So, a cook and a farmer walk into a cave...
A sequel to the first Threadbare trilogy, Small Medium: Big Trouble introduces us to Chase, a young halven woman who dreams of adventure, even though that's far, far from what a halven woman should want.
The Cards see tropes in your future...
- Badass Adorable: Pretty much all the halven, especially Chase, and definitely Renny, a Greater Toy Golem (it's even a racial feature!).
- The Beard: Until Burt can leave the village, he's playing the waiting game with Loosy, saying he wants to take it slow.
- Big Eater: Halven don't get any stamina from resting, they have 0 endurance, always. The only way to refill their stamina is to eat, so they have to eat a lot, and all the time.
- Born Lucky: This is a racial trait for halven. They have naturally high luck scores to balance out some other things. Chase knocks it up a notch by taking Oracle, a class that boosts luck. By the end of the book, she's nearly doubled her already high luck stat.
- Brilliant, but Lazy: Chase isn't particularly interested in her Cook job, so she's only level 4 despite having had it for five years. She prefers to dedicate herself to getting out of work, discovering gossip, winning bets...
- The Call Knows Where You Live: Chase grew up, unbeknownst to her, next to a very, very special prison while dreaming of a life of adventure. The god Hoon, who once offered her grandmother the option of becoming his Oracle, visits Chase and offers her the same choice, because a group of Cylvanian explorers accidentally loosed some of the most terrible monsters from that prison... Playas.
- Cassandra Truth: Chase tells the village that a necromancer is coming in with an army of zombie clowns to kill them all and they just laugh. So she switches to a convenient lie; the Camarlengo is coming to get their back taxes and kill them all.
- Closet Gay: Burt is waiting until he's legally an adult to leave the village and go live with his uncle in the big city, Venivici, where people will be okay with him being gay.
- Crazy-Prepared: Because of the boredom of living in a small village when she wants to explore the world, Chase has mapped out dozens of zombie scenarios and knows how to defend against Vaffanculo's clowns.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Thomasi and the other Playas have some unfortunate history.Thomasi: We were never friends. We just suffered together.
- Dramatic Irony: We know what's going on with a toy that has some sort of system of strings inside its neck, but Chase doesn't. It's a Greater Toy Golem from Cylvania.
- The Dreaded: The Baroness had the halvens construct a massive prison fortress inside a mountain, capable of housing hundreds of guards, all to hold five prisoners.
- Dystopian Edict: While it's proper to be concerned about powerful individuals having too much power and causing damage... the result is a government that has too much power and causes damage.
- Everyone Has Standards: Chase is certain she won't spill the beans on the real reason Burt wants to take it slow with Loosy, because of the serious harm it would cause. Burt's gay.
- Expressive Ears: Halven ears move around as one way to express emotions.
- Excellent Judge of Character: Years of honing her skills as a gossip collector have left Chase with the ability to read people. She knows Dijornos is bad news and quickly realizes Speranza has a hard-core crush on Thomasi.
- Extremely Short Timespan: Chase's entire adventure takes place over the space of a single day.
- Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Where Cylvania was Transylvania, Chase lives in a vaguely Italianish region. Thomasi and Vaffanculo got their starts there because of their vaguely Italianish names.
- Foreign Cuss Word: The Necromancer Playa chose the word "Vaffanculo" as his name. It's Italian for "go fuck yourself" (literally, "go do your ass").
- Foreshadowing: Renny's backstory is how he and his group got chased into a ruined castle by something horrible, found some waystones, and transported themselves to near Chase's village. That castle and the horrible thing inside it will be the story of the next proper Threadbare book.
- The Glomp: When Chase accepts the Oracle job, she gets to see the Matrix Raining Code and have another conversation with Hoon, who asks her to go out and have fun, see the world, have an adventure. She surprises and delights him with a sudden hug.
- Guile Hero: Halven aren't stalwart warriors (unless they are), and Chase certainly isn't. She spent her life desperate for adventure and honing her intellect as a way to have something, anything to help her pass the time in her boring village.
- Hidden Depths: Despite the well deserved halven reputation for boringness, the men of Chase's home village have a history as soldiers and are capable of defending the village when a Playa attacks.
- Hypocrite: Oh my, how the halvens hate excitement, or worse, drama... but boy howdy do they love gossip.
- I Never Said It Was Poison: Speranza lets slip early in her conversation with Chase the she has sources of information, cluing Chase in to be very careful about what she says.
- Incompatible Orientation: Most of the girls in the village have a crush on Burt Crabapple. Unfortunately for them...
- Indy Ploy: Chase has no experience (literally) as an adventurer, and is making everything up as she goes along.
- Matrix Raining Code: When Chase accepts the Oracle job, she sees the code hidden behind the world. Everything is made of strange numbers and letters, all in green.
- Meaningful Name: Loosy is a girl of loose morals (like all halven women, but only when they think they won't get caught ;) ).
- No OSHA Compliance: After being captured in the prison and forced to cross a bunch of narrow bridges (where she stays exactly in the middle), all Chase can do is wonder why nobody thought to install railings.
- Nobody Poops: Somewhat averted. Halven commodes are noted to be quite sturdy, and the invention of the flush toilet was hailed as a godsend.
- Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: Chase was born for adventure and she's trapped in a boring village. As a result, she hones a lot of not-officially-skill skills and is quietly manipulating everyone around her. When she bursts out of the village, she's an ordinary adventurer in a very dangerous world.
- Obstructive Code of Conduct: Chase's kingdom has laws against taking more than one Job per ten years of life without explicit permission from the authorities. This was done after the system changeover to limit the chaos caused by high level adventurers.
- Oh, Crap!: Vaffanculo goes pale when Chase calls him the Griefer. He's briefly convinced she's a new player, rather than an NPC, and thus a deadly threat.
- Poke the Poodle: The village's teenagers use the Grange (a big barn on the edge of town) for their drinking and sexy shenanigans. The adults know about it, but don't care, and let the kids "get away with it", just like their parents did for them, and just like their kids will for their own one day.
- Poor Communication Kills: The Cylvanian explorers randomly found themselves outside a cave, decided to explore, got attacked, retaliated, and accidentally released some incredibly deadly monsters into the world.
- Properly Paranoid: We, the readers, know the government is right to be worried about high level adventurers, because we saw the aftermath of Grissle's experiments in Cylvania, which almost destroyed the kingdom.
- The Reveal: Generica is a game world. The AI got too good, NPCs became self aware. The players started having serious ethical concerns about it. Some of them, anyway. Chase and her family, Threadbare and his family, they're all artificial constructs in a virtual reality. Something about Players dying can result in a fate worse than death. Thomasi, a genuinely nice guy, is unwilling to let Vaffanculo, a douche, suffer that fate.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Halven have to eat. A lot. As a result, they have some of the nicest, sturdiest toilets around.
- Tarot Motifs: Chase wins her grandmother's Fortune cards in a bet with Greta, then Hoon gives her the ability to use them to make predictions as an Oracle.
- Took a Level in Badass: In span of a single day Chase goes from a bored out of her mind Cook to an Oracle, Archer, Grifter, and Teacher, with multiple levels in all but the last.
- Touched by Vorlons: Chase meets Hoon at the village's inn. He's a god, and he gives her the choice to be his Oracle.
- Your Mind Makes It Real: Renny's power of Spectral Illusion relies on you not thinking too hard about it. When Chase questions why an illusory torch would cast real light, she suddenly finds herself in the dark.
