.

  The things he settled on were Flex, which was a simple model trick that used stamina; Self-esteem, a similar model trick that used moxie; and Animus, which he well remembered. His little girl had used it quite a lot, back before times got bad, and it was a spell that used sanity. He eyed his fortune pool, but unless he was missing something, he didn’t have anything that used fortune. Maybe he’d find something later.

  In the meantime, three was pretty good to start with.

  So Threadbare took the scissors out of their sheath, put
them on the ground, and said “Animus,” laying a paw on them.

  Golden light blossomed!

  Your Animus skill is now level 2!

  The scissors twisted on the ground, opening and closing mindlessly.

  “Invite Scissors,” Threadbare said. Nothing happened.

  What was he missing?

  Oh, right. “Form Party,” he intoned.

  You have created a party!

  You are now the party leader, and can access the party screen!

  “Invite Scissors,” Threadbare said.

  Scissors_1 has joined your party!

  Your Creator’s Guardians skill is now level 2!

  Threadbare started walking. Now if the skill description was right, he should be able to mentally command the scissors. He called them to follow.

  They tried. To their credit, they tried, squirming and clacking across the ground awkwardly. But they didn’t have limbs, or anything else good for walking or even crawling.

  No wonder Celia used plush toys, Threadbare thought, and bowed his head at the memory. Good times then. Good times gone.

  Good times back again someday, if he had any say in the matter! Threadbare scooped up the scissors and sheathed them again. Okay, so they were useless as animi, but they were still good to practice his skill with.

  Speaking of practicing...

  “Flex,” he commanded, and instantly felt confined, like his insides were bigger than his outsides. Threadbare squirmed, trying to get sorted... and unwittingly went into a brawny pose, legs wide, little arms out to each side and popping tiny biceps. Almost, he thought, but not quite, and twisted at the waist, flexing his back too, feeling the stuffing form into muscles there as well.

  Your Flex skill is now level 2!

  Wow, that felt weird. But a check of his status screen showed that it had buffed his armor and endurance by one. Well worth the price of discomfort, he thought.

  That left one thing to try.

  “Self-Esteem,” he whispered—

  —and instantly felt a bit more confident.

  Your Self-Esteem skill is now level 2!

  Threadbare checked his status again, and smiled to see that it worked much like flex had, only buffing his cool and mental fortitude instead.

  He could smile now, he just realized. Having a flexible mouth opened up so many possibilities.

  If he’d been a bit less innocent and more worldly, that thought would have probably sent his mind into some rather bawdy places. But he was a golem, and didn’t have any particular urges that way anyway, so the connection went unmade. Which was probably for the best, all things considered.