Barf of the Bedazzler Read online

  “Kevin is saying the pirate might pick up supplies,” says TickTock.

  Pan sighs. “Of course Kevin’s information is often unreliable.”

  “Maybe,” concedes the phibling. “But if Diremaw really is getting supplies, maybe we are sneaking into supplies and getting loaded onto his ship.”

  “Ooh, that’s sneaky, TickTock,” says Moxie. “I like it. Sneak in. Search for info. Sneak out.”

  “Well, first we need some info about this Dire-maw guy,” I say. “We don’t even know if he’s in the city.”

  “And above all else,” says Pan firmly, “let us avoid any unnecessary trouble.”

  Suddenly there’s a roar from the bar. It’s the smelly bugbear.

  “Hey!” he yells, lifting a squirming green figure into the air. “That is Grak’s coin purse! Thieving goblin scum!”

  Grak hurls the goblin across the room. He slams onto one of the tables, knocking liquid all over a brawny dwarf.

  “Hey!” the dwarf cries. “Watch where you’re throwing goblins!” He grabs his axe, flips the table, and charges the bugbear.

  The dwarf’s table whacks the barbarian at the bar.

  “Hey!” screams the barbarian. “You hit me with table? I hit you with spear!”

  The barbarian snatches his spear, knocking drinks from hands all around him.

  Suddenly weapons are flying. Tables are smashing. Chairs are hurtling across the room.

  We duck under our table.

  The goblin who started it all tries to crawl under with us, yanking TickTock out to make room.

  “Hey!” cries Moxie. She pushes the goblin back with the tip of her hammer. “You leave my friends alone!”

  “Crud on a cracker,” I mutter. “I thought we were trying to stay out of trouble.”

  The armored dwarf sets his axe on the table.

  The barbarian drops his spear.

  Moxie lowers her hammer.

  “THAT’S RIGHT!” says Magda. “NO WEAPONS! FISTS OR FURNITURE! NOTHING ELSE!”

  Moxie grabs a chair and smashes it over the goblin’s head.

  * * *

  SUPERHEROIC ACHIEVEMENT!

  Get into a Bar Fight!

  (200 Experience Points Awarded)

  * * *

  We peek out from under the table. Moxie turns to face us, a big grin plastered across her face.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The broom closet is not as bad as it sounds.

  Sure, there’s the vague smell of outhouse-unclogging stick. But TickTock produces some type of propeller-fan contraption from his belt called the Marvelous Spinning Pinwheel of Coolness. It seems to get rid of the outhouse stench. However, it does nothing for the dirty mop smell or the rotten vegetable stink. So it may still need some tinkering.

  The next day, we ask Magda about Diremaw the Dread. Her face goes pale when we mention his name. Magda says she doesn’t know anything about the comings and goings of pirates.

  Smart lady.

  But she points us in the direction of the harbor. “Head toward that big blue thing,” she says with a sneer. “That’s called the ocean. If you find yourself underwater, you went too far.”

  The harbor hums with activity. Fisherman unload ships. Giant nets hoist huge crates onto boats. Everyone is cursing. And shoving.

  “The pirate boat is being named the Death Knell,” TickTock reminds us.

  “Yeah, that’s right,” says Moxie, nodding. “Maybe we’ll see his ship.”

  We see lots of ships. With lots of weird names.

  But no Death Knell.

  Finally Pan spots something that might help us out: the harbormaster’s office.

  “If anyone knows about the Death Knell,” Pan surmises, “it will be the harbormaster.”

  A bell dings as we enter the cramped office. Scrolls and papers and opened books cover every surface. It looks like a library upchucked in here.

  “What do you want!?” growls a prune of a man. Every part of this guy is wrinkled. I find myself with a strong desire to iron him.

  I refrain. “We’re looking for information,” I say instead.

  “Get out of here!” says the prune. “I’m busy!”

  Moxie steps up, opens her pouch, and drops five gold coins on the counter. “Still busy?” she asks.

  The prune eyeballs the coins. “You triple that and you just might have my attention.”

  Moxie shells out ten more gold coins from her pouch.

  “I’m listening,” says the man.

  “We’re trying to find a specific ship,” says Moxie.

  “Well, that is information I have.” The wrinkled guy puts on a pair of cracked spectacles. “I know every ship that comes and goes from this city.” He opens up a ledger. “What’s the ship’s name?”

  “The Death Knell,” says Pan.

  The prune lowers the spectacles from his nose. “What would the likes of you be wanting with a ruthless pirate king?”

  Moxie slides five more coins onto the counter. “That would be our business.”

  The harbormaster looks at the coins. His eyes dart back to us. Uncertain. Finally he slides the coins into his hand.

  “Diremaw the Dread has a special reserved parking spot at this harbor,” he tells us. “It is one of the courtesies I extend to him.” He wets his wrinkled lips. “You’ll find it all the way down the harbor,” he says, pointing. “Past the North Twin.”

  “The North Twin?” asks Pan.

  “Those giant twin statues that flank the harbor,” he growls.

  “Got it,” I say. “The North Twin.”

  “Just follow the small path hidden at the statue’s base and you’ll find Diremaw’s Dock.”

  “Great,” says Moxie. She’s already halfway out the door. “Let’s go.”

  “Hold on, me buckos,” says the prune. “She ain’t there.”

  “She who?” I ask.

  “The Death Knell!” he sputters.

  “But you just said—”

  “I just said that’s where she would be if she were here!” he says. “But she ain’t! Yet.”

  The prune looks around to make sure nobody is listening. Other than paper mites and dust bunnies, it’s just us.

  “Diremaw sent a parrot with a message three days ago,” he says. “He’ll make port tomorrow.”

  “We appreciate the information,” says Pan.

  “Well, you paid enough,” he says. “Only seems right that I give you the whole picture.”

  “What whole picture?” I ask.

  “The parrot had something else,” says the harbormaster. “This.”

  “The first day of autumn?” says Pan. “That’s tomorrow.”

  “This is perfect!” says Moxie with a grin. “Thanks, mister!”

  “Be ye careful, me hearties.” The prune’s whisper stops me cold. “Diremaw the Dread is nobody to trifle with.”

  Moxie shoots the guy a wink. “Neither are we.”

  It’s the coolest exit line ever. A total lie, of course. We’ve been nearly trifled to death on several occasions.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Moxie leads us down the twisty streets of Wetwater with a bounce in her step.

  “This is even better than sneaking aboard with the cargo,” she says excitedly. “Nobody has ever seen Diremaw the Dread except his crew! So tomorrow we go to Diremaw’s Dock. And we try out for the crew!”

  “Crud on a cracker!” I cry. “Hold on a second. If we manage to join his crew, don’t you think he’ll be a little miffed when we just take off to hunt a bedazzler?”

  “Oh, wow,” says Moxie. “I didn’t think about that.”

  “I imagine Diremaw doesn’t simply let people quit his crew,” says Pan.

  “So what are we supposed to do?” asks Moxie.

  We silently follow Moxie through the crowded streets. Thinking. Puzzling. All of us seeking some solution that doesn’t involve a pirate killing us dead.

  “What if we do faking our own deaths?” suggests TickT
ock. “Then the pirate king never is looking for us.”

  “Ooh, another nice one from TickTock!” says Moxie. “Pirates don’t waste time hunting down people that are already dead.”

  Pan nods thoughtfully. “It is a sound strategy.”

  “It’s great!” Moxie cries enthusiastically. “We join the crew. We get the info. We fake our deaths and make our getaway! Nothing could go wrong!”

  There’s a nervous feeling creeping into my stomach. It’s the feeling I always get when I’m about to fake my own death and wind up getting really dead.

  As we duck under a dark archway, I realize we have wandered down a very shady street. The crowds have disappeared. Garbage litters the cobblestones. Rats scurry in the corners.

  “I don’t remember coming this way before,” I tell Moxie. “Where are you taking us?”

  “Taking us?” says Moxie, confused. “I’m not taking us anywhere.”

  “We’ve been following you,” I point out.

  “Well, why would you do that?” she asks. “I don’t know where I’m going!”

  “And that’s perfect for us,” says a soft voice.

  Five ghostlike shapes emerge from the shadows.

  One of the hooded figures drops lightly from a drainpipe. She pulls back her hood, revealing a scarlet mask covering her eyes. “How rude of me,” she says. “Introductions are in order. My name is Red.”

  She points to the lurking forms that have surrounded us. “And these are my companions. We are the Skullduggery Crew.”

  Red bows politely, pointing a small crossbow at Moxie. “We will be handling your transaction today.”

  “Transaction?” says Moxie gruffly, squeezing her hammer. “You mean you want to rob us.”

  “That is a transaction,” Red says with a smile. “You give us your possessions. We give you your lives. Everybody gets something.”

  “One problem,” says Moxie, the muscles in her arms tightening. “We’re not open for business.”

  She leaps forward, hammer swinging. The thief fires her crossbow, but Moxie whirls around and the tiny arrow thunks into her shield.

  TickTock launches his little arm-mounted web-shooting contraption at one of the thugs. The web wraps around the thief’s ankles, and he thumps to the ground.

  Pan flings her bola, entangling another goon around the neck.

  I begin to call up the words to my Slip ’N Slide spell. But just as I’m about to utter the incantation, something makes me swallow the words back down.

  “Moxie,” I cry. “Put your weapons down.”

  “Not this time, Fart!” she cries, swinging ferociously at Red. “We did that with the muck elves and look where it got us!”

  “MOXIE!” yells Pan.

  Moxie turns angrily, but what she sees brings her to a stop.

  One of Red’s crew has a dagger to my throat.

  Bizzy buzzes angrily at the sight of me being manhandled. She lashes her stinger.

  “Call off the bee,” the thief hisses in my ear.

  “Down, Bizzy,” I choke out. “Sit!”

  Bizzy flutters her wings and sits obediently at my feet.

  “Very good,” says Red. “Now drop your weapons.”

  Moxie squeezes her hammer so hard that her knuckles turn white. For a long moment I think she’s going to keep fighting.

  But then the hammer drops to the cobbles with a ringing thud.

  Red’s crossbow is reloaded and pointing at Moxie. “Sorlag, be a dear,” she says. “Gather their valuables, if you would.”

  The stocky thief steps forward and hefts Moxie’s hammer appreciatively.

  “No!” Moxie says through gritted teeth. She’s trying hard to hold it together.

  “Don’t worry,” says the robber with a wicked smile. “I’m going to give this fine hammer a very good home.”

  He grabs Moxie’s shield. Cuts the coin pouch from her waist. All five hundred gold pieces that Kevin paid us, plus her magical animal figures. Gone.

  The thieves snatch Pan’s bo staff, the sweet one she got at the lamia’s lair. They aren’t interested in her other simple weapons, but they cut the strings on her bola.

  “Let’s not forget this,” my captor hisses in my ear. I can smell his bitter breath as he reaches for my staff.

  ZAP!

  With a blinding flash of green he pulls away his hand painfully.

  “You idiot,” says Red. “You can’t take a mage’s staff. They are magically linked to their rightful owners.”

  The thief eyeballs my spellbook, my ring, and my dagger, but then thinks better of it. He slides his blade from my throat and walks back to his boss, rubbing his sore hand.

  The thieves grabs us roughly, shoving our faces against the dirty brick wall.

  This is it. This is how we die. In a filthy alley, with a dagger to the back.

  I close my eyes, waiting for them to finish us.

  But it never comes.

  A moment passes. Five. Ten.

  We slowly turn around.

  The Skullduggery Crew is gone. Along with most of our possessions.

  “I hate this city,” Moxie says.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Moxie is completely shattered by our encounter with the thieves.

  Back in our broom closet, Pan uses her monkly might to heal our scrapes and bruises. But she has no power to heal whatever is going on inside of Moxie.

  “Don’t worry,” I say, trying to encourage her. “Yes, that was a lot of gold that they stole. But when we get done with this quest, Kevin will pay us plenty more!”

  “I don’t care about the gold,” she mutters.

  “I know it was humiliating,” murmurs Pan. “Being robbed like that.”

  “I don’t care about that!” growls Moxie.

  “Then what is being wrong, Hammer-girl?” asks TickTock.

  Her anger bubbles to the surface. Her face clenches, turning red. Finally the dam breaks and tears stream down her face. “My hammer!” she cries. “They took Master Redmane’s hammer!”

  “Don’t worry!” I say, reaching out for her. “We’ll get you a new weapon!”

  “Yes,” cries TickTock. “Tick-Tock is keeping a little gold here in our room! We can be buying you a cool sword or a mace!”

  “You don’t understand!” Moxie cries. “That was Master Redmane’s hammer! Ever since I was a little girl, he had that hammer on his belt. It was the one thing I had left of him, and it was everything to me. EVERYTHING! And now it’s gone!”

  “But…” I start. But there’s nothing good to say.

  Moxie curls into a ball on her cot. “Please. Just leave me alone.”

  The broom closet is thick with discouragement and defeat.

  It also smells like poop. Which is probably because the outhouse-unclogging stick is back.

  “Well,” says Pan softly. “Our encounter with the Skullduggery Crew was unfortunate, but it did give me an idea.” She pulls a dishrag off a shelf.

  “What is elf-girl’s idea?” asks TickTock.

  Pan wraps the cloth around her eyes like a blindfold. Or a mask. “I don’t think we should let this pirate know who we really are,” she says. “We plan to betray him, after all. In case things go awry, we should hide our true identities.”

  “Sneaky,” I tell her. “Wear masks.”

  “It would be prudent,” says Pan.

  It’s been a terrible day and it’s late. We roll over and try to sleep. I lay there patting Bizzy, but all I can think of is the feeling of that cruel dagger at my throat.

  And Moxie’s face as she dropped her war hammer to save my life.

  Helplessness and frustration overwhelm me. What could I have done differently? I guess I could have cast Gas Attack on the thief with the dagger. But the others would have just finished us off.

  If I had known some truly powerful magic, those thieves would have been at my mercy. My brain keeps going back to that Mind Control spell. If I knew that spell, I could have made those thieves do wha
tever I wanted. And Moxie would still have her hammer.

  Grabbing my spellbook, I slip out of our broom closet and into the bar. It’s quiet at this late hour, but a few logs still burn in the phoenix-shaped fireplace.

  I open my spellbook on a table and flip to the back.

  Once again, Master Elmore’s voice gripes at me. Don’t be a ninny! You’re not ready for this kind of magic!

  I don’t care. I swear to myself that the next time I’m in a dangerous situation, I will be ready to unleash real power. A little niggling part of me wonders if it’s okay to control people’s minds. But I brush away the thought. After all, anyone I’m gonna cast it on is vile and despicable and totally deserves it.

  And with that thought, I begin to memorize Mind Control.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The next day, we pool together our remaining possessions.

  I lucked out. My staff, my spellbook, my scrolls—they didn’t take any of it.

  Luckily, Pan’s favorite necklace was tucked under her tunic, so the thieves never found it. Even so, she lost all her gold and weapons. But that girl could make a weapon out of a pine cone, so she’s not too worried.

  It’s Moxie that came out the worst. No gold. No shield. No hammer. And no fight left in her.

  Pan says that our plan has no place for a loudly buzzing insect the size of a baby elephant. I don’t like it, but I finally give in. Magda gruffly insists she isn’t running a bee-sitting service, but after slipping her a couple gold coins, she agrees to keep an eye on Bizzy until we get back. If we get back.

  So, with a tearful farewell to Bizzy, we take TickTock’s remaining cash and go shopping.

  We manage to find the phibling a new dagger and Moxie a worn secondhand sword. She doesn’t say a word as she slides it into her belt.

  And we buy four snazzy silk masks. We look super sinister.

  As we stand outside the shop, Pan gives a little sermon against improvising. “Please just remember the plan,” she reminds us. “Join the crew. Get the location of the bedazzler from Diremaw. Fake our deaths and disappear.”