It was a bit strange, heading into the upper stories of the castle. Threadbare hadn't seen these floors in years. He'd had a small office on the ground floor, true, but as the land no longer had a King the royal chambers which made up the bulk of the upper floors were no longer necessary. And the departure of so many of the servants meant that it was more feasible to the land's budget to just seal them off and let them be. Occasionally a cleaner would go through and keep the dust off and make sure that mice and other vermin didn't move in. The last thing anyone wanted was a rat making a nest in the throne and gaining an evolution that would only cause chaos. Rat Kings were nothing but trouble.

The upper guard station had been manned again, and Threadbare could see shadows behind the viewing slits. It was impossible to say what kind of people they had watching... Wizards and other sorts had tricks to see through invisibility, and camouflage was a poor cousin of that.

Keeping that in mind, Threadbare left the main hallway and made his way to a guest room. Quietly opening the window, he walked along two-inch long ledges, hopping from sill to sill until he got to the drainpipe. Shimmying up that took him to the floor above, and some scouting about turned up a broken window.

The Menders must have been slacking, he thought, as he squeezed inside without scraping his fur too much. Either that or the current occupants were being careless. Either way he made a mental note to talk to them once this was all over.

And that thought gave him pause.

Threadbare had been very, very angry for days. He had tried to deal with it by shoving it back into his mind, and focusing on getting home and killing the bad guys. He'd journeyed to this city, left his friends behind, for that exact reason. But somewhere along the way— maybe it had been the conversation with Blind Melon, maybe it had been witnessing how truly pathetic the new “King” was, maybe it had just been the sight of Karen and the other toys...

He wasn't in much of a killing mood anymore. His anger was being folded away. Losing steam, like a malfunctioning magitech engine. Now he was thinking ahead, to the future, a future where things would be fixed and broken windows were something to be noted and passed along because there would be a tomorrow, there would come a time when things were calmer and little touches like this could be seen to again.

Threadbare sat on the edge of the window sill, and leaned back and tapped the glass. “Mend,” he said, and the window fixed itself with a few pleasant tinkling noises as the glass reappeared and reassembled.

And he immediately regretted his impulse, as he heard Ruddimore's voice in the next room. “What was that? Guards! To the nursery!”

The nursery! Threadbare cast a look around. It had been some time since the royal nursery had seen use. Dropcloths covered all the furniture, from a small cradle to several comfy looking loveseats. Everything was covered up, save for shelves full of toys.

The second he saw the shelves, he knew what he had to do. Hopping up to the nearest one, he settled in...

...and realized at the last second that he'd made a mistake.

The shelf was full of toys, yes, but every toy on it had been ripped up, broken, or damaged to the point of devastation. A careful search would turn up the difference. Unless...

Threadbare popped his claws out and got to work on himself, slashing fast and fiercely.

“Guards! Get in there!” Ruddimore bellowed.

The shrunken mallet that was the Scalesmashed bumped against his paws as he finished ripping himself within an inch of death, and he tucked it in one of the deeper gouges, in his stuffing. It wouldn't hold up to a magical search, though. Come to think of it, one of those might detect him... it took a skilled Wizard to detect a golem by their magical aura alone, but it COULD be done.

The door thumped open, and he saw lanterns held up against the darkness.

A distraction would be good, he thought. So he tapped the nearest creature, a skunk doll, and whispered “Mend. Animus. Command Animus join my party.”

Skunk_Toy_01 has joined your party!

“There! The left!” A lantern cut through the darkness, and Threadbare concentrated on his newest minion.

One of the primary skills that Animators relied upon was called 'Creator's Guardians.' It was a fairly simple trick, one that required no effort at all. It ensured that every animi or golem within an animator's party got a boost to their attributes based upon the skill rating.

And at this point, after numerous experiments and uses of his Animating skills, Threadbare had a pretty good skill rating, indeed.

The skunk plushie hopped off the shelf as the guards yelled and surged forward. It bolted between their legs and out the door, as swords hit the floor, gouging the tile behind it.

But as quick as it was, someone out there was quicker.

Skunk_Toy_01 has left your party!

“A spy,” Ruddimore muttered. “You see what we're up against, Bran— your majesty? You see why they need to die?”

“I mean... you killed it with one hit.”

“I didn't kill a thing! It was never alive to begin with. And by itself, no, it's not a real threat. But they're not by themselves, are they?”

“Hang on a moment. Wasn't it alive once? They used like baby souls to make them, didn't they?”

“Ah. Yes, of course,” Ruddimore sighed. Threadbare rather thought he sounded exasperated.

“It's just that you keep telling me they're soulless monsters. But they've got like kid souls in them, right? Or am I confused again?”

“Well then we're laying them to their proper rest, now aren't we? Removing them from the hellish mockery of life they've been locked into, and sending them on to the gods.”

“I mean, for them doll haunters sure, but... if that's how it is, how come the golems don't show up when the Clerics try to detect undead?”

“I told you, the special way they're manufactured prevents us from detecting that.”

“Right. The special way they're manufactured in them secret evil temples.”

“Yes.”

“The secret evil temples that we ain't found yet, and that nobody knows exactly what went on in there, just that it was horrible.”

“Absolutely.”

“Full of blasphemy and stuff that no good man would ever touch. Irredeemable stuff.”

“Yes, your majesty.”

“So if we're all good guys and nobody knows what went on in there, how come we know why they don't show up to detect undead?”

“....I need a drink.”

The voices were silent for a bit, and then came the clinking of glassware, and a long pour of liquid. Threadbare decided to risk using the noise as cover, and crept down from the shelf, down to the edge of the doorway.

Your Stealth skill is now level 39!

He was looking into the main common room of the royal suites. There were many smaller rooms off it, mostly bedrooms and fancier things like conservatories or music rooms. The guards had vanished back to wherever they'd come, probably to one of the guard posts off the stairs.

And across the way, in what was probably the master bedroom, Ruddimore and King Branson were sitting down at a small table and sharing a bottle of something that looked very expensive.

“Look. Your Majesty,” Ruddimore said, after he'd knocked back about half his glass. “I'm going to tell you something. I'm going to be honest here.”

“Please do,” King Branson said. “This is all very confusing.”

“Revolutions do not work if you focus too much on the little details.”

“I'm sorry?”

“It's... hm. How to put this. You get an idea. You get a big idea, that isn't popular with the powerful and wicked. And you hold to this idea, and nurture it, and you find ways to talk about it that make it spread to other people, make them want to pick it up and run with it.”

“How can you pick up an idea? It ain't like it's a real thing, with handles and all that.”

“Oh for the love of... no, no. No. Hang on, I need more wine.” Ruddimore topped himself off, and continued. “The thing is, the smoother the idea, the bigger it grows. And when you question it, when you start looking too hard at a thing, and finding the cracks and little inconsistencies, well then it doesn't grow. It stops going, because that demon called doubt starts growing in its place.”

“I thought we'd driven the daemons out?”

“Yes yes, we did that and those monster toys claimed credit for it. But listen... when you go before the court, when you pick at the little lies that we tell to keep the big idea going, well then you hurt us, Branson. The revolution falters. And if it stops, then we are lost.”

Among the conversation, words intruded. A familiar voice, whispering in his ear. “Threadbare? Can ya heah me? You in the city, little guy?”

They'd come looking for him early! The timing was terrible, too. Ruddimore's ears were too sharp, Threadbare knew he couldn't whisper back.

“I want the revolution to succeed, Mister Ruddimore,” King Branson said. “I mean... I'm not sure I'm good at being king, but it's my birthright so I have to learn, yeah? I'm trying. I'm trying really hard.”

“It's not, actually,” Ruddimore said, putting his wineglass down.

“Excuse me?”

“It's not your birthright. You have no birthright. You have the breeding of mud. You're a filthy commoner. Garamundi wasn't your grandfather, and that birthmark on your back is just a mole that looks vaguely like a crown.”

“What? You lied to me?” Branson bolted upright, knocking his chair to the floor.

“I did. We needed someone with good enough charisma to sit the throne, and bad enough intelligence that he'd believe that he deserved it,” Ruddimore said, rising up as well, holding Branson's gaze with a serpentine focus. “That way you wouldn't register on any lie detection skills. Because you believed that it was true.”

“How could you do this? I believed you!”

“Yes. We've already established that's why you were useful— oh forget it.” Ruddimore pulled out a pocket watch, and glanced down at it. “It'll be a moot point in a few minutes.”

And at that Branson stilled. Threadbare could almost see the gears grinding in his mind, and he started to have a horrible feeling about what Ruddimore was implying.

“Threadbeah, you've upset Celia badly. Come back. Reply. We can saht this out,” Madeline whispered again, and Threadbare curled his paws around the doorframe. It would have been a white-knuckled grip if he had knuckles.

“Why tell me all this?” Branson said, grabbing the table to steady himself. His knuckles weren't white, though. His knuckles were turning purple. As was his face, and all the rest of his skin that Threadbare could see.

So was Ruddimore... up until he pulled out a hip flask, raised it to his lips, and drank a sip. With that, his flesh paled, and went back to its usual, somewhat-waxy complexion.

“I'm telling you all this because a live king asking too many questions is a problem. But a dead king, killed by golem assassins? That's a martyr. And martyrs are a solution.”

Branson tried to sit down, and missed the chair. He landed hard, and started coughing. The crown on his head fell off, and rolled under the table.

“Such a pity that skunk toy had a partner. A partner that will conveniently escape, while you die, a martyr to the cause.” Ruddimore said, picking up a candlestick and heaving it through a nearby window. Glass shattered, and instantly Threadbare heard boots charging back towards them. “Guards! Guards!” Ruddimore bellowed. “Help!”

Threadbare knew what he had to do. In less than an instant, the moral quandary he'd been wrestling with had disappeared in the face of blatant villainy.

Sneaking into castles and assasinating people? That was questionable at best. But thwarting a villain's plan? Well, that was different. Everybody benefitted from a good old-fashioned thwarting— villain excepted, of course.

And when he could tell which door the guards were going to come through, he pointed at it, and said, “Distant Animus, Command Animi join my party.”

Your Distant Animus skill is now level 11!

With a thought he locked it. With another thought he commanded it to stay shut... and just in time, too, as somebody crashed into it with a yelp, and a rattle of armor.

“You!”

The raw loathing in Ruddimore's voice caught him by surprise, and the man's blade caught him in the back.

If he'd been less sturdy, or heavier, the stroke would have skewered him through. But his body was solid all through, thanks to his golemic nature. And his weight was negligible, for small teddy bears are made to be tossed around by small children.

Ruddimore was no child, but the force behind the blow sent Threadbare tumbling, skidding into the wall, rebounding, and rolling until he could get to his feet and reorient himself. And when he did, Ruddimore was on him, stabbing downward with an unsheathed sword cane, growling once more. “You...”

“Me,” Threadbare confirmed, as he unsheathed his claws and got to work.

Ruddimore charged forward, growling as he went. “Fight the Battles, Take the Hits,” he chanted, as he sped up, and Threadbare took another light stab, before managing to get his guard up.

Literally, as he responded with “Guard Stance,” and suddenly it became a lot easier to parry that thin blade. “Strong Pose,” got him a stab in the gut for his trouble, but he pulled free of the blade, charged in, and managed an open-pawed slap against the man's leg that sent a red '61' spiraling up out of Ruddimore's head.

“Gah!” Ruddimore cried, managing to kick him across the room, before slamming his hand against a gilded vase. “Blood is Gold!” the vase melted, and the man breathed more easily, testing his leg before nodding and leveling his gaze at Threadbare. “You're as good as the stories say, you little monstrosity. I might have to get serious, here.” He flourished the blade, and grinned. “Unyielding. Always in Uniform. Offensive Sta—ow!”

Threadbare had learned a few things from his trip with the pirates.

One of those things was that it wasn't always good to stand back and let the bad guys use all their skills when you could, instead, charge them and try to slash holes in their face.

Especially when your party status screen showed things like magical doors losing hit points at an alarming rate, as frantic guards tried to batter through into the room.

And all the while, Branson was coughing on the floor in the next room, and turning more and more red with every second that passed.

“Mend,” Threadbare called back to the door as he pressed his attack, and that bought him perhaps another minute.

“Dolorous Strike!” hissed Ruddimore, bringing the blade crashing down...

...but Threadbare scooted aside, and it missed his paw by inches. It gouged stone chips from the tile, and Ruddimore flicked it to the side with speed and skil that Threadbare barely managed to parry. In the window across the way he caught sight of his reflection, and a red '7' coming up from his head. The blade was gouging him a bit, even when he blocked it.

One of the downsides to being a golem was that without pain, it was hard to tell how hurt you were at any particular point. Golems kept going until they didn't. There was no way for Threadbare to stop and check his status... Ruddimore would perforate him to bits in the few seconds it took to say the word, read the screen, then dismiss it.

So he erred on the side of not dying. “Mend Golem,” he said, hopping back from a stroke designed to disembowel something with bowels.

You have healed yourself 232 HP!

Your Mend Golem skill is now level 77!

Ruddimore's eyes went wide... then he snapped a glance over to the door. An axe thudded through it, and he smirked. “You're good. I can't kill you by myself. But I don't need to! Dolorous Strike! Corps a Corps!”

Threadbare blocked before he could think about it, instincts taking over, catching the blade...

...and realizing that he was stuck.

“Heh. You've fallen for my Corps a Corps. We'll be like this a while, bear. Get comfy, and wait for my friends with their very large axes to put you out of my misery.”

He tugged, tried to peel his claws from the blade. He couldn't. He tried to retract them; nothing.

The door cracked and splintered. He and Ruddimore looked simultaneously, saw the hole in the center of it. An axeblade withdrew, replaced by an arm that scrabbled for the lock... but the door was animated now, and the deadbolt refused to be drawn.

“Threadbeah, Celia's naht happy. Respahnd if ya heah...” Madeline whispered.

This was very much not the time, Threadbare thought. The door was about to break, the man he'd decided to kill wasn't dying, and the youth he'd decided to spare WAS.

Seconds mattered. There were three things that needed tending, and perhaps enough time to do one or two.

But he'd always been good at prioritizing. And locked into place, straining against the larger man who was using his bulk to keep Threadbare down, the little toy thought he saw a way ahead.

He locked his eyes with Ruddimore's fevered gaze, and whispered “Distant Animus. Command Animi, join my party.”

Ruddimore's jacket has joined your party!

The man's eyes went wide, as his blade lifted, freeing Threadbare's claws. “What? No!”

He fought against his sleeve, trying to force his arm down, but too late as the little toy leaped up and straight at his chest...

...deftly flipping his coat open, and swiping the hip flask full of antidote before hopping down and racing toward the choking king.

“NO!”

Furiously, Ruddimore staggered forward, fighting against his own jacket, which pulled his arms every which way, and tightened around his gut, twisting and trying to throw him off. But it was an animi, not a golem, and cloth tore as the man strained, popping seams and pulling himself free a bit at a time, casting it aside just as the door thumped to the ground with a crash and guards poured into the chamber...

...too late.

“Guards!” King Branson yelled, skin paling, as he staggered to his feet. “Arrest Mister Ruddimore! He tried to arse seminate me!”

“It's assassinate you fucking fool! ASS ASS INNATE!” Ruddimore bellowed, then ran for the window he'd thrown the candlestick through.

But as fast as he was, Threadbare was quicker.

“Distant Animus. Command Animi, catch him please,” the little bear said, pointing at the curtains around the windowframe.

Your Distant Animus skill is now level 12!

The curtains weren't quite strong enough to catch him, but they did slow him down long enough for the guards to get to him. And that was all it took, as the eight men and women surrounded him and beat him to his knees, before hauling out chains and looking to the king.

“I need some wine,” Branson said, and glanced at the bottle on the table.

“Maybe not that one,” Threadbare spoke, and the nearest guards turned horrified eyes on him.

“The devil bear!” one woman spat.

“He's wanted for crimes against the state!” A gawky, bucktoothed youth said, glancing between the little bear and the kneeling form of the revolutionary leader.

“Yeah and he just saved my life so he's pardoned. Pretty sure that's a thing I can do,” Branson said. “Even if I'm not really—”

“Hold on,” Threadbare said. “For now you are. Can you surrender?”

“Yes,” Branson sighed. “Ruddimore was the toughest guy we had and you won against him. There's no stopping all the rest of you.”

“Was he? What about Daffodil? And the invisible monsters?” Threadbare asked.

Branson only looked confused. But Ruddimore laughed. He coughed to spit up some blood, then leveled his weary gaze on Threadbare. “Copperfield's done a runner. He disappeared at the same time as Lady Marks-Runcible. The monsters were hers, and they went with her. After cleaning out what was left of the treasury, of course.”

“Why?” Threadbare asked.

Ruddimore brayed laughter. “We were never their goal. He was just using us. Did you know that Belltollia's declared war on us? That turned up the morning after he vanished, a nice sealed scroll that politely told us they were coming to destroy us. Coming for you now, I suppose. We were doomed before we started.”

“Yeah, yeah we'll surrender,” Branson said. “What now?”

“Now I'd better tell my friends the war's over,” Threadbare said, as he turned away and started talking to thin air. “Wind's Whisper to Madeline. The new king is surrendering. Please let people know I'm alright, and we'll sort out the details soon.”

Your Wind's Whisper skill is now level 30!

“Wheah ah you? If I don't take yah back to Celia she's gonna stahm the castle heahself.”

“Wind's Whisper to Madeline. It's funny that you mentioned the castle...”

The next few hours went by very quickly. Ruddimore and a few of the worst members of the revolutionaries were rounded up and jailed on the 'King's orders, and on the whole the rest of them seemed relieved to hand over their weapons and go home. The few golems and doll haunters that had been captured were released, and the remains of those who had been killed during the mess were gathered for funerals, once their loved ones could be located.

And Threadbare was reunited with Celia. Again.

“I'm... sorry,” he said, as she looked around the wreckage of the royal chambers, and glowered at him. “I really have no excuse. I thought I had to kill people to make things better, and it turned out that I just needed to save them instead— oh!”

It was hard to speak when you were being hugged so tightly that your voicebox was in danger of being crushed.

“Don't you ever, EVER go dark and angsty on me again,” Celia whispered in his ear. “Just be my Threadbare, that's all I ask. Please?”

“Okay,” he said, and hugged her back.

And though he knew there were many, many little details that they would need to take care of, and though there was an army coming, and though there were still many unanswered questions, he felt good. Things had gone a bit more easily than expected, and that filled him with hope that maybe, for once, everything would turn out all right.