Your Golem Body skill is now level 34!

  Your Toughness skill is now level 25!

  Max HP+2

  He opened his mouth to speak, to heal himself, and nothing came out. There was something filling his mouth. He couldn’t say what.

  His nose smelled ash, ash and burnt fur, and Threadbare knew that smell was himself.

  Your Scents and Sensibility skill is now level 23!

  “Oops. Hm. Well, she’ll be back,” he heard the Cataclysm giggle. “Okay, newbie. It’s a charred lump. Think you can finish THAT off now? Without wussing out on us?”

  “Like hell!” Cecelia shouted, and he heard porcelain feet hit the stony ground. “Everyone let’s go!”

  No! Threadbare thought, and tried to crawl toward her voice. A paw worked. Nothing else did. Don’t come!

  Reason’s footfalls shook the ground… but there was another sound over that.

  A droning. From above.

  Almost! Get back to the wall! You’re almost safe! He tried to yell, but couldn’t, his tongue was ash.

  “Mend!” Cecelia shouted, from a distance away. And he spat ash out. “Mend!” She shouted again, and vision abruptly reappeared as one of his burnt button eyes flowed back together, un-melting. Reason was fighting the golems, he saw, and winning handily, but they were buying time at the cost of their lives. “Mend!” Cecelia shouted, and the stump where his right paw was shuddered and reassembled into a proper arm.

  “I can take it from here!” he called, as he reached into his coat, found the beads, and slammed three to the ground.

  The healing rushed over and through him, and Threadbare stood up as Cecelia reached him, and the little bear spun around…

  Just in time to see another massive fireball shrieking toward him.

  Threadbare knelt, fast as lightning, and dragged his paw around them, slammed a vial of green reagent into the ground, and yelled “Ward against Daemons!”

  Your Wards skill is now level 3!

  The explosion blew them out of the circle, consumed it.

  But the hasty, weak ward did its job. And when Threadbare picked himself up off the stony ground, he saw to his relief that they’d lost no limbs.

  “Oh for the love of Cron!” The Cataclysm snarled, as Reason slew a golem with every stomp. “Just give up and die already! Legion, they’re out of the wards, swarm them. Finish this sad…”

  The droning rose, and she looked up, as the bombs fell down.

  “Get back! Get clear!” Threadbare yelled to the golems, and they fled. Some of them even made it in time.

  But not all, as the bombs exploded around Reason, and the Cataclysm steered her carpet in a frantic attempt to dodge the worst of it. Gunfire cracked down as well, and the fire daemon shrieked as bullets ripped into her. From that range it was a long shot, even for Jarrik, but the few that found her HURT.

  And as Beryl’s fliers passed overhead, drifts of flying toys headed down, spreading out to go after the Legion and his daemons. The fliers circled back as the toys harried him, as Jarrik and Kayin and Zuula got into the fight, hitting him with bullets and arrows and wind bursts repeatedly.

  Not that the toys below had time to spare for the dogfight above them. Cecelia certainly didn’t wait. While the bombs were still falling, she ran up to where Reason was down to one knee, sheltering its cockpit with its arms. Great holes had been blown in the armor, and inhuman flesh and gore spilled out, as the machine groaned and sobbed. Cecelia ignored that, ignored the teddy parts and stuffing strewn around, and ran to the back of the machine, lunging for compartment she knew was there, and jamming one hand through the hole. “Animus!” she shouted. “Invite blanket!”

  Then she ran.

  Reason shook.

  Reason let out a confused burble.

  Reason abruptly fell to the ground and started thrashing, digging around in itself, ripping armor plates off, trying to get at the shapeless, crawling THING that had been let loose in the equivalent of its nervous system.

  Months ago, Cecelia had put a fireproof blanket into Reason, as a last-ditch system to keep herself from being cooked alive in her armor. If Reason caught afire, she thought, then she could always animate the blanket and have it crawl out, and go smother the fire. It had worked very well, the one time she had to use it.

  But the compartment the blanket occupied was open to the inside as well.

  And now the blanket squeezed its way inexorably up through the fleshy mass of the daemon engine, towards the thing inside.

  Threadbare saw none of this as he ran, trying to close with the Cataclysm as she hurled fire into the sky, shrieking, fireballs exploding in midair and burning daemon and flier alike. He shoved the remaining mend golem beads in his mouth, and ran. One of the fliers caught a fireball square on and disintegrated, hurtling toward the ground, and Threadbare could only hope his friends survived as he leaped…

  …and caught ahold of the edge of the carpet.

  The daemon snapped her face down to him, stomped down hard, trying to kick him off her ride.

  Threadbare was having none of it. He ignored her, clung on with both paws. She wasn’t his target. anyway.

  “Disenchant,” he told the carpet.

  Your Disenchant skill is now level 24!

  They fell to the ground, as blue reagents rained down, and she fell. He hit first, tumbled to his feet, and launched himself at her.

  “Fool!” She shouted, clambering up, and then the world was fire… but he had beads left, and he waded in, slashing, ignoring as his eyes melted, ignoring his face turning to ash, just lunging in and striking. Whenever he felt his paws start to burn he bit down on the beads, triggering the healing, and staying on her.

  And then the fire was gone. He bit down on the last bead, snapping it, and his eyes returned to him.

  She lay crumpled, with enough crossbow bolts in her that she looked a bit like a porcupine. Turning, he saw the surviving golems behind him, reloading their crossbows.

  But she still breathed, so with a final slash, he ended that.

  You are now a level 14 Cave Bear!

  CON+10

  WIS+10

  Armor+5

  Endurance+5

  Mental Fortitude +5

  You are now a level 11 Duelist!

  AGI+3

  DEX+3

  STR+3

  You are now a level 14 Ruler!

  CHA+3

  WIS+3

  LUCK+3

  And while he rejoiced to see her fall, he felt bad that only forty, barely forty of the golems were still up. Reason and stray fire had left the bodies of their friends and families strewn across the rocky ground.

  He spoke, found his mouth full of clay fragments, and spat out the remnants of the beads. “Soulstones. Retrieve the…”

  Reason groaned, and he turned to see the great machine on the ground, tendrils flailing from its cracks, thrashing the earth. Its cockpit was open, gore gushing forth, dark blood staining the ground. A trail led from it to Celia. The little doll moved toward him grimly, tugging with all her might at a squirming, blanket-clad form, dragging it along in fits and starts.

  “Got her,” Celia said. “Alive. For now.”

  “Dreadbear!” He heard above him, and the bear and his girl looked up to see Zuula ghosting down on spirit owl wings, with Kayin in her arms. “We need to go! Legion is too strong!”

  A shadow rose over Threadbare. He turned, to see the final daemon descending on its batlike mount. Around it the swarm of daemons swirled, four times the size it had been just minutes ago. “Is everyone in the fliers all right?”

  “Madeline be out dere somewhere wit’ Garon. Jarrik…” Zuula shook her head. “Don’t know. We tore daemon asshole up good, but… no more fliers. Can’t finish de job!” She caught ahold of the winds, threw them at the skies, and the swarm swirled, then recoalesced as the last member of the Hand headed straight for them, and the first imps started their descent. “Get to de tunnel!”

  “No time,” threadbare said, softly. “Get to the wards-“

  Light lanced through the sky.

  Light pierced through the batlike daemon, and its rider. An arrow of light, leaving a contrail of shrieking ichor behind it as it tore through the cloud.

  Followed immediately by six more.

  “Rapid fire arrows of light,” Zuula whispered. “Burnin’ so much fortune…”

  “Wards!” Threadbare shouted, and they ran, ran as the lesser daemons kept on coming, tearing at the golems. Threadbare jogged over to Celia, grabbed ahold of the blanket, and helped her pull it up to the edge of the wards… then stopped. “She’ll die if we take her in here!”

  “We’ll die if we stay out here!” Celia pointed out.

  “I need her alive!” Threadbare insisted, as imps tore and ripped at him, trying for his eyes, and he laid about with his scepter, scattering them. They couldn’t do much damage, but there were a LOT of them.

  “Alright, I can do this!” Celia decided. “Pommel Strike! Pommel Strike! Pommel Strike!” Drawing her sword, she smacked the blanket-clade form with the blunt end of her blade again and again. Yellow numbers flew as she beat the stamina out of her daemonic self, and Threadbare kept the imps off her as best he could. “There! She’s unconscious!”

  The two of them retreated behind the wards, and oh, threadbare’s heart broke to see the state of Cecelia’s clothes and hair, and the long scratches down her face. “Mend Golem,” he told her, laying a paw on her, relieved as her injuries repaired. “I’m sorry. But we DO need her.”

  The imps swirled around them, breaking on the wards, daring it a bit and hissing as it burned them. A few of them worried at the blanket, and Threadbare swung his scepter across whenever they got organized about trying to open it.

  The golems got into the act, shooting into the cloud, using the rest of their crossbow bolts on the screeching, birdlike daemons.

  But as the minutes passed, the swarm shrunk.

  “They’re disappearing,” Threadbare said, watching as holes opened up in the air, and swallowed them. Back to someplace full of red light, someplace they did NOT want to go.

  “He works like a conjurer. Lots of things, some of them pretty powerful, but they don’t stick around for long,” Celia sighed. “Is that reagent over there?”

  “Yes!” Threadbare went and gathered up the scattered bits that were all that was left of the magic carpet. “Good. I can use this. Right away, actually. Well, once the daemons are gone.”

  “What I want to know,” Kayin said, as the imps slackened, and the last of the swarm returned to whence they came, “is who shot those arrows.”

  “Funny ya should ask that,” an old, familiar voice drawled.

  Threadbare whirled, as from behind part of the wall, a gray-cloaked figure blurred into existence.

  Save for that gray cloak he wore brown from head to toe, and stubble adorned his chin. His face was a mass of wrinkles, and what hair he had left was on the sides of his head, stark white and unruly.

  “Ullo Mister bear. Been a while, yeah?” Mordecai said. Then he squinted at Celia. “Oh, ya got a little doll what looks like Celia now? S’cute.”

  “Mordecai…” Zuula whispered, stepping out from behind Celia.

  And the old scout froze. His jaw worked up and down, and he stared at the little doll. “What?” he barked, hands trembling. “What is this! What kind of… no. Mad. It’s the madness come ‘gain.” Mordecai dropped to his knees, burying his face in his hands, fingers white as he squeezed his skull. “Out! Na really there! Na really there!”

  “No,” Zuula said, trembling herself. “Is Zuula. Is…” She whispered, then fell silent. She looked to her spear, cast it aside. “Dreadbear. Loan her your club.”

  “It’s… more of a scepter, really.”

  “Do it.”

  Wordlessly he passed her the bearheaded scepter.

  And the golems watched in silence, as Zuula strode up to Mordecai’s trembling form, and bopped him, HARD, in the knee. He yelled in surprise, jumped up with wiry strength, and his bow was in his hands, nocked with an arrow drawn, head right in Zuula’s face.

  “You is late!” Zuula thundered.

  Then she bit the arrowhead, twisted her neck to the side, wrestling it from his grasp. It hummed as it went past Threadbare, and he watched as she started wailing on her husband with all her might.

  “Hey!” Kayin yelled, starting forward-

  -but Celia whipped her arm out to block the wooden catgirl. “No! This might work!”

  “What might work? What might work?”

  And as Mordecai danced backward, running from his wife, a wondering grin filled his face. He pulled out his knife, and the golems around him raised their bows… only to lower them as Threadbare waved his troops down. “Just go and harvest the soulstones. That’s more important. Let’s, ah… let’s give them some privacy.”

  “Yes. Best not to stick around for what follows,” Cecelia said, looping her arm around Kayin’s shoulders and walking her away.

  “What follows?” the assassin asked.

  Cecelia told her.

  “Um. But she’s… and he’s… how?”

  “I’m not actually sure, and I don’t want to know,” Cecelia said. Kayin agreed with that on general principles.

  So they concentrated on saving their dead.

  A few had broken soulstones, and a quick speak with dead saved some of them… others had expired too long ago in the battle for it to make a difference. Threadbare mourned with each one that came up missing. They were lost for good. This was war, this was the cost of victory.

  But the battle wasn’t done, not by a long shot. Judicious use of Celia’s telescope showed that the fray had shifted to the South. “The giants are down that way.” Celia said, from the top of a nearby hill. “They’re having a hard time of it, looks like-oh fump.”

  “What?” Threadbare asked.

  “Emmet. He’s down there. Along with a whole lot of troops.”

  “An’ our daughter too,” Mordecai said, walking over to Threadbare and the two doll haunters, cuddling Zuula in his arms.

  The half-orc glared at them. “Not one word.”

  The trio nodded in unison.

  “Graves and Missus Fluffbear were over with the giants,” Threadbare said, worried.

  “So are the rest a’ the dwarves,” Mordecai said. “But there’s too many troops still up. Dwarves can’t stop that lot if Emmet breaks past them giants.”

  Threadbare looked around at his team. Then he looked south. “I suppose we’re not done yet, then. But before we do, Celia, you’ve got a choice to make.”

  “A choice?”

  Threadbare walked over the blanket, and pulled it free, revealing the white armor beneath, and the unconscious daemon within. “It’s very risky. It’s also maybe a bad idea. But if it works, I think, just maybe, I can give you your body back…”

  THREADBARE’S CHARACTER SHEET

  Name: Threadbare Age: 5

  Jobs: Greater Toy Golem Level 16 Cave Bear Level 14 Ruler Level 14 Scout Level 8 Tailor Level 11 Model Level 11 Necromancer Level 11 Duelist Level 11 Animator Level 14 Enchanter Level 12 Golemist Level 20 Smith Level 11 Sculptor Level 13

  Attributes: Strength: 151 Constitution: 173 Hit Points: 404(514) Armor: 62(76) Intelligence: 270 Wisdom: 237(244) Sanity: 507(679) Mental Fortitude: 52 Dexterity: 183(190) Agility: 150(157) Stamina: 343(467) Endurance: 72 Charisma: 133(162) Willpower: 256 Moxie: 389(528) Cool: 20(55) Perception: 134 Luck: 105(112) Fortune: 239(356) Fate: 20(27)

  Generic Skills Brawling - Level 63 (+36) Climb - Level 14 Clubs and Maces - Level 21 Dagger - Level 9 Dodge - Level 18 Fishing - Level 1 Magic Items - Resist Fire 29 Ride - Level 12 Stealth - Level 17 Swim - Level 5

  Greater Toy Golem Skills Adorable - Level 46 Bodyguard - Level 9 Gift of Sapience - Level NA Golem Body - Level 34 Innocent Embrace - Level 17 Magic Resistance -Level 17

  Cave Bear Skills Animalistic Interface - NA Claw Swipes - 52 Darkspawn - NA Forage - 13 Growl - 2 Hibernate - 37 Scents and Sensibility - 23 Stubborn - 10 Toughness - 25

  Ruler Skills Appoint Official - Level NA Emboldening Speech - Level 19 Identify Subject - Level 10 It’s Good to be King - NA King’s Quest - Level 15 Noblesse Oblige - Level 37 Organize Minions - Level NA Royal Audience - Level 22 Simple Decree - Level 15 Swear Fealty - Level NA

  Scout Skills Alertness - Level 3 Best Route - Level 3 Camouflage - Level 13(20) Firestarter - Level 11 Keen Eye - Level 12 Sturdy Back - Level 13 Wind’s Whisper - Level 19

  Tailor Skills Adjust Outfit - Level 5 Clean and Press - Level 20 Recycle Cloth - Level 2 Tailoring - Level 54(69)

  Model Skills Adjust Weight - Level 14 Call Outfit - Level 5 Dietary Restriction - Level 50 (+110 to all pools) Fascination - Level 9 Flex - Level 21 Makeup - Level 11 Self-Esteem - Level 21 Sexy Pose - Level 2 Strong Pose - Level 16 Work it Baby - Level 50 (+55% to raw item bonuses)

  Necromancer Skills Assess Corpse - Level 12 Command the Dead - Level 28 Deathsight - Level 9 Drain Life - Level 8 Invite Undead - Level 12 Mana Focus - Level NA (+11% to sanity) Skeletons - Level 19 Soulstone - Level 45 Speak With Dead - Level 24 Zombies - Level 3

  Duelist Skills Challenge - Level 11 Dazzling Entrance - Level 17 Disarm - Level 2 Fancy Flourish - Level 13 (20) Guard Stance - Level 22 Parry - Level 22 Riposte - Level 1 Swashbuckler’s Spirit - NA (+20 to cool) Swinger - Level 2 Weapon Specialist - Level 43 (Brawling +21)

  Animator Skills Animus - Level 41 Animus Blade - Level 15 Animus Shield - Level 4 Arm Creation - Level 7 Command Animus - Level 19 Creator’s Guardians - Level 55 Dollseye - Level 18 Eye for Detail - Level 20 Magic Mouth - Level 18 Mend - Level 68

  Enchanter Skills Appraise - Level 30 Boost+5 - Level 25 Boost +10 - Level 5 Disenchant - Level 24 Elemental Protection - Level 18 Glowgleam - Level 26 Harden - Level 36 Soften - Level 31 Spellstore I - Level 40 Spellstore V - Level 18 Spellstore X - Level 8 Wards - Level 3

  Golemist Skills Armor Golem - Level 1 Bone Golem - Level 1 Call Golem - Level 4 Clay Golem - Level 3 Command Golem - Level 24 Flesh Golem - Level 1 Golem Animus - Level 65 Golem Guardians - NA Invite Golem - Level 12 Mend Golem - Level 59 Program Golem - Level 43 Toy Golem - Level 83 Wood Golem - Level 19