It rose from below, round and horrible and glaring, with no arms or legs or physical features beyond a ball-shaped head and eyestalks protruding in all directions.

But the face was familiar. As familiar as the spectacles that adorned each of the creature's eyes.

“You ruined everything!” came the distorted voice of Missus Beemer, and without warning one of the eyes fired a blast of magic at Threadbare. Before he could react it nailed him square in the chest, and to his horror, he saw his fur start to turn gray.

But aside from that, it did nothing.

You have resisted I, Beemer's aging ray!

Your Golem Body skill is now level 56!

“You're the enemy? What— why?” Tane stammered. “Edith? What the devils do you think you're doing?”

“I'm protecting us!” The Beemer ball shouted back, maneuvering up the shaft as Threadbare tried to find cover on the platform.

“Duck behind the cage!” shouted Daffodil. “She won't risk hitting the kids!”

“No!” Threadbare called back. “I won't use them for cover. That's unthinkable.”

Instead, he directed his attention to the animus he'd just invited into his party, and with a shudder, the chains clinked as the platform started to lower.

“You want to come to me? You foolish boy!” Beemer boomed, and Threadbare dodged as another beam shot out through one eyestalk's spectacles.

But it wasn't aimed at him. The eyebeam lanced right into one of the Mannequins... to no effect.

“Hm.” Missus Beemer said, blinking rapidly. “Mental note, the sleep ray's less useful for this situation.”

“What do we do?” the Mousewife squeaked, peering over the ledge at the boss below. “I don't want to hurt her!”

“You can't, she's not really here,” Tane said and picked the Mousewife up. She squeaked, as the middle-aged man took a few steps back, then leaped out into the air.

“Oh dear.” Threadbare remarked, as Tane plummeted toward the falling platform.

It was a good jump, as it went. The man was stronger than he thought, even after a year or two of a very much sedentary lifestyle, compared to his old career.

But Threadbare could see that he'd taken the leap too early. He was going to fall short, and it was hard to say if he could grab one of the ledges below the platform. With the Mouswife occupying one arm, Threadbare rather thought his odds were very bad.

So he dug one set of claws into the edge of the platform, and stretched out as far as he could, trying to grab ahold of the falling man.

It wasn't enough.

Time slowed as Tane fell, visor open, eyes wide with fear and loathing, loathing that Threadbare could tell was directed inward. And as he fell, Threadbare knew the man would miss him by inches.

Fortunately he wasn't the only one to see the problem.

“Magic Fingers!” Graves shouted.

It wasn't much.

It was perhaps twenty pounds of pressure, all told.

But Graves exerted it in a full on shove against Tane's rump that spun him halfway over in midair, and so Threadbare's frantic swipe managed to close on the man's ankle.

Threadbare winced as stiches popped in his arms, and hung on for dear life.

“I have you right where I want you, you betraying little bear! You can't dodge THIS!” Screeched I, Beemer.

More stitches tore, and Threadbare felt his stuffing stretch. Then a pattering of felt feet up and over him as the Mousewife clambered over both of them, turning and grabbing hold of Tane's ankle, trying to drag the man in as he screamed and flailed. “You're not helping!” she squeaked at him. “Hold still!”

And then the boss blasted Threadbare with a new beam.

It was a heck of a shot, angled right between Tane and the Mousewife, and the second it hit him, reason fled from his mind.

You have succumbed to Eye Beemer's fear ray!

Checking willpower...

You are afraid for 0.0001 seconds!

...and then fear fled from his mind before he could act on it, because Threadbare's personal experiences and strange combinations of jobs had given him a willpower that wouldn't be out of place on a dragon.

And with a huge heave, and the Mousewife's help, he pulled Tane up to the point where the man could hook a few fingers over the ledge, and hoist himself over. “I'm... sorry,” the gruff knight whispered. “That was damned stupid of me.”

“It's done and you're fine,” Threadbare said, dodging another blast, and moving back from the edge. “Why did you come down here in the first place?”

“I can't kick her ass without getting closer,” Tane snarled. “I'm not built like that. Got a few throwing knives on me, but nothing else ranged.”

“Get back out here, you betraying little bear!” I, Beemer raged, and Threadbare risked a glance over the edge to see her ball-like shape hovering out and up the shaft, dodging ledges, trying to get a good angle to fire. And she did get a ray off the second he peeked, but he managed to duck back before it could clip him.

Then the platform rocked, and for a second he thought she'd blasted it. Worried, he looked back at the cage in the center, and the cluster of golem kids trying to reach through the bars for hugs or reassurances or maybe whatever toys they could grab...

...but to his surprise, he saw a somewhat dented mannequin straightening up from where it had fallen.

“I've got the range and the angle!” Graves called out. “Can the platform hold all of them? If so, have them jump down now!”

“I think so!” Threadbare called back, and kept the platform steadily descending as he and the Mousewife called mannequins down.

The boss hit a few of them with random beams. Some did nothing. One beam though, utterly disintegrated the dummy it hit. “Ah-ha!” I, Beemer called out. “I DO have a useful one after all! Come out, Bear! I'm almost to you!”

“Why do you hate him so much?” shrieked the Mousewife. “What did he do to deserve this! This is crazy!”

“Crazy? Crazy? He was our only real ally! With him on the Council we could stay out of politics! We would be safe... the children would be safe... we could... we could just teach them. Just love them.”

“You still can,” Threadbare called out. “Nobody's been hurt yet,” he said, tugging on his stretched seams. “Not badly, anyway. If you stop this now, we can consider this a training exercise gone awry. We'll get everyone sorted and safe, you can put Reason back into place, and we'll have a long talk about it afterward.”

There came a long pause.

“She's thinking it over! She's crying,” the Mousewife reported from her vantage point.

Threadbare took the opportunity to stop the platform, next to the ledge he'd spotted a few minutes ago. It was a good ten feet away, but that was fine because he had mannequins now.

“Incoming!” Graves said, and all eyes snapped upwards in time to see Graves hopping down, and Daffodil following afterward.

“This is a trick!” I, Beemer declared, and fired rays wildly upward.

It was a barrage, and if Threadbare had lungs he would have held his breath as a bright green ray, a coruscating ray that he'd seen melt a mannequin to dust stabbed upwards...

...and missed Graves by a matter of inches.

But it didn't miss Daffodil Copperfield.

And the three of them, Mousewife, Threadbar, and Tane gasped in horror as the wooden man exploded into dust, what was left of him plummeting past the platform and into the lava below.

“Edith,” Tane whispered. “What have you done?”

“I didn't mean to... I... I...” she stuttered, and then she got ahold of herself. “This is your fault, you damnable bear. Look what you made me do!”

Threadbare wasted no time on her, no time mourning, though he was angry now, angry in a way that he hadn't felt in quite a long time. With a few quick thoughts the mannequins made a bridge of their bodies across the gap between the ledge and the platform. “Get across,” he told his allies as he grabbed the cage and with bearlike strength tore it open. “Take them to safety, then use ranged attacks and try to get her directly below us.”

The Mousewife grabbed the snail-shaped golem, Tane and Graves grabbed the other three, and fled across the bridge of mannequins.

“Finally!” I, Beemer screached, and the greenish beam of destruction drilled through the center of the platform. It was well away from Threadbare, but he ignored it, and the second the group was safe on the ledge, he directed the platform upward.

“Get back here!” she called out, rising as fast as she could. But she was slow, and forced to dodge as Graves began throwing force bolts and Tane did what he could with his throwing knives.

“Wind's Whisper to Graves,” Threadbare said, holding still as the beams blasted holes through the platform, searching for him. “You have the call. Shout Brownies when she's directly under me.”

Up the platform went. Up and up, wobbling as more and more chunks were blown out of the metal. And through it all Threadbare stood, arms crossed, feeling anger rise in him.

It was senseless. Stupid that a man had died because of this. But it hurt most because he was the one she blamed. If he hadn't been here, Daffodil would still be alive.

“Brownies!” shouted Graves.

And Threadbare commanded the mechanism above him to open fully.

It rocketed downward, and as it went Threadbare leaped from the platform, landing easily in Tane's arms as the Knight caught him.

Behind him came a meaty crunch, followed by a descending wail, that abruptly cut off with a splash and a hiss of lava.

Threadbare sighed. “Foolish,” he whispered, then hopped out of Tane's arms. “Thank you everyone. Come on. We're not done yet. Let's find the entrance to the Core Chamber and finish this.”