A: please help me
B: ok ok hold up a minute
A: there is not time! Please hurry
B: give a me a sec
A: now it-
B: I NEED PANTS GODDAMIT -- Anon Guest
[AN: Aw man, if that isn't a cue for Early Days Marvin, then I don't know what is. Start blasting Let's See How Far We've Come out there, folks]
There's a time for multiple disasters and it's always when they're least wanted. Anthe was more or less balanced on a hairpin, metaphorically speaking, whilst picking a lock, in a room full of traps activated by sound. One wrong move and it would take a lot of luck to get out of it with health remaining.
It was the worst time to hear a trembling query from her brand new son. "Lady Anthe? Can you help me please?" The voice of Marvin, thank the gods, was barely above a whisper.
"I'll be right there, I just need a few more minutes." One to unlock the hatch. Another to disable the mechanism that blocked their way out. Possibly a third to deal with the nightingale floor, just in case. It had taken her a lot of luck just to get to this point. It would take a lot of luck to get through this.
"...please hurry?" Marvin whimpered. Even though Anthe wasn't looking, she could feel Marvin jiggling nervously in place. "...I need it..."
Lock... done. Mechanism? Oh gods, this was a complicated mechanism... "Just another second, love..."
Sob. A hitch of breath. "...for th' love of the gods, I need some pa-ha-hants..."
Aw heck no. Anthe jammed a copper coin in the gears and hoped for the best, scurrying up the thin strands that held her above the tuned floor and probable death if the copper had failed to do its job. She had no time to check on her work, her baby was crying.
She made it to Marvin by the skin of her pointy Kobold teeth, and with only a few minor injuries added to the sum total of the trials for this day. Her boy was crying in the unstoppable way of someone who had also been repeatedly shamed for crying. He only looked seventeen. Marvin was big for his age and may actually be part Goliath. Wraithvine was still doing detective work on that count. He may be as young as eight. He may be as old as twelve. To Anthe, he was her baby.
Marvin was naked, covered in mud and blood and an ichor she really didn't want to ask questions about right now. Her cloak made a decent loincloth until the rest of the mess could get sorted out.
"Scrunch up, now, and I can clean most of you up." Prestidigitation, taught by Wraithvine, could only clean things that could fit in a one-foot cube. Which meant that even with Marvin scrunched up, she could only clean him piecemeal. After that, it was the salve for his injuries, and more than a little for her. She'd have to take a tenday to make more, very soon to this. "What happened to you. I thought you were safe..."
"...bad dogs..." sniffled Marvin. "They were coming after you, and they were hard to hit, so I used that magic jug and..."
And its contents also did things to his gimcrack armour. Well, they were going to replace it anyway. They were overdue a lot of shopping. "I didn't think they had dogs," murmured Anthe, checking his feet. Yeah, that was acid damage. "You stay on the stairs, I'll look at the damage, okay?"
The 'bad dogs' were three displacer beasts and taken out by a combination of oil, fire, and acid. Enough to really ruin their hides, so there wasn't enough to get a displacer cloak out of it. Anthe wasn't about to complain. All was good. The important people were safe. Temporarily. Wraithvine was going to say something acerbic about this when they met up again.
She could already hear it. I leave you for two weeks to check on the grandkids. Two weeks. I need my eyes on you at all times... Well, they had been technically following hir leading orders. They had tried to stay out of trouble. Trouble had found them anyway.
Anthe would rather die in a fire than point the finger towards Marvin.
She hopped back to her boy. "It's okay. The displacer beasts are dead. You did good work, love."
"Dis..." Marvin went vacant, not wanting to process what had happened. He was not at home, right now. Sitting upright, apparently there, but his brain had gone on a short holiday. So Anthe hoped, anyway. Her poor boy just... went away whenever he encountered anything frightening.
She climbed into his lap and wrapped her arms gently around his neck. "There's my good boy," she cooed. "You did a good job. The 'bad dogs' have gone away. Good job. You're my good boy."
He blinked. He looked at her. Trying to divine whether or not she was lying. Good enough. Anthe took the time to caress the tears from his cheek. "There now. There now. You sit quietly for a little while. I have to work on our way out of here. It's going to be all right. I'll find you some real pants, soon."
Sniff. Sniff. Hiccough. "...'kay..."
"Okay." A few more injuries back to the bulwark against their escape, and she finally saw that the mechanism was good and broken. Sweet. She used it as a foothold to see to the nightingale floor, making it easier for her boy to walk to that door. One room safe. Good.
She checked on her baby. "So far so good, sweetling. I'm going to check on the next room and make sure it's safe. I'll bring you back anything good."
He hid in the stairwell, watching her as she went. That tore it, she had to survive this mess just to be certain her boy was safe. She pulled every trick in her book to creep into the next room and... on the other side of a hidden door, was a storeroom with the obligatory stupid guard. And wouldn't luck have it, he was already sweet Marvin's size.
It was this that poison, daggers, and darts were made for.
With luck, they could make it back to their base of operations before Wraithvine did, and clean up most of the mess the enemy had left behind.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / milla74]
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