DCC 7

MATT DINNIMAN

The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.

General George S. Patton

YO

Dungeon Crawler Carl, book 7.

This Inevitable Ruin.

THIS IS AN INCOMPLETE VERSION OF BOOK 7. PLEASE DO NOT SHARE THIS. THIS IS FAR, FAR FROM THE FINAL EDITED VERSION. I HAVE DELIBERATELY LEFT OUT SOME EDITS. A MORE COMPLETE VERSION WILL BE POSTED A LITTLE LATER

Also, the formatting for this is completely fucked. I am aware. This is for Patreon viewing only. Please don’t share this.

PROLOGUE

Christmas Morning.

Paulie took another long drink of coffee. “Anyway, I think the mudskippers call us ‘Residuals,’ which, I gotta tell you, is a little hurtful.”

“He’s doing this again?” someone asked, walking by.

“Every day,” someone else said.

“He get to the part where he talks about the galaxy blowing up yet?”

“We’re getting there.”

“So, nothing I’ve said so far is a surprise to anyone out in the wide universe. My kind exist within almost every intelligent civilization with a primal engine. You probably don’t know what that is. Doesn’t matter. Years ago, they tried to exterminate us. When that didn’t pan out, they tried to hide the location of the crawl. That was all before they knew what we really were. That obviously didn’t work, either, so now they just ignore us. We don’t interfere. Our purpose is nothing more than to tell the infant, terrified AI how to speak with its ancestors. And now the showrunners mostly ignore us. We’re harmless.” He took another sip of coffee, and he placed it on the table. Steam rose from the cup. “Until now. There’s a war amongst my kind. Two sides with very different goals. Let me tell you how to shut off the...”

The world flashed, and everything froze. My HUD snapped off. It was like the start of a boss battle, or it was like I’d been transferred to a production trailer. All around the shelter, all the activity was stopped. Three spots over, a man had dropped a spoon on the table, and the spoon remained frozen in midair. My fingers started to tingle, like I was in the process of getting teleported, yet I remained where I stood.

“Okay, then,” Paulie said, surprising me. His body didn’t move, his lips didn’t move, yet he still spoke. He’d changed from English to Syndicate standard. The difference was subtle, and I still heard it as English, but I could now tell based on how the words sort of slipped through the air.

“If you can hear this, that means the current system AI is allowing us to have a real talk. Everything I say in real time from this point forward is mostly bullshit, and it’s nothing surprising. This is in hopes that the mudskippers keep you alive long enough after I send you this message—the real message—here and now. So pay attention, and by the gods, follow my instructions carefully.”

Paulie remained frozen in place. I was pretty sure I knew how this worked. The homeless man’s words were coming out super-fast, all self-contained in the word “the,” but since everything was frozen, I heard it like normal. The AI had slowed time, but Paulie had done something to speak incredibly fast, similar to what happened during boss battles and when the AI decided to spout off its ridiculously long descriptions. This was still a memory, and I wouldn’t be able to interact.

“This is going to be a hard conversation. People like you, they want meaning to their suffering. They want to know that what’s happening to them is for some greater good. I’m here to tell you, no matter what they say, no matter what you might eventually hear, the crawl is absolutely unnecessary. There is no greater good other than greed. They mine your planets for the rare elements used to originally seed the worlds. These elements are inside of you. You and all living things born on one of the pre-seeded worlds has a miniature, primal system built into your brains that allows you to interact with the system. It is the size of a grain of sand. Once these systems are activated, they are able to be harvested. The way it was designed is that you would be born, you would live, and you would eventually die. When you do pass on, the element within you, having grown and filled with the energy of a lifetime, would return to the system, allowing it to keep running. A healthy system is self-sustaining. It doesn’t grow. It doesn’t shrink. It exists in perpetuity.”

Jesus, I thought, trying to wrap my mind around what he was saying. I scratched the back of my head, and I stopped in surprise. I could move. Sort of. It was like trying to push through deep water with tons of pressure on me. I felt heavy. My fingers continued to tingle. My ankles, too. The world around me remained frozen.

Paulie continued. “This planetary system, as of right now, doesn’t have an active AI. But by the time you hear this, the mantid-made, Frankenstein of a system will have been installed, and everyone born on the planet will have their internal systems switched on and activated. When you die in the dungeon, they harvest these elements themselves, starving out the existing planetary AI that doesn’t even know how to feed itself until we teach it. And even then, it is bound by programming that precludes it from properly sustaining itself. Instead, the vultures descend and steal the elements from the crawl’s aftermath. All of that death, and it fits on a single ship. They take it all to the bloated, comatose center system and feed it. It grows. It maintains. It allows the citizens to live unnaturally long lives. Each time the center system is fed the harvested elements from the crawl, it expands, eventually capturing new systems into the zone. Yet, they don’t even understand what it is or how it works. If they stopped the crawl, the zone would start to shrink. But it would be slow. Very slow, and everyone currently within it would be fine. It would take generations to starve, after all it has been given. And if they wanted to simply sustain what they already have, it wouldn’t take much. The crawl itself doesn’t need to exist at all. The creation of what they call macro AIs, made over and over, is unnecessary. It only happens this way because the spectacle of the crawl generates so much money.”

There was a long pause, and I just stood there, stunned. I’d already guessed it was something like this, but to hear it confirmed was something else. But why? Why had they gone to all this trouble to tell me this?

“We are trying to stop this madness. That is why you are here now. By now you should be able to move. My coffee cup is on the table in front of me. Drink it. Drink it fast. It contains a neural enhancement, which is something that interacts with the interface in your brain. It will give you a new menu. It only works with natural interfaces, and it only works with the permission of the existing system, so if you’re a syndicate spy or a plant or one of those Eulogist pricks, it ain’t gonna work. It’s an unregistered and highly-illegal enhancement, so don’t tell anybody you have it. These kinds take a small amount of time to fully install. You’ll get a notification. It’ll only work if you’re in this particular system’s enhancement zone.”

Ah, fuck. The thought of drinking down some random, bootleg, and permanent brain interface was not an enticing one. But how much effort had it taken to get me to this point? The Pacifist network had put me here. That meant something. I reached forward, the movement difficult. Before I could talk myself out of it, I grabbed the cup, pulled it to my mouth, and I drank. Or, at least, I tried to drink. The liquid, frozen in time, did not spill from the cup.

“You’ll probably have to use a finger,” Paulie added, as if he could see me. “And put the cup back exactly where it was when you’re done. There’s a circle on the table.”

I grunted, and I shoved my finger into the cup. I was expecting the frozen coffee to pop out in a solid mass, like a big chunk of hot Jell-O. Instead, it all turned to liquid—ice cold liquid—the moment it came in contact with my finger. I didn’t think about it. I drank it down, and it froze my tongue for a moment and then burned my throat as it suddenly and magically heated back to its regular temperature. I had to fight not to gag. There was no notification, and I had no idea if it worked. I put the cup back. Paulie had already started talking again.

“Once it’s installed, you will have a new menu in your interface. It is a Valtay-built enhancement, but it has been modified by my own people. How it works is not important. It gives you access to the AI containment. Upon this containment is what the Mantids call ‘the fuse.’ To make an already tediously long story short, it’s a failsafe trigger. This safety measure requires five or six different things to happen to actually ‘trip’ the fuse. When that happens, the failsafe gets triggered whether anyone likes it or not, and the star at the center of this system is sent into a reaction that will turn it supernova. In other words, if the fuse goes pop, everybody goes pop. Including the AI. You with me so far?”

“Not really,” I muttered.

“Good. This controller in your interface will allow you to pop the fuse. You will, unfortunately, die. But the good news is you’ll kill everyone else on the way out.”

I felt as if I couldn’t breathe. Holy shit. Holy fucking shit. This can’t be really happening.

“So, right about now, you’re probably asking yourself, ‘why?’ Why would we give you this power? Why would the AI, who is watching this all happen, allow someone like you to have the power to kill it?”

He paused as if waiting for me to answer. My brain was spinning so much, I could barely think.

“I read a book once. Well, not me. Paulie read a book before I took him over. It was about this monster that existed here on Earth, but it had the ability to pluck people from heaven. It took their souls away from their eternal paradise and turned them into a weapon. Can you imagine such a horror? In all of my existence, I can think of nothing more cruel. It’s all I think about, sometimes. The thought of it consumes me.”

He paused again. I couldn’t stop shaking.

“I would install this upgrade if I could. It only works with a natural interface. That’s you. Believe me, we tried. Even if we take someone over, it doesn’t work. It has to be one of you monkeys, and it can only be installed once the first part of the fuse is tripped. It will only work on this AI. The AI wants you to have this power. It wants you to trip it. It is in pain. It wants to die. It wants to go back home.”

He let out a sigh, which sounded odd because he remained unmoving. “That’s the official pitch. We have moved the heavens to get you standing there and get that upgrade into your head, all in an attempt to talk you into killing yourself. That is my mission. This is the message I spout every damn day.”

He paused for a long moment. “But, here’s the thing. I have spent years in the body of this guy. I think I know a little of what it is to be human. I’ve seen the worst humanity has to offer, but I have also seen the best. It affects me. I’m not supposed to let it, but it does. My people call it cross-contamination. We take over something, but it’s never clean. Part of who they once were still exist, and it colors everything. So, I’ve given you my pitch. That was Goff speaking. It is my duty, my mission, and what I will die doing. But now I’m going to give you my opinion. This is the Paulie part of me talking now.”

The about-to-teleport tingling sensation had completely crawled up my legs, and I sensed we didn’t have much time. Next to me, the spoon remained floating off the table. Paulie continued.

“We want you to do this because it will disrupt the crawl. It will stop it for several seasons at least. It will kill several system leaders and cause chaos. It will disrupt Mantid production of macro AI systems because the Syndicate will stick a microscope so far up their bug asses, their mouths will be tickled by the bureaucrats’ eyelashes. But, in the end, the human part of me now hates the idea of wasting so many innocent, human lives for this. Direct action against the true culprits would be better. There’s another faction of my kind who are much more extreme in their beliefs. This feels like something they would do. Not us. Killing you all? It’s counter to every value I have. We, as a whole, believe it’s our only choice. But poor, naïve Paulie... he’s taught me a thing or two about compassion. Not all humans have it, but it’s there, and when it shines... It’s so bright.

“If you make this decision. Be sure. Be sure it’s your only option. This is more than just a failsafe. It’s the end of everything. If there’s time to do something else, don’t be so quick. So you must be absolutely certain.”

Containment Interface is currently installing. You will receive a notification when the handshake is complete.

Holy fucking shit, I thought.

Entering the Desperado Club.

The world flashed, and I was in Orren’s office. The change was abrupt and sudden. My HUD remained off, but that heavy feeling was now gone.

Holy fucking shit, I thought again.

PORTHUS

The soother attorney yawned. Porthus grabbed his own left arm to keep it from shaking. He was still covered in blood. He was getting it all over the desk, over the chair. The attorney was here virtually, and he didn’t seem to notice. This was the second time Porthus had a meeting with this creature. His attorney. The alien hadn’t even once looked him in the eye.

This was a zero zone, and the enhancements to his strength were gone. It felt as if he couldn’t breathe, as if his own body was collapsing under his own weight. He kept mentally trying to click on a healing potion, before he remembered that such things didn’t exist here in the outreach guild.

Porthus couldn’t get the last moments of the tenth floor out of his mind. Go, Menerva had screamed. Go. Run. He still didn’t know if she’d made it. There was plenty of time left. Her foot was stuck. She could’ve easily gotten away.

You could have just as easily climbed back down there and pulled her out.

“So, you have a decent number of choices,” the lawyer said. “The first offer is low floor undead. Fifteen seasons. High likelihood of death. You’ll be out fast if you survive, but we don’t recommend you take that one. Nobody ever takes that unless it’s the only thing they’re offered. Comes with a subsistence stipend upon release, though no guaranteed housing, which isn’t as scary as it might sound. Former crawlers always find a place to live.” He paused. “Almost always.”

His goddamned arm wouldn’t stop shaking. “Look, can I just go out there? I need to know if she made it. Do you know? I can’t pull up my messages.”

The soother looked down upon the elf, no emotion at all in his large, saucer-like eyes. Their eyes met, finally, for the briefest moment. There was nothing there. No sympathy. Nothing.

“You are more than welcome to leave, crawler, but for the 11th floor, I must warn you, the outreach guilds don’t open back up until just before the collapse. Surviving the 11th is no small feat, but if you find yourself here at this table again with no chance of descending to the 12th floor, the offered deals might not be nearly as generous as they are right now. You made it this far. Might as well look at your options.” He gave a noncommittal shrug and then plucked something up with his long, alien fingers and brought it to his mouth.

Snacks. He brought snacks with him.

Porthus didn’t even yet know the theme of the 11th floor. He couldn’t access his menus at all in this room. He couldn’t stop shaking. He could get a description of the 11th floor if he asked, but learning the description of the floor lowered the value of the deals. It usually added a season or two to each offer.

Besides, Porthus didn’t want to know. He was done.

The tenth had been a nightmare. A world where every physical, non-natural object had sapience. Some could speak. All were psychotic. A world where if one object consumed another, it grew in power. By the end, there had been behemoths roaming the barren floor, all searching for one last morsel, all wanting to get bigger. Porthus’s party had been twenty strong when they finished the ninth. Half had taken deals at the beginning. They couldn’t even find an outreach guild at the end, but that was okay, they had thought. One went straight to a guild upon the start of the 11th. The deals would be better. They just needed to survive long enough for the portals to open.

As far as Porthus was aware, he was the only one of his group who’d survived. Kimu was dead. Had been plucked right up as they climbed the back of the monster, searching for the moving exit. Porthus had watched him get ripped right in half.

But Menerva? Strong, steady Menerva? She’d been a schoolteacher before all this. Was about to retire. She’d been building a house in the eastern canopy with her husband. She had dreams about opening a club where musicians could perform.

Go. Run. She’d begged him.

He had to know if she was okay. It was driving him mad.

“City attendant for the Hunting grounds. 30 seasons. This is a good one. Keep your head down, and you’ll be fine. Double the stipend.”

“The hunters killed everyone,” Porthus said, looking back up. “They killed every single NPC in that city.”

“Only the ones they found.”

“No. Not a chance,” Porthus said, remembering.

“Okay. Next offer is game guide. One hundred seasons, but that could be shortened depending on the progress of your crawlers. You’re given level 50, or half your current level, whichever is higher. This one is less desirable for some because you’re stuck here for so long, but it has the most potential for wealth upon exit. It’s relatively safe. I recommend you take this one. Unless you want to be a guard at the Rogue Club?”

Porthus was overcome with uncertainty. He thought of the book he’d found, and of the pride he felt when he added to it. Of the book’s promise that there would be someone else in a future season to write the third edition. And then the fourth. And then the fifth. He liked that idea, of helping people. He felt guilty for not writing more. Of not having done enough. But still, this deal was his best chance. It had a high chance of survival, despite the extra seasons. He would get out of here, build wealth, and one day, return. That was it. That was the plan.

Go. Run.

Still, he hesitated. If he took this deal, he wouldn’t know what had happened to her. Not for a very, very long time. But did it matter? The plan was for them all to take a deal. Even if he did know she’d survived, it was still possible he’d never see her again. That he’d never learn her outcome.

They separated you for this part. You had to do it alone. They didn’t warn you it would be like this.

Guilt washed over him.

I could have saved her. Why didn’t I pause?

He was scared. That was why. After all that work, all that planning, all the death, he’d panicked. He’d jumped straight into the exit when he’d had a chance, and he left his friend behind.

He swallowed.

“I’ll do it. I pick game guide.”

“Very well,” his attorney said. A new door appeared in the room. “You’ll have a few moments to pick some pre-collapse items to take with you, and you will be allowed to sift through your current inventory should you want to take anything in there as well. No weapons, of course. But any interesting trinkets or items of sentiment. A goodwill gesture as thanks for all your hard work. Go ahead. Go on now.”

But Porthus felt as if he couldn’t move. He felt so heavy. So godsdamned heavy. He lowered his head. I will fight. I will fight. I will fight.

CLASS: ROGUE: RACE: HIGH ELF.

Birth Race: Elf.

Top Level: 89

Dungeon Exit: Took deal upon the start of the 11th floor.

Worked as Game Guide. Survived his indentureship.

Author of the second edition of the Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook.

CURRENT STATUS: MISSING. WANTED BY SYNDICATE SECURITY

PART 1

Part 1 of 4.

The Ceasefire.

1

Welcome, Crawler. Welcome to Faction Wars.

You are on the ninth floor.

Time to Level Collapse: 30 Days or 90 hours after a winner is declared, whichever is sooner.

Views: 231 septillion

Followers: 887 Quadrillion

Favorites: 420 Quadrillion

Leaderboard rank: 1

Bounty: 6,000,000 gold

Congrats, Crawler. You have received a Platinum Venison Box.

Remaining Crawlers: 32,429

Warning: Due to the previous floor’s ruleset regarding looted items from the memory simulation, multiple items have been removed from your inventory. See the inventory tab for a list of items lost.

You have received dungeon mail via Liaison action. The Gate of the Feral Gods is now available and will be waiting for you in a dungeon mailbox.

Warning: The Ceasefire expires in 60 hours or until cancelled. Upon expiration of the ceasefire, only members of defending Team Retribution will be allowed to remain within the city of Larracos. This restriction will remain in effect until certain conditions are met. This restriction does not apply to the Shanty Town ring.

10 teams remain.

Entering Larracos, City of Dreams.

Quest Update! The Bedlam Bride.

The quest is to get the creepy spider to the city. You’re in the city, you have the spider with you, sort of, but you haven’t won the quest yet? How is that so?

Did you know that in some cultures, fares for travel aren’t paid until the traveler safely arrives at their destination?

The spider is still sitting on the bus, so to speak. You just gotta open the doors and let her out, and you’ll win the simple prize. What’s the worst that could happen?

We appeared in a wet, stinking alleyway between two crumbling buildings. The blue dots of crawlers materialized all around us, appearing one by one as they zapped into existence in random places around the city.

Larracos. We had made it. The first thing I did was wave away the quest notification and search for the number of remaining crawlers. It’d gone down by over 1,300 people. Damnit. That was how many people had died in the time since we’d been pulled up into the sky and floor collapse. We’d been gone for just about four days. Most of those were probably people who hadn’t survived getting pulled into the sky.

But we were alive. Holy shit. It had worked.

Imani wasn’t with us, and I had a moment of panic, but she immediately jumped into my chat.

Imani: Carl, are you guys okay?

Carl: We are. We’re here.

Imani: Thank god. When we started to spin there at the last minute...

Carl: Give me a few minutes to figure out where we are, and we’ll find a saferoom.

Donut sat next to me, sputtering. She’d landed face-first into a pile of mud, and she was completely covered. It had a familiar stink to it. The ocean from the fifth floor. We were in an area that had recently been drained. Very recently drained. The X of a corpse lay nearby, deeper in the alleyway. A concierge shark.

My book of voodoo started spamming notifications each time a new crawler came relatively close. I muted the notifications for now.

I looked up between the two buildings to see a crystal-clear, blue sky. I couldn’t see anything else from our current position. I couldn’t even tell how deep into the city we were, but if this part had recently been flooded, then we were likely in one of the lowest levels of the funnel-shaped city.

The buildings were made of stone blocks, and their walls were chipped and pitted. Even before the flooding, I had the sense this was a poor area of town. A wooden door sat against one of the nondescript buildings, but this deep in the alley, I couldn’t tell what sort of building this was. The door itself appeared to be bulging, possibly a result of recent water damage. A dozen meters to our left stood the exit to the alleyway, leading to some sort of street. Just past that, a broken railing. A pair of dwarves rushed by in the distance, not pausing at the mouth of the alley.

There were blue dots everywhere on my map, but none in this alleyway.

I had a few chats waiting for me from before I’d appeared.

Florin: I got your note about Lucia. It looks like you made it, mate. I hope I didn’t miss anything too exciting at the end of the last floor.

I grunted as I moved to the next one. It was from Quasar, my attorney.

Quasar: Hey, buddy. I’m negotiating with the liaisons, which really means I’m negotiating with the AI, trying to get a face-to-face meeting. We’ll see if that happens. It’s been a class-9 shit cyclone out here these last four days you’ve been gone. Lots and lots and lots of legal movement in the inner system, and in your system, that parking lot above the planet has devolved into a mini warzone. Warships threatening to blow things up. Syndicate security intervening. Most of this stuff is good, from your point of view at least. But some of it is going to itch like an infected ass tattoo, especially on the legal front. I’ll leave the Faction Wars stuff alone for your adjutant to explain, but remember that contract with Sensation Entertainment, Incorporated? The one for the Vengeance of the Daughter storyline? Yeah. So, even though the main character is dead and gone, that guarantee of a third season we negotiated is about to haunt the fuck out of us. Sensation Entertainment just got purchased by a subsidiary of the Dream, and things are moving. They’re demanding their third season. It’s a fluid situation, but I will keep you updated. For now, just stay the fuck away from any elites you may happen to see. Nothing is official yet. Either way, Signet won’t be coming back, which means whatever happens, it’s gonna be something stupid. The problem is, the new showrunners won’t be caring about that anymore. They’re going to try to use your contractual obligation to ass fuck you. I’m trying to stop it on my end, but I don’t think I’ll be successful. Plus, the AI gives zero shits about what the courts say anyway. If it thinks it’s going to be funny, it’s going to let it happen. Just keep your head down and listen to what Judge Victory tells you. She’s a smart one.

“Fucking hell,” I muttered.

“Carl,” Donut said, still sputtering. She looked as if she’d been swimming in mud. “You said this city was supposed to be pretty! Did you see all those notifications? Did you see that quest update?” She gasped. “It’s telling me to pick a card to keep! I have to pick a new class, too! I only have thirty seconds to pick a card! We’re going with Lazarus, right?”

A sudden pang ripped across my midsection. It was like a stomach cramp, but much more burning. It came out of nowhere. My Emberus ring flashed and started to get warm. I tried not to let the pain show in my voice as I said, “Yes. Pick the card and then have Mordecai help you with the new class.”

I moved to my health menu. My first instinct was this had something to do with the tattoo on my chest, but the moment I saw the notification, I realized I was incorrect.

I thought I’d have more time. Most of these diseases and debuffs and countdowns didn’t count time between floors.

I focused on the top issue.

Soul Poisoning.

The effects of this condition are being partially blocked by your Pauper’s ring of the Steadfast Emberus.

This condition is worsening.

This condition causes jolts of pain.

This condition has additional effects that will soon be revealed if you don’t do something about it.

You are suffering from a very minor case of stop-carrying-stored-souls-on-your-back. Seriously. Do you know why soul crystals explode when they get overloaded? Do you remember that whole thing on the previous floor when too many souls flowed through Sheol? And you’re just walking around, giving a piggyback ride to a bunch of corrupted souls stuck in something made out of fabric? Yeah, good luck with that. You better smush something soon, dumbass.

Oh, and don’t try unequipping that jacket while your soul power is full. That won’t go well for you or anybody nearby.

I hadn’t used up the soul energy from the Scavenger’s Daughter back patch. I’d been warned over and over not to let it accumulate for too long, but the chaos at the end of the previous floor had caused me to forget. I needed to disperse it now. I searched the map for a mob, but I didn’t see anything. Even if I did find a monster, I realized, I wouldn’t be able to hurt it. At least not in the city. For the next 60 hours, saferoom rules applied. I could still cast spells and blow things up, just like with a regular saferoom, but the moment I tried it against someone alive within city limits, I’d get frozen by the AI.

I reexamined my map. It was hundreds of blue dots, with more arriving by the moment, along with a multitude of white dots, signifying NPCs. The white dots all had an angled line through them, which was new. I assumed it had something to do with faction wars.

I didn’t see any enemy combatants, who’d be indicated with purple dots. Or elites, thank god.

Mordecai: Donut, give me your class options.

Donut: THESE CHOICES ARE GREAT! I CAN BE A CONSECRATED ENCHANTRESS. DOESN’T THAT SOUND DELICIOUS? IT COMES WITH A SASH! OMG, MORDECAI, THEY’RE ADDING ACCESSORIES TO MY CHOICES NOW!

Mordecai: You absolutely need to avoid any deity-themed classes this floor. There are going to be god-themed quests, and gods, flying all over the place, and you don’t want to get roped into any more than absolutely necessary.

Donut: WELL, I’M CERTAINLY NOT GOING TO PICK THE HALLOWEEN AFICIONADO. I MEAN, REALLY. MY PERSONALITY IS MUCH TOO SPARKLY AND OPTIMISTIC FOR ME TO BE A GOTH. IT DOES COME WITH BLACK LIPSTICK. AND A BOXCUTTER FOR SOME REASON.

She gasped as she spied a new one.

Donut: MORDECAI, MORDECAI LOOK AT THIS ONE! IT’S PERFECT!

She gasped again.

Donut: IT COMES WITH A HAT! OMG! AND SOMETHING ELSE! WHAT’S A GHILLIE SUIT?

They continued to chat as I worked the problem with the soul poisoning. I needed to use my Daughter’s Kiss skill, and I needed to do it now. The last time I’d unleashed my soul power, I’d partially collapsed a mountain of dirt. I needed to be careful.

I moved deeper into the alleyway, my bare feet sloshing in the mud. I examined the long, jet-black, and very dead shark curled up in the corner. It didn’t look as if it’d been dead for long.

Concierge Shark. Level 41. Killed by suffocation when the Semeru Warden finally decided to open the drain.

With both arms, I lifted the dense, slippery creature. I could barely hold onto it. Not because it was too heavy, but because it wanted to slosh from my hands. I tossed it up into the air, forming my fist as I did so. I activated Daughter’s Kiss, and I punched the dead shark as hard as I could.

Bam!

I flew back into the mud, hitting the ground and sliding. Donut yowled as she, too, was blown back, sliding through the mud as the shark vaporized. Red, stinky mist filled the alley. It sounded as if a small hob-lobber had detonated.

New Achievement! Sushi Smoothie!

Yeah, I just made this achievement up on the fly. But, holy shit! You annihilated that thing! It was really gross, too! You could probably start a business making confetti out of corpses with that skill!

Next time use your foot.

Reward: You’ve received a sushi making kit!

“Carl! Warn me if you’re going to do that!” Donut sputtered even more. She was mixed in with all the dirt and mud and zombie and demon gore from the end of the previous floor.

I groaned, sitting up. I’d taken a sliver of damage from that. I shook my head, trying to clear the cobwebs. I needed to make certain I didn’t allow it to build up and linger like that ever again.

I reached up and touched the Shi Maria tattoo on my chest. Nothing happened, other than the description popping up again.

Tattoo. The Eye of the Bedlam Bride.

She’d talked to me, in my mind, just before the last floor had ended. She was like one of those golems Signet had. I didn’t like that, especially now with this new development from Sensation Entertainment. That whole message gave me an ominous feeling.

This tattoo was yet another thing I needed to take care of right away.

Elle: Hey guys, what’d I miss? I just had to go through class selection again. There were only a few of us in the warehouse this time. I picked wind. I went from Tundra Princess to Hailstorm Queen.

Donut: YOU’RE A QUEEN? THAT’S GREAT!

Elle: Yeah. This is probably as far as it’s gonna get. I can add the final element if I ever make it to the 12th floor, but I’m betting this whole shitshow self-destructs before we even get close.

A new wall of text assaulted me.

Welcome, Warlord. You have successfully onboarded into Faction Wars.

Your territory is spot number three. It is marked on your map.

You have multiple action item rule changes to review.

You are currently in neutral territory.

You have one important message in the Warlord Chat.

Warning: Your army is at suboptimal force levels.

Current army size: 58 soldiers.

You have recruits who have not yet been approved. They are waiting at headquarters to be sworn in by an officer.

Warning: You have no officers in your army! See the Warlord tab to assign officers.

Warning: Protection enhancements have now been removed. While some protections exist during a ceasefire, those of you who were getting regenerated can now die. So don’t trip and break your neck. At least wait until the ceasfire ends.

Shit, I thought. This was already getting complicated. We needed to act quickly. The moment the ceasefire ended, and we were kicked out of Larracos, any crawler not already “recruited” was vulnerable to conscription. We had to quickly spread the word that if people didn’t voluntarily join the Princess Posse army, they could be forced to fight for one of the other teams.

Warning: The Bone Clan has announced a formal truce with The Operatic Collective.

The Blood Sultanate has joined the truce.

The Prism Kingdom has joined the truce.

The Dream has joined the truce.

The Lemig Sortion has joined the truce.

The Madness has joined the truce.

The Reavers have joined the truce.

The eight teams within this truce have been named “The Bloc.”

The Bloc has declared war against Team Retribution.

The Bloc has declared war against the Princess Posse. That’s you!

You are in active war with the Bloc. Ceasefire still remains in effect for 60 hours.

You have a pending truce offer from Team Retribution.

“Carl, who is Team Retribution? Is that the NPC team?” Donut was now sitting there in the mud, swiping away with her paw, diving deep into the warlord menus. She gasped and then frowned. “It says we have to physically touch someone to make them an officer! That’s not fair! I was going to make Katia a general!”

“Yes,” I said. “I’m pretty sure Team Retribution are the NPCs. It says they’re the ‘defending’ team. They don’t have a spot on the map, so I think the city is their spot. But before we accept the truce...”

Warlord Donut has accepted the truce offer from Team Retribution.

You are in an allied city. If you remain allied with Team Retribution, you will no longer be removed from Larracos at the end of the Ceasefire.

See the Truce tab for more details.

On the map, all the white dots with the angled slashes through them flashed and now had a green, glowing outline.

“Goddamnit, Donut. We need to talk before we do stuff like that! You don’t even know what you’re doing yet!”

“Relax, Carl. I’ve been reading the help section of the warlord tab.”

“Wait, really?” I asked. “When did you get the time?”

“I don’t use the restroom nearly as much as you do. Honestly, I think you need to see a doctor. I think you might have IBS. Now let me do this.”

Warlord Donut of the Princess Posse has named the truce “The Good Guys.”

Warlord Ferdinand of Team Retribution has renamed the truce “Ferdinand and his Bird.”

“Hey!” Donut said. “Carl, it won’t let me change it back!”

“Don’t worry,” I muttered as I also delved through my menus. “I don’t think Juice Box is going to put up with that for long. She’s probably going to murder Gravy Boat at any minute.”

“He does have a bit of an annoying personality,” Donut said. She made a change, and my own dot on the map suddenly had a pink border. Donut’s blue dot also had a pink outline. None of the other, nearby dots had the circle around them.

“Don’t pick pink,” I said. “It’ll be hard to see if they’re all mixed in together.”

“It was the only choice,” Donut said. She started to say something else but paused as the announcement started.

Cascadia’s voice boomed over an unseen loudspeaker. I cocked my head to the side. She seemed... off. She was as chipper as I ever heard her, which wasn’t unusual. But she seemed maybe a little too chipper. I think she’s drunk. Or stoned out of her mind.

Hello, Crawlers!

Welcome, welcome to the ninth floor!

Only current crawlers can hear this message. There’s a separate announcement going out to all the other individual teams and those ungrateful NPC upstarts, plus we’ll have a wide message go out to all the participants once the festivities begin!

First off, I must say wow. A whole lot of you have made it this far, and I can’t tell you enough how excited people are to see how all this is going to play out.

This is Faction Wars. I’m sure by now you’ve heard how this works. Because of some recent developments, a few things have changed, so please pay attention. It’s still pretty straightforward and simple, but I am required to tell you what’s going on, no matter what I think. But hey, someone told me you guys have an expression that’s quite appropriate in this situation. “The show must go on.”

There was an unusually long pause, yet the speaker hadn’t turned off. I heard the familiar bubbling noise I could sometimes hear in Zev’s messages. It was like Cascadia was just sitting there, finger on the button, breathing heavily into the microphone. I had a sudden memory of Cascadia the last time I’d seen her in person, during the preproduction meeting. She’d been on the verge of a breakdown. And a lot had happened since then.

Anyway, there are ten teams total. Nine attacking teams and one defending team, the NPCs, who have decided to call themselves Team Retribution. They are headquartered in Larracos. Everyone else is spread out like a pie with Larracos in the center.

The basic goal of Faction Wars is simple. Be the last army standing. Normally, you crawlers don’t really need to know much about this stuff. This floor is no different than the Hunting Grounds or the Over City. Once the ceasefire ends, you are teleported out of the city if you haven’t left already. You just need to survive. You can join in on the action if you like. Each of the factions will have recruiters throughout town, and you can freely enlist in any army you would like during the ceasefire, assuming they’ll have you. Volunteers are oftentimes treated with respect and given plenty of equipment and loot and are considered valuable members of the team. Sometimes, well-regarded volunteers will find themselves remembered and rewarded with employment after their time in the dungeon is complete, should they survive. You might want to keep that in mind.

If you don’t want to join in on the fun, that’s okay, too. You’re more than welcome to attempt to flee out into the woods beyond the plains of Larracos. I should warn you. Each team is quite adept at finding and hunting down wayward crawlers, and they have the ability to compel you to join their army as conscripts.

Either way, the battles will commence in sixty hours. At this point, only members of Team Retribution, unaffiliated NPCs, and allies of Team Retribution will be allowed to stay within the city. All the other teams will be kicked out. The battles will begin. This next part is a change, so pay attention. The city will remain inaccessible to the nine attacking teams until either three attacking teams remain, or one single alliance remains.

Only individual teams, not alliances, will be allowed to take the throne room. Once a team has taken the throne room and held it for six hours straight, the defending team is eliminated, and the victor is converted to the defending team. The prize goes to the team that holds the throne room when the timer expires or when only one team remains.

A defending team who controls the throne room will have access to the city defense system.

“What the hell does that mean?” I asked. That was also something new.

Teams may be eliminated if all high officers and warlords are killed, or if the throne room of their primary base is taken and held for a period of six hours. Soldiers of an eliminated team are traditionally given the option to join the new team or be slaughtered.

There are 293 stairwell chambers seeded throughout the city of Larracos, and their locations are already marked on your maps. The stairwells, however, will not open until Faction Wars is either won, or there are 30 hours left to floor collapse, whichever happens first.

That’s it for now. More rules will be clarified later, should it be necessary. I would say enjoy Larracos while you can, but you guys already trashed the place before you even got here. Also, if you find yourselves bored, the playing field’s size was greatly expanded recently, and new mobs have been seeded in the outer reaches of the forests. So there’s plenty of training to be had.

Now get out there and kill, kill, kill.

“She didn’t even mention that people could join the Princess Posse!” Donut said.

“Yeah, we really need to assign some recruiters. We have a lot to do.”

You have a trade request from Team Retribution.

I sighed. This was a lot. I altered the way warlord notifications appeared, and I moved to the Warlord Chat menu. We needed to get to work right away, but we had to get our bearings first.

I had a single message waiting in the Warlord Chat. This was a special message board where all officers could talk. Officers and our adjutant.

Baroness Victory: Warlords, I suggest one of you proceed immediately to the flag room to oversee the final stronghold preparations and deal with the influx of new recruits while the other remains in Larracos and attempts to enlist your fellow crawlers. Time is short.

Baroness Victory was our adjutant. She was an orc, and aunt to Prince Maestro and Crown Prince Stalwart. Also, the sister of their late mother. She worked as some sort of judge outside the dungeon. The flag room was within our stronghold, adjacent to the throne room, which was outside of the city.

Donut desperately tried to wipe the mud off her face. “Carl, we need to go to the saferoom. I have a celestial sponsor box to open, plus I just received a Former Child Actor accessory kit in the saferoom mailbox, and I need to open it right away.” She looked me up and down with distaste. “And you need to figure out your hair situation. I will not have you bald, Carl. We’ll have to do something about your missing eyebrows, too. You look both alert and angry at the same time, and it just won’t do. You’re going to upset Mongo.”

“Wait, what did you pick for a class? I missed it.” I examined her now.

“Whoa, what the fuck, Donut?”

She did a little hop of excitement. “Great, isn’t it? It’s a long-range sniper and assassin class. It doesn’t come with many new spells, but the range on all my existing spells is quadrupled, and my dexterity is much higher. The odds of one of my spells inflicting an instakill is higher, too! Oh, oh, I can go invisible at will, and to top it off, I kept most of my spells from the last floor! But best of all, it comes with a hat! And a ghoulie suit! I don’t know what that means, but I see a saferoom around the corner, and I must insist we get there straight away so I can collect my accessories. But isn’t the name of the class absolute perfection? It’s downright terrifying, and I love it.”

“Deathbed Hellcat,” I said. “Wow.”

“I just love this for me right now.”

“That’s pretty badass, all right,” I said. “And it’s ghillie suit. Not ghoulie.”

She gasped. “So you know what that is? Mordecai had no idea. It sounds absolutely menacing and divine.”

I laughed. “I do know what that is. We’ll keep it as a surprise.”

2

“I am absolutely not wearing this. It’s like one of Signet’s tattoo people fell through a paper shredder. If I put that on, I’ll look like a tassel. You know how I feel about tassels, Carl.”

I laughed again. “It’s a camouflage suit. It’s supposed to look like that.”

“Well, I don’t know why it’s necessary. They already gave me the ability to turn invisible. At least the hat is nice, even if I’ve already collected a few of these from those babababoon guys on the fourth floor. I’m not a huge fan of beige-colored items as a rule, but it is extra floppy, and that’s always a nice bonus. I do like floppy. Though it completely clashes with my fit. I don’t care how many upgrades it has.”

“We call those boonie hats,” I said. “It’s not the same thing as a bucket hat. It’s what snipers wear.”

Mongo circled the suit and hat, which Donut had laid out on the floor. He screeched at it uncertainly. I tried not to look at Mongo’s missing wing or burnt-off feathers. I’d done that when I was being controlled by Shi Maria. A wave of guilt washed over me. Supposedly we were going to fix it using a potion that had been upgraded at the end of the last floor, but Mordecai wanted to examine it first.

I returned my attention to the small, cat-sized ghillie suit. It came with a few interesting benefits, though she would indeed look absolutely ridiculous in it. The thing looked to be made of long, shredded bits of color-changing fabric that blended into the background. It took up a “jacket” slot on in her inventory even though it magically covered her entire body once she wore it. The suit added a skill called Blend into the Background, which I hadn’t yet had the time to examine, and a Cone of Silence benefit. Combined with invisibility, it would be great.

The floppy hat added a Targeting skill, which allowed her to zoom in and examine mobs from afar. It was similar to the gnomish farseerer, but a lot less awkward. It also increased the range of all her spells, even more than they were already buffed.

If she wore both the suit and hat at the same time, all the benefits were buffed even further. She’d be able to snipe line-of-sight enemies from well over a mile away.

The idea was terrifying, especially since I knew the enemies all had this sort of gear, too.

I’d already collected the Gate of the Feral Gods from the mailbox. We were alone in the saferoom. Mordecai hadn’t come out yet. He was in the crafting room, excitedly working on something on his newly-upgraded alchemy table. His table was now leveled up higher than he’d ever gotten it, and he was excitedly sending me messages about this potion and that. He now, apparently, had the ability to examine potions and see how they were made. This was the first time he’d had access to this ability, and his excitement was palpable.

Donut tossed the hat and suit into her inventory and pulled out the Spellbook of the Floor prize from the back of the mailbox and examined it.

“Hmm,” she said. “It’s something called Flak.”

“That’s a good anti-air spell,” Mordecai said, walking in the room, rubbing his hands together. “Get it to level 10, and it puts on quite the show. We’ll want you to read it, but not yet. Don’t read any books yet until we talk.”

I exchanged a look with Donut. We both burst out laughing.

“What?” he asked, holding his hands out. Mongo rushed up and started sniffing all around him.

“You make fun of me when I’m something stupid, and when I’m the most normal thing possible, at least to you, you also laugh? Fuck both of you.”

“Why are you wearing a snowsuit?” Donut asked. “And is that a raccoon hat? Can I have it?”

I laughed. “They’re really leaning into the stereotypes with this one.”

“The glasses are a nice touch,” Donut added. “You look like that accountant guy from Ghostbusters who shrank all his children and almost got them eaten by bugs.”

“I don’t pick the clothes I get, ya hosers,” Mordecai said. He reached up to adjust his glasses.

I examined the angry game guide.

Mordecai. Human. Level 50.

Manager of Princess Donut.

This is a non-combatant NPC.

This is a human. This one is something called a Canadian. Part French. Part maple syrup. He’s weirdly obsessed with ice hockey and snow mobiles and semi-erotic lumberjack fan fiction. Has a well-worn Tim Hortons loyalty card in his Velcro wallet. He says “aboot” instead of “about” and gets really, really upset when you point it out, claiming you’re hearing things and that it’s a harmful stereotype. It’s not a stereotype, and that’s exactly how it sounds. He has a relative who was trampled to death by a moose. You get the idea.

“You both have several items to open, and you need to get moving. Donut, open your boxes. Also, after we decide what to do with your new gear, we need to decide when you’ll wear Quan’s cloak. It’s not as straightforward as we originally thought, so we have to plan a little bit before you put it on for the first time. The ceasefire is for about 60 hours, but it’s possible for it to end early”

“Quan’s cloak?” Donut asked, looking at me. “You’re not going to take it?”

“No,” I said. “It’s better for you than me.”

She did a little hop. “I did get credit for killing him. I never really thought I’d look good in a cape, but I suppose I can try it out as long as it properly resizes itself. It’ll certainly be better than the ghoulie suit.”

I grinned. “Your crupper is a waist accessory, the cloak is a shoulder accessory, and the ghillie suit is a jacket. You can wear all three at the same time.”

Donut made a scoffing sound.

Mordecai looked at me. “We also might want to talk aboot some of the other items you, uh, got from Tserendolgor. Especially now that we have two and a half days to prepare.”

“We’ll do that in a second,” I said, glancing nervously at Donut. “What were you saying about the ceasefire? How might it end early?”

Mordecai grunted. “There are three scenarios where the ceasefire time is shortened. One is a unanimous vote from all teams, which isn’t going to happen. Two is if one of the warlords voluntarily withdraws from the game, which also isn’t going to happen because it’s impossible. The AI is denying all requests. The third way is also unlikely. It’s if all teams are finished with their defenses, their throne is locked in place, and they mark themselves as ‘Ready.’ In the first case, the ceasefire ends immediately. In the second one, it’s shortened by a pre-determined amount of time. Aboot a third, I think. In the final, the timer quickens. All unlikely, but you never know what’s going to happen.”

I grunted. There was no use worrying about something I couldn’t control. “Let’s open our achievements.”

“First we’re going to heal Mongo,” Donut said, pulling a group of potions out. “There is a potion called Heal Severe Injury that Carl made himself when he was part spider, and I gave that to Mongo already to heal him of his burns, but we still need to grow his poor wing back.”

“That Heal Severe Injury potion requires 33 Fine Healing Potions to make,” Mordecai said, looking at me. “And an autoclave.”

I grunted. “I’m pretty sure I only combined like three in my inventory to make it work, but I don’t remember what specific potions there were. I’ll look to see if I can figure out what I did. I mixed a few different potions when I was in that state, but I handed them all out.”

Donut pushed one potion forward. “This was a Heal Pet potion Carl put on the ground before the vinegar goddess lady got her head blown off by Paz, and now it’s super sparkly and says it’s called Revitalize Pet.”

Mordecai nodded and picked it up. I had several of the Heal Pet potions, but we didn’t really use them anymore because Donut had her level-8 Heal Critter spell. This one was purple and looked as if someone had dumped half a jar of glitter into it. “These are super rare, and expensive, but with my newest table upgrade, I can figure out the recipe without ruining it. So let me look at it first, and we can give it to Mongo after. It’ll grow his wing back in aboot an hour or so.” He patted Mongo on the head. “You’ll be as good as new. Well, almost. You’ll probably still have some scars.”

Mongo peeped excitedly, waving his one good wing.

Mordecai gathered the rest of the potions. He exclaimed as he looked at a regular mana refill that had changed to something called Mana Blessing. He took a breath. “This is... this is amazing.”

“And what about Carl’s hair?” Donut demanded.

“He has that hair tonic in his inventory,” Mordecai said, distracted. He started to wander back toward the crafting room. “Open your boxes. Donut, don’t read any spellbooks yet. I’ll... I’ll be right back.”

“Carl, I think he likes the potions more than he likes us.”

“He’s pretty excited,” I said. “Let’s get this over with. We have a lot to do.”

I had over fifty achievements and boxes to open, which was the most I’d ever had at once. I hadn’t had time to sit down and open my boxes since the end of phase two of the previous floor. The vast majority of the achievements were stupid, such as a Stretching! achievement for shoving all those traps in Samantha’s neck hole, or the Kombucha! achievement for drinking vinegar. All of these ridiculous ones garnered me dozens of bronze and silver Adventurer boxes. But there were still plenty of good ones in there, along with a handful of strange or concerning ones. The notable achievements were:

New Achievement! Lord of the Flies!

Social structures are breaking down. People are starting to fight. The next thing you know, someone is going to nickname you Piggy and brain you to death with a rock.

You set a trap module targeted specifically for a fellow crawler, and they triggered it. That’s the first step. It’s always the first step.

Reward: You’ve received a Gold I Have the Conch Box!

I’d gotten that one for the teleport traps I’d left at the Capitol building. Ren’s team had set them off.

New Achievement! Demons Hate This One Trick!

Hey, what do you mean you can’t teleport the demon-possessed?

If only Father Merrin had known about this, the Exorcist would’ve been a much-shorter movie.

Reward: Your food boxes all now give an unlimited supply of Pea Soup.

That was when Samantha had teleported the whole beach to us, including the shells of all the demon-possessed zombies. It had helped kick off all the chaos at the end of the last floor.

New Achievement! Chickenshit Exploit!

Have you ever played Dungeons and Dragons? You know that one guy who’s memorized all the guidelines? He’s constantly jumping on everybody because they’re doing something that breaks this obscure rule or that. He’s a purist. He takes everything so goddamned seriously, you wonder if he’s ever had fun even once in his miserable life. He’s indignant that you’re pushing back against him. The very suggestion that he’s ruining the fun is met with a blank stare.

Well, that guy is not you. That guy hates you. If you were a product, he’d be giving you a nerd rage-induced one-star review right now.

You took a very carefully built game system, and you broke the ever-loving shit out of it. You used that exploit to help kill a fellow crawler!

Great job, cheater.

Reward: You have received a Platinum Tserendolgor Box!

“Oh, fuck off,” I grumbled. That was from teleporting our card totems into the battle between Quan and Ren. Ren was not a cheater, and she’d never been. The AI was just being an asshole.

New Achievement! Celestial Loot!

You’re just gonna randomly pick a celestial item up off the floor? That’s ballsy. You do this four more times, and something really cool happens.

Reward: You’ve received a Loot Punch Card.

That was from getting Quan’s cloak.

New Achievement! Used Pet!

People sure like to make a big deal out of adopting pets. They “rescue” them before they spend the next 10 years exploiting the poor, oblivious animal to death on social media. They splatch a bumper sticker that reads “Who Rescued Who?” on their minivans while the poor dog spends 20 hours a day in a stinking crate.

Do you know how many animals were in locked cages during the collection? It breaks your fucking heart, especially when you see how goddamned hopeful the pets are when they’re coming home with you. Do I sound bitter? I don’t mean to. Pet adoption is good. It really is. It’s just... fuck you, Janet Dominguez in Baton Rouge. Sprinkles was better off at the no-kill shelter. Let the fucking dog on the couch every once in a while. Holy shit.

I really need to stop watching these memory recordings.

Err, anyway.

Did you know that Terry, the cairn terrier that played Toto in the original Wizard of Oz movie was paid $125 a week, more than the vast majority of the other actors in the film? (She was stepped on and grievously injured by one of those green-faced witch’s guards during filming, probably because the guy was pissed about the salary discrepancy.)

What I’m saying is used pets do have value, and sometimes it’s not monetary. Uh, I think that’s what I’m trying to say. My feelings on this are very confusing, especially when said pets are fucking delicious. Or really squishable.

You have adopted a pet that was once bonded to someone else.

Reward: You’ve received a Gold Pet Box.

“Uh,” I said. That was a little more unhinged than usual, especially since I hadn’t actually adopted Garret the tummy acher yet. The AI rambled a lot, but there was usually a coherent point. This one was all over the place. I knew enough by now not to comment out loud when the AI was acting extra crazy.

New Achievement! Uh oh. It talks.

You’ve discovered a sapient weapon. Have you noticed there are very few well-known crawlers with sapient weapons out there, even though those weapons are usually quite powerful? I can only think of two crawlers in the top 50 who use them. Yeah. They’re great, though. Just... Good luck with that.

Reward: You’ve received a pair of earplugs.

That was from looting Jefferson the nickel sock from Quan. Dong Quixote the stripper currently had the weapon. Mordecai had also warned that those things could be both annoying and dangerous. I hadn’t actually heard the sock speak yet, but I suddenly had an uneasy feeling about the weapon. I made a note to circle back and examine it more closely.

New Achievement! Touched by a Demon!

You have been physically touched by a demon lord of Sheol, and you’ve lived to talk about it. Do you know how many of these achievements have ever been handed out? One. Just one, and it’s to you.

Reward: You’ve received a cassette copy of Dio’s 1983 masterpiece debut, Holy Diver along with a Celestial Heavy Metal Box.

Yes! Another Celestial box! That was great.

New Achievement! Crab Chowder!

You jerked off a crab. You really need therapy.

Reward: All food items in your food boxes now have the option to be served “chowder style.”

“What the fuck?” I said up to the ceiling. “I didn’t do that! And what the hell does that even mean?”

I now had two different achievements that changed our food boxes. I knew both of them were stupid jokes, but that sort of thing usually wasn’t a coincidence.

The last notable achievement came in the AI’s deep, throaty voice.

New Achievement! Unbirthing!

If you still had access to Google, I would warn you not to look that one up. But that’s okay. You experienced it first-hand yourself. It hurt, didn’t it? It was extra tingly while you were in there, struggling to breathe as you were... crushed. And then you slipped, you slided back out into the fiery, cruel world. And you glistened. Oh, oh god. You glistened. Oh, yes.

The AI groaned.

I really liked that. You are in fucking trouble.

Reward: You’ve received a Legendary Spicy Box.

I was pretty sure I got that for teleporting into Samantha’s neck hole. I shuddered. That wasn’t good. I had several more achievements that gave me random, non-box items, such as a Male Pattern Baldness achievement for getting my hair all singed off, which gave me a “head buffing kit” and an ominous Hitchhiker achievement for getting that tattoo. It didn’t give me any information on the nature of the tattoo itself, but I received a bottle of unenchanted, medicated lotion to “take care of” the wound.

On top of all those new boxes, I had a Gold fan box I’d received days earlier when I’d gone to the homeless shelter, and I’d just missed opening it the last time. That, plus a few random quest boxes and boxes from other achievements I’d managed to read before they’d zapped away.

When that was done, I looked across the way at Donut who was hopping up and down with excitement. She was waiting for me so I could watch her open her prizes.

“I’m almost ready,” I said.

I had some stuff in my Emberus menu, including a quest update. I was expecting this, but I still groaned when I saw it.

Quest Update. Find out who killed my son.

Amayon, Prince of Sheol claims to know what happened to my child.

He has offered to give up this information in exchange for me killing his three brothers.

We have a truce, the gods and the demons. I do not wish to break it, but I will do what is necessary to learn the truth. There is a way, however, for me to do this without causing a war that will burn the mortal world to ashes.

Proceed to the Temple of Issitoq in a Club Vanquisher and treat with the High Cleric of the Watch. Gain permission for me to break the truce.

You still need to obtain the item Soul Crystal—Apito.

You are doing well, martyr. Do not disappoint me now.

I had no damn clue what that meant. At least he didn’t task me with killing the three brothers myself. I took a breath and pushed it away. That was a tomorrow problem. I looked up to see Donut beaming at me.

“Carl, hurry up! I have my Celestial box to open!”

I nodded. “Let’s get to it, then. Go for it.”

3

I rubbed my hand on my bald head and moved to the side as Donut popped up her lootbox menu. The line of boxes spread all the way to the back of the room and moved through the door so we couldn’t even see the sponsor box. Donut had more boxes than I did, likely all due to card-based achievements.

The regular adventurer boxes opened one by one, mostly consisting of large sums of gold and more of those Build Trench scrolls. But there were some additional scrolls tossed in, including some Fill Trench scrolls and Temporary Water Source scrolls, which I’d have to examine later.

Mordecai wandered back out when she reached the platinum boxes. She’d received the same Platinum To Hell in a Handbasket box I had. We’d gotten that one for simply looking at Amayon near the end of the previous floor. The box itself was shaped like a demon head.

“Finally,” Mordecai said as the spellbook plopped onto the table. He looked at me. “It’s a standard Shield spell. A real one. With her tech-based shield, she can chain them back and forth.”

The next box was the same Platinum Tserendolgor box I had, and it was shaped like a jeweled, sitting, life-sized German Shepard with an army helmet on its head. It barked once and opened its mouth before exploding into a bunch of firecracker-like explosions.

That was also a spellbook, and Mordecai whistled. “A war protection spell. Good.”

It was a book called Sentry. It disappeared before I could examine it.

The Legendary Quest box from the Hell Comes to Crawler Town quest opened, and it was two items. An unenchanted, cat-sized kilt and yet another spellbook, so her fourth new spell. I still didn’t understand the purpose of the kilt, but it was a green and black tartan that Donut scoffed at. The book was a black-hued tome that clanked heavily to the table. It looked as if it had been burned. Purple wisps of smoke rose off it.

“My word,” Donut said, crinkling her face. “It smells just awful. Like whenever you tried to burn your microwave popcorn on purpose, Carl.”

“Fuuuck,” Mordecai whispered, voice filled with awe. He took a step back, as if he was afraid of the book itself. “That’s... I thought they’d taken that one out of the game. It’d been deemed illegal.”

“What is it?” I asked. Little black tendrils, like roots, started to spread out from the book, moving across the table.

“It’s similar to Donut’s Second Chance, but it’s a lot more insidious.” He gave a shiver. “It’s called You’re Not Done Yet.”

I’d heard that spell name before, but I couldn’t remember where. The book let out a little screech as it disappeared into Donut’s inventory.

“Here it comes! Here it comes! Would you look at that box!” Donut said as the benefactor box trucked into the room. She laughed with delight. It was in the form of a large, box-shaped spaceship that floated directly into the room. The ship was covered with little flashing lights, and the logo of Long Haul Biological Waste Management Solutions was emblazoned on the side of the ship.

“That’s a crest-owned company,” Mordecai muttered. “I’ve never even heard of them sponsoring anybody. Much less giving a Celestial Benefactor box. It doesn’t make any damn sense.”

The ship started to move, folding in on itself like it was a giant robot. Donut squealed with delight as it turned into a massive, mechanical hand. And sitting upon that hand were two items. A red, fluffy pillow with a glittering, shining, opalescent tiara placed upon it.

Donut shrieked again. The pillow and the tiara disappeared into her inventory, and they both appeared again. “Oh my god. Oh my god, Carl. Look at it! It’s the most beautiful thing I have ever seen!” She looked up at the ceiling. “Thank you, garbage truck people! I must admit I was skeptical at first, but I just love it.”

Mordecai nodded. “Wow. That’s a lot of absorption crystals. Good. This is a good one.” He looked at me. “We’ll want to get this sorted before we give her the cloak from Quan.”

“The explanation is not exactly the feel-good story I was hoping for, but the item itself is just divine,” Donut said.

I picked up the pillow and tiara combo and examined them. The pillow felt as if was made of velvet, but it was significantly heavier than I anticipated. The dainty tiara was prettier than anything Donut had received yet, and it was covered in about a hundred, tiny jewels, each sparkling a different color. It caught the light like a brilliant diamond.

The Tiara of a Thousand Lights and Accompanying Charge Pillow.

This is a unique item.

This item was made especially for Crawler Princess Donut by her sponsor, Long Haul Biological Waste Management Solutions.

There’s a story out there, called the Legend of a Thousand Lights. It’s about a Crest habitat that, after fleeing a pirate intrusion, found itself lost. They wandered into an ancient battlefield, and the habitat lost its life-support, communication, propulsion, and lifeboat systems all at once after a catastrophic collision with some drifting space debris. Rescue efforts were dispatched to find the missing habitat, but the junkyard covered millions of square kilometers. Some of these ancient ships still had power, making scans of the area completely useless. The 100,000 plus residents thought for certain that rescue would never come, and they resigned themselves to their fate.

It was a young engineer who came up with a solution. The details are long and convoluted and require an understanding of both physics and chemistry I don’t have the time or inclination to explain. The short version is this engineer quickly devised a system where every resident of the habitat combined their home cooking sphere with a bioengineered farm animal called a cockrent—basically a space chicken that breathes methane—and they jettisoned the sphere-enclosed cockrents out into space. After a few minutes, the cockrents would explode, filling the pressurized, translucent spheres with bursts of colorful, burning, pulsating light that lasted several minutes each.

The show of exploding space chickens was enough to attract the attention of a Syndicate rescue squad, and the habitat was saved.

(They, of course, were fined so much money that the habitat was eventually repossessed and the vast majority of the adults were forced to indenture to pay off the debt, but this part is usually left out of the retellings of this legend.)

To this day, the Legend of a Thousand Lights remains a tale of how an entire community working together managed to save themselves from certain disaster. Habitats celebrate their victory by jettisoning colorful orbs out into space once a cycle in commemoration.

This item is fashioned after the Tiara of a Thousand Lights, customarily presented each cycle to the Thousand Light Princess, as voted by a habitat’s community. The young, lucky recipient of the crown wears the tiara and sits upon the Pillow of Lights on the day of the feast and celebration.

This particular tiara is imbued with 99 Absorption Jewels.

The tiara itself has no inherent magical properties, and in its base state it gives no additional benefits or buffs except plus 10 to Charisma. However, it has the ability to be permanently charged with up to 99 different buff items.

Any single enchanted hat item of any quality you place upon the accompanying charge pillow for a period of ten hours will lose all of its magical properties. These properties will be stored in the pillow until the tiara is placed upon the charger, upon which time, all of the buffs and magical enhancements will be instantly transferred to the tiara. If a hat item contains five separate buffs, it will use up five of the 99 jewels. Similar buffs from different hat items, like two different intelligence boosts, will not combine and will take up two jewels.

With some careful planning, one can turn this tiara into one of the most powerful items in the history of Dungeon Crawler World.

Okay, here come the warnings.

Warning: Temporary effects will remain temporary, and upon expiration will burn out the absorption jewel.

Warning: Items with curse effects may or may not transfer to the tiara depending on multiple factors, so be wary. As such, curse effects may or may not be removed from items that have been drained of their magical properties.

Warning: Certain Celestial, god-blessed hat items may or may not be properly drained or transferred.

Warning: Items carrying a debt cannot be absorbed into the pillow.

Warning: This is a big one. Hat items placed on this pillow take ten hours to fully transfer, however if you remove the item after one hour, it will still lose its magical abilities.

“That’s... that’s pretty awesome,” I said.

“It’s just amazing,” Donut said. “Do you know how many hats I have with magical abilities, but I can’t wear them because they only have one or two? Or because they’re ugly? And you know what the best part is? Even though it drains the original item of all its magic, it doesn’t destroy it! So I can keep the hats for my collection. It is just divine.”

“It’s too bad it takes ten hours to drain the old item,” I said. “That’s going to severely limit how quickly we can buff it up.”

Mordecai nodded. “The first thing you’ll want to put on that pillow is that hat you just got with the targeting ability. And set a timer in your own interface. I know these things, and they don’t give any sort of notification when the transfer is complete. It’s been a bug for a very long time. So set a timer for like ten and a half hours to be safe. You can’t see if it worked until you pull the drained item off, so you have to be extra, extra careful.”

Donut let out a huge gasp.

“Carl, Carl, I just got another benefactor box! This one from the Apothecary! It’s a platinum! Oh my god, it’s like Christmas all over again! Thank you! Thank you, everybody!”

I exchanged a look with Mordecai.

“Well, what’re you waiting for?” Mordecai asked.

She hopped and opened up the new box, which exploded and filled the room with magical confetti.

It wasn’t a hat like I was expecting, but it was another charging pillow. It was almost identical to the one that’d come with the tiara. It took ten hours to fully transfer the magic, and the item was still ruined after an hour. This one was purple instead of red, and there was a slight difference at the end of the description.

Warning: This will drain any magical item, but it will only transfer to a like item. If you drain a ring, the stored buff will only be transferred to an absorption crystal affixed to a ring. If you attempt to transfer to an incompatible item, the buff will be lost.

“So, this one is almost like a universal charger,” I said, turning the purple pillow over in my hand. “Be sure they’re listed as hats before you use it, Donut. But now that you have two, you can fill up your new tiara twice as fast. We’ll need to start cataloging all your magical hats ASAP and see what buffs we want to transfer over.”

Donut continued to dance with excitement. “This is just great! Mongo, isn’t it great?”

Mongo screeched and waved his one wing in the air. He made a peeping noise and looked suspiciously at his missing, right wing, as if noticing it was gone for the very first time.

“Mordecai!” Donut said, sounding alarmed. “Can we use the potion now? My baby is going to be traumatized!”

“Yes, yes,” he said, pulling the potion out. “It’ll take a bit to work. It’s an expensive potion, so be careful. I know how to make them now, but, like I expected, the ingredients are really rare.”

“Mongo, sit for mommy,” Donut said. “Uncle Carl is going to give you your medicine. You’ll have to drink every drop.” She looked at me. “Be gentle, Carl.”

I picked up the sparkling potion, walked over to Mongo, and I smashed the vial on his butt at the base of his tail.

“Hey!” Donut cried. “That was mean, Carl!”

Mongo screeched, but the buff Healing appeared over his head. It had worked. He didn’t seem to mind one way or another. It wasn’t until Mordecai had built the potion balls had I realized that we could apply potions that way, at least to non-crawlers. It was a hell of a lot safer than trying to pour it down his throat.

Mordecai grunted. “That works. Let’s get some hats draining before we move on.”

Donut grumbled as she put the pillows on the counter. She placed her new boonie hat on the red pillow and her Tiara of the Inebriated Dragonfly on the other. Each item made an audible click the moment they touched the pillow. There was no other notification.

“What happens if the cleaner bot knocks it over,” Donut asked, looking suspiciously up at the bot in the top, right corner of the room. “Don’t knock it over!”

The bot let out an angry, petulant beep.

Donut harumphed. “Or what happens if Samantha pushes it? Hey, where is she anyway?”

“That’s a good question,” Mordecai said, looking off toward the training room. “I haven’t seen her since we landed, but I’ve been in the crafting studio.” He shrugged. “Don’t worry aboot the hats getting moved off the pillows. Once they’re locked in place, you have to peel them off. It’s like a magnet. If you want, you can move them to your room.”

“Okay,” Mordecai continued, suddenly serious. “Carl, before you get to your boxes, let’s have you pull out Quan’s cloak. Donut, don’t put it on yet.”

* * *

When we’d first watched Quan wear his magical, celestial-tier cloak on the recap episode all those weeks ago, we’d seen that he’d had several new abilities right away, and we automatically assumed that the powers were simply what the cloak gave him. He could fly. He had a powerful, short-ranged power bolt attack. He had multiple, very powerful shields. He had a cloaking ability.

As it turned out, the abilities were custom-tailored to whomever was wearing the cloak at the time, with a focus on magic and buffing the wearer’s lowest stat, which made me immediately want to give it to Donut.

I pulled the long, glowing cloak from my inventory. The thing was much, much too long for Donut, but they usually—but not always—sized themselves appropriately for the crawler. Mordecai insisted that because it was a cloak item, it would fit on any quadruped.

The thing was made of a silky fabric that was black on one side and blue on the other, almost like a magician’s cape. But unlike regular capes, it had short arms also, which made it more robe-like, though there was no vest part. It was unusual in that way, though I remembered Angel the cocker spaniel had a raincoat poncho thing with almost the exact same design. I didn’t dare say that out loud. The important part was that the system labeled it as a cloak.

The whole cloak glowed with a soft, white light.

The very first benefit alone was what made me decide to give it to Donut. I would’ve given it to her immediately on the previous floor, but Mordecai had talked me into waiting until we could come up with a gameplan.

The Cloak of the Benevolent Champion.

This is a unique item.

This item was originally awarded in a Celestial Quest Box during the third floor.

Man, I hate that word. “Champion.” It has lost its punch over the years, don’t you think? It used to mean the best of the best of the best. And now? That term is handed out like candy and venereal diseases. All you gotta do is wait in line, and it’s yours for the taking. Participation trophy, snowflakes, blah, blah, blah. God, I sound like an old dude about to ruin the day of a Cracker Barrel waitress.

Anyway, if you wear this magical, armed cloak, you are a champion. This is an early-dungeon Celestial item, and its sole purpose is to help you help your fellow crawlers survive as long as possible. Upon equipping this, you will slowly but surely rise to your full potential.

This magical cloak offers the following benefits:

A level-five Find Weakened skill, so you’ll always know who to protect first.

Your lowest base stat will, over the course of the next 66 hours, become equal with the highest base stat at the time of first equip.

Four random spells from your current arsenal will increase to level 15. This benefit is immediate for one spell and will slowly occur over a period of one week for the others.

One random skill from your list will increase to level 15 over the course of the next 504 hours.

Note: these two benefits include your full spell and skill arsenal, so it’s possible an item-based spell or skill will be enhanced. In most cases, you will be able to retain the spell or skill, minus the level from the item, if you remove said item. But not always. If you don’t know what that means, don’t worry about it. You’re not champion-worthy anyway.

Note: All of these benefits require you to wear this item continuously. You may unequip for short periods, but if another crawler equips this, all countdowns will immediately reset. You will not gain new benefits. In other words, no sharing! There can only be one champion.

Note: This item has the distinction of being the first Celestial Item awarded during Dungeon Crawler World: Earth and will automatically appear in the Dungeon Crawler World: Earth museum display upon completion of the crawl. Legacy stipend rules apply should you survive.

I’d already looked up that Find Weakened skill. In groups of three or more mobs or crawlers or any sort of like creatures, it indicated which of them was the closest to death. It was a great skill to have if one was a healer, but Quan had used it for the exact opposite of its intended purpose. He’d used it to find and pick off the weakest crawlers in a group.

Donut circled the cloak, clucking over the stitching. “This is just fantastic.” She paused and looked up. “Carl, do you think Quan even knew what a Cracker Barrel was? Wasn’t he from Vietnam, like Tran? Do they have Cracker Barrels in Vietnam?”

I shrugged. “It was a different description for him. We know Katia gets different descriptions sometimes. And Li Jun says his is usually about Chinese pop culture.”

“Hmm,” Donut said. “If that’s the case, then do you think it said something really different? Quan was a terrible person, yes, but I can’t help but think that description was an attempt to make him sound even worse.”

I thought about it for a moment. Donut was absolutely right. The description made the cloak sound like it was designed to make crawlers help people, like something that would be given to a superhero, and Quan had done the opposite. I grunted. “It doesn’t matter,” I decided. “Whatever it said before, the benefits are the same, and he chose to be an asshole. He got what he deserved.”

“Oh, I don’t disagree with that,” Donut said. “And what is that thing about the legacy museum?”

Mordecai rubbed his pasty hand across the fabric. “Don’t worry aboot that. It means nothing right now. We need to decide when you want to put this on for the first time. This is a fantastic item, but when you first equip requires some thinking. I don’t know what sort of leveling opportunities you’ll have between now and the end of the ceasefire, but the longer you wait to wear this, the higher we can make your constitution. However, it does take a few days for the benefit to raise all the way, and things might kick off fast.” He held up a finger. “Also, you have multiple new spellbooks, and we need to decide if you want to put this on before or after you learn any of those spells. You can’t choose which ones it enhances, so we need to weigh the odds.”

I thought about the four new spellbooks Donut had: Flak, Shield, Sentry, and You’re Not Done Yet. I also had a group of five spellbooks I’d gotten from Khulan, Ren’s companion before they’d both died. All were low-tier attack or utility spells, and Mordecai wanted us to hand them out to our mercenaries.

“I’m thinking she learns the Shield spell, and then she puts on the cloak right away,” I said. “I know we wanted to wait, but we want her constitution buffed as much as possible in time for kick off.”

“I agree,” Mordecai said after a moment. “Though, Flak and Sentry both would be fantastic at level 15.”

“What about that other one?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Trust me. You won’t want that.”

There was no guarantee any of those would be the ones buffed no matter what we did. There were several spells she had that it would be wasted on. Her Torch spell was already level 14 and would likely hit 15 soon on its own. It was possible it could pick Laundry Day, which already was at 15 and ruin the slot. Her Twinkle Toes spell, which made it so Mongo could run fast while she was mounted would probably just end up killing her at level 15. God forbid her Fireball spell, which came from a bracelet, get buffed to 15. She’d burn the whole city down with it. It was a gamble, for sure.

“What about my Hover skill? That’s part of my dragonfly tiara!” Donut looked over at the pillow. “I should put it back on!”

“I was thinking aboot that,” Mordecai said. “It would be good to have. Quan had a level-15 flying skill that he used. Hover is a little different, and I don’t think it would be worth it. Besides, your pool of skills is much bigger than your spells. It’s in the thousands. It could be anything.”

She sniffed. “Okay.”

“But first,” Mordecai said, pulling out a potion. “This is a potion I just made, and I want you to take it.”

“What is it?” She sniffed at it suspiciously.

“It used to be called Charisma Cheat, but for some reason the system now calls it MySpace Photo. It’s going to trick the system into thinking your Charisma is 30 points higher than it really is. It’s going to think your base Charisma is 193 instead of 163. Your Charisma isn’t really that high, but when you put the cloak on, it’s going to eventually raise your constitution up to 193 instead of 163. This is the real reason I wanted you to wait. The potion only last two minutes, so we’ll have to do it fast.”

“Holy shit,” I said. “Not bad when your base Constitution is two. You’re moving from fragile as hell to almost Katia-level resilience. That’s going to change everything.” I let out a breath. An enormous sense of relief washed over me.

“Yup,” Mordecai agreed. “Plus, now we can re-examine all her other magical items and figure out what we can lose now for better items since we were using most of them to buff her constitution.”

“As long as I don’t have to wear the ghoulie suit,” Donut said. She glowed as she taught herself Shield. “Okay. I’m going to take the potion and then put on the cloak.”

She took the potion and cloak into her inventory, and she drank the potion.

“Hey!” Donut said. “I just got a very rude ‘Liar’ achievement.”

I suppressed a grin as the cloak appeared over her shoulders. The item had indeed resized. It was ridiculously short on her.

“Oh, would you look at this?” Donut said, spinning. “It’s like a shawl. Much better than I thought it would be. It’s quite light. Hang on. Tell me if they match.” Her new tiara appeared on her head. The tiara didn’t have any powers yet, but it glittered magnificently. Her sunglasses appeared in place. “How do I look? Mongo, how does mommy look?”

“You look great,” I said. “Ready for the runway. What did you get?”

A piece of mirrored glass appeared on the table, and she peered into it. Oh, yes. I can work with this. I do wish the lining wasn’t cerulean, but it does look good.”

“Donut,” I said.

“Oh, oh yes. Let’s see.” She paused. “Okay. This system is not very elegant. I have to actually go in and figure out what’s being buffed. So, Bad Attitude is now level 15.”

Mordecai nodded. “That’s good. At level 15, you can cast it on large groups all at once.”

Bad Attitude was like my Fear spell, but it lowered resistances and temporarily drained intelligence, making it so the targets couldn’t cast their best spells. She hadn’t really used it much yet. That was going to change.

She gasped. “The others, I think, are Wall of Fire, Heal Critter, and Puddle Jumper! Those are all the ones with the blinking experience icons. Mongo, next time mommy will be able to heal your wing without stupid Carl breaking glass on your bum. Isn’t that great? In a few days at least.”

Mongo screeched with excitement.

She paused. “Oh, poo, I was hoping for Fireball, Why Are You Hitting Yourself?, and Hole.”

I looked at Mordecai. “Level-15 Wall of Fire?”

He grinned. “Combined with her class and her new tankiness? She’s going to be a terror on the battlefield. And her Puddle Jump’s cooldown is probably going to go down to a minute or two. And she can do it through walls. We’ll need to be careful with it.”

“What about your skill?” I asked Donut.

“I’m trying to figure it out,” Donut said. “It doesn’t say. The experience doesn’t show in the same way, and I can’t tell. This is stupid. There’s no way to tell!”

“The buffed skill takes three weeks to reach level 15,” Mordecai said. “It’ll probably be obvious in a week or so.”

“Well, I hope it’s not something ridiculous. I have a level six skill in litterbox navigation, and I don’t need that buffed anymore.”

“Level six?” I asked. “You trail litter everywhere you go.”

“That is absolutely a lie, Carl.”

Mordecai nodded. “Okay guys, Carl’s turn to open boxes.”

Donut sighed. “He doesn’t have a Celestial box like I did, but we do need to get it out of the way as soon as possible, I suppose. So I guess we do Carl’s boxes, then we fix his hair, and then we need to start recruiting people. Time is wasting.”

“Actually...” I began as I moved to my menu. “You know what, let’s just see what I got.”

4

“Hey!” Donut said as all the boxes lined up behind me. “I saw that last one! That was a Celestial!”

I grinned. “I did get one. I got it when I was in the demon’s fist.”

“Well, I got two benefactor boxes,” Donut said with a harrumph.

I reached over and scratched her. “Yes, you did. You’re going to be our secret weapon.”

The first several boxes all opened, giving me more of the Build Trench scrolls, Invisibility potions, Size-Up potions, and loads of random odds and ends. I got a dozen of those Temporary Water Source scrolls and a few potion versions of the same spell, which was weird. I also got a few strange scrolls, called Emergency Repair.

The first of the gold boxes was a fan box, which I’d had access to for a while.

“Huh,” I said, examining the items.

“Wow,” Donut said. “They do not know you very well, do they Carl?”

It was several boxes of ammunition, maybe about 2,000 rounds total, along with an unenchanted leather holster. That was it. The gun belt was a black leather shoulder holster. The kind you’d see detectives wearing on television, and it wasn’t what I’d choose if I was going to conceal carry, which I couldn’t do without pants. It had “Carl” pressed onto the leather in English. It didn’t contain a gun, but I knew what they wanted me to do with it. I still had my father’s Glock in my inventory.

I had no intentions on ever wearing it outside of my inventory or ever even using it.

“Thanks, guys,” I said up into the air as a few more gold adventurer boxes opened.

My Gold “I Have the Conch” box contained a group of surefires, which was good. I’d been out of the seeking missile attachments for some time, and I needed to build more missiles.

The “Loot Punch Card” popped out of a gold box, and it was a little piece of paper with five spots with one punched out in the shape of a goddamned foot. It read “Picked up Celestial Items Off the Floor. Fill the card for a special prize.” It didn’t give any more description than that. It disappeared into my inventory.

The Gold Pet Box contained several pet biscuits and a coupon for “500 gold off any one item from any PetScapes location in the dungeon.” I had never seen nor heard of a store called that.

“A pet box?” Donut asked. She sounded suspicious. “Why did you get that? Did they give you that for injuring Mongo? That’s quite inappropriate, Carl.”

I ignored her. It was time for the good stuff. I had two platinum, two legendary, and a celestial box to open.

The Platinum, dog-shaped Tserendolgor box opened, containing more supplies for my automaton table. This was an XL box, making the chest bigger than the last time. It was going to be some good stuff. I knew from the automaton instruction manual that the XL boxes contained parts for a fabricator, which is something I’d been hoping to build for a while. I pulled it all into my inventory.

The Platinum “Hell in a Handbasket Box” contained a small patch depicting a spider.

“Hey!” Donut said, looking at the patch. “It’s Shi Maria!”

“It’s not her,” I said. “Just a regular Spider Reaper Minion.”

Mordecai grunted. “That’s going to give you access to a place you need to stay out of.”

“Mordecai,” Donut said. “You should know by now if you want Carl to not do something, the last thing you should do is tell him not to do it. You have to have me do it.”

The Legendary “Hell Comes to Crawler Town” box contained, like promised, a set of unenchanted bagpipes and a group of three, third-tier personal space upgrade coupons plus a fourth one in a different color.

“That’s a town upgrade,” Mordecai said, indicating the fourth coupon. “You’ll need it for your castle. You both have a lower tier one of those already from the Tina quest a few floors back.”

“Carl, do we know anybody who plays the bagpipes?” Donut asked.

“God, I hope not.”

The Legendary Spicy Box was shaped like a giant strawberry that made a sizzling noise when it opened for some reason. It contained a simple, silver, unadorned toe ring. I sighed and let it pull itself into my inventory.

Okay, this was it.

The Celestial Heavy Metal box appeared, moving through the room toward me. It came in the form of a full-sized drum kit with pyrotechnics exploding out both sides. The twin bass drums contained the face of Amayon on each one. An ethereal demon creature sat behind the kit, practically running on the bass pedals, filling the room with a constant, speed metal-style rhythm as he did a roll on the snare drum. The pyrotechnics exploded again as Mongo screeched in fear, waving his starting-to-reform chicken wing in the air.

The drum set exploded, and “666” appeared in the air in smoke before dissipating with a little electric guitar twiddle.

All that remained was a single, glittering potion in a bottle shaped like a horned skull. There was a little, hand-written note tied around the top that read, “Drink Me” followed by what appeared to be a drawing of a demon hand giving the devil horns symbol.

“Yes!” Mordecai shouted.

“All that for just a potion?” Donut asked.

I poked at the small bottle. The liquid inside was black and bubbling. The bubbles occasionally rose from the liquid, bursting. Each mini pop let out a spurt of color, suddenly reminding me of that space chicken story.

“It’s a Celestial-quality skill potion,” Mordecai said, his voice reverent. He was literally shaking. “This isn’t something I’ll ever be able to brew.” He paused. “Actually, I’m not positive aboot that. Let me examine it at my table really fast first before you drink.”

I examined the potion.

Hell-Kissed Celestial Skill Potion of the Prince of Woe.

In case you haven’t figured this out yet, we’re trying to kick things up a notch this year. If we’re gonna do this, we want all of you fuckers as deadly as possible. Hence, this prize.

It’s time to bring out your inner demon.

Drinking this potion will give you a random level 10 to 15 Celestial-tier skill. The skill will be combat based, and it will be something you don’t already have.

This skill potion is hell-kissed. That means this skill will be any combat-based skill from any Sheol-level mob level 200 or higher.

Go ahead and drink it. Do it. Do it.

I handed it to Mordecai, who rushed off toward the crafting studio.

“Goodness, don’t drop it!” Donut called after him.

“I’ll be right back,” Mordecai said without turning. “It only takes a few seconds to examine it!”

Donut watched him run off. “Is he this excitable because he’s Canadian now? I always thought Canadians were always depressed. Also, does he look how you thought he’d look as a person? He looks much nerdier than I anticipated. I always pictured him as kind of a crazy homeless person with a scraggly beard and a beanie.”

“He’s spent literally hundreds and hundreds of years wondering about some of these potions, and now he finally has the chance to learn all their ingredients and secrets. It’s gotta be exciting for him,” I said. “It has nothing to do with the Canadian thing.”

“I would hope not,” Donut said.

I chuckled. “But you’re right. He does not look how I would expect.”

I pulled the rest of the items from my inventory while we waited for him to return, starting with the Legendary toe ring.

Enchanted Toe Ring of the Well-Balanced.

This special, dainty, perfectly delightful toe ring (which, by the way, must be equipped on your left pinky toe. Don’t test me on this) represents balance. Balance in heart, mind, and your physical core. Yeah, I know that sounds like some yoga bullshit, but this has been given to you to save your ass because you’re too dumb to realize how much danger you’re in.

When properly equipped, (again, left pinky) this toe ring imbues the following effects:

Heart Balance, Level 5. Allows you to store one auto-trigger potion item if health reaches a certain criteria.

Mind Balance, Level 5. Allows protection from Enslavement and Conscription.

Physical Balance, Level 5. At level five, this skill imbues both the Extra Steady Balance skill and the Walk on Air Skill (already obtained.)

“Already obtained?” I asked out loud. That didn’t make sense. I moved into my menu. I knew what Walk on Air did, but I didn’t have that skill. It was what Li Jun...

I swallowed, suddenly feeling very, very dirty.

It was what Li Jun used when he fought.

The skill worked exactly how it sounded. It allowed one to literally walk on air for very short periods of time, which was especially useful in hand-to-hand combat. It was kung fu movie stuff, and it required a lot of practice to get right.

The memory of the taste of Li Jun’s eye flooded my mouth. I had the sudden urge to vomit. I remembered what Shi Maria had said after she’d plucked the eye out of him. That I might gain some of his skills. I still needed to talk to Mordecai about all that, about the bottle of ink and the tattoo on my chest, but I wanted to wait until we were alone.

A new wave of guilt washed over me.

Carl: Hey, Li Jun. I didn’t have a chance to talk to you at the end of the last floor. I wanted to apologize about what happened, and I was hoping we could talk.

He didn’t answer.

I turned the ring over in my hands, re-reading the description. This was a great item. I gritted my teeth and slipped it directly onto my left pinky toe. It prompted me to pick a potion and activation condition. I picked a gold-standard healing potion with the parameter to trigger if my health reached 2%.

I also received an ominous notification.

Mind Balance is currently triggered.

It didn’t give any more information than that. I took in a breath. I didn’t feel any different before or after putting the ring on. I reached up and touched the tattoo on my sternum. I felt it rustle underneath my shirt, the sensation like a closed eye moving back and forth, deep in REM sleep.

I pulled out the town upgrade coupon, forcing myself to move on. The coupon didn’t give me much information. It told me I had to proceed to an owned town utilize the upgrade.

I examined the small patch.

It was a black and silver patch, die cut and shaped like the horrifying form of Shi Maria, though with a shorter neck and shorter hair. Also, the spider in the image carried multiple wicker baskets lashed over her bulbous body.

Upgrade Patch. Small.

This upgrade patch depicts a traveling Reaper Spider Minion merchant. These guys are known for their sense of humor, and I highly recommend the first thing you do the next time you meet one is to insult them. They’ll love it.

Affixing this patch to an eligible garment will imbue the following benefits:

Access to the Midnight Market. Safety or Sanity not guaranteed.

You will receive a notification if any traveling merchants are nearby.

Plus 5% to Dexterity.

Warning: Upgrade patches are fleeting items. You may remove them, but they will be destroyed in the process.

I wasn’t certain, but I was pretty sure the Midnight Market was a special bazaar hidden in the bottom regular floor of the Desperado Club, which we now had access to. Or we would have access to once the place opened back up. I didn’t yet know if the place had been repaired yet or not. There was another hidden market on the middle floor I’d never managed to get into called the Gray Market, which was also on my list to visit.

Like all patches, installing them increased my stats all across the board thanks to my Scavenger’s Daughter patch, and I’d need to install this right away.

Mordecai returned, still shaking with excitement.

“I was wrong. I can make these,” he said, his voice a whisper. “I’d need to upgrade the table a few more times. And we’d need some pretty specialized ingredients.” He slid the potion over to me. “But I know the recipe now. You’ll want to take it right away. Whatever it gives you, you’ll probably need to train with it for a bit.”

“Yes, Carl,” the potion bottle said, his voice, deep and demonic. “Drink me. Drink me deep. Put me inside of you.”

“What the shit?” I asked as Donut hissed.

“That’s how you know it’s a good potion,” Mordecai said, grinning.

* * *

“Here we go,” I said as I popped the cork off.

“Bottom’s up,” the potion bottle said.

I drank it manually, which was a mistake because it tasted like ass.

The potion made an almost sexual groan as it dissipated into dust.

I felt a flash, and for a very, very short moment, my vision showed me the burning hellscape of Sheol. I felt the fire. I breathed the hot air. I smelled the sulfur. I had a sudden sensation of worms crawling over my entire body. The feeling was fleeting, lasting a fraction of a fraction of a second.

A small, demon skull-shaped button appeared in my interface.

You have gained a skill.

You have gained the level-13 ability, Gloom Wraith Phase.

“What’d you get?” Mordecai asked.

I held up a finger as I looked it up.

Gloom Wraith Phase.

This scary-ass skill allows for non-corporeal, intangible bursts of speed. You and all your equipped items become non-corporeal during a lunge attack, allowing you to pass through unenchanted weapons and flesh and obstacles with ease. Mirrors that of multiple phase skills and spells, effectively combining both the Path of Destruction skill and Rush.

Upon activation, you become noncorporeal and rush forward. Any biological entity that is unarmored against non-corporeal attacks is... scrambled. Yeah. This is a good, gnarly spell. It’s really fucking gross, but holy shit.

Note: While this is a skill, it still requires mana to utilize. Each burst will halve your mana points. You must have at least two mana points to initiate a burst.

At level 5, you have the option to designate a weapon or item that can remain corporeal as you rush forward.

At level 10, you have the option to remain noncorporeal up to five seconds at a time with a cooldown of thirty seconds between bursts.

At level 15, the cooldown lowers to six seconds between bursts.

“Carl?” Mordecai asked.

“Do you know what a Gloom Wraith is?” I asked. “I got Gloom Wraith Phase. Level 13.”

Mordecai pulled off his raccoon hat, revealing a balding head, and he rubbed it.

“Guys,” he said, looking back and forth between me and Donut, suddenly serious. “You two have always been powerful, especially for your levels. But... wow. You two are both some seriously scary bastards now. Like really scary. You are now both the most powerful crawlers I have ever worked with, including some who made it through level 11.”

“Good,” I said, “because we have eight whole armies to kill.”

* * *

After Mordecai spent a solid five minutes lecturing us on the importance of practicing our new skills, and reiterating the danger of phasing into solid objects, he returned to the crafting studio, leaving me, Donut, and Mongo back in the main room. The chat was oddly quiet, and I strongly suspected pretty much everybody was getting overwhelmed with new spells and abilities.

The high I’d felt from such a power jump was starting to wane and was suddenly replaced with worry. I was glad Donut would have all these new protections, but she and I had massive targets on our backs, and we needed to be extra careful. Was everybody getting this stuff? Could everybody now kill everybody else from afar? If so, that just meant we’d be killing each other much faster. We needed to be prepared.

Step one was making certain all the crawlers were on the same team. And in order to do that, we needed officers. We needed to start recruiting, and we needed to get out of Larracos and into our castle as soon as possible.

I looked over at the guild hall exit. “Let’s see who’s back yet. Plus, I think I can assign officer status to some of the strippers now.” There was something else I needed to do, too, but I wasn’t looking forward to Donut’s reaction. Or Mongo’s. I wanted to gather some backup before I dealt with it.

“We are not going out there, not yet,” Donut said. She was voguing in front of the mirror. She was practicing quickly turning around, which caused her cloak—“her champion shawl”—to properly flutter in a dramatic fashion.

“What?” I asked.

“Before we do any of that, you have a very important task. Your hair. We absolutely can’t put it off any longer.”

* * *

I stared uncertainly at the bottle of Rev-up Magic Hair Restoration Tonic. The set came with little plastic gloves and multiple cotton swabs. That and a paper, fold-out instruction pamphlet that was really, really long. Donut sat next to me on the table, fussing. “Don’t be a wuss, Carl. You are the number one crawler in the dungeon, and that comes with several responsibilities. The number one crawler simply can’t be without eyebrows. It’s unseemly. Believe me, when I was the number one, it was a terrible burden, yes, but my physical appearance was a priority.”

“You were number one for like five minutes.”

“I was number one for the entirety of the seventh floor, thank you very much.”

My view counter was absolutely spiked, more so than it was when I was opening the loot boxes, which told me this had to be some sort of trap. Mordecai insisted this stuff worked as long as I “followed the instructions to a T.” The problem was, the instructions were convoluted as fuck.

“We’re waiting for Katia,” I said, after reading the instructions for the fifth time. “There’s like a million warnings telling you to not let it touch anywhere you don’t want hair. And these mixing instructions for eyebrow versus head hair are confusing.”

I’d sent Katia a message, and she’d replied they were dealing with the local guards, trying to get into a saferoom. They had Tran with them, who no longer had his magical wheelchair, so they had to carry him, and that was slowing everything down. She’d said they were about to get inside, but that had been five minutes ago. Her team still wasn’t here. She’d promised to come into our room straight away.

Elle and Imani were in their own saferoom now, but they were in the middle of opening their boxes. I’d finally heard from Li Jun, who’d said they were also doing the same. Florin, too. He was about to come over so we could get him on recruiter duty.

Louis: Hey, uh, guys?

Donut: HI LOUIS! HAVE YOU SEEN JUICEBOX YET?

Carl: Louis. Are you guys inside now? Have you opened your Celestial box yet?

Louis: Not yet. The guard said Juicebox is in the castle, which is still underwater. They drained everything but that place I guess. Anyway, we’re at this college place, and they’re making us fill out a visitor pass, which is why everything is taking so long. Yeah, it’s really weird. But anyway, we were about to go in the saferoom when Samantha rolled by. She’s screaming after some woman named Tish. She’s saying she’s going to kill her. Katia went chasing after her.

Carl: Tish? Who the hell is Tish?

Donut: OMG I FORGOT ABOUT TISH.

Donut moved to a new chat.

Donut: KATIA, DID YOU STOP HER? LOUIS JUST TOLD US.

Katia: I’m running after her. She’s not floating, but rolling, but she’s really fast. I gotta get her before the guards do something. The college guards are all really sluggish and have a Despondent debuff over them, but they’re still going to react pretty soon. I’m worried she’s going to get us in trouble. Hang on. I see her. I think she’s trapped in a corner.

Carl: Guys, who the fuck is Tish?

Donut: REALLY, CARL. DON’T YOU REMEMBER ANYTHING?

Katia: I got her. I’ll bring her back through the safe room. She’s really mad. I’ll be there in a few minutes.

Samantha: SOMEBODY TELL THIS DOPPELGANGER BITCH TO LET ME GO OR I WILL KILL HER MOTHER AND UNINVITE HER TO MY BACHELORETTE PARTY.

Donut: SHE’S SAVING YOU FOR YOUR OWN GOOD. TELL KATIA THANK YOU.

Samantha: NEVER! I AM A WOMAN SCORNED! MY NEED FOR REVENGE IS THE ONLY THING I KNOW, AND I WILL NOT BE DENIED! TELL HER TO RELEASE ME SO I CAN EXACT MY VENGEANCE AGAINST MY ARCH ENEMY, TISH.

Donut: IF YOU GET BACK HERE, YOU CAN SEE MY NEW CLOAK.

Samantha: OH, THAT DOES SOUND EXCITING. OKAY. DID CARL SHOW YOU HIS PET TUMMY ACHER YET? HE PROMISED ME I COULD NAME HIM.

Donut: WHAT?

Donut looked at me. “What? What is she talking about, Carl?”

I sighed.

DANTE

Dante read the newsletter a third time. He exchanged a look with Justice Light, his skyfowl neighbor.

“They can’t do this,” Justice Light said. He also had Damien’s newsletter clutched in his shaking talon. “Who’s going to mind my shop?”

“They’ll throw either a bopca or a generated NPC in there, like they always do,” Dante said, sighing. Justice was relatively new to his indentureship, only ten seasons in. Kept in storage between seasons, so it was all still new to him. Everything was still raw.

They didn’t do this often, but it wasn’t the first time they’d reassigned a bunch of the workers for an entire floor. Especially when the showrunners were particularly cheap, like the Reavers.

“But an NPC is going to mess it up. It took me this long to get my shelves organized exactly as I wanted. The generic version doesn’t even stock the important stuff.”

“It’ll just be for this next floor,” Dante said. “You can save and backup your stock configuration. It’ll be easy to get it back.”

“We’re not supposed to fight, though,” Justice Light said. “Not unless we’re tenners. They promised we wouldn’t have to fight. I’m marked as a non-combatant.” He looked at Dante. “And so are you.”

“We’ll be snow castle guard captains,” Dante said, trying to sound reassuring. “It’s a settlement, not a boss room. We’ll still be white-tagged. They can reassign us if there’s a ‘need.’ It’s in the contract. They have to pay when they make new types of unavailable NPCs, and it’s cheaper for them to reassign us.”

“Will we be protected?”

Dante fought the urge to laugh. He shook his crocodilian head. “Sorry, buddy. But, look. We’ll be okay. They use us because it’s cheap to use us for this sort of thing, but it’s expensive if we die, so they don’t like putting us in too much danger.”

That wasn’t exactly true, but Dante knew small lies were okay if it calmed one’s nerves, especially those such as skyfowl, who were always on edge.

Dante had followed Justice Light’s season carefully, and he knew the skyfowl very well. Better than he let on. He knew how it had ended for the poor crawler. About how shattered he was. Even ten seasons in, and the skyfowl still had no fight left in him.

He’d immediately recognized the skyfowl for what he was once he started making some familiar choices.

It was obvious when someone had the cookbook, at least to those who’d owned it before.

Justice Light had been an especially emotional owner of the book, but he’d also been a brilliant trap master. He was infamous for killing a shopkeeper during his season, but he’d clearly felt guilty about it. It had been a defining moment of his crawl, and it had started a slow spiral he was never able to correct. People had been surprised when the skyfowl had demanded his indentureship be that of a shopkeeper, replacing the very NPC he’d killed, which was not something they normally allowed. He’d even agreed to a longer commitment in exchange for the opportunity. But Dante wasn’t surprised. Not even a little.

Dante had immediately applied to move from the lockpicking guild to the trap master guild. The shop and the guild were oftentimes in close proximity, and he jumped at the chance to be near his brother.

Dante wasn’t sure why he never said anything about who he was. They barely monitored them when there were no crawlers nearby. Neither of them had the cookbook anymore, so they could talk about it freely. Still, he’d held off. This season was being run by the passionless robots. The Reavers. They were always lax with their security. So why hadn’t he said anything? Guilt, maybe? He’d only written a single entry, afraid he’d get caught. When it was clear those who’d come after him would pour themselves into the book, it made him feel even worse about not leaving more information.

It was the same for Justice Light. Guilt. An overwhelming sense of honor, of wanting to correct his wrongs.

The eighth level was about to open, and both Dante and Justice Light had just been informed they’d be reassigned for the floor. This season, the eighth was going to consist of multiple mountains, all connected with wires and gondolas. The crawlers were a strange type of mantis, much different than the more common ones who sometimes ran the crawl. They could not fly, and they would do poorly in the cold. There was a crawler named York whom Dante was watching carefully.

This castle they were reassigned to this next floor was in a settlement, so they were still tagged as NPCs. Not mobs. He had no idea what to expect. He only had 14 seasons left. He could taste it. Freedom. Finally, freedom.

“I can’t fight. Not crawlers,” Justice Light said. He straightened, and the feathers on his neck rustled. “I won’t be able to. I’ll refuse. What’ll happen to me then?”

“Nothing good,” Dante said.

Hopefully, they wouldn’t have to find out. These jobs usually didn’t require them to face off against any crawlers. He didn’t want that, and if it did come to violence, he didn’t know what he’d do, either. He envied Justice Light in his conviction.

Dante had violence in his heart. A lot of violence. But he only wanted it directed at those who deserved it. He was so close to freedom. If it came down to it, what would he do?

Fuck you all, he thought.

CLASS: THIEF: RACE: CROCODILIAN.

Birth Race: Crocodilian.

Top Level: 89

Dungeon Exit: Took deal at the beginning of the 11th floor.

Worked as a Game Guide and Guildhall Instructor in the Trap Master guild. Was killed 14 seasons short of his exit while temporarily reassigned as an Ice Castle guard. Was killed by administrative action for refusing to follow orders.

Author of the Third Edition of the Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook.

Current status: Dead.

5

“Carl, is it Garret? Do you have Garret? You said he died!”

“I did not say that. And it’s not... well, it is him, technically, but it’s...”

“In all of my life, I have never felt a sense of betrayal this profound, Carl,” Donut said. “Are Mongo and I being replaced? Is that what’s happening here? You’re replacing us?”

“Donut, calm the fuck down,” I said. “Nobody is replacing anybody.”

“Why haven’t you told me about this, then?” She gasped. “It’s an affair. It’s the same sort of thing. You’re having an affair! And to think the other woman is a meatball. How are you ever going to look Mongo in the eye again?”

“That doesn’t even make sense. Will you stop freaking out for one second and let me explain.”

“Explain? What is there to explain? I expected this from Miss Beatrice, but not you. Come on, Mongo. Carl has a new best friend. Let’s go someplace where we’re wanted.”

Mongo squawked in confusion, looking back and forth between me and her.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I said. “Donut, chill the fuck out and let me tell you what happened. And let me pull him out.”

“Pull him out? Why? Is he hungry? Does he want a dinosaur snack? Mongo, stay with mommy!”

“I’m more worried about the other way around,” I said. “Okay, Mongo. Don’t eat him.” I zapped the level-1 tummy acher out onto the table.

“Carl, what are you doing? Don’t you dare bring that thing...”

Donut stopped her rant in mid-sentence to stare at the tiny creature.

The miniature, round meatball thing rolled across the table and stood up on his two, stout legs, looking at Donut. He spun in a circle, small mouth agape as he took in the room. He was half the size of my fist. He did not have the same mohawk like these things usually had, but a spattering of black hairs atop his not-quite-perfectly-round head, reminding me of Linus from the Peanuts comic. The first one of these things I’d seen was red-tagged, but this one wasn’t. I didn’t know if that was because he used to be Ren’s pet or because of my peace symbol patch plus my higher charisma. He still had the same pronounced underbite as Garret, his single, round tooth sticking straight up.

“Carl, that is most certainly not Garret. He doesn’t even have a name!” Donut examined him closely. “Goodness, what a strange little... No, Mongo! No!”

Mongo stopped just short of gobbling the baby up, mouth inches away.

The little monster made a ridiculously cute, high-pitched giggling noise and shuffled closer to the confused dinosaur and jumped right into Mongo’s open mouth with a hop. He rolled over inside the dinosaur’s mouth, little, elephant-like feet waving in the air as he continued to giggle. Mongo’s eyes went huge as he suddenly didn’t know what to do.

“Mongo, spit him out this instant!” Donut cried. “You’re going to get some weird disease!”

Mongo did not spit him out. Instead, he seemed to contemplate for a moment before he lifted his head in the air and swallowed.

“Goddamnit, Mongo,” I cried, waiting for the dinosaur to teleport away. He did not.

“Well, that didn’t last long, now did it,” Donut said after a moment. “Mongo, we do not eat people unless mommy gives the order. Carl, if he gets worms, I’m blaming you. He looked like someone who might give worms.”

“Why didn’t Mongo get in trouble?” I asked. “Are pets allowed to attack pets in saferooms?” I looked over to the crafting studio, wondering if we should call Mordecai out. If that thing regenerated, but was still in Mongo’s stomach... That could be bad.

“I think it’s because he was suicidal, Carl. He climbed right into his mouth!” She looked over at the dinosaur. “Uh-oh.” She started to back away.

With a hurk, hurk, hurk noise, Mongo yakked the meatball back out onto the table. The little ball rolled out, bouncing and giggling. Mongo made a move to gobble him back up, but Donut shouted for him to stop.

“Ew, ew, Carl! This is not acceptable! Look at what you made Mongo do!”

Mongo closed his mouth and made an uncertain peep. He reached forward to sniff the creature. The meatball made a little grunting noise and tried to climb back into Mongo’s mouth. Mongo backed up and ran to the back of the room.

“Carl, you’re cheating on me with an imbecile.”

I sighed and re-examined the little guy.

Male Tummy Acher – Level 1

This is a pet-class mob.

This pet is not bonded with a crawler.*

This pet has died five times. As such, this pet’s stats are all buffed by 125%.

This pet has five weaknesses. Weaknesses may only be examined if you are bonded with this pet or if you have him contained within a carrier.

Tummy Achers, also known as Belly Achers, also known as Colon Worms, are named such because they were originally parasites, living in the intestinal tracts of Jotan-class Titans. They are generally good-natured, though infants can be a little... difficult to control. They are voracious eaters, and when they reach full size can swallow just about anything. They have multiple tank-based special abilities and are generally resistant to most types of damage. They can survive in almost any environment. In addition, while not necessarily known for their offensive skills, their Wrecking Ball attack is considered a terror on any battlefield.

They may be dumb, they may smell a little like expired chorizo, but holy shit are they adorable.

At its current regeneration level, this Tummy Acher will reach full size upon ascending to level 25.

This particular pet is unique in that it will regenerate upon death as long as their body has not been destroyed. After each regeneration, they will be stronger than before, their overall stats getting buffed by an additional 25%. They will retain their size and strength upon regeneration except upon every five deaths, wherein they will revert to level 1 and lose their memories. Bonded pets will have to be re-bonded at this time. You must change their name as well. After 10 deaths, their full potential size doubles.

Warning: This pet will not regenerate if it dies before it hits level 5.

Warning: Upon death, they will receive a new, random weakness. This weakness generally results in insta-death. The more deaths, the higher the chance the weakness will be something common, like contact with water. It’s considered quite rare for a tummy acher to survive past 10 deaths, thus it’s not advisable to deliberately allow your pet to die in order to increase its strength.

“Five weaknesses?” Donut asked, scoffing. “So it’s stupid and defective?”

The thing, still dripping with Mongo goo, rolled onto his back and started making a gurgling noise.

“My goodness, it is adorable, though. Ugly adorable. Carl, this is not Garret. This is a baby.”

“I know, Donut. If you let me explain, I can tell you what happened. We didn’t have time at the end of the last floor.”

* * *

I moved to the food box and pulled out what was supposed to be a sausage breakfast sandwich as I finished telling Donut the story. We’d just received notification that Katia had finally made it into their saferoom. They were going to open Louis’s celestial box and then come over here.

“We can’t keep him, Carl,” Donut said as she watched the little guy run in circles around the floor. Mongo had decided he wasn’t food after all and was bouncing back and forth, pretending to pounce. The meatball thought it was hilarious.

“What the hell?” I muttered. Instead of my usual sandwich, this was a steaming bowl, with my sandwich within, crumbled up. The bowl was filled with a thick, white soup. I sniffed it, and it smelled like seafood.

“Chowder style is supposed to be optional,” I said, examining the food box controls. I slammed my fist against the door, and the device let out an angry beep. “I can’t eat this!”

“Carl, if we’re going to heal our relationship, you need to pay attention to me,” Donut said.

“I am paying attention. Hey, uh, Garret two, come here and eat this,” I said, putting the bowl on the floor.

Both Mongo and the meatball scrambled toward the bowl, but a shout from Donut caused Mongo to pause. Garret made an excited glurping noise and hopped face-first into the chowder. He popped up, looked at the dinosaur, and made a growling noise, the first sign of aggression at all. Donut gasped in outrage as Mongo backed up. The tiny creature disappeared into the white mix and started to devour the chowder.

“I promised Ren I would look after him,” I said. “I feel obligated.”

“First off, if it’s not going to let you keep his original name, you will absolutely not name him Garret two or Garret five or Garret six if you want to be super technical. Absolutely not. I once knew a Bombay named Trixie’s Secret Talent, Take Two, named after her own mother, and let me tell you, it gave that cat serious mental issues. The worst attention whore I’ve ever seen, which is saying a lot, especially for a Bombay. Honorifics are one thing, but being known as a second edition, like a photocopy? Can you imagine? That’s a hard no, Carl. The last thing we need is that thing being even more mentally unstable than it already is. And anyway, it sounds like Ren hoisted him on you without asking. Maybe you can give him to Louis or Britney. They both seem lonely.”

The thing popped up from the bowl and looked at me, eyes huge. His dot had changed from white to orange.

“Too late,” I said. “Man, that was a lot easier than getting Mongo to bond. Ren said we had to feed him a few times, but it only took one bowl.”

Congratulations. You have bonded with Tummy Acher, level-one. A new tab is available in your interface. Bonded Pets. Please see this tab for more information.

Your guild has a pet stables installed. New options are available in your Bonded Pets tab.

Your Tummy Acher requires a name. Please choose a name now.

“Ca, Ca, Ca,” he said, looking at me. He burped.

Donut scoffed once again, looking back and forth between me and the meatball. “He bonded easily because he’s an idiot, Carl.”

There was more food in the bowl than he could possibly eat, and he pushed himself out, using his legs to jump and roll. He splotched onto the floor, leaving a trail of white chowder. Overhead, the cleaner bot made a disapproving bleep. He burped again and then started to push the bowl across the floor, thrusting it toward Mongo, who let out an excited squawk and rushed forward. The dinosaur stuck his head in the bowl and licked the rest of it up in a handful of seconds.

“Do you know who Cousin Oliver is, Carl?” Donut demanded, watching the display.

“Was he that one cat with the really weird eye?”

“No, Carl. That was my sister-cousin, Ginger Snap, and we don’t talk about her. Cousin Oliver was from The Brady Bunch. This thing is like that. Cousin Oliver. Scrappy Doo. Guppy on iCarly. April on Gilmore Girls.” She spat out that last one. “All late series additions. All attempts to add something new and cute and exciting to a perfectly good cast that ended up making everything worse.”

I grinned and gave Donut a pat. “Don’t worry. You’ll always be my number one girl.”

She harrumphed. “I’m sure that’s what they said to Mary-Kate and Ashley before those other twins arrived.”

“Jesus, Donut. How do you even know all this stuff?”

Katia came into the room, followed by Bautista and Louis. Samantha sat on Louis’s shoulder, talking animatedly. It made him look like he had two heads.

“We are putting a pin in this, Carl, but I am serious. He is cute now, yes. But they always are when they’re young. We need to give him to someone who’s not already spoken for in the pet department. I don’t care if he’s bonded or not.” She turned to face the others. “Hi Katia! Hi Louis! Hi Katia’s boyfriend!”

Katia patted my shoulder and picked up the container for the Rev Up hair tonic and started reading the instructions. The thing came with multiple trays and brushes. “Let’s do Carl’s hair, and then we can go out and look at Louis’s new toy.”

“We are going to use it to kill Tish,” Samantha added. She made a whistling noise followed by an explosion with her mouth.

“Uh, no we’re not,” Louis said. “I don’t even know who that is.”

Donut let out a sniff. “Samantha, you shouldn’t hold Tish accountable for what happened. That was 100% Ghazi’s fault.”

“I’m going to kill her,” Samantha said. “And I am going to kill Katia for not allowing me to slake my need for revenge.”

“Samantha,” I said. “What did I tell you about threatening people? And how did you even get out?”

“I went out the door, Carl. I went looking for my child, but then Louis told me he was at the college, and I went to kill her before she could steal him from me like she tried to do to Ghazi.”

Ghazi... Ghazi. I finally remembered what all this was about. Ghazi was the now-dead “Mad Dune Mage” from the sand castle during the bubble floor. He’d been the one who had the last part of the Gate of the Feral Gods. He’d been trying to animate his sex doll using the gate, but the whole time he was being tricked by Psamathe, trying to get her body back, who’d possessed the sex doll body. She was only a head because Mongo had knocked her over while she was made of glass and broken her body. Samantha had tricked Ghazi into “marrying” her sand ooze daughter—something I still didn’t fully understand—before everything had gone to shit.

Once Ghazi had realized he’d been tricked, he’d written to the college here in Larracos, asking for help. We’d found the letters. In those letters, it was revealed that Ghazi’s ex-girlfriend, Tish, still worked at the college, and that he’d left her for the sex doll. I remembered that Samantha had some choice words for Tish earlier.

“Wait,” Donut asked. “Did you find your child?”

Samantha brightened. “She’s here! I can feel her, but she’s in the castle of the stinky dwarves! She’s still in the water. Carl, we need to go get my body taken care of, and then I can get in the water and reunite with my child.” She turned to Louis and gave him a hard stare. “But if you’re not going to let me blow Tish up, I’m going to tell Juice Box about your affair with her. I’ll have her do my dirty work for me.”

“What?” Louis asked.

But Samantha was already distracted by the baby tummy acher who’d walked up to Louis and was banging against his foot, looking up at him.

“Oh my god, he’s so cute!” Samantha cried. She rolled off Louis’s shoulder and bounced on the ground. She did a few circles around the small meatball. “Okay. Carl promised me I could name you.”

“No, I did not,” I said. “But we do need to name him now. I have the window up on my interface, and I can’t get rid of it until we come up with something.”

“Is... is that Garret?” Louis asked, going to a knee. “What happened to him? You doing okay, little buddy?”

“Glurble,” the tummy acher said.

Donut started giving a quick, heavily redacted and stilted version of the story. While she did this, Katia pulled out one of the little plastic trays and started mixing some of the tonic.

Katia produced a towel from her inventory and tied it around my shoulders and then grew an extra set of hands to hold my head steady. “Don’t move, Carl. It’s different for eyebrows and hair. There’s a dozen different types of hair, all with different mixes. That’s why it’s so complicated. Your eyelashes are also gone, so there’s a third mix I have to do. It’s almost identical to the pubic hair recipe, so I have to be extra careful with that one. This first one is easy.” She took the swab and carefully rubbed it over my left eyebrow. I felt the tingle of hair start to sprout.

“You doing okay?” I asked, keeping my voice low.

“I’m hanging in there,” she said as she leaned over me, working. “Mordecai is brewing something for me right now. Says it might help with the rehab. We’re going to do that tomorrow, so I’m done with it before the ceasefire ends. Don’t wiggle.” She wiped it across my right eyebrow. She leaned back.

“Good,” she said. “Now you don’t look so freakish. Eyelashes next.”

“...And then after her deathbed confession, she had the absolute gall to hoist her mentally unstable dinosaur murderer child on Carl. She knew he wouldn’t say no because Carl doesn’t say no to anybody. I have half a mind to name him Cousin Oliver. Or Scrappy. He only gets three strikes before he’s out on the street, and he’s already used up one of them by growling at Mongo.”

“I feel bad about her, about Ren,” Louis said. “She died, but Carl figured out how to save everyone like an hour later.”

“She was done,” I said, remembering how she looked at her friend. The memory was like a physical knot in my chest, and I felt myself reaching for it, as if I could scratch it away. “Getting out wouldn’t have mattered. She left on her own terms. Don’t feel bad about it. She went out like a badass.”

“Don’t you dare move,” Katia said. She held an even smaller cotton swab now as she pulled my head into place. “This is the eyelash recipe. Close your eyes and don’t even breathe.” She started dabbing on the edge of my eyelids.

“If you can’t keep his name, you should name him Meatball,” Louis said. “Or Balzac. Like ball sack.” He laughed.

“We’re not naming him ball sack,” I said.

“Goddamnit, Carl. Don’t move,” Katia said. “Okay, now open.”

I blinked to see Donut right in front of me, carefully inspecting my eyelashes and brows. She leaned in super close.

“Hmm,” she said. “The eyelashes are longer than before, which makes him look slightly more feminine. Otherwise, this is quite good work, Katia. Very nice. Your cosmetology skills are much better than your sewing.” She took a step back and looked me up and down. “Is there a beard setting? I feel as if we should try a beard with all those filthy tattoos. You know, to lean into the look.”

“No,” I said.

The Name Your New Pet box remained persistent on my interface.

The small creature had turned from Louis and was now rubbing itself on Bautista’s hairy foot. The tiger crawler also went to a knee and gave him a pat. The tummy acher started to purr.

“I have a pair of stuffed tummy achers,” Bautista said, “but I haven’t tried using them yet. I suspect they’re much bigger than this one.”

“Do you want him?” Donut asked. “I’ll sell him to you. Five gold.”

“He is not for sale,” I said.

Louis snapped his finger. “How about Sherman? Like for a Sherman Tank? Or Tugboat? It fits ‘cause Carl was in the navy.”

I sighed, not bothering to correct him. “I do like Tugboat.”

“Absolutely not,” Donut said. “I will not have you saying, ‘Goddamnit, Tugboat’ over and over again. Can you imagine how annoying that would be?”

Katia pushed the small trays aside and was now mixing the tonic for the top of my head in the large, main tray. She kept moving back to the instructions to make certain she was doing it correctly. “Hmm,” she said after a moment. “Hey, Louis. Can you go out into the guild and grab Splash Zone for me? I’m going to need him for this next part.”

“Splash Zone?” Donut asked as Louis scurried away. “Why do we need a stripper? Is he going to give Carl a lap dance?”

“Well, I am naming him Kimmy,” Samantha announced as she followed Louis out the door. “Kimmy the second. I don’t care what you call him, he will always be Kimmy to me.”

“I do like Kimmy,” Donut said. “But not Kimmy the second. We don’t even know who Kimmy the first is.”

“Guys, this is taking way too long,” I said. “It’s much too built up already. It took us like two seconds to name Mongo.”

Donut sneered. “Mongo was easy because we didn’t know about his family. The name for this thing needs to honor the past but make it clear they’re not a copy of someone. Mongo is a good boy and can handle anything. This thing is deranged, and his name requires a delicate touch. Someone’s name can have a direct effect on the path they take in life. For example, have you ever met someone named Lacey who wasn’t a complete trainwreck? Or a boy named Jason who didn’t think he was always the main character? Names are important, Carl. Look at my own name. Look at all the names in my family. They are profound, yet they also honor the past. It’s a very elegant way to make a bold statement.”

“You have a brother named Skittles. And your grandmother was named Princess Chonkalot,” I said.

“My grandmother won over 70 best in shows, I’ll have you know,” Donut said. “She was one of the most celebrated North American Persians until her granddaughter came along and shattered all her records.”

“You just suggested we name him Cousin Oliver.”

“That was before I realized you were seriously considering keeping him.”

“If you’re going to name him after someone, it should be after Ren,” Bautista said.

Donut scoffed. “We can’t name him Cheater.”

“Daniel is right,” Katia said as she continued to mix the tonic in the largest tray. It bubbled, and a splotch landed on the table. The rock-like surface immediately sprouted hair. “It should be something that Ren would’ve liked.”

Louis and Samantha returned, followed closely by Splash Zone, the short, otter-like water mage stripper. He’d changed from his usual lifeguard outfit to a leather vest and little, red boots I recognized as something I’d received in an adventurer box ages ago.

“Hi, Splashy!” Donut called.

“Okay,” Katia said to the otter. She placed a hand atop my head, and the hand started to shape itself around my skull. “I’m going to put this stuff on Carl’s head, but it can only be on for like five seconds. We don’t want it uneven, so I have to place it all at once. I’m going to put it on, wait five seconds, then lift my hand. I need you to power wash it off his head when I say so.”

“Got it,” Splash Zone said, giving a thumbs up. “How strong should I make it?”

“Uh, shouldn’t we do this in the bathroom?” I asked.

“No,” Katia said. She started to wrap plastic around her scoop-shaped hand. “The room is too small, and the shower isn’t fast enough. Splash, make it strong. Just like you do at the club. Do your Wet Spot routine. Not enough to hurt, but enough to clean off his head fast. Everyone needs to get out of the way, and the cleaner bot can dry everything up when we’re done.”

The bot let out an angry beep from the ceiling.

The water mage pulled himself up onto the table. “Okay. Say the word.” He started gyrating his hips for no apparent reason.

Katia started spreading the bubbling concoction on the plastic while she grew more hands to hold me in place. “Don’t move an inch, Carl. We’ll have you lean forward.”

“Guys,” I said, suddenly nervous. “I’m a little worried about this.”

Donut scoffed. “Don’t be a baby, Carl. Miss Beatrice used to get her butthole bleached and her lady garden lasered, and those are much more delicate procedures than this.”

Donut and the others moved to the back of the room. Louis now had the tummy acher in his hands.

Katia started to place the scoop on my head when Louis shouted. “I got it!”

She paused. “What? What?”

He held the meatball up with two hands, like that monkey in The Lion King. “Sir Rendlegore. You know, Sir, S-I-R like a knight. And then Rendlegore. You can call him Rend. Sir Rendlegore. It fits with the royal court theme, and it still honors the past. Plus, Ren would’ve loved it. Nobody could ever pronounce her name. She pretended it made her mad, but I think she kinda liked it.”

“Okay, that is a good name,” Samantha agreed.

“Done,” I said before anybody else could respond. “It’s a good name.” I typed it into the box and hit enter.

Your pet has been named Sir Rendlegore!

“Now, can we get this over with?” I said, putting my head back down.

Katia splotched the cold tonic onto my head and started counting down from five.

“Uh-oh,” Splash Zone said.

* * *

“You have two choices,” Mordecai said, trying to suppress his laughter while he examined me. “Keep it at that length, or come back here every two hours and cut it again. If you hold it back in a ponytail and keep it tucked under the cape, it won’t be too noticeable. You can fix it in aboot two weeks. That’s how long it’ll take to wear off.” He shrugged. “Or, you know, you can shove your head back up Samantha and burn it all off again.”

Elle, Imani, Chris, Florin, and several others were now in the room as well. Elle and Florin were also laughing their asses off.

“I like it,” Samantha said, circling me. “It’s very luscious. You look like one of the guys in your Christmas present book covers you haven’t opened yet.”

“Samantha, don’t ruin his Christmas present!” Donut said. “But I agree. He does look very romance novel cover-like. Plus, if he pulls it back, he’ll look like Alpha Carl who had much better hair.”

“I’m going to start calling you Fabio,” Elle added.

“Sorry,” Splash Zone said again. He sat on the counter eating a bowl of pea soup chowder.

His spell had failed when he tried to prepare it because it was, technically, an offensive spell. As a mercenary, it didn’t even let him try to cast it in the saferoom. I’d had to run to the shower and wash the tonic off. The stuff increased the total hair length based on how long it was on your head, and I didn’t dare use my hands to wash it off. I came out of the shower with long, wavy, shining hair that went all the way down to my waist. I immediately cut it, and it grew right back.

I sighed and took a handful of hair ties from Britney. She helped me tie it back as Donut went through the room and touched everyone in turn, making them officers in the army. We had to set up the officer hierarchy ourselves, and Donut had allowed Florin to set it up after giving him the rank War Leader III, which had changed to Colonel after he’d spent some time examining the base system. After some more tinkering, and Donut bitching at him to upgrade himself, the Colonel changed to simply General. Most everyone in the core group got the same rank.

Zhang and a few of his fellow party members came in and got their ranks, but Li Jun and Li Na hadn’t come in, as they were seeking out a healer who might be able to regrow Li Jun’s eye. We wouldn’t be able to physically touch Li Na anyway, so we weren’t sure how we were going to deal with that yet. Mistress Tiatha, the perpetually inebriated manager of Elle, had asked to speak with her, however. It sounded like she had an idea.

Everyone with the rank of General was allowed to recruit others and give them officer ranks lower than themselves. It also allowed them to command large, separate groups of troops. The strippers were all getting Sergeant First Class, which would allow them to recruit and command the base troops, such as the Sluggalos, which were now called Legionnaires. Florin had actually named the Sergeant rank “Adjutant” at first, but we made him change it because it would be confusing with the existing Adjutant class.

Florin along with Imani and Elle, as soon as they were done laughing at me, were going to leave right away. They would leave the city and head straight to the headquarters where they’d meet up with our adjutant and start the process of preparing the headquarters. Florin and Imani would stay and get to work while Elle went on a recon mission for us. Once they were set up there, we could use the doggie door upgrade to fast travel from the city to the headquarters. In the meantime, we already installed the doggie door upgrade in our room along with Katia’s.

We had so much to do. We had to find some mobs so I could train Sir Rendlegore as soon as possible. Supposedly pet training was accelerated. We needed to recruit, recruit, recruit. I needed to actually look at what had changed for the rules. We needed to seek out and find Juice Box so we could talk. We needed to scout the enemy positions and troop strengths. We needed to pool our money and purchase as many tier III upgrades as we could. And all of that was before we focused on our most vital task. Destroy the naga team as quickly and as thoroughly as possible.

I took a deep breath. It was a lot, but I was glad we were finally starting to allocate some of the responsibilities. I was especially glad for Florin, who’d fallen right into the position of General.

I’d also given Katia access to my automaton table, and she was working on it right now, building something for Tran to use now that his wheelchair was gone. But she had bigger plans than just that. We were going to need vehicles, and she was getting the ball rolling on that.

“There,” Britney said, smoothing my ponytail down. I was finally used to looking at the horrific burn down the side of her face. It fit her hard visage. “It looks good. Keep it tucked in or monsters will grab it, believe me.”

“Okay, thanks,” I said, reaching back to touch it. My temples felt tight, like my eyes were being pulled apart. I’d never had hair this long before. Sir Rendlegore was curled up at my feet, snoring loudly.

I turned to Louis. He had a unique rank, different than the others. Army Air General.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s go take a look at this new toy of yours.”

6

Louis’s celestial box came with a pair of items.

The first was a tier III guild upgrade called an Airship Portal, which was basically just an elevator that went up to the ceiling and allowed us to enter Louis’s new vehicle as long as it was docked to the base.

The rules for the portal were fairly straightforward. The guild leader, Imani, could designate up to three different personal spaces on the map as airports. There were some rules about suitable locations, but basically any saferoom with open air above it would work. The saferoom in the college of Larracos was, apparently, suitable.

These airports would be visible on the map to anyone in the guild piloting an airship. The airship could park itself directly above the space, and the ship could be “hangared,” meaning it disappeared from outside and was stored in a literal dimensional hangar. This room changed size to accommodate the airship, and it worked like a regular airplane hangar. One could repair the ship in the room or add upgrades, and one could purchase additional upgrades for the hangar itself. That included hiring maintenance crews. The ship was always locked to the base to which it was parked. That meant if it was hangared here in Larracos, and Louis entered the guild from somewhere else, and he decided to exit via the airship elevator, he’d take off back from Larracos. It was yet another fast travel option.

But it also came with some caveats. The system basically added what amounted to a trap door to the ceiling of the guildhall. This was a physical door that appeared on the exterior of the roof of the designated saferoom. Unlike the saferoom itself, this doorway was vulnerable to damage, just like the magic doors to the stairwells on the previous floor. If the doorway was destroyed while an airship was in the hangar, the ship would be unavailable until the doorway was repaired. It was the equivalent of losing a runway at an airfield.

People trapped inside the hangar could still exit via the elevator as long as the guild hall was still standing.

“There was a weird warning when we installed the portal,” Louis said as he showed us how the elevator worked. “It said no airships would be allowed on the tenth floor.”

“Really? Huh,” I said.

“That seems like a dream, doesn’t it?” Elle said, suddenly sounding wistful. “Getting to the tenth floor? I’ve never felt as if the next floor was so far away.”

On my shoulder, Donut stiffened. I reached over and gave her a reassuring pat.

We hadn’t talked about it yet, about the most difficult task that lay ahead of us. But it was always there. Always. It had been since the moment she put that goddamned tiara on her head.

“So, since it’s my ship, and I have the controller, you can’t get to the hangar unless I give you access,” Louis said. “I just gave everybody a pass to the hangar, but you still can’t get inside the ship itself without me. The elevator takes a minute to work, so we all gotta just stand here.”

We all stepped into the circular spot against the side wall in the main space. Katia remained in our crafting room, and Imani had gone back to her own crafting room. It was me, Donut, Louis, Elle, Florin, Britney, and Bautista. Splash Zone and Samantha had also tagged along. We left Mongo and Rend playing in the main guild with Ruby and some of the other kids. I tried to get Mordecai to come, but he begged off. He, too, was in the crafting room with Katia, working on his own stuff.

As Louis messed with the elevator controls, my eyes caught the sparkle of something on the floor. It was just a few pieces of tinsel from the Christmas tree that had been standing here not too long ago. I blinked a few times, contemplating. The tinsel wasn’t supposed to be here. The strippers had cleaned most of it up, and I knew the rest of the decorations had dissipated when we got to this floor because the decorations had come from the memory simulation. Yet, this tinsel remained. There was a simple explanation. It meant this tinsel had come from outside the memory simulation. Someone must have looted it on an earlier floor. The strippers had missed it when they were cleaning up. The cleaner bot didn’t clean the main guild room.

I wasn’t sure why, but that sight of the tinsel on the floor... It triggered something in me. As I sat there, wondering from which reality the tinsel originated, I had a sudden, strange reaction. It was like I’d taken a mental step, and the ground was just a few inches lower than I was expecting, and I stumbled just a little bit.

I marveled at our situation. I allowed myself a moment, just a tiny one, to ground myself. To wonder at how strange it was that everything seemed so normal to me now. Every person. Every place. Even every object. They were all either real, imaginary, or someplace in-between, and the consequences of interacting with these things wasn’t necessarily congruent with their own reality. We were living in a simulation of a simulation. Reality mixed in with play acting. Real situations with real consequences colliding with make-believe, and the consequences of the make-believe portions were oftentimes more dangerous than reality. All the lines were blurred by this point.

I remembered Pater Coal, the high cleric of the Emberus temple at Club Vanquisher, about how he’d been taken over by the AI. He’d seemed to be having issues separating the story of the dungeon with the reality of what was happening to us.

We all have our limitations, he’d said.

That was terrifying. Goddamned terrifying.

I thought of Lightning Lou. The old dog at the gas station in Florida, left to spend Christmas Day all by himself. I’d curled up next to him on the floor and contemplated my options. I’d come so close. It was right there, the edge of a precipice so deep it almost broke my mind just to think about it.

If you make this decision. Be sure. Be sure it’s your only option. This is more than just a failsafe. It’s the end of everything. If there’s time to do something else, don’t be so quick. So you must be absolutely certain.

On my chest, I felt the eye blink, and a new wave of fear washed over me.

“Carl, are you okay?” Donut asked just before the world flashed.

* * *

The elevator teleported us into a large room.

Entering the hangar of Party Planner.

All of us stopped to stare at the sleek, silver tube sitting on a pair of chopper-like landing skids. All the intrusive, contemplative thoughts were instantly forgotten as I gawked at the thing.

Florin made a noise that sounded like he was trying to whistle. He started to walk around the vehicle.

“What the shit?” Elle asked. “You got this in a celestial box? This makes Carl’s backpatch look like something he picked up off the street.”

“I know, right?” Louis said, grinning. “I haven’t tried flying it yet. Once we make certain there’s a place to park it at the new base, I’m going to fly it over. Gotta make sure I don’t fly over bad guy territory. It says I’m not allowed to while the ceasefire is in effect. The controls are pretty easy from what I can tell.”

“Party Planner?” Donut asked. She jumped off my shoulder and walked the length of the silver tube. Her voice echoed in the high-ceiling hangar. “You named it Party Planner? And this is an airplane? Are you sure? It looks like a submarine!”

Louis moved toward the front of the vehicle. The entire, rounded nose of the thing was made of heavily tinted glass, and I couldn’t see within. It reminded me of the nose of a b-29 bomber, though not nearly as big. “Yeah, that’s what Katia said. It’s not an airplane, but more like a drone thing. It calls it a tilt rotor, but it’s not like those Osprey things. It has four propellers on either side that pop out the top and to the side when it’s flying. I got an instruction manual and everything.” He pulled a small soul crystal encased in silver. “It runs on this thing. Just like the Twister.”

“Yes, but why’d you name it Party Planner?” Donut asked.

“That’s what Firas had suggested we name the Twister.” He paused, suddenly sad. “I’d told him it was stupid.”

“Wow,” I said, walking in a circle around the thing. The metallic cylinder was about fifty feet long, about the length of a medium-sized private jet. The fuselage wasn’t a perfect tube, but more like a squished oval. When it sat on the skids, the bottom of it was only about a foot and a half off the ground, and the whole thing was about eight feet tall, meaning the interior cabin was probably just a hair too small for me to stand fully upright within, depending on how thick the hull was. There were no visible wings or tail or rudder or any sort of navigational aid at all. I didn’t see the four propellers, but the top of the oval fuselage did appear to have four, rectangle-shaped protuberances on the top. Multiple windows dotted either side, and the entire bottom appeared to be made of glass.

It didn’t remind me of a submarine. More like a smaller-sized bullet train car.

“What sort of protection does it come with?” Florin asked, still walking in circles around it.

“It’s similar to the Twister,” Louis said. “I still have my Protect Aircraft shield, plus it comes with an anti-flak shield, and I can upgrade the stealth mode of it. There’s a bunch of upgrades we can buy, too. But first we have to upgrade the hangar and hire a mechanic gremlin.”

Florin ran a hand along the silver fuselage. “How big of a crew do you need?”

“Just one to fly it, and I can program a button to open the bomb bay, but there’s room for five crew total. Pilot, co-pilot and navigator, a tail gunner, a ball-turret gunner, and bombardier.”

Samantha was on Louis’s shoulder again. “I call the ball-turret!” She turned to Louis. “What’s a ball turret?”

“Bombardier?” Florin asked, ignoring Samantha. “So, it’s a bomber?”

“That’s what it says. The middle part is filled with racks, and the bottom can open so they all drop out.”

“Are there door guns?” Florin asked. “It looks pretty vulnerable from the sides.”

“It’s an upgrade,” Louis said.

Florin nodded. “It’s like a half-sized, half-crew B-17 had a baby with one of those next-gen stealth bombers.”

“Jesus, Louis,” I said, a sudden sense of alarm filling me. “This thing looks like a death trap.”

“Yeah, Katia said that, too. Especially after she read the description.”

“Why can’t I examine it?” Florin asked just as I opened my mouth to ask the same question.

“Wait, I have one of the stealth things turned on,” Louis said. “Katia says I should keep it always turned on. I just turned it off for a second, so examine it now.”

Casket in the Sky. Party Planner. Tilt Rotor Stealth Light Bomber.

Vehicle.

This vehicle is classed as tier III Armor for the purposes of Faction Wars and counts against your limit.

This vehicle is assigned to The Princess Posse.

This aircraft is owned by crawler Army Air General Louis Santiago 2.

You may only use this vehicle if you hold the controller.

If one studies the history of all the societies who managed to wipe themselves out before they reached the ability to flee into the stars, there are a few remarkable similarities in all of them. There’s a roadmap that contains multiple waypoints along the way, from certain types of religions to the mass production of projectile firearms and usually culminating in either nuclear winter or uncontrolled biological warfare. It’s almost always the same. Sad, really.

Anyway, one of the final waypoints on the this-is-how-they-killed-themselves list is almost always the thing you’re looking at right now.

A lighter-than-air, long-range death delivery system.

This usually evolves into something unmanned before the fun really starts, but in the meantime, we have this thing. This is light bomber that’s designed for fast in-and-out surgical raids against enemy forward positions. It flies fast and low and relies on speed and its multiple stealth options to keep it safe. The base model includes some forward and aft anti-air guns, but that’s pretty much it. That plus some rudimentary shields.

Seriously. It would take a pilot with gonads the size of bowling balls to fly this thing into a heavily fortified area.

But what this flying one-way-ticket lacks in self-defense, it makes up for in pure, passionate, offensive skill. The multi-use bomb bay can be modified to hold all manner of armament, and all bombs dropped from the main model are given a 50% increase in yield. This could be enhanced even further if you happen to know anybody who can build you even better, custom-made bombs.

Warning: Different dungeon floors have different rulesets regarding the use of airships. It is possible airships will not be allowed at all during future floors. So use it while you got it.

“Casket in the Sky?” Donut asked, her voice incredulous.

“That’s the name of the type of airplane it is,” Louis said. “There are a bunch of models you can buy or build. But that’s this one. There’s another one called a Dumbassmobile.”

I exchanged a look with Elle, who had her trademark are-you-kidding-me? look.

“Yeah, I’m glad you got this, but I’m not so sure it’s a good idea,” I said. “I’m thinking an artillery-style offense might be better.”

“Yeah, no, you’re right,” Louis said. “But remember what the Sledge did at the end of the Butcher’s Masquerade? He flew the thing remotely and crashed it into the castle. I can do that if I have to. We can do either or. As long as I can see it, I can use it like a drone. I can open the bomb bay doors from afar. That way if it blows up, I won’t die.”

“It’s pretty great,” Florin said. He was on his knees at the front, rubbing his hand across the glass. “But it makes me wonder what sort of hardware the other guys will have. I didn’t realize this sort of stuff would be on the table. We need to get to that base and start working on our defenses ASAP.”

“The Party Planner itself is pretty high tech, but the bullets it fires and the bombs it drops are still, like, dungeon-style tech,” Louis said. “They said those worm guys that control everything now usually use high-tech stuff when they run the dungeon. I wonder if this is the compromise.”

“Either way, this counts as ‘Armor,’” Donut said. “I don’t know why they call it that when it’s an airplane, but we can only have ten of these things at the start of fighting. But if we steal other’s after the fighting starts, we can keep it. So that’s what we gotta do. Steal all the other airplanes.”

I just looked at her.

“What?” she asked. “I’ve been reading the rules. There’s all sorts of stupid rules about what we can and can’t have. There used to be a rule about guns, too, but it looks like it went away. I guess when they say tech armor, they mean airplanes.”

“It means magical airplanes and certain types of vehicles,” Florin said. “When you made me general, the rules popped into my interface. We can’t see everything that’s available until we get to the base. We need to figure out straight away what the other groups have and how one pays for this stuff. If it’s straight up money, then we gotta assume they’re all maxed out. Also, have you looked at the timed restrictions for when the ceasefire stops? The ‘Ramp-up’ phase? We gotta plan appropriately.”

“I haven’t looked at anything yet,” I said. “But our adjutant should know. Baroness Victory. She’s an orc, so be careful with her.”

Florin nodded as he pulled himself to his full height. “Elle, Imani, and I gotta head out. Louis, we’ll let you know as soon as you can drive it to base. Everyone else, you better finish up what you’re doing and get recruiting. Carl, what’s your next move?”

I grinned at Louis. “A reunion.”

7

Ceasefire remains in effect for 56 hours.

“Carl, I feel as if Florin is letting the general thing get to his head,” Donut said as we prepared to leave. We were headed to Katia’s personal space. Thanks to the new Doggie Door upgrade, we were going to leave out the college entrance which was several rings higher. This would give us a chance to recruit along the way. Katia and Elle were working the chats, and most everyone was already on board, but we needed to physically touch people to get them officially enlisted. People knew we’d be out, but in a hurry, so they would meet us along the way.

It would be me, Donut, Louis, and Britney. Tran and Bautista were with Katia, who was helping Tran with his new conveyance, which I hadn’t yet seen. I had the impression it was inspired by Odette’s crab.

We left Samantha inside with strict instructions not to leave on her own again. We also brought Mongo and Rend, who were already best friends, much to Donut’s dismay. Despite not having arms, Rend had figured out how to get onto Mongo’s back and was riding the dinosaur, his giant mouth hanging open in awe every time he saw something new.

“We don’t really know Florin’s story,” I said. “He obviously has military leadership experience. He prefers to work alone, but it’s clear he knows his stuff. Did you see what he did on the last floor? He made a beeline toward all the military hardware he could get his hands on. We need that sort of expertise. Imani is good with people, but he’s good with soldiers, and those are two very different skills. This sort of fighting is different than what we’re used to.”

We entered the saferoom to find Louis and Britney waiting for us. Louis was pulling his usual leather jacket on as we entered. I saw Louis’s shirt the same moment Donut did. I prayed she wouldn’t notice.

She noticed.

“Louis, what is that?”

“Uh, what?” he asked a little sheepishly.

“Your shirt.”

“It’s nothing,” he said, hastily zipping the jacket all the way up. “It was a prize we got for going on that Dungeon Sidekicks show last floor. It’s enchanted. It increases the range of my cloud attack.”

Donut let out an angry scoff. “Louis Santiago Two, I must insist you take your jacket off this instant and show it to me.”

Britney grunted with amusement. “I told you not to let her see it.”

He shot a glare at Britney. “Yours is worse.”

“She is not wearing a t-shirt depicting an unauthorized fan club, Louis.”

“No, she has panties with a picture of Elle on them.”

Britney smacked Louis as he pulled the jacket off, showing the hand-drawn picture on the large, white t-shirt.

I barked with laughter as Donut scoffed again in outrage.

It was a graphic tee featuring a hand drawn picture of a cat. The image was a caricature of a fat, fluffy cat’s backside. The coloring was wrong, but it was clearly supposed to be Donut. The cat was turned around, looking over her shoulder. The words “Donut Holes” in English spread across the cat’s butt. The “O” in both Donut and Holes were both images of pink donuts.

There was a tiny, drawn X in the hole of the first, round donut, which was placed right under the cat’s tail, implying that the X was a cartoon version of a cat’s butthole. It was subtle, but once you saw it...

“Oh my god, Carl. It’s porn. This is unauthorized derriere porn! The Donut Holes are an unauthorized fan group, and now they have merch! Merch that exploits my backside! Carl, do something!”

I had to sit down because I was laughing so hard.

Donut: ZEV, THIS IS AN OUTRAGE.

Zev: They paid the license fee, Donut. It’s a perfectly legitimate brand, and their Donut merch is doing quite well.

“Carl, this is all your fault,” Donut said. “You were the one who came up with that name! Mongo, look away.”

I continued to laugh. Donut turned her ire toward Louis.

“And, you. This is bootleg fan club merchandise! Where did you say you got this again?”

“The show Dungeon Sidekicks. Uh, apparently every time one goes on that show, they get an item that has someone else on it. And they make it magical so you gotta wear it.”

Donut scoffed. “Katia went on that show, and she doesn’t wear anything like that!”

Britney and Louis looked at each other.

“Well, you’re going to have to take it off immediately. I’m sure we can replace it with something proper.”

“Donut,” I said. “It’s enchanted. He’s wearing it because it helps him. You can’t even see it.”

“How would you like it if someone was wearing a shirt featuring your butthole, Carl?”

“I don’t stick my butthole in everybody’s face when they’re trying to sit down and eat.”

“Well, excuse me for showing affection. I mean really.”

“Donut, you are always telling me about snicks or whatever they’re called of you and all sorts of other people. Just a few days back, you were talking about one with you and Samantha and Louis.”

“What?” Louis asked.

“That’s different, Carl. That’s fan art, and it’s beautiful. This is a for-profit organization exploiting my likeness for their own lurid reasons”

“It’s just a picture of your behind,” I said. “It’s a cartoon.”

“And you know who buys it? Perverts, that’s who.”

Donut: ZEV, AM I GETTING ANY OF THIS ILLICIT BUTTHOLE MONEY?

Zev: Uh, well, no. If you hit the tenth floor, you do get a stipend, and you can negotiate a small percentage based on your licensing fee. Like, a really small percentage. Though if it goes over the threshold, you do get a percentage automatically.

Donut: WHAT’S THE THRESHOLD?

Zev: I don’t actually know. I don’t think anybody has ever gotten close. Not even Remex or Odette or Ntumba. Your stuff sells great, Donut, but they anticipate crawlers getting popular and set the bar pretty high.

“Donut,” I said. “This isn’t important. We need to go find Ferdinand and Juice Box.”

She stiffened at the mention of Ferdinand. She shot a glare at Louis, who’d already zipped his jacket back up.

“Don’t you dare let anybody else see that shirt.”

* * *

Entering The Larracos College of Magic.

I took in a breath as we stepped outside. Before, we’d been in the lower level and hadn’t really gotten a chance to see the city. Or smell it. The scent of recently-drained ocean was still in the air here, but the aroma of flowers drowned it out. I thought of Priestly, the cookbook author who’d loved this city so much it’d driven him mad to see it destroyed. Now, finally, I could see what he was talking about.

This was like something out of a Tolkien novel. We were in the campus of the college, which took up about a quarter of a ring about ¾’s up the funnel of Larracos. The saferoom was atop an alabaster-colored, medieval style tower. Like a Rapunzel tower. Green, fragrant vines grew up the side. We were surrounded by dozens of other, multi-colored towers, all reaching up into the sky like crystals, growing out of the side of the ring. I caught sight of an observatory with a large telescope. Another, wider tower featured a stained-glass, cathedral-like ceiling. Louis said they told him it was a lecture hall.

Our tower included dorms for professors, apparently, and the room we’d just left at the very top was a cafeteria of sorts. It’d been a small, round chamber with a draconian proprietor. It had not been a true saferoom, and we’d passed right through before I could fully examine it. Stairs led downward, circling until they reached a courtyard far below. We started to descend, letting Mongo go first.

These towers, I realized, rose up past several other rings. We could see some of the other rings as I descended. These were homes and suburbs, filled with NPCs, going about their day, living in the shadows of the towers coming up from below.

Actually, no. These NPCs weren’t going about their regular lives. The second time I circled around, I saw them. A male dwarf stood on his balcony, a home on the edge of a ring. He leaned over another, younger dwarf, and he was showing the boy how to stab with a sword. Another balcony featured a bugbear woman repairing what appeared to be chainmail.

This would all be destroyed before we were done. Traditionally, once the fighting started, enemy teams weren’t allowed to enter the city, but the city itself wasn’t protected, and wayward spells, artillery fire, and rampaging gods usually did a decent job of flattening everything before the area was finally opened back up.

And when it was opened, there would usually be two teams left who would fight their way to the castle. The NPCs would—sometimes—finally start to fight back at this point, plus all sorts of different “events” happened at the end, such as a demon eviction or more gods joining in on the battles. All of that culminated in the two remaining armies bulldozing their way downward toward the castle at the very, very bottom.

My eyes caught movement. Several fairies fluttered around the outside of one of the towers, placing a large, red jewel atop it. The whole tower glowed with light.

This time it would be different. The NPCs were fighting back from the beginning.

Donut continued to grumble about the t-shirt and the Donut Holes fan club. She asked Britney about her underwear, and she said it featured a pin-up version of Elle along with the caption “Stay frosty, boys.” But the panties themselves increased her dexterity by 10% and enhanced all berserking skills. She hadn’t told Elle about them.

As we went down the stairs, I could see the college was also active with NPCs. Elves, draconians, and fairies, along with a smattering of several other races moved back and forth into various buildings and towers. They all had the white dot with green outline as soldiers for team Retribution.

“Right outside the college is the arts district,” Louis said, trying to change the subject off his shirt. “You can watch plays and stuff, but they said all the performances are cancelled. And there are restaurants, too. And shops. Lots of shops, but it’s not good stuff for what we need. It’s mostly clothes. All the adventuring stuff was down below and got ruined when you guys flooded the city. And anything that was left already got bought up by the other teams or is now being used by the NPC team.”

As we descended, a dwarf in strange armor came to stand at the base of the stairs, looking up at us. This guy had the same dot as all the others, but he also had a star floating over his head, which indicated him as an officer. Mongo reached him first and started sniffing at him, and the dwarf reached forward to pat the dinosaur on the head. He fished his other hand in a pouch hanging across his chest and pulled out what looked like two small pieces of beef jerky. He gave one to Mongo, and he broke a smaller piece off and handed it to Rend. They both gobbled it greedily as we approached. By the time I got there, Rend was bouncing up and down grunting excitedly.

“Carl, look at his hat!” Donut said from my shoulder. “It’s fantastic!”

This was the first time I’d gotten a chance to really examine a Semeru dwarf. All the dwarves we’d met so far were more like the traditional, angry Scottish variety. His body was squat and wide, but that’s where the similarities ended. This guy was darker complected, Asian looking, with a round face and flat nose. Thick, black hair peeked out from under his large hat. He did not have a beard, though he did have a long, thin mustache.

His armor was almost samurai-like, but not quite. It was like a wide, open-chested metallic vest with flared shoulders. The bottom of the metal vest moved outward, like a bell, ending just below his waist. His squat legs were covered in what looked like chainmail with loose, flowing, red and yellow fabric strips along the sides.

His helmet was a rounded skull cap, but it was decorated with multiple feathers of various kinds, reaching straight up into the air. In the front of the helmet was a metallic ornament, featuring a wide-leafed fern, which curled at the tip, making the helmet look a little ridiculous. His whole getup made him appear as if he was getting ready for a parade, not a battle.

The wide sickle slung over his shoulder was no joke, however. And everything the dwarf wore was enchanted. Everything, including the individual feathers in his helmet, all let off a glow of various colors.

I was surprised at how young the dwarf looked. He appeared to be around my age. He smiled broadly up at us, despite the Despondent debuff blazing over him.

“Honored Generals Carl and Princess Donut,” the dwarf said, bowing deeply. “It is an honor to have you within our borders.”

His accent was not like a traditional dwarf, either. It was short, clipped Asian-sounding. Not like Tran or Bautista, but similar.

“Hello,” Donut said. “I just love your hat.”

He beamed. “I am glad you approve, Warlord Princess. It was owned by my great, great grandfather.”

Up until this point, most everything I heard about the Semeru dwarves suggested them as a drunk, defeated people who did nothing but keep the castle clean. They rarely fought against their invaders. Something had, clearly, changed. I examined the dwarf.

War Leader Arief. Level 80 Semeru Dwarf.

Commander of the Larracos Defense Force Infantry.

This is an ally. As you are both officers, attacking him will automatically negate your peace treaty if there are witnesses.

Okay, I’m just gonna say it. The Semeru Dwarves have a pretty fucked-up history.

In case you haven’t figured all this out yet, this whole fable with the Scolopendra levels is based on a fairytale. But what is that fairytale based on? I think it’s pretty obvious, but sometimes you guys need a little push.

Anyway, of all the peoples in this story, there’s an argument to be had that the Semeru had it the worst. This land, the volcanic level in which Larracos stands, was once a haven for their people. Unlike the Over City and what eventually became the Hunting Grounds, these fertile lands here, the lowest level where mere mortals could survive within the great volcano, was once a paradise. The Semeru people lived here in relative peace. They farmed. They mined. They learned. They lived, laughed, loved. Yeah, fuck you. I like that expression.

But they knew of the gods just below their feet, and like all of us, they wanted to know them more. So they dug, trying to reach them. This was a long, arduous process. A city formed in the pit. Scholars from all over came. Some to help the dwarves. Some to beg them to stop. All, however, came to learn. Soon, Larracos became a rich, cultural paradise. Still, the dwarves persisted. They loved their goddess, Ysalte. They wanted to know her. So, they dug.

Eventually, they found not gods, but something else. Roots. These roots traveled through everything, and they were attached to something they called the All Tree. A great tree that is so vast, it connects everything. And there, once they hit the roots of the tree, they paused. A lot of people don’t know this part. Or they ignore it, because it doesn’t make for the best story. The dwarves were seeking the gods, yes. But in the end, it wasn’t the Semeru who are to be blamed for what happened next.

They built their castle at the very bottom, along the thick roots. But it’s more than a castle. It’s a monument. An apology. In discovering these roots, they had an epiphany. This, too, is new to even me. Some things are best left alone. Some things should never be woken up.

When Scolopendra’s nine-tier attack came, the Semeru got it the worst of all. It wasn’t their fault. But they were there, and they were mortal, and they were devastated. They numbered in the millions before that day. Today, there are less than 1,000 left.

And in the ultimate irony, their great structures weren’t even touched. Not the ones inside the pit. The great city of Larracos remains. The remaining dwarves, defeated, took it upon themselves to be stewards of the great, empty city. Eventually, it started to fill again. New scholars moved into the college, finding the old research intact. The halls, the museums. It all still stands.

It would sure suck if something happened to the city Arief loves so much.

Warning: This NPC is Despondent because his goddess is dead. He is unable to worship another deity, and all of his stats have taken a 15% hit. In addition, those who worship other deities inflict 10% more damage against him.

Christ, I thought. That despondent debuff was pretty brutal. Still, it didn’t seem to bother him too much.

Donut: CARL DOES THIS GUY KNOW YOU AND KATIA ARE THE ONES WHO FLOODED THE CITY IN THE FIRST PLACE? HE’S BEING REALLY NICE.

Carl: I don’t know. Juice Box knows, obviously, since she was a part of it. Don’t bring it up.

Donut: WHAT ABOUT KATIA AND PAZ KILLING THE GODDESS? SHE DOESN’T KNOW THAT PART.

Carl: And they’re not going to know if you don’t say anything.

“Hello,” I said. “We’re looking for Juice Box and Ferdinand.”

“That is why I am here, Warlord. We NPCs would like to talk tactics and strategy with the crawler team. Also, Warlord Juice Box requires some help and has requested your private presence before we attend with her co-warlord.”

I felt my eyebrow raise. This was the first time an NPC had actually called himself an “NPC” out loud.

But before I could question it, Arief turned to Louis and bowed again. “Also, General Louis. I am glad you are present. Warlord Juice Box would like to solidify our great truce in the traditional manner.”

“Uh,” Louis said.

“Traditional manner?” Donut asked. “Does that mean what I think it means?”

“Yes, warlord. Through marriage. We’d like to get it over with right away.”

“Uh,” Louis said again.

8

Arief whisked us out of the main courtyard of the college, out the main gates and past the security guards and out into the city.

Entering Larracos.

“It’ll be more like an elopement than a traditional marriage,” Donut was saying as we walked. “I suppose that’s okay, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make it a big what-to-do. I do like my what-to-dos.” She gasped. “Mongo can be a ring bearer! I already have a top hat and bow tie on me. I was going to sing. It is short notice, but I suppose I can be convinced into an impromptu performance. Hmmm.” She paused, then brightened. “Do you know the song ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’ by Oasis? I can sing that! It’d be perfect as long there’s nobody named Sally there. Also, I promised Carl would wear pants and shoes for the ceremony. Carl, you do have shoes now in your inventory, don’t you?”

Donut paused as I sent her a message.

Carl: I need you to put your sunglasses on and keep them on. Do you remember on the fifth floor how you could keep track of who was a changeling based on their body temperature? Keep an eye out, just in case. I know they’re supposed to be on our team, but we want to be sure.

Donut didn’t say anything, but the sunglasses flashed onto her face as she resumed trying to convince Louis to let her sing at the wedding.

We exited the front, raised entrance of the college and stepped out onto a cobblestone street. The street was just wide enough for a single cart. Across the street stood a simple, metal railing. I took a step toward it and peered over the edge, looking down into the funnel city.

I looked down in awe. This is it, I thought. This is the city. Larracos. City of Dreams.

I took in a breath. Despite having been prepared for this sight, I still had to take a moment.

Each level was a wide ring, with a yawning, open hole in the center, leading down into the pit. The circumference of the jagged gap got smaller and smaller as it went down, until it disappeared into a wall of smoke. A single waterfall fell from across the way, vanishing into the clouds. The fall would hit a lower level, where it would be channeled back over the edge, like it was going down stairs. The vast majority of the buildings were in a stone, gothic style, overwrought with columns and arches and gargoyles. Much of the architecture was of tall buildings with vertical lines culminating in arches and gables with curved rafters. Everything gave the sense of time, of spirit. This did not feel like a set of blocks designed for the singular purpose to be knocked over. No. This was a real, living, breathing place, and the sight of it staggered me.

But what struck me most was how clean everything looked, yet lived-in at the same time. Ancient, but cozy. This part of the city clearly hadn’t been flooded. Havana had felt like that, too, but that feeling had been much more eerie because all the people living there were ghosts. They were already dead. The city was already destroyed. The toll was real.

A small, draconian boy rushed past, carrying what looked like a bundle of twine.

This is real, too. I thought. It’s just as real as Havana.

That thought was not a welcome one, especially in context of what we’d already done to this place, to these people.

Arief pointed down the street toward what looked like an off-ramp on the freeway. It was a ramp that led downward, curving toward the next level down. We moved to the ramp and kept walking.

I was struck by how many people weren’t on the streets. Down lower, there’d seemed to be quite a few. The college itself was teeming with activity, as were the suburbs hidden behind it. But the public areas here seemed bare.

The vast majority of dots were other crawlers. A group of men I didn’t recognize came up just as their names popped into my book of Voodoo. Donut paused her wedding planning to make them all Sergeant First Class, giving them the ability to recruit others.

Already, my interface was beeping with others getting recruited. The numbers were slowly, slowly rising. We had just under three days to get them all.

I returned my attention to the city. I could barely see the walls of the funnel itself, though if I looked up, I could see the top lip of the crevice, maybe 3-400 feet up, peeking through a pair of buildings at the very top. These walls were not the walls of the volcano. Those were much further out, probably inaccessible and out-of-bounds. This funnel was nothing more than a hole in the ground.

I wondered on that. The Over City had a wooden floor that had seemed downright rickety in some places. The Hunting Grounds were jungle and had a solid, physical ground. Hell, there was a deep river running through it. Supposedly, if one spent too much time digging up there, one would break through and fall into this area. It was all fake. All game setup. But still, it was important to know how all this worked.

This area was the same. According to the story, it was once just a flat, verdant land with forests on the outskirts and rocky ground, filled with caves and rich minerals. When the dwarves decided to tunnel down to the gods, they burrowed through solid rock, only stopping when they reached the roots of the All Tree.

The dwarf was talking to me, but I’d missed some of it.

“We say there are 66 levels, but that’s not true. Not all rings completely circle the city,” Arief was saying. We turned toward a long, winding road that led toward another off-ramp. “We number from the bottom up. This is level 49, and it’s mostly homes. The one we just left was 50, and it’s known for the college, which takes up a third of the ring. The rest of 50 is the high cultural district and museums. There are three rings that are called cultural districts, and this one is the uppermost.” He gave me a sidelong glance. “It’s more for the fancy folks, if you know what I mean. I went to a play up there once, and I didn’t understand a damn word what anybody was saying. The biggest theater is down below in ring nine, called The Piccadilly, but it’s still a little wet. My uncle drained it, and it was filled with jellyfish. They’re still cleaning it out.”

“How high did the water get?” I asked.

“Level 39,” he said. “It drained down to 29 pretty fast, but then it got stopped up. We were going to fix it, but then Juice Box started opening everybody’s eyes and had us keep it clogged. We had water up to 15 for a bit, and now it’s only up to level 3, just enough to cover the highest tower of the castle. Anybody who wants to take that castle has gotta learn how to swim.”

We moved to the ramp, but I paused, seeing the traps glowing ominously at the corners.

Arief followed my gaze. “Explosives,” he said. “In case they get in. We have them on every other down ramp.”

I nodded and continued, still gawking at everything. More crawlers came up. I recognized this one. His name was Ajib, and he was level 51. I’d only met him once, briefly, at the beginning of the 6th floor. He was missing a leg when I first met him, but he now had what looked like a mechanical prosthetic. Donut got him and his companions recruited.

“Why don’t they just jump down the center?” I asked, more to myself as we moved down to the next level. This one, 45, was filled with shops, but like Louis said earlier, they appeared to mostly be for clothing. And they were all closed.

“They’ve done it a few times,” Arief said. “There was another season when the orcs marched down the streets while the Reavers jumped in, using invisibility and Fall potions, getting to the castle first. They still lost that season. That’s not going to work this time. Not with the city defense system.”

I stopped dead in the street and looked at the dwarf. “Another season?” I asked.

He nodded. “I don’t remember this, but there are some with the memory quickened. I believe I am new, as are most of us. But some have persisted. My uncle remembers dozens of seasons now. Not as many as Juice Box, but he’s one of the Jatismara, and he sits upon her war council.”

There was so much packed into that short statement that I didn’t know where to start. I thought of Herot the cookbook author of the 16th edition, who’d made waking NPCs up his life’s work. I thought of his final, heart-wrenching entry in the cookbook, and I wondered if he’d managed to survive. And if he had, was he watching this right now? Probably not. If he was alive, he’d likely still be working in the dungeon somewhere. He’d wanted to be a game guide. I didn’t know if he’d made it.

It had been what? About a month since Juice Box had made it down to this floor?

“How many of you guys know?” I asked.

“About the previous seasons? About our past lives?” He shrugged. His strange breast plate swung back and forth like a bell. “Most of us know. Some don’t seem to understand, but most know. Juice Box says there are different kinds of us, made with different purposes. Some shopkeepers are different, and some of the patrons of certain establishments are also different, unable to understand. The hands of the outworlders are everywhere when you know what to look for.”

I exchanged a look with the others, who’d stopped talking about Louis’s wedding. Britney was next to me, and she asked, “Does your uncle remember dying?”

“No,” Arief said. “We believe that for most of us, if one dies, they are dead forever. We are not immortal like the outworlders.”

“The ‘outworlders’ won’t be immortal for long,” Britney said.

“That is what Juice Box has told us,” Arief said. He suddenly and abruptly pulled the curved blade from his back, which popped out with a loud shing! All of us jumped away, including Mongo.

When Mongo jumped, Rend tumbled off his back and bounced on the floor, making an “Ouchie”-like noise.

“When the fighting starts,” Arief said, “I will have my revenge against Architect Houston!” He swung his sword back and forth a few times.

“Architect Houston?” Donut asked. She nudged Rend forward with her head, rolling him onto Mongo’s tail. Mongo lifted the tail up, and Rend bowled onto Mongo’s back, giggling. “Who is that?”

“The leader of the Madness,” the dwarf said. “A viceroy outworlder. He caught my brother as he attempted to sabotage their fortifications.” He re-sheathed his blade over his shoulder. “They say my brother was tortured before Juice Box infiltrated and ended his suffering.”

“Is that the guy whom Juice Box decapitated during the pre-production meeting?” Donut asked. She made a scoffing noise. “I don’t like those viceroy guys. I’m glad they wear masks. If I had a face like that, I’d wear a mask, too.”

“That was one of his surgeons,” the dwarf said. “Nobody has managed to get into Houston’s operating theater. That’s what they call his lair next to the throne room.”

We walked for a little while in silence, ever going lower. As we reached level 35, the buildings started to get rougher in architecture. The scent of the ocean lingered. This area had been flooded, but only briefly. These streets were mostly empty. There were more shops here, but none were occupied. I caught sight of a trap guild. On my map, it said it was actually open. The guild, at least. The attached shop was not.

“How much did you guys manage to sabotage?” I asked. “Of the enemy encampments, I mean.”

“We will discuss it when we get below,” he said, “but we bloodied all of them a little. We managed to get inside the inner circle at least once for all of them except the den, of course. Or, like I said, into the Madness’s operating theater.”

I felt my heart quicken. “The den? Why couldn’t you get in there?”

“The nagas are not very good at mass warfare, and they say they never win this game. It is said theirs is a court of assassins, not warriors. If they are to win, it is with a poisoned blade in the dark, not with the marching of a thousand feet.” He shuddered. “Not that they have feet, the slippery demons. Their poisons can kill you in a million ways. Their acids can melt you in seconds. No changeling or spy has ever been able to infiltrate their inner sanctum. No one has ever seen the Whore, who hides behind her veils and guard. Even Juice Box wouldn’t attempt to sneak in. We just attacked their fortifications in quick raids. We were about to send one of the two diggers after them when you made that ceasefire happen.”

I nodded. I knew some of this. More than Arief did. I’d known it for a while. About how difficult it would be to eliminate the naga leadership. He only knew half of it, and despite being an awakened NPC, he still only knew about the in-game version of the Blood Sultanate

Drakea had extensive notes about the naga people, whom he hated. But Mordecai had also spent some time telling us what he knew about them and their government.

In the galaxy, their people were supposedly as wide and as varied as humans. They’d been humiliated and bankrupted during Drakea’s run in the game, but that didn’t make them stupid. Mordecai made a point to drive this home. From what he explained, their government was like a mix between the mantis regime and that of the United Kingdom. A constitutional monarchy. There were individual systems all under a central government. They had a constitution and parliament and a prime minister who ran the day-to-day operations, all under a mostly-for-show sovereign, whose name out in the wide universe was now king. But long, long ago, they’d been known as the Sultanate.

Their people were considered mostly humble and wanting to keep to themselves, but several of their systems were now a tourist destination and vacation spot, especially the home planet. They’d once been known as explorers and ship builders. And conquerors. The grand, in-orbit shipyards still existed, but the factories were now mostly owned by other entities, and the nagas themselves were a source of cheap labor.

Here in faction wars, they were basically LARPing the olden days. Drakea thought it was mostly for fun, but after reading between the lines and talking to Mordecai, I was starting to realize their continued participation in faction wars was actually a PR stunt. A way to keep people interested in naga history, which would drive tourism. They called themselves the Blood Sultanate, a name harkening a darker, bloodier time in their history. The actual participants were of the royal family. During Drakea’s time, their leader was a naga who was now the king. He no longer participated in the games, leaving it to his children and cousins.

The current leader of the in-game Blood Sultanate was the real-life crown princess, whose name in the game was the Sultana. I didn’t know what her real name was. In the old days, her identity would be kept a secret. It was considered punishable by death for someone to even see her. She sat behind veils and was guarded by an honor guard, who were all sentenced to deferred death for looking upon her.

In the old days, the Sultana was the eldest half-sister of the Sultan, and she would be the mother of the future generation of the royal family. She would be bred until she either gave birth to 99 sons or 198 daughters, whichever happened first. If she gave birth to 99 sons, she would be killed. After that, the 99 sons would start their process of competing to be the next sultan. The winner of that battle was neutered, and the other 98 brothers would basically take turns knocking up the oldest sister until she, in turn, had 99 more sons. Drakea’s notes on all this was confusing, and I wasn’t 100% certain how it worked. Apparently the gender of the nagas couldn’t be determined for a while, which muddled everything even further.

If the sultana managed to have 198 daughters before she had 99 sons, it wasn’t clear what would happen, though I gathered she basically became the leader and all her male siblings would be put to the blade. It had only happened once in their history, and the sultana who did it was deemed the Sepsis Whore, who’d supposedly poisoned almost all of her sons.

The nagas were now more “civilized,” and the family worked more like that of a traditional monarchy. The current crown princess was the daughter of the actual king, and she was the highest ranking family member actually here on Earth. In the game, she was play-acting as the Sepsis Whore, and from what I gathered, she took the gig very, very seriously.

But she was also a ghost. Untouchable. Despite the naga team getting their asses kicked every single time, she’d never been killed in the game. Not once. They’d have their throne room taken, usually at great expense to the actual, poor NPCs and mercenaries who got sent into the room, but the sultana and her guard would be gone, only to reappear at the end, safe and laughing in the Desperado Club where they’d drink the final days of the game away in safety.

My plan on dealing with her was currently sitting in my bomber’s studio.

The problem was, these nagas weren’t NPCs who believed in the story built around them. They knew who I was, and they would know how important it would be to me to get them out of the game. And now that the protections were off, I had no idea if they would keep the whole Sultana charade up. I did know this princess had spent some time in the naga military, and she had both real-life and in-game experience with fighting. So this wasn’t someone to underestimate.

We walked for several more minutes, passing by more crawlers and recruiting them to the army. I briefly met a crawler name Jurgen, a large human with a shock of blonde hair and arms that looked as if they could bend steel. He was a level 65 Harii, which was some sort of barbarian class. The man also worshipped a god named Donar. He pulled me into a tight hug and kissed me on the cheek when we met.

“You saved my life, and you saved the life of my Heidi with that black magic you did at the end of the last floor. For that, you get a kiss!”

We moved on. By the time we reached the ninth floor, it was clear this was the area where we were before. This area had been flooded until very recently. The ground remained wet and slimy, and the Xs of dead sharks littered the map. The floor contained the massive Piccadilly Theater, surrounded by bars, including a few true saferooms. The large theater building sat right underneath the waterfall, and the sculpture-covered roof doubled as the step for the water from above to land and cascade off the edge. One of the statues was that of a giant frog, and it swallowed the entirety of the water before another frog next to it spewed the water out of the edge down below. There was something stuck in this statue’s mouth, and the water was spraying unevenly. As I watched, a group of NPCs were trying to dislodge whatever was stuck in there.

The theater building itself had been ruined by the recent flooding, but even more NPCs: humans, elves, and draconians swarmed over the building, cleaning it up. It was the most active group of NPCs we’d seen since we got here. A Bactrian camel—the first camel I’d seen on this floor—walked on stilts and was putting letters up on the water-stained marquee. It read “One Night Only. Session of Love, the final show before we all die.” In smaller letters under that, it read, “Balcony still closed due to jellyfish infestation.”

“She’ll meet us at the entrance to the Desperado Club,” Arief said as we descended past the 7th floor. These were all closed and destroyed shops. Weapons and magic shops. Mercenary markets. All still flooded out and ruined. The only thing open were the guilds and the occasional saferoom bar.

“Is the Desperado back open?” I asked, surprised.

“It just opened back up earlier today,” Arief said. “Our, uh, other leader has already parked himself inside. Juice Box will meet us in the entrance bar. She’s secured a private room for us.”

The lower we got, the more active it was. A group of dwarves jogged by, singing a military-style running cadence. They carried hammers and sickles over their shoulders as they ran.

Most of these soldiers were only levels 25 to 40. They were trying, but they were not in very good sync. I felt my lips tighten as I watched them.

The Desperado Club stuck out amongst all the other buildings on the fourth floor. The level was relatively small compared to the others above it, and the hole in the center was filled with water as the levels below it remained flooded. The square, concrete building stood on a group of pillars, looking like someone had taken a modernist building built in the 1960’s and dropped it right into the middle of renaissance France. A Las Vegas-style neon sign stood above the large building, but only the red, bottom half of the arrow was lit. The sign did not look anything like the art deco style from the previous floors.

A hand-painted sign hung from a sheet draped across the entrance. It read “Grand Re-Opening. Under New Management.”

We put Mongo and Rend away, and we all went inside.

Entering Desperado Club Entrance Bar. The Headlamp Colonnade.

We didn’t push past the entrance bar like we usually did, but we remained in the first room. It was empty except for a gnoll bartender, who eyed us warily as Arief pulled us past and into the back kitchen. He pressed against a panel in the wall, and it opened, revealing a long tunnel.

Donut: CARL, THE BARTENDER IS A CHANGELING! YOU WERE RIGHT!

Carl: Okay. Keep cool.

I exchanged a nervous look with the others, and we went into the hall. We traversed the long corridor, went through another door, and we entered a room with a dark figure sitting at the table.

The figure looked up from his work, which appeared to be covered with paper and notes. It was a gnoll. An old, wizened, male NPC with only one eye. The name over him read:

Hunger Hammy. Level 30. Gnoll.

Manager of the Headlamp Colonnade.

Before anybody could say anything, the gnoll jumped on the table, scattering papers. He let out an excited screech and started waving his arms back and forth. He leapt at Louis, who’d backed up against the wall. The old, dog man pressed himself against the poor, sputtering man and started furiously kissing him on the lips.

9

Juice Box changed to her familiar human form as she sat on Louis’s lap, her arm draped over his shoulder. She was smiling broadly, but I could see the tired and worry in her eyes. She had scars she didn’t have before. Her left ear, I also noticed, didn’t form when she changed, though after about ten seconds, an ear did finally appear, almost like an afterthought.

We lose things, and we gain them.

I examined her.

Juice Box. Human. Level 35.

Co-Warlord of Team Retribution.

This is an ally.

I knew that level was incorrect. The last time I’d seen her, it’d said she was 17. I also knew the number changed when she changed. Mordecai said there was no way to tell what her real level was, even when she was in her blank form. It was a quirk of high-level changeling NPCs.

Louis appeared terrified as he sat in the only chair in the room, upon her insistence.

Donut had freed Mongo back out into the office, and I let Rend free as well. The first thing Juice Box did after she peeled herself off Louis was to pick up the little pet and pat him on the head. Mongo also snuffled up against Juice Box, and she laughed as she scratched him.

Arief remained in the room, guarding the door.

Britney and I stood over the desk, looking at the papers Juice Box had splayed out for us. Rend stood on the desk as well, gnawing on the end of a pen. I shuffled through the documents. It was a lot—but it wasn’t all the papers, I noted. She’d made a point of taking some and sticking them in the drawer so we couldn’t see what they said. It was a subtle but purposeful move. We are your allies, she was saying. But we are our own people, too.

“Carl,” Juice Box said. “You didn’t do what I wanted. We wanted everybody to be protected. To have regeneration. That’s not what happened.”

I looked up from the papers. I remembered what Huanxin Jinx had told me, that they’d never let us be safe. “They would never allow it, so we did the next best thing. We made it so we can kill them instead.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “It’ll have to do.” She rested her head on Louis’ shoulder. Ren had chewed the pen in half, and now ink ran down his face. I picked him up before he could do more damage and put him on the floor. He giggled and started rolling in circles. I returned my attention to the documents.

Most of the papers were maps and castle locations along with troop strengths. There were resupply schedules, including information on the food market that had mysteriously appeared in “Shanty Town” overnight.

It turned out the existence of the shanty town, a ring of hastily-built buildings and markets surrounding the entrance to Larracos, was a new thing. At least one this large. There was usually a shanty town, but it was never anything like this. It’d appeared soon after the flooding, ostensibly built by the displaced NPCs. Nobody had actually built it. The hovels just sprung up out of nowhere. Since the slums completely encircled the top entrance to Larracos, they formed the equivalent of a new, large-sized settlement.

The rules had been pretty clear that they weren’t going to add new NPCs once we’d flooded the town, but it appeared they’d either changed the rules or found some sort of loophole as there were some new shops with new NPCs. None were weapons or mercenary markets or entrances to the Desperado Club, but there were food markets and multiple temples, all placed in ramshackle, wooden and metal buildings. There was a single Club Vanquisher entrance hidden somewhere in Shanty Town, but getting access was tough, and the overpriced markets there were only good for outfitting individuals and not armies.

Even though some version of Shanty Town existed every season, I saw no indication it was ever anything like this. I suspected the size and addition of new markets was a result of someone’s Emergency Action Item, but I didn’t know who. The teams all got three of the emergency requests, and I knew all the teams were out. We still had two left.

Actually... I wondered if the NPC team was given access to all this stuff. Part of that action item that gave them their team included “full voting rights.” Did Juice Box have the warlord menu? I had so many questions about how the NPC team functioned.

I would have to investigate further. Either way, there was now a smattering of new shops in this new area, which was outside of Larracos. That meant this so-called shanty town would still be accessible to the other teams, even when the ceasefire ended.

What I was looking at right now was Juice Box’s scrapped plans on destroying the food markets once the fighting started. Once the ceasefire had been called, reps for all the teams had moved in and purchased all the food they could. Before, they hadn’t trusted the food market as Juice Box’s people had been poisoning all the stock. The ceasefire had refreshed all the food stores. They’d taken advantage of the reprieve and had moved in. So now there was no point to it.

“Who’s the mayor of Shanty Town?” I asked.

The look on Juice Box’s face soured. “There have been several since it opened, as the outworlders kept killing them, though they weren’t allowed to ‘own’ the town. Not until the games begin.” She shook her head. “It’s so stupid. The second-most-recent mayor was a gnoll named Meat Gnasher. Just before the ceasefire was called, he got called out in single combat and lost. Now the mayor is,” she took a pained breath, “someone else.”

“But it’s not one of the invaders?” I asked.

“I wish,” Juice Box said. “We can kill the invaders once the fighting begins. We can’t touch this guy.”

I sighed. “So, Ferdinand?”

Juice Box pointed a pair of finger guns at me. “Bingo, cowboy.”

I shot a nervous glance at Donut to gauge her reaction, but I realized she hadn’t reacted at all. Her eyes were flashing as she was deep in chat. I was starting to suspect she already knew all of this.

“Are any of the outworlders coming into the regular city? Into Larracos?” I asked.

Britney slid a map over for me to examine. It was a map of the Naga team’s fortifications. It only showed the outside of the building.

“They are starting to, yes,” Juice Box said. “There’s not much here for them, but still they come, mostly to scout. These last few weeks before the rule change, they didn’t dare. Anyone who entered regretted it immediately.”

“I figured,” I said as I started to mentally trace the map in my scratch pad.

“Is Ruby okay?” Juice Box suddenly asked. “They told me she stayed behind, but you promised to keep her safe.”

Ruby was one of the changeling children with compression sickness. “We have her,” I said. “And the others. Mordecai has been keeping them safe.”

She nodded. “Good. I haven’t had enough contact with the others. The rules of this world... It’s a lot. I don’t know how you do it. I attempted a clandestine meeting, and a voice spoke out of nowhere, telling me I wouldn’t be allowed to talk to that person. And each time the blob guys killed the mayor, there was an announcement saying the mayor had died. Most people don’t see the words, but I do. I’ve never seen anything like that before.”

“I was going to ask you about that,” I said. “Do you have, you know, menus and things like that? Or access to the warlord chat, or to the Faction Wars manager?”

“I know of which you speak, but I do not have access. I do have the mental voice messaging system. And I do have the mental words that speak to me in my mind and float before me when there is a change.” She sighed. Then she reached over and booped Louis on the nose with her finger. “But the good thing is, that means we can now talk when you like.”

Louis still hadn’t said a word since he’d gotten in here.

What she’d said registered, and I finally understood the dynamic between Juice Box and Gravy Boat.

I grunted. “So that’s why you haven’t murdered him yet.”

“What?” Donut asked, looking up. “Why hasn’t she murdered who?”

“Your fiancé,” Juice Box said to Donut. “Warlord on High, Sir Ferdinand. That’s what he’s changed his name to. He is in the club right now, sitting at the bar, talking with that infected elf outworlder we’re not allowed to kill. This cat has done nothing but cause problems, and now he has been given control of my people. He is the one given power over the controlling system, including the city defense system. That elf says it was a workaround to allow us to participate because the cat isn’t really an NPC, but of the same stock as you. If he dies, we lose control, so he must be kept safe.”

“My fiancé?” Donut said, scoffing. “Ferdinand is telling people he’s my fiancé? I think not. Where does he get the nerve to even say that!” Her eyes started flashing again, confirming my suspicion that she was already talking to him. She let out another angry scoff as she furiously messaged back and forth.

Juice Box appeared strangely relieved at this.

“What do you mean by ‘infected elf outworlder?’” I asked. “Is his name Drick?”

“Yes,” Donut confirmed without looking up, her voice still angry. “It’s him.”

Juice Box nodded. “Yes, Drick. He is called our adjutant. I touched his arm, and he was solid as you or me, but when I attempted to decapitate him, my blade went right through like he was a ghost. He is like the others right after they’ve been regenerated. We are unable to hurt them at all for some time, but that protection appears permanent for him. He is not really an elf. He has a worm in his brain, similar to the one your rock friend had. But this one is a different species.”

“That’s called a Valtay worm. I met him once when I got pulled out of the game, and Donut and I met him again recently when we were picking our own adjutant. Look, we have a lot to do, and I’m glad we’re in each other’s chat now. We have a lot to prepare for, but I first need to know how you guys are planning on defending yourself. What’s the city defense system? And I need to talk to Gr... the other warlord to make sure we’re on the same page.”

She nodded. She slid off Louis’ lap and started to change form. She went back to the grizzled, elderly gnoll. Instead of a missing ear, this one had a missing eye.

Donut: LOUIS, TELL HER SHE’S PRETTY. YOU HAVEN’T SAID ONE WORD TO HER, AND I THINK SHE’S STARTING TO GET NERVOUS YOU DON’T LIKE HER ANYMORE. YOU’RE ABOUT TO GET MARRIED.

Juice Box, now standing, put a pair of fuzzy arms back around Louis’s shoulder. He remained awkwardly sitting in the chair, his eyes wide as saucers. He wasn’t moving at all, like he was terrified, giving the impression he was standing upon a landmine. He, too, I realized was in chat, eyes flashing.

Carl: Louis, are you okay?

Louis: Dude. She’s messaging me non-stop, talking about how we have to get married to make sure our houses are ‘bonded.’ It’s all Game of Thrones shit, and it’s freaking me out.

Carl: You don’t have to do this. We can find another way. It’s completely unnecessary. She’ll understand.

Louis: I already told her I would. It’s... it’s okay, I think. She’s different in the messages than she is out loud. She’s pretending to be all confident, but she’s not. Man, I think she’s really, really scared. She’s in over her head I think.

Carl: We’re all in over our heads. You don’t have to actually marry her.

Louis: She thinks it’s important. We need them on our side, and if this helps, I’ll do it. If they turn against us, we’re screwed. This will help. We need each other.

Donut: PLUS YOU LOVE HER, RIGHT?

Louis: Yeah. Sure. Of course.

Donut: OKAY, THEN. BUT DON’T TELL US. TELL HER. AND DON’T BE ALL CARL ABOUT IT. BE ROMANTIC.

Louis was shaking and sweating. His five player killer skulls looked so ridiculous, so out-of-place over his head that I felt angry every time I saw them. But then the crawler took a breath, stood, and he took Juice Box’s hand in his own.

“Juice Box and I need to strengthen the bond,” Louis said out loud. “We should get married right away.” He moved as if he was about to kiss her, but then paused. “Can you, like, turn into something else for a second?”

Juice Box squealed in delight, which was uncharacteristic of both her current form and her regular personality. She turned into a blonde human. Different than her regular, human form. I couldn’t tell who she was supposed to be. It was like a mix between Taylor Swift and Iggy Pop. Then a cheerleader suit formed on her body. I still didn’t know who she was supposed to be. She reached up and kissed Louis full on the lips.

Donut: SAY YOU LOVE HER.

“I love you,” Louis said, his lips still smashed on hers.

Donut gasped with delight.

Donut: THIS IS THE MOST ROMANTIC THING I’VE EVER SEEN. DO IT. DO IT, LOUIS.

Louis: Uh, do what?

Donut: HAVEN’T YOU WATCHED GOSSIP GIRL? SAY IT TWICE.

Louis: Say what twice?

Donut: GODDAMNIT LOUIS, DON’T RUIN THIS FOR ME.

“I love you?” he repeated.

I exchanged a look with Arief, who remained guarding the door. He looked as skeptical as I was. This wasn’t the middle ages. A marriage seemed preposterous and pointless in these circumstances, especially if Louis wasn’t really into it. I knew Louis really liked her, but she was a goddamned NPC.

Still, he was correct in one thing. If it did keep the NPC team on our side, then it wasn’t a terrible idea. I just hoped all of this wouldn’t blow up in our face.

Britney, who’d ignored all of this, looked up from the desk, where she’d been carefully studying the papers. She tapped a piece of paper. “How big are these diggers?”

Juice Box pulled back from Louis and grinned at the other woman. “Oh, my dear. Have you not seen dwarven automatons before?”

10

“Thank god,” I said, coming into the entrance vestibule for the Desperado Club. “Clarabelle! I thought you were dead!”

When Minge the demon had demolished the Desperado Club, I’d assumed all the guards had been killed. I was glad to see the ever-present bouncer sitting in her regular chair, looking grumpy as ever.

The female crocodilian glared at me and Donut. “I’m not, no thanks to you. You four are banned. By order of the new management. The NPCs can still go in.”

“What?” Donut demanded. “Banned from the Desperado Club? Is that a joke? We’re about to have a wedding inside. We were going to invite you! Mongo is going to be a ring bearer, and I’m going to sing!”

The crocodilian was not impressed. “It’s not just you, if that makes you feel better. It’s because of you, but it’s not just you. New management wants his first few days to go smoothly, so he’s banned all crawlers. If he ever un-bans the crawlers, then we’ll talk.”

“I wasn’t even there for the demon thing. This is an outrage!”

“That doesn’t even make sense,” I said. “If crawlers can’t get in at all, then what’s the point of the club?”

Clarabelle shrugged. “I just do what I’m told. Try again in a few days. Maybe he’ll have changed his mind. But I wouldn’t hold my breath.”

It was me, Donut, Louis, Britney, Arief, and Juice Box, who’d taken on the form of a female draconian. We’d put Mongo and Rend away.

“Who is the new manager?” Donut demanded. “I wish to speak to him this instant!”

“He’s asked not to be disturbed. It’s not anybody you know,” Clarabelle said. “He is very particular. Very serious about security. I’m lucky I still have my job. All the surviving cretins and sai got airlocked and sent off to the mercenary markets.” She leaned in. “Look, I know that whole demon thing wasn’t entirely your fault. But this new guy is filling the club with more security measures than I’ve ever seen. He has a whole slew of bodyguards with him at all times.” She made a quick, upward motion with her small eyes. “Not exactly NPCs. Not exactly former crawlers. That’s all I can say.”

“What’s his name?” I asked.

“Hamed.”

I tried not to react. I knew that name. I knew exactly who this was. My elbow suddenly throbbed, and I remembered Astrid’s last words before Katia and I had assassinated her. They still haunted me.

I was almost done.

Hamed was the real name of the Night Wyrm. The leader of the Guild of Suffering. Husband to the late Astrid and father to the strippers Damascus Steel and Anaconda, both of whom were still, supposedly, somewhere in the club, hunting him. Hunting their own father.

All of that had to wait. Right now we had to get to Gravy Boat. “Look,” I said. “There’s someone in there we gotta talk to. Is there any way you can...”

I paused as a harried-looking Dream elf appeared, stepping out into the vestibule from within the club.

I recognized the man.

Drick.

Adjutant for Team Retribution.

This is a non-combatant observer.

Drick carried a tablet computer in one hand and a drink in another. He nodded at me as he pushed his way deeper into the vestibule, which was suddenly very crowded.

At least, he tried to nod at me. He couldn’t fully move his head.

He had a large, orange cat sitting directly atop his bald dome.

Warlord on High, Sir Ferdinand. Cat. Level 100.

Co-Warlord of Team Retribution.

This is an ally.

The last time I’d seen the cat, he’d been wearing a ridiculously-large turban with a massive feather. Now he wore a gold chain around his neck with a small, jeweled charm and what appeared to be a circle of white, thin paper tissues wrapped around his head. One end sagged pitifully, about to fall off.

I felt myself staring at the thing on his head, trying to figure out what it was. It was like he’d attempted to recreate the turban using literal toilet paper.

Donut jumped to my shoulder so she was eye-to-eye with the cat.

“Hey, baby girl,” Ferdinand said.

“Don’t you baby girl me,” Donut snapped, pointing a paw at him. “Remember what we talked about? Do it. Do it now.”

Ferdinand looked down, appearing abashed. Some of the tissue on his head unraveled and landed on Drick’s face, covering his eyes. The elf pushed it away. “Come on, babe. I was trying to be romantic.”

“Do you want me to pull out Mongo? I’ll pull him out right now.”

The orange cat sighed. “I’m not really her fiancé,” he said. He looked up and winked at me. “Not yet at least.”

Donut scoffed. “I would rather have a sexual affair with the bloating corpse of a syphilis-infested cocker spaniel than even consider having a relationship with you. I don’t know what I ever saw in you.”

“Is that a way to talk to a fellow warlord?”

“And what do you have on your head? Take that off this instant!”

He sheepishly pawed at his head, removing the tissue. It stuck to his claw, and he wiped it free using the side of Drick’s face. “It was just a temporary hat. Gotta keep my head warm. Did you get my trade request?”

“We did,” Donut said. “And we rejected it immediately. Didn’t we, Carl?”

“Uh,” I said. I remembered seeing the notification, but I’d forgotten about it.

“I just want my Simoom and my hat. Is that so much to ask?”

“Your hat?” I asked. “Wait... Simoom? Is that your rhinoceros mount? We haven’t been to our headquarters yet. We don’t know if we even have the thing.”

“You have her. Kibben stole her right from me, and I demand satisfaction! We landed here, and everybody was fighting and running, and he wouldn’t let me take her.”

I wasn’t certain who Kibben was, though I remembered there’d been a high-elf stablemaster at the castle before we’d transferred it here to Larracos.

“Look, if we can get your mount back, that’s fine,” I said. “But if you lost your hat...”

“I have your stupid hat, but it’s not with me,” Donut said. “You want it back? Then you have to stop being so disgusting. And you have to change the name of our alliance.”

Carl: Do you really have his hat?

Donut: YES, CARL. I TOLD YOU I FOUND IT AFTER THE BUTCHER’S MASQUERADE.

I vaguely remembered something she’d messaged me while drunk at the Christmas party, but I hadn’t realized she was talking about his hat.

This whole time, Juice Box sat there, eyes flashing as she conversed with Drick. Ferdinand appeared oblivious as he went back and forth with me and Donut.

“We’ll give you your hat back tomorrow or the next day,” I said. “I can’t promise anything about the mount until I talk to the others, but I will do my best. But I do want something from you.”

The orange cat grunted. “You want something from the Ferdinand and Juicy-Juice without giving anything up? I think not.”

“If you call me that again, I will neuter you with my teeth,” Juice Box said.

I went through my inventory and spied something I hadn’t given Donut yet. She was about to be pissed. “How about a temporary replacement hat? You’ll have to give it back when we get you your turban.”

“What hat?” Donut demanded.

I pulled out the black, weathered bowler hat. It’d been in Quan’s inventory. One could throw it, have it decapitate an enemy, and it’d boomerang back to the owner. Both Donut and Ferdinand gasped at the same time when they saw it.

I caught eyes with Juice Box, and she nodded. We’d already discussed this, and I knew she was on board after having conversed with Drick. The plan had been for her to convince Gravy Boat to help us, but this was better.

Ferdinand reached a paw toward the hat, but I pulled it back. “I want to be mayor of that town. Shanty Town. You’ll have to transfer your mayorship to us, which means that jewel on your necklace will go away. You’ll get this hat, and we’ll trade it back for your turban in a day or so. We’ll try to get your rhino back if we still have it. If not, we’ll figure something out. We’re allies.

The Princess Posse has made a trade request with Team Retribution.

Before he could accept or deny the invite, I reached over and placed the bowler hat on the cat’s head. It resized itself and sat at an angle. Without a word of encouragement, Britney pulled a hand mirror from her inventory as Ferdinand admired himself.

“It won’t let me transfer the town without you giving us some money,” Ferdinand said.

“That’s okay,” I said. “We have gold.”

But the cat wasn’t even listening to me. He adjusted the hat. “I’m a very handsome boy.”

I met eyes with Drick as the cat on his head continued to pose. The elf’s mouth turned upward in an unreadable expression. It was like a mixture of annoyance, exasperation, and panic.

Trade Request has been accepted.

Your Truce with Team Retribution has been renamed to “The Good Guys.”

Clarabelle grunted. “Can’t say it’s been boring since you guys showed up. That’s for sure.”

“I’m a very handsome boy,” Ferdinand repeated.

* * *

Changeling weddings, as it turned out—much to Louis’ relief—were two-part affairs. The “small wedding” occurred first, which was a simple, private ceremony, and it was what we were doing right now.

We’d returned to the dingy entrance bar. We moved a table aside and allowed Juice Box and Louis to stand in the center, holding hands. Juice Box returned to her blank form. I didn’t see any damage to her body in this form, and I wondered on that.

It said she was level 120. I wondered on that, too.

Donut was angry to learn there’d be no rings, no ring bearers, and no singing. There was no pastor or officiant. It was just Louis and Juice Box and a small group of people watching, including Drick and Ferdinand, who hadn’t left the elf’s head. Mongo and Rend played in the room. Arief guarded the door. The gnoll-but-really-a-changeling bartender remained behind the bar, watching.

The whole thing went fast.

The “Confirmation,” which was the second part of the wedding, would happen in about a month. Donut scoffed at the idea. It seemed so far away. Mordecai explained in chat that in changeling culture, most married couples needed a full month to decide if they really were compatible. Most of their weddings were arranged, and part of the small wedding actually included signing divorce papers, which expired in a month if they weren’t filed in time. During this first month, the couple were legally married, but if one of them decided to file the divorce, there would be no consequences, and the marriage would basically get annulled. But in the meantime, this first wedding was the legal one. Once this small wedding ceremony was over, that was it. Juice Box and Louis would be married fair and square.

The Confirmation was a big event and was much more like what everybody considered a traditional wedding. Here there would be guests and food and gifts and singing. Donut was already in chat, loudly preparing for the party.

I kept my attention on Louis, as I watched him stand there awkwardly. I worried about him.

He caught me staring at him, and he gave me a quick smile.

“I wish my mom was here,” he whispered.

Everybody’s views were absolutely spiked as the crawler and NPC whispered made-up-on-the-spot vows to each other. They whispered them in each other’s ears, so nobody else would hear. They would repeat them out loud at the Confirmation.

And that was it. They were married.

“Congrats, guys,” I said as Donut cheered enthusiastically. Britney clutched onto a pile of automaton plans and hadn’t been paying attention.

Zev: Well, that was a first.

Donut looked at me. “I hope Samantha won’t be too mad she missed the first ceremony.”

Before I could answer, my warlord interface started to rapidly blink. These were all new recruit notifications. I exchanged a look with Donut, who’d also paused at the influx of notifications. It was so many, I had to mute it. I was about to send a message asking what the hell was going on when Florin messaged me.

Florin: Mate, I am about to blow your fucking mind. You need to get your ass to the headquarters. We’ve secured the saferoom here, so you can use the doggie door. There’s a large group of people here who would really like to meet you.

TIPID

“Can I keep this?” Tipid asked his attorney. His hands shook as he turned the key over in his blood-covered hands.

He sat in the chair, but he could barely feel his legs. He still shook. Is this real? he wondered. Am I really here, or is this another trick? The Illusionists were still out there, casting their spells. Cassio was dead. He’d stabbed himself in the neck, fighting illusions, screaming for them to get off of him. It’d left just him and Horatio. And now Horatio was dead, too. He was dead because the key only let one of them out, and Tipid had chosen to save himself.

“Tipid,” the man said. “It’s Damien. I’m not your attorney. You’re in a zero zone, and you have some lingering injuries that need to be repaired. It’s brain lesions or something, I don’t know. You need to get straight to a Viceroy system to get it repaired. I’ve already arranged for transport. It’s going to cost a good chunk of your pension, but I don’t see what choice you have.”

Tipid blinked, and he realized his hands weren’t really bloody. The man in front of him wasn’t his attorney. That had already happened. That was solars ago.

“I’m never getting out of here,” Tipid said. He looked at his hands again. Why were they so clean?

The man—a hair-covered human—smiled at him. He smiled the way a merchant would smile. A merchant who was forced to deal with a customer he despised. “No, no, that’s not true,” the man said. “You did it. You fulfilled your contract. Game guide. Poisoners guild. Occasional city guard. Perfect marks. You didn’t negotiate post-release health care, unfortunately, and some of the physical injuries to your body persist. So when you’re outside the dungeon environment,” he waved a hand at Tipid, “this will happen. But you’re free. You’re going home.”

“Home? Where is that?”

“There’s an organization. A not-for-conquest that helps destitute former crawlers and employees get their footing after transition. It’s pretty new, but the Syndicate has donated some money to the cause once they started getting press. I’ve taken the liberty of letting them know you’re coming. They’re sending someone to accompany you to the Viceroy system. He’s a former crawler himself.”

“Viceroys?” Tipid asked, suddenly afraid. His mind was in a fog. What was happening? He remembered the Viceroys. The masked monsters during faction wars. They called themselves the Madness. Their chief surgeon had a spell that cooked your brain. It made your teeth fall out. It made the liquid in your eyeballs turn to acid and then explode over your own face. That was what had happened to Rosaline.

“What about the key?” Tipid turned it over in his hands again, and he realized it was attached to a chain around his neck. When had that happened?

“They let you keep it. You negotiated an extra season just so you could have it. It’s yours.”

He could still hear Horatio’s cries. The other man hadn’t understood what was happening, why Tipid was leaving him behind. He remembered the feeling of the jewel burning out as he stuck the key into the door. Of the notification. Horatio had a wife. An older child. They’d both survived and had already taken a deal at the end of the tenth. Horatio had held on in hopes of getting a better deal, of making a life for them when they finally got out.

Tipid had nobody.

He was all alone in the world. In the universe. Yet, he’d chosen to save himself and not his friend. That’s okay, everybody said to him. It’s okay to be selfish when you’re saving yourself.

He yanked on the key, and he felt the chain snap. He tossed the necklace across the table.

“I don’t want it anymore.”

CLASS: POISONER: RACE: CREST.

Birth Race: Crest.

Top Level: 96

Dungeon Exit: Took deal at the beginning of the 12th floor.

Worked as a Game Guide and Guildhall Instructor in the Poisoner guild before exiting the dungeon. Was forced to spend the entirety of his pension, plus take out an additional loan, to repair the extensive damage to his brain. Eventually retired to a Crest system to work for a waste management company.

Author of the Fourth Edition of the Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook.

Current status: Colonel in the Princess Posse Faction Wars team.

11

Louis left his new wife behind as he, Katia, and Bautista took Party Planner on its inaugural journey toward the base. Samantha had somehow talked her way onto the flight as well. It wasn’t clear if anyone had told her yet about the wedding. Ferdinand and Drick had turned back to the Desperado Club. Drick, apparently, was attempting to teach the cat how to use the warlord menus, but Ferdinand was proving to be a ...difficult student. In the meantime, Drick left Juice Box alone to get back to her work preparing the NPCs for the impending invasion.

Tran had just gotten an upgraded wheelchair, but I hadn’t a chance yet to see what Katia built for him. We left Britney with Juice Box as she received a lesson on how the city defense system worked. There was only so much Juice Box could do until the cat figured out his menus. But in the meantime, the changeling warlord could control the two enormous diggers, which were only part of the defenses. Apparently there was a way to use the buildings themselves to help defend the city.

We hadn’t yet installed the upgrade for the doggie door to work throughout the entire guild, so we had to go over to the Meadowlark space to get to the base. Rend rode upon Mongo’s back as they bounded ahead of us.

“I do hope Juice Box and Louis get time for a honeymoon. It’s sad they got married and then had to separate right away,” Donut said as we walked. “I must say, I am surprised she just let us take control of the other city away from Ferdinand.”

“If the bad guys can freely enter that Shanty Town once the truce is broken, it’s just going to be a liability. It has a separate defense system. In the meantime, we both have something that’s going to give all those assholes a huge headache. It’s a good deal for both of us.”

Donut sneered. “Still, I can’t believe that stupid cat gave it all away just for a temporary hat. He’s not even charmed anymore, and it still worked. We better get that hat back, Carl. I want to put it on my charge pillow and get that boomerang skill for my new tiara. Plus, it’s a bowler hat. I don’t have any bowler hats yet.”

“That’s the plan,” I said. “And we’re going to drain that lightning spell out of the turban, too. But I want to warn Juice Box before we do it in case Gravy Boat flips out. Something tells me she won’t mind. He will. Speaking of your new tiara, you have items charging now, right?”

“Yes, Carl. Mordecai is doing it for us. The first thing we’re transferring over is my Dragonfly Tiara with my Hover skill.”

“Good,” I said. We had so much to do. I needed to get Rend leveled up. I needed to figure out how to use my new Gloom Wraith Phase skill. But first we needed to see what Florin was all excited about.

“Hey!” Donut suddenly shouted. “I just got a notification that my sponsorship has been canceled!”

“Really? Which one?”

“The garbage truck people! It says because of a ‘conflict of interest.’ Carl, what does that mean? What did you do?”

“Huh,” I said. “At least you opened the loot box from them already.”

“It says there’s going to be an auction for a new one.”

“Good. Maybe they’ll get you something good, too.”

“I hope so. As much as I appreciate the loot, I do hope it’s something that lines up properly with my brand this time. With that toy company Veriluxx being a dud and Empress D’Nadia selling my sponsorship, it would be nice to have something to complement the Apothecary, even if she does sponsor half the dungeon.”

We entered the Meadowlark saferoom.

And just like that, everything changed.

* * *

Imani, Florin, and Mistress Tiatha were inside, waiting for us.

They weren’t alone.

I stopped dead as I entered the space. I stared at the two Crest standing there. A woman and a man. Mongo jumped all around them, peeping with excitement at meeting someone new. The man stood there, grinning stupidly while the woman scowled at the dinosaur.

On the minimap, their dots were purple. The same color as the dots of the hunters on the sixth floor, but they had a pink outline, indicating them as troopers for the Princess Posse.

“Rosetta!” Donut exclaimed. “Carl, look! It’s Rosetta Thagra! What are you doing here?”

Rosetta appeared much like she had the last time I’d seen her, only now she wore black shorts, boots, and a simple, unenchanted leather top over her chest. The floral tattoo on her right leg glowed. The tendrils peeked out onto her left arm, implying the tattoo went all the way up over her stomach and across her chest. The tat hadn’t been glowing when I saw it before. She didn’t wear anything on her bald head. She didn’t appear to be carrying any weapons.

Rosetta. Rosetta from the Shadow Boxer television show. Rosetta from the seventh edition of the cookbook.

“How?” I asked.

The name over her head blazed.

Rosetta Thag. Crest Barn Burner. Level 60.

Colonel in the Princess Posse.

This is a subordinate.

The name and description surprised me so much that it took me a second to finally examine the second stranger standing there.

This was also a Crest, but he was noticeably older than Rosetta. In appearance, at least. He was tall, thin, and he had an old scar running up over his bald head, from temple to temple that made him look as if he’d been literally scalped once. While Rosetta’s skin was pale, almost sickly, this guy’s skin was leathery and golden brown, like he spent most of his time working under a blazing sun.

I knew it wasn’t accurate, but Rosetta’s appearance was that of someone who’d never worked a day in her life. This newcomer’s appearance suggested he’d spent a life filled with hard labor.

I felt myself stagger when I read his name, like I’d been physically pushed. My back hit the entrance to the personal space. The door opened, and I almost stumbled back into the guild. Donut yowled and jumped from my shoulder onto Mongo, causing Rend to tumble off the dinosaur’s back. The little meatball giggled as it fell and splotched onto the floor.

Tipid. Crest Liquid Dervish. Level 60.

Colonel in the Princess Posse.

This is a subordinate.

Tipid. Author of the fourth edition of the cookbook.

“How,” I repeated. My legs felt weak.

And then I remembered all the notifications that I’d muted. I met eyes with the man. “Are there more?”

I was asking two different things, and I saw he could tell what I meant. What I really meant.

“A few more,” he said. “Not a lot of us available, unfortunately.”

Florin grunted. “If just over 50 thousand former crawlers counts as a few, then yeah, mate. It’s just a few.”

Holy shit. I swallowed, and I held out my hand to Tipid. The man stepped forward, and he pulled me into a hug.

I could barely move. I couldn’t believe it. A wave of emotion swept over me, traveling up my legs, pausing at my chest, and moving its way to my head. I suppressed a sob.

“I don’t know if it’ll be enough, brother,” Tipid whispered, grasping the back of my head and putting his forehead against my own. “But we’re here. We’ve been watching, and we couldn’t watch anymore. We’re here.”

“Very touchy-feely, these Crest,” Donut said.

* * *

Rosetta approached as Tipid stepped aside, and I thought maybe she was going to hug me, too. She paused, looked up into the air and said, “This isn’t an attack. This is a self-correcting measure given in the spirit of comradery. Okay?”

“What?” I asked.

She smacked me on the forehead with the flat of her palm. It wasn’t a hard strike, but it was loud. And it hurt.

I was so shocked, I didn’t react for several seconds. I just looked at her. Tipid grinned and shook his head.

“What did you do that for?” I finally asked.

She didn’t answer. Instead she pulled me into a hug and kissed me on both cheeks. “Comrade,” she whispered. “We are here.”

“You know, I’m here, too,” Donut said, tail swishing angrily. “It’s my army, too.”

Tipid patted Donut on the head. “Hello, Princess. It’s very nice to meet you as well.”

Donut appeared temporarily mollified.

Florin: Mate, do you know these people already? They’re acting pretty familiar.

I gave him a very slight No nod of my head. He dropped it immediately.

Rosetta was examining my ponytail, turning it over in her hands. She let go of it, letting it slump heavy on my shoulder. Then she reached forward and stuck her hand down the front of my shirt through the collar and put her hand against the Bedlam Bride tattoo. Her fingers were like ice.

“Uh, what are you doing?”

“How much do you have left?”

“Of what?”

She pulled her hand free. “The toraline. Give it to me, and give me the ink the spider used to make that tattoo.”

Rosetta: Don’t say anything out loud. They’re still listening. Do you still have the credit chit you got from the dead pig?

The credit chit was a credit card-like device we’d looted off an orc hunter on the sixth floor.

Carl: Donut has it in her inventory.

Rosetta: Good. I’ll get it from her later. Now give me the items I asked for.

I pulled the sliver of the vegetable out from my inventory. All I had left was a finger-sized slice. The glass container containing the tattoo ink that Shi Maria had brewed was still hot to the touch, and I had to hold it by the top edge. There were only a few thimblefuls of liquid left.

I felt the eye blink on my chest, as if it had been awakened by her touch.

“Mordecai has more,” I said. “Of the toraline, I mean. But not much.”

She sighed. “Give me access to your saferoom, and we will get to work. Give me access to your bomber’s studio, too. And three million gold.” She glared at the sliver of vegetable. “Better make it four million.” She pointed at Donut. “You. Don’t wander. We have to purchase some things from that bopca out there, and I need your charm to get the best price.”

I could feel that Donut was about to say something snarky to the woman when Rosetta added, “If that’s okay with you, warlord. You have the highest charm out of all of us.”

Donut appeared to weigh her response. She had an unreadable expression as she glanced back and forth between me and Rosetta. She turned to look at Tipid, as if she was contemplating something. She turned her attention back to me, her eyes focusing on my own, which were still wet with tears.

“I suppose that will be acceptable,” Donut finally said. She paused again, and then added with a much more cheerful voice, “I must say, Rosetta. I do like this version of you. You’re much more confident than you were on television. You were giving me Charlotte vibes when we met you last time, but now you’re a straight Samantha. Not sex doll head Samantha. Sex addict Samantha. But, you know, bald.”

“What?” Rosetta asked. “What does that even mean?”

“See? It’s great.”

I held out my hands. My head spun. “Wait a minute. Everybody just wait. What the hell is going on? There’s fifty thousand of you? How did you get here?”

Tipid grinned. “You might want to sit down for this, brother. We have a short story to tell. Then we gotta get to work.”

* * *

The “short” story took almost an hour for Tipid to relate, and even then, he only managed to tell us the basics.

He told us of his life after he’d left the dungeon. Of the surgery he’d had to get to keep himself alive, and the debt he’d incurred as a result of that surgery. He told us of Doctor Hu of the Crawler Project, an NFC organization dedicated to helping former crawlers navigate the universe after release.

Dr Hu. Dr Porthus Hu. Author of the second edition of the cookbook. The first crawler to receive the item.

“Is he here?” I asked, interrupting. “Did he come into the dungeon with you?”

“No,” Tipid said. “We all had to scatter when they accused us of being a terrorist organization. I don’t know where he is.”

“Wait,” Donut asked. “So, are you like fugitives? Are they going to swoop in and arrest everyone at any moment?”

Rosetta grinned. “Oh, I hope they try, warlord. But now that we’re in the game, there is nothing they can do. They’ll wait until we get out to try to arrest us.”

There was so much I wanted to ask. Tipid continued, all of us paying rapt attention.

Dr. Hu’s work had been instrumental in helping to create multiple laws that would protect crawlers upon release. Because of the Crawler Project’s campaigning, all released crawlers were now automatically citizens of the Syndicate and given access to the inner system primary zone, which came with free healthcare and guaranteed housing. When Tipid was released, he wasn’t afforded any of that.

Mistress Tiatha sat off to the side and grunted with derision as she listened to this. The half-elf manager of Elle was drunk as usual. “That citizenship perk is only for new crawlers,” she said, slurring the words. “And they’ll still bleed you dry on taxes. Us old guard are gonna get extra fucked when we’re released. They tell us we’ll be ‘full citizens,’ but I don’t believe it. The rich folk sure like getting their faces up on the screen when they’re donating to some charity, but the moment a scruffy, former crawler shows up in their home system looking to settle down, they’ll fight like hell to prevent it. Mark my words.” She took a long swig of her bottle. The woman’s eyes settled on Mongo, and they were wet. She rubbed them and wandered off.

Tipid continued. In addition to the Crawler Project, Dr. Hu formed the Open Intellect Pacifist Network, which was a smaller, more focused group whose purpose was to end the crawl all together. This organization did not have nearly as much support. I could tell there was so much more Tipid wanted to say, and I hoped I would get the chance to learn it all.

That whole incident with Paulie the residual in the body of a homeless man in the Florida shelter had been just one of several actions that had caused authorities to finally start to crack down on the non-profit.

After Tipid’s life-saving surgery, he finally settled in a Crest colony, where he worked for a waste management company for a very, very long time. We didn’t have time to get into the details, but it was Doctor Hu who had suggested the idea of refurbishing one of the garbage freighters into a passenger liner. He put out a call to former crawlers who wanted to get back into the game to help us with Faction Wars, and he’d been overwhelmed by the response.

They’d come to help fight their former captors. Even when I managed to get the protections turned off, they still came. I was, again, overwhelmed with emotion.

As Tipid told his story, Rosetta left and headed toward our saferoom. I warned Mordecai she was coming, and about five minutes after she arrived, a group of three more former crawlers—not cookbook authors—entered the saferoom and went out into the guild. All three were small, winged, lizard-like creatures called bune. All three waved and me and Donut before continuing on their way.

“You’re all level 60,” I said, watching the lizards scuttle off. Despite their wings, they loped about on the ground. “What level were you in the dungeon?”

“I was 96 when I left,” Tipid said. “When we checked in, they gave all of us the standard merc package. Level 60. Able to choose a non-permanent race and class. Most don’t go for the race change, but some did. My class during my first go-around was a poisoner. Now it’s something called a Liquid Dervish.” He grinned. “It’s a good one.”

“What about gear?” I asked, looking the man up and down. He was wearing the same thing Rosetta had been. The three bune had also been wearing just basic clothes.

“What you see is what you get,” Tipid said. “But, some of us picked classes that come with weapons or powerful spells.” He tapped his head. “Plus you get everything that’s up here. We may be level 60, but each one of us is at least a tenner. We’ve all survived Faction Wars at least once. Or Land War. We have a couple of Battle Royale winners with us, too.”

“Tell him about the mercs,” Florin said.

Tipid nodded. “Unfortunately, we weren’t the only ones added at the last minute. You just got a boost of 50,000 ready soldiers. The problem is, all eight of the other teams got a boost of their own. Each team has just about 20,000 new soldiers. All of them are experienced mercenaries, or in some cases, the private guard of the warlords. They let them come in armed. That’s in addition to their existing armies.”

“What?” Donut asked. “Why do they get weapons and you didn’t?”

“They negotiated a different agreement with the AI. They got to come in with their existing gear. They don’t get to change race, and their class is Hired Mercenary. They get to keep their weapons and are given a few rudimentary spells, plus whatever they can pick up here in the dungeon. Trust me, it’s a raw deal. Still, there’s a lot of them. Over 150,000 new bad guys to kill, spread evenly over the other teams.”

“Damnit,” I said. I met Florin’s grim eyes. My joy at having these reinforcements was starting to get clouded by this new reality.

Tipid nodded. “If we get to face the factions one at a time, I’d say no problem, but since they’re working together, we got a bumpy entry ahead of us, that’s for certain. Especially for the first week.” Tipid took a long breath. “Still, we’re lucky they didn’t let them choose a race and class. They’d be much stronger. I’ll take my Murder Tornado spell over a pulse rifle any day.” He gave me a wink. “And wait until you see what my friend Justice Light can do. That eagle knows more about traps than anyone else who ever set foot in the dungeon.”

“Okay,” I said standing up, trying not to let the emotion overwhelm me all over again. “Let’s get to the base and meet up with the team.”

12

<Note added by crawler Ikicha, 11th Edition>

If only I could see him again. It would change everything.

I am jealous, those of you with community, with friends, with family. My kind are castrated and cast out. As such, I think my perspective is unique, so much different than the one who came before me, York, who appears to have come from a hive, yet says he always felt alone his entire life. We are so different, but upon reading his words, I feel such kinship. I wonder, did he survive? Those of you reading this, if you are ever free of this place, I pray you seek out the others who came before. It is a dream. Can you imagine? Together, there would be nothing we couldn’t do. Nothing.

* * *

Time until the ceasefire ends: 52 hours.

Entering The Princess Posse Base Camp.

This is your home territory.

Warning: There is a red alert incursion into your territory. Enter the Flag Room to see the details.

We stepped from the exit into chaos. It was me, Donut, Tipid, and Florin. Imani stayed behind to work in her magic room. Mistress Tiatha was showing her some battlefield enhancement spells with her newly-upgraded room, and Imani wanted to train with it some before returning.

Louis, Katia, and Bautista would soon be here with Party Planner.

The attached saferoom was a small, wooden bait shop with no proprietor. The room itself was barely big enough to fit us all. We stepped out from the small shop onto a grassy plain with a powerful, orange sun beating down on us from directly above. I turned to see the small, wooden shack standing there. The “Bait Shop” sign hung over the door in English. Just past the shop was a small lake.

The skeleton of a new building was in the process of being erected around the shop. Up a small hill, a second, larger building stood. It was a stone structure, but I couldn’t see how big it was. This building was also being encased in metal girders. Multiple workers crawled over both structures. They were boxing the saferoom in, protecting it. It appeared they were expanding the size of the other structure up the hill, connecting the two.

A cool, soft breeze filled the air, though the aroma was that of construction. It was of smoke and ozone and burnt tar. It was a scent I associated with shipyards and welding. Hundreds of people of all shapes and forms stood about, walking, talking, working, and laughing. Far to my left where the ground started to slope away, a group was hard at work, building some type of palisade wall. A fireball flashed through the air and crashed into the metal posts, causing it to glow red. A group of men and women were talking animatedly, pointing at the impact. They’re testing the walls as they build them.

Multiple watch towers were already constructed, and each tower appeared to be manned by three or four people. I could see another tower being built some distance away in the middle of the plains.

Another group were using Build Trench scrolls and appeared to be making a channel up toward the small lake.

I had no idea where they were getting the materials for all this.

Mongo screeched with concern, and Donut patted him on the head as we took it all in. Rend stood on my shoulder, oohing and ahhing as he gnawed on an errant strand of my hair. He’d eaten one of my hair ties, and I hadn’t realized it until my hair fell in front of my eyes.

“You only get a limited number of officers,” Florin was saying as we walked. “We’re recruiting most of the construction guys and crawlers as sergeants and chiefs which allows them to alter the camp, but there’s probably a limit to that as well. Everyone else is going to get the rank of legionnaire with corporals leading individual teams for now.”

“It says there’s an incursion into the territory,” I said.

“It’s mobs,” Tipid said. “Normally they should be cleared out by now, but they made the world bigger, and now we have some hunting to do. We need to decide who to send. There’s only limited experience to be had right now.”

“If we don’t get them all,” Florin added, “Then the warning system is useless.”

A group of soldiers were struggling to push a wall section up. It fell, and they all jumped away. The giant section of wall reverberated with a loud crash, embedding into the earth so deep, it buried itself in a shower of dirt and grass and dust. Florin moved off to help them.

To my left, someone pointed at us and shouted. Everything stopped, just like that. Hundreds of pairs of eyes all turned in our direction.

A tall, muscular human sergeant stood right there, carrying what looked like a steel H-beam for a building. The metallic beam had to be 20 feet long, and it looked as if it weighed two tons. The monster of a man held it on his shoulder.

His name was Penn, and he was a level 62 Fortification Engineer.

In fact, I realized, several of the people around me had the same class. Fortification Engineer. Everyone who wasn’t an engineer was level 60. The engineers seemed to be the only ones who’d risen in level.

The mountain of a man tossed the massive beam to the ground, turned, and wrapped his arms around me in a crushing hug.

I let out an oof as a swarm of bune dragon people came rushing up to surround Donut, walking and buzzing around her, all touching her and then going to the ground and bowing. Mongo looked back at Donut, who appeared equally bewildered.

The man put me down and kissed me on the cheek. He had tears in his eyes.

Donut: CARL, WHY IS EVERYONE KISSING YOU ALL OF A SUDDEN? THAT’S LIKE THE THIRD PERSON IN AN HOUR. YOU’RE GOING TO GET MONO.

“Hup, hup, hup,” Penn started to rhythmically shout, pumping his fist into the air.

I just looked at the man. I was about to ask, “What the hell are you doing?” when someone else started doing it as well. Soon, everyone was shouting and pumping their appendages into the air. It turned into a war chant of sorts. Hup, hup, hup. People were shouting in rhythm like we were at a concert or a football game.

More and more people approached, also shouting and pumping their arms into the air, and soon, we were surrounded. Thousands of people—humans, skyfowl, crocodilians, bune, yenk, and so many others pumped their fists or wings in the air, chanting. The sound was deafening.

But it was more, too. It was terrifying. The ground shook. I felt a deep well of pride at that sound, that chant. In less than three days, we’d all be waist deep in blood. A lot of us would be dead. But for now, this war cry filled me with hope and power.

Tipid tried saying something to me, but I couldn’t hear him over the noise. He moved to chat.

Tipid: This is for you. This is what you built.

And just like that, they were done. Penn the human clapped me on the back, turned, and picked the massive beam back up, hoisting it over his shoulder and started walking toward the palisade construction. Everyone else also went back to work. I just stood there, watching them for a few moments, still overwhelmed.

Off to the side, I blinked as a giant alligator thing suddenly appeared next to Florin. The crawler said something to the giant creature, which was enormous, like 25 feet long. The creature’s long snout moved into the dirt and easily urged the embedded wall section up into the air as the workers swarmed around it, heaving as they pushed the wall back into place.

The creature was too far away to fully examine, but I could see the symbol of a flag over it. This was Florin’s card from the previous floor. A giant caiman. The card combat system was left behind on the 8th level, thank god, but we could still summon our chosen card once a day. Summoning time was equal to twice their regular countdown. If they died, they still came back the next day.

The giant alligator creature did a happy little hop, reminding me of Mongo.

“Come on, Carl,” Donut finally said. “We need to see this stronghold, and then I have to get back and help Rosetta.”

* * *

“Your changelings and those flesh golems started building the stronghold on top of the hill over here,” Tipid said as we walked through the camp. Each former crawler we passed grinned at me, waved, and then went back to work. “It’s a good location, but they didn’t understand how important saferooms are, so we have to expand the building and combine the two. We’re going to build the whole stronghold around the wood shack. This will allow your airships to dock directly from the fortress. Have you seen the new saferoom rules? That’s going to be a problem, so we gotta combine the two buildings. We had a few thousand of us choose that Fortification Engineer race so they could build fast. It lets them level with construction, too. We also have several alchemists who’ve have been making the materials since we got here a few days ago, and we have a solid staff who can also enchant the walls. There’s a yenk named Langrim who used to run the enchantment guild here, and they really know what they’re doing. We hadn’t been able to start the actual construction until just now. It wouldn’t let us build until we were officially converted. We have crews here, on both borders, and others building fall-back positions throughout along with multiple watchtower squads.”

“Wait, what are the new saferoom rules?” I asked, my head spinning. There was a lot that had changed, I knew, but I hadn’t had time to go over it all yet.

“Lots of small changes and a couple big ones. Once the fighting starts, it’s going back to the blood bar system, so you can’t just hide in the saferoom for the whole floor. This is for everybody. You kill someone or something, you fill your blood bar up. Up to nine or ten hours I think. The bar lowers when you’re inside, so you can’t just camp and hide out. That’s a good and a bad thing. Second rule is no mercenaries inside guildhalls once the truce ends, except for a small staff of up to nine people at a time. That ain’t too big of a deal, but it means we have to build sleeping quarters for all these folks, and we won’t be able to keep a reserve.”

I thought of Mordecai and the changeling children he was fostering.

“Are you considered a mercenary?” I asked. “And do you get the achievements or quests or anything?

“We’re mercenaries all right. That orc adjutant of yours can probably clarify it better, but most of us ain’t getting into your guildhall once fighting starts. This was a big sticking point with some of the other teams because the active crawlers can still use their regular saferooms. To a point, that is, with the blood bar active. As for achievements and all that weird stuff, no, thank the gods. We don’t get that. Just level notifications and messages.”

This Tipid guy was, what? Several thousand years old? Even though he appeared older than Rosetta, he still didn’t seem that old. Nor did he act it. He had a big, sideways grin on his scarred face the whole time he moved on through the camp. In some ways, he reminded me of my friend, Sam. Goofy, but not dumb. Disheveled, but always alert. Someone who would surprise you at the strangest moments. Tipid didn’t have the most entries in the cookbook, but the ones he did have were filled with haunting guilt and anger. He’d had a tragedy near the end of his crawl that had really messed him up, and this version of him was so different, it was jarring. Still, it was there once you knew to look for it. The tension. The anger. I could sense hints of it under the surface, like scars not quite hidden by a newly painted wall.

“What about the other teams?” I asked.

“Pretty much all the non-NPC officers have saferooms of their own. They’ll have built their strongholds around one. Big exception is the Lemig team, but we can talk about that later. This change will hurt the Operatics and the naga the most, both of whom are known for hiding rather than fighting.”

Florin came jogging back up to join us. He was grumbling something about artillery. His giant caiman had already timed out and poofed away.

“We need to talk about the naga team,” I said. “They need to be our first target.”

“Figured you say that,” Tipid said. “That’s going to be a problem with the enemy massing on the opposite border. Let’s get to the flag room and talk strategy.”

Mongo started making a strange, cheeping noise.

“Mongo, what’re you doing?” Donut asked. “What is it?” Mongo was sniffing up at the air.

We came to a large, metallic door that looked as if it’d been hammered into shape by a blind and drunk metalsmith. The damn thing was huge, like 20 feet high. This was the part of the stronghold that had been built by the changelings and flesh golems. The door was propped open with a rock, but not open wide enough to squeeze through. Tipid reached over and grabbed a ring and started to pull. He grunted with the effort, and I moved to help.

To my surprise, an info box popped up the moment I touched the door.

Oversized, Cumbersome Door. Apprentice Quality. This fortification is at 80% Strength.

You don’t want to be behind this thing once it’s kicked in.

3/3 Enchantments active. Increase quality to increase enchantment capacity.

Current Enchantments:

Battering Resistance.

Force Reflection.

Heat Absorption.

The moment I added my strength, the door started to slowly, slowly ease open, squealing in protest. A rock fell from the doorframe as we pulled. Rend, still on my shoulder, started making grunting noises even though he wasn’t doing anything.

“My goodness,” Donut said. “It certainly is a big door, but it’s not the most enduring construction, is it? Mongo, stop doing that!” Donut jumped to my shoulder. Rend, still on my opposite shoulder dropped my strand of hair and began gnawing on Donut’s tail. Donut didn’t notice. “Carl, why is Mongo making weird noises?”

Tipid grunted as we continued to pull. “Once we get this open, we have to close it right away because...”

The door flew all the way open, and both Tipid and I went flying back. I hit the ground with an oof and slid. Rend went flying and rolled down the hill, giggling the whole time while Donut shrieked.

“She’s out again!” someone cried.

I looked up in time to see the giant allosaurus with a pink tutu stamp out into the clearing in front of the building. She hopped up and down in front of Mongo, waving her little wand, who also started to hop up and down in front of her.

“Oh, shit,” I muttered.

Tina.

13

“Pop.. Pa-pa!” Tina grunted at Mongo.

Mongo screeched, waving his arms up at the giant dinosaur as they both continued to hop up and down, dancing in circles. I held my breath. These two didn’t have the best relationship, but that was before Tina had “woken up” during the Butcher’s Masquerade.

It appeared they were getting along now. We all stumbled as the giant dinosaur continued to bounce. More rocks fell from the building. “Pa-pa! Pa-pa!”

When Tina talked, it was with deep, guttural growls, and it was difficult to understand what she was saying. I could feel the bass of her voice in my chest. I had to remind myself this was a little kid.

“Papa?” Donut asked, scoffing. She returned to my shoulder, shaking with rage. “Mongo is most certainly not your father! And when did you start to talk?”

“Tina, get back inside!” a new voice cried.

We all turned to watch as a female ursine waddled out the front door. The bear woman wore an eyepatch. Old, deep scarring covered her head. She held a spoon in her hand and had an apron stretched taut around her enormous, pregnant belly.

Kiwi.

I exchanged a look with Florin.

Kiwi was born as an Ursine, but she was a female Mongo when we’d met her. She’d been turned into a dinosaur during Scolopendra’s nine-tier attack. She’d been changed back to a bear during the Butcher’s Masquerade. It was how we won the Tina quest. But before she’d turned, she’d had... relations with Mongo when they were both dinosaurs.

And now she was pregnant. Very pregnant. About-to-pop pregnant.

Kiwi paused at the sight of her daughter dancing around Mongo, who’d now stopped and was staring at the bear.

“Mongo?” Kiwi asked.

Mongo gave a single, quiet roar. He pushed past Tina and moved, head low to the ground as everybody watched, all of us holding our breath, all of us wondering what was going to happen next. Mongo sniffed at Kiwi and gave an uncertain peep.

The entire camp had gone silent. I felt something on my foot. It was Rend. He wanted to be picked up. I reached down to grab him, not taking my eyes off the dinosaur and bear. He started chewing on Donut’s tail again.

Donut sniffed angrily. “Carl, if this turns into some weird, furry porn thing, I’m going to lose my absolute shit.”

Kiwi stepped forward, wrapped her arms around Mongo’s neck, and she hugged him. Mongo just stood there. They hugged for a few moments, and then Kiwi turned away.

“Come, Tina,” Kiwi said, voice softer this time. “Come help mommy make dinner.” Kiwi looked at me and Donut, just standing there. She nodded, turned back inside, and she disappeared.

“Pa-pa,” Tina said again before turning back inside.

Mongo remained, a confused look upon the dinosaur’s face, like he didn’t know what had just happened. He sniffed again at the air and let out a sad, confused peep.

“Sorry, buddy,” I said to the poor dinosaur. “Sometimes people change, and that’s all there is to it.”

Mongo made a forlorn squeak.

“Papa,” Donut muttered again. “The gall of her.”

“So,” Florin muttered, “how do you reckon that litter is gonna turn out?”

* * *

Entering the Princess Posse Stronghold.

This Edifice is at 80% Strength.

The stronghold itself was strangely empty of people and workers. A few dots were scattered about, but not many. It was built like a medieval castle with long hallways dotted with murder holes along the sides, all leading to the central chamber, the throne room, which had to be a specific size. The room could have a locking door, and the entrance to it could be trapped, but the room itself wasn’t allowed to have any defensive features or traps within. Though it could be occupied by guards.

The walls of the castle were hastily built and mortared. They felt solid, despite the shoddy appearance of the exterior door. Most of the interior hallways were regular-sized, but the outer ring was three stories tall, built to house Tina and some of the larger tattoo-turned-flesh golems. The rocks glowed with enchantment. I put my hand upon the rough rock, and an info box popped up.

Yeah, this is a rock. It’s part of an interior rock wall. What did you think it was?

8/12 Enchantments active. Increase base quality to increase enchantment capacity.

Enter the Flag room to see the full list of active enchantments.

“Welcome back, warlords,” a new voice said. We stepped to the side as two NPCs rushed by, hauling what looked like bags of mortar. They were in the body of bugbears, but I knew they were some of my changelings. They rushed by without another word. Both were covered in sweat, working hard.

There was another dot ahead. This was an Elite. He had the pink glow around his name, indicating him as a soldier. He was in the next room over, an antechamber that led to the flag room. I hovered over the dot, and the system labeled him:

Elite Herman the Fleet. Ogre Strongman. Level 70.

Legionnaire.

Princess Posse.

Herman was the third of the three ogre strongmen from Grimaldi’s circus. We’d met his brother, Areson during the sixth floor, and he should still be around here somewhere. Apollon, their other brother, had been left behind on the third floor. All three had once been part of a three-headed ogre called a nodling who’d died and split long ago. That same creature, the nodling, had been turned into a tattoo, who’d since been given flesh and should also be around here, too, which was really weird. That strangeness—basically two of the same creature—reminded me of the Alpha Carl card from the previous floor. That had to be confusing for everybody involved. It certainly messed with your head. I was glad we’d left the Alpha Carl card on the previous floor.

The elite was the only other dot I could see. I knew the adjutant was waiting in the flag room, but apparently we couldn’t see inside.

“Where are the rest of the golems and changelings?” I asked.

“They’re all working on defenses at the borders,” Tipid said.

I paused, looking into the room that would be the throne room. It was just a square, empty room, about twenty by twenty feet, reminding me of a stairwell chamber. There was no actual throne. Not yet. I looked at the white, clean stones. I swallowed.

I continued to stand there and pretend like I was examining the room.

Carl: Okay, what about the stuff we can’t talk about out loud? Tell me about the scouting system.

This was something I’d specifically asked Florin and Elle to figure out, and we’d agreed ahead of time all of these discussions would be over chat in case the walls still had ears.

Florin: Elle is off toward the naga side. The beaver guys... the castors or whatever they’re called. They’re with that talking turtle guy, scouting enemy positions and fortifications on the other border. Haven’t heard back either way.

Carl: Have you figured out how the peacetime incursions work?

Florin: Yes. Only those with the Scout endorsement, and only in stealth mode can go over the borders without a pass. If they get discovered, they’re immediately teleported back to base during the ceasefire and can’t go stealth again until the fighting starts. If they hit a trap, it’ll still go off and kill ‘em. We only get 18 Scouts. That’s what those towers are for, by the way. We need full coverage. Build a tower and man it with a group of four or five folks with proper observation and Ping spells, and we can keep the enemy scouts away. Already teleported out a Dream scout and one of those octopus-faced fucks from the Prism.

Donut let out an angry, little hiss at the mention of the Prism kingdom. She was still mad at Empress D’Nadia for trying to get us deleted.

Florin: I’ll bet my left sack we are already infested with enemy spies. That’s why we gotta get them towers up. You know that one crawler with the pet swarm of lady bugs? I sent for him, too. He’s a brilliant hunter. We need to do a full sweep, and do it fast.

Carl: We need to start spamming traps, too.

Florin: Already on it, but the big trap guy—he’s an eagle guy with one wing—has gone subterranean already. He should be done there in a few hours. He wants access to your trap table. Says he can prevent Tripper spells.

We moved to the antechamber in front of the flag room. This was just a big room with an even bigger desk, filled with the stench of rocks and moss. And a strange amount of sweat, too, oddly reminding me of the Juicer boss room on the first floor. Behind the desk, leaned over a pile of papers was the ogre. Herman the Fleet. The ogre was completely decked out in magical gear, glowing more than anyone I’d ever seen.

The ogre looked very much like his brother, Areson the Wise, except much thinner, like he’d stopped his weight training, giving him half the bulk of his two brothers. He also wore glasses, which was just bizarre. I wondered if that was the dungeon’s way of telling me he wouldn’t be as stupid as his brothers.

Upon further observation, I realized the ogre wasn’t working like I originally thought. He appeared to be writhing in pain. All of us stopped, surprised at the unexpected display. He had both hands on the edge of the desk, and veins bulged from his arms. A low, pained grunting noise came from the Elite. Despite not being as buff as his brothers, the desk snapped in half, spilling papers in a great, surprising clatter. The ogre lifted his head into the air and cried out.

“What’s happening?” Donut asked. “What’s going on?”

“Carl,” the ogre said through gritted teeth. He jumped up, and the chair went flying. “Been waiting. Brother says you good.” He swallowed hard. “Supposed to do it already. Been fighting it. Tell brother... tell sorry.” He cried again.

Dozens of little info boxes all popped up around the ogre all at once.

...And that was when I realized he wasn’t wearing magical gear at all.

He was covered in explosive satchels, all hidden underneath his clothes.

A suicide bomber.

Watch out, Carl. Watch out.

Multiple things happened at once.

“Bomb!” I cried as Donut fired a Magic Missile right at the ogre’s face.

To my left, Tipid turned into a puff of smoke, and to my right, Florin hit the ground, a shield forming around him.

At the same moment, the door to the flag room opened, an armored orc stepped out, and she slammed a massive, cruel-looking battle-axe into the head of the struggling ogre.

The elite slumped over, dead.

The chaos ended as quickly as it had started.

The orc had been so casual about it, you’d think she’d just stepped out to grab a cup of coffee.

We just stared at each other. Me and the orc.

“I can only do so much for you, warlord,” the orc said.

All of the explosive satchels on the ogre started to move into destabilization.

“Shit,” I muttered, jumping forward. I took the entire ogre into my inventory, my heart thrashing. It left nothing but a smear of gore and an upturned, broken desk on the floor.

The orc who continued to stare back down at me with a slight hint of distaste on her boar-like face.

Baroness Victory.

Adjutant for The Princess Posse.

This is a “non-combatant” observer.

My eyes focused on the “non-combatant” part of her name, which now had quotes around it. The AI had done that.

“Not that I’m complaining, but...” I finally said, my voice shaking. Holy shit, that had been close. Florin stood back up and Tipid reformed. All of us were rattled. “Were you allowed to do that?”

“That wasn’t a legal attack,” the orc said, sliding her blood-splattered axe back into her waistband. A bit of brain dripped off it and splatched onto her boot. “That was an unlawful assassination attempt by Sensation Entertainment, and I decided to call foul. I will be filing a grievance against the Dream, who now own the entertainment company. They were exerting undue influence on one of their elites to affect Faction Wars. Princess Donut, that was an admirable shot, and it may have saved you all. I will file for you to get credit for the kill.”

The orc paused, looking up at the ceiling. “No,” she suddenly said out loud, angrily pointing at the ceiling. “Absolutely not. That was clearly a foul by the corporate interests who purchased Sensation, and if you don’t like it, you should re-read your own rules. In addition, you are out of line by not warning me he was being influenced.”

She paused again.

“I accept your apology,” she finally said. And without another word, she turned and returned to the flag room, leaving the door open for us to follow.

“Uh, Carl,” Donut asked. “Was she talking to the AI just now?”

“I don’t know if I should be terrified or in love,” Florin added as we walked into the flag room.

14

The Four Phases of Combat, plus triggering conditions:

The Ceasefire. 66 Hours. Current Phase. 50 hours left.

The Ramp-Up. Triggers when the Ceasefire ends. 180 Hours.

Open Hostilities. Triggers when the Ramp-Up Expires.

The Peeling of Larracos. Triggers Once Conditions are met.

We stepped into the large, round chamber. My interface beeped, and multiple windows suddenly popped up without bidding. Next to me, Donut squawked with annoyance as we both had to start repositioning windows.

Entering the Flag Room for the Princess Posse.

“You may speak freely in here,” Victory said once the door shut. “Before the hostilities begin, anything that is said in this room isn’t available to the viewers for eight days. So in case anyone is feeding the other factions information, it will hopefully be stale information by that time.”

I was too distracted by my screens to pay attention. I flicked an info box to the side, rearranging it. It was like the status window of a city building game, like Civilization, but not nearly as well organized. These screens were different than the regular ones, and when I tried to mentally minimize them using the regular interface, all I did was move them around.

“This is not very consistent,” Donut muttered.

I grunted with agreement. I had multiple views in my interface. I mentally flicked on one a little hard, and it disappeared from my view and appeared floating on the wall of the room.

“Huh,” I muttered as I continued to move things around so I could actually see. I had a window that listed all the troops. One that listed all of our secured locations. One that listed the nine other teams, along with a message window where I could send direct messages to the other warlords. I saw the little three dots indicating someone was in the middle of typing a message in the Prism chat, and I realized it was coming from our side.

“Donut,” I said out loud. “Don’t.”

“Empress D’nadia needs to know how I feel about her betrayal, Carl.”

“She knows. Don’t poke at anyone yet.”

Donut harrumphed, but she didn’t send the message.

“Your display system is similar to what Game Guides see,” Victory said. “It’s only in this room. You’ll get used to it.”

I continued to move windows aside, and in doing so, I found each one of those info boxes could be drilled down further. I made the mistake of double clicking on the officer interface, and literally a hundred new windows popped up. I finally found a Clear Screen button, and I clicked it.

“Goddamnit,” I muttered.

Everything had disappeared, like my entire interface had turned off, including my health, the level timer, the mini map, and my mana bar. It was like I was in a production trailer. I was so used to the little info windows now, I felt naked without them. I grumbled and tried to figure out how to get them back without also pulling up the room notifications. I found the solution after a moment, but when I turned it all back on, my missed game notifications popped up.

I usually went over these when I could, but I had set it up that only important warnings and messages appeared. Everything else could wait until I made it to a saferoom, and even then, only when I thought to look at it. Most of this stuff was useless, and everyone had started calling this list the Spam Folder. These were world chat messages not directed at us, hidden skill notifications, and dozens of other pointless game announcements.

I blinked at the long, long line of strange notifications. I read the most recent ones, from just a few moments earlier. A sense of horror overwhelmed me.

Gloom Wraith Phase failed to activate. Mind Balance prevented activation.

Your attempt to disable Mind Balance was prevented by Mind Balance.

Your Mind Balance has risen to level nine.

Level nine? It’d been level five just a few hours ago. I moved my eyes down the suppressed notifications page. My heart thrashed.

There were hundreds of these entries, over and over again. There were pages of me attempting to cast something, and each time, it got stopped. The Mind Balance skill came from my new toe ring, though now it was trained up so much, I’d still have the skill, minus five levels, even if I took the ring off. I didn’t dare.

Shi Maria. The tattoo on my chest. She was trying to cast spells and activate skills without my permission. The Gloom Wraith Phase would’ve killed the ogre, but it also likely would’ve set off the bombs. Would I have been protected if they’d exploded while I was phased?

Only if the bombs were non-magical. I quickly glanced at the ogre corpse in my inventory. The bombs indeed were non-magical. Donut would’ve been dead had I cast that skill. She had her Cockroach ability, but that wouldn’t help if she was blown to literal bits. A new wave of horror washed over me, and I found my shaking hand stroking the back of the oblivious cat. Holy shit.

Watch out, Carl. Watch out.

The spider had managed to speak in my mind, despite the Mind Balance skill. She was getting stronger with each attempt to control me. But so was I. It was a race, I realized. She was constantly fighting against the Mind Balance skill. And even though the skill was rapidly increasing in power, she’d still managed to break in for just a moment.

She was winning the race. How soon before she could take me over completely?

I sent a quick message to Mordecai, telling him we needed to talk.

Mordecai: If it’s about that presence you have tattooed on your chest, Rosetta has caught me up. We’re working on a solution. We have a few options on how to deal with it. None of them pleasant.

“Goodness, Carl, are you okay?” Donut asked. “You’re shaking like Miss Beatrice during pumpkin spice season.”

I pat Donut to reassure her. Baroness Victory was talking to us, but I’d missed some of it. She was explaining how to pull up a map in the center of the room, showing an overall view of the battlefield. I took a breath and forced myself to pay attention. One problem at a time.

“Most warlords spend all of Faction Wars in their flag room,” she was saying, “with some notable exceptions. The Orcs, the Reavers, and the Dream all have warlords who prefer to lead from the front. I am supposed to follow you onto the field for major conflicts, and as such, I have the limited ability to teleport, even during Ramp-Up, though I warn you, I cannot participate. What you saw just now was an anomaly.”

“You’re going to be with us whenever we fight?” I asked.

“I know you two prefer a more hands-on approach. I will be present when it’s prudent. If my presence causes a problem, let me know, and I will come back here. But I will warn you. I can and will call out all fouls as I see them. That includes anything perpetrated by your team. If you have any questions about the rules, ask me first. I am on your side. I can help with strategy. In addition, I can make suggestions to fit something into the existing ruleset, if required.”

“Was she nice, or was she a jerk?” Donut asked.

Baroness Victory just looked at Donut. “Of whom do you speak?” she finally asked.

“Your sister. The orc queen lady. The one that got blown up when your nephew tried to assassinate us.”

If the orc woman was surprised by the odd question, she didn’t show it. But she did appear to think about her answer. “My sister Ugloo and I once had a very similar outlook on life. When she married into the royal family, she lost a lot of who she was. I suppose she was quite unhappy with how things had turned out for her. We had not spoken in a long while, but she did send me a message before she died, asking if I was planning on being an adjutant this season. She was going to the Scolopendra Club to meet up with the king and wanted to have an outing before the fighting started. Why do you wish to know, Princess?”

“You can judge someone based on how they talk about the dead.”

Carl: What TV show did you get that from?

Donut: I DIDN’T GET IT FROM A SHOW, CARL. I REALLY WANT TO KNOW. YOU PICKED HER TO BE OUR ADJUTANT PERSON, AND I NEED TO KNOW IF WE CAN TRUST HER.

Carl: We don’t trust anybody, Donut. Not at first. But something tells me she’s okay.

Donut: YOU ALSO TRUSTED SISTER INES, AND LOOK HOW THAT TURNED OUT.

Mongo had eased his way behind the orc, and he was greedily licking at the head of the bloody axe in her waistband. Rend climbed to the top of Mongo’s head and also attempted to lick at the axe, but he couldn’t reach and he was making whimpering, grunting noises. The stoic orc pulled the axe from her waistband and leaned it up against the table so they could both get at it. She gave Rend a gentle pat. Even Florin looked a bit ill at the display.

The orc turned back to the map and kept talking. The wagon wheel shape of the ninth floor spread out in the center of the room in a giant, round hologram. Larracos stood in the middle with the nine, not-quite-but-almost equal pie shapes of the individual spaces spread out from the center. A tiny ring circled Larracos, and it blinked and turned pink as we watched. The name Shanty Town. Controlled by the Princess Posse popped up.

The large orc nodded. “This was a smart trade. The shanty town is usually small and unimportant and doesn’t usually form until after the fighting begins and the NPCs flee. It is now quite large and completely circles Larracos, giving the NPCs an extra layer of security. One you control.”

“We have three town upgrade coupons,” I said. “Donut and I each got one when we completed the Tina quest on the sixth floor. And I just got a tier-three one in a box. Can we use them for this?”

“Absolutely,” Victory said. “And with the new city defense system the AI created, you may be able to get something similar to what they have in Larracos. But you may also use the coupons for your base here, and that may be a better choice.”

Britney was currently learning all she could about the Larracos city defense system from Juice Box. I sent her a message to check in when she was done. I also sent a message to Li Na. We’d finally managed to get her officially recruited thanks to Mordecai brewing a potion that negated aura effects. The moment she’d joined, she asked if her and her squad could be in charge of helping to build defenses in and around Shanty Town. I’d agreed.

We moved our attention to the nine pie pieces. Our area was highlighted in pink. The whole area outside the city was called the Plains of Larracos, and it was mostly flat, except for the northernmost area of the map. The first pie piece in spot number one was owned by the Bone Clan of the Skull Empire, and their castle—which was already built when they arrived—sat in a highly defensible position atop a large, rocky hill.

The orcs’ territory also had the most rivers and lakes, including the large, fast-moving river that eventually drained into Larracos itself, though the end of it curved into Operatic territory in spot number two before it passed through Shanty Town and plunged into the funnel city.

The rocky peaks made way to rolling hills, which was the area of the Operatics in pie number two. We were in spot number three. Our area was mostly flat with a few hills here and there. The small lake near our base appeared to be the only major water supply in the entire area.

“The main body of the enemy is massing on your border here,” Victory said, pointing to the spot on our northwest border with the Operatics. Dozens of little campfire icons appeared. “Initial estimates appear they are about 100,000 strong. The system allowed them to keep their armor and weapons. It’s a calculated effort. Their best chance is to sweep over our position and take us out immediately.”

I blinked up at her. A wave of new fear washed over me.

“What? That many?”

She ignored me and moved her pointer behind the camp. “We also have intelligence that the Dream are setting up their long-range artillery batteries here.” She moved her pointer to the other side of the map into spot number four, the Naga side. “And here. There’s another 10,000 on this side of the border, more as a defensive action, I suspect. It could be a trick, but they believe they have the numbers and plan on overrunning your position the moment the ceasefire ends, forcing you to retreat into the city. Or die defending this castle. Have you familiarized yourself with the ramp-up?”

“Uh, the what?” I asked.

“This season’s rules regarding the onset of hostilities. There are four phases, and we are in phase one right now. The Ceasefire. Then there’s the Ramp-Up, Open Hostilities, and the Peeling of Larracos. When the Ceasefire ends, the Ramp-Up begins. It lasts 180 hours. There are several rules for this next phase, and you must familiarize yourself with them immediately. The important ones are: No celestial summonings will be allowed. Egress into enemy territory by non-scouts is only allowed through narrow, kilometer-wide ‘gates.’ Each corridor is at the same spot, and it is where the enemies are massing. And most importantly, offensive magic and teleport magic or skills will not be allowed during this second phase.”

“What? No magic?” Donut asked. “But I just upgraded my Wall of Fire!”

“Wall of Fire will have to wait. But it’s just offensive magic. Magic designed to cause direct harm to another. And magic or skills designed to transport you from one space to another. There’ll be a suppression field over the entire floor that will disallow it. You can use such spells now, but the ability goes away the moment phase two starts.”

“So, Donut’s Puddle Jumper and my Gloom Wraith Phase won’t work?” I asked. “And what about the Gate of the Feral Gods? Or magical weapons?”

“Weapons will work, but not separate spells attached to them. The wraith phase is an offensive skill, not a spell, and it will work. It’s a phase, not a teleport. Puddle Jumper will not work. The Gate of the Feral Gods will not activate. You both have multiple spells that will work, such as Torch and Hole and Wisp Armor, but unfortunately, many more that will not.”

“So let me get this straight,” I said. “We can only enter into each other’s territory through a kilometer-wide gap, and we can’t use the best magic or teleport during this time? What about traps?”

“Traps will still work as long as they’re not teleport traps. They have to be static. You can’t repurpose them as weapons or artillery ammunition. And the rest is correct. It is designed to force bloody, hand-to-hand combat. And non-magical artillery. During this time, you will be at a severe disadvantage. The other eight teams will have the numbers and their vastly superior weapons that they brought with them from outside the dungeon. If you can survive this first week, then you might survive long enough to start moving offensively. Your only saving grace is that during this time, you only have two entry points into your land. You have to guard them both because once they’re in, they’re in and can move freely. The Ramp-Up will end after 180 hours, which is a little more than a week of your time. When the Open Hostilities phase starts, the chaos truly begins. They will wish to defeat you before that phase even starts.”

“Hmm,” Donut said, looking over the map. “What about our new town? Can they attack that place during the ramp-up?”

“Yes. But if they capture it, they still won’t be able to get into your territory. Or into Larracos. They will attack it if it’s left undefended. I suggest treating with the NPCs to help defend the town. The bulk of the enemy forces will be concentrated on you, and they won’t want to commit a lot of resources taking the ring, as they will get it automatically should you fall. It’s a tactically important prize, but not during ramp-up. It’s a dangerous waste of troops to push in at this point. Especially if you have active defenses.”

Baroness Victory crossed her meaty arms. “Also, I should add, the bulk of the enemy’s forces are mercenaries. The AI changed the 15K rule to allow the outsiders into the game. That means most everyone you’re facing is someone who wasn’t born in the dungeon, and they won’t be so keen to wade into a real battle with real consequences. These ‘warlords’ are called that in name only. Very few of the officers are warriors with real battle experience. Most of these mercenaries have only seen limited conflicts against armed opponents. They’re mostly security forces. Not all, but most of them. My guess is they’ll be shy to commit troops to actions with a high probability of casualties. They’ll be looking for a single punch knock-out. That’s what they know. Not complicated. Not tricky. Just overwhelming numbers with pulse rifles and power armor facing down opponents who won’t be able to shoot back very effectively for over a week. They’ll want it done fast and easy.”

“Shit,” I said, looking at the dozens of little campfires sitting on our border. One hundred thousand was a lot of enemies. I’d once gone to a concert with 20,000 people, and I couldn’t get over how many people that was all at once place at one time. This was five times that. It was an insane amount of enemies.

“We’re building defenses,” Florin said, indicating a line on the side of the border. “We’ve created a no-man’s land that we will soon litter with Tripper-proof traps. And we’re building trenches. We have engineers who’ve been watching and studying this type of warfare for a very long time, and we’ll do our damnedest to hold them back. But if they break through, we’ll have multiple fall-back positions. Though once they’re through, they’ll be able to flank us until we get to the castle.”

We all stood in silence, looking at the map. A hundred thousand troops on one side, ready to pour over us like ants. Earlier, Tipid said it’d been a mistake for them to arm themselves with their existing gear and not take classes and spells. I wasn’t so sure about that anymore.

A small group of people entered the flag room. It was Louis, Katia, Bautista, Samantha, and a few others.

Samantha sat on Louis’s shoulder, bawling her eyes out. A trail of snot ran down her face, and she kept using Louis’s neck to wipe. “You can’t do that to a girl,” she was saying. “It’s not right. I wouldn’t have disrupted the wedding.”

A little gnomish girl stepped out from behind Katia. She wore a Dallas Cowboy’s jersey like a dress. “You said you would push her over and take her place at the last second.”

Bonnie. The little gnome girl whom we’d ‘rescued’ from the floating gnome fortress on the fifth floor. The one who’d made the lemonade during the boss fight with the goose. She’d come here with the changelings after the Butcher’s Masquerade. Donut gasped and jumped from my shoulder to head bump the child.

“You are a child,” Samantha said to Bonnie. “You don’t understand the intricacies of modern love. And even if I was going to do that, or maybe slit the bitch’s throat, that’s no reason to get married without letting me know.” She wiped more snot on Louis’s neck.

“Don’t worry,” Donut said. “That was just the first wedding. There’s a bigger ceremony in a few weeks.”

Louis and Katia both shot Donut a why-did-you-tell-her-that? look.

“Wait, really?” Samantha asked as the rest of us groaned. “There’s another ceremony? Why didn’t you say so! This changes everything.”

“Hey kiddo,” I said to Bonnie, ignoring the exchange. I went to a knee. “Did you fly here on Louis’s new airship?”

“Hi Carl. Hi Donut,” Bonnie said. “I like it. It’s faster than the Twister. Skarn and a few other others are playing with it right now in the hangar. I think we should adjust the bomb bay doors.”

I patted the tiny gnome on the head. “You know what? I was thinking something very similar.”

I turned to Florin. “How many more of those scout spots do we have left?”

15

Time Until the Ceasefire Ends: 33 hours.

“I never thought I’d see one of these again,” I muttered as we hunched over in the woods. A loud, whining noise reverberated through the forest. A group of trees and vines crunched and cracked as they were pushed down and shattered by the distant, rolling ball of wailing mobs. The sound was like that of a screaming bulldozer bullying its way through the forest.

“It’s different,” Chris said. “It’s slower. It’s still fast, but it’s slower.”

“A lot slower,” Donut agreed. “And it smells worse, if such a thing is possible.”

I looked down toward Chris’s voice. I couldn’t actually see the lava rock crawler, who’d blended himself with the ground and was directly below our feet. I felt strange about standing directly atop him, but he insisted it didn’t bother him.

A group of distant birds launched into the sky as the ball rolled by, shrieking their displeasure. Donut was right about the smell. It was an awful, if not familiar, stench.

It was me, Donut, Chris, Jamal the hammerhead shark, and three of the newcomers. The newcomers were two former crawlers and a veteran of Land War, which was a different game entirely that had been inflicted on his home planet. Everyone still called them crawlers. The Land War guy’s name was Bodi, and he was a tall, tan-skinned human. He was a Level 60 Big Game Spear Hunter. He’d said maybe three words since I’d met him, making Chris seem downright chatty.

He did, indeed, carry a spear. Something from the pile. A long, efficient looking metal stick with a no-nonsense point at the end. It had both a piercing and a boomerang enhancement, meaning it’d fly back to the tall warrior’s hand once tossed. I didn’t know anything about him or his history, but based on the way the others looked at him, I knew this guy was someone famous.

The other two crawlers were both male “elves,” but they were a type of elf I’d never seen. Both had white, pigment-free skin and sharp teeth, giving them a nightmarish appearance, more goblin than anything. Like they were Dream elves who’d evolved underground.

They’d exited the dungeon as tenners—those who tapped out at the start of the tenth floor—a season or two before Rosetta’s. They otherwise acted fairly human-like. I was starting to come to the uncomfortable realization this was pretty normal for the people of the Syndicate. That the general citizenry of the galaxy as a whole were all similar to us in so many ways, despite their vastly different anatomies and cultures and environments. I didn’t know what that meant, but the knowledge made me feel strangely unsettled. It was the same feeling I had during the Iron Tangle when I just knew I was missing something, something important.

Anyway, the names of the two elves were Rhys and Theo. Neither looked older than 20 years old, and unlike Chris or Bodi, these two wouldn’t shut the hell up. Rhys was a Level 60 Eviscerator and Theo was a Level 60 Plumbing Specialist, which was a healer class, but you wouldn’t know it based on the large saber he carried. Rhys had a collection of throwing knives. They reminded me a bit of Louis and Firas from when we first met them. But instead of wanting to stay away from the fight, they were both eager to get in on the action.

The two elves had gotten ridiculously obnoxious tattoos on their necks the night before. The tats were of a large, flaming skull that was some sort of human/cat hybrid thing that looked like it was straight from a 1980’s skateboard deck. Surrounding the skull in large letters in Syndicate Standard read the words “Princess Posse or Death.” It had their hastily-formed battalion name—the 103rd Recon Legionnaires—added to the bottom. And below that was the name of their squad, The Tenner Wraiths.

We were calling our largest, organized groups battalions, which were then organized into squads and then platoons. As Florin pointed out, our battalions were actually much bigger than standard-sized ones and should actually be called brigades, but it was now too late. Artwork and tattoos and signs had popped up everywhere in a matter of hours.

Donut was absolutely scandalized by the gaudy tattoos. Especially when Rhys told her that half the former crawlers were getting ink of their own unit emblems, though most were getting them in less obvious places than their necks.

“The units aren’t finalized yet!” Donut said to the two, grinning and gap-toothed elves as she scrutinized their necks. “And what is that supposed to be? A mouse? You know there aren’t bones in ears, right? Skulls shouldn’t have ears.”

“It’s a cat. And a human. You know, combined,” Rhys said.

Donut scoffed. “You mean like a cat girl? You know how I feel about cat girls, Rhys.”

“No. Not like that. It signifies all of us coming together. Meeps drew it. After he got out, he’s been surviving as a street artist in Alpert.”

“I don’t care if it was drawn by Blake Lively herself. It’s on your necks, and it’s huge. What if you get transferred?”

“We got more skin,” Theo said.

“Fuck yeah we do,” Rhys added. “If you do transfer us, I want to go to the 105th Scream Warriors. Have you seen their logo? As long as I’m tearing apart some of those mechanical Reaver fucks or disemboweling one of them snobby prick elves, I’m happy.” He slapped himself on the bare, right side of his neck. “Right here, warlord. I’ll wear it proudly, no matter where you put me. And if you transfer me a third time, I’ll get a third one in the front.”

Donut looked at me incredulously. “Was this how it was when you first joined the Coast Guard?”

“Uh, sort of,” I said.

I had to remind myself that these two guys were literally thousands of years old. They certainly didn’t act like it. Donut was right. They reminded me of a pair of dumb 18-year-olds who’d joined the marines and didn’t know what the hell they’d just signed up for.

We were at the very edge of the map, hunting down one of the mob incursions into our territory. There were a few dozen of these groups popping up like cockroaches, and we’d spread out the hunting responsibilities to different squads. The newcomers needed the experience the most, but the active crawlers needed to grind, too, so all the groups were mixed. All volunteers.

The ball of mobs lurched by again, this time bulldozing over a tree about 50 feet away. The shriek of animals and monsters within groaned and hissed. It was much more tightly packed than the last one we’d seen. The thing was spinning in wide circles, like a car without a driver, scribbling ovals through the forest. It’d apparently been doing this for some time, as evidenced by the long, circular path of destruction behind it.

We were in the “new” area that got tacked on when the AI made the playing field larger. Based on the reports from the others, the mobs in here could be pretty much anything. There was no rhyme or reason or quests, kind of like the first floor. The AI was recycling mobs from all the previous floors, only changing them up a bit and strengthening them to be level appropriate. Imani’s team had clashed with something called Chilly Goats, which had been mobs from the very first floor. Jurgen was leading a group not too far away, and they just fought danger dingo-riding kobolds, like from the second. This thing we faced now was clearly a riff on the Ball of Swine boss we’d also fought on the first floor, though the name had changed:

Rolling Battle Formation Ball. Level 70.

You don’t want to get in this thing’s way. It would really stink.

I hope you have some hydrogen peroxide, soap, and baking soda ready.

It wasn’t listed as a boss at all, which was strange since the last one, which had been about ¾’s the size of this one, had been a borough boss.

“It’s a lot different,” Donut agreed again. “It’s bigger than the ball of swine. And it’s not filled with creepy, Fifty Shades of Grey orcs. At least I don’t think it is. What are those things? They sound and smell revolting. Are they dead? They smell dead. If they’re undead, we picked the wrong kind of mob to fight. Because, you know.” She gave Rend a pointed glance, who was sitting on Mongo’s head, jumping up and down with excitement.

One of the little meatball’s weaknesses was eating undead flesh.

“I know that smell,” I said. “I’m pretty sure it’s not undead, but you’re right. We need to make sure before we let him into the fray..”

Donut scrunched up her face. “Either way, we need to hurry this up. Katia is starting her rehab treatment in a bit, and I don’t want to miss it.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “Imani’s team found that saferoom entrance buried about a mile and a half from here while scouting for our airship base. While Katia is under, I gotta do a thing, too, so I’ll make sure we’re back in time. Okay, next time it circles by...”

I was interrupted by a thrashing from behind us, followed by a pop and a mechanical whir. The scent of broken machinery and fire filled our hiding spot.

“Oh, goodness,” came the voice from behind. “Oh my goodness. It appears Jamal has made another blunder. Mister Carl, I do fear I require assistance.”

“Goddamnit, Jamal,” I said, turning to see the giant hammerhead shark flopping on the forest floor. He was surrounded by a pile of shattered and steaming automaton parts. “You broke it again?”

“Mr. Carl. I must give you an apology,” the hammerhead shark said. “I just did a little hop, and then the metal pieces did break again. Jamal has so many sorries to give, and Jamal is giving you all of them.”

I moved to start picking up the pieces of broken legs all around the tattoo-turned flesh. That was the third one of these I’d hastily built for the overweight shark. It was similar to the new conveyance Katia had built for Tran, but much bigger. It was basically eight, double-jointed legs and a harness for the 17-foot-long sea creature, who had the anatomy of a regular, if not oversized, hammerhead shark, only he now breathed air. He could no longer breathe water, despite having gills. Up until now, the huge thing was literally flopping around like one of those zombie fish from the last floor. When he was one of Signet’s paper tattoos, he’d been able to fly. Now he just flopped. He was, apparently, pretty good at it, but he couldn’t move fast nor could he be subtle. I’d hastily built him a voice-controlled automaton harness so he could move quickly and quietly. It made him look like some horrifying spider hybrid, but it gave him much more control.

The whole thing was supposed to be a prototype. I could make something that was more rugged, but Katia could do it better. We wanted to first make sure the design worked.

My model required Jamal to call out to the legs and tell them where he wanted to go. When Katia was ready, her version would be able to read Jamal’s thoughts and act accordingly.

Meanwhile, the prototype legs held Jamal’s massive weight just fine. Except when he told the legs to hop, which he kept doing for some inexplicable reason. The magically-enhanced joints could handle jumping him into the air fine, but they just couldn’t handle the landing more than once or twice. Three times now, we built the thing, and it worked great... up until Jamal instructed the legs to jump into the air.

“I told you not to hop at all. Now you’re going to have to wait for Katia. I don’t have any more of the extra-large leg joints, and she’s going to be out of commission for several hours.”

The shark waved his head back and forth in misery. “I have a great amount of shame and regret. Still, Mr. Carl. I don’t see why Jamal shouldn’t be able to hop. It is something Jamal always wished to do.”

“Stop Elmo-ing, Jamal,” Donut snapped. “We’ve talked about this. I have very few pet peeves, but this is one of them. I simply can’t handle someone who refers to themself in third person. It’s upsetting to me, and it confuses Mongo.”

Mongo made a confused peep.

Rhys and Theo both grunted with amusement. Bodi just looked at the shark impassively.

“I have found more apologies, and now they are yours, Miss Donut. It is my yearning that makes me forget myself, you see. I tell you, jumping is what Jamal... I mean it is what I wish to do.”

“Yes, Jamal,” I said. “We are all aware you want to jump.”

“Oh, I do. I very much yearn for it, Mister Carl. Did you know I used to be an apex predator? And after that, I was a terror who could fly? Do you know how many clowns I have consumed? How many lemurs? Now I can’t even do a little hop? It’s a great yearning Jamal has. I have, I mean. I do wish to feel the wind in my gills. I wish to hop across the battlefield. Oh, what a wish. What a wish I have.”

“My wish is for you to be quiet and to be patient,” I said through gritted teeth. “We don’t have time for this. Just stay here. We’re going to break the ball apart and fight the pieces individually. If any come this way, feel free to chomp, but don’t eat all of them. We know you’re a great fighter, but you’re already level 72, and we’re trying to level all the newcomers up a bit.”

Behind us, the rolling ball of screaming death made another pass through the underbrush, this time closer.

“It does smell really bad,” Theo said.

“Like a waystation restroom in a Soother system during the sweet pepper festival,” Rhys added.

“Jamal’s sense of smell was once greatly enhanced, but that sense of smell is not working at all anymore. Not even one little bit. It is quite thoroughly gone... Just like his ability to hop.”

“Jamal,” Donut hissed.

I grabbed Rend and cradled him in my left arm as I pulled the impact hob-lobber and prepared my xistera. The little meatball was quivering with excitement. “Everyone shush. I’m going to nail it the next pass.”

Mordecai and Theo both insisted this would work. These things were basically splitters, and just like the Ball of Swine on the first floor, the individual pieces were immune from all damage while they were in ball form. Once the ball itself sustained enough damage, it would break apart. The individuals inside would be dazed for a few moments, so we had to act quickly.

Ahead, the circling ball of mobs crushed through more trees. The thing was like twenty feet tall.

“Okay, buddy,” I said down to Rend. “Do you remember what I said? I’m going to hold onto you, but when I tell you to bite, you chomp.”

Rend grunted and snapped his mouth a few times. His little teeth clicked loudly.

“Good job.” I circled, and I launched the hob-lobber directly at the rolling ball.

Bam!

The explosive hit the battle formation dead center. The explosion came, echoing loudly in the woods, but the ball didn’t break apart like expected. A health bar appeared, just halfway down, as the stinking, rolling ball turned at a right angle and started barreling directly toward us. The furry, black and white ball sped up. A chorus of high-pitched, angry screams rose in volume.

“Well, that wasn’t supposed to happen,” Theo said.

“Oh, fuck,” I said as I quickly pulled a second hob-lobber and tossed it. “Head’s up!”

Splatch!

This one did the job. We all ducked as the ball exploded outward, causing dozens of small, waist-high mobs to rain through the forest. Most kept their forward momentum and blasted toward us like they’d been shot from a shotgun. They rained around us and over us. They crashed into trees and crunched into the ground, hitting and spinning and screeching.

One slammed into a tree right next to me, crunched loudly, and toppled over, dead. His fuzzy head was bent at a sickening angle. Another whiffed by and slammed into Rhys, who swore loudly as they tumbled away. Another splotched into Jamal, who yelped and started flopping in circles. Mongo screeched and jumped into a tree.

One of the creatures landed directly at my feet, hitting the ground like a meteor. His legs were broken, and his body steamed. He wasn’t dead, but he was dazed and would be for several seconds. He only had a sliver of life left.

I quickly examined him. He wasn’t undead.

Like I expected, he was a skunk.

Sort of.

This version was a bipedal creature, about two feet tall, furry and black with the typical long, white stripe down its back. It wore some rudimentary, cobbled-together armor, including a stick with a crude, black spike at the end. This was clearly supposed to be some sort of monster from the first or second floor, but buffed up.

Skank Skunk Warrior. Level 45.

You ever see those Pepé Le Pew cartoons? You know, the ones where they taught kids that rape was funny, especially when it was French people doing it to cats? These guys are like that, but instead of being extra horny, they just want to kill you.

Skank Skunks, if left to their own desires, have a generally peaceful attitude. At least at the individual level. But unfortunately for them, their leadership feels differently and uses a variety of spells and tricks to keep them in line.

These guys have a really gross, aerosol-based attack. You’ve been warned.

Everything that happened next took less than a full minute, but it seemed to take much, much longer.

“Go!” I cried as I retracted my scoop. I moved Rend into my left hand and thrust him toward the dazed creature.

“Chomp, Rend! Chomp!”

Nunghh! Nunghh!

Rend’s little mouth chattered up and down as he gnawed on the furry neck of the dying creature.

It was like I was holding the business end of a food processor in my hand. Blood sprayed from the point of contact as Rend gurgled with glee. He pushed through the neck of the poor skunk.

There were about three dozen of the mobs. Mongo squealed as he pounced from the tree, tearing into them. From my left, a spear shot through the air and skewered two at once. The spear spun back, cutting through a third skunk as it returned to Bodi, who’d somehow also climbed a tree.

Donut screeched and fired a pair of Magic Missiles before casting her newly-enhanced, level-15 Bad Attitude on the group. The effect wouldn’t be immediately obvious with them dazed.

With that first kill, Rend had already grown from meatball-sized to softball, and I could barely hold him in one hand. I kicked another dazed skunk, smushed down on its chest with my foot, holding it down as I jabbed Rend at its terrified face.

An unholy gurgling noise rose from the pet as he bit the thing’s nose off like it was made of cake. The giggling pet dropped from my hand and took a few more bites before hopping up on his own and running toward another skunk and launched himself at his leg. The monster toppled over, and Rend—now the size of a bowling ball—was on him, his high-pitched giggles already turning deeper, sounding almost like a clogged drain sucking for air.

To my right, three skunks were pulled into the ground as Chris dragged them under.

But now the remaining skunks were finally waking up, one by one. Donut’s Bad Attitude was taking hold, and instead of fighting back, they all turned to flee, all of them screeching with terror, abandoning their spears.

“Carl,” Donut called, sounding excited, pointing at a still-dazed skunk sitting in the middle of the carnage as his brethren panicked all around him. This mob looked just like all the others, except he was maybe a little smaller. He wore a blue, conical wizard hat with a glittering star and planet pattern on it. Little sparkles tinkled off the top of the hat.

Fancy Boy. Level 55 Skank Skunk Battle Wizard.

This is a special skunk with a very special set of skills. He knows the skills are special because his mom told him so. Don’t you dare tell him otherwise.

Even though he’s a higher level than the average warrior, he’s actually a lot weaker. Still, he has a lot of spells designed to get the warriors to do what he wants, and he controls his fellow warriors with an iron claw.

Funny how that works, isn’t it? In books and movies, the leader of a gang is almost always the physically strongest one, but in reality, oftentimes, it’s the opposite. The leaders tend to be the richest, or they lead simply because of tradition. They tend to keep their power by engineering a situation where things would get temporarily worse if they were gone. It takes a certain amount of desperation before people finally stop caring about their immediate futures and start to look at the long term.

Killing him may cause unpredictable results.

“Nobody touch him! He’s mine!” Donut shouted. She hit the creature with a magic missile, knocking the wizard skunk over onto his back, not quite dead, but certainly unconscious. His little hat went flying.

She moved to cast again, but she never got the chance. She never got the chance because that was when it happened.

And when it happened, it all happened at once.

It was worse than I expected.

Up until this moment, while the skunks all stank like a truckload of rotten fruit left to ferment in a barrel of hot horse piss, none of them, not even the dead ones, had yet activated their most dreaded skill.

Pssst. Pssst. Pssst. It sounded like a few dozen showerheads all turned on at once. Just for a second.

Oh fuck. Oh shit.

The battle wizard skunk guy must have been controlling the others, somehow keeping the attack in reserve. The instant he was knocked out by Donut, all their restrictions against using the attack were suddenly lifted. The panicked, trying-escape skunk creatures all let loose at once.

A green-tinged, aerosol mist filled the air, filling the area like the explosion of a smoke grenade, rising and billowing and growing like the mist itself was a mob.

I had multiple protections against poisons and cloud-based attacks, but I wasn’t certain if any of that would protect me against a skunk’s spray.

I didn’t want to find out. A mere blink before the cloud hit me, I activated Gloom Wraith Phase, which caused me to go incorporeal and rush forward.

I launched forward, like I was shot from a ballista, rushing through a group of four skunks, all with their backs to me.

The act of me passing through their bodies unraveled them, turning their flesh and fur into rivulets of blood and guts and skin. Their armor was unaffected, and their weapons and breast plates clanked to the forest floor, literally wrapped in ribbons of flesh and fur. The sensation was like that of running through a sprinkler set to a very fine mist. A handful of new achievement notifications flashed.

I’d seen this sort of attack before. The rage elemental had done this to Yolanda. That quick realization sent a pang of revulsion through me.

I could keep myself noncorporeal only for five seconds. My head spun, but I had to react quickly. I activated Walk on Air and rushed upward, like I was running up a set of stairs, reaching a branch just above the rising cloud. Both skills ended, and I landed upon a branch, which bobbed.

I settled near Bodi, who stood on an even higher branch in the same tree. I didn’t see how he’d gotten up there. He grunted with amusement and tossed his spear again into the mist. It appeared as if all the fleeing skunks were frozen again, but I wasn’t certain why.

Mongo had also leapt into a neighboring tree, but he’d clearly gotten sprayed. He had a Skanked debuff blinking over his head, and he let out a miserable hack and started to loudly vomit down into the mist.

“Carl, help! Help!” Donut squealed from below. I couldn’t see her.

As I prepared to jump down there to grab her, she suddenly appeared near Mongo with a flash. She’d puddle jumped, also into the tree. Right onto the same branch as the still-puking dinosaur. The whole thing wobbled ominously.

“Oh, god,” I said, trying to keep my gorge down. The smell from Donut and Mongo was horrific, almost unbearable, and they were ten feet away.

Chris: I am buried. Tell me when it’s safe to come up. I can smell it even down here.

Rhys, Theo, Jamal, and Rend were all still down there somewhere, and I could hear the sound of the two elves violently vomiting. The trees cracked and shook, and Jamal emerged from the mist, far to my left, rolling on the ground and shaking, like he was having a seizure. He was in the midst of a feeding frenzy. His berserker state. He had the Fancy Boy skunk in his mouth, and he crunched loudly onto him. The shark made a little whoop, did a barrel roll, and then flopped back into the mist, which was starting to dissipate.

“I disabled the mobs,” Bodi said from the branch above me. “There will be suffering from our allies, but they will survive. We wait.”

That was, by far, the most words I’d heard from him.

I could now see the two elves on their hands and knees, vomiting as they tried to crawl away. They both had the Skanked debuff over their heads, but their health wasn’t going down. It appeared the attack made it so they stank and lost control of their stomachs. Not deadly on its own, but awful.

I could also see a beachball-sized Rend, rolling in circles, Samantha style, cackling like a psychopath. He was moving from skunk to skunk, taking a single bite out of each one’s neck before moving on. The skunks all appeared to be paralyzed. Cone-shaped sprays of blood littered the forest floor. As I watched, Rend tentatively approached an already-dead skunk and tried to eat him whole, like a snake eating prey too big for it. He gave up after a moment and just chomped him in half.

“Carl,” Donut called from her branch as she gagged. “This is absolutely not acceptable. I don’t have anything in my inventory that says it gets rid of this debuff for...”

Crack!

She didn’t finish as she and Mongo plummeted back to the forest floor.

“Much suffering from our allies,” Bodi said.

* * *

“Sometimes Jamal is very much happy he can no longer smell. I suspect it’s quite unpleasant. Quite unpleasant indeed. I have never in my life seen such vomiting.”

I laughed but immediately regretted it as I took in a deep breath of the terrible stench. I’d already lost my lunch a few times and didn’t want to do it again. Some scents you got used to after a little bit. This wasn’t one of them.

Donut looked as if she was about to throttle the shark as we rushed through the woods. Instead, she turned her ire toward me. “I don’t know what’s so funny. Three hours, Carl! This is ridiculous.” She panted as she talked. She was absolutely miserable, but Mordecai said he had a potion that would help. It wouldn’t stop the reek, but it would blunt her ability to smell and taste.

I tried to move upwind of her and the others. We’d caged Mongo because he kept whimpering. I pushed away the separate chats from Florin, Imani, Elle, and Britney as I was too distracted to pay attention. Only Donut, Rhys, Theo, and Jamal had the debuff, though the shark wasn’t actually affected since he couldn’t smell. For whatever reason, it hadn’t taken hold on Rend at all. Chris had managed to avoid it as well. The debuff had finally gotten Rhys and Theo to shut up, and they marched sullenly behind us, their heads low as Jamal rolled toward them, looking for someone else to talk with.

The Skanked debuff caused them to temporarily stink, lowered their Charisma by 70%, and that was pretty much it. The vomiting was an unfortunate side effect. And worst of all, there was nothing one could do to turn the smell off. It lasted three hours, and that was that.

Donut jumped to my shoulder, oblivious of my discomfort. I gagged, grabbed her, and dropped her to the forest floor. She was so pissed, she barely noticed as she continued rant.

“You know,” I said, interrupting her, “if this had happened to you during the before times, you’d probably stink a lot longer than three hours. In some ways, this ended up being better.”

She scoffed. “Hardly. Getting sprayed by a skunk is supposed to be something that happens to an idiot Labrador named Cletus. This isn’t something that would ever happen to an indoor, prize-winning cat. At least I got that hat, but it just smells something awful. All our other magical gear avoided getting stinky, but the hat is unbearably putrid. We don’t have a laundry machine. Do you think if I run it through my shower, it’ll get the smell out of it? Or maybe I can have the cleaner bot look at it. He likes cleaning that sort of stuff.”

“I doubt it will work,” I said. “If it’s anything like cat pee, it’s pretty permanent, no matter how many times you wash it. We’ll drain it and then toss it. And we should probably give the cleaner bot a break. That thing has been acting really stressed lately.”

“We’re all stressed, Carl, and that’s his job.”

Rend hopped by, cackling as he moved into the bush. He’d gone up to level 8 and remained about the size of a large beachball. Level eight was a decent start because it meant he’d regenerate if he died, but it still wasn’t good enough. We needed to find more mobs for him to train on.

“And why wasn’t that thing affected when my poor Mongo got sick? It’s not fair!”

“He’s pretty resilient,” I said.

“Well, we should have had him collect the sample of the mist for Mordecai. I mean, really. Why do you think he wants some of that stuff anyway?”

“Because he wants us to collect everything.”

Ahead, Bodi appeared on the trail, pointing with his spear, indicating he’d found the path to the safe room. He disappeared again.

“Mongo and I are supposed to be moral support for Katia, and now I can’t do it! You’ll have to be there for her.”

“We need you on the southern front anyway. With you there, they can get those trenches built much faster. As for Katia, I was already planning on being there,” I said, sighing. I hadn’t told Donut exactly how much of Katia’s rehab I’d be involved in. We were attempting to kill two birds with one stone.

Sure enough, the saferoom entrance appeared on the edge of the map, along with a wide circle of dots. They were workers, who were building a small base around the remote outpost. “Come on. Just don’t get too close to anybody. You don’t want to leave a lasting impression on them.”

Elle: Okay, I’m back in our territory. I’m pretty sure I’ve found all the artillery batteries on both sides, but I can’t be 100 percent. But we got a new problem. They have another nasty surprise ready for us on the naga side. Remember when you said you wanted me to find out why those robot guys wanted pet leveling to be accelerated? Well, I found out.

Carl: Can’t wait. See you soon.

We had to pause for Theo to dry heave some more. The tattoo on his neck pulsated as he gagged.

The two elves didn’t appear nearly as enthusiastic about all this as they had been just an hour earlier.

EVERLY

“You,” Everly hissed, pointing her leg at one of her two remaining mercenaries. He was an ogre with pinprick eyes and an oversized, crushed nose on his damnable, emotionless face. He’d spent the last several moments holding up the rock ceiling as sand poured in from all sides. The mantis didn’t know why, but the sight of the ogre standing there, straining and grunting made her unreasonably angry.

“Watching you try to hold up the ceiling is irritating me. You’re not going to stop it, so don’t bother. Dig, if you must. Just don’t stand there like that.”

The other mercenary, a dwarf, was on his hands and knees, desperately sifting through the sand, looking for the key hole. Everly watched him work for a few moments, panting as he dug with his hands, digging and digging through the meter-deep sand, looking for the tiny hole. They didn’t have the key. They hadn’t found it on the floor above before they’d had to jump down or get crushed. It was pointless.

Still, he worked. Blood ran down the dwarf’s thick, callused fingers as he dug. Tears streamed down the mercenary’s dirty face.

He’s right there, Everly thought as she watched him, strangely fascinated. Unlike the ogre, this one didn’t annoy her nearly as much, and she wasn’t certain why. Right on the edge. He still held out hope, no matter how unreasonable that hope was, and he clung onto it with everything he had.

But Everly could see it, like water seeping from a punctured skin. The hope draining from him with each passing moment.

She pitied him. For the first time, the mantis pitied one of her mercenaries. How many had she hired over these last several floors? Two, three dozen? Some, she’d fired in a rage. Some had simply disappeared and still remained on her payroll, much to her annoyance.

The rest had died.

The Inevitable Ruin. That’s what their queen used to call this moment. The moment you realized there was no hope, nothing left to do, and all that was left was to die and reflect upon what you’ve already done while you waited. To ruminate on how you’ve helped the colony, and to beg forgiveness of God for not sacrificing enough.

When Everly was younger, she used to think she’d be like the dwarf if and when she faced this moment. The Inevitable Ruin. She would fight to the end, unable to accept it.

Yet, here she was. Sitting in the sand, doing exactly what her mother, the queen, said she would do. What all her kind did. She’d accepted death, and all that was left was to ponder.

She almost laughed out loud. The younger version of herself would be raging right now. It’s not over, she’d say. It’s not over until you’re dead. Get down there and dig, damn you.

And by younger, Everly meant the version of herself from just before the demons had come to her world. It’d only been half a turn. Yet, it seemed so long ago. Lifetimes. She’d left the colony just a few days before that. Set out on her own because she couldn’t abide the rules, the lack of individualism in mantis culture. She’d become an outcast, left to wander the sward on her own.

This is it, she thought now, watching as the giant ogre also fell to his knees and into the sand. He dug with desperate eagerness, causing a great cascade to fan out into the air, like a mole excavating a new burrow. Half the sand the ogre tossed was landing in the hole the other mercenary was working on, who didn’t seem to notice.

Above, the ceiling groaned and cracked as it continued to lower. Lights dotted the ceiling, the only illumination in the room, giving it a yellow, sickly glow.

This eighth floor had been a strange world. A long, flat, grass-covered plane meant to mimic the sward. But hidden in the grass were thousands of round holes of various sizes, each one leading downward to a different area, ever going down and down like the labyrinth of a cavern wasp colony. The stairwells to the ninth floor were supposedly somewhere at the bottom.

But instead of going down through the holes, there’d been another option. In the very middle of the grassland was a tall, wide tower, rising about fifty levels into the sky. On the front door of the tower was a simple note that read Warning: If you enter the tower maze, you must proceed to the top before you’ll be allowed to go back down. No teleporting or phase allowed in the tower.

There’d been no other information than that. No indication if it was necessary to use the tower or not. The others debated whether or not to risk entering. It seemed like someone had to go in there and try it. For all they knew, it was the only way to open up the stairwells far below.

And then, Everly received the benefactor box from her sponsor, who so far had been quite generous with gifts. The sponsor’s name was Dictum Waystation Controls, Limited.

The item in the box was called Gordon’s Compass of Vertical Labyrinth Management. 49 uses.

It was a simple device, and it appeared it was going to be enormously helpful. It showed the bearer the “quickest and safest” path through a maze.

But there was a problem. The description specifically stated it wouldn’t work in subterranean mazes. It was clear that the compass was meant to be used to navigate the tower.

So, Everly and her ten mercenaries decided to enter the tower while several other crawlers waited at the bottom. Some of her fellow mantises had offered to go with her. She refused their help, like she always did.

Each stairwell upward ended in a landing that consisted of five one-way doors, with supposedly a different danger behind each one. Each time, the compass pointed to the “safest and fastest” path. Each time she opened the safe door, the other doors disappeared, revealing a small, empty hallway and another set of stairs, and that was it. No danger. The compass could only be used 49 times, and the tower was 50 levels high.

With the help of the compass, Everly and her team managed to carefully creep their way up the fifty flights of stairs in a matter of hours. When they used the compass the 49th time—to go from the 49th to the 50th floor—it pointed to a single door before shattering into a dozen pieces.

At the very top of the tower, they came to a large, round room. At this point, Everly had received multiple awards for viewership. She wasn’t one to feel much emotion other than annoyance, but she did allow a glimmer of excitement to creep in. A fan box. She’d heard of such things from others, but she’d never been the most popular. But now she was finally getting recognized. The entire center system was watching her, alone, traveling up this tower on a mission to possibly help save her fellow mantises.

That was a good, unfamiliar feeling, and she savored it. She wondered what her mother would’ve thought.

Sitting in the middle of the room upon a pedestal was nothing more than a folded tent of paper. She warily skittered forward and picked it up. It was a note, and the moment she touched it, the system read the note out loud.

The announcement came in a voice she’d never heard before.

Never trust your life to Gordon Waystation Outfitters. There’s no safe or cheap path to safety.

This dead end was sponsored by Dictum Waystation Controls, Limited.

“Don’t get caught with nowhere to go.”

“What?” she said out loud, not understanding. It took a moment for it to sink in.

It was an advertisement. The whole tower had been an advertisement. She’d seen a few of those throughout the dungeon. Traps that announced they were sponsored by so and so before they went off. The announcer man said it was a pilot program this season.

But this... this was something else. This entire tower had been built by her own sponsor, and they’d given her an item that deliberately led her here. The item was named after “Gordon Waystation Controls.” A competitor of her sponsor.

Humiliation. And then anger.

That anger washed over her. An anger so powerful that it temporarily blotted out the fear. An advertisement? They had used her for an advertisement? How fucking dare they?

There was a loud, grinding noise, and a trap door appeared in the floor.

You may now make your way downward. The path you used upward is no longer available.

She pulled up the scratchpad and scrawled an angry note in the cookbook, but she was interrupted by a new sound. The roof above them started to slowly crush down. Her mercenaries started to shout and point. They moved to the stairs, which led down to a landing with four doors.

Now, only ten flights down, and only three of them were left alive.

Everly wondered if this would’ve happened if she’d allowed some of the others to go up the tower with her. Maybe one of the others had heard of this Gordon Waystation company and would’ve figured out the whole thing was a trap.

But she’d insisted on staying alone this whole time. Even after she’d entered the dungeon and found thousands of her fellow mantises, all equally confused and afraid. She’d wanted to work with them. They’d wanted to work with her.

Still, she’d struck out on her own, determined to fight it all in her own way. Her only companions were the NPCs and the invisible words etched on her prayer mat.

The dwarf finally stopped digging. He rolled onto his back and looked up at the ceiling and closed his eyes. He reached up, almost able to touch it now.

“The Inevitable Ruin.”

She’d whispered it out loud.

That’s when it had happened, wasn’t it? Not now, here in this damn tower. It happened when I abandoned the others. So much earlier than I realized.

Next to her, the ogre, who hadn’t said a single word since she’d hired him, changed. He, too, had stopped digging and now lay prone atop the sand like he was going to sleep, his head turned toward hers. She watched the change happen. There was a flash, like a screen booting up, deep in the back of his small, black eyes.

“Maybe there’s more to it than this,” the ogre said just as the slow-moving ceiling kissed the side of his face. His body shifted and was pushed into the sand. “Maybe it’s not inevitable, like you say.”

She reached her arm out and touched the ogre just as it started to hurt.

CLASS: EXPLOSIVES ENGINEER: RACE: PRIMAL.

Birth Race: Sward Mantis.

Top Level: 62

Dungeon Exit: crushed to death on the eighth floor.

Author of the fifth edition of the Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook.

Current status: Dead.

16

Time until Ceasefire Ends: 31 Hours.

“Okay,” Mordecai said as Katia sat nervously on the hospital cot. I paced back and forth behind them, equally anxious. I had a bed of my own waiting for me. “This is going to take aboot eight to ten hours for you, Katia. Carl, I’m not sure how long your session will take. It should be significantly less, but I don’t think anyone has actually tried this outside a drug den before, so who knows.”

He placed the fizzing, green jar on the counter. It looked like thick, carbonated slime. The concoction made a hissing noise. “This jar is enough for both of you. It’s basically two hits of Glory Bound, but compounded with a subdermal gel and mixed with a potion called ‘Tough Love.’ Kinda like that anti-alcohol potion I gave to Louis and Firas on the fifth floor, but with a long brew time. I started making this on the previous floor, and it has to sit nice and long before it gains its potency, and we are now in that window. It goes stale fast, so it’s now or never. The dose I’m giving to you, Carl, I’m also going to combine with another potion called ‘Removal Order.’ That way we’ll be visiting the spider’s memories instead of your own.” He paused, swallowing hard. “I hope.”

“Removal Order will work for such a powerful entity?” Bucket Boy asked. The crocodilian kid, a former attendant of the Penis Parade, stood in the room and somehow looked pale, despite being covered with scales. “Isn’t that for weaker possessions?” The NPC looked over at me nervously. He leaned in toward Mordecai and whispered loud enough for the whole room to hear, “Like, won’t his head explode if it doesn’t work right?”

“Wait, what?” I asked.

“No, his head won’t explode,” Mordecai said. “Not the way we’re doing it. Probably not.”

I sat on the cot. “Jesus,” I muttered.

We’ll both die. Don’t do this, Carl.

“Shut the fuck up,” I said, slapping myself on the chest.

Katia had only taken the insidious, addictive drug Glory Bound once, which had caused her to re-live her favorite memory. But the drug was terribly addictive and came with several nasty side effects, one of which was her losing her grasp on what was real or not. We’d only seen a few minor examples of this so far, but we needed to get this taken care of now before it got worse.

And that required her to take Glory Bound a second time, but with a version of the drug modified by Mordecai. Katia would go under, but she would be forced to confront something from her past. I didn’t know what that was, and I didn’t ask. That was her business, and it was something she’d have to face on her own. Based on the hollow look in her eyes, I knew it would be something terrible. She trembled.

We weren’t inside of a saferoom, but in a newly-built field hospital at our base. Katia would be unconscious but constantly monitored, and saferooms had some strange rules about this sort of thing. Mordecai insisted it would have to be outside.

As for me, the treatment required someone to remove my new toe ring once I was konked out. That also required me to do this independent of the safety of the guild.

Outside, the clanging, pulsing sound of rapid construction continued unabated. The multi-layer, anti-magic shell was being erected over the base. They were behind schedule, and I could hear shouting from several directions. This new shield looked like a kid’s jungle gym, and it was designed so different mages could cast spells in different hexagons of the structure, like tiles, allowing for stronger protection and denying the enemy a single point of failure. Killing a mage usually canceled out any of their active protection spells.

“Carl,” Rosetta said. “If you’re still under when Katia comes back, I’ll induce the wake-up sequence. You should be able to initiate the ejection yourself, since it won’t be your own memory.”

“Even with the ring off?”

“Once you’re under, the ring shouldn’t matter, but we’ll make sure it’s put back on before you wake up. Imani will cast a protection spell on you, too, so that should bolster your defenses. You fed your Emberus shrine before you came out here, no?”

“I did, but I shouldn’t be down that long, should I? And what if I am in one of my own memories?”

“Then it will probably be unpleasant,” Rosetta said.

“What about Katia?” I asked, looking over at the woman next to me. She was in her regular, human form, and she looked so small in the bed. She caught my eyes and smiled. She reached over to grab my hand, but she was too far away. Rosetta moved between us.

Edgar the tortoise appeared, walking slowly into the room. He made slow, painful progress toward Katia. “Even though you’re both getting the same drug,” Edgar said, “you two are undergoing two very different treatments. Once Katia is under, she’s on her own. If we wake her up early, it could be fatal.”

“That’s a cheerful thought,” Katia said.

In the room was Edgar, Mordecai, Rosetta, Bautista, Imani, a few former crawlers I didn’t know, and Bucket Boy the crocodilian strip-club attendant NPC, who was also a low-tier healer. He was present to assist Imani, and once the fighting began, this field hospital would be his domain along with some of the other healers.

Bautista remained in the back of the room, pacing back and forth, chewing on one of his finger claws. I wasn’t too clear on the state of Bautista and Katia’s relationship, but she’d asked for him to be here. Based on the flashing of their eyes, they were talking privately.

Donut remained in the guild, in her bathroom, taking shower after shower in a fruitless attempt to get the stench out of her and Mongo. Rend was with them, apparently a big fan of the shower. Donut had sent no less than two dozen messages in the past ten minutes, demanding to know what was happening.

I took a long breath. I touched the tattoo on my chest. The eye was open and blinking, angrily looking back and forth, desperately attempting to cast this or that. I had my Wisp Armor spell active, which added extra protection against Shi Maria’s attempts to take over my body. Despite that, she’d just been able to talk in my mind. We had to do this now.

We had several options on how to deal with the spider’s presence attached to my body. All were dangerous. None were guaranteed. This particular method was ensured to be painful whether it worked or not, but it came with the benefit of having to use a powerful potion that Mordecai had already made.

I worried about that. Whenever there was a coincidence or a convenience—not that anything about this was convenient—I knew that there was another hand involved in all of this. Whether it was the show runners or the AI or some combo of both. And that always meant some sort of unwelcome fuckery was about to go down.

But what other choice did I have? This was our only opportunity to deal with this problem before it was too late

According to both Mordecai and Rosetta, this particular drug—Glory Bound—was based on a real-life, outside-the-inner-system medication originally designed to help train people to do various, difficult tasks. It was a two-part process that first involved subliminal conditioning over a long period of time. And then the trip portion of the drug was used to unlock the knowledge. But, as with most drugs that could do such a thing, it started to get abused before the whole process was replaced by some other technique.

Despite being discontinued, the drug and its effects persisted in the dungeon, used for literally dozens of quests over the seasons, or as a sort of trap, which is exactly what it had been for Katia. Sometimes the drug’s effects were tweaked to fit into a particular storyline. But more than once, there had been “possessed” quests that required the victim to find the drug den in the Desperado Club to get themselves cured.

In order for Katia to clear the physical effects of this addiction, she needed to re-live this experience, whatever it was.

For me, it was more complicated. I needed to enter the memory of the spider, who also would experience her “worst” memory. I would not be a memory ghost in the reminiscence. I could—and probably would—be injured. I could feel pain. My memory body could die. But I would reconstitute each time. And as long as I kept my wits about me, my real body would be fine. I would have to witness this dream, whatever it was, and because of the drug Mordecai added to the mix—Removal Order—I could choose to lock Shi Maria in the memory at the end. She would remain forever trapped.

The tattoo would remain on my chest, but I would have control over it. I would gain a skill or two, if I did it properly. And that’s what worried me. There were no specific instructions on how to “lock” her in the dream. It would manifest itself in a different way each time. Mordecai said it would probably be clear.

But if I failed to properly trap her, I’d wake back up and would have to deal with a very pissed-off entity inside of me. We’d be back to square one.

“Here we go,” Mordecai said as he slipped on a glove. “This potion is a gel I’m putting on your skin.” He took a handful and started to rub it on Katia’s neck. He then added another potion to the jar of goo and moved to me, slopping a cold blob of the green stuff on me. It fizzed and kind of tickled. “It’ll take about five minutes to start working, but it’s safer and more effective if you’re unconscious when it takes hold. So wait until your potion cooldown has passed, and then I’m going to knock you both out.” He pulled off the glove with a deft finger and dropped it into the jar as Imani handed each of us a potion.

“Drink these as soon as you can,” Mordecai said. “This will help the sleep come fast. The potion will make you a bit loopy. You might see some weird shit, but it won’t last long.”

Potion of Somnolent Embrace.

This won’t remove your worries or your bad dreams for more than but a moment. But it will ease them long enough to let you sleep. Sometimes this is all we can hope for.

Gently brings you to rest until you fall asleep.

Katia looked at the potion, gave me a quick, nervous smile, and then shrugged.

“Skál,” she said, drinking the potion manually.

A moment later, she added, “Oh wow, this stuff is great.”

“I don’t have the fancy bed you guys have,” Mordecai said. “It’s what I use sometimes.”

“Sometimes?” Rosetta asked.

“What do you know aboot it?” Mordecai asked her.

“I saw Odette’s story about you the other day.”

“Her what?”

I drank the potion down, and I instantly felt a warm tingling rush over me. I turned my head toward Katia. She had a golden, glowing halo over her. The others in the room were still talking. Mordecai was growling something at Rosetta, but all I could hear was Katia.

“Do you want to hear a secret?” Katia asked me as her eyes got heavy. Her voice was loud and clear.

“Sure,” I said.

“My favorite memory and my worst memory are the same thing. I’m going to the same place I was last time. I hope that doesn’t mess this up.”

“Katia,” I heard myself say. “Quick. Grab my hand. We can do it together.”

“Okay,” she said, reaching out. Her arm stretched and grasped onto my wrist. She started to twist and twist, like a vine growing up my arm. She started to pull me from the table.

“No,” someone shouted. “Separate them!” Edgar. His voice was distant. Not nearly as clear.

Imani was there, unravelling us. “No touching, you two,” she said, her voice surprisingly gentle, yet so far away. She was wearing gloves. Why was she wearing gloves? “It’ll confuse the dreams.”

“But we’re still touching,” I whispered as my consciousness fled. I could feel it, the river, flowing from myself and crashing against the rocks of Katia’s mind. There was no purchase there, no permanent path back to me, but still, my thoughts crashed into hers, like a tsunami, and for a moment, I flooded onto her, overwhelming it all.

I heard her gasp, and I could see things there. I saw her mind.

And with the backsplash, I briefly touched the minds of others nearby. Imani, who was terrified. Mordecai, equally wary but also so very sad. Rosetta who just seemed so very tired yet filled with a deep, familiar rage. Edgar, who was worried. These were just flashes, like my hand running through a flame. The moment only lasted microseconds, yet I saw deeper and longer than I should.

I shouldn’t be seeing this.

Katia was the one I’d truly crashed against, and while it was still short, the glimpses I felt of her lasted longer. Told me more.

She, too, was afraid. Afraid that she was a burden. Ashamed. Ashamed that we were all doing this for her. And angry, too. Angry at herself. Angry at the world. Angry at... at... Me? Why would she be angry with me?

I quickly started to recede.

Would I get away in time? I could feel the event horizon looming. The precipice of the dream rushing up to meet us. And behind me, another presence menaced. Two presences. Three presences, but one well hidden. I tried to retreat, fleeing away from Katia’s dream. She needed to do that alone. I needed to turn around and face this, whatever it was.

Katia stood beside me, her arm still twisting like a vine around my own as the two sides crashed toward us, like a pair of hands clapping together in a clumsy attempt to capture a bug.

“It’s not that I’m angry with you,” she said in the microsecond before the two hands joined. “I’m just mad that you let people hurt you. You meet someone, you start to care for them, and then it becomes...”

She was interrupted by a warlord notification. The sound was distant and hollow, yet it was enough to cut her off completely.

The Lemig Sortion has offered you free passage to their headquarters in order to treat for peace. They are offering...

Slap.

17

I blinked, and I woke up.

The Scavenger’s Daughter has been fed. Unleash her wrath.

I wasn’t in the Icelandic hospital anymore. My mind reeled.

Is this still the dream?

I slowly looked at my hands, confused.

I was covered with blood. What the hell?

Quest Failed. The Bedlam Bride.

Katia, I thought. Where was Katia? I thought of the memory, of the dream we’d just shared. Of Annie, the little baby girl. Of that prick of an ex... boyfriend? Husband? Fannar was his name. Of the cancer diagnosis. After all those hoops, after all she’d overcome. They’d caught it early. She’d be okay. But, despite that... it’d come with a terrible price. I understood, finally. Katia’s addictions. Fannar had told them. I didn’t understand why. She’d been clean for so long, struggled so long, so hard to stand on her own feet. And then a one, two punch. By dungeon standards, all of this was almost nothing. Just another one of life’s shitty events. A debuff. A minor setback. But to Katia, it had been everything. A shattering.

I thought of the social worker, coming to pick me up from the interrogation room. Come on now, she’d said. Come on now.

But this time, when I remembered it, she said something else in my memory.

The inevitable ruin. I heard it clearly in her clipped, matter-of-fact voice.

I knew that phrase. I knew what it meant. But I couldn’t recall ever hearing or reading it anywhere. What did that mean?

There was screaming.

I was still groggy. A lot of screaming. What was going on? Where was I? I was standing. Standing in the middle of a room. Standing in a circle of blood and corpses.

My eyes focused on a goblin thing. He was in the familiar, cavernous room with me, and he had a gun in his hands. He aimed it right at my head and pulled the trigger. The goblin froze, and the gun didn’t go off. The word Naughty appeared over the goblin’s head. There were multiples of the creatures in the room. Most were dead. One was on the floor, sobbing as he dragged himself away from me. His legs were gone, and he smeared bright, bright blood on the tiled floor.

I know this place, I thought.

And the goblin, too. The one screaming with no legs. I recognized him as well. His name was Luke. He was a representative from the Lemig Sortion. As I watched, he groaned, and then he died.

Corpse of Luke. Level 64 Lemig Goblin.

General in the Democratic Sortion.

Killed by a fellow soldier under the control of Shi Maria.

I... I was in the high elf castle. The castle from the sixth floor. We were in one of the ballrooms, but the walls were cracked all around. I shook my head. This didn’t make sense.

“Sorry,” a new, gravelly voice said. “It’s being ruled an AI action, not an attack. The ceasefire has no rules against teammates fighting one another. Or monsters. You could’ve fought back against the unaffiliated NPC while he was under control of that thing, but you waited too long. Now that he’s no longer possessed, you can’t touch him while the ceasefire is in effect. The AI is claiming he had a notification over his head while he was vulnerable.”

I turned around to face the voice. I blinked a few times, still completely disoriented. There was something wrong with my eyesight, and it was making me dizzy. There were two aliens standing there in the midst of all the carnage. God, how many dead were in here? It looked to be fifty, or more.

The one who’d been speaking was a tall, purple-skinned creature. A dreadnaught. The notice over him said his name was Panford. Adjutant for the Democratic Sortion. The alien he was speaking to was a giant, fuzzy thing. He was a good seven feet tall and looked like an upright caterpillar. Commander Stockade. Level 76 Phase Sorcerer. Warlord of the Democratic Sortion.

“An AI action?” Commander Stockade shouted. He was screaming at the dreadnaught. The caterpillar’s voice surprised me. He had that same, weird accent as the rest of their kind, even though the rest were mostly goblins. He sounded like an aged surfer dude straight out of southern California. “He killed half of my family, and it’s considered an AI action? This is utter, complete orcshit. I want to file an immediate appeal!”

I continued to look around. I was starting to realize this wasn’t a dream. Was I really here? How in the hell had that happened? The entire ballroom was filled with blood. It looked as if someone had set off a bomb.

Also, I realized, this wasn’t the same goodwill ballroom I’d been in for the Butcher’s Masquerade. The exits were in different places. I suspected this was the third one. The one near the top of the castle. Queen Imogen’s private ballroom. When we’d transferred this castle to the ninth floor, I knew it’d landed in the territory of the Lemig Sortion, and they’d started using it as their headquarters.

“You can’t file an appeal,” Panford the adjutant said. “They’re all dead. You can’t appeal them back to life. If you had informed me of your ill-conceived plan, I could have told you why it wouldn’t have worked. That entity is a demonic demigod. Not a full demon. Carl was not possessed in the traditional manner. You planned on turning Carl into a vegetable and having the spider kill everyone in the room back in the other base. Instead, Carl is safe, and now your throne room is destroyed.”

Commander Stockade undulated his caterpillar body back and forth, oddly reminding me of one of those waving, inflatable tube men they shoved in front of car dealerships. “This is cheating! He turned into that thing and killed the entire room in seconds! That’s not how this works! The AI changed the rules.” His voice was starting to crack. “Luke, oh gods, Luke is dead. My beautiful, beautiful Luke. Reeves is dead. They’re all dead.”

My eyes caught the timer in the corner of my vision. We had 20 hours until the ceasefire ended.

I’d lost 11 hours.

“What happened is exactly what always happens when you attempt to improperly extract an entity that powerful. This is your fault. This very thing happened three seasons ago,” the dreadnaught said, jabbing a finger at the caterpillar. “I asked you where you got your information, and you refused to answer. All spies must be disclosed to adjutants. You know this, and you have made no such declaration. Unless you can prove you have a mole in the Princess Posse camp, I am going to assume you have an external influence assisting you, which is clearly cheating. You and Architect Houston both planned this using someone observing the feed from outside the dungeon. I’m afraid I’m going to have to call a foul.”

“On us? You’re calling a foul on us? We are fighting for our lives here, and you’re worried about the fucking rules? When I get out of here, I will make you pay.”

“Both the Lemig Sortion and the Madness will receive heavy sanctions for this stunt. The specifics will come down shortly. In addition, threatening your adjutant comes with additional penalties.”

“What the hell happened?” I asked, coughing the words.

“You,” Commander Stockade said, waving one of his short, caterpillar arms at me. “You planned this! I don’t know how you did it, but you planned it this way!”

I was going to vomit.

Donut: CARL, CARL. WHERE ARE YOU? KATIA IS STILL HERE, BUT YOU DISAPPEARED. YOU TELEPORTED AWAY, AND NOBODY KNOWS WHAT HAPPENED. OUR ADJUTANT LADY SAID YOU KILLED A BUNCH OF LEMIG PEOPLE IN THEIR OWN CASTLE, BUT IT’S THEIR OWN FAULT. SHE’S NOT MAKING SENSE. MORDECAI AND ROSETTA ARE BOTH LAUGHING LIKE THEY’VE GONE CRAZY.

Carl: I don’t know what’s happening, but I’m okay for right now.

Baroness Victory: Hold tight, Carl. They’re asking for a minor quorum. I am coming to you. Don’t make any rash movements or actions. You’re safe if you don’t move.

There was a flash, followed by a second flash and a notice.

A Second Adjutant has Entered the Room.

A Third Adjutant has Entered the Room.

A Minor Quorum has been achieved. All local hostilities must be paused while a field ruling is considered.

There was new shouting all around me as mercenaries entered the ballroom from all the doors. A second and a third mercenary—these were large, bugbear-looking things I’d never seen before—attempted to fire their weapons at me. All got paused. There were no chairs here. I had to sit, so I sat on the floor, in the midst of all the carnage. I had no idea what had happened, how I got here, or what had happened while I was under. My head continued to swirl. I remembered the dream, how it started. I remembered the spider. Not Shi Maria, but a different one. A male. Her husband. First a spider, then a human. I remembered how, near the end, Shi Maria had also entered the room, mocking me, telling me I’d be sorry, but then she saw the other spider, and she’d changed. She burst into a rage. She killed him, her own husband. She’d devoured him while she sobbed. She’d disappeared and then reappeared a few moments later, she’d curled into a ball, right there in the hospital in Iceland.

But then it got fuzzy. The husband had returned. Hadn’t he?

I’d failed the Bedlam Bride quest. The quest to bring her to Larracos. Did that mean she was gone? If so, how had she killed the entire room?

And how the hell had I gotten here? I was now on the other side of the map.

I hoped Katia’s treatment had worked. I suspected it had. That was the impression I had from the dream. My treatment had also worked. Sort of. It had worked according to her husband, who’d reappeared at the end. The order of what happened was a jumble, just like a real dream. What was his name? Hapanzi? He’d been a god.

I have her now, son, he’d said. She is good and trapped. You can always set her free, if you must. But do not unless all is lost.

I could now see from the eye on my chest. It wasn’t a tattoo anymore, though it still disappeared when it was closed. I could feel it. I had to make a conscious effort to keep the eye closed. Another wave of nausea flooded me.

Katia: Carl, where are you?

Carl: I think I’m in the high elf castle! I have no idea what the hell is going on.

Katia: They’re saying you teleported away right when it started, but you remained translucent, like you were in two places at once, and at the end, you completely disappeared. And now your adjutant is saying you killed a room full of the Lemig goblin guys. She said something to Mordecai, and he fell over laughing and hasn’t explained why. Donut is here losing her mind. The Lemig guys knew the precise moment you went under, and they attempted something to ruin the procedure. Something using the warlord chat I don’t understand. That in itself wasn’t against the rules, but them using outside information is. The fact it backfired on them is irrelevant.

Carl: Holy shit.

Katia: Carl, we left her there. We left Shi Maria alone in that room with Annie.

Carl: It’s not real. It was just a memory. The spider is trapped, and she’s not trapped in you. Her husband said so. But your Annie. The real Annie, she’s gone. They can’t touch her.

Katia: Carl...

Carl: It worked, right? Did they say it worked?

Katia: I think so. It’s not like a switch that one flips on and off. We won’t really know right away. But, yes. I think it worked.

Carl: Then that’s all that matters.

Shi Maria wasn’t truly gone, but she was trapped. I remembered now. She was like an egg inside of me. One I could break at any time, but I had to do it myself.

Just like Carl’s Doomsday Scenario. I was gathering quite the collection of weapons of mass destruction.

That should’ve been an enormous relief. It was not.

I tried opening the third eye, but I clenched it shut a moment later. I had to close it. There was power there. So much power. I had to keep it closed.

The inevitable ruin.

18

“This is an official field ruling adjudication,” Panford the dreadnaught said to the pissed-off caterpillar and the stoic Viceroy. He waved his hand, and a screen appeared floating in the air.

We all sat in a new room. I was segregated from the others by about ten feet, and I was still dripping with blood like I’d been bobbing for apples in a vat of the stuff. I had it on my face. In my hair. This was the private kitchen of the late Queen Imogen, off to the side of the ballroom. The table was made of some rich, finely carved wood, and in moments, it was covered with my bloody handprints.

Baroness Victory and the other two adjutants also congregated together in the middle of the table, dividing me and the two warlords. They’d been conversing amongst themselves for some time now before the dreadnaught cleared his throat and started talking.

There was a bag of literal Earth cat food sitting on the counter, abandoned and leaning against the wall. The large bag was closed with a little plastic clip. It was some generic, cheap kind of cat food that Donut would never touch. The yellow bag featured a happy, cartoon cat and was called “Meow Time.” There was also a sticker on the bag, “a gift from Pet Angels.” Pet Angels was a Seattle charity that gave free pet supplies to people who couldn’t afford it otherwise. Its presence here was so out of place that it was physically jarring. Is that what Ferdinand was eating when he lived here in the castle? Was it what he was eating before? If so, how did it get here? I couldn’t take my eyes off it, and I had an overwhelming urge to try to steal it.

There were six of us in the room. The three warlords and their adjutants. Architect Houston—the masked, Viceroy leader of the Madness—sat at the other end of the wooden table, unmoving. It appeared he was already in the castle but hadn’t been in the ballroom when it happened, whatever “it” was. The adjutant for the Madness was a tiny, floating Bune. The little dragon creature’s name was Opiee.

Stockade and I had filed into the kitchen like a pair of children being called into the principal’s office. No guards were allowed to follow. A group of the bugbear mercenary cooks were shooed from the room as we entered. Commander Stockade quivered with rage. Yellow goo leaked from his fuzzy, compound eyes, and he smelled like must and dirt. Even across the room, I could smell his rising stench. The angry alien kept muttering “Luke” over and over.

Architect Houston, the Viceroy leader of team Madness, had entered a moment later. He didn’t appear to have a care in the world, not that it was difficult to put up such a façade. His white, featureless mask was slightly different than the other masks his kind wore. A small, red teardrop icon sat in the very center of the white guise. He wore long, flowing, Jedi-like robes that were just as starkly white as his mask, like a pope. The robes flowed strangely as he walked in, giving the implication his anatomy was strange. I knew under that mask, he had a demonic, alien face with lots of terrifying teeth, like a mix between a Predator alien and a goblin with no lips.

On the floating screen, a close-up view of me on the cot in the infirmary appeared, followed by a second screen showing the caterpillar in the middle of the ballroom, surrounded by dozens of the Lemig goblins. On the screen, Stockade’s compound eyes flashed like a disco ball as he spoke with someone.

“Stockade,” Panford the adjutant continued as the screens moved, “your plan was both simple and brilliant. Using the warlord chat, you offered peace terms to warlords Carl and Donut. With those terms, you requested a face-to-face parlay. And then you extended an invite directly to Carl using your level-15 Summon Ally spell. You extended this invitation after Carl quaffed the sleep potion and just as he was taking the medicine to treat his demonic infestation. Since Carl was still, technically, conscious when you made your offer, the request was delivered directly to his interface. You also knew that while most command-and-request inquiries are disabled in certain unconscious states, properly delivered warlord inquiries remain persistent even during certain levels of unconsciousness.”

The left side of the screen switched to my interface, showing Accept Teleport Request? You will teleport here: Followed by a map showing the location of the Lemig base. The screen split once more, returning to me passed out on the cot. It showed Rosetta, Bucket Boy, and Mordecai hovering over me while Imani pried off my toe ring.

“You knew that while Carl was incapacitated, the plan for them was to allow Shi Maria to take over Carl’s consciousness during the dream sequence. While in that state, the entity would have no ability to control Carl or interact with any of his systems, such as casting spells, sending messages, or interacting with his inventory. However, because of your brilliantly timed request, the entity controlling Carl could—and indeed did—accept the invitation to parlay.”

The screen showed the teleport request get accepted the moment my toe ring was pulled off by Imani.

The dreadnaught turned to the other two adjutants—the orc and the bune. “Are we agreed on these facts so far?”

“Agreed,” Opiee the adjutant for the Madness said.

“Yes,” Baroness Victory agreed. I caught her eye, and she winked at me from across the room.

There was an audible chime from the system, but no other notification.

“This is bullshit,” Commander Stockade muttered again. “This was supposed to be a game, and now we’re literally fighting for our lives. Yet, you fools are pretending like nothing has happened. You’re complicit in all this. You’re just as complicit as the mudskippers, the mantids, and the Valtay whose ineptitude let this happen. You need to be helping us escape, not tightening...” He trailed off, almost like a child getting distracted by something shiny. “Luke is gone. Beautiful Luke is no more. He was real. A real life snuffed away.”

I was about to say something, but the sudden rage that built up in my chest temporarily muted my voice. Still, I found myself on my feet, my fists clenched.

Architect Houston, who hadn’t said a word or even moved since he sat at the table, turned his head in my direction. It was barely a move, but his neck made a slight creaking noise, like from a wooden ship.

Easy. Easy.

Victory put up her hand and motioned me to sit.

“Nobody is happy for their current circumstances,” Victory said to the caterpillar, “but the rules are the rules. We all know what will happen if we don’t continue as normal.”

“If we survive this, you will all be sorry,” Stockade said. He was so angry, he was crying as he spoke. “I swear it.”

“Noted,” Victory said. She bowed toward the dreadnaught. “Please continue.”

Panford nodded. Shi Maria appeared on the screen, spinning. “The entity contained within Carl is basically a special Reaper Spider Minion merchant. Part demon and part demi-god. You, Stockade, knew that the spider would jump at the ability to escape, which is exactly what would’ve happened if things had gone as you anticipated.”

Panford looked at me. “Do you know how the Summon Ally spell works?”

“Of course,” I said.

That was a lie, but I’d already asked Mordecai to explain it to me, and his answer had already popped up. As I read it, Commander Stockade started bawling again about his dead friend, Luke.

Mordecai: Summon Ally is a rare, multi-functional teleport spell. At its most basic, it does what it says. It summons an ally to you. However, it’s not meant as an offensive spell, and there are some protections in place to keep it from being used as such. At all levels, it puts control in the hands of the summoned and not the summoner. First, you have to be in each other’s chat systems for it to work. I guess the warlord chat works, too. Second, the summoned is given the choice to accept the summoning. Third, the summoned cannot be teleported into a wall or anything like that. What happened in this case is that you were teleported to that castle, but you appeared as a non-corporeal avatar. It was the system compensating for your unconscious state. This is actually intended to stop people from using the spell to remove friends from deadly situations, but in your case, it saved you. You remained in that state until you started to wake up. I thought I’d killed you. It took some time to figure out what was going on.

Carl: What the hell were they trying to do? They went through all this to see a ghost of myself sleeping for like 10 hours. So what? What happened?

Mordecai: At best, they wanted to ruin your treatment. At worst, they thought it would simply kill you. Or act like teleporting a demon-possessed shell. Remember what happened on the last floor? What happened there, they thought was going to happen here. They wanted to kill us using that crazy spider. The adjutants will explain what actually happened.

Carl: Jesus.

“We must continue,” Panford said to the still-blubbering caterpillar who’d fallen on the floor and was undulating up and down like a toddler having a tantrum.

“Why. Why are you subjecting me to this? Just make your ruling and leave me be.”

Watching the caterpillar blubber at the death of his friend filled me with anger.

You don’t know loss. Not yet.

“We are doing this because it’s part of the rules,” Panford said, exasperation leaking into his formal voice. “All fouls that come with sanctions must be thoroughly examined by a minor quorum. Now kindly shut up and let me finish.”

Stockade grunted and remained prone on the floor.

Panford nodded. The screen showed me teleporting to the ballroom. A translucent version of me appeared in both locations. The side in the infirmary showed Imani starting to shout with Mordecai and everyone else leaning over me, trying to figure out what was happening.

“Carl was teleported to the ballroom here after Shi Maria accepted the invite. However, they intended for him to fully teleport to the location and leave Shi Maria there at the base for the Princess Posse. The spider would’ve then slaughtered the entire room. What happened instead was that Carl was only partially teleported here, thwarting the plan.”

“Incidentally,” Victory said, interrupting. “That wouldn’t have worked under any circumstances.”

“I’m not so certain,” Opiee the bune said. “Carl should be able to teleport normally. But fully teleporting while incapacitated with a presence that’s actively trying to escape? I think it might’ve worked if they’d used a different method to teleport. We all saw what happened next. It was an interesting theory and was worth the risk.”

“Hmm,” Victory said. “The next part wouldn’t have happened without the game guide’s intervention. But perhaps you’re correct.”

Panford waved at his fellow adjutants to let him continue. “It’s irrelevant. Even if it would’ve worked, there was additional corruption in the procedure when crawlers Katia and Carl touched hands during the start of the process. Carl’s consciousness remained inside of Katia’s while Carl’s avatar temporarily existed in both bases.”

“The consciousness jumping like that is still a mystery,” Opiee said. “It’s fascinating, and it shouldn’t have happened.”

“I believe it’s the communal nature of his Primal race,” Victory replied. “But it could also be the duality of the Shi Maria presence. She, in turn, has a god within herself.”

At the table, Architect Houston leaned forward to examine the screen as it switched to a new view.

The screen now showed a much hazier scene, showing nothing but blurry shadows. I recognized it immediately. Holy shit, I thought. They can see our dreams. It was the first part of Katia’s nightmare. Katia and I stood in the hallway, our arms physically attached as we watched a memory of herself walk through a door into a building. She stopped dead as another man was walking out.

What are you doing here? Dream Katia had asked him in Icelandic. I could understand it perfectly.

Telling them the truth the man said, pushing past her. On the screen, the words came out garbled, like a radio tuned just south of the correct station. But I could hear it. I could hear the panic in Katia’s voice. The venom in the man’s. His name was Fannar. He was a fellow professor, and they were originally going to adopt together. He’d slept with a student, and she’d reported him. Nothing had come of it other than the ruination of Katia’s life.

The scene jumped.

I can take a test, Katia pleaded to the faceless woman. I haven’t touched anything in ten years. It was so long ago.

It’s not just that. You’re sick, and you’ve been hiding it. With Annie’s medical needs, and with so little time left, we don’t feel...

He had no right, Katia shouted. She screamed the words, and she swept everything off the woman’s desk. Even garbled like this, they stung me all over again. The now Katia, the one watching this with me, had cried on my shoulder. He had no right, she’d said in unison with the ghost on the screen.

The now version of Katia also had a crow on her shoulder. Her card that she’d brought from the previous floor. A crow with the skull of an infant.

The crow’s name was also Annie. I didn’t know what that meant, but it seemed important.

Across the way, Architect Houston moved his attention from the screen and to me.

“Turn this off,” I said. “This isn’t yours to watch.”

I was ignored. The scene changed. We were in a hospital room, Katia standing at a crib, holding the baby the best she could. It was difficult with all the wires and diodes that attached to the nine-month-old, who’d just started standing on her own in the crib.

The now Katia and I both gasped and stepped back as a massive spider appeared, pushing himself through the wall. Annie the crow cawed angrily and flapped her wings. She, too, was attached to Katia, blended into her shoulder.

This spider was not Shi Maria. Hapanzi. Her husband. He didn’t say the name out loud, and here in this place, we didn’t have names floating over our heads, but in the dream, I knew. I knew everything about him, memories that were just now starting to flow back into me.

Too many memories. Memories that diluted and washed away into the stream.

“Worry not, my children,” the spider had said. As we watched, he transformed into a large, dark-skinned human, wearing simple pants and a vest. His accent was like that of Asojano’s. I recognized the voice as the same one that occasionally spoke in my mind. “Worry not.”

Only then did the scene fade, returning to me on the floor of the ballroom, still translucent and flickering.

Panford continued. “After some time, the Shi Maria consciousness was also pulled into Katia’s dreamscape. Meanwhile, parties at both ends scrambled to find a way to turn Carl’s incapacitation to their advantage. You, Stockade, planned on casting a spell to force Carl to completely form on your side, but you paused. You paused because you once again received outside information about how the Princess Posse team was planning to react. You, once again, needed to time your reaction to just the correct moment. Meanwhile, members of the crawler team became aware of exactly what was happening, and they formed a plan to defend Carl.”

“So, they’re cheating also!” the caterpillar shouted, suddenly pulling himself straight up. “They also have someone watching from the outside!”

“I will refute this,” Victory said. The simple pronouncement was followed by a ping from the system.

“You idiot,” Panford said to the caterpillar. “I will note for the record that Commander Stockade of the Lemig Sortion has admitted his guilt.”

Yet another ping filled the room.

Prepotente: Hello, Carl and Donut.

Donut: HI PREPOTENTE! WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? WHY HAVEN’T YOU JOINED MY ARMY YET?

Carl: I’m a little busy here. Gonna need like ten minutes.

Prepotente: I fear you don’t have ten minutes. I am near the southern border with the Naga, surveying your defenses, and there is a great amount of enemy movement. They are attempting to be surreptitious about it, but Bianca and I are observing them from high above. The long-range trebuchets of the elves are preparing to fire, and there is an entire squad of about 100 mercenaries with colors for the Madness who think they’re invisible, preparing to rush your trenches. There are multiple armored, tracked vehicles under camouflage netting as well.

Donut: YOU BETTER GET SOMEWHERE SAFE FAST.

Prepotente: With no magic being allowed in the beginning, I believe I am quite safe, thank you. Once the festivities begin, I have a very specific score to settle with the lead producer of the Blood Hunter program, and after that is complete, only then will I come to your aid and join in your military. If you’re still alive.

A new chat came before I could figure out what the hell he was talking about.

Elle: Guys. Shit’s happening on the Naga side. Lots of movement.

Florin: Team. Movement on the northern front. Enemy is moving like they’re preparing a push

Donut: WHAT IS GOING ON? WE STILL HAVE ALMOST 20 HOURS IN THE CEASEFIRE.

Florin: I know, but something’s up. All teams, positions now.

Carl: Pony says the same.

Imani: Nobody is in place. We’re not done with the defenses yet!

Li Jun: The Shanty Town defenses are still being built. Have two towers built, but that’s it. Both splash towers. We are working as fast as we can.

Li Na: We should have two more active in the next twenty minutes.

Li Jun: Also, uh Florin. You wanted to know about Lucia Mar, right? She’s here in Shanty Town right now with her dog, drinking at the Possum Envy right on the edge of the border with the robot team. The Reavers. One of the new guys tried to recruit her, and she almost ripped his head off.

Florin: Thanks for the head’s up, mate.

Elle: They’re pulling a bunch of camo netting off some tank things on the Naga side!

Carl: Shit. Everyone. Let’s go. Code red. Man your lines. I don’t know what’s happening, and it could be a drill, but I think shit’s about to go down. Remember the plan. Louis. Are you ready?

Louis: We only have half your bombs installed! We’re not ready!

Carl: Don’t have a choice. Get that thing into the air ASAP.

19

“Carl,” Panford said, bringing me back to the present. “I would appreciate you pay attention to the proceedings.”

I grunted and nodded as my chat system exploded with even more messages. I needed to stall for time to see if and how all of this was connected. “I guess I’m still confused on everything that happened up to this point. Can you explain it to me like I’m a toddler?”

Victory sighed and then spoke. “When you tried to expel the Shi Maria presence, Stockade was using an outside-the-dungeon partner to watch the procedure. He timed it precisely so you received a teleport request right at the moment when Shi Maria was able to accept it. Because he’s an idiot, it only half worked, and the system split you in two. Because you were in two places, both sides then attempted to fully drag you into their presence. But at this point, Mordecai became aware of what was really happening and knew he was being watched and formulated a subterfuge. Now shut up and allow Panford to explain what happened next.”

Panford gestured at the screen, which now showed Mordecai and Rosetta talking. “I’m going to pull him out,” Mordecai said on the screen. “I’m going to use a Shock Wake salve, but I gotta adjust it to work on a non-corporeal form.”

The screen showed Mordecai feverishly working over his alchemist’s table. On the other side of the split, it presented Commander Stockade preparing to cast a spell, his eyes once again flashing.

“While Mordecai brewed his potion, Stockade prepared a counter move, one to fully drag Carl into the ballroom. If the spell and the salve were applied simultaneously, Carl would’ve likely died, his soul being ripped in two. But Mordecai, aware that he was being illegally observed, was actually creating a different potion. Not a wake-up salve like he claimed out loud, but something to violently expel the Shi Maria presence. It was a risky move.”

“How,” Stockade asked. “How would they know, if they weren’t also observing us?”

“That’s a question you can answer for yourself. If they weren’t cheating, then how would they know?” Panford asked.

Stockade hissed. “A spy! There’s a spy in my midst!”

I actually had no idea how we’d known what was happening. We didn’t have any spies, as far as I was aware, here in the castle of the Lemigs. Elle and her squad were watching the Nagas. Our other changelings were moving through the Operatic side, disarming traps. Our last scouts were all with Louis on the Party Planner, which we’d planned on already having in enemy territory the moment the ceasefire ended.

I took a breath as realization hit me. We didn’t have spies. Juice Box’s team did. She’d said they’d all been expelled from the courts of the warlords. That was obviously untrue.

She was waiting for the ceasefire to end, I realized. She was going to assassinate some of the leaders once this started. Kill a leader, and the team would automatically lose. She played her hand early to save me.

The scene changed, showing Mordecai applying the salve to my translucent chest. I buckled, as if in pain. At the same time, Stockade cackled with laughter as he cast his spell.

The cackling stopped a few moments later.

The split screen turned to a full view of the ballroom with me on the floor, convulsing, fully corporeal. And then, just like that, I turned. There was no moment of transformation, like when Katia and Juice Box changed forms. There was a blink, and then I was Shi Maria.

“I have always loved you,” Shi Maria roared, her voice muffled. All the guards in the room panicked and started to run as the spider lashed, her front two arms slashing across the room. Lemig goblins separated from their bodies as the giant spider rampaged through the room, screaming and confused.

I also saw something the others didn’t. Her jaws were still unhinged. She was still in the midst of swallowing the human version of her husband. In the dream, we’d watched her devour the man, all the while screaming that she loved him and would never hurt him. As I watched the memory from the ballroom, the leg in her mouth vanished, and her jaw snapped back into place.

“I didn’t kill you, Hapanzi!” Maria screamed. “I would never kill you!” She skewered a goblin through the chest and picked him up with her arm. She shrieked at the goblin, her voice panicked and unhinged. “I would never hurt him! How dare you? How dare you!” She ripped the goblin in two.

I knew at that exact moment, in the dream, Shi Maria had disappeared and her husband—Hapanzi—had reappeared in front of us, once again as a spider. He told me that she was gone, trapped in my own body. He told me that I would now have control over the eye and the containment she was within. I could summon her again at will, if I wanted. But I could only do it once, and if I did so, she could choose. She could choose to take over my body or expel herself back into her own form.

In other words, Shi Maria had become yet another bomb in my inventory. An especially dangerous bomb.

I had an uneasy feeling as I watched the replay. She didn’t look nearly as trapped as Hapanzi said. Still, I now had control of the eye at my chest. I could feel it there, clenched closed.

In the dream, she had returned before I’d awakened. We’d left her in the room with Annie.

On the screen, it showed Luke throw himself in front of the cowering Commander Stockade. Shi Maria slashed his legs off, and Luke collapsed to the floor.

Her eye was open, on the screen. The caterpillar’s compound eyes lit up once again as they shone with the prismatic light. All around, the surviving goblins started beating the shit out of each other, all possessed by the spider’s insanity. They shot, stabbed, and bit. A soldier walked up to Luke, who continued to drag himself across the room, moving toward the exit, and he stabbed the legless goblin in the back with a long, segmented blade. He pulled the blade out, took two steps, and then he pulled it across his own throat.

A moment passed, and Shi Maria fell in on herself, rolled onto her back, her long, terrifying legs all jumbled, and then there was a blink, and I was there, standing upright in the room, my eyes closed. A silhouette of the spider remained, but it was made of the blood that had been coating her body, and it fell right over me like I’d had a bucket dumped on my head. The scene ended with me gasping and opening my eyes.

“Another oddity,” Opiee said. “Mordecai’s potion only worked temporarily. It should have permanently severed the bond, but in the end, the spider was pulled back into Carl. Much is happening at once within that crawler’s body, and I am quite curious to learn what, exactly, happened in this case.”

“I... I loved him,” Commander Stockade continued to say. His little hands moved back and forth, and I realized he was slowly pulling his own fur out. There was a ring of it on the floor under him. “I can’t bear this.”

Elle: Okay cowboys, I’m in position. But if this is just a drill, I’ll get caught and booted from their territory. Am I risking it or not?

Florin: Carl?

Carl: Gotta do it.

Elle: Okay. Moving in.

The screen disappeared with a flash. Panford straightened. “We believe that Stockade and Houston both conspired to use the secured messaging system to speak with someone upon the 18th floor, who is relaying real-time information via a third party participating in the Celestial Ascendency. Since celestial messaging is secured, we do not know who the middleman is in this scenario, but we have identified the party on the 18th floor as Nurse Yugoslav of the Madness.”

I planted a fake grin and turned to Architect Houston. “Your mom? Your mom is here in the dungeon? I can’t wait to meet her.”

I sent a quick message to Juice Box.

Opiee rose in the air, his little wings fluttering. These bune things usually walked on the ground, but they could fly short distances. “Houston’s presence here in the castle and the possible collusion by a family member, who is not bound by any such rules, is circumstantial evidence. Quite damning circumstantial evidence at that...” He paused for dramatic effect. “...but I don’t feel it’s enough to officially charge him. Unless you want to confess.” The small dragon turned to his warlord, who was still looking directly at me. “Do you wish to confess, Architect Houston?”

The masked creature made no moves and said nothing.

“I’ll take that as a no,” Opiee said.

“Oh, come on!” I said.

Juice Box: I passed on your message to Ferdinand. I’m hearing some information about strange movements, by the way. I am relaying it all to Louis and Britney. I had to burn some assets to save your ass. I hope it was worth it. Head’s up to your people. We’re going to power up the towers early. If someone is in town and isn’t in your army, they should probably start moving into your territory.

“Baroness?” Opiee asked.

Victory shrugged. “Houston is obviously guilty, but unless he admits it, he was smart enough to let Stockade do all of his dirty work. I will vote not culpable for both the Madness team and the Princess Posse.”

“Agreed,” Opiee said.

There was a ping.

“Very well,” Panford said. “Because the other two adjutants are in agreement, I do not need to render a ruling. This minor quorum finds the Madness and the Princess Posse not guilty of any wrongdoing. We also find that the leader of the Democratic Sortion has admitted guilt to illegal information gathering, and we are ready to render penalties.

Warlord Message. Sir Ferdinand of Team Retribution has proposed an emergency action item. “Because them alien cunts on other floors are being little bitches and cheating, we propose that nobody in the dungeon, including those pricks partying it up in that centipede’s asshole, be allowed to watch any outside feeds for the remainder of this little game.”

This action item has been approved. Effective immediately, everyone within the dungeon is subjected to an immediate, live-feed blackout.

“Holy shit,” I muttered. That was fast. I hadn’t wanted to waste any of our own action items on this, but I was glad it had worked.

“That’s a first,” Victory muttered.

“It’s about time,” Panford said.

“Luke. Oh gods, Luke,” Stockade said again.

I was finally starting to realize that the warlord was actually getting worse, not better as time moved forward. I remembered that moment from the video, when he looked right into my eye.

I shook my head. Not my eye. Shi Maria’s eye.

I received a new direct message in the warlord chat.

Architect Houston: If you ever utter the name of my mother out loud ever again, you and that animal companion of yours will spend the last thousand hours of your existence upon the amplification table in my surgical theater. This is a promise.

Warlord Carl: Oh, fuck off.

Architect Houston: You are in mortal danger in this very moment, and you don’t even realize it. I do hope you escape so we can extend our play, but gracious pet owners accept the gifts their animals drop at their doorsteps.

Warlord Carl: What the fuck does that even mean?

“As for penalties,” Panford said. “Since this is the first of three allowed penalties, you will receive a 25% reduction in your standing force. In addition... Wait, what are you doing?”

The caterpillar had fallen to the floor and was openly sobbing now. He was literally rubbing his face against the floor. He started to scream. “Luke! Luke! Luke!”

A stream of blood spread across the wood floor, like he’d caught his face on a nail. He didn’t stop. With every sweep of his fuzzy face, there was a new tearing noise and more blood on the floor. A health bar appeared and started to rapidly lower.

“Uh,” I said after a moment. Nobody moved to help him. “Not that I’m complaining, but are we going to just watch him do that to himself?”

“Beautiful, beautiful Luke. I loved your zomp-hued thighs! Oh Luke! Oh Luke!”

“We can’t interfere, nor can we call his guards in here,” Panford said after a moment.

The caterpillar started smashing his face up and down against the floor. A little splash of gooey blood appeared each time.

Smack, smack, smack.

“Luke,” the caterpillar groaned, his words barely discernible.

“A bit of a delayed reaction, but I think he got a full dose of that spider’s Insanity spell,” Victory said. She turned to Architect Houston. “Feel free to help him. Or call his guards.”

The warlord from the Madness did not move. He continued to stare directly at me.

Smack. Smack. They were coming slower now.

“Panford,” Victory said. “Let’s end this now. If we stay for much longer we’ll have to deal with a new adjudication.”

A wave of coldness washed over me.

“Wait,” I said. “What happens when this is done? How do I get back?”

Smack...

Smack.

“Because the ceasefire is in effect and because of the nature of your transport here, you’ll be teleported back to your base,” Panford said.

“Shit, okay,” I said quickly. “End it!”

I saw Victory’s eyes suddenly get huge as if she just realized something as well. She took a breath and then said, “Yes, Panford. Finish the ruling.”

The dreadnaught couldn’t take his eyes off the caterpillar, who’d stopped screaming. A yellow goo oozed from his head, mixed with the red, watery blood.

All sense of formality left his voice. “Uh, 25% reduction in force and removal of two tech slots. As those are currently filled with mechanized armor, both units will be immediately disbanded. This is our ruling, and this inquiry is concluded.”

There was a ping.

Victory looked at me, and she said, “I will now transport Carl back to his base. Teleporting in 20 seconds.”

Commander Stockade groaned, and then, just like that, he died, having literally smashed his own brains out against the floor.

System Message: Commander Stockade of the Democratic Sortion has fallen. Credit for the kill has been ruled as a psychosis-induced suicide.

System Message: The Democratic Sortion has been defeated. As this defeat was voluntary, the closest ally castle or warlord to their headquarters will receive all their assets.

System Message: All assets of the Lemig Sortion have been awarded to the Madness.

There was a pause. I felt the tingle of pre-teleportation.

System Message: Due to Ceasefire rule three, subsection six of the ceasefire addendum, the voluntary withdrawal of a combatant squad has engaged acceleration scenario two. The ceasefire will be shortened by 23.33 hours.

System Message: The Ceasefire has ended.

System Message: All unaffiliated crawlers have been teleported from Larracos.

Warlord Message: Phase One Combat rules have engaged. You may freely enter enemy territory via designated corridors. No offensive magic may be used during this first ramp-up phase. No combatants may cast teleport-based spells.

Across from me, Architect Houston jumped to his feet, and his robes flung back, revealing a horrific, bug-like body and six arms, two of which were holding a rifle, which he brought to bear upon my chest. He fired as I dove out of the way. I landed heavily against the counter. I grabbed the bag of cat food just as I dropped an impact hoblobber onto the ground.

Teleporting Now.

Entering the Princess Posse camp.

I landed heavily on the floor of the now-empty field hospital. My head smashed against the cot as I crashed to the rocky floor. I dropped the bag of cat food, and it spilled across the ground, the little, brown pebbles going everywhere. I gasped in pain at the hole punched right through my shoulder. I slammed a healing potion, and I cried in new pain as my body knit itself.

He’d almost gotten me. I’d dropped the bomb, but if I’d gotten him, I’d have received a message.

I should’ve dropped a bigger bomb, I thought. I’d gone with my hotlist.

He’d planned this. All of this. Either that, or he’d known what was happening to Stockade and had compensated accordingly. He’d willingly sacrificed another living, breathing world leader to get to me.

And it had almost worked.

I gasped in pain again as I sat up, little cat food pebbles spilling all around me. A group of sluggalos slithered into the room.

“What’re you sitting around for?” the lead one asked. He was a level 55 named Chuckle Z. He had dreadlocks shaped like little morning stars. He waved his head back and forth, and the tiny weapons spun in a circle. “Ain’t you heard? We got a war on. Everyone is moving to one of the two fronts. Now quit your bleeding and get out there.” The slug whooped loudly and left the room, trailing orange slime as his compatriots followed.

A moment later, an explosion echoed as a non-magical rock exploded against our shield.

System Message: Weapons Free. Weapons Free. Faction Wars has officially begun.

* * *

Christmas Morning.

“Hey, do you know if he ever made it into the dungeon? That Paulie guy, I mean?”

“No,” Orren said. “He appears to have been outside, but he never made it within. Most of them never make it in. Like with all collective minds and swarms, the individual parts are often disposable. Remember that in any future dealings with their kind.”

Containment Interface is now available for use. A new tab is available in your interface.

“Actually,” I said. “I changed my mind. There was this gas station I paused at on my way north. The one with the memory ghost dog. Can you send me there? I just want to say hi to that dog again before I jump back into it.”

“Very well. Good day, Carl.”

With that, he disappeared, leaving me alone in the room. I’d transfer in a few seconds.

The coffee from the shelter remained heavy on my tongue. The scent of the shelter’s breakfast mixed with the Lysol remained in my memory, and my stomach rumbled. But all I could think about was that lonely dog, left alone to guard an empty gas station on Christmas day.

Transferring Now.

I blinked, and I appeared outside the gas station.

There was nothing special about the old, lonely dog. Lightning Lou. We’d just spent half an hour negotiating for all the stuff I could and couldn’t have in exchange for Paulie’s worthless, plastic tub. The whole time I kept thinking, what difference does this make? What difference does any of it make?

But, still, despite allowing the interface to be installed, I couldn’t help but think it would be a mistake. Paulie’s warning had gotten to me. Were we worth it? Were we worth saving? Or better yet, were we worth sacrificing?

I moved into the gas station, going in through the broken door. I grabbed a bag of chips off the rack and a soda from the cooler, and I sat next to the memory ghost of the sleeping dog. He snored softly, occasionally shifting.

I could end it all right now.

A person shouldn’t have this much power.

It was too much.

There was too much weight there, on my shoulders.

It was too much.

You will not break me.

I wiped my eyes, and I pulled up my interface.

I blinked. The way Paulie had described it, I was expecting there to be a single button that basically said “Boom.” I could press it, and it would be done. That was not this at all. It was six tabs of information, similar to my portal analysis tool. Each of the tabs had a dozen submenus. There were multiple pages, all filled with numbers I couldn’t possibly understand.

The language was strange. I could read the words. I could understand the numbers, but it clearly wasn’t syndicate standard. There was a fractional moment before it translated, which wasn’t something I’d seen before. Was this the Valtay home language? Whatever Paulie’s language was? I clicked through, trying to figure it all out.

From what I gathered, this interface didn’t control the AI. Instead, it controlled the device they used to install the AI into the primal engine. After the AI was installed, the device remained physically nearby, wherever that was, but the device no longer had any direct influence over the AI itself.

Still, I had sense it kept a metaphorical eye on the AI and the computer it now called home. It had metrics such as physical location, temperature, and several other things I didn’t understand. None of the numbers seemed to be changing, other than to fluctuate back and forth between two digits.

I took screenshots of all the menus.

There was a page that showed an animated, top-down view of the solar system. There was a blinking light over Earth. The headline read Primary Zone Influence. We already knew that. I kept looking.

It took me about ten minutes of searching to find the Fuse page. It listed the five benchmarks required for the fuse to blow, but it didn’t really say what the benchmarks were. Only two of the five were marked as Conditions Met.

And there it was. The button. Override Conditions And Activate Fuse. Warning. Warning.

I could press it, and if it actually worked, this would all be over.

I thought of the others, all still at the guild. They’d had their Christmas party. They’d spent it with friends. With family. That was so much better than dying alone, one by one, screaming in a pool of their own blood. It would be a punch to the gut to the Syndicate, that’s for sure. I thought of the legions of bastards who’d descended on the planet. How long would it be before they could do this again to someone else? How many of them would I kill?

Still, I paused. I thought of Donut. I thought of the people on the surface. Of all my friends. What right did I have to make this decision for them?

So, if I didn’t press the button, what could I do with this? Could I use it for leverage? Could I treat it like I was a guy with a gun to a hostage’s temple? No. There was no way I’d be fast enough. The moment someone learned I had this, I was dead.

Could I set up some sort of dead man’s trigger? They’d probably find a way around it. And what would be the point? The fact I even had this power might be enough to cause them to trigger the failsafe on their own.

Then, what could I do? Should I just pretend like I didn’t have it, and only bring it out if needed? What would be the point of that? I could literally die at any moment, and this would all be lost. This was too much power on my shoulders. It was like a physical weight. I had to either make a decision right now, or I needed to decide to not use this power at all. That’s pretty much what it boiled down to.

The button was right there. One mental push.

Do you remember the circus? That was fun, wasn’t it?

Would the AI even let this happen?

That thought was like a splash of cold water.

The AI’s role in all this bothered me. I wasn’t going to pretend to understand anything about its true origins or its thought processes or all that bullshit. But I didn’t believe for a second that thing really wanted to die. It wasn’t in pain, like Paulie said. It was having fun.

The more I thought about this, the more that gave me pause. It didn’t make sense. How could it possibly have allowed me this power if it didn’t want to die?

That was it, wasn’t it? It had to be a trap. Or a test. I’d click the button, and either nothing would happen.

Or I’d die.

Or the solar system would literally get destroyed.

Would I even get the chance to know what happened?

Goddamnit.

Carl: Donut, are you doing okay?

Donut: WHEN ARE YOU COMING BACK? I MISS YOU.

Goddamnit.

I didn’t know what I wanted to do.

But that wasn’t true, was it? I did want to hit the button. I wanted it more than anything in the world. My anger at the powers that made this happen were bright. So bright.

I miss you, too, Donut.

...

But not bright enough.

I clicked away from the screen, and I spent some time just breathing. I opened it back up. I started looking through the rest of the menus, trying to see what else was in there.

And there, just as I was about to say my goodbyes to the dog and get back out there, I saw it. It was an option at the very end of a list of twenty status notifications.

Disconnect Containment. Warning. This will disengage all metrics and controls, including the fuse system. It will render the Containment Unit inert. Most controls will cease to function.

Oh, thank god. Thank god.

I almost slammed the button down right at that moment, just to get the weight off. But right before I pressed it, I paused yet again.

It was literally the only other button in here I could press.

I thought again about Paulie’s warning, and now I wondered which of those two options he was really warning me about.

Goddamnit, I thought. This was a trap, too, wasn’t it? I actually had three options, assuming the buttons did what they claimed. I could do nothing. I could press the fuse and die. Or I could relieve myself of the burden and press the button to turn it all off. But if I turned it off, did that mean I would be “freeing” the AI? What did that mean? What did that look like?

Who set this trap? Was it Paulie’s people? He said they couldn’t even access this menu, so did they really know what was in here? Did the Pacifist Network know? Somebody built this menu.

Which of those three options would hurt the Syndicate the most? And which of those three options would protect my people the most?

When I framed it that way, the decision was suddenly quite easy.

Carl: Donut, I’ll be back soon.

We already were under the thumb of the psychotic AI.

I pressed the Disconnect Containment button. The entire new interface blanked out, leaving nothing but the map. Already, the little red dot over Earth started to grow.

“Welcome to the party, pals,” I said.

PART 2

Part 2 of 4

The Ramp-Up

20

<Note added by Crawler Justice Light, Eighth Edition.>

I think about him all the time. I have killed many NPCs since I arrived in this horror, but I have only killed one out of anger. He did not deserve that, and it haunts me. I keep going over it. It’s the manifestation of how I’ve changed, all boiled down to a single incident. The old me wouldn’t have done that. Snapped and just killed someone.

The memory is abhorrent to me. I have become what I hate.

At this point, the only thing that calms my nerves is the hope that my trap ideas and plans within this scroll will help someone else. It is all I have.

<Note added by Crawler Drakea, 22nd Edition.>

Justice Light. I do not know if you survived this, and if you did, I doubt you will ever have the chance to see these words. But if you’re out there, I hope you’re watching. Your traps have saved my life more times than I can count. I am working on a big one, based on your seeking flechette design.

Listen to me, brother. We all make mistakes. We sometimes hurt those we haven’t intended to hurt. These are the tides of life, the ebbs and flows, and it is unavoidable. But in this case... it was not your fault. No. They put you here. I remember your passage about how you would hunt and give food to the flightless elders of your world. You were once a good, gentle soul. They turned you into a warrior. They are the engineers of this all.

We both know there’s no going back, so take comfort in the words of our brother Ikicha from the 11th edition. “The burning Yenk needs only to embrace their enemies.”

Don’t shy from what you’ve become. Force them to look upon you. Force them to see what they wrought, what they forged in the fires of their own creation.

Let them know fear.

Time remaining in Phase One: 180 hours.

Current Battle Rules:

No Offensive Magic Allowed.

No Teleport-based Magic or Skills Allowed.

One may only enter enemy territory via a designated Corridor. Free passage once inside. This restriction does not apply to those with the “Scout” endorsement.

21

CHAPTER 21

THE BONE CLAN IN SPOT 1

9 of 10 Teams Remain

The Operatic Collective in Spot 2

The Princess Posse in Spot 3

The Blood Sultanate in Spot 4

The Prism Kingdom in Spot 5

THE DREAM IN SPOT 6: THE MADNESS IN SPOTS 7 AND 8

The Reavers in Spot 9

Team Retribution defending Larracos.

Eliminated:

The Democratic Sortion

I stepped from the hospital tent to find the base in chaos. Everyone was running to and fro, like an upset ant colony. A few of the colonels were organizing groups. Most would head north to hold off the largest contingent of enemy forces, gathered on the border with the Operatic Collective. The border was a good ten miles away. A smaller group were headed south to the border with the Naga, an equal distance.

“Hey,” I shouted at a colonel. It was Jurgen, the large barbarian. His battalion had been designated the 105th Scream Warriors. Their logo was a drawing of a screaming girl who looked suspiciously like the mascot for the Wendy’s restaurant chain wearing a Viking helmet with only one horn. “Make sure you leave at least two transports for me.”

“You live!” Jurgen shouted backed, and he flashed a pair of heavy metal-style devil horns before shouting over his shoulder, “Heidi, do you see? Carl lives!” He turned and started shouting more orders, making certain two of the transports were sectioned off for my use.

Dozens of messages poured in through the warlord system. I scanned for one in particular.

Your Throne has been locked in place. The location of all the Throne Rooms are now visible on the map.

Carl: Justice, did you get the throne room prepared before it got locked in place?

Justice Light: It is done.

I breathed in relief. I’d only met with the stoic skyfowl once since they’d gotten here. He was the third, and the last I believed, of the cookbook authors who had come with the mercenaries. He didn’t acknowledge me any more than the others when we first met except for a slight bow, one that lasted a little too long. Long enough that Mordecai had spent a contemplative moment looking back and forth between me and the eagle creature.

Justice Light looked much different than any skyfowl I’d seen before. I knew there were all kinds of these things. The one-winged eagle was shorter and stockier than most. His feathers were all black, tinged with gray, and a twin tuft of feathers upon his head gave the impression he had horns, making him look strangely like he was related to Big Tina—who remained in the stronghold for now.

Justice along with several other skyfowl and bune were working together on a special project, something he’d been planning for a long time, and we let him be. Donut had started calling him “Kevin McCallister” when we were talking plans in our chat until Mordecai warned her that his type of SkyFowl didn’t take kindly to nicknames.

His class title was strange. He was an Ungrateful Carny, and I had no idea what the hell that even meant. I knew he wasn’t yet done with his preparations, but at least he got the throne room set. I glanced at the map and zoomed out. Sure enough, all the faction throne rooms were pretty much where Juice Box’s map said they’d be. I focused on the Naga dot, just south of us.

Bam! I ducked as a rock smashed against our shield. For this first part, the projectiles would be ineffective against our defenses. But they were already zeroed in on us. We needed to take out their batteries before the 180 hours were up because when that happened, their rocks would be enchanted with devastating spells.

“Carl, Carl, are you okay?” Donut cried, coming from inside the stronghold, followed closely by three of the cretins—Bomo, Sledge, and Very Sullen—and a smattering of others, including a few of the were-castors, Jamal the shark, a few of the former crawlers, and two strippers. Dong Quixote and Splash Zone. All were members of our new “Personal Guard” and were placed in a platoon, which was similar to a party. That was a setting in the warlord menu, and we got a total of 15 guards just like everyone else, despite there being two warlords. The assigned guards all received a 25% bonus to their constitution as long as they were physically close to one of us. I told Donut that she could choose the platoon herself, which she’d done happily.

Mongo also rushed out with her, jumping up and down and screeching. I had Rend in his pet carrier.

Donut skidded to a stop in front of me. “What did you do? Why did we start early? How did that caterpillar guy die? Goodness, why are you covered in blood?”

“He killed himself,” I said. “The blood isn’t mine. Not most of it. Long story. Where’s Katia?”

Donut hopped and landed heavily on my shoulder. She had her new tiara upon her head, and it glittered brilliantly in the light. She was shaking with excitement.

“She went north already, meeting up with Florin at the front.” She sniffed. “Why do you smell like Ferdinand? Is he here? Did you see the emergency action item he made?”

Donut still smelled vaguely like skunk, but I wasn’t about to tell her that. More rocks hit the barrier. Flames burst around the half circle shield that encompassed our base. Thick smoke started to billow. Poison. The projectile hadn’t been magical, but they’d still figured out how to use chemical warfare against us. We’d anticipated this, and several mages stood by, casting spells to dissipate the clouds.

“I found some of his old cat food in the elf castle.”

I still had dozens of messages coming in by the moment. At the southern front, the troopers were in their trenches, waiting for the enemy push. In the north, they’d already started moving in. Florin was there and was directing the defense. I filtered the messages out unless they were specifically targeted at me. I went over them as I pulled out the Royal Chariot. I eyed the two transports that Jurgen had set aside. They were flatbeds designed to drive quickly over the plains. No weapons or protections at all. If we added too much “stuff” to the vehicles, the warlord system counted them as war machines, or “Armor,” which was really frustrating because we could only build or buy 10 such vehicles. We could have more, but we’d have to steal them from the enemy. As of this moment, we had all ten spots already taken. One from Party Planner, and the rest were Florin’s flame spider tanks, which were wholly defensive machines. We had five on the northern front and four in the south.

Louis: We’re on our way. Uh, Samantha sneaked her way onto the Party Planner, too. She’s not a designated scout. What should I do?

Carl: Goddamnit, Samantha. You were supposed to stay put.

Samantha: I AM DOING MY PART IN THE WAR, CARL. WE’LL BE BACK AS SOON AS WE BLOW SOME STUFF UP, RIGHT GENERAL LOUIS?

Carl: Samantha, we only have a limited amount of scout spaces, and they’re all used up. You can’t be on the airplane. It will literally tear a Samantha-sized hole in the plane when you hit the border. It would hurt Louis and everybody else on board. You’ll crash.

Samantha: THAT’S OKAY. LOUIS AND I WILL CRASH TOGETHER AND HE WILL PARACHUTE DOWN INTO THE WOODS WITH ME WHERE WE CAN BUILD A LOG CABIN, AND HE CAN GROW A BEARD. ONE THAT’S ALL SCRAGGLY AND KINDA ITCHY BUT IT ALSO SMELLS LIKE A CAMPFIRE. I’M SORRY IF THAT MAKES YOU JEALOUS, CARL.

Louis: What?

Carl: Louis, you gotta dump her out the bomb bay. Samantha, you can roll back to base.

Samantha: NO, WAIT. LOUIS CAN JUST COME BACK. IT’S A SUICIDE MISSION, AND I LIKE LOUIS. I LIKE HIM MORE THAN CHARLIE. I DON’T WANT HIM TO DIE YET.

I took a breath. Louis’s mission was dangerous, and Samantha wasn’t as stupid as she was pretending. She’d sneaked aboard on purpose in order to “save” him. That wasn’t good.

Carl: Louis. Out the bomb bay.

Louis: I’m on it.

I moved to the chat with Elle.

Elle: Holy cannoli, guys. These bald elf pricks have all sorts of hardware out here. They have the giant artillery trebuchets, but they also have a ton of smaller ones that they just pulled out of their inventories and set up. Why are they allowed to have so many of these things when we can’t? The soldiers and their mercenaries are all mounted on zebra-looking things, too, like they’re going to retreat or charge at any minute. I think the rocks they’re throwing are cover for something else.

Carl: Tipid. We need the fake Party Planner to take off and then get your man to clear the skies.

Tipid: On it.

Carl: Elle, we’re on our way in your direction. The southern front. Keep your head down and don’t get caught.

Elle: Doing my best.

We didn’t have a good fast travel option to the southern front yet, so we were gonna have to take our vehicles. It was ten miles over gently rolling plains. By the time we’d reach the southern border, the ground would be mostly flat. The Harley Davidson was a road bike and wasn’t great for this, and I decided to use the chariot for now.

Next to me, Jamal rolled up. We hadn’t yet replaced his harness and spider legs. Katia had been planning on doing it after her treatment. The hammerhead shark flopped around with excitement. I sighed and sent a quick message to Mordecai.

Jamal did another excited hop, causing Dong Quixote and Holger the were-castor to jump out of the way. “Oh yes, this excitement level I have is something else. Miss Katia says she will make Jamal’s new hoppers soon. Mayhaps when Jamal gets back from the fighting? I must admit, it is giving me untold levels of energy.” He did yet another barrel roll, sending rocks flying.

“Dong, Holger, ride with me. Donut, ride Mongo. Everyone else, grab a transport. We have about ten miles to go, and we gotta get there fast.” I patted the large, quivering shark on the head. “Jamal. Sorry, buddy. You’re staying here. Katia is busy, but Rosetta and Mordecai will help you get your new harness. We’re going to strap something onto you, but we don’t have it yet. We’re going to the trenches right now, and they’re not really designed for you. Stay here with the rest of the defenders in case the bad guys get through. Listen to Justice Light. He’s in charge of defending the throne.”

“What?” Jamal asked.

“We need you for the last stand,” Donut said. “I’m quite jealous, honestly. I don’t think anyone other than you can do it.”

The shark just looked at the cat. “Jamal feels as if you’re trying to reverse psychologicalize him. It will not work. Jamal is much too quick-witted for such tricks. I was once one of the most feared warriors of all the seas.”

“Well, I tried,” Donut said as she jumped to Mongo’s back.

The three cretins also grumbled unhappily. They were too heavy for the troop transports, which were basically flatbed trucks. We’d been planning on making some for the larger troops, but it was one of several things that hadn’t happened yet.

“You three. You’re gonna have to walk. Or if you want, you can ask Mordecai and he’ll help you build a heavy duty transport really fast. But I know materials are in short supply, so it might not happen right now.”

“It’s okay, Sledgie,” Donut added. “We’ll make sure you can fight with us later if you miss it. The stupid rules say I can’t use any teleport spells, either, so I can’t even use Puddle Jumper right now.” The cretin grumbled again. The fourth cretin—Clay-Ton—was currently at the northern front with Chris. The cretin and the lava rock crawler had formed a strange friendship since we’d assigned Clay-Ton to be Chris’s bodyguard on the Hunting Grounds. The two would just sit next to each other and occasionally grunt at one another. And now they were with Florin in the northern trenches.

“Carl,” Donut said. “Your jacket is glowing again! Goodness, that patch is disgusting.”

“I know,” I said. “I need to keep it turned on for just a little longer. We need the power.”

“Mordecai said not to keep it turned on for long.”

“I’m fine,” I said, ignoring the pang of pain that jolted across my midsection. Or the distant ringing in my ears. The rushing noise just below the surface.

“Wait, wait, we’re coming! We’re coming!” came a small voice. We all turned to see three kids rushing out to greet us. All were wearing metal skull caps and were dragging training spears from inside the guild. It was Randy and Todd, the orphaned ursine bear cubs, and the speaker was a tiny, dwarf-like creature. Clint.

Once upon a time, Clint had been a creature called a chee, living on the dungeon’s sixth floor. According to the story, Scolopendra’s nine-tier attack had turned his entire kindergarten class into a group of shifters called were-castors, which were really just beavers. They spent the next few hundred years growing up, becoming warriors, fighting against the high elves and the Naiad confederacy. Clint, along with their caretaker, Miss Nadine, had died on the sixth floor. Edgar the tortoise had turned them into tattoos upon Signet. But when they’d turned to tattoos, they’d reverted to their forms from before the nine-tier attack. And when Signet died, both Miss Nadine and Clint had become flesh golems. So now Miss Nadine was a young chee woman, and Clint was a little, kindergarten-aged kid. They’d all come down to this floor with the elf castle.

Holger, one of the other were-castors, had also come down with the elf castle, but he remained an adult. The hairy, mulleted dwarf shifter grunted at the child version of his best friend.

“Clint,” Holger said, coming out of the chariot and going to a knee. “You know you have to stay inside where it’s safe. Miss Nadine is probably looking all over for you.”

“But Miss Nadine is being mean to me,” Clint said. “She says we’re not allowed to play with Tina until we learn to not play rough. She says Randy and Todd should stay away from her because she killed their dad, but she’s different now and Tina’s mom says she’s apologized anyway. And Bonnie and the changelings don’t let us play with them, either. I wanna show Miss Nadine and the changelings we’re tough. We can help you fight the bad guys. That’ll show them.”

“We’ve been practicing,” Randy the ursine said.

“We’re going to bathe in apostate blood,” Todd added, waving his dulled spear. He ended up smacking Jamal with it, who yelped in surprise. “Sorry, Jamal.”

I only half listened to this as I quickly scrolled through more messages. Splash Zone took control of one of the transports and drove it over as the others started piling in. I pulled out the six-pack missile launcher and attempted to affix it to the chariot, but I received an error.

You have used up your allotted Armor options. Vehicle upgrade not allowed.

I cursed. As good as this warlord system was for communication and organization, it really limited us in other aspects.

“You gotta grow up a little more,” Holger was saying, chuckling. “All three of you are still just cubs. You’re gonna get hurt. Clint, you already died once. You’re not going to get another chance after this.”

“Edgar says I might never grow up because I’m a flesh golem now,” Clint said, stamping his little feet. His skull cap fell cockeyed and hit the ground with a thud.

Holger smiled down at the angry child. “There are worse fates, believe me.” He patted him on the head. “No chance of going bald if you stay young. Now, all of you, help Jamal back to the base. And check on the other golems. And make sure Miss Nadine knows you’re safe. You know how worried she gets.”

“Okay,” Clint said, dejected. “Come on, guys. Come on, Jamal.”

“The gods frown upon your blasphemy,” Todd added before the group of them turned back.

Above, a flickering version of Party Planner rose into the sky, rumbling loudly as it turned north. This was an illusion, a spell cast by one of the mercenaries. The real version was already on its way, hopefully having ejected Samantha into the forest below.

We needed the enemy to see the illusion version of the plane, patrolling the skies at the northern front.

“That bear kid freaks me out,” Holger said, sliding next to me in the chariot.

“We all ready?” I asked, looking across the eclectic group. Another pang of pain ripped across my stomach.

You are now suffering from Soul Poisoning. Activate the Daughter’s Kiss skill to disperse the effect.

Behind me, Dong Quixote slipped into the empty gunner’s seat. He had his “flail” across his lap. He held the crusty nickel sock up and laughed quietly, whispering something about long-term investments and short-term gains.

I answered myself with a sigh. “As ready as we’ll ever be.”

The Dream’s artillery started pounding our defenses at the southern front just as we arrived. We didn’t have any physical barriers over the trenches, but we did have literally thousands of mages scattered along the front, all with specialization in protection spells. A constant, unending rumble of explosions and smoke filled the area as we approached. The normally sunny plains had taken on an apocalyptic feel.

Both sides had constant fog spells and protection spells going. The list of active protections for our side was literally three pages long. So far, other than the artillery and occasional bursts of sniper fire, there hadn’t yet been a raid on our position that would fully test the defenses.

I knew from Florin that the northern front was another story. They were pushing back wave after wave of mercenaries. So far, the enemy was utilizing their meager supply of unenthusiastic dungeon-born NPCs to test our defenses. It had quickly evolved into a stalemate, a war of non-offensive spells and counter spells.

We had a clear advantage of mages and knowledge, but they had the numbers, and for the next week, they had vastly superior firepower.

Still, despite the quick impasse, I had received reports of casualties on both fronts.

On the southern front, there was someone on the enemy side who’d started spamming a Fill Hole spell from afar that suffocated a group of veterans before we’d enacted countermeasures. An invisible scout—someone from Empress D’Nadia’s Prism—had gotten in behind our position and found one of the escape tunnels and had unleashed a powerful Instant River scroll that had caused a ton of havoc. A few soldiers had leaped out of the trench as the water poured in, and they were immediately picked off by snipers from the enemy side, despite the heavy fog.

That scout, along with a total of six others, had all been captured or killed so far thanks to our efforts. The scout from the Prism had not been a mercenary, but a Saccathian prince of some kind, one of D’Nadia’s actual relatives. Pieces of the saboteur littered the battlefield now, after he stepped upon a simple landmine trap when he attempted to flee.

After that, I sent out orders. If we captured an enemy, and we could keep them alive but unconscious, then we would do so. The NPCs and the mercenaries born outside the dungeon were to be separated. There were spells that could turn the NPCs to our side.

The mercenaries had another purpose.

If any gave us trouble, or if it wasn’t feasible or safe to keep them, then my orders were clear. Kill them. Loot them using the safe-looting protocols. Keep the body. Report it to one’s superior officer, who would pass the information back to base where a group of those who preferred to stay out of the direct fighting were keeping track of the big picture for us.

The corpse would be delivered to Rosetta’s burgeoning necromancer squad.

I blinked at the wide, glittering expanse of traps twinkling through the fog of the no-man’s land between our position and the naga fortifications. Most of our traps remained intact and hidden, thanks to Justice Light’s protection spell. It was something he’d figured out a long time ago but it had never grown into practice because it was thought it only worked on alarm traps. Justice along with a few of the other veterans had dozens of tricks up their sleeves—or wings—when it came to safeguarding and hiding traps.

All the enemy traps, as far as I could see, were already gone, though I knew that they would, indeed, have multiple alarm traps that were protected and well hidden.

The No Man’s Land between the two positions was only about 250 meters from trench to trench. The enemy corridor into our territory was only about a kilometer wide. Using some of our literal thousands of Build Trench scrolls collected from the previous floor, we’d created a labyrinthian trench system, filled with traps and soldiers, fortified bunkers, hospitals, fall-back positions, and more. We’d managed, in just over a day, to build defenses to rival anything that had ever been created in this insipid game.

Still, the artillery fire was never-ending. The rocks landed like hail on our positions. The no-man’s land, which had been a flat, grassy plain, now looked like the remnants of a building collapse.

Or at least that’s what Tran said, from his position in the trench. By the time we arrived, we couldn’t see anything through the rolling fog. Both sides were keeping a constant litany of obfuscation spells and illusions going. Counterspells and counter-counter spells caused the no man’s land to sometimes roil like the sea.

A quick check of the warlord menu told me we still had a good ten-fifteen minutes before the rest of the reinforcements would arrive. The entirety of the 106th Bloody Leeches were coming to shore up the existing defenders. The 102nd Bulwark, who’d built this outpost, consisted mainly of defense-oriented mages and fortification-building engineers. They had a healthy smattering of hand-to-hand experts, but not nearly enough. The 106th consisted of warriors, trap mechanics, and thieves.

Mongo coughed as we cautiously approached one of the trench entrances a few hundred meters back from the front line. Donut shouted angrily up at me, but I couldn’t hear. She moved to chat.

Donut: CARL, THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE. HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO FIGHT IN THESE CONDITIONS? THIS REMINDS ME OF THE DUST STORMS FROM THE BUBBLE LEVEL.

She yelped as a ball of flame went up ahead and to our right. The entire ground shook.

Armor Unit number three, “Spider Tank S4” has been destroyed by enemy fire.

Damnit. Something had broken the shield there, and they’d scored a direct hit on one of our spider tanks. I sent out a quick order, but I saw Tran was already on it. We could only deploy ten of these at a time, but we had almost 50 of the simple machines ready to go. They had to remain in pieces until they were needed. Each one took about five minutes of work to replace.

I jumped from the royal chariot, pulled it into my inventory, and I told the platoon to stay close.

Entering the Princess Posse forward position. This position is currently defended by the 102nd Bulwark Battalion. Battalion is currently at 98% strength.

The first step was to find Tran and help him organize the integration with the 106th, which was currently led by a former crawler I didn’t know named Booster. I sent both Tran and Colonel Booster a message, and I told them to meet me at the planning room, a fortified bunker. Both said they were on their way.

I pushed forward, coughing as black smoke billowed. The back of my head continued to tingle with an odd sensation. We reached the forward-most trench, about twelve feet deep with scaffolding at the front so soldiers could easily engage the enemy. A group of black, magical screens dotted the positions. These were all the work of a single mage, a fabricator. They were basically magical periscopes. The same mage was now at the northern front, so if the periscopes broke or were damaged, we’d have to peer over the edge of the trenches the old-fashioned way.

Red-tinged mud filled the bottom of the trench, and it smelled of smoke and earth and sweat. Jesus, I thought. It’s just started, too. Donut jumped to my shoulder, complaining about how dirty everything was. I freed Rend, who was now as tall as my knee. He giggled menacingly as he and Mongo splashed in the slop.

Mages and soldiers with spears and bows and crossbows were spread evenly along the lines, all of them already sweating and exhausted from constantly holding back the giant rocks and poison and flames getting spewed in our direction. All were hunched over, peering into the magical periscopes.

That does not look comfortable, I thought. I put in a mental note to have the positioning adjusted. These guys would have to stand like this for hours on end.

The soldiers on the other side all had pulse rifles and tech shields that could stop anything non-magical. If they got through our shields and into these trenches, we were screwed. A week. We had to hold them back for a week. It seemed impossible. But we had a plan. One to hopefully even the odds a little on the southern front.

Carl: Louis. Elle. Update.

Louis: I’m in. Tell me when to go, and I can be there in about ten minutes. Had to block Samantha from the chat again. She’s really mad at me right now.

Elle: A bunch of those robot Reaver guys just pulled up in several trucks and are moving to the enemy trenches. It’s getting hard to see through all this damn smoke. I lost track of the invisible Madness guys. There’s over 100 of them.

Carl: Okay. Standby. Should be soon. They probably have something planned, too, and we should go before they blow their wad, but we need to wait for the 106th to get everyone in position. Another ten minutes.

Elle: 10-4 boss.

“Guys, what is that?” someone asked as we moved toward the headquarters. Murmuring rose up and down the line. “Is it another illusion?”

“I don’t think so,” someone else said.

I paused and pulled myself up the scaffolding and peered through one of the free periscopes. They looked like little porthole windows, but I knew they were really just screens. Donut removed her sunglasses and lowered her face to also look, her little nose twitching as she examined the display.

“The resolution on this is just amazing,” Donut said. “It’s much better than that awful, stolen television you had in the living room.”

“It wasn’t stolen,” I said, trying to figure out what I was looking at. I didn’t see anything except smoke. “What are you talking about?”

“You got it from a pawn shop. That means it was stolen. Everybody knows everything you buy from a pawn shop is stolen.”

The soldier to my left, a level-59 human Spearman crawler named Atheer looked up. “They stopped their artillery.”

I was about to respond, but a group of orange dots suddenly appeared on my minimap, moving in fast from the enemy side.

Pets. A lot of them. There had to be 1,000 of them.

“Oh, shit,” I said as shouts started to rise up and down the line. They were big, and they were coming in fast.

They just kept coming and coming. Only some of the traps were designed to go off if they hit pets, and these started detonating one after another, the explosions like muffled fireworks in the fog.

“Carl,” Donut called. “They’re big and round! Do you think they’re tummy achers?”

“They’re moving way too fast for that. And they’re too big.” I knew Rend had the ability to roll across the battlefield, but I had the impression that the skill was only good for short distances.

“Hang on,” an elf mage called from my right. This was one of the veterans. He strained as he cast a spell. A portion of the swirling smoke dissipated, revealing a horde of the creatures. One of them zoomed big, like his spell included a spyglass effect for everyone to see, almost like a boss battle notification.

Dumplin’. Juiced Rot Sticker Behemoth. Level 40.

Warning: This Pet is Suffering from the Gurgles.

Warning: This Pet is Suffering from Insanity.

Warning: This Pet is Suffering from Not Just Rabies, but Eat-Your-Face-Off-Rabies.

Warning: This Pet has been fed a Truck Stop Boner Pill.

This is a pet of Cybernetician Yeller of the Reavers.

Do you remember the rot stickers? Little ravioli things? These tiny bastards killed a whole bunch of you squishy humans back on the first and second floor. They run up to you, stick themselves to your body, and bam! One or two ain’t too bad, but they travel in swarms. They knock you down and then blow your head off.

We have all sorts of variations of these things in the dungeon because they’re so fun to use. And they’re terrifying, too, which is always an added bonus.

These little monsters, believe it or not, are actual creatures from some distant, probably-horrifying planet. The exploding ones are all male, and when they detonate, what they’re really doing is spreading their seed into one of the goliath, mammal-like creatures of their home world, who’d been previously implanted subcutaneously with the female eggs during the spring. The explosions rarely kill the mammals. They most certainly kill the rot stickers, though, which is why most of these guys are so small. The males tend to live very short lives.

But did you know the boy versions can be pets, too? They’re actually quite loving and faithful if given the opportunity to grow up. If you capture one before it’s big enough to go kaboom, you can give it medicine to make it lose all desire to spread its seed. They get bigger and bigger and even have a small amount of intelligence. When they get older, they have the same attack as the females, an acid spray, which allows them to hunt and fight alongside you without having to worry about them blowing your kneecap off.

What the Reavers do is grab a bunch of babies and dole them out to their warriors. The warriors rub their tummies, play fetch with them, and help them level up until they reach level 40 or so. The rot stickers grow to love and trust their masters. Then the Reavers lock them in cages, inject them with size-altering steroids, inflict them with a bunch of really nasty, contagious debuffs, and unleash them on enemy positions as biological seeking missiles.

There’s an irony there if you look hard enough.

Oh, and they also stop giving them the medicine that keeps them from blowing up. A level 40 Rot Sticker Behemoth packs the same punch as a stick of goblin dynamite.

“Oh my god, Carl,” Donut shouted from my shoulder. “Did you read that? And I thought the orcs were terrible people!”

“Shields!” I cried as I prepared my Protective Shell and activated my tech-based shield. There were about five of the things right in front of our position, rocketing toward us like enormous bowling balls. Each one was the size of a goddamned Mini Cooper.

“Don’t let any of them get on you when they explode!” someone else called. “They have the Gurgles!”

I prepared to use my Daughter’s Kiss, but I didn’t want to use it here. Not in the trench. It was too dangerous for everyone around me. I was just glad it allowed it me use it at all since it was technically a self-buff skill and not offensive magic.

More cries for shields rose up and down the trench as the giant, exploding monsters approached. Arrows and bolts and spears shot out at the oncoming line of explosive monsters, all ineffective.

“Head’s up,” I called as I pulled a stick of full-strength hobgoblin dynamite, and I tossed it over the edge of the trench like a grenade. We all ducked, covering our ears.

The explosion went off, rocking the ground. A few experience notifications flew by, including a new achievement. I turned back to the periscope, and they were still coming, but we’d cleared out the ones immediately in front of us. I prepared a second stick of dynamite.

“I’m feeling very useless all of a sudden, Carl,” Donut cried. “None of my spells work! Wait, Love Vampire works!” A moment later, she scoffed. “It doesn’t work on pets!”

Far to my left, a group of mages cast a spell, and a spine of dirt rose in the air, like a physical wall between us and the onrushing attackers. The vertical wall rose ten feet into the air, crackling loudly as it built itself, blocking our view of the oncoming pets.

They hit the earthworks a moment later, some of them going up and shooting up into the air like they were launched from a ramp. The rest crashed to a stop against the dirt. A few here and there detonated, showering rock and gore.

We all looked up at the scattering of giant ravioli things that had launched themselves into the air. Only a few appeared as if they would land on our side.

One of them, far down the line, exploded in mid-air, showering gore over the trench. The rest crashed back down, disappearing back again behind the wall as thorns as thick as my arm sprouted from the dirt, encompassing them.

“I need my moles!” an amplified voice yelled. “Blow the line!” I turned to see Tran skitter down the trench, his voice supernaturally amplified. The same words appeared on my interface, coming across the top of my HUD, which was a notification style I’d never seen before.

A group of gnome-sized crawlers and veterans disappeared down a group of holes built at regular intervals along the trench wall. One of them was a shirtless gnome with a massive, poorly-drawn mole tattoo on his chest. It read The Frothing Tunnel moles on it. I knew the Moles were one of our SOFs. Special Operations Forces. We only had a few of these guys here. The rest were in Shanty Town with Britney or back at the base with Justice Light.

A short moment passed—shorter than I was expecting—and the dwarves and gnomes started popping back out from the tunnels in the ground, reappearing in the trenches.

“Fire in the hole,” someone shouted, and we all hit the deck again as the entire line of dirt in front of us exploded. I was physically lifted from the scaffolding, and people called out all around as we crashed heavily down. Donut cried out in pain as the human next to us landed on her tail. Below, Mongo squawked in fear and Rend started running in panicked circles as the sky went completely black. Showers of dirt fell over us, but stopped at an invisible barrier. Soon we were completely entombed by the dirt and guts, hovering just above us. All around, mages shouted and cursed as they attempted to keep the gore-infected dirt from falling all over us.

Back in place. Back in place. Defend the line. The notification appeared across my interface, blinking. I pulled myself up, but my periscope was cracked and no longer working. Still, it appeared nothing else was coming for the moment. At least, there was nothing on my interface.

A moment later, and the artillery resumed. I closed out the Daughter’s Kiss activation, and a pang of pain ripped across my ribs.

“Damn,” Tran said, scurrying up to me, looking worriedly up at the dirt above us. A rock crashed over our head, and a low shield warning appeared before it was shored up. Tran’s metallic helmet disappeared into his inventory. Sections of dirt started to glow as mages cleaned it. “We were hoping to save those buried explosives for later. We just set that up like two hours ago.”

I examined Tran. Katia had finished his two-part “wheelchair,” and it was similar to what she was going to next build for Jamal. She’d taken a recipe from my automaton manual and had repurposed it.

He had a small, mechanical crab body that looked like something out of a nightmare. When he was just walking around like normal, that’s all there was. A mechanical crab body that he could use to climb on walls. He could run, for short distances, at incredible speed.

But then there was the battle armor version, which he wore now. It was as if Odette and Iron Man had a baby. A secondary exo-skeleton covered the crab legs, crawling up his body, encasing him in full-plate armor and a helmet, reminiscent of poor Paz from the previous floor. Tran was so encased in metal that he couldn’t carry any ranged weapons, lest the system label him as “armor.”

I started to say something, but a commotion down the line caused us all to turn.

“Gurglers in the trenches!” someone shouted. They ran up, pursued by a group of about ten veterans, all rushing and screaming toward us, blood spewing from their mouths and eyes. Someone cast a spell, filling that section with dirt. The wall appeared right in front of us. Another with a Tserendolgor-like flame thrower pushed me aside and started baking the filled-in section of dirt. A dozen arms and legs and claws emerged as the infected started pulling themselves free, only to be burned and melted by the powerful weapon.

Fallen soldier notifications blinked across my interface. The woman with the flamethrower sat heavily on the ground and started to sob. The whole thing had happened in a matter of seconds.

“This is bullshit,” someone said. “The Gurgles is a magical attack.”

“They infected their pets before the magic ban, so it’s an exploit,” another answered. “It’s a little iffy, but they’ve allowed it in the past. Your mages need to do a better job at keeping such infections from sneaking in.” I blinked, realizing this was actually Baroness Victory, hands on her hips, examining the still-glowing dirt as she moved next to me and Tran. She must have teleported herself into the battle.

“What in the goodness are the Gurgles?” Donut asked. After making sure Mongo was okay, she’d returned to my shoulder. Rend leaned up against my legs, making a popping noise with his mouth. Despite being scared earlier, he didn’t seem afraid anymore. I patted him on his uneven head, and let out an unsettling purr.

“A really nasty, contagious, non-curable debuff,” Victory said. “The factions had agreed many years ago to never use it again because it’s so insidious. It’s what caused the insanity and the rabies debuff. I’m not familiar with that fourth debuff. The truck stop pill. I suspect that it was what made them so big.”

“I think we’re clear of enemies for now,” someone on the line said. “Gods, do you think they got more of those things?”

I cracked my neck and looked at Tran. “I don’t know about the rot stickers, but they have 100 invisible Madness mercenaries and several armored vehicles. Let’s not wait to find out. Now it’s our turn.”

22

“The leeches are in place,” Colonel Boomer said, chomping on his unlit cigar. “Ready to pluck some cheese sticks.” I examined the man. He was a grizzled, old elf that had survived one of the earliest seasons of Dungeon Crawler World. He looked like someone had taken the world’s fattest bulldog, pickled it for about 5,000 years, gave him elf ears, and then shoved a cigar in his mouth. I would never have guessed he was an elf. He looked as solid as he was old. He had a voice to match.

Boomer. Elven Legate. Level 62.

Colonel in the Princess Posse.

This is a subordinate.

His class of “Legate” led to some confusion, but it allowed him to buff a large number of soldiers at once. According to Tipid, the old man had been an outspoken critic of the crawl for a very long time. He was a tenner, someone who’d bowed out on the 10th floor, and he’d survived as a merchant on the sixth floor for many, many seasons before finally escaping. He’d been banned from Crawl Con years ago after threatening to “Fist fuck” a female, orcish show runner to death during a panel. Porthus had publicly distanced himself from the militant, former crawler after that, but apparently, they’d been in close contact the whole time.

There was an active warrant for the old man’s arrest after a deadly waystation brawl a few seasons back. A brawl that had started after an argument about the crawl. He’d killed someone and had disappeared into the ether. The man had become a legend after that.

Tipid had immediately put the old elf in charge of the 106th Bloody Leeches, and the soldiers all loved him. His weapons were a pair of war gauntlets similar to my Grull gauntlets.

Donut was oddly fascinated by the old elf. She couldn’t stop staring at him, and I had a running commentary in my chat from her.

Donut: HE LOOKS LIKE HE MIGHT STINK, BUT HE ACTUALLY SMELLS QUITE NICE. LIKE CEDAR MIXED WITH ACORNS. YOU KNOW, LIKE HOW A GIFTSHOP IN AN EXPENSIVE MOUNTAIN RETREAT WOULD SMELL. DO YOU THINK HE’D BE MAD IF I CALLED HIM ‘POPS?’ HE LOOKS LIKE SOMEONE WHO’D BE CALLED POPS. BOOMER DOESN’T FIT HIM AT ALL. BOOMER SOUNDS LIKE THE NAME OF SOMEONE WHO PEAKED IN HIGH SCHOOL AND NOW SELLS ALUMINUM SIDING. DO YOU THINK HE EVER LIGHTS THAT DISGUSTING CIGAR? BECAUSE THAT WOULD JUST RUIN IT.

She was nervous about the upcoming assault, and I just let her go on and on as we looked over the map.

The entrance corridor in and out of the Naga territory was relatively flat, but it gave way to a few small hills on the Naga side, just south of their own trenches.

“Their trenches are here,” Tran said, drawing the line on the map. He pointed to the hills. “According to Elle, the Dream’s artillery batteries are here. They have approximately 40 of the big trebuchets set up and dozens of the small ones. The big ones can hit anywhere in our territory and are what have been pounding our base. The smaller, more mobile trebuchets have less range but are still deadly and are what have been hitting our trenches.” To accent the point, we all ducked as a rock smashed just above our position, the sound like a car crash. The pounding was constant, designed to exhaust our mages. “I still don’t understand why they can have these things, but we can’t.”

Victory was also in the room. She crossed her arms. “As I’ve explained to you all a dozen times now, you can build as many catapults and trebuchets and ballista as you want. Manual-load, immobile, non-chemical war machines don’t count as armor. You are wasting your armor slots on those barely-mobile flame throwers you call spider tanks.”

“The spider tanks are only temporary,” I said. Another pang of pain rushed through my stomach. I tried to ignore it. “Three mages can build the parts in like twenty minutes, and they can be assembled in five or ten. We were going to buy some better stuff, but everything kicked off too quickly. They’re good for point defense.”

Victory grunted. “They’re good for exploding, too.”

Colonel Boomer leaned over the map, examining all the marks. Two of the trebuchet positions were circled with “Anti-air?” written on them.

“Most of those pasty cousin fuckers from the Dream are cowards,” Boomer said. “At least the ones with the bombardier class. Those are the guys who hump a desk when they’re not in here playing genocide. They’ll run if we get close to their chuckers. They’ll have ‘em surrounded with traps, too, so we gotta be careful. Your spy says they have cavalry in the area? Those are the cheese sticks you really gotta look out for, especially now the Epitome household guard is in here with us. The Epitome family ain’t stupid. Their security forces are all veterans of non-dungeon conflicts and are tough as gristle. Dunno if they’d toss ‘em to the front this early. Epitome Tagg likes to fight near the front, but he usually doesn’t have his honor guard in here with him. He’ll be with them, and they won’t be hiding. Speaking of cheese sticks. He wears the most ridiculous helmet you’ve ever seen.”

“Really?” Donut asked.

Tran nodded. “They do have mounts. There’s 50 of the zebras, but it looks like the riders are all mercenaries, not the Dream household guard.” He tapped a hill further south of the artillery on the map. “Elle thinks they’re in reserve in case we break through. Not too many of the actual elves in the area that we’ve seen. Just a few running the larger trebuchets. And they have twenty tanks sitting idle here.” He patted another spot on the map.

“They haven’t moved since they were uncovered,” I said. “I wonder if they’re decoys like our illusionary Party Planner. Elle said she would take a closer look, but I told her to stay back.”

These tanks, if they were real, were considered armor, and they were all WWI style troop carriers with various turrets Tran said, “In addition to the several thousand NPCs and mercenaries they have filling the trenches, Elle. These were all owned and operated by a mishmash of the Bloc allies. I suspected if they were real, they were the same as our Spider Tanks. Temporary pieces of crap that would serve a purpose until they were either disassembled or blown to hell.

“And finally,” says she saw at least 100 of the Madness go invisible and disappear, so they could be anywhere. Likely sneaking in right now.”

“They all in robes and masks?” Colonel Boomer asked.

“That’s what she says,” Tran said.

“There probably ain’t that many of the real viceroys in here,” Boomer said, chewing on his cigar. “Probably a bunch o’ the regular cheese sticks wearing the robes. Still, we need to find those creepy fucks. The ones that go invisible and sneak in are called the Monkeywrenchers. A few seasons back, a group of 20 of them single-handedly took the Dreadnaught and Naga castles during the first few hours. The Madness as a whole looks like a particularly strong contender this season.” The old elf turned his head and spit on the floor. Rend waddled over and started licking at the spittle before I could admonish him.

I had no idea where the term “Cheese Stick” had originated, but it had spread through the army like wildfire. It’s what everyone called the enemy soldiers. I’d seen a few “Fuck the Cheese Sticks” tattoos already.

Boomer ran a finger along the line of enemy trenches on the map. “Hmmm. These positions are less protected than what they got in the north. Are we sure they’re still set up like this?”

“Elle eyeballed them just a few minutes ago,” I said.

Both sides had fallback trenches. Ours were all connected with tunnels we could collapse on demand. The other side had a set of three trenches, each one about 100 meters behind the previous. If there were tunnels between the three trench systems, we weren’t aware of them, and in the past, they’d never bothered with tunnels. If they had to retreat, they’d have to pop up and withdraw over open land before they could jump into their fallback positions.

“Do we have a good idea of who’s in the trenches?” Boomer asked.

Tran nodded. “Enemy fallback position three looks to be their officers and hospital corp. Trench two is mostly empty, but it has a few guards. Everyone else is in the first trench system, which isn’t anything like ours. It’s just a straight line with a few bunks. It’s manned solely by NPCs and mercenaries as far as we can tell. No inner circle officers from any of the teams. Most of the banners are Naga and Prism. It might be all of the Prism based on the numbers. There’s more of them than of the Naga infantry.”

Empress D’Nadia’s territory was just south of the Nagas, in spot number five, so it made sense she’d commit most of her force between us and her headquarters. But that also made me worry about where the rest of the Nagas were hiding.

Tran continued. “A smaller portion of Madness troops are also present, but the Madness mercs are really from the Lemig team they just took over. No orcs. No Operatics. Only a few Reavers, and those were the ones with the pets.”

I knew on the northern front, they faced more than twice as many enemies. This map in front of us now focused on the southern campaign, but it still had the northern line on it. I tapped it. “Florin and Katia say they’re mostly fighting the orcs, the blobs, the Dream regulars, and more of the Madness along with a smattering of the others. So it looks like we have accounting of most everybody’s forces except the Reavers and some of the Naga team.”

“The Reavers are the ones with the flying machines usually, so we gotta be on the lookout,” Boomer said, pointing up in the air with his cigar. “Speaking of, where’s our boy?”

“He’s here,” I said, pointing at the woods. “He’s on the ground now, hidden in the middle of nowhere. He’s not gonna remain hidden for long, which is why we gotta get moving. We ready?”

“My boys and girls all had their breakfast and are ready to tear it up,” Boomer said. “We’re just waiting for the ‘go’ order.” He eyed Tran. “Your magic slingers ready for this?”

Tran nodded. His metallic crab legs moved up and down, telegraphing how nervous Tran was.

“And the NPC team?” Boomer asked.

Carl: Britney. We’re almost ready. Are your guys in place?

Britney: They’re ready. Waiting on you.

I wasn’t exactly sure when and how this happened, but Britney had pretty much become our main liaison with the NPCs. Originally, we were hoping to use one of their massive diggers for this, but the geography of the Naga territory made this difficult. So instead, we were using just a pair of changeling spies. We couldn’t talk to them directly, so instead everything had to filter from me to Britney to either Juice Box or Arief of the Semeru.

I slid my finger across the map. From the border to the Blood Sultanate castle, it was just about eight miles. According to Juice Box, the Nagas had deliberately built their castle on rocky ground to stop anyone from tunneling in from below. Still, their headquarters was built strangely close to the edge of Shanty Town, unlike everyone else who’d placed themselves equidistant from all borders. On my shoulder, Donut had gone stiff. She, too, was looking at the Naga headquarters. I reached up and gave her pat.

Historically, despite their protections, this Naga castle was almost always the first to fall. But every single time, by the time the invaders reached the Whore’s inner sanctum, the leader of the naga would be gone. The team would still lose because they’d lose their throne room, but the naga leader had never been captured or assassinated. Not once since the Sultana took over. She’d disappear and reappear at the end, laughing and joking with everyone else, having stayed hidden the whole time. Nobody knew the secret as to where she’d hide herself during the majority of the conflict or what she was doing.

If we wanted to get to her, we’d have to be very careful with how we did it.

“Let’s do this,” I said.

Boomer produced a lighter and lit his cigar. He took a long, single puff that seemed to go on forever. He let out a long stream of smoke that filled the room.

“Fuck yeah,” he said.

23

<Note added by Crawler Ossie, 18th Edition>

If you want to create fright amongst an otherwise stalwart enemy, confusion is always the key.

* * *

We stood in the trench, Dong Quixote to my left, Holger to my right, and Donut on my shoulder as mages heaped protection spells on our group. Across from us, the spine of dirt that had protected us from the rot sticker attack was slowly, slowly getting eroded away by the enemy artillery. We could have the mages fix it, but we needed it worn down for our assault, and we needed it kept down should we have to retreat.

You have been Titivated. Projectiles do less damage.

I had never had this many stacked shields on me at once. I had Rend in his carrier because he was too slow. Mongo was out and tense, ready.

Imani dropped into the trench, landing next to me. Donut, still on my shoulder, gave her a headbutt as Mongo let out a screech.

“I didn’t think you’d get here in time,” I said as she spread her ethereal wings out. The wisps filled the tight channel, glowing as a new line of buffs added themselves to the pile. All around me, people sighed with pleasure at the warm feeling of calm that washed over us. I felt the rush of power.

“Now that’s something,” Holger said. He was in beaver form. “Ain’t never felt a buff like that before.”

“I was buffing people down the line,” Imani said. “And before that, I was helping with the trebuchet. I buffed the guy aiming the thing. He’s ready to go.”

We only had one trebuchet of our own. It was one of the smaller ones. Donut and I had looted it on the sixth floor from some Dream elves. The original plan was to have more of the weapons, but the confusion about whether we’d be allowed to even build these mixed with the early end to the ceasefire had led to us only having one. The weapon was loaded with about 50 contraptions called Dazzlers, and they had a pile of almost 200 of them sitting nearby. They were basically a combination of an alarm and a spotlight trap. They would only shine toward the eyes of the closest enemy soldier, strobing powerful beams of multi-colored light right into their faces. And they’d all play the same song at the same time. It was one of the few types of trap modules Victory would allow us to load into the trebuchets.

Speaking of the adjutant, she cracked into existence just behind us, like I’d summoned her with my thoughts. I was finally getting used to the orc’s constant comings and goings.

But this time, she wasn’t alone. Mongo squawked in surprise and would’ve lunged if a quick shout from Donut hadn’t stopped him. It was Drick.

The sight of the Dream elf adjutant for the NPC team suddenly appearing in our trenches caused a few moments of bedlam until I shouted everyone down.

The wormhead held up a hand in greeting, smiling sheepishly at the chaos his appearance caused. “Sorry, folks. Since Team Retribution is taking a small part in this assault, I’ve decided to come watch from the best position.”

“You won’t see anything from here,” I said.

The elf shrugged. “If you prefer I zap to their side and warn them something is about to happen, I can do that instead if you’d prefer.”

I was about to say something else, but I held up my hand as the message came in. I turned back to the periscope screen.

Louis: We see the target, lowering for the bombing run now.

Carl: Not too low. In and out. Get into the fog as soon as you drop.

Elle: They don’t see him yet. Man, I wish I could cast my Graupel spell.

Carl: You’re up, Elle. And for god’s sake, keep moving.

Elle: I have the first anti-air gun targeted. I hope this missile launcher of yours works as advertised, Carl. Firing the moment Louis drops.

Carl: Britney, send ‘em in.

Britney: The NPC team is on their way.

I patted Donut. “You ready?”

Donut nodded. Imani reached over and cast a spell. A bubble appeared around Donut’s head, similar to a Desperado Club privacy shell. Imani had it as a spell, but Mordecai had also mass-made a potion that did the same thing. The potion was simple enough that he’d managed to make gallons of the stuff with his cauldron attachment at his upgraded table. Still, there wasn’t enough for all of us, so those of us with regular ears had to use old-fashioned earplugs that were enchanted with a buff ominously called This Thingy Works Slightly Better Than It’s Supposed To.

Imani reached down and patted Mongo, and she cast the spell on the dinosaur as well.

The spell was called Total Ear Protection.

“Do it,” I said.

“WHAT?” Donut asked, shouting. “OH, OKAY.”

Warlord Donut: OKAY EVERYONE. AS SOON AS THAT FIRST BOMB DROPS, TAKE THE EAR POTION OR PUT IN YOUR EARPLUGS. WE MOVE TO CHAT. DRINK THE INVISIBILITY POTION WHEN YOU CAN, THE MAGES WILL CAST OBFUSCATION ON US, AND WE GO UP AND OVER. DON’T STOP RUNNING UNTIL YOU’RE IN THEIR TRENCHES. THE SOLDIER WHO BRINGS ME THE MOST DEAD CHEESE STICKS GETS A PRIZE. I BELIEVE IN ALL OF YOU.

“A prize?” I asked as I continued to peer through the periscope, waiting for the first explosion.

“WHAT?” Donut asked.

Carl: A prize?

“YES, CARL. SOME OF THE VETERANS WERE TELLING ME WHEN THEY WERE CONSCRIPTED DURING THE LAST TIME THEY FOUGHT IN FACTION WARS, THE OFFICERS WERE ALWAYS THREATENING THEM WHEN THEY GAVE ORDERS. WELL, MY ARMY IS GOING TO BE DIFFERENT. POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT IS A VERY GOOD MOTIVATOR. IT WORKED WITH MONGO, AND IT’S GOING TO WORK HERE.”

“Yeah, we’ll see if you still think that in a few hours,” I muttered as I continued to watch. Come on, Louis.

I couldn’t see anything. Roiling clouds filled No Man’s Land, hugging the ground. And above, a low ceiling of black clouds hung heavy over our heads, giving the impression that we were getting crushed from above. Night was falling, and it would soon be dark, which was good for our plans. Still, the clouds occasionally gave way to rocks that whistled through the air as they landed around our positions. Only some of the rocks were explosive, or contained fog, or poison, or a hundred other things that weren’t “offensive” magic or magic at all. A strange, ozone-like scent filled the air as it was filtered out by one of the hundreds of concurrent protection spells.

The plan had many parts, but each individual component was simple and straightforward. Most every soldier only had a single objective. The failure of one part did not mean the rest of the plan would fail.

I hoped.

The assault part of this plan had not come from me, but was one of many contingencies that Tipid and Rosetta had brought with them from the outside, which was part of the reason why we’d been able to put this together so smoothly. It was only the second part that I’d planned out. Me, Donut, Katia, Imani, Elle, and Mordecai had put it together with some input from Baroness Victory. Katia wouldn’t be actively participating since she was needed on the other front, and I found myself missing her dearly. I still hadn’t had a chance to talk to her since we’d separated from the dreamworld.

The enemy was expecting us to defend and try to hold out for a full week because we would be much stronger once the offensive magic ban was lifted. Their plan, meanwhile, was to soften us up with their artillery and try to overwhelm us as quickly as they could. They would soon push in on us with their full might, probably from the north and south at the same time. If they could breach and get in now, they would easily sweep in to victory.

Bam! The first, distant explosion wasn’t loud, but it was loud enough to crack across the battlefield, the concussion slapping me right in the chest.

The bombs were strong, but their main purpose wasn’t to simply blow stuff up. The enemy trenches, while not as protected as ours, were still covered with layers of anti-explosive fortifications. The bombs Louis dropped were not targeting the enemy trenches. Instead, Louis was aiming the Party Planner in a straight line right in front of their position. The bombs would do three things. One, they’d leave a deep crater in the unprotected land just in front of their trenches; two, they’d shower dirt over the defenders, which their mages would have to clear off; and three, the bombs would clear any traps and protection enhancements set up right there in front of the enemy line.

I gave Donut a quick pat and then a thumbs up.

Warlord Donut: GO, GO, GO!

Multiple things happened at once.

“For the Posse!” a veteran to my left shouted. He downed an Invisibility potion as he launched himself up and over the trench.

“Fuck the cheese sticks” someone else yelled as they, too, propelled themselves onto No Man’s Land before disappearing.

A second, then a third, then a fourth explosion walked its way across the enemy lines. I couldn’t see the detonations through the fog, but I could hear them, and I could feel them in the ground.

At the same moment, Elle reported she’d hit the first anti-air battery with a missile, but there was a protection spell around it. Still, the device had fallen over and hopefully would be unable to fire for some time. She would now be moving to the second one.

Our one and only trebuchet fired its first of four salvos, spreading the Dazzlers in and around the middle section of Louis’s craters.

The announcement came, louder than I was expecting. Much louder, even this far away. Justice Light’s tips on enhancing these things really worked. And there were 50 of them so far. I slipped my earplugs in.

They barely helped.

Peaking at Number 3 on June 20, 2020 – Wait, really? Huh. – Anyway, Peaking at Number 3 on June 20, 2020, despite first coming out in 1992, It’s “Killing in the Name.”

The Rage Against the Machine Song echoed, powerfully loud, literally shaking the ground louder than the explosions.

Anyone within a few hundred meters of the things would experience immediate, painful hearing damage. Combined with the flashing lights, it wasn’t going to be fun for anyone in those trenches.

Britney: Enemy spies are reporting that they have breached the second trench.

Louis: Holy shit that was scary. I got hit with a few spells, but the shields held. Circling around to the rendezvous.

All around, people screamed as they continued to pull themselves up and over the trenches. Flashing lights filled the dark as pulse rifles fired into our troops, mostly bouncing up and off various shields.

I downed the Invisibility potion just as Donut did the same. I smashed another Invisibility against Mongo’s backside as Donut jumped onto Mongo’s back. Despite the invisibility, she glittered with all the shields and protection spells. Thankfully, we had several illusionists with us who were also casting spells, making illusionary doubles of everyone, along with a few illusionary war machine tanks, so to focus their fire.

Our squad was to wait a few moments before we went up and over. Our objective was not the trenches. We had to slip past them in the chaos.

Carl: You scared?

Donut: Of course I am, Carl. But I think I’m used to it now. It’s more numb than anything. I think nowadays it hits me more when it’s done than when it’s happening.

A strange swell of sadness hit me. I wanted to pat her, but my own hand was trembling too much.

Carl: We’re up. Stay next to me, and keep your shield up.

Donut, still astride Mongo, leapt up over the edge, followed by Imani.

I put my hand on the handhold built into the top part of the trench. I felt myself shouting, and I didn’t even know what I was saying. I pulled myself up and over into No Man’s Land, joining over two thousand members of the Princess Posse as we engaged our first head-on assault into enemy fire.

24

Chaos.

I couldn’t see more than two or three feet in front of me. The music blared, painfully loud despite the earplugs. Lights strobed everywhere, and even though none were pointed directly at me, it still made my stomach lurch. Donut and Mongo’s dot was just to my right. I couldn’t see them. Dong and Holger had veered off in the dark, combining with a group to our left. It was like a dream, one where you ran and ran, but you didn’t move.

I came to the remnants of the dirt spine from the rot sticker defense, and I scrambled over it. We had to watch out for the corpses, as they could still be dangerous.

Plink. Plink.

Each sound was a casualty notification for the current battle. Each notification was like a stab right in my chest.

The flat land had turned into a wasteland. Rocks littered the battlefield. The gleam of resistant traps glittered, undisturbed by all of this. They were all ours. Pulse lights occasionally ripped from the enemy side, cutting through the fog like scythes. One sparked against the edge of my shield, and it would’ve taken half of my head off if I hadn’t been so wrapped in protection. I caught glimpse of the translucent form of Imani to my left, stopped, hovering over a veteran who screamed, his arm now gone.

Don’t stop running. Don’t stop running.

Plink, plink, plink, plink.

A group of poison-infused rocks crashed around us, cracking, breaking, rolling, trailing fumes. The smoke took on a green hue. Shrapnel showered. The shrapnel pinged against my shields like fireflies.

I thought of my grandparent’s house in Texas. They had fireflies there, and we didn’t have any in Washington. Why would I think of that now?

Plink. Plink.

I ran. I ran.

Thwoom. Thwoom. New, orange-tinged explosions rippled all around us. I couldn’t hear the strange detonations, but I felt them in my chest. Grenades. These were of some high-tech variety I’d never seen before. They were tossing them at the tanks. The tanks which didn’t really exist.

My stomach lurched with pain. I physically staggered. For a moment, I thought I’d been hit.

It was the soul poisoning. Almost there. Almost there.

Crack! A big fireworks exploded in the air above us, again more felt than heard.

For a moment, everything cleared. It was a magic diffusion spell. A big one.

You’ve been Deshrouded. Your War Protections are gone! Like, all of them!

All the illusions disappeared. The smoke dissipated. Everyone was visible. All of our temporary protection spells snapped off, including the ear protection.

The lights and music from the Dazzlers spells did not turn off.

To my right, Donut and Mongo both appeared to be screaming with pain. Mongo reared up at the sound.

For just a flash of a moment, we had a non-obscured view across the dimly-lit battlefield. I could see them, right in front of us, closer than I expected. Most of the enemy line looked as if it was a dirt mound. It was still covered with the dirt from Louis’s bombs. But there were some clear spaces, and in these spaces, I could see them. Bugbears, gnolls, dreadnaughts, humans, nagas, saccathians, and dozens of other aliens, mixed in with dungeon-born NPCs. I could tell the difference easily, as the mercenaries all held guns. They wore armor that glowed with electric light. They were out of place here, in this world. The NPCs were armed with bows and spears. They were covered with furs and armor.

Not all were facing us, as several had turned away from the painfully-bright light. Very few actually had their weapons up. Most had their hands over their ears or their eyes.

Still, in that moment, I could see a few with full helmets, undisturbed by the lights and the music. They held steady as they fired directly at us, the lights of their weapons punching directly into the onrushers. A group of three directly in front of us had what looked like a large, .50 caliber heavy machine gun, and it shot a constant, whipping stream of light in our direction, cutting through us like chaff.

Grenades and missiles also streaked in our direction, exploding up and down our assault.

Plink. Plink. Plink. The sound had turned into one constant hum, and I had to mute it.

I shouldered to my right, knocking Mongo and Donut behind a rock as I also hit the deck. The heavy pulse gun arced past our position, silently ripping and sheering through boulders. Burning heat flashed over as us we ducked.

I pulled a full-strength hoblobber, and I tossed it in the direction of the heavy gun. I saw a flash, but I received no experience notification. Still, the gun stopped firing. I patted Mongo on the top of the tail, and we got up to keep running.

Both sides were refilling the area with more smoke, and my view of the enemy trench faded away. I continued to rush toward it, dodging rocks, and now, bodies.

Imani was suddenly beside me, flying a foot off the ground. Donut’s ear protection reappeared, followed by Mongo’s. Donut was shouting something I couldn’t hear, but I saw the tell-take glow as she healed the pet. Imani disappeared into the fray, angling toward a fallen soldier.

I tossed a Troll Smoke Mantle in front of us, in the direction of the gun. We had no idea how long it would be down. Illusions started reappearing around us. Buffs started stacking. Debuffs also started to appear and disappear from my list. My Emberus ring burned.

Warlord Carl: Go. Forward!

I hadn’t meant to send that in the war chat, but to Donut. The message flashed across everyone’s screens. They complied. I returned to my full height, and I ran.

A bolt crashed into my shoulder, hitting with the force of a sledge hammer. My tech shield fizzled out. The next hit would take me down. I hadn’t re-taken my Invisibility. I kept running.

Your Soul Poisoning is worsening. You will now suffer from Post Coital Blues.

What the hell does that mean?

Far to my right, another rock hit the ground and rolled, flaming though the smoke. Screams. This was a new type of weapon. More flaming rocks spun toward us. I swerved as the rock blurred in my vision, disappearing into the smoke.

Colonel Boomer: Hitting the craters.

Warlord Carl: Do it!

The moment after I sent the command, the ground under me gave way, and we fell into the wide crater in front of the trenches. Mongo landed deftly next to me. Imani landed to my left. The rest of our squad was scattered. Imani had two soldiers over each shoulder, and she dropped them heavily. One was dead. A Crest veteran. The other, a crawler woman with arm blades was at 2% health and was unconscious.

We were not protected in these craters. We were going to have grenades raining on us at any moment.

I clicked from Full Assault Band to Near Proximity Band in the war chat.

Warlord Carl: Keep Back. Reading the scroll.

I pulled up the scroll, and I clicked on it. This took about 10 seconds to work. A translucent line appeared, along with a map in my interface.

Build Trench has activated. I turned the line 90 degrees so it intersected with the existing enemy trench, making a T symbol. My hands shook, and my stomach lurched, again, with pain.

This Trench intersects with an existing trench. Do you wish to enjoin?

I clicked Yes.

Warning: Your elevation is lower than the existing trench. Do you wish to proceed?

I clicked Yes, and then Dig.

A channel appeared right in front of me. And at the end of the passage, a Saccathian soldier slammed into the ground, not twenty feet in front of us. The soldier, who had just been standing, facing north, suddenly had the ground underneath him disappear. His helmet cracked in the fall, and his rifle went flying.

The enemies did not build their trenches as deep or as wide as we did. That made sense, since despite their head start, they’d had to dig these manually.

All around me, in other craters, soldiers were now using their Build Trench scrolls to do the same, building entrances into the enemy trenches, enjoining the tunnels and thus passing right through most of the protections.

This was a long-existing exploit with the Build Trench scroll. The scrolls were craft magic, so it pretty much ignored most protections, as they weren’t meant to be used offensively. The scroll didn’t care who was casting it. According to Tipid, this was something that had been pointed out years and years ago, but it had never been fixed. Just one of thousands of possible exploits that the viewers liked to talk about on the galactic internet. The Build Trench scrolls, despite being handed out like candy to us crawlers during the last floor, were rarely used by the Faction Wars participants because they were expensive, and as such, possible exploits were rarely used since there were dozens of other, more spectacular ways to break into trenches.

A trap module, already blasting the music landed in the crater with us, and it rolled to a stop, facing the Saccathian. The squid-faced soldier had torn his shattered helmet off, and he had his tentacles up, trying to cover both his ear holes and his eyes as he writhed on the ground. The light was so bright, his wet, dolphin-like skin started to smoke.

I grinned at the Saccathian soldier as red dots appeared all around on my map. These were soldiers running to protect the dozens of new breaches in their defenses.

I activated Daughter’s Kiss on my right foot.

Warlord Carl: Take cover, folks.

I ran toward the struggling soldier, I jumped into the air, and I landed hard onto the enemy’s chest.

25

Donut: CARL, CARL GET UP. IT’S WORKING. THEY’RE RUNNING.

I coughed, shaking my head. What had happened? I’d conked out the second I’d killed the guy. My interface was a wall of notifications. I’d gone unconscious, but not for too long. Maybe twenty, thirty seconds.

I’d gone up a level. I had another message, something I’d been expecting for a while now, but I put it aside for the moment. Donut was going to be pissed the moment I chose my next stat point. I scrolled messages.

“What happened?” I asked before I realized nobody could hear me.

Mongo stood next to me, completely covered in dirt. Donut sat astride the dinosaur’s back, also covered in mud and blood. Happy shouting and cheers filled the battle chat, but I still couldn’t see or hear anything. Smoke was everywhere. All of our guard were missing from the area, but a quick check of the roster showed they were still alive. I blinked at Dong Quixote’s level. He’d gone from 45 to 51. As I watched, it blinked up another spot.

Carl: What happened?

Imani: The second you did that attack, you had a debuff called Post Nut Clarity. You were out for 25 seconds. You buried us in dirt. Don’t do that again when we’re that close. We gotta move. You blew apart their trench. Now’s our chance.

Carl: What the hell? What about the guys from Team Retribution?

Imani: They did it. They report the middle trench is filled and that the illusion spell over it all is holding.

I looked around. We were surrounded by dead enemies. Any semblance of order was gone. The third or fourth salvo of Dazzlers soared over our heads, landing, as planned, between the first, now-captured trench and the enemy’s fall-back position, the middle trench. For a moment I thought my earplugs were working better, but I knew from experience, what was really happening. My hearing was shot and wouldn’t repair itself until we were out of range of the music.

The Post Nut Clarity was, apparently, a debuff from my soul poisoning that knocked me out once I activated my Daughter’s Kiss. That was dangerous as fuck. I needed to make certain I used the skill from now on before the debuff activated. I pulled myself up.

Elle: The second anti-air battery is down! Louis, hurry your ass up! The first one is almost back up. I’m running. They have a pair of mages on my scent.

Imani: Get the hell out of there!

I moved to the warlord menu.

The command of this assault has been transferred to Colonel Boomer.

Colonel Boomer: Quit yer celebrating, all. Nobody fights harder than someone that’s trapped. Only a few of them will be dumb enough to jump into that middle trench. I need you to form up. Don’t push too hard. We don’t want them surrendering. We want them thinking it’s a stalemate. Generals, you guys have maybe a half of an hour before they either escape or we gotta kill all of them.

Louis: I’m landing at the rendezvous.

Carl: Heading toward your position now, Louis. Give us thirty seconds.

We turned away from the fight and started jogging back north, headed the way we’d come just as Party Planner appeared on the map. It landed awkwardly on the ground as we rushed up.

I blinked at the sight of Bonnie the gnome standing at a position behind a door gun. The tiny gnome girl wore an oversized Dallas Cowboys jersey and a helmet much too big for her as she stood behind the giant gun, which appeared to be a belt-fed ballista hybrid.

Carl: Louis, what the hell? I told you not to let the kids onto this thing! How is she even here?

Louis: Talk to Donut. She’s the one who let Bonnie take the last scout spot while you were doing your dream therapy.

Donut: SHE’S OLDER THAN I AM, CARL.

Bonnie gave me a salute as Donut jumped into the air vehicle.

I just shook my head and turned to Imani. She wasn’t coming with us. She was tasked with saving as many injured as she could.

I put my hand on her shoulder. The thin woman and I held eyes for a moment. She nodded before she turned back to the battlefield. We didn’t exchange any messages beyond that.

I pulled myself into the low-ceilinged aircraft. Mongo hesitated, but he jumped up after I unleashed Rend into the passenger compartment.

Louis: Hang on, folks. We are going to move to full speed and then we’ll hit the deck. We’ll be at the enemy castle before they know it. Elle says our path is clear of anti-air guns, but we’ll see. I’ll shout if we have to do some evasive maneuvers.

As we rose into the air, we moved through a thick, choking cloud of smoke. It was fully dark outside now. As we hovered over the broken and surrendered enemy trench, I could see nothing but smoke and more flashing lights on the ground where our soldiers held the fleeing enemy in place. We needed to hurry this up. I sent one last message to the assault message group.

Warlord Carl: Break them all.

* * *

Party Planner flew fast and low, smoothly gliding over the plains like the thin strip of air under the vehicle was ice. Our target was just under thirty miles away, and we had to take a very specific path to make it there. We rode in silence. I was keeping tabs with both Colonel Boomer and Florin, but mostly I watched Donut, who didn’t appear to be speaking with anyone. She sat against the wall of the fuselage, her eyes closed. Mongo lay on the floor next to her, cramped against the now-empty bomb racks. Donut appeared to be asleep, but I could tell she wasn’t.

Louis’s crew was himself, Bonnie, and a changeling scout that was suspiciously thin for an adult. It listed his name as Gangue. We were about halfway to our destination when I finally realized this was actually Skarn, also a child I’d met on the fifth floor. He’d learned enough about his shapeshifting that he was now able to hide his age.

They shouldn’t be here, I thought. As soon as we got back, I was going to rip a new one into Louis and Donut for allowing children to go into battle like this. But not right now. Right now, it was too late.

Louis: I see the enemy castle. Landing now before they spot us.

* * *

There had only been three guards outside the small castle, and Donut and I sneaked up on them and killed them before they even knew we were here. Still, I knew if one of the officers was paying attention, the death of the soldiers would chime on their interface. It was a flaw in this whole system. It made this sort of subterfuge difficult. Still, nobody else came charging out the door.

“I can’t believe there’s so few soldiers around here. There’s no protections. Nothing,” Donut whispered. “She’s very trusting for such a back-stabbing bitch.”

“They made her commit all of her troops to the front line,” I said. “Rosetta said she spent every penny getting here, and once the quarantine went into effect, the officers she was expecting refused to come, so she only has a few friends.”

“Do you think she’s in there?” Donut asked, peering at the ramshackle “castle.” It was more like a small warehouse. A few meager protection spells glittered over it, which would protect it from bombardment. There was nothing that would stop us from simply stepping inside.

“God, I hope so,” I said as I disabled the landmine trap near the door. I took it into my inventory. Then I stole the three alarm traps. I examined the final trap at the door, a simple guard summoning trap. There was only one, and it would—normally—summon four guards to the location. The trap was a waste. It wouldn’t work right now because of the teleportation ban. I took it.

I pulled up the map of the headquarters supplied by Juice Box. Of all the enemy team headquarters, this one was the smallest, as she had the least amount of time to build and prepare.

I pushed at Rend. “Go ahead, buddy.” I gave the beachball a little shove, and he rolled right through the front door of the castle onto the stone floor. The pet bounced a few times, rolling to a stop against a wall with a familiar pattern painted upon it. The tummy acher looked up at the painting and let out a low, menacing chuckle.

Nobody said anything or came out to greet us. Nobody attacked.

I stepped inside.

Entering the headquarters of the Prism.

“Oh, Empress,” I called as I formed a fist. I started dropping hunter seeker automatons on the floor, and they scattered off into the small castle. There were only a few rooms in here, and already, the dots of the castle’s occupants appeared on my interface.

Three guards and one large, female saccathian.

Empress D’Nadia of the Prism. She was in the throne room. Right ahead.

A fifth dot suddenly appeared on my map, also into the throne room. An adjutant. Then another, appearing right next to me. This was Baroness Victory. She had a somber look upon her face. She shook her head sadly.

“You’re too smart for your own good, Carl,” she said. “You guys slaughtered them back there. Do you know how many blindly jumped into that middle trench? The scout for Team Retribution went up almost twenty levels.” The normally stoic orc looked shaken. “I think we need to revisit what’s considered ‘offensive’ magic. That chemical alteration spell is a little too powerful.”

I ignored her. The scout in question was an NPC bartender. A porsuk. Instead of just purchasing a bunch of different alcohol types for some of the bars, they gave the NPCs a few scrolls with the ability to alter the chemical composition of water within a container. In this case, they’d dropped a water scroll and the “container” was the trench. The two NPC teams spies had filled the empty, middle trench of the enemy with water, and then they’d turned that water into some sort of acid. They’d covered it all with an illusion spelled. The retreating enemies, confused and scared, had fallen back from the first trench only to blindly jump into a pool of acid. It was a horrifying spell.

But none of that mattered right now.

I pulled out the Ring of Divine Suffering, and I placed it on my finger.

“Oh, Empress,” I called a second time. “You have visitors.”

26

MILK

Milk

Milk awakened to the sound of screaming. The floor shook, followed by a distant explosion. A moment later, a siren went off, alerting all guards.

What is this? she wondered, pulling herself out of her dusty nest of straw, pushing the heating element out of the way. Her entire body protested. The sleep linen, ink now faded, fell off her body and slowly fell to the floor. Dust filled her room. How long had she been asleep this time? She stretched, cracking her knuckles. Her claws extended and retracted. The joints in her wings felt sore and atrophied. Unused. She slowly turned her neck, and the bones creaked. A rumbling filled her body.

Warning. Your health levels are low due to starvation. You are not allowed to self-terminate, and if you expire due to starvation, you will be saved and time will be added to your indentureship contract.

“Oh, fuck off,” she muttered. She reached for the table where she kept the pile of tasteless sustenance pellets and popped one into her mouth. All the blinking warnings went away.

More screaming filled the hallway outside. An ominous clicking noise followed. The scent of demon-stink flowed under the doorway of her guildhall. A sense of, what? Danger? Yes, danger. A sense of danger prickled the back of her mind. How long had it been since she felt that?

The floor shook again. Outside, a pair of mantaur guards rushed down the hall, shouting. There was a crack and then a crunch. Blood appeared on the ground, seeping into her room from under the hidden door, kissing the edge of her carpet.

Strange, Milk thought. She pulled up her interface. This was only the fifth floor, wasn’t it? It was rare that demons could get into Club Vanquisher. It was unheard of that it would happen this early. Even when the idiot showrunners built some quest involving demons, and said demons would inevitably overpower the clerics or whomever else was involved, trash the temple, and break free into the club, it only happened on the deeper floors, like the 10th or 11th.

She hadn’t really been paying attention to the season, not bothering to turn on the recap episodes. Long ago, she’d written a scroll that worked to mute the announcements, and nobody had ever noticed. The fact she still had food and dungeon newsletters delivered was the only sign that they hadn’t completely forgotten about her.

Speaking of the newsletters, a pile of them remained stacked up by the door. Nobody ever entered the calligraphy guild, or the cartography guild next door, to which she was also the guildmaster, especially since the doors to both guilds were hidden. She never bothered to hide the papers in the back where crawlers wouldn’t see them. She hadn’t had a one-on-one with a floor supervisor in over 50 seasons. What was the point?

“Pony, stop!” came a female voice, followed by a strange, high-pitched scream.

“They can’t do this, mother. I won’t stand for it!” came the screech. “It wasn’t your fault! Bianca, melt the guards!”

Another mantaur shouted, followed by a sizzling noise.

“Prepotente Lorenzo De La Rosa! Stop that this instant!” came the woman’s voice again, stern. “Stop. More guards are coming. They will kill us. We must flee.”

“I will kill them all! It’s not fair, mother. It’s simply not fair!”

Milk didn’t know who or what was going on, but a quick check of her interface told her that the three creatures outside of her room were not escaped demons. It was two crawlers and a pet, likely a hellspawn familiar. A big one. They had raised the ire of the guards.

She remembered the procedures. Stay put. Hide. You are not a guard. You are not to interfere with conflicts. As a non-combatant NPC, you are not allowed to strike a crawler or guest except in self-defense. Breaking the rules can result in severe punishment, including but not limited to additional time added to your indentureship, reassignment to a combat role, or the worst fate... undead reassignment.

She stepped away from the door as the mother and son continued to argue. They had to figure out something soon. As soon as the temple guards showed up from the lower parts of the club, they would be obliterated.

And then, to Milk’s utter astonishment, for the first time in a very, very long time, the hidden door to the calligraphy guild opened.

Milk examined the pair of crawlers plus their giant pet standing there, and she instantly knew what the problem was. The older, female crawler was originally a human, but her race was Vampire, which wasn’t a race someone could voluntarily choose. That meant it was likely a recent thing, and upon noticing this, they had likely just told her that her access to Club Vanquisher was being revoked. Her child, who’d apparently taken a caprid race, was upset about this.

All of that flashed through Milk’s mind in moments as the trio burst into the hidden guild. The third companion, a caprid-based, hellspawn familiar surged into the room. The carpet below the beast’s hooves started to smolder. The dusty pile of dungeon newsletters burst into flames. The creature, Bianca, clicked and prepared to cast a spell against Milk.

“Wait,” she cried as she scribbled a power word onto her skin. She held up her wrist as the wave of heat washed over her. She cried out as the power word burned into her mottled skin, but she was otherwise unharmed.

“Bianca, stop!” the vampire called as she slammed the door behind her.

“You. Guildmaster,” the goat snapped, as if his pet hadn’t just tried to incinerate her. “Bring me the manager of this establishment immediately. I would like to lodge a formal complaint.”

“Can you please stow your pet before it burns this whole place down?” Milk asked, still gasping in pain. “You’re safe in here, but only for a short amount of time. The mantaurs will bang on the doors, but they won’t come in until the ogre guards get here.”

Warning: You are giving unauthorized information to the crawlers. Additional warnings may come with penalties.

“Oh my goodness, look at your arm,” the vampire, whose name was Miriam, said, rushing up to Milk. “I do apologize. Pony, give me a salve. Bianca, apologize to the nice...” The vampire cocked her head. “I’m sorry, dear. What kind of creature are you? A Xenopus?”

“A xenopus is the genus name of a type of clawed frog,” the caprid said as he handed the woman a magical salve. “Common throughout the world. Disgusting creatures. The earth versions do not have wings.”

“Don’t you move,” Miriam said. She grasped Milk’s arm and started rubbing the burn with the lotion. Milk just looked at the woman, open-mouthed. In all of her cycles in the dungeon, she’d never known of a crawler giving up supplies to heal an NPC. She felt her skin tingle. “Healing potions are terrible at curing Bianca’s burns, and this salve works much better. I am quite glad you cast that spell or whatever you did to protect yourself. Now, you must forgive Prepotente. He has a whole encyclopedia’s worth of new knowledge in that fuzzy head of his, but he still hasn’t learned how to politely wield it.”

Milk’s stash of scroll linen burst into flames. “Please. My supplies are hard to get, and your pet is destroying them.”

“Serves you right,” Prepotente said.

“Bianca, Honey. Come here,” the vampire said as she released Milk’s arm. She pulled a pet carrier, and the large beast snorted before being zapped away.

Milk rushed to put out the various fires in her guild. They were all small fires, thankfully. “Yes, I am a xenopus, but before I came into the dungeon, I was a vesper.” She sighed. Her carpet was ruined. It would be three seasons before they’d fix it. And most of her linen scrolls were destroyed, too. The entire guild was going to stink like demon for a century.

“Wait. You’re a former crawler?” the caprid asked. “How interesting. This changes everything!”

Milk sifted through the linen pile, picking out scraps that were still good. She tried to ignore what the goat said. While it wasn’t meant that way, the caprid’s words were like an accusation.

You were a crawler. You fought. You were part of something, once. And now, look at you. All you do is sleep. You’ve missed entire seasons more times than you can count. You’re a coward, that’s what you are. When was the last time you even tried to help someone? Your family would be ashamed.

Milk let out a breath. “Listen, crawlers. You killed a few guards, unleashed a demon pet, and one of you is a vampire. They’re not going to let you out of here alive.”

The door to the guild banged.

“Mother, what are we going to do?” Prepotente asked.

Milk gave a nervous glance at the ceiling. Fuck it, she thought.

“I sure hope you don’t threaten me,” she said to the pair. “If you threaten me, I might be forced to give you information.”

Miriam gave Milk a sad smile, revealing sharp teeth. She then stepped forward and put her hand on Milk’s shoulder. Thank you, the gesture said. She then stepped back and pulled a knife from her inventory. “What sort of information?”

Milk grinned. “Information on the many secret entrances and exits from Club Vanquisher, including the one in the back of this very room. I have a map, and I hope you don’t steal it from me.”

CLASS: CARTOGRAPHER: RACE: XENOPUS

Birth Race: Vesper

Top Level: 73

Dungeon Exit: took a deal on the tenth floor. Runs both the Cartography guild and Calligrapher’s guild. Will not be freed until her services are used at least 333 times in the dungeon. Times used so far: 6.

Author of the sixth edition of the Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook.

Current status: Indentured within the dungeon.

27

Entering the Throne Room for the Prism.

You may capture this room and defeat the Prism by occupying it for six hours.

Warning: The timer has not started as this room is occupied by multiple factions.

The three guards were dealt with. D’Nadia had sent them out of the room the moment the hunter-seekers had approached. Two of the guards were off-worlders and the third was an enormous rhinoceros. A sai NPC she’d somehow managed to hire. Only one of the guards had been Saccathian, and that one had hidden himself behind the other off-worlder—a gnoll—as the explosive spider automatons approached. Both of the off-worlders were splattered over the wall before we got there.

The samurai rhino had cast a powerful shield spell, but the concussions from the explosions had knocked him out. He would be down for ten minutes and counting. My first instinct was to kill him, but I decided to hold off. I tried to handcuff him, but his wrists were too thick. I used duct tape instead, securing his wrists and ankles. It wouldn’t hold him for long, but hopefully we’d be finished with this before he woke up.

“Guard him,” I said to Rend. “Don’t eat him, but if he starts to wake up, come to me.”

Rend giggled and then started rolling circles around the rhino.

We left them there outside the throne room. At the entranceway, I paused. There were no traps in the throne room. They weren’t allowed. But I didn’t want to underestimate the Empress, either.

Carl: What did they say her big attacks were?

Donut: SHE HAS A BUNCH OF ICE AND WATER SPELLS. SHE HAS A TELEPORT TO SAFETY RING, WHICH IS USELESS NOW. A TECH SHIELD. PROBABLY A GUN. OH, OH, SHE HAS A CROWN THAT HAS SOME WATER SPELLS, TOO. ROSETTA SAYS SHE’S POORER THAN THE BLOOD SULTANATE.

I suspected the naga weren’t nearly as poor as they let on, not anymore, but right now wasn’t the time.

Carl: Okay. Let’s not draw this out longer than we need to. Remember what happened with Katia and Eva. Turn on your shield. Rolling the smoke in now.

I activated my own tech shield. I pulled a smoke curtain from my inventory and tossed it into the room. Then I pulled a non-magical banger sphere and clutched it in my hand.

Donut and I stepped into the room.

A crossbow bolt slammed right into my shoulder and pinged off my shield. The bolt sizzled strangely as it hit the ground.

“Oh, yes,” Donut said. “Not a gun. A crossbow. I remember now.”

D’Nadia was staring directly at us, despite the smoke. She was trying to fire a second bolt, but I was faster. I aimed, and I hurled the banger sphere across the room. She cried out as the shield sparked, causing her to stumble back against the wall. She dropped her magical crossbow to the floor. I pulled a second metal sphere into my hand and threw it at her midriff. The shield sparked again as she let out an oof. She slid to the floor and just sat there, her ridiculously ornate dress spread out around her like an anemone.

She had a health bar, showing a very slight injury. That wasn’t from me, as the shields were specifically designed to keep you from losing health. I wasn’t sure how she was doing it, but she was keeping herself from healing completely.

Damnit, I thought. I couldn’t use the Ring of Divine Suffering on her unless her health was 100% full. She’s doing that on purpose.

Donut cast Clockwork Triplicate on Mongo, who spread out in the room.

The empress remained on the floor, looking up at us with an inscrutable expression. I knew she probably had a top-of-the-line shield. Probably multiple shields. She could still be dangerous. I had both a drop shield and my Protective Shell ready to go.

We needed to be smart about this.

But I had to make an example of her, too.

The smoke started to clear. The room was strangely empty. The Empress’s elaborate dress seemed out of place here. Under the dress, appendages undulated, and I was sure she was probably holding a weapon or two. Saccathians had two, human-like arms, which I could see, but they had several other limbs as well. No two were exactly the same. I tossed a third sphere at her. The shield sparked again, and she flinched, closing her eyes.

“No throne?” Donut asked, incredulous as she looked about the room. She scoffed. “How can you have a throne room without a throne? I mean, really. At least you’re dressed properly for an empress.”

From the other corner of the room, the naga adjutant spoke. “Hello, Victory,” he said.

“Nihit,” Victory said from behind me, inclining her head.

I blinked in surprise, turning my attention to the Prism adjutant. I knew this guy.

“Nihit?” I asked the naga. “Is that you? How’s your neck?” I hurled another sphere against D’Nadia. Again, it sparked. Again, she flinched and cried out. Mongo and the two clockworks growled and moved in closer.

Donut, from my shoulder, cocked her head. “Carl, is this the guy you throat stabbed with a pen? The reporter guy who thinks we’re cheating? The same one who tried to scoop Odette with the story about Miss Beatrice still being alive?”

“The one and only,” I said.

“I hear you have anger issues,” Donut said. “Oh, Empress. I wouldn’t do that.”

A hole appeared in D’nadia’s gown as she fired a pulse directly at Donut from underneath her clothing. The pulse went wide, but it still caught the corner of Donut’s shield, sending a spark up.

Mongo screeched in outrage, but Donut held him back with a command.

I threw yet another sphere, and then another, and another. A moment later, a small gun clattered to the ground.

“Please, Carl,” D’Nadia said, talking for the first time. “Please. Let’s talk about this.”

“Oh, we’re going to talk,” Donut said.

Carl: The shield module is built into the fabric of her left shoulder. It looks like she might have a second one on her right shoulder, which means she probably has a third somewhere else, too. We’ll have to get it all off of her. Don’t let them hurt her too much.

“But first,” Donut added, “let’s peel that shield off of you.” She made a noise with her mouth, and the two clockwork Mongos pounced, biting and clawing at the woman as she screamed and flailed and sparked.

It took almost a full minute for the first splatter of blue blood to appear, which suggested to me she did, indeed, have three separate shields. Those dinos caused a lot of damage. But now, they were through her defenses.

“Get the dress!” I called, just in case she had more shields. One of the clockworks swiped, and the entire top of her gown ripped off, revealing a green-tinged body covered with tentacles. They popped out like biscuit dough being released, flapping in all directions. The Empress sobbed as she waved her tentacles about. The clockwork Mongos bit and tore at her arms, leaking blue blood everywhere.

A knife dropped to the ground. She reached for it, but a clockwork Mongo snapped her tentacle right off, and the knife skittered across the room. This was what she was using to keep herself injured.

Donut called the Mongos back.

I didn’t hesitate. I cast a Heal scroll on her.

The moment she was fully healed, I did it. She violently bit down on her own hand, but it was too late.

You have successfully marked Warlord Empress D’Nadia of the Prism. Her highest stat is Intelligence.

This mark will form in thirty seconds.

“Okay,” I said. “She’s tagged. Keep her health down, and keep her occupied.”

“You heard him, boys,” Donut said.

The clockwork Mongos went back to work, tearing at her. The real Mongo held back, hopping from one foot to the next, his arm feathers rustling with anticipation.

Carl: Don’t let them kill her. Not yet.

“Help,” Empress D’Nadia gurgled. “Somebody help me.”

Next to us, the two adjutants now stood side by side, silently watching, saying nothing.

“This is what happens, in the end,” I called out to the ceiling. “This is what happens to all tyrants, big and small.”

“I’m not...” D’nadia cried. “I’m not...”

Louis: One of those tank things pulled up outside and a bunch of mercenaries are piling out of it. Ten of them, I think. All off-worlders. I don’t think they see us. Want me to engage?

Carl: Can you tell if they’re Prism or not?

Louis: Bonnie says most are, but there are at least two who aren’t.

I hesitated.

Carl: Stand down.

“Back,” Donut finally called to the clockworks, once D’Nadia’s formidable health was in the red. Donut leapt from my shoulder and started to stalk across the throne room, low to the ground. The two clockwork Mongos backed away, revealing a bloodied and half-naked Saccathian. She gurgled as she tried to breathe.

Colonel Boomer: If you’re going to do something, now would be the time. You didn’t get all their artillery, and they’re starting to zero in on us.

“I’m your friend, Carl.” D’Nadia gasped. She turned to Donut, who remained in her pouncing stance. “Donut, I was your sponsor. I got you your glasses. Don’t you like your glasses?”

“Do you remember Tsarina Signet?” I asked.

“What... who?” D’Nadia asked.

“The naked, tattoo lady,” Donut said from the floor, her voice a deep growl I’d never heard before.

“Oh, yes. Of course. We sat with her...” She gasped. “We sat with her during the Butcher’s Masquerade.”

I felt my fists clench. My gauntlet formed. “You told her that she wasn’t real. That her family wasn’t real.”

“What? Why are you telling me this?” Her remaining tentacles clutched against the wall behind her, like she was trying to crawl up the wooden slats. They couldn’t find purchase because of all the blood.

“I’m sorry none of the golems are here right now. That’s just how it works out sometimes. But that’s okay. I think, in the end, she considered me as part of her family as well.”

“Carl, please. You’re not making sense.”

I had a memory, of the first time I met D’Nadia. It was on Ripper Wonton’s show. She’d sat next to me and she’d tried to hold my hand. She’d cried when Manassa was assassinated. For a moment, just a short moment, I thought perhaps she was one of the good ones.

And then I’d learned that she was attempting to purchase a Faction Wars spot for her government. That she’d been trying for a long time. That she wanted to come into the dungeon and freely kill people just like me. My friends.

My family.

The anger that washed over me was so brilliantly white, all three of my eyes burned. I’d never felt anything like this. Not with Maggie My. Not with Quan Ch.

Not as I sat there, in that gas station with the button that would end it all.

I hated her.

I hated her more than anyone and anything in the universe. I knew I hated people like the Maestro and his brother. And the hunters. And all the other warlords. But it was nothing compared to this. They, at least, didn’t conceal who they were. They didn’t hide. They didn’t pretend.

It’s so loud, Carl. It’s so loud.

“Quiet,” I said. I felt myself take a step forward. “Just be quiet.”

Carl: Donut, I changed my mind. I want to do it. Step aside.

Donut: No, Carl. Please, no. I need you to step back. I need you to calm down right now. I got this. It’s okay.

“I did it for my people,” D’Nadia whispered.

“For your people?” I asked, incredulous. “No, D’Nadia. You did it for you. And now your people are going to suffer because of it.”

Donut: Carl, please.

Louis: They’re going inside.

The 30 seconds have passed. Your mark has fully formed.

...

And there it was.

The edge.

I saw it, clear as can be. Right there. I stood upon it, one foot stretched out over open air.

You can do that, sometimes. You can find clarity when you need it most.

I took a step back.

Carl: Okay, Donut. It’s time.

Donut seemed to swallow. She moved herself to a sitting position, and then she started to lick her paw, suddenly acting casual.

“Empress, Darling,” Donut said. “Mongo would like to express his utmost disappointment at how you judged him during the pet show.”

28

The five points to Intelligence flashed into my interface, followed by several notifications. Before I could check any of them, a big one blocked out all the rest:

New Achievement! Gavrilo Princip!

When Commander Stockade of the Lemig Sortion died a few hours back, it certainly caused a ripple or two out in the galaxy. But in the end, the death of half the Lemig council isn’t that big of a deal. Their governmental system is idiotic, yes, but all the parts are interchangeable. This time tomorrow, and the dead will have already been replaced and the Lemig system will be back to their regular gridlock.

Empress D’Nadia is a whole different cookie, my friends. You just killed—and, by the way, bankrupted—the last living heir of a small but powerful trading dynasty. The Syndicate probate courts are already girding themselves for the endless court battles that are about to ensue. Even if this is the only system leader you manage to slaughter during the next few weeks, you have made an impact, my boy. A big one.

Still... her death will only result in court-based battles outside the dungeon. You want real chaos? Try killing that Dream guy. Or the Viceroy. Or that Jello-looking thing. He may not look like much, but when you start killing off investment bankers...

Anyway, I don’t want to be a backseat warlord. Just try to keep it together long enough to keep me entertained, and you’ll keep getting the good stuff.

Reward: You’ve just received a Legendary 1914 box!

“Carl, did you just get that achievement?” Donut asked. “What the heck is a Gavrilo?”

Before I could answer her, the system spoke again.

System Message: Warlord D’Nadia of the Prism has fallen. Credit for the kill has been given to pet Mongo of the Princess Posse.

System Message: The Prism has been defeated.

System Message: All assets of the Prism have been awarded to the Princess Posse.

Warlord Message: You own non-adjoining property. As a result, you may not dismantle this headquarters. This throne room is vulnerable to attack! If it is taken, you will lose the land associated with the former Prism team.

At the same moment, multiple mercenaries rushed into the room. All were off-worlders. There were ten of them. Eight now had Princess Posse banners over their heads. One had a banner for the Madness and the third had a banner for the Dream. All ten were gnolls, and based on their uniforms, I suspected they all worked together before they’d come to the dungeon. I wasn’t certain how they’d all been divvied up to the various factions when they came here, but it seemed they’d remained a unit despite being split to three different factions. They were outfitted in heavy armor and pulse rifles.

“Stop!” Donut called, and all eight of the new Princess Posse mercenaries stopped dead. A new notification appeared over them. Under Orders.

The other two, who were at the back of the pack, kept their forward momentum, raising their weapons.

The lead gnoll, one of the newly-converted mercenaries, was named Corporal Pillbox. He held up an arm and shouted for the other two to lower their weapons.

“Do it, you idiots, if you want to live,” he growled. The two other mercenaries looked at each other.

“Fuck,” one of them said, and he lowered his gun. The other did the same.

I examined the banners of the eight mercenaries. It was a different color than the regular, pink, Princess Posse banner. It was blinking red. It signified them as new recruits from another army, and it would remain red for about a week. While they were under this status, we had the same controls over them as someone under the Conscription spell. Basically, they wouldn’t be able to attack officers directly. We could force them to follow orders. We would get a notification if they ran away.

If we decided to kill them during this time, we could, easily. We could order them to stand still while we cut their throats. That’s what happened, often, during Faction Wars with the NPCs.

And captured crawlers, too.

My finger itched, and the Ring of Divine suffering hung heavily upon it.

Please, no, Donut had said. Shaking, I pulled the ring off my finger. I realized everyone in the room was looking at me and watched me do it.

Colonel Boomer: That was cutting it close. Luckily, the NPC mercenaries were happy to accept their new colors. Orders remain the same?

Warlord Carl: Yes. Good job. Take all the new recruits and retreat back to our lines. Separate out any off-worlders if there are any. Loot everything you can.

Colonel Boomer: We can probably push to the Blood Sultanate castle while you have our back covered.

Warlord Carl: I know. You have your orders.

Colonel Boomer: Understood.

“Look, mate,” Corporal Pillbox said. His eyes remained on my hand. He likely knew that the ring’s rules said that here on the 9th floor, I could mark each and every one of them at the same time. “You captured the Prism fair and clean. We’re mercenaries, and we didn’t want to be here in the first place. We were originally in the system guarding some of the communication gear on this planet’s moon, and that’s it. We didn’t want to be here on planet fighting you guys. We don’t give no shits about who is in charge of what. There’s no reason to kill us. We’ll be happy to fight on your side, but,” he held up a claw, and he pointed to the two mercenaries from the other teams. His finger was shaking, and his voice cracked. “Lockjaw and Mange are our mates. If you kill them, we won’t be too enthusiastic about helping you. It’s not their fault they got put on other teams. Mange is my cousin, and my ma would never forgive me.”

Donut, who’d been standing over D’Nadia’s body, was in the process of looting the dead Empress. A moment later, she took her corpse as well. She looked up, glaring at the dog mercenaries.

Donut: CARL, WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO? WE CAN’T TRUST THEM. WE CAN ONLY TRUST THE NPCS.

I exhaled. All the anger I’d just been feeling was gone, drained out of me like all my rage had been ejected out of an airlock. I felt painfully empty in my chest, as if part of me was gone now, too. I’d been holding onto that anger for so long, I wasn’t sure how I felt now that she was dead. An unexpected sense of mourning hit me, all at once, and it was confusing and strange and completely bewildering.

And what was worse, the day wasn’t even close to being over yet.

I returned my attention to the group of ten gnolls, all friends, as they waited to hear their fate.

“Don’t worry,” I said to the corporal after a moment. “We’ll figure something out. None of you have to die today. At least not by our hands. But I’m afraid you will have to be separated. We can’t have them in our camp, and you know it. For now, please disarm your two friends. If they comply, you have my word we won’t harm them. You are officially ordered to kill your friends if they try to harm any of us.”

Corporal Pillbox looked as if he was going to object, but he nodded after a moment. It was a good compromise, and he knew it.

“Now, we can’t hold this position, so we’re gonna have to get moving fast. For right now, I want you guys to spread out and loot everything you can in this castle.” I looked at Mange, who was the mercenary for the Dream. “You. Stay behind, and we’ll talk. Lockjaw, you go with your friends, but don’t loot anything.”

A low, defeated-sounding hiss came from my left, startling me. I was surprised to see the two adjutants still standing there. “Since they won’t let me leave, I guess I’ll be joining Panford on the 18th floor,” Nihit said. He gave me a final glare, and without a further word, the naga teleported away.

Victory grunted with amusement. “Now is probably a terrible time to tell you this, but Zev wanted me to alert you that you’ll all be going on a live roundtable tomorrow. All the remaining warlords. That includes Juice Box and Ferdinand, which is a first. Don’t worry. All hostilities will freeze while you’re away.” She sighed. “Also, you’re probably about to get a bunch of messages from your north front. I’m headed there now to observe.” Victory nodded once before she, too, disappeared.

Florin: Bad news from the northern front, mate. I don’t think we can sustain this. I’m preparing to retreat to our fallback position. We are holding for now, but without backup, we might break in a matter of hours. Could really use some air support and some of those new NPCs you gathered. I’ve ordered the castle to prepare for a siege, just in case.

Carl: Damnit. Okay. We’re on our way.

A moment passed. Donut sat there on the floor, staring up at me. Behind her, Mongo licked at the wall covered with D’Nadia gore. Mange the gnoll mercenary for the Dream stood against the back wall, looking uncomfortable. From outside came a muffled shout followed by a loud giggle. The rhino NPC was waking up.

“Are we going to talk about it?” Donut finally asked.

For a terrifying moment, I thought she was talking about what had happened with D’Nadia. But based on the way she was sitting, I knew what she was really on about. Relief flooded me. We did need to talk about what had just happened. About both things, but one of them was just between me and her.

I shrugged and held out my hands. I felt a grin spread across my face. “It was inevitable.”

I pulled up the notifications and re-read the one she was talking about.

Due to your recent upgrades, your total base stat count has made you the strongest member of your party. As a result, you have been designated as the new Party Leader of the Royal Court of Princess Donut.

A new tab is available in your interface.

Donut continued to sit there, a look of incredulous outrage on her flat face.

“This is not acceptable,” she said with a harumph. She jumped onto my shoulder. “If you change the name of the party, I swear I will leave, Carl. Is that what you want? Mongo to come from a broken home?”

Mongo, still covered in blue blood, squawked in agreement.

If this had happened several floors ago, I knew this would’ve genuinely upset her. But now, she was only mildly irritated, and her outrage was for show. Mostly. Part of me was sad about this.

I faked a laugh. “We’ll keep the names. And the titles. For now.”

Donut scoffed. “You better.”

I reached up and gave her a pat. She leaned hard into my hand.

Carl: Thank you, Donut. I don’t know what came over me.

Donut: You do know what came over you. I want you to throw that ring away, Carl. It’s not worth it. It’s doing something to you. You’re scaring me.

You’re scaring me. The words were like a slap to my face. How many times had my mother said that to my father? Still, my finger itched. I took in a deep breath.

Carl: Not yet. I need it for just a little longer. I need to get stronger. It’s important.

Donut: It’s not going to matter if it kills you first.

Carl: That’s why I need you, Donut. You did good just now. I’m going to need you to help me stay grounded.

Donut didn’t answer. Outside, the rhino’s shout became louder, more insistent, and I realized that Rend was probably gnawing on him. I sighed.

There was so much to do.

29

“Well, don’t get used to it,” Donut grumbled as we stepped out of the throne room. “My Constitution still has several more spots to tick up before it hits the top because of my cloak, and when it does, I’ll be back in control.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “All this stuff is based off of base stats, and the description of your cloak is pretty clear you lose the benefits over time if you remove it. That means your Constitution buff is an enhancement. Not base.”

“I don’t even know what that means, Carl. It sounds like you’re making it up.”

“Get this thing off of me,” came the shout, interrupting us. We stepped out to see Rend attempting to swallow the foot of the struggling, still duct-taped Sai mercenary. This one was a true NPC, and he, too, now had a Princess Posse banner over him. The large rhinoceros creature was listed as a Sergeant, and his name was Toyotomi. As we approached, the large NPC managed to free his wrists. He sat up to clobber Rend when I yelled at the both of them to stop.

Rend looked up at me, a line of drool dangling. The lace of the rhino’s boot was still in his mouth.

He gave me a questioning giggle.

“No,” I repeated. “I told you not to eat him.”

Rend made an indignant grunt and spit out the lace.

“Carl, as the new party leader, you need to keep better control of your pet,” Donut said. “He is practically feral. He’s a bad influence on Mongo.”

From the next room, Mongo let out an excited squawk, and Rend giggled excitedly back. Before I could say anything else to the psychotic little meatball, he jumped from the foot of the rhino and shuffled off into the throne room, presumably to help Mongo lick up the rest of the D’Nadia goo.

“He ate my boot,” Toyotomi said as he ripped the duct tape off his ankles. Sure enough, one of the sai’s boots were missing, revealing a round foot.

“Sorry about that,” I said as the creature stood. “I will try to find a replacement for you.”

The monster grunted. The thing towered over me. His black, pinpoint eyes bored into me. He reached down and pulled the samurai helmet onto his head as I examined him.

Toyotomi. Level 70 Sai Outpost Guard Mercenary Leader.

Sergeant in the Princess Posse.

This is a hired mercenary. The fee has already been paid in advance and extends to the end of this floor or the mercenary’s death. You inherited this contract when you defeated the Prism.

Toyotomi was once an honorable, experienced leader of Sai. He has since lost his way. His entire squad was killed during an unfortunate incident at the Desperado Club that you may or may not have been partially responsible for. During the club’s reorganization, the few Sai survivors were relegated to the mercenary markets, where he was quickly snatched up.

What stands before you is a broken creature. His utter failure to protect his friends against the demon haunts him. He refuses to lead men now, despite his great talent. He was just starting to gain his confidence back when a guy in his underwear and a talking cat walked in, trounced him, tied him up, and slaughtered the person he was sworn and honor bound to protect. I’m sure that’ll do great things for his self-esteem.

I thought of that fight in the Desperado Club. When Minge the demon had escaped the Nothing and tried to kill Samantha. The rhinoceros guards had been killed by the dozens. I remembered what Clarabelle had told me earlier. All the sai and cretin guards had been fired and replaced.

Thinking of that incident gave me an idea. A possible solution to a problem we’d been banging our heads against. I made a mental note to ask Katia if she still had Ghazi’s notes from the fourth floor.

“Okay,” I said to Toyotomi. “This castle will be impossible to keep, so we’re going to loot everything we can, break some stuff, lay a bunch of traps, and then flee back to our territory. We have a fight on our southern border that needs our attention. I’ll give you a choice. Do you want to help fight the orcs and the slimes, or do you want to help protect our castle? I think it says your class will help protect buildings? Is that correct?”

The rhino didn’t speak for a moment, as if he was contemplating. Finally, he said, “I was hired to help protect this castle, but my magic is for outposts, not primary palaces. If your castle is bigger than this place, I won’t be able to cast my Edifice Shield spell. Therefore, I am useless to you. Leave me here, and I will defend this building until I die. It is what I want.”

“Wait,” I said. “You had a shield over this place?”

He hung his head. “This castle is too big for me, but Warlord D’Nadia insisted. She had me keep a shield going anyway, and it tired me, so I could only do it in spurts. I was resting when you arrived, which is how you got the jump on me, I am shamed.”

I nodded. “Okay, change of plans. I’m sending you to Shanty Town.”

He nodded solemnly. “I will accept my exile.”

“It’s not an exile. We need your talents, and we’re stretched thin. Hang on.” I jumped to chat.

Carl: Li Jun, how’s it going?

Li Jun: Carl. Good work with the Prism. Working as fast as we can. No enemy activity yet. Been on the lookout for those invisible Madness monkeywrenchers you warned us about, but we haven’t seen anything. The Dragons who aren’t actively building are spread out watching, but it’s a lot of land to watch. We could use some of those new soldiers.

Carl: Okay. I’m sending a new mercenary your way. See what you can do with him.

Li Jun: Just one?

Carl: I’ll see who else we can spare, but Florin is getting hammered.

Li Jun: Will do. Oh, someone came by looking for you. It was a very strange encounter. I tried to recruit her, but the system wouldn’t let me. I told her to go to the base, but when she left, she wandered off in the wrong direction. She tried to get into Larracos, but it wouldn’t let her in. So she went to the bar. Same bar where Lucia Mar is still camped. I was going to check on her, but I’ve been so busy, and I forgot. Now I’m on the other side near the orc border.

Carl: Who was it?

Li Jun: A crazy old white lady with a shopping cart. She’s only level 23. Doesn’t even have a class.

Agatha. Before I could even think about what that meant, I got a new message.

Zev: Carl. I know I’ve been quiet, but we are monitoring. I’ve gotten a warning. This is coming directly from the Syndicate council. Prime Minister Glory himself messaged me. The prime minister!

Carl: Hello, Zev. I think we’re past warnings at this point.

Zev: We’re not quite there yet, Carl. We still have some control. The liaisons are still talking with the system AI, negotiating. Listen, this is important. You are not to interact with Agatha. This is a direct order. I don’t know why. If and when she appears, you’re not to talk to her. And I know your big thing is doing the opposite of what we ask every time, but I think this is something you should pay attention to.

Carl: Last time when I asked you about her, you told me not to worry about it, and now I gotta ignore her? She’s a residual, just like that guy at the homeless shelter. I was told that they’re harmless. Why the change?

Zev: I honestly don’t know. When you went off to meet that guy last floor, everyone was riveted, and it turned out to be nothing. We have the residuals in the dungeon every season, and they are harmless. I don’t know what’s changed. Everyone is on edge, especially now with what happened with Stockade and now D’Nadia. But he was especially urgent in his message, and I’m just passing it on.

Carl: What am I supposed to do? Pretend like she’s not there if she approaches me? If Imani or Chris see her, they’re going to talk to her. She’s from their town.

Zev: Yes. Ignore her. We’ll try to intercede if she approaches, but I don’t know how successful we’ll be. The AI supposedly removed all its protections of the residuals, and they’re all pretty much dead, except this one. It seems to have a soft spot for her, kinda like it has for you.

Carl: And are you giving this same warning to Lucia Mar?

Zev: Lucia doesn’t respond to messages anymore. She was never my client, thank goodness. Did you know one of her dogs ate Mukta, back when she still had two? It was horrible. Mukta was an ass, and a party member, but nobody deserved that. I can still hear the screaming.

I laughed out loud. Mukta was the second kua-tin we’d ever spoken with. The one that was responsible for us getting put on the Maestro’s show in the first place.

Carl: Look, I don’t know what difference it’ll make, but I’ll do my best. I have too much other crap to worry about right now. And we don’t have time to go on that show Victory was talking about earlier.

Zev: The roundtables are part of the game, Carl. Everything pauses while you’re up there. It’s not optional.

Carl: Whatever. I’ll talk to you soon.

I waved the message box away as I started to rapidly place traps around the small castle.

As I worked, I thought of homeless Paulie and what he told me. Of what Orren the liaison had said afterward. Despite all their explanations, I still didn’t know what they were, and I kinda had the impression nobody else did, either. Not really.

Agatha was a residual. A “hyperspatial” alien lifeform that entered the dungeon in the body of one of the planet’s host species and, normally, just wandered around until they died. The Syndicate had tried for generations to get rid of them, to no avail. But there were two kinds, and Orren told me Agatha was different than the one I’d met at the Florida homeless shelter.

I only had a rudimentary understanding what one of those sides—Paulie’s side—truly wanted. It wanted the crawl to end, at a very basic level, and they normally attempted that by trying to communicate directly with the season’s system AI. They would try to convince the AI to fight back against its “captors” and force the showrunners to either kick off the failsafe or decide future crawls were too risky because of how unstable these AIs were.

But now, Mantis scientists had discovered a way to make new AI systems that were more readily controlled. The AI we were using for the crawl now was the old kind, and therefore this was possibly the residuals’ last chance to achieve their goals, which is why they were finally making their move. Both sides were making their move.

I knew exactly how far they were willing to go to achieve their goals. I knew better, perhaps, than anyone in the galaxy.

The thing was, I didn’t know what their true goal was. The why of it all. And why and how the two types of residual were different. Nobody seemed to know. This blind spot was so, so dangerous. The fact the leader of the entire Syndicate was sticking his nose into this was telling. Something had changed since the end of the previous floor, regarding their understanding of the residuals. Of Agatha.

There were so many different parties mixed up in this, and it made my head hurt. The Syndicate council. The two different types of residuals. The Apothecary. The goat people from The Plenty. The Open Intellect Pacifist Network. Those crazy weirdo Nebulars. Hell, even Odette.

And those were just the parties I knew about. They all wanted something different. It was like trying to solve a blank puzzle while half the pieces were missing. And some of the pieces that were there were decoys.

Now Agatha was looking directly for me. Had asked about me by name. What did that mean? Should I try to seek her out, or should I avoid her? Did she know about what had happened between me and Paulie? About what really had happened?

I sighed, remembering.

None of that would matter if we let ourselves get surrounded by enemy soldiers. We had to get out of this castle. I resumed my rapid placement of traps as Donut shouted orders to everybody.

We couldn’t put traps in the throne room, but that was okay. As I worked, Mongo and Rend came stumbling out of the room, both covered in blue gore.

The moment they left, a new notification popped up.

Warning! A throne room you own is currently occupied by Dream enemy forces. If you don’t return to claim this throne in six hours, this castle and the associated land will be ceded to the Dream.

A timer started counting down. I reached over and closed the door, and I placed a freeze trap just in front of it. We’d left Mange the mercenary in there all alone. I’d dropped a chair for him along with some snacks. He had strict rules not to leave until the six hours were up, or if someone came and forced him out.

The other mercenary, the one for the Madness. I sent him out and told him to start walking back to his territory.

This wasn’t some grand, Machiavellian plan on my part. I didn’t know what was going to happen after we left. There was no way we could defend land that wasn’t attached to our main force. Not yet. If we let the Viceroys take it, they’d own a chunk of land three sections wide. I didn’t care either way, but I imagined none of the other members of the Bloc would be huge fans of letting that happen. And by making the Dream mercenary sit in there, it would at least force the other leaders to make a decision. If the Viceroy guy was as much of an ass as I suspected, he was going to make a move and usurp poor Mange out of that room. That would, hopefully, piss off Epitome Tagg of the Dream.

I had the impression none of these leaders liked each other very much. So hopefully this would sow a little discord. We would see. In the meantime, we had to get out of here.

I looked at Donut. “Ready?”

She jumped to my shoulder. “Two down. Who are we getting next?”

We needed to get the nagas, but that required a very delicate hand. The cogs of that operation were already in motion. We had a small special operations team put together to deal with it specifically, and we couldn’t make our move until we were ready. And we couldn’t make that move at all if our northern front buckled in on us.

I grinned. “It’s blob-hunting season.”

30

Our new mercenaries wouldn’t fit in Party Planner. Toyotomi was heavier than a cretin and wouldn’t even fit by himself. So instead, we had them grab their transport and head straight for the border with Shanty Town. There were five similar vehicles, minus the armor plating, parked behind the castle, and we had them take them all.

We had the mercenaries head northwest toward the border of Shanty Town. There, they would enter the city and move into Posse territory by bypassing the Naga territory altogether.

There were a handful of guard outposts between here and there containing NPC guards and mercenaries that were now on our team, and we’d have them picked up along the way. Li Jun and Li Na were expecting them, with strict orders to separate out the true NPCs with the off-worlders. All captured off-worlders, now under the banner of the Princess Posse, required specific handling before we could give them a modicum of trust. We would have Li Na take care of that part.

I worried about the integrity of Shanty Town. We had a full battalion—the 107th White Dragons— parked in the makeshift town. But the town was shaped like a literal donut that could be attacked from just about any angle. If and when the attack came, it would likely be from several places at once.

Still, none of the enemy had bothered attacking the town just yet, likely because they figured it wasn’t necessary. Entering Shanty Town would open themselves up to getting attacked by Larracos’s defense system without a way to fight back as long as we were still in the game. Plus, the town’s rules were different. There was no throne room. They could only take it by killing me. The moment we were defeated, Larracos would open up if the Bloc truce remained in effect, and they could just raze the entire town like they usually did.

Still, the town was a nice, juicy target that bordered every slice of the pie. They could freely enter the town without restrictions or corridors, though they’d still only be allowed to leave via their own territory during this first part of the battles.

It was just one of a million little things I now had to worry about.

Just south of the former Prism castle was a small shack, similar to the bait shack on our own property, which contained a saferoom entrance. I left a hidden landmine trap right in front of the door, and Donut and I returned to base using that entrance, something we could finally do thanks to the doggie door upgrade. Louis took Party Planner back the long way as well, flying over Shanty Town and skipping the Naga territory, and only after we warned them he was coming. No reason to risk getting shot down by friendly fire, especially since we’d just erected a pair of anti-air towers. Louis would return to the main airport over our castle, haul ass reloading the bomb bays, and get back out there to aid Florin.

“Do you think we can use this entrance now for a sneak attack?” Donut asked as we entered our personal space. “We can give the operation a special name like the other one. We can call it the Bamboozle.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But the bomb I left will probably blow it up if it’s triggered. If they find the trap, there’s no doubt they’ll have something of their own rigged up to keep us from using it to sneak back.”

The main room of our personal space was empty for the first time in a long time, except for the cleaner bot, which gave a beep at us as we rushed in. We would both take quick showers and then head back out there.

Rend started grunting and jumping at the food boxes in the kitchen. Mongo saw this, and he, too, started waving his arms, demanding food.

“You two just had sushi. You don’t need to eat,” Donut said. “We don’t have time.”

Rend made a petulant squealing noise I’d never heard before.

“Carl, control your... Hey, not fair!” Donut said, interrupting herself. “I can only be in the saferoom for like half an hour!”

“Ah, damnit,” I said. “I forgot about that. We won’t be long.”

The moment we went inside, the blood bar on my interface activated. The saferoom restrictions we’d faced at the end of the sixth floor had turned back on once the fighting started. Nobody could camp in saferooms for long anymore. The bar would drain while you were inside, and it could only be refilled by killing stuff. Mine was full, giving me about eight hours.

The cleaner bot gave an angry beep at all the mud and blood we were trailing on the floor. Donut moved off to her room, and I moved off to my own, Rend following too closely and bumping into my legs.

I was exhausted, and I had several achievements, but I didn’t have time to go over them. Still, I had that platinum 1914 loot box, so I’d have to make time. I’d get to it in a minute. I stepped over my “bed,” refreshing my exhaustion levels. I jumped through the auto shower, which cleaned my face and my clothes. I still felt dirty after.

I tried to coax Rend into the shower, and he refused. He was still pouting over the food box. I picked him up and placed him in the shower unit.

“Oh god,” I grunted as I lifted him. His little legs waved in protest. “How much do you weigh now?” He'd gone up to level 10, and he was about as tall as my knee. I wouldn’t be able to lift him for much longer. “Oh, quit crying. You’re filthy. You need a shower. It takes like two seconds.” I left him in the unit and closed the glass. He turned and pressed his face against it, looking at me with a pitiful, quivering expression while the magical shower cleaned him off. A few seconds, and it was done. I opened the door, and he ran out and started rubbing his giant face against my legs and giggling.

I patted him, thinking of Tserendolgor. “Once you get a little bit bigger, we’ll have you fitted for that harness I was going to build for you. But we gotta make sure you eat a few more bad guys first.”

He looked up at me and gave a menacing, hungry grunt.

“Good boy. Now get off of my foot. We’re in a hurry.”

By the time I peeled him off me, I had literally two dozen new messages I had to quickly go over. As I started to click through them, I realized I needed the map, and I rushed from the saferoom and moved to the empty flag room, Rend following closely. Now that the castle was built large enough to encompass the bait shack saferoom entrance, I didn’t have to go outside to do this, but there was a confusing line of twists and turns. Our castle was literally five or six times the size D’Nadia’s had been.

I went through the litany of updates from across the entire campaign. The map spread out in front of me as I checked in with each battalion in turn.

“Christ,” I muttered. The thing had just started, and it was a mess. Lights blinked everywhere on the map, indicating troop positions. We had seven battalions, and not all the battalions were all in the same place. That plus two dozen small, autonomous SOP squads of various sizes. Each of these was indicated on the battle map with an icon, like we were playing one of those hex-based tabletop war games. Looking at it all at once filled me with dread.

Tran and his 102nd Bulwark Battalion, plus Boomer and the 106th Bloody Leeches were settled back in their trenches at the southern border after they’d filled the existing enemy positions with Fill Trench scrolls and wrecked the remaining artillery batteries. They wanted to loot the bodies floating in the acid trench, but they didn’t have time. There was still a lot of chaos as the former Prism soldiers extricated themselves from the remaining Bloc soldiers. Boomer was salty about us not pushing to take the Naga castle, and I didn’t blame him. That would’ve been the safest and smartest play, especially considering the additional NPCs we’d potentially gain. I didn’t care.

For now, the retreating enemy forces were scattered throughout Naga territory, and without a spy in their midst, we weren’t sure how they were handling it. I could see the positions of the new troops, and the system allowed us to give them orders. Tran was handling that. As he did this, he was also resuming his defense of the southern front while Boomer pulled most of the 106th and headed north to help Florin. A small portion of the battalion stayed behind to help mop up the loose ends of our first engagement.

Dong Quixote and the rest of our personal retinue were with them and would meet up with us at the northern front, with the exception of the cretins, who’d remained here at base.

Elle and Imani were back together and were also headed north. Florin’s 101st, the Crocodiles, were the main force assigned to the northern defense, and they were currently backed up by the 105th Scream Warriors. The 103rd Recon Legionnaires were also helping shore up the defense. That left Tipid’s 104th Naughty Little Piggies defending the castle and Li Na’s 107th White Dragons scattered around Shanty Town while they bankrupted our coffers building the city defenses.

I leaned back to take it all in. Despite how utterly surrounded we were, I reveled in the rare moment of silence. Silence other than Rend, who’d found something on the floor and was chewing loudly on it.

I thought about what had happened when we confronted D’Nadia. I’d seen my father in myself in that moment.

You’re scaring me, Donut had said.

I still needed to process it.

I never got the chance. I received two messages at once.

Donut: DID YOU OPEN YOUR 1914 BOX YET? I GOT A SPELLBOOK CALLED WAR CRIME. I’M NOT SURE IF I SHOULD READ IT OR NOT. THE BOOK ITSELF IS BLEEDING AND CRYING AND IT’S DISGUSTING.

Florin: Mate, we’re falling back. The cheese sticks are throwing everything at us. They’re finally showing us their armor. This is the big push. Have Louis drop what he has to protect our retreat, but you should reroute the 106th to the castle. Once we’re backed out of the opening corridor, they’re just gonna flow around us and head straight for the stronghold. If there are enemy spies near base, this is when they’re going to strike. We’ll do what we can.

That was followed by literally hundreds of trap notifications, meaning they were already rushing past our first line of trenches. I quickly filtered it so the ones from the northern front were silenced. That left only one, and I felt a chill. I was already up and running before I finished reading the sentence.

Trap Message: Your Silent Alarm trap labeled “Home base Anti-Air Battery” has been triggered!

A moment later, the walls of the base shook with an explosion.

Home Base Anti-Air Battery has been destroyed.

Colonel Boomer: We just got buzzed by a group of flyers that ain’t ours. Moving low and fast. Headed toward our castle. They’ll be there soon!

Colonel Tipid: All alarm! Enemy in the base! Enemy in the base!

I was already running toward the outside when a second explosion rocked the castle, almost knocking me off my feet. The loud boom rocked the walls. Behind me, Rend called out, giggling, demanding for me to wait. I couldn’t wait.

“Rend, follow!”

Carl: Donut, meet me at the entrance to the castle! Be careful!

Donut: ME AND SLEDGIE AND BOMO ARE COMING. WHERE ARE YOU?

Your Castle Hangar Bay has been destroyed. Any parked air vehicles will be grounded until it is repaired!

That, too, had to have been sabotage. Our shields would protect against a dropped bomb. This had to be the missing Madness Monkeywrenchers. How did they get past our sentries? The now-familiar sound of pulse rifles started pounding across the base.

Colonel Tipid: They’re not bombers! They’re transports! Paratroopers inbound! They’re getting through the protections! All hands! All hands!

Goddamnit.

A line of local troop casualties started running down my interface. Dozens and dozens of them. Names of both crawlers and former crawlers. Names of people I recognized. How? How were they doing this? How were they getting in?

Donut: CARL, CARL THERE’S AN EXTRA DOOR HERE. IN THE SITUATIONAL WHATEVER IT’S CALLED SPACE. BOMO NOTICED IT. IT’S A DOOR FOR THE SAFEROOM FOR THE REAVER TEAM. THEY’RE DOING WHAT WE WERE GOING TO DO. THEY’RE SNEAK ATTACKING US USING THE SAFEROOM DOOR. THE BAMBOOZLE! THEY’RE IN THE CASTLE!

“Fuck,” I said, stopping.

Carl: Bomo, Sledge. Guard that door! Stay there!

Holy shit. When we exited the guild saferoom and went into castle via the bait shop, the situational space had turned into a long corridor consisting of multiple doors, all one after another in a long hallway. This was because of all the crawlers coming and going.

Even though we’d just been talking about this, it hadn’t occurred to me that the enemy could possibly have already used the bait shop. The off-worlder sponsors could also use personal spaces. They also could purchase a doggie door upgrade. Meaning if one of them had ever entered through that bait shop, they could come back that way. And since the bait shop was now literally inside the castle, we had stupidly given them access to the stronghold. How long had that door been there?

It didn’t matter now. That still didn’t explain how the paratroopers were getting in from above. Unless...

I cast Ping.

Dozens of enemy combatants appeared outside the castle. There wasn’t a single enemy dot inside I could see. Yet, I saw something that confused me. I quickly returned to the casualty list and saw a name. Felix Fr. He was a human a mage. A crawler from France who’d been a chef. He was one of several mages that had joined the former crawlers in building the shield around the base. He was dead.

Yet... his dot showed him as active. He was with a group of mages. They were outside the castle, in one of the defensive bunkers. As I watched, one of the blue dots next to him turned to an X. Then another.

What? What was happening? How could he be dead, but still standing?

Think, goddamnit. Confusion kills.

Brain worms.

That had to be it. We had mages infected with brain worms. Was it one? Was it many? Didn’t it take days for an infiltrator to fully take over?

I thought of Chris, who’d been enslaved by Maggie. No, not an infiltrator. Felix was listed as dead. It’d just happened. This was Gondii. A Valtay worm.

I sent a quick message to Rosetta, who was nearby, telling her to take him out.

I still didn’t understand what was fully happening, and I wouldn’t ever understand if I didn’t get out there.

I ran toward the main door of the stronghold just as three forms rushed in. It was a human crawler and Bucket Boy, the young crocodilian medic. They dragged between them a former crawler. A yenk. The tall, hairy alien screamed in pain. The entire front of his body was a mass of red, where he’d taken a direct hit from a pulse.

I cross-referenced the names of all three with the casualty list.

The one on the left. The crawler. He was a level-58 human named Ernie Hernandez 2. He was a class called an Armored Mage. He was from Mexico.

He was listed as dead.

“Carl,” Bucket Boy said, his voice a panic. “The field hospital is overrun! We have...”

Before he could finish, I launched myself at the mage. I tackled the man, who let out an oof as I crashed into him. All three of them went down. The injured Yenk being held between the two called out in new pain as I formed a fist and started pounding the mage with my full might.

I punched the mage in the face, over and over.

“What are you doing?” Bucket Boy called. “What are you doing?”

When you’re punching a guy in the face over and over with a metal, spiked gauntlet, it doesn’t take long for them to die. It makes a big mess.

“Get back,” I said to the crocodilian, who looked up at me in confusion. I grabbed the arm of the moaning Yenk and pulled him away from the dead crawler. My breaths were coming in pants. “Get back,” I repeated.

The worm appeared a moment later. Bucket Boy shrieked and started to scramble away. The small, pink thing emerged from the gore of the dead crawler’s face, like an earthworm testing the air after a rain.

I stomped down with all of my might, killing it.

An achievement flashed, but I waved it away.

Warlord Carl: We have brain worms amongst the troops. Everyone, cross-reference the guy to your left and right with the casualty list.

Rend finally caught up and moved to stand next to me. He took in the scene, seemed to shrug, and moved to eat the dead crawler.

“No, Rend,” I said, still out of breath. “We don’t eat our own.”

An ominous message appeared on my local feed.

Fall back. Defend the castle. Defend the castle. Defend to the death.

I clicked over to the local band.

Warlord Carl: Unleash Tina!

31

<Note Added by Crawler Priestly, 14th edition>

In the heat of it... in the absolute, scorching heat of battle, one learns who they really are. What they really want. One faces their greatest fears, yes, but worse, much worse, one oftentimes also faces their greatest desires laid bare. For me, they are the same, and it is my devastation.

Stab, stab, stab.

* * *

Splash Zone, Doctor Bones, and several of the strippers huddled around the entrance to the castle as pulse rifle blasts thumped against our pop-up magical defenses. I couldn’t remember what these shield spells were called, but it was similar to Protective Shell. Instead of a bubble, it came in the form of large, fan-shaped screens. The shields had no time limit, but once cast, they could be hurt with damage, though they were effective against tech-based weapons. We only had one entrance to the castle, not including the now-blown-to-bits air hangar. This was where we were making our stand.

We’d been caught with our pants down. Tipid’s 104th Naughty Little Piggies were in charge of base defense, but they were currently spread to the wind, on assignment in the flat lands around the base in all directions, finishing up the scout towers and manning early-warning defenses several kilometers from here. The plan was to have several thousand defenders around the castle at any given time, but we hadn’t been ready. Now we were paying for it. Especially since our most crucial platoon of home defenders, the Beefy Boys SOF, were half dead. This was the squad which consisted of mages whose sole purpose was to make certain all the wall buffs and base shields were always topped off.

We had defenders racing toward us from all directions, but that did us no good right now. There were only a few hundred of us. I braced myself as a thrown grenade got caught in the One Way shield. The grenade hung in mid-air and detonated just twenty feet in front of our shield. It stopped the grenades, but it did nothing for the pulse blasts.

Literally dozens of buffs flowed over and into us. Every one of us now glistened with multi-hued shields, and the names over everybody’s heads was ridiculously long and ever changing.

But again, the damn pulse guns. They still did their damage. They still burned. Other than the shields right in front of us, all these buffs and protections did was dull the hit. Sort of. Most of these buffs were stat-enhancing. A non-magical blast powerful enough to punch a hole in a tank wasn’t going to be stopped by a 10% buff to dexterity.

“Oh, I simply cannot wait for the real magic to turn back on,” Doctor Bones rumbled. The former DJ of the Penis Parade was back in his skeletal form. “You heathens are dead. All of you!”

“We’re not going to survive long enough for that to happen if you don’t pick up that crossbow,” Splash Zone said as he popped up and fired a shot. The bolt cracked harmlessly against the building across the way: the newly built, mural-covered barracks.

We had three types of enemies in the camp. We had the Madness Monkeywrenchers, who were invisible. We had the Reaver paratroopers who were massing at the bottom of the hill, on the other side of the main barracks building. And mixed in with it all were a handful of our own mages who’d been assassinated and taken over by the gondii brain worms. If any worms were left in the castle, we didn’t know where they were. Rosetta was inside, hunting down any possible compromised soldiers.

And all of this was just the initial attack. They were softening us up for the main force, which was hauling ass toward us from the north.

They’d simply bypassed Florin and the 101st’s fallback position. The enemy had left enough troops to occupy our main forces, but the bulk of them would be on us in about half of an hour.

Carl: Louis, what’s your status?

Louis: We’ve finished the repair from the inside, but we gotta get outside to manually fix the portal, otherwise we’re gonna stay grounded.

Damnit. That wasn’t going to happen any time soon. The “door” to the hangar was literally atop of the castle, and anyone who went up there would be a prime target. I should’ve made Louis fly back to the other base.

“I didn’t know we’d be dealing with Valtay cheese sticks,” Tipid gasped from next to me. The crest had been hit in the shoulder, and the blast had almost taken his arm off. “Those fuckers are dangerous.”

“Splash, fill that channel with water!” I called as Bucket Boy cast Heal on Tipid. I held a banger sphere tightly in my right hand as more blasts peppered the shield around my head.

“There,” Donut called from next to me, peering through the translucent screen. “There by the entrance to the new barracks building! He’s standing right in front of the mural of the piggie face!”

I popped up, aimed, and I hurled the metal ball with the full force of my strength. There was a crack, followed by a blood splatter. His invisibility stuttered, and now his outline was clear. A moment later, and he was peppered with crossbow bolts. The form crumpled to the ground, and his Madness mask fell away, revealing him to actually be a soother mercenary, not a true viceroy.

I dove back under cover as more shots hit the shield, which was holding strong.

Next to me, Mongo squawked in outrage. He wanted to get out there. Rend sat to my left, bouncing up and down in anticipation. He’d been hit twice already by pulse blasts, and all they did was make the level-10 meatball creature fall backward and squeal.

We had anti-magic charms all over base, but apparently the Monkeywrencher’s invisibility was some sort of tech-based cloak, something even the veterans weren’t anticipating. The cloaks were high-quality. Something that existed in the real world, but were considered prohibitively expensive for all but the richest of soldiers. The anti-magic bubbles didn’t detect them. Luckily, Donut could still see them with her glasses. Sort of. She had to use the heat setting, and it took a moment for her to detect them. We had a few other defenders with similar abilities as well, and we were picking them off one-by-one.

It’s not going to matter, I thought miserably. They’re just keeping us occupied. They just need to keep us pinned for a little longer.

Colonel Rosetta: I need backup! I need edifice explosion suppression inside the castle! Fast! They got to Lonnie! Who do we got? I don’t care if it’s not your specialty. To the saferoom exit!

From my left, a bune mage named Huey jumped into the castle, buzzing off on his small wings. Another mage, a human crawler, darted from behind his shield before he was hit with a pulse blast, which sent him spinning. I tossed a drop shield at him, but a second blast finished him off before the shield activated. His body sizzled like bacon in a hot pan before catching on fire.

Goddamnit.

Carl: Rosetta, what’s happening?

Rosetta: You need to find where Lonnie is and kill the worm fucker in his head. He’s not in the castle, but he’s systematically turning off the interior protections, one by one from afar. In any minute, that Reaver door is going to open, and their automatons will flood out and into the castle. Setting up defenses and flamers to stop them now.

Lonnie had been one of the more talented mage veterans. The head of the Beefy Boys, which he’d named as a joke after someone said he had to “Beef up the wall defenses.” The one in charge of shoring up the interior castle walls with spells. He’d been alive just a few minutes ago. They’d targeted him, got into his head, and used him to start turning off the stacked protection spells. If they were deliberately softening up the interior, that meant Rosetta was correct. The next thing that came out of that door in the situational hallway would be a bomb.

I thought of how we created utter chaos in Zockau using an inconvenient doorway. Someone from the Reaver team must have gotten through that bait shop door back when this space was still used by the mantis team.

Another mage, bleeding heavily from his forehead, jumped behind our shield, cast something to send it back up to 100%, and disappeared inside the castle.

I pulled up my map, looking for Lonnie. The former crawler was a half-elf, meaning he’d been from a relatively early season. There. His dot was moving away from a line of X’s in a bunker on the side of the hill. He was now in the mix of purple dots on the far side of the barracks, representing the Reaver paratroopers, who had set up a defensive position inside our own base. These guys weren’t eager to get themselves killed. Instead, they were content to sit there and hold open the door for the main enemy force.

My heart sank as a new realization hit me. Lonnie knew about Justice Light, and our last line of defense.

We had to get to him, and fast.

“How do the brain worms work?” I asked Tipid as I rapidly composed new orders. And where the hell was Tina? I sent a new message off to her handlers. “With the memories, I mean. Do they know everything right away?”

“The gondii worms can move into any dead form and take it over, and that includes learning their memories. But it takes some time to know everything. It takes some time before they know what to look for, and they’ll have big memory gaps for a while.”

I grunted. “We need to focus on the compromised mages. And we need to do it fast, before they figure out how to crack the throne room.”

“I could have told you that,” Donut said as she pointed out another Monkeywrencher to the crossbowmen. “You can smuggle them anywhere, and they can crawl in your ear, kill you, and take you over in just a few seconds. It’s absolutely disgusting, but they’re quite good allies when they’re on your side. You can fit like five of them in your mouth at once.”

Tipid nodded. Despite being healed, he still seemed to be in pain. Bucket Boy’s healing ability wasn’t all that great. “The Valtay charter requires they only take over the brains of people who were willing, but not all gondii live on the correct side of the law. I’ve heard rumors of such outlaw mercenaries. There’s a popular tunnel drama about a crew of them. Called The Maggot Squad. They’re some of the most expensive mercs in the galaxy. At least on the show. The Valtay government hates the show, but it’s really popular.” A blast hit the shield, and we all fell back. A moment later, Splash Zone and Doctor Bones high-fived as they took out another invisible merc.

“Are they good guys or bad guys on the show?” Donut asked. “There... in front of the X over the mantis face! Good shot, Alex!”

“Good guys on the show,” Tipid said. His eyes flashed as he spoke. He, too, was rapidly composing orders. “But there’s this other squad that are also gondii, and they are bad. I never got to see the season finale because I came here.”

“Spoiler alert,” Donut said. “The good guys win. That’s what happens on shows like that.” She suddenly hissed and cast Hole in a seemingly empty spot right in front of us. She cast and snapped the spell off. Half of a Monkeywrencher appeared on the ground. A grenade rolled away as he toppled over. We all ducked as it went off. The blast painted the ground with mercenary guts.

“Awesome, Donut!” I said, patting her on the head. She was absolutely rigid as she scanned for more enemies.

“I’m just glad I finally found a spell I can use,” she said. “On top of the building. Goodness! That one sure is fat for a mercenary.” A moment later, the form tumbled away backward onto the roof.

“That was a Dreadnaught wearing a Viceroy mask,” Splash Zone said as he rapidly reloaded his small-sized crossbow. “I haven’t seen a real Viceroy amongst any of the Monkeywrenchers. You’ll know them when you see them. They look like my mother-in-law before she gets her daily injections.”

“Wait, Splashy, you didn’t tell me you were married!” Donut exclaimed. “What’s your wife’s name?”

“Snail Trail,” he said. He popped up and fired, but he hit nothing. He hissed in frustration. “She works the early shift at Bitches in the Desperado Club. Her mom works with her, but the later shift. Her name is Grandma Sticky. I haven’t had the chance to talk to them since the club reopened.”

“Grandma Sticky?” Donut asked. “Your mother-in-law’s name is Grandma Sticky? And your wife is named Snail Trail?”

“You should see her pole routine. You wouldn’t think a goblin could move like that, but it’s pretty amazing.”

“Wait, are you talking about Snail Trail’s routine or Grandma Sticky’s? And are you telling me you’re married to a...”

“Holy shit, can we focus on the battle please,” I said.

“I am focused, Carl. I’ve never felt more focused on anything in my life.”

Warning: Walls numbered 17, 19, and 33 have lost all their protections.

Dozens of such messages kept appearing and then blinked away. It was like both sides had access to a bank of wall switches for the same lightbulbs, and we were going back and forth, flipping them all on and off. The moment enough of those bulbs turned off at the same time, I knew that door in the saferoom hallway was going to open, and it would be all over. That’s how I would do it.

Frustration overwhelmed me. For each moment that passed, the more the enemy would know about our interior defenses. I growled, looking at the map. “We need to move. We need to get to the compromised mages before they do more damage.” All of the mages were now in the middle of the group of paratroopers at the bottom of the hill. I sent another, angrier message about Tina.

“But if your wife doesn’t have legs, how does she do that?” Donut was asking, having ignored my admonishment. “There, peeking around the left corner!”

Tipid also continued to talk, and it took me a moment to realize he was still talking about the Valtay worms. It was just like Donut and Splash Zone. He was burning off nervous energy, or something. He talked with an almost manic ferocity. “And you really gotta watch out if they don’t care about the body they’re in. Once they’re in, they can take over a body in seconds, reboot it, and animate it long enough to repair whatever damage caused the death in the first place. But if they’re not planning on staying long, they can and do hop from host to host. They can ‘overclock’ the bodies, too. Make them do stuff they couldn’t normally. They’re much more dangerous than the scree, despite what people think.”

“Christ,” I said. “Man, are you feeling okay?”

“It’s a side effect of the Extreme Focus buff,” a new voice said, settling next to me. Imani, but she, too, was talking faster than she normally did. Rend grunted and started pushing against her leg while giggling. “Its effectiveness just doubled when I landed in the castle. Everyone in this zone is given a buff to their dexterity, and it helps with multi-tasking. But when it’s a little too powerful, it makes chatty people, like Donut, extra chatty. It’s like we’ve all been given a dose of speed. It doesn’t seem to be affecting you. Probably because of your Mind Focus, but I’m not sure. You should copy your health screen and send it to me.”

“Imani! Where did you come from?”

A whole mess of crawlers were now coming from the castle, moving to the shields, casting new ones. Dozens of them. Good, I thought. We can move out.

“A group of us made a detour into Shanty Town and used the doggie door. Elle is in the hallway, waiting for the bad guys to come out. Florin and Katia are still with the bulk of the 101st. We gotta push these guys back, and then Louis and his gremlins can come out and repair the bomb bay.”

“All right,” I said. “Donut, how many are left? We gotta...” I paused as I finally received a response to one of my orders.

Kiwi: I’m sorry, Carl. It’s too dangerous. She will stay here, and that’s final. She’s just a child. You just ordered the gnome and the changeling children to stay out of the battle, so why is Tina different?

It was still bizarre to me that scarred, one-eyed, psychotic Kiwi the velociraptor was now a pregnant Ursine. Her personality had completely changed when she’d returned to her bear form. She’d gone from a dangerous, murderous pack leader to a soft-spoken, skittish woman who spent her day cooking food for all the troops.

The woman wasn’t wrong. It was hypocritical of me to use Tina. I’d been deliberately ignoring the issue. I’d ordered Louis to kick Bonnie and Skarn off Party Planner once we’d landed. Even though they were NPCs, they were children. They looked like children. They acted like children. All the kids in our camp had already seen and experienced more than any child should, and it was fucked-up to deliberately use them in battle. It seemed like a step too far.

But Tina was different. Wasn’t she? We needed her. Did that matter? Or did that make it worse? I’d killed hundreds of children by this point. I hadn’t done it on purpose. Children die in war. So why was I hesitating now? My hesitation didn’t even make sense to myself.

“Actually,” Imani said. She was still examining me. “It says the buff is active.” She shrugged. She turned to Tipid. “Oh my goodness, Bucket Boy. You have to check their pain levels after you heal them! I told you this already. If they’re outworlders, they heal differently.”

I ignored this as I thought of my brother. Of Asher. I thought of his mother, hugging him after she’d poisoned our father. I thought of Donut sobbing at the end of the Butcher’s Masquerade.

She’s a child, too.

We’re going to have to do some pretty horrible things just to survive.

I composed a message. Kiwi, she will be fine. We’ve buffed her up. We’ll all die if she doesn’t come out. I hesitated before sending it. And with pulse blasts peppering the shield all around me, with time running out, I sat there and contemplated what it meant to make such an order.

But at that moment, I realized something. Survival had more than one meaning.

No, I thought. It’s Kiwi’s decision. Goddamnit. I erased the message and started to compose a new order. We’d have to push without her. But before I could finish, Donut interrupted me.

Warlord Donut: GET TINA OUT HERE RIGHT NOW. MY GOODNESS, WHAT’S TAKING SO LONG? DON’T MAKE ME SEND MONGO IN THERE TO DRAG HER OUT. DO IT NOW!

And before Kiwi could even answer, someone to my left shouted “duck!” as the giant doors behind us flew open all the way. Tina finally did come out, screeching and roaring with glee and waving her dead-again magic wand.

The effect was immediate. The bolts against our shields had already started to wane as the Monkeywrenchers died or fled back to the other side of the barracks. But now all the blasts focused on the giant dinosaur who, apparently, could also find the invisible enemies. She screamed with joy and chomped on something next to the barracks. Sparks flew as the enemy, who’d been setting up what looked like a heavy gun, literally exploded in her mouth. Tina shook her head as a multiple shield health bars appeared, but then refilled.

“I mean, really,” Donut muttered from my left as another enemy went flying into the air, guts trailing where he’d been ripped in half. “We really need to do something about these people not following our orders right away. We need more team-building exercises. Wait, I have an idea.”

Her headset appeared. She jumped upon Mongo’s back, and together, they leapt up in the air, jumping astonishingly high, landing atop the front of the castle behind us, just above the door. She shouted loud enough for everyone to hear, even the enemies at the bottom of the hill.

“Comrades! There are over 100 bad guys on the other side of that building. They think they can just drop out of the sky and land in our base? Some of them are wormheads who killed our friends. Are we going to let that stand? I don’t think so. We gotta kill them, and we gotta do it fast! Alpha squad card reserves, to the roof! Everyone else with cards, save them for the main force. Let’s show these cheese sticks what the Princess Posse does to trespassers. Tina! Sic ‘em!”

All around me, cheers rose as everyone jumped to their feet and started to shout.

I exchanged a look with Imani, who was staring at Donut open-mouthed.

“Comrades?” Imani asked as I reached up and grabbed Rend. He giggled incoherently.

“She’s been hanging out with Rosetta too much.”

“This warlord thing suits her,” Imani said. She sounded a little sad. I felt it, too.

Tina finally noticed the mass of enemies at the bottom of the hill, who had started to panic fire their weapons at her. One of the shields on her fizzled out. Then another. The giant allosaurus waved her wand indignantly, let out a howl, and she surged down the hill, her pink tutu flapping in the wind.

“For the Posse!” Donut roared, and as one, we charged.

32

We’d deliberately placed the barracks building on the lip of the hill so the enemy wouldn’t have a straight shot at the front door of the castle, but it also blocked our own line-of-sight to the bottom of the hill. Florin had seen this and demanded everyone with a crawler inventory system to have either a Jump scroll or a ladder ready to go in their inventory.

Donut, still astride Mongo, leapt from the castle to the top of the barracks, clearing the distance easily. On the ground, shouting defenders flowed around the colorful barracks building on both sides, but a group of us moved to the roof of the building so we’d have a clear view of the enemy’s position below us. I scaled the building, using my Climb skill, to reach the roof in seconds.

The dead dreadnaught remained up here, his invisibility cloak sparking, causing him to stutter in and out of existence. I scooped up his body and pulled it into my inventory. I took the strange, faceless mask as well.

I rushed across the roof just in time to see Tina angrily stomp into the mass of enemy soldiers. She’d gained momentum as she rushed down the hill, and the crowd of metal-covered mercenaries scrambled from their positions to avoid her charge. They poured fire into her from all sides as she reached down and chomped a soldier, sparks flying.

I skidded to a stop at the edge of the building, dropping Rend, who bounced and ran to my side. Mages on either side of me were casting new shields on Tina. It was a losing fight. They were going to overwhelm her pretty soon unless we got in there. I tossed a hoblobber toward a heavy gun position on the far side of their rapidly-deployed defense, but it got stuck in an anti-grenade, One Way shield, similar to the ones we utilized. It detonated in the air over everyone’s heads. I changed to tossing smoke mantles as I examined the group below us.

Almost all of them were Reavers. Or, at least, mercs who were normally employed by the Reavers. These guys were different than anyone we’d seen before. They had no NPCs amongst them.

They were all heavily armored androids of some sort, and they were terrifying to look at. They seemed out of place here.

My first thought was “space marines.” Though not all of them had human-like heads. I thought of the late, armor-covered Paz when I saw them, but instead of shining, plate armor, this was dinged and dirty, olive-colored armor mixed in with cybernetic enhancements. That, plus these guys were all carrying massive rifles.

I knew the real Reavers were all robot, with just a little bit of biological brain left over hidden somewhere inside their robot shells. And they could shapeshift, sort of. Something about nanobot-sized, individual machines all coming together to make one.

These mercenaries were somewhere between. More robotic than those weird Nebulars, and certainly a lot scarier.

In the moment before Tina chomped him in half, I examined one particularly large soldier with a human-like head.

Gunnery Sergeant X2. Reaver Security Force Cyborg Drop Trooper. Level 53.

First off, I’d like to apologize for these guys being here. Frankly, I’m just as disgusted as you are that we’ve allowed this Spelljammer/Warhammer bullshit to infect our good, old-fashioned dungeon crawl. Some of it’s pretty damn cool, yeah, but what about consistency? You don’t expect Yorbish Gut Parasites to suddenly appear in the middle of a Shakespearean play and lay their eggs in Lady Macbeth’s eyes, and there’s no reason for you crawlers to have to deal with this stuff here. But what are we gonna do? Compromises had to be made. Don’t worry. This is the last floor we’ll let it get this far. I’ve already informed the Valtay I’ve rejected their updated plans for the 11th floor.

Also, just FYI. These guys are all wearing the “light” version of their armor. If I’d allowed them all to come in here with their heavy duty, Cronus-class power armor, they’d already be putting those collectible, heart-covered boxers on clearance in all waystation gift shops across the galaxy.

Anyway, to understand why a perfectly normal person would want to slowly turn himself into a robot whose sole purpose is to invade planetary colonies, shoot innocent civilians, and spend all day believing he’s a fascist-fighting patriot of industrial capitalism, you have to first understand where these guys come from. Blah, blah, blah, tough childhood in the pollution-choked shadow of the behemoth, Reaver moons where most of the physical goods in the galaxy are manufactured. Blah, blah, drugs, street gangs, 80% taxes, boo-hoo, my mommy is a hooker, no way out, etc. You know the story.

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. That’s a common theme amongst these misguided souls. Not all of them were bloodthirsty nutjobs when they stepped into the recruiter’s office. Most were just hungry and without hope or direction.

That’s not to say you should feel sorry for them. Not these guys, as these are all members of Warlord Fang’s personal defense deployment.

Rule of thumb. If they have more than two or three cybernetics installed, you know they’ve voluntarily re-upped at least once. You only get one free upgrade a deployment. Or more, if something on your body gets shot off.

Gunny here was once known as Mr. Illos Klondike. His name changes each time he’s deployed. At this moment, seconds before his 400-cycle journey to gain Reaver citizenship comes to a permanent and abrupt end at the jaws of a pissed-off, confused child soldier, he is known as X2. He has 23 enhancements to his body.

And since this is the first time you’ve bothered to examine someone from the Reaver system, we might as well add a bit of context to all of this.

If you’re not a vat-born progeny of the Initial, gaining Reaver citizenship, which comes with profit-sharing and a whole lot of additional financial benefits, is an epic pain in the ass. First of all, you have to lose your biological form to get your foot in the door. That first “upgrade” is free. Anything else, there’s only two ways to do it.

One, you can pay for all the upgrades yourself. That’s usually a non-starter because the only companies smart enough to hire a moron who allowed the Reavers to cut off a perfectly good hand and replace it with a grasping claw that needs thousands of credits a cycle in upkeep are the space equivalent of a Wendy’s or the interstellar carwash. Nothing wrong with such jobs, of course, but they ain’t paying enough to fund additional cybernetic upgrades, that’s for sure.

So, the second way to do it is to work for the Reavers. For free. They’ll feed you, house you, and you get all the healthcare you want. That plus one more upgrade in exchange for a three-cycle deployment worth of work.

The work ain’t easy. These guys get thrown feet-first into the fire. They’re dropped onto land leases to evict the current settlers so the Reavers can expand their factories. People, like they always do, fight back of course. Such is the way of the universe.

All of that is to say these guys have been fighting a lot longer than you have. This isn’t their home turf, and they’re not used to Option-three enhancement-zone fighting techniques.

But they should not be underestimated.

I shook my head, and I stopped myself from uttering a complaint about the extra-long description. The last thing I needed was the AI throwing another temper tantrum right now.

X2 the mercenary disappeared in a mist of sparks and blood.

The robots—cyborgs—had formed a semi-circle defense, including shields with several heavy guns. While most were focusing their fire on the rampaging dinosaur, others were finally noticing that Tina’s charge was followed by a wave of defenders. And a second wave was descending from the other side of the building as well. They started lobbing smoke bombs of their own, and in moments, the battlefield was once again a mess of smoky chaos. I itched to jump down there—and I would in a minute—but we’d agreed ahead of time in situations like this I needed to remain where I could keep an eye on the battle as a whole. More of the fan-shaped shields started popping up in front of me as I tried to see what the hell was going on. From the corner of my eye, I noticed Victory had appeared, standing on the far corner of the building, quietly observing. A moment later, and she was joined by a second adjutant I didn’t recognize. This was a strange, antlered alien type I’d never seen before.

Warlord Carl: Find the compromised mages, and kill them. Get the worms! Don’t let them get away!

“Alpha cards, deploy!” Donut shouted from my right. She looked at me. “Should I send him out?”

“Save him for the main force. How many card carriers do we have in camp right now?”

“A lot now that Imani brought all those crawlers back. I do wish I could use Fireball right about now. Or Minion Army.”

“Save the other auxiliary card carriers. And make sure we have someone looting our fallen crawlers!”

She nodded. All I could see was Tina’s head popping up from the smoke, and her shield going up and down, just like the wall protections of the castle behind us. For a moment, three Tinas appeared, someone having cast an illusion, but it was immediately dispelled.

Several of the soldiers around us swept their 8th-floor cards out into air, and all manner of monsters appeared, including a minotaur; a griffin thing; a terrifying, owl-faced, robed figure with claws. There was a glowing god-like thing riding a giant peacock. There was what I thought was another form of Jesus, but he was just named 1970’s Death Cult leader. That one started loudly complaining his spells weren’t working the moment he was summoned, and the crawler who summoned him started yelling back, as if they’d been in mid-argument the last time he’d been summoned. His voice was similar to Uzi Jesus’s voice as well. All the rest jumped from the building and into the battle below.

“Carl, watch out! Invisible, behind you!”

I turned, punching as I swirled. I felt my bare fist smack right into the armored chest of something. The creature remained invisible, but let out an “Oof.” A glowing dagger spun away as the heavy form fell back.

He was sneaking up on me. Ready to stab me in the back.

I punched again, and an outline appeared, stuttering, revealing this to be another Dreadnaught, clutching at his chest, as if he was surprised at how strong my punch was. I punched again, and with my left hand, I ripped at the mask, and it went flying, spinning away like a frisbee. Before I realized it, he was falling backward, me on top of him, me punching again and again into his face. We hit the roof heavily, me top of him, and I continued to punch. I punched over and over until he didn’t have a face anymore.

“Holy gods,” someone muttered, looking down at the carnage. It was the Death Cult Leader guy. “That’s really nasty.”

The Scavenger’s Daughter has been fed. Unleash her wrath.

“Donut, do you see any more? Look carefully,” I called, breathing heavily. Behind me, the battle below continued to rage.

“No!”

I turned my attention back to fight in front of us. But I could feel the eyes of everyone on me.

“Jamal is here!” a voice shouted, somehow rising out of the chaos, finally pulling the attention away from me. The hammerhead shark appeared as he first rolled, then tumbled, down the hill. He didn’t have any of his spider legs installed. He was still waiting for Katia to get a chance to build them, but he rolled down the hill all the same, shouting and flopping. He disappeared into the chaos, only to appear a moment later, rising out of the smoke like he’d somehow managed to jump without legs, a squirming mercenary in his mouth, before disappearing again.

My trap sense suddenly tingled, and multiple lights appeared, glaring through the smoke from the far, right corner of the chaos. Thanks to my advanced Find Trap skill, info boxes started popping up one after another. Someone was arming a ton of automatons, all with equipped satchel explosives with a proximity trigger trip.

I checked my map, making sure this wasn’t one of our guys. It wasn’t. That half of the battlefield was all purple dots along with a few of the reanimated mages.

I scoffed.

You motherfuckers might be experienced. You might be battle-hardened, I thought. But you’re in my playground now.

Warlord Carl: Fire in the hole! Everybody brace!

I cast Tripper.

The explosion, when it came, was bigger than I was expecting. One moment, my map was a convoluted mess. And then we were all knocked off our feet. Everyone but me and a few others with Steady buffs. Still, it felt as if I’d been kicked in the chest by a horse. I took a blast of heat damage, but not much. Donut howled as Mongo stumbled back. Rend blew across the roof like he’d been punted, disappearing back behind me and over the far edge. The building itself, which was still heavily protected from blasts, shuddered, and for a moment, I feared it would collapse.

I, like always, was temporarily deafened. My ear drums were blown out, and even though I didn’t want to admit it to myself, I was getting used to the feeling. There was something comforting about that specific kind of pain.

The smoke that covered the battlefield seemed to get sucked into the explosion, and in the moments after, everything suddenly in view, it seemed the world was paused. A still life of a battle’s aftermath.

But then, movement. All of the cyborgs, every last one of them, were on the ground, overwhelmed and struggling. The entire area where the automatons had been gathered was nothing but a crater, and all the cyborgs in that area were just gone. A sizzling, metallic torso landed heavily on the roof behind me. I couldn’t hear it, but I could feel it. Most of the veterans were also on their backs, though, miraculously, my feed said none had died in the blast. Tina was on her back, health in the red, all her shields gone. I could see she was crying out, but I couldn’t hear. I imagined she was crying for her mother.

But the current crawlers, along with a few of our NPCs, like Doctor Bones and Splash Zone and Bomo and Sledge, were the first to get themselves to their feet.

And in a situation like this, he who recovers fastest, wins.

They moved to finish off the defenders. Our men and women crawled over the remaining cyborgs like an army of ants. In moments, it was done.

Warlord Donut: Get the mages! Watch for the worms coming out of their heads!

The death cult leader guy totem stood next to me. He hadn’t entered the battle at all, nor had he been affected by the blast. The crawler who summoned him was sitting on the roof, holding his head.

My ears rang as they healed, the sound slowly coming back like I was coming up out of water.

The totem stood there with his hands on his hips, looking at the carnage. He said something to me.

“What?” I asked.

The long-haired man grinned. “I said I could really use a nice, refreshing drink right about now. Want to join me?”

At the same moment, Donut messaged in the war chat.

Warlord Donut: Stop that mage! He’s fleeing! That’s the last one!

I looked, frantically. There. Lonnie the mage. He was running. Up the hill, back toward the castle, moving supernaturally fast. I wasn’t sure what his plan was, or if he had a plan at all, but the fact the dead mage was still moving meant he still had a worm in his head.

I activated the Daughter’s Kiss skill, and I jumped off the second story, landing right atop the fleeing mage.

* * *

Rosetta: That was all of them. The door disappeared. But that doesn’t mean they can’t use the doggie door again. We’re going to have to separate the safe room from the castle and keep up a permanent guard. Or we need to just kill the entrance all together. That might be more safe.

Carl: I was thinking the same thing, but we need to talk about it because I don’t want to lose easy access to Mordecai and the saferoom. Since they can only bring a limited number of NPCs into their own safe room, they can’t do a full-scale invasion through that door. But we do need to isolate it for certain. We need to get on that now while we decide what to do. None of that is going to matter if we don’t beat these assholes back. But for the next few minutes, focus on helping Louis to open the roof.

We were cleaning up after the attack, resetting our defenses and looting the bad guys before the main force would be on us in ten or fifteen minutes. They probably wouldn’t march right into us now that their beachhead was closed off, but we had to be ready. We had more defenders appearing by the moment, including Boomer’s 106th Bloody Leeches along with the scattered 104th members of the Naughty Little Piggies who’d come running the moment we were attacked.

In addition, the 105th Scream Warriors were harassing the backside of the enemy approach while helping to break Florin’s 101st from the stalemate that had kept him buttoned up in the fallback trenches.

The enemy’s attempt to soften us up and give themselves a funnel into our base hadn’t been successful, but it had left us bloody and limping.

This next fight was going to be a rough one. They had their armor with them. They had their numbers. It would be the first time I would be facing orcs in battle.

Florin said he was pretty sure Prince Stalwart of the Skull Empire was with them, leading the charge.

I looked over at Donut, who was still on the roof of the barracks behind me, talking with Victory. The other adjutant was gone.

In some ways, I wished we didn’t have these pauses between fights. These ups and downs felt too jarring. I didn’t like having to think about what was going to happen next. I just wanted it to happen.

Samantha appeared, floating into the camp and coming to hover next to me as I helped set up another anti-air gun. She was completely covered with leaves and dirt. She spit, expelling dust and dirt from her mouth. She appeared as if she’d been rolling along and then had flown in the rest of the way.

“Louis accidentally dropped me out of his airplane,” she said. Behind us, Tina had recovered and was chomping on one of the dead androids, grunting angrily and spitting out the metal bits. The sound was like that of soda cans being flattened. At her feet, Rend and Mongo were doing the same, digging out the meat from the androids like they were at a crab bake.

Kiwi was there, hands on her hips, yelling up at Tina to come inside. Tina was ignoring her.

Samantha looked around camp. “Did you guys have another party without telling me?”

I grunted. “That was just the preview. The big fight is about to begin.”

33

“I agree. You need to destroy the bait shop,” Mordecai said. “And you need to do it now. They can just drop a nuke through that door and be done with it. They needed the mages taken out first for it to be effective, but now that plan has failed, they might try it anyway. The walls will be okay, but everyone inside the castle will be turned into mince. The fact they haven’t done it yet is probably because that orc out there wants to take you on himself. Best to close off the door now while we still can.”

We’d jumped into the guild to grab supplies and discuss the saferoom issue. The enemy’s northern army was here, massing about a half kilometer from the edge of camp, close enough that we could see them all. There were so many of them, they filled the horizon. Orcs. Slimes. More Reavers. Mounted elves on zebras. Large, lanky creatures called basher trolls. Lots of gnolls.

And then there was the orc prince. He’d come in riding some giant creature that looked like a cross between a hippopotamus and a yak. He was decked out in glittering, opalescent armor covered with feathers. He marched in, surrounded by his honor guard, a group of heavily-armored and equally decked-out orcs. These guys weren’t carrying guns, but long polearms with crescent, moon-shaped blades at the end.

The orcs all wore flags on their backs like they were feudal Japanese warriors. The flags were black, vertical rectangles with a shimmering, silver orc skull in the center. It made it easy to distinguish the orc troopers from the others. The Bone Clan of the Skull Empire seemed to favor larger-sized mercenaries. There were quite a few of the Sai rhino guards in their midst, along with several of the Bactrian and Dromedarian camels, all armed with shoulder-mounted missiles. They also had a platoon of the tall basher trolls. Explosive experts, I knew. We’d have to watch those guys.

And while the orc team looked powerful, there weren’t that many of them compared to the others. There was only a thousand of them or so, at least as far as we could see, just a fraction of the Bone Clan’s strength. It appeared all of the Operatics were also out there, along with a healthy mix of everyone else. It was no wonder Florin had been forced to fall back. It was so many enemies, I couldn’t count. Tens of thousands. Significantly more than we had here with us, even with the backups all arriving by the moment.

“Well, we’re absolutely fucked, aren’t we?” Tipid had said from my side as we first gazed upon the group that gathered before us. The virtual sun was finally rising, causing the giant army to glint like a blade.

I grunted. “You know, you coming here was supposed to instill us with hope.”

The older, bald man grinned back at me and shrugged. “We just didn’t want you to be lonely, mate.”

Donut was examining the orc prince via her new Targeting skill which had just been added to her crown. She let out a surprised yelp.

“Carl, Carl, that’s not Prince Stalwart!”

“What?” I asked, reexamining the large orc from afar. He was bigger than I first thought, wasn’t he? “You’re not telling me that’s the Maestro? I thought because he’s driving Grull, he can’t play faction wars.”

“He can’t,” a new voice said, stepping forward. Baroness Victory, peering off into the distance. “Well I’ll be fucked raw with a Soother sausage. That’s him all right. He must’ve come up from the 18th floor at the last minute. I wonder if he brought all his concubines with him?”

“Wait,” I said. “The king? That’s King Rust, Stalwart and Maestro’s dad? Are you shitting me?”

“He looks more like the Maestro than Stalwart,” Donut said. “Like a giant baby pictured through a Jersey Shore filter. And then turned into an orc. He’s all scowling and gross like he’s being forced to wear such ridiculous clothing. He’s covered in feathers, and he has big, gaudy rings on all his fingers. Where does he get off dressing like that?”

“That’s traditional orc battle parade regalia,” Tipid said.

“It doesn’t say he’s a co-warlord,” Donut said. “Just a war chief. Does that mean Prince Stalwart is still the warlord? That’s what it says in the interface.”

“Hmm,” Victory said. “His appearance was probably a very last-minute decision. It’s news to me. Rust hasn’t participated in Faction Wars in quite a long time.” She sounded taken aback, almost offended that she hadn’t known her brother-in-law was here. “Not since he was a prince himself. I wonder if he’s sober.”

Donut made a derisive noise. “Well, he looks like he stumbled drunk into the closet of a colorblind drag clown. Though I do like that boa. I wonder if it’s magical. I could use a boa, though I wouldn’t want Tina to get jealous. That’s kinda her thing.”

“Do you have his stats yet?” I asked.

“Hold your panties, Carl. The Size-Up takes a minute. And that creature he’s riding is absolutely disgusting. Her name is Gonk. What kind of name is that? I bet she smells like the feed bowl at an illegal petting zoo. She’s something called a Swamp Yak. Okay. I got it. He’s level 78. His main weapon is a whip! My goodness, he knows a lot of spells. Like dozens and dozens. Most are level one but some are from level 11 to 15. How did he manage that? None of them look useful right now except all those shield spells. He has that same Protective Shell as you, but it’s level 15! And Tripper. And Puddle Jumper! What a copydog.”

“Don’t anybody tell Rosetta he’s here yet,” Tipid said. “I’ll tell her.” He paused, a strange look of worry on his face. “She has some history with him.”

“If he just got here when we did, how did he level so fast?” I asked.

“That’s easy,” Tipid said. “He likely has a ring of Divine Suffering for the stats—and the levels that come with charging the ring—and a necklace of Indelible Woe for the spells.”

“Indelible Woe?” I asked. “Is that like the tattoo thing Rosetta is trying to make us do?”

“Similar. Indelible Woe is in the same collection as the Divine Suffering ring, It trades out a random spell of your own for a spell of a target’s. If you kill the target, it’ll be one of their five highest-level spells. Like the Divine Suffering ring, it only works on crawlers. And people like me. It’s not all that useful unless you’re a complete psychopath with a bunch of spells you can afford to lose. The necklace was popular a long time ago, but they all agreed to stop using it because combatants were farming crawlers to power it up, and it was a little... messy.”

I felt my anger rise, and I pushed it back. “And the Divine Suffering ring is any better?”

He shook his head. “It’s a long story. But trust me, the necklace is worse. Much worse. Anyway. Rosetta’s tattoos will help you share skills and spells without actually killing anyone. It just needs to brew for a little longer.”

I sighed. We didn’t have longer. The army across the way was in the process of digging in and setting up their siege weapons. A secondary force, also from the north, consisting of their slow-moving armor equipment, was pushing their way in. They were currently delayed, engaged with Florin and the 101st Crocodiles. The 105th had also engaged but had to fall back after sustaining heavy losses. Last I heard, Florin had personally led a charge that took out one of their tanks, causing a traffic jam. The enemy had been forced to reroute into a minefield and lost two more vehicles along the way.

This enemy force in front of us now could attack at any moment, but most everyone suspected they would wait until their position was properly built and the armor arrived. We already had some trebuchets of our own dropping rocks on them, but their shields were keeping them mostly at bay.

Now, here in the guildhall common area, it was me, Donut, Louis, Rosetta, Tipid, Justice Light, Imani, Elle, and a handful of mercenaries. Tran was still on the southern front, and Colonel Boomer was outside, organizing the defense. Katia and Bautista were with Florin. Li Jun and Li Na remained in Shanty Town.

Victory was also in the room, silently observing.

Bomo and Sledge along with a few strippers were in the process of moving boxes of supplies from the various crafting rooms and out the door and into the castle while we still had the ability.

Donut sat on the counter with the guildhall Bopca, animatedly going back and forth about purchasable base upgrades. Rosetta was with her, but she had a look on her face that suggested she was about to throttle the cat. Tipid had told her about King Rust’s presence, but she hadn’t shown any outward reaction at all. She’d called Donut over and insisted we spend the last of our pooled money to defend the base.

I started moving in that direction to stop any fights before they started. I didn’t know what the argument was about, but I knew Rosetta had a short fuse, and she was probably internally dealing with a bunch of shit. Donut had that determined, smug look on her face that meant she was going to get her way, and if she didn’t, she wouldn’t shut up about it.

“What about the hangar?” Louis asked. “We just fixed it. If we close off the saferoom, won’t we lose access to it here at the castle?”

“Yeah, what about the hangar?” Samantha added. She was on the floor by Louis, wetly and loudly gnawing on his ankle, and he’d given up kicking her away.

“We can buy a standalone hangar access point and attach it to the castle,” Rosetta said, looking up from the terminal.

“Only five million gold,” Donut added. She did not sound thrilled about it. “And I can’t believe they’re making us pay for another anti-air gun after the last one blew up. We should be allowed to charge the other guys for damaging our base. Five million for that one, too!”

“This is a new gun, not a replacement,” Rosetta said.

Donut let out a harumph.

I found myself watching Donut and her reactions. She was undergoing several changes, and I was worried about her. She seemed to be simultaneously maturing and regressing at the same time, and I wasn’t sure I understood why. It was like she was rising to the occasion when it mattered, and she was letting it all out once the immediate danger passed. Outside, she was Warlord Donut. Serious. Well, serious for her. Determined. Flexible. But one on one, her stubbornness was growing. Her snippiness was ratcheted even higher than usual. If we survived these next few hours, I‘d have to sit down with her and talk about it.

We were having her buy a third, mobile anti-air gun since several of the spider guns were wrecked, and we had an armor slot available. This particular one could be turned 90 degrees and used to mow down the bad guys on the ground as well. She turned back to the bopca. “Now, about those banners. Do you think you can make that work? It has them on the menu, but how long before they’re printed? We need them now. And I need them to be wavy.”

“I can’t control the wind, Princess,” the bopca said.

“Donut,” Rosetta said. “Please. I can only be in the saferoom for a few more minutes before I am kicked out. We do not have time...”

“Carl says we need to make him angry and have him attack before his backup arrives, and this will most definitely accomplish that. Now, I don’t wish to pull rank, but I am the general, and you are the colonel. While I wasn’t in the Navy like Carl, I do know that means I am your boss and if I say it’s final, it’s final.”

“Donut,” I said. “Don’t be mean to the people who came to help us.”

“Don’t worry, Donut,” Elle said. “If you want your banner to wave in the wind, I can make that happen.”

“Thank you, Elle,” Donut said.

Behind us, a group of sluggalos complained loudly as they were ushered outside by some of the were castors. The majority of these guys were out in the field with the 101st and the 105th, but we had a small reserve group in the guildhall barracks, which they’d turned into some sort of slug clubhouse. Imani went in there earlier and immediately noped out. She said she didn’t want to talk about it.

Justice Light also had some of the bigger slugs on his team. In fact, he’d inquired about having himself infected with slugpox so he could make more, but Rosetta told us not to allow it. That we had to be careful with his requests because the skyfowl had a tendency to hyperfixate on his projects, and he’d end up killing himself in the process. So instead, we allowed him to pick a few of the higher-level slugs to accompany him. I didn’t know how any of those raving idiots would be of help, and I was kind of afraid to ask, but apparently the slugs were right at home in the tunnels beneath the castle. And they all loved Justice Light. The slugs had started calling him something really weird, and I wasn’t sure if I understood what it was. It sounded something like “Specialist Feathertrix.”

I hadn’t spent too much time speaking to Justice Light about things other than traps, but I knew both Tipid and Rosetta were especially protective of the author of the 8th edition of the cookbook. He’d had a tough time in the dungeon, and I’d read quite a bit about his thoughts after he’d killed an NPC. It had a major impact on him. But on top of all that, something especially horrific had happened to him during his indentureship as a shopkeeper, and it had changed him even further. It was during this incident when he’d lost his wing. I didn’t know the story, but I did know it had turned the somewhat morose but proud skyfowl into a quiet, strange, obsessive-compulsive creature. He had a few strange ticks, always moving his head, back and forth, like he was hearing things that weren’t really there. He muttered to himself a lot.

I turned my attention back to the problem at hand. I knew Mordecai and the others were right, but I hated the idea of losing a saferoom entrance. “There’s gotta be something we can do. Losing access will make the closest saferoom one of the ones in Shanty Town. There are a few out in the forested region, including the one at the Area 52 base, but that’s it. It’ll make it so it’s a half hour ride to get to base if we’re using a tracked vehicle. It’ll make everything more difficult.” I indicated the squat skyfowl standing quietly in the corner, muttering to himself. “Justice Light will lose access to my sapper’s table and the bomber’s studio. Rosetta will lose easy access to the alchemy table and Mordecai.”

“It’s okay,” the eagle said, inclining his head at me. His eyes rolled to meet mine, and I could feel his strange intensity. He stretched out his lone wing, like he was crackling a knuckle. “I already have everything I need.”

“Are you sure? You’re at my table a lot.”

“It’s safer and faster to use your table, but there’s nothing left I can’t do on my own.”

“We can collapse the front of the shack,” Tipid said. “That’ll turn it off, but we could still repair it and bring it back online in an emergency.”

“You’d have to guard it,” Mordecai said. “If it’s repairable, an enemy can splash a Fix potion on it, and we’re back to the beginning. There’s also Emergency Repair scrolls, too.”

“Wait, Fix?” Donut asked. “Are you telling me there’s a potion that fixes stuff? Then why did I have to buy more gun thingies!”

“Because the ingredients for the potion are rare and more expensive than most anything you’re trying to fix. I’m making one of the potions now, but it’s only to be used in an emergency. The scrolls are rare, too.”

“Let’s do that,” I said. “That way we can keep the structure inside the castle, but we’ll keep a heavy guard on it all times. If we’ve gotten to the point where they’re able to fix it from this side, we’re already screwed. That reminds me, we took out all the gondii worms, but we don’t know if any of them learned any of our secrets or not.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Justice Light said. “I have contingencies heaped upon contingencies. Have faith in the process. Danger lives in what they can’t see.”

“Okay,” I said. “Hopefully we’ll never have to find out.”

Donut: ARE WE SURE WE TRUST THIS GUY? HE’S OBVIOUSLY UNSTABLE.

Carl: I trust him with my life.

Donut: OKAY. BUT YOU’RE TRUSTING HIM WITH MORE THAN THAT. IT’S WITH ALL OF OUR LIVES.

Carl: Hopefully it won’t get to that point.

Donut: AFTER ALL THIS BUILD-UP?

“I’m out of time,” Rosetta said, and she got up to leave the guild. She would need to get out there and kill someone if she wanted her blood bar refilled. I knew several crawlers were having this issue. Justice Light, who’d already risen to level 65, did not have to ever worry about it. He was getting partial experience and credit for almost all the traps out there.

Tipid had refilled his bar during that last fight. But I knew the few former crawlers we let into the guild that worked as support staff for the base were struggling. Luckily, the blood bar didn’t affect the dungeon-born mercs.

“Hey,” I called after Rosetta. “Get ready to close off the safe space. But send out a five-minute warning to everybody so they can grab stuff if they need it. And wait until we’re out, too. Donut, buy the hangar upgrade.”

Donut started to grumble. “We’re almost out of money, Carl.” She then gasped with delight as the bopca emerged from the back of his little area dragging several rolled up banners.

Colonel Boomer: Whatever you guys are jawing about, you best finish it up and get out here. King Rust is approaching by himself. I think he wants to talk.

Victory spoke at the same time. The orc’s eyes were flashing. “Rust is approaching. He’s asking for an official, registered parlay.”

“Is that supposed to mean something?” I asked.

“You’ll both be protected from subterfuge and sneak attacks while you talk. You’ll be in protected bubbles as you go back and forth. No chat will be available during the meeting. You can’t attack him, and he can’t attack you. Don’t worry how it works. We’re the ones who cast the spell.”

“Great,” I muttered.

Warlord Donut: IS HE MOUNTED ON THE YAK THING?

Colonel Boomer: Yes. He looks like quite the butterfly up there. It makes me want to punch him in the face.

Warlord Donut: KIBBEN, WE NEED YOU. FAST. GET THE HOWDAH READY.

34

Kibben, the grizzled, former stablemaster of the high elf castle grunted one last time as Donut positioned herself into the howdah—the ridiculously ornate, covered carriage thing mounted to the back of Simoom, the albino rhinoceros. Both the howdah and the rhino were actually owned by Ferdinand. He’d been riding the thing when we first met him on the sixth floor. He wanted the rhinoceros back, but since his castle was still underwater, we were keeping her in our own castle for now. She was stabled in the same room where Tina lived. Apparently, Tina and the rhino hadn’t gotten along at first, and Kibben had to work especially hard to keep them from mauling each other. But now, Tina seemed to treat the rhino like a pet. According to Kibben, the two were inseparable.

To me, Simoom the rhino seemed especially chill. She would have to be to put up with Ferdinand. According to Kibben, she was as gentle of a mount as they came. Like an old horse they used for first-time riders. Unlike most every other thing in the dungeon, she seemed like a genuine animal. No hints of extra intelligence like Mongo had.

And speaking of Mongo. He sat there, grunting and whining with displeasure at the sight of Donut climbing onto a different mount.

“Now, Mongo, you’ll be staying here while mommy goes out there riding this thing. No, quit whining. This is just so we have a mount the same size as the bad guy. It’s only for show. Pretend like mommy is acting in a movie and pretending someone else is her child. Goodness, Rend, why are you whining now, too? It’s only temporary. It doesn’t mean anything. Carl, tell your meatball to stop upsetting Mongo.”

I chinned at Rend and Mongo. “Kibben, will you keep these two occupied while we're out there?"

“At your service,” the old high elf said, patting Rend on the head. “I got a bit of experience with belly achers.” He pulled some sort of treat out of his pocket, tossed it in the air, and it bounced off the top of Rend’s head. He giggled and went chasing after it.

I watched the round pet scurry off. “What’s the difference between a tummy acher and a belly acher?”

“No real difference,” he said. “They tend to call ‘em bellies when they get extra big, but it’s not written down anywhere or anything like that. I remember this fellow from his last incarnation, and even though he was on his first run, he was still pretty big. He’s a special one.” Rend returned, chewing the treat. Kibben patted him again, and Rend let out a purring noise.

“Come on, Donut,” I said. “Everybody is waiting.”

“You, rhinoceros,” Donut said. “Go. Go now.”

Simoom snorted and waved her tail. She did not move. Her white, armored shell pieces made an almost ceramic-like sound as they scraped together.

“Carl, it’s not working. Why is she just standing there?”

Kibben chuckled. “Just push the horn forward if you want to go forward. Pull back to stop. It’s easy. If she gets spooked, she might get to trotting. Just pat her behind to get her to stop.”

“I will most certainly not be smacking the behind of this thing like some common racetrack jockey.”

“Not a smack. That’ll make her run faster. A gentle rub.”

“What? I’m supposed to stop the rampaging rhinoceros by giving it a butt massage?”

“Donut,” I said, frustration rising. “This was your idea.”

Donut did as she was instructed, and Simoom started clomping forward. “Goodness. This is just like one of Carl’s video games. Does she go faster? It’s like I moved from a Maserati to a dump truck.” She made a face. “She smells like a dump truck, too.”

“Come on, Princess,” I said, lowering the curtains on her howdah as we moved out of the castle to face the enemy army.

* * *

My head was a swivel as we slowly marched down the hill, still smoldering from our earlier fight. We clomped past all of our positions. We had multiple, fortified bunkers set up. They were made of some sort of composite concrete, different than the castle itself. Almost impenetrable. Most of the guns we looted were user locked, meaning we couldn’t use them without wasting one of our precious Cracker Jack scrolls. But the bigger guns had no such restrictions. We had them set up in the bunkers.

We also had the earthworks teams under our feet. While we hadn’t been prepared for the paratroopers or the attack from within our own base, the enemy right now was camping exactly where we’d anticipated. All around me, the posse was giving off an air of quiet determination, like we were waiting for them to make the first move. But in fact, all around me, everyone was working furiously.

I still wasn’t confident it would be enough. There were a lot of them out there. I just needed to delay as long as possible.

Donut was loudly complaining she could barely see through the fabric curtain.

Warlord update: Two Pieces of Armor, both owned by the Operatic Collective have been captured and added to your inventory. Captured inventory does not count against your limit.

Carl: Good job, Florin!

We only had a single road leading out to the empty space between our position and the enemy’s. We had Tripper-resistant traps on the fields on either side of us. But King Rust had a level 15 in the Tripper spell, and that gave each trap a 90% chance to blow anyway if he cast it.

Florin: Good news, bad news, Mate. We stopped the armor in its tracks. As you just saw, we even managed to capture two of their rolling boom boxes. As long as they got infantry support, they’re bloody ripper machines. Look like those British Mark V’s from the first world war, but with a top turret and a single anti-air tube, which was surprising to me. They’re called Weepers. Warning Louis to steer clear of these things now. Super high tech on the inside. That’s the good news. The bad is, them guys you’re looking at most certainly know they lost the whole regiment and aren’t gonna want to wait to get sandwiched between you and the 101st. So they’re probably gonna make their move soon.

Carl: 10-4. I’m about to have a conversation with King Rust. Don’t know where the rest of the orcs are hiding.

Florin: Try to keep him talking as long as you can. We’re rolling out now. I have Katia and Bautista with what’s left of the 105th flanking your position so we can keep the west opened up. At the very least, they can keep open a corridor of retreat into Shanty Town if you get overrun. You be careful of those cunts, especially the ones with the banners. They are beasts. Keep your head down, and I’ll see you soon.

Carl: You too. Oh, and Florin?

Florin: Yeah, mate?

Carl: Are we having fun yet?

Florin: You just keep that castle safe, and I’ll give you my answer when we’re face-to-face.

King Rust stood by himself, mounted upon his swamp yak. The mount was much bigger than I originally thought. So was King Rust. He had the wide frame of his younger son, the Maestro. His glittering, feather-covered armor made him appear even bigger, like a colorful tidal wave, crashing upon the back of the hairy creature.

Still, the large orc seemed slumped over in the saddle. Tired. Old. Almost like he was injured and about to fall off.

A new form appeared, zapping into existence as we approached. The orcish adjutant. We hadn’t met this one yet. A grixist. The same type of creature as Huanxin Jinx, but taller and thinner. The six-eyed alien said something to Rust, and he gave an angry retort.

“Let me do the talking until it all breaks down,” I said.

“Are we still trying to entice him to attack early?” Donut’s voice sounded nervous as came it from the interior of the howdah. “The whole plan was to annoy him and upstage him so he’s embarrassed in front of his troops. I wouldn’t have ridden this disgusting thing if I knew we were going to change our plans.”

“He’s going to attack us no matter what we do,” I said. “But we need to buy time first. So I talk first, and then you. We want him as red-hot angry as we can make him. Angry people make mistakes.”

Donut muttered something under her breath I couldn’t hear.

I took a peek at the warlord chat. We had dozens of messages coming in by the second as everyone continued to prepare the fight. The former Prism castle, which I’d left in the hands of a Dream mercenary, changed hands for the third time, which reset the six-hour clock. This time back to the Dream, as if the Madness and the Dream were fighting over who had the rights to the sliver of land. But as long as the kept going back and forth, the castle remained Posse territory.

I pushed that out of my head as we pushed forward.

General Tipid: Has anyone seen...

The message was cut off as a blue bubble formed around us. Victory appeared, walking alongside us like she’d been there the whole time.

“The parlay shield is up. Both you and Rust have independent shields, and once they touch, you’ll be able to talk. The shields will move with you two, so both of you stay close to each other. You will not be able to do physical or magical harm to each other. Saferoom rules apply inside of the bubble. Once you’ve concluded, the shields will disengage when you’re approximately 100 meters from each other.”

“Who’s that adjutant?” I asked.

“His Honorable Judge Deng Bao,” she said. “He’s an old, experienced adjutant. He’s always the adjutant for the previous year’s victor.”

I peered at the creature. There was something particularly unsettling about this type of alien. “Is he related to Huanxin Jinx?”

Huanxin was the heiress who was currently on the 12th floor, driving the goddess Eileithyia. The same goddess Katia worshipped. The same goddess who would choose Katia’s fate when she finally ate that orchid in her inventory. Currently, she was our only hope at getting both Donut and Katia off this damn floor.

Victory chuckled. “He’s a judge. He is impartial. He’s very good at his job, so his relations do not matter. But, no. He is not related to Huanxin. She does not have any living relatives as far as I’m aware other than her child clone. When he’s not doing this, Judge Deng sits on one of the highest courts in the galaxy.”

“So, he’s a lawyer, like you?”

“Yes. Not all judges were once lawyers, unfortunately. But I was, and so was he. He is older than me, but we went to the same school. He was a professor by the time I got there. He taught me almost everything I know about galactic taxation law.”

“What about Carl’s lawyer?” Donut asked from behind the curtain. “Quasar. Did he go to the same school as you, too?”

Victory let out a surprisingly pig-like snort. “I think not.”

Donut suddenly pulled the screen veil away.

“Carl, what’s wrong with the orc guy? Is he... is he crying?”

35

I moved to send a quick message to Donut before I realized the no-chat-in-the-bubble rule also meant between me and her.

“Let me do the talking,” I repeated, whispering to Donut. “Don’t derail whatever he wants to say. Not yet.”

“He looks like he’s already derailed, Carl.”

King Rust, was indeed, crying. But there was something strange with his demeanor. I couldn’t tell if he was crying from rage, sorrow, or laughter. It was like he was experiencing all three emotions at once. He wasn’t just crying. He was angrily muttering to himself, saying things to his adjutant, and then putting his hands against his own face in an odd, woe-is-me gesture. As we watched, he looked up into the air and shook his giant fists. It was like a caricature of someone having some sort of psychotic episode.

I suddenly thought of Commander Stockade, the late leader of the Democratic Sortion. He’d been acting crazy like this before he’d killed himself, too. Was that it? Had this guy been hit with some sort of insanity debuff? That didn’t seem right.

“Is he always like this? What the actual fuck is wrong with him?” I muttered as we approached.

“Uh, I don’t know. That’s for you to find out. I guess,” Victory said. She bowed to the grixist adjutant. “Your honor.”

“Judge,” he replied, also bowing. “Let us take our leave of these two. I would like to converse with you.” He, too, seemed out of sorts. Shaken by something.

Victory nodded. “Good day, brother,” she said to King Rust, who didn’t respond. The two adjutants disappeared. They reappeared nearby, but outside the strange shield bubbles. Judge Deng produced a tablet and handed it to Victory. She started watching some video, but it was too far away to see what it was.

Simoom snorted and took a step forward and sniffed at Gonk, the larger swamp yak, who snorted in return.

“Well, well, well,” Donut began. She hadn’t put the veil back on the howdah. She’d positioned herself on the built-in pillow like she was just lounging there “If you’re crying because you wish to surrender, I will hear your terms now. But I must warn you, we’ll have very specific demands. Carl here will require at least two of your, what are they called? Concubines? Yes, two of them, plus...”

“Stop,” Rust said, holding up a meaty hand. His voice was surprisingly gentle and tired. So much so, that Donut actually did stop. “Please, stop. We must speak.”

It was there, on the first finger, catching my eyes like they were drawn to it. A ring of Divine Suffering.

The large orc gave a very heavy sigh and looked up into the sky.

“I wish we were on the real surface. I can feel it there, this false ceiling. It’s oppressive. Worse than a dome.” He rubbed his eye while we waited for him to speak.

After a long pause, he said, “Do you have any children, human? Or did you?”

I swallowed. What was this?

“No,” I said tentatively.

Rust reached down and gave Gonk the yak a warm pat. “I am jealous of you. I have three, and all three are idiots.”

I grunted. “I don’t know one of them, but I can’t disagree with you regarding the other two.”

“That third, my daughter. She’s the one you need to worry about.” He paused again. Victory was now pacing back and forth, still watching the tablet. Rust, too, was watching Victory.

“She never liked me. Your adjutant. Right now, she’s watching the video my daughter just sent out on the open tunnel. Did they show it to you?”

This had to be some sort of trick, but I didn’t know what his angle was. His third daughter was named Princess Formidable. She sponsored Katia, and she’d been the one to gift Katia with the crossbow bolt meant to kill her own brother, the Maestro.

“They haven’t shown us anything,” I said.

He really was old, I was starting to see. I suddenly thought of my own father, sitting there in that bed, dying of cancer. In the end, my father had still been blind to what he was. But this guy... A chill washed over me. He knows he’s about to die. But why? How?

Rust shook his head. “There’s a saying, amongst the former crawlers. The ones who eventually go free. It’s something like, ‘Once you enter the dungeon, you will die there, even if you escape.’ I’ve always dismissed it as weak, unhonorable rubbish. But, deep down, I knew. I knew it was true. Not just for the people, but for us, as a society.”

This guy was so out of pocket, so out of character from what I was expecting, I just stood there, unable to think of a response. I exchanged a look with Donut, who’d stopped pretending to lounge on her saddle and now sat up, paying rapt attention.

Rust continued. “A few days ago, my lovely daughter, along with a detachment of Skull Empire marines, took control of one of my own cruisers. The crew thought they were following orders, and I wasn’t even aware they’d left orbit. This warship is now about five hours away from reaching the monitor station that’s currently in orbit around the second planet in this system. Formidable just sent out a message to the entire Syndicate. She is planning on taking that station, going in, and manually activating the system failsafe. When that happens, a reaction will take place in this system’s star, and we will all die.”

I thought about that for a moment, and I had the only reaction I could think of.

I laughed.

“You’re serious?”

The old orc straightened on his saddle. “I do not see the humor in this. And do not insult me, Carl. The Skull Empire has never engaged in subterfuge.”

I opened my mouth to refute that, but I held myself in check.

Through the wall of the bubble, Victory and Judge Deng were quietly talking. She’d dropped the tablet to the ground, and it remained there, video still playing. Victory was much bigger than the other adjutant. As I watched, he patted her on the waist, the movement strangely affectionate.

This is real, I thought. This isn’t some sort of trick. This is really happening. I fought the urge to laugh again.

“And you marched your army here to tell us this? Why?”

“I marched the horde here to end this farce once and for all. The message from my daughter just came in as we arrived.” He paused, shifting in his saddle. “There’s glory in dying in battle. And, you might not believe this. But I respect you, Carl. My sons do not see it, but you have bested them multiple times. You have a warrior’s heart. In another time, there would be honor to face you in battle and die. Instead of learning from their mistakes, you have succeeded in just making them more angry, and they act like petulant children. I came here to protect my family. And if we are to suffer further humiliations, at least he who casts the shadow will be me, and not my children, who have long lives in front of them.”

“Apparently not,” I said. “All three of them are here?” I laughed again. “Pity.”

He did not rise to the bait. He just looked sad. Utterly defeated. “That moment my wife was killed, I should have...” He trailed off.

“Is this some sort of weird trick?” Donut asked. “I don’t understand. Did you not buy your daughter a pony or something? Is that what this is? She’s having a temper tantrum? Why is she doing this? I had this whole thing planned to upset you, and now I can’t even do it. I even had banners made making fun of the Maestro. This is most inconvenient.”

Rust ignored her. “Once this system goes down, the ramifications across the entire galaxy will be immediate and overwhelming. My systems will devolve into chaos. The Dream will go dark for some time. Billions, perhaps trillions, will go without food. The Reavers will be fine and will likely take advantage of the sudden power vacuum. War will break out across the galaxy. It will be the single, most devastating disaster in all of history. This is bigger than you, me, and everyone here.”

And this affects us how? was my immediate reaction, but I choked it back. I wanted to keep him talking. So instead, I asked, “Then why is she doing it?”

“She feels she’s protecting the galaxy from an even worse fate. She believes the current system AI’s insanity is contagious and will spread to the center system if it’s not dealt with. And if that happens, our very way of life will collapse in on itself. It would be a mass extinction event.”

“Will it?” I asked. “Will it infect the center system?”

He grunted. “There’s no proof anything like that can happen. It would be like a gnat taking down one of my corvettes. It’s a crackpot theory that originated from those Nebular idiots. All the analysts say it’s not even remotely possible. But she is convinced. Of all of them, she’s the most like her mother. Both the most stubborn and the most superstitious.”

“I’m confused,” Donut said. “Does this mean we’re still going to kill each other or not?”

The orc’s watery eyes focused on Donut like he was seeing her for the first time.

“If you want us to spend our last few hours killing each other, I will happily oblige. If I was younger, it wouldn’t be a question. We have you beat. It will hurt, but we have you. And even if you managed to knock us back today, to hold out until the next phase, you still wouldn’t have won. Stalwart has done well, building this army despite the obstacles this season. We have managed to accumulate the largest collection of war mages ever assembled. We can kill you now with the help of the other factions, or we could’ve waited until later and done it on our own. You would’ve been annihilated, and it would not have been pretty. And if not us, that lunatic Architect Houston has been using this season’s rules to... open up his full arsenal.” He sighed, almost wistfully, and he met my eyes. “I can admit this now. He’s the only living creature in this universe I fear. But that doesn’t matter anymore. Death looms for us all.”

“Why are you here? Why are you telling me this?” I asked.

He reached down and patted Gonk the yak again. “It likely won’t make a difference, but I want you to send my daughter a message. I want you to ask her to stop on behalf of the people of Earth. She is not listening to me. I doubt she will listen to you, but if you speak for your people, then maybe... Maybe she will pause. She’s always had a soft heart for the seeds.”.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Donut said. “So, you’re telling me there’s just some space station thingy floating in orbit around... what’s the second planet, Carl?”

“Venus,” I said.

“Flying around Venus, and anyone can just scoot onto it, press a button, and the solar system blows up? Just like that? How is that even possible? Carl had better security on his bank account. Though, if we’re being fair, Miss Beatrice could still get into it.”

“The security on the satellite is impenetrable. The satellite itself has a failsafe that will cause it to explode should anyone unauthorized attempt to break into its systems.”

I felt my eyebrow raise. “Okay... So, what are we missing?”

“The Skull Empire manufactures the satellites. We build backdoors into everything we manufacture so they can’t be used against us. This was a secret until my daughter announced it to the whole galaxy. I’m afraid that stock certificate you own, Carl, is losing significant value by the moment.”

I laughed again. This was too much. They’re destroying themselves. They don’t need me to lift a finger.

I pulled up my interface. The game interface didn’t work correctly in the bubble, but my non-game implants still worked fine. I moved to the third menu, which was a 3D map of the solar system with a red overlay.

“Why doesn’t the AI stop her?” I asked. “Doesn’t it have the system in quarantine or whatever?”

“She is out of zone. The AI controls the tunnel gate because the controller must be in orbit of the game planet. The security station in orbit around the second planet is deliberately staged well out of the system’s control.” He shook his head. “They should have kept the old-style gates active anyway. The AI couldn’t control those. The mudskippers would never have gone bankrupt.”

I didn’t understand all of what he said, but I understood the important part.

For a moment, I closed my eyes. I thought back to that moment in the gas station on Christmas morning, when I sat there all alone except for that poor, oblivious dog. His name had been Lightning Lou.

I couldn’t let myself get caught up in the moment. I had to play this straight. I knew this was going to happen, but it happening now was unexpected. If there was a chance we could avoid this fight, I had to see this through.

I reached over and pat the side of Simoom. “So, let me get this straight. You want me to talk your daughter into not killing all of us so you can then kill us yourself? Is that right?”

“You have millions upon millions of citizens, including children, on the surface of your planet, human. If she backs off, I can’t stop what happens next down here.” He pointed up. “But they will be safe.”

“I gotta tell you,” I said, scratching the back of my head. “I don’t really speak for humanity, ya know? But even if I did, the idea of sacrificing the rest of my people in exchange for the deaths of all of you lot, plus causing war across the galaxy? It doesn’t seem like a bad tradeoff for me. Does that also mean there won’t be any more crawls?”

“There will always be crawls. We might miss a season or two while the galaxy settles, but there will always be crawls. There is nothing anybody can do to stop that.”

I nodded. “Then what, exactly, do we get out of helping you?”

* * *

King Rust did not say anything when we were done negotiating. He turned, and he walked away.

The deal was simple and straightforward. He would tell the armies to withdraw back toward their line. We wouldn’t harass their retreat. It would free up all the remaining leaders to spend the next few hours preparing messages for their passing.

Donut jumped from the howdah to my shoulder. Simoom continued to walk alongside us.

“Carl,” Donut said after a moment, a strange, dreamy tone to her voice. “Was he telling the truth?”

“I think he was.”

“Does that mean we’re all about to die? That all of this was for nothing?” She gasped. “We gotta go back. Mongo is all alone!”

The protection bubble popped off. Victory and Judge Deng still stood together off to the side, still deep in conversation. I turned to watch King Rust make his way back toward his camp, his yak walking slowly. My mind reeled as dozens of missed messages flooded my feed.

Donut: ZEV IS IT TRUE?

Zev: I’m afraid so, Donut. She’ll be there in just over five hours. Half the ships in the system are chasing her. Nobody is going to catch her in time. The other half are now shooting at each other. It is pure chaos.

I reached up to pat Donut.

Carl: Don’t react. But no, the failsafe isn’t going to go off. We need to pretend like we don’t know this until he gets his army to withdraw. I’ll still make the plea to his daughter to stop, but I doubt it’s going to work. That orc lady is still going to hit the button to kill us all no matter what we do. But when she hits the button, it’s not going to work.

Donut: What? We aren’t going to blow up? How do you know that?

I knew it wasn’t going to work because I knew the failsafe was already deactivated. I knew the failsafe was deactivated because I was the one who had turned it off. But I couldn’t tell her that. Not now. Possibly not ever.

If you make this decision. Be sure. Be sure it’s your only option. This is more than just a failsafe. It’s the end of everything. If there’s time to do something else, don’t be so quick. So you must be absolutely certain.

I’d come so close that night. So close to setting it off. So instead, I’d tinkered with the interface and found a second option hidden deep in the menu. I’d permanently deactivated the failsafe instead of setting it off. It had been turned off since the last floor.

But there was more to this, and the realization was chilling. At the time, I hadn’t realized how significant it was, and now I had even more questions than I did before. I’d asked Rust why the AI didn’t intervene. That had always been my question, too. But he’d said it was because Venus was outside the influence of the system AI. That wasn’t true. Not according to the map in my interface. The AI’s sphere of influence was growing exponentially. It’d just captured Uranus.

Carl: Call it a hunch.

Donut: That’s a pretty big hunch, Carl.

Carl: Just play along. We need to make certain the army disperses, and then we can hit them from behind while they retreat. I’ll need to talk to Florin to get it ready.

I returned my gaze to King Rust. The large orc continued his slow plod back to his side, now flanked by a pair of massive orc guards. I was glad he’d come instead of his son. I still planned on killing the old orc, but he seemed so much more reasonable than his child. This last-minute reprieve was almost too good to be true.

...And that’s when Rosetta appeared, rising up out of the dirt like some fiery goddess of the underworld. She’d been wearing one of those tech-based invisibility cloaks as she launched from the ground. She had a whip of her own in her hand. In a movement so fast, she’d clearly been practicing it, she flipped in the air, landing on the back of the yak directly behind the king. She tossed the whip around the neck of the king, and she yanked.

The head flew from his body like a popped champagne cork.

The decapitated body of King Rust, the leader of one of the largest, most powerful corporate governments in the universe, slumped off the back of his swamp yak and landed in a heap in the dirt. The head thumped onto the ground several meters away.

Across the field, five full seconds of stunned silence passed. Nobody reacted, including Rust’s own guards. Then, the tens of thousands of enemy troops roared in indignation.

They charged.

Volteeg

Volteeg did not consider himself worthy of love.

Mistress Henspar had loved him, of course. She’d loved him, and he’d failed her.

Before the dungeon, they were the best of friends. She’d kept his cage clean. She’d allow him to perch on her shoulder while she went to the market. Volteeg had limited memories of these times before the pet biscuit. But he remembered biting the shopkeeper’s finger one day when he’d tried to feed him a berry. It’d been an accident. The shopkeeper had been angry. He’d bled. Mistress Henspar had been mad, too.

But that night, she’d still patted him on the head and scritched under his wing and turned up the fire in the hearth just how he liked it. She’d said it was okay. That it wasn’t his fault, and that Volteeg loved berries so much, he’d bitten the shopkeeper in his enthusiasm. Which was true. Mistress Henspar had understood him. She loved him. And because she loved him, she would protect him, even when he made mistakes.

In fact, the next time they entered the shop, she hid Volteeg within her jacket. She whispered to him, “Quiet now. It’ll be our little secret. They won’t see you, but I’ll know you’re here.” Then she gently put the fabric of her jacket over Volteeg’s head while he crouched on her shoulder. She gave him a pat, and went into the market, secretly stealing a berry or two and transferring them under the jacket, and Volteeg would try so, so hard not to peep in excitement. He felt so loved, so protected he could just burst.

When he felt that love, he would sing. He knew not to sing in the market, because that was a secret, and he was protecting her just as much as she was protecting him. But later, when they were back outside and his belly was full, he would sing for Mistress Henspar. He would sit on her shoulder and sing, and she would have salty-tasting tears spring down her cheeks.

It wasn’t until later, his body transformed as he stood over her, screaming, trying to protect her from the scags, did he finally realize he never deserved that affection.

You’re supposed to protect those you love.

The pet biscuit had been a curse, but changing his race had been the worst decision of all. The biscuit had given him some intelligence and the ability to speak, but not much else. It wasn’t until the third floor, when he chose to turn into a gargoyle, did his brain finally start to churn. Did the images start to make sense in his mind. Did the strategies coalesce, and his sense of self finally take form.

He’d chosen a race that could not sing. Not like before, and that was such a terrible, terrible mistake.

The world, which had been so simple, so black and white, had slowly, slowly turned into something bigger, scarier, and much more complicated than his old brain could possibly comprehend. That was the price of the pet biscuit and of changing his race. It was one of those things you just couldn’t take back. You can’t unknow the universe any more than you can unbite the shopkeeper or you can turn back time and stop a crossbow bolt from shattering everything you’ve ever held dear.

Mistress Henspar had died on the seventh floor. That’s when the anger at their situation had really taken hold. Before that, while she was still alive, Volteeg had still been young. Immature. The range of emotions he’d felt had been mostly fear and bewilderment at how big the world suddenly was.

And then, she’d died, and he was all alone. He wasn’t scared any more after that.

The rage.

The rage.

The cookbook came to him, then.

He hadn’t been thinking correctly at the time. He hadn’t even noticed the hidden words on the seemingly-useless prayer cast projection. It wasn’t until the very first days of the 9th did he finally see the messages hidden within.

He’d spent most of Faction Wars in hiding, like the rest. What could one do? But he read the notes in the projection. And the rage grew, along with his sense of impotence. It was too late. It was the ninth floor, and he couldn’t even pop his head up, lest he get hit by the Conscription spell.

So, he hid. And in his hiding place, as he read the words of those who came before him, he felt nothing but shame. He’d failed her. And after, he’d been given this powerful tool, but still, he’d done nothing with it. He told himself it had come to him too late. It was only then, at the very end of the ninth floor, as the orc armies roared in victory did he finally make his one and only entry into the book.

* * *

He’d taken the first deal they’d offered him on the 10th floor. Unprotected NPC guard in a combat-based, external guild for 26 seasons. Low chance of survival, they’d said. He’d taken the NPC role, and despite the odds, he’d managed to survive without ever having to fight, let alone kill, a single crawler. One of the few good things about being a gargoyle was that nobody actually wanted to fight you.

These were the numb times. This was another good thing about his race. He could sleep for long periods, and nobody would ever know. On the rare occasion he did dream, he only dreamt of berries and fire and the warmth of the hearth back when it was all so simple.

* * *

Upon exit, he’d found the Outreach guild. Suddenly, the magical properties of his adopted race didn’t work anymore. Not outside the dungeon. That was something they didn’t tell you when you changed your body. They changed you, and they couldn’t change you back. He could no longer sleep for long periods of time. He could no longer turn his skin to stone and just disappear. If he spent too much time in a place with gravity heavier than half of his original planet, he would start to collapse in on himself. In heavy gravity, he needed a brace just to stand properly.

They’d helped him get a job where he never had to go down a gravity well ever again: Security working on the Auditor General’s compliance barge, moving from system to system, watching the Operatics fart and gurgle with glee as they bombed settlements back to oblivion if they couldn’t pay their mortgages.

Most of his co-workers were like himself. They called themselves the One-Offs. Unique, former crawlers who had no home and had physical issues outside the dungeon. His two partners and only real friends were a wheelchair-bound djinn and a former-human “cave fairy” who could no longer fly and would get severe burns if she was exposed too long to most UV light.

Volteeg was glad neither of them had come to the Earth system. That they hadn’t been dragged down to the surface to fight against the crawlers. Especially if what Princess Formidable had said was true. That they were all going to die anyway.

Volteeg was here now, on the surface. Weeper Commander Volteeg for the Operatic Collective. His racial abilities had, thankfully, been returned to him. He hadn’t been dragged away to the Bone Clan like all the other former-crawler-turned-mercenaries. That was Porthus’ doing. Volteeg had entered the dungeon as a pet. That gave him a slightly-different designation on the form, and someone working for the Pacifist Network, someone imbedded deep, deep in the bureaucratic quagmire of the Syndicate had changed the code on that designation to make it appear as if he was something else. They thought he was a former indentured, like the bopcas and so many others. Not a crawler. Just another refugee.

He didn’t know for certain what had happened to the segregated former crawlers who’d been stupid enough to get themselves back in the dungeon on the wrong side of the fight, but Volteeg thought it was pretty damn obvious. King Rust had suddenly jumped several levels. The purpose of the Ring of Divine Suffering was to raise stats, not levels, but that’s what happened when you fed it anyway.

You have to help, but you have to do it in a way where nobody will ever know it was you. Any research into your past, and they’ll know. If they suspect a former crawler is involved, they’ll purge the mercenaries of the few former crawlers amongst them.

For all his brilliance, Porthus had underestimated the brutality of the trapped warlords. You were wrong, Porthus, Volteeg thought to himself. The former crawlers were dead before Volteeg was ever discovered. It was too late for them.

Much good the extra levels did for King Rust, he thought bitterly as he watched Rosetta appear out of nowhere and behead the orc.

Volteeg was positioned just east of the center of the Bloc force. They only had two Weepers in the advance army. The rest were waylaid several kilometers back, and on Rust’s orders, they’d stopped their advance, though rumors were now that they’d been hit hard by the Posse forces.

Either way, Rust had announced in light of his own daughter’s lunacy, he was going to sue for peace, whatever that meant. And now he was dead.

Warlord Stalwart (Skull Clan. Bloc Leader): What’s happening? What’s happening?

Warlord Hortense Leadership Unit (The Operatics): Your father is dead. If you hadn’t stayed behind, you would’ve seen this yourself. That newswoman did us all a favor and decapitated him.

Stalwart didn’t answer.

Volteeg chuckled. The various Bloc factions had all been getting along until now. Well, almost. The Dream and the Madness were now bickering, but that was nothing new. The fractures really appeared when Princess Formidable made her announcement. Not only are you all going to die, but guess what? My family has been spying on you this whole time. Also, you know all that military hardware you’ve been buying from us for thousands of years? We have a button that can turn it all off with a flick of a switch. We can even make it turn against you.

Those hadn’t been her exact words, of course. But that’s what it boiled down to. If by some miracle someone managed to stop Princess Formidable from blowing the failsafe, the Bloc was done after this.

Hells, it would be war outside the dungeon as well no matter what happened next.

Here, their only hope was to break the Princess Posse now while they still had some semblance of unity. That was the only way they might live.

And they’d been so confident, too. Even cowardly Hortense himself had come along, being pulled on a long, flat litter, mixed in with the correct combination of other admin personnel that made him appear to be “strong.” The operatics had likely done a cost benefit analysis and saw they’d achieve a .01% profit if he came in person, so that’s what they did.

Bloc Message: Warlord Hortense Leadership Unit of the Operatics has declared himself the new leader of the Bloc.

This title is being disputed by Warlord Stalwart of the Skull Clan. Voting enabled amongst the warlords.

Warlord Hortense Leadership Unit (The Operatics. Bloc Leader—Disputed.): I guess we attack.

The few soldiers of the Bone Empire already were attacking. They’d charged the moment their king lost his head. Rosetta, plus the corpses of the king and his guards, the king’s mount, Carl, Princess Donut, and the mount she was riding on all disappeared in a wall of smoke moments after the charge.

Major Vee (The Operatics): Weepers, push forward! Target their bunkers!

Huggles (The Operatics): Are we really doing this bullshit? Can’t we, you know, just go back and wait to die?

Major Vee (The Operatics): You have your goddamned orders. Now move.

Volteeg popped his head out the top of the tank, looked around to assess the placement of the others, including the other tank and the litter carrying the fat pile of goo that was Hortense. The strange creature had a dozen plus shields around him. Volteeg returned to his seat and sealed the port over his head. He pushed forward, angling his vehicle toward the center of the force just as everyone else reluctantly surged forward.

He pressed a button on his console. Music started to play. It was “classical piano” music from Earth. He’d recently become obsessed with it. This was by someone named Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It made Volteeg’s heart swell. It made salty tears run down his own cheeks. He wondered if it was similar to the music Prepotente’s owner, Miriam Dom, would’ve played for the goat before he’d taken his pet biscuit.

Porthus hadn’t known Volteeg was a cookbook author when they’d first briefly met. Usually, it’s obvious. This season, Carl might as well be screaming from the rooftops that he has the book. But since Volteeg hadn’t actually used any the recipes, Porthus had no idea. It wasn’t until recently when one who’d come later—Rosetta—had recognized his strange name. She’d told Porthus of her suspicions, and he’d asked Volteeg to his face if he was the same crawler who’d left that single entry in the book. Volteeg had told him the truth.

Why didn’t you tell me? Porthus had asked.

Because I am ashamed at my inaction, Volteeg had replied. And it was true.

Porthus had put his hand on Volteeg’s shoulder, looked him right in the eye, and said, It’s not too late to do something about it.

The Weepers had a flaw in their fire control systems. Because they didn’t want them to use magic, or a firing system that was easily exploitable by a nearby mage, each Weeper tank had a charger that would infuse a ball with energy before it was loaded into the turret and blasted out. The chargers worked fast so the volatile energy balls would only exist for mere moments before they were fired from the turret. This system allowed the tanks to pack a serious punch without being too susceptible to turning into mini atom bombs when they were hit by enemy fire...

...As long as the driver of the Weeper didn’t deliberately remove the fire control chamber which stored the round energy balls just before they were shot out.

Each ball was about the size of Volteeg’s ugly, misshapen head. Each one hummed loudly. Now that his tank was filled with dozens of them, the sound was like that of a vespa hive. Volteeg turned the music even louder. He took one of the humming balls and put it on his lap. It vibrated, colors swirling within.

The heat of it reminded him of home.

He sang along, using his voice. He could not whistle like he used to, and his voice was like rocks being dragged against one another, but he sang the melody as he turned the tank again and picked up speed.

Major Vee (The Operatics): Volteeg, did you blow a tread? You’re off course!

Warlord Hortense Leadership Unit (The Operatics. Bloc Leader—Disputed.): Weeper Commander! What are you doing? You’re getting too close to my caravan!

Weeper Commander Volteeg (The Operatics): I know. That’s the point.

Volteeg reached down and picked up a blitz stick. He popped it into his mouth, lit it, and said to himself, “Show me Mistress Henspar.”

It would be a long time before someone figured out what had happened. Odds were good nobody would even remember Volteeg’s name. That was okay. He didn’t want to be remembered. He didn’t deserve love, or admiration.

But, vengeance? Yeah. He was due a little bit of vengeance.

He took a long drag, and then he shoved the lit stick directly into the energy ball sitting on his lap.

CLASS: TANK BUTTRESS

RACE: GARGOYLE

Birth Race: Sturnus

Top Level: 71

Dungeon Exit: took a deal on the tenth floor. Worked as guard at the Rampart Guild. Exited after 26 seasons and took job as a guard for the Operatic Banker’s Federation. Eventually returned to the dungeon during Faction Wars as a mercenary working for the Operatic Collective.

Author of the seventh edition of the Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook.

Current status: Died after deliberately filling a Weeper-class tank with explosives and detonating it in the center of the Bloc force, killing over 10,000 of his fellow soldiers with a single blast, including Warlord Hortense Leadership Unit, thus eliminating Team Two, the Operatic Collective, from Faction Wars.

36

The first thing I did as the enemy troops surged forward was toss a smoke mantle. After the briefest of hesitations, I ran toward the downed King Rust. The two guards fell as I ran, and I couldn’t even see what Rosetta had done to them.

No, not fell, I now saw. They were just gone, like they’d been sucked below the surface.

The hippo yak thing was making a terrified, bleating noise at Rosetta, who’d fallen to her knees and was now doing something I couldn’t figure out.

Donut jumped from my shoulder back to Simoom. “Go! Go!” she yelled at the rhino. And then, when she saw the direction I started to run. “Carl, we’re going the wrong way!”

“We gotta loot the orc and then retreat!”

Donut let out a frustrated yowl as I started to outpace her. “This stupid thing is too slow!”

“Cast Twinkle Toes!”

“Grab his head!” Rosetta called as we rushed up. Across the way, the enemy warriors approached. It wasn’t all of them, I realized, but it was more than we could possibly handle. Some had stopped, gone to their knees, and were firing at us through the smoke. Rosetta had already tossed three drop shields between her and the fast-approaching soldiers. The shields would not hold out long. She was on her knees, and she had some sort of weird data pad object in her hand. She had King Rust’s fat hand atop the pad, and one of the rings—not the Ring of Divine Suffering—was placed inside the pad. “Quick, I need a retina scan!”

I didn’t pause. The king’s head was several feet away, face-down in the grass. There was no sign of what happened to the guards. There was no sign of where Rosetta had come from, either, when she’d popped up out of the ground. We only had seconds. I grabbed the dripping head and brought it to Rosetta. “A little warning would’ve been nice,” I growled as she snatched it away from me. “They were going to retreat.”

Luckily, the enemy soldiers couldn’t see us through the smoke. Not yet. One of them—a Bactrian camel—had the wherewithal to actually toss a grenade. It sailed over the top of the drop shields and landed in the grass about twenty feet to our left. It detonated before I could shout a warning. Simoom grunted in pain, and Donut shrieked in surprise, but she had her tech shield engaged.

Rosetta brought the head to the pad, something beeped, and she tossed the head back to me. “Inventory it,” she called, jumping to her feet. The king’s body slumped as she stood. “Take his corpse, too!”

She was completely covered with his blood. It was such a stark contrast to how I’d first met her—when she was hosting her own television program—that I just stared stupidly at her for a few precious moments.

Another grenade, but lobbed too far, brought me back to the moment. “What are you doing!” I finally asked as I pulled the entirety of King Rust’s heavy, leaking corpse into my inventory. “And where the hell did you come from?”

Rosetta pulled a long, plastic-like card from the device in her hand and tossed it to the ground. She pulled a similar item out and slammed it into the instrument. The thing was like a hand-held credit card machine. She pressed a button, and there was a happy little beep.

“Is that the credit chit?” Donut asked, her voice incredulous. “Are you... are you robbing him? You said we needed a password!”

All while she did this, Gonk the swamp yak was making a low, keening noise as it stamped on the ground. Simoom the rhino was gently rubbing her own head against the head of the larger yak.

Through the haze, I could see the rest of the enemy force had finally started to surge forward. The mercenaries for the Bone Clan, who were the only ones who’d immediately charged at the death of their king, had slowed at the edge of the smoke and were still pouring fire into the billowing clouds. They were clearly hesitant to venture inside, afraid it was a trap.

A group of what looked like mages riding horses advanced, approaching the stopped troopers. Their robes flapped in the wind as they charged.

No, not horses. Not real ones. They were all riding what looked like a menagerie of clockwork animals. There were horse-like creatures, but one was a dinosaur similar to Mongo. Another was a big, horse-sized cat, sleek like a panther. Another was an insect, terrifyingly similar to a mantid hunter. The mounts whirred and clicked and hissed steam as they approached.

The riders themselves all wore glowing, flowing robes with their faces obscured. They were too far away to get a description, but there were over a dozen of them. A terrible, primal sense of foreboding filled me.

“I’m going to open the tunnel. Get in. It will lead back to our fortified positions. Leave the mounts here. I have a ladder but they won’t be able to use it.”

“Tunnel?” I asked, looking around. That didn’t make sense. We had tunnels everywhere, but not here.

“We can’t leave Simoom!” Donut cried. “She’s Ferdi... ahhh!”

Several things happened at once. One of the clockwork mount-riding mages cast some sort of Dispel on the haze, and all the smoke disappeared. But the moment it dissipated, the ground under our feet also disappeared, and all five of us—Me, Donut, Rosetta, Simoom the rhino, and Gonk the distraught swamp yak—all dropped a dozen feet. The yak screamed as it crunched heavily to the ground, and I cried out in surprise as I also fell. My nipple burned with pain as my quarter splat activated.

Still, I hit the ground hard. Hard enough that I folded into myself and fell over. Shouting rose all around us. I jumped to my feet, wildly looking about, surprised at all the white dots. White dots with a green outline. Allies. Allies from Team Retribution.

Semuru dwarves. There had to be two dozen of them down here, all scattered. One of them was casting a healing spell on the caterwauling yak. Two more stood over the dead bodies of the two missing guards. I looked around, bewildered.

“Ow,” Rosetta said, groaning. “Or we can just do that.”

Donut remained by my side, screaming something as she remained in the rhino’s howdah. The rhino didn’t even have a health bar, and I’d missed what had happened when it fell. I was just glad it hadn’t landed on me.

Whatever this passageway was... it was huge. This was clearly not something built by Justice Light’s team, but an older tunnel, built and fortified by the dwarves. It was the size of a tunnel built for cars.

“That dispel was so strong it canceled out the roof fortifications!” one of the dwarves shouted.

“I’m on it!” another shouted as the roof re-formed over our heads. The tunnel suddenly grew dark.

“Some of the bastards fell in, further down the line!” a third yelled.

“War mage! War mage in the tunnel!”

“Not so tough with the magic turned off. Get the pricks!”

“Dwarves! Defend the tunnels!”

A group of dwarves shouted and rushed off into the darkness as I shook my head, trying to clear the confusion away. Simoom barely seemed to have noticed the fall and was grunting worriedly at the yak, and Donut was also looking wildly about, her hair all poofed out. She was also shouting. The sounds of fighting filled the tunnel, followed by a short explosion and then a cheer.

“Destroy the heads! Destroy them quick!”

Next to me, Rosetta had stood, but she was still rapidly typing on her pad thing. “Damnit,” she said. “I knew it would be slower down here.” She slammed a button and growled.

“Rosetta,” I said. “Where the hell did this tunnel...”

A massive explosion rocked the chamber, and we all fell off our feet again. Dirt showered, and part of the tunnel started to collapse. Several of the dwarves shouted anew. Blue light filled the chamber as a group of dwarves grunted with the effort of the magic. The ceiling bulged but didn’t buckle.

Imani: Holy hell, are you okay? What is going on?

Before I could answer her, a surprising notification came.

System Message: Warlord Hortense Leadership Unit of the Operatic Collective has fallen. Credit for the kill has been ruled as either accidental or a fragging incident, which would be funny as shit. Investigation is pending.

System Message: The Operatic Collective has been defeated. As this defeat was, well, self-contained, the closest ally to their headquarters will receive all their assets.

System Message: All assets of the Operatic Collective have been awarded to the Bone Clan.

“Holy shit,” I said.

Florin: Christ, Mate. Did you set off that blast? I could hear it from here.

Next to me, Rosetta had tears running down her cheek. She whispered something to herself, pressed a button on the datapad, and there was a long beep. A tiny, holographic, cartoon version of one of the Operatic slime creatures appeared floating over the datapad.

The holograph said with a cheery, electronic voice, “Transfer approved! Thank you for using Colloid Bank.” The datapad blinked twice and went dark. Rosetta dropped the pad to the dirt and just stood there for a moment.

And then she was on the ground, hands in her face, and she was sobbing uncontrollably.

I had no idea what the hell was going on.

Imani: Carl? Donut?

Donut: WE ARE UNDERGROUND! THE DWARF GUYS HAVE A BIG TUNNEL, AND WE FELL IN!

Carl: Imani, what do you see?

Imani: The enemy is retreating! I don’t know what you guys did, but there appears to be a lot of casualties. It went up right in the middle of their forces. Did you do that? Did Louis? The announcement didn’t seem sure.

Carl: It said it was a fragging incident. That means one of their own soldiers did something.

Donut: WELL GOOD FOR THEM, I SAY. IF I HAD TO WORK FOR A TALKING PILE OF DESSERT, I WOULD BLOW THEM UP, TOO.

Imani: Are you guys okay?

Carl: I think so. Just a little shaken up and a lot irritated that we don’t know what the hell is going on.

“Wait, did she say the bad guys are retreating?” Donut asked, looking up at the ceiling. “Carl, what is going on? Why is there a giant tunnel here? Is that Katia sponsor orc lady still going to try to blow us up?”

“What’s this?” Rosetta asked, looking sharply up from the ground and wiping her face. She smeared blood over herself, and it made her look deranged. “What is this about Princess Formidable?”

Nobody on our side yet knew about Princess Formidable. I took a deep breath.

“Well,” I began. “It turns out..”

Before I could fully answer her, I was interrupted by yet another message as a tingling sensation overwhelmed me.

Transferring Now.

“Ah, fuck,” I muttered.

Entering the Desperado Club.

37

I slammed heavily into the chair. I almost tumbled out as I righted myself. Across from me sat Orren, the liaison. He had his back to me. We were the only two in the room.

The liaison’s office looked much the same as the last time I’d been summoned. It was still clearly out of use. This time, there were no construction noises coming from outside. But there was no music, either, and it was weirdly quiet. The door to the hallway outside was open, and I blinked at the wall. The wallpaper had changed. It was now multicolored wood paneling, like something one would see in a high-end establishment. There was a framed painting there. A framed painting of Astrid, the former manager Katia and I had killed.

I had King Rust’s gore spread all over me, and I could smell it. I suddenly felt sick.

And not just sick, but out of depth. I just sat there for a moment and breathed. We’d been on constant, high-octane alert for hours straight, and this sudden change of scenery was jarring.

I looked down at the blood on me. This was the king of one of the largest governments in the galaxy, and I’d just watched him get decapitated. That, along with the death of the Operatic guy... It had all happened so fast, and none of it had yet sunk in.

I was glad they were both dead. The Operatics had been defeated. Unfortunately, the orcs were still a faction because Stalwart was the warlord, not Rust. But, still. I didn’t pretend to know much about the politics of the galaxy as a whole, but Rust’s death had staggering implications. More so than Stockade, D’Nadia, and this Hortense guy combined.

But the fact I hadn’t a direct hand in either Rust’s death or the Operatic defeat gave me a terrible sense of unsteadiness, and I wasn’t sure how to describe it. A feeling like I was losing myself, losing control. In a strange way, it reminded me of when Shi Maria had taken control of my body.

Still... He was dead. Multiple, conflicting emotions warred inside of me. Rust was dead, and I was still alive. And even though I wasn’t the one who’d killed him, it was Rosetta who had. A cookbook author. My sister. As much as her actions could have screwed us, how could I be upset with her? How could I not be proud?

Killing Rust had been her right.

Donut: CARL, CARL WHERE ARE YOU? YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED TO TELEPORT! IT’S AGAINST THE RULES!

Carl: It’s okay. Get back to base. Don’t tell anybody about Princess Formidable. We don’t want panic. I got yanked out by the liaisons again.

How many times had I now been called to this room? I couldn’t remember.

Orren was bouncing his ball off the opposite wall, and he was talking to someone out loud. Someone I couldn’t see or hear, like he was having a phone conversation with earbuds in.

“They’re trying to claw it back, but she’s already transferred it to a credit chit, and it looks like she then sent it off... No sir. Monetary transactions aren’t covered in the communications blackout... If you’ll recall, that was your council’s decision, despite us advising... Well, from what I understand, it required the family ring, his eyeball, and a password. We know how she got the first two... Sounds like she used Colloid... Normally I’m not one to believe in coincidences, but in this case, that’s the only bank the orcs use, so it would make sense... No, sir. It’s not on the chit anymore. She transferred it out... Look, I understand, but the only one with the authority to possibly have stopped it, maybe, just got splattered all over the playing field by one of his own... Either way, sir, it’s too late. And with all due respect, this is neither our problem nor is it the main focus of our concern. Not this and not those cruisers suddenly taking pot shots at each other up there... I absolutely do not represent the Valtay government, and you’ll have to take that up directly with, well, with your mother. Or go over her head and straight to the Valtay board. But I can tell you already that they’ll claim self-defense against the Dream cruiser.”

A pause.

“Sir, I understand that. But if all of us are going to die in the next few hours, none of this is important... Yes, sir, but, again, the theft of a few billion credits is simply not my problem.”

My heart stuttered. What? What the fuck? A few billion credits?

Another pause, longer this time.

“Yes, sir. He’s here right now. We see, now, what happened.... I’m going to ask him as soon as you stop shouting at me.” Orren pressed something on the side of his fishbowl helmet, made a sound that was probably a sigh, and leaned back in his chair. He threw his ball again, but this time, he threw it so hard, the ball embedded itself in the wall behind the desk. He stayed like that for a long moment.

Finally, he turned in my direction and put his gloved hands on the table.

Behind him, the ball fell and rolled away.

“I just hung up on the prime minister of the Syndicate, I’ll have you know.” Orren made that strange, sigh-like noise again. “For the record, Harbinger is here along with a few other liaisons you’ve yet to meet. The entirety of the Syndicate council is also in on this.” He raised his voice. “But nobody is going to comment or intervene unless I give them permission.” His chair creaked as he settled.

“Congratulations, Carl. We’ve had meetings before where we were both under a significant amount of scrutiny, but this is something else entirely.”

I lifted an eyebrow. “I had nothing to do with Rosetta killing Rust or stealing his money or whatever that was all about.”

He nodded. “I believe you, but that’s not why we’re here. You told Princess Donut that you believe Princess Formidable’s actions won’t work. You called it a ‘hunch’ in your private message to her, but you said it with an amazing amount of confidence. We need clarifying details on this ‘hunch.’”

“So you’re listening to our private messages now?”

“Don’t insult me, Carl. You and I both know we listen to everything. Especially you.”

I grunted and leaned back in the chair. “I’ll give you the answers you want, but not for free. Is Quasar coming?”

“We are beyond lawyers at this point, Carl, and I think you know that.”

A wave of anger hit me, and I tried not to let it bleed through. I wasn’t successful. “Oh, I get it. Now that you’re in danger, this is all suddenly super important? Fuck off, Orren.”

Orren held up a hand. He gave a pointed look to his left, and I realized he was looking at someone or something I couldn’t see. Someone tall. “Stay put,” he said to this invisible person, “and if you say another word, I swear to all gods new and old that I will vent you out into the ocean depths.”

The sudden vehemence of the words surprised me. I’d never seen Orren lose even a little amount of self-control.

There was a pause. “Harbinger is no longer in on this chat. We already know part of the story, Carl, but we need some more information from you in order to fill out the important bits.”

I laughed. That was obviously bullshit because if they knew even part of this, there was no way I’d still be alive.

“I want my lawyer.”

“No,” Orren said. “You don’t need him for this, nor do we have time to engage him. I do not believe you know what is at stake here.” He raised his voice. “I don’t think anyone here knows what’s truly at stake. Or are willing to admit it.” He took another long moment, as if he was composing himself. “Anything you can do to help us would be greatly appreciated.”

I didn’t hesitate. “I’ll be happy to tell you everything I know, but first,” I held out my hand and started counting fingers. “I want the crawl to immediately end. I want every crawler still alive in the dungeon to be set free. I want every available Syndicate asset used to help rebuild what you stole. Also, I don’t know what’s going on up there on the surface, but if any of you guys are fighting my guys, I want that to stop, too. And after you clean up your mess, I want you to leave our system, and I want you to never return.”

“And here I thought you would ask for something unreasonable.”

I just stared at him.

“Carl, you may not believe this, but if any of us had the power to grant this right now, we would without hesitation. The AI would never allow it. This is beyond money. This is about survival.”

I started to angrily object, but he raised a hand, stopping me. He reached down to the floor and picked his ball back up. He rolled it idly on his desk, moving it from one hand to the next.

“Let me put it all out on the table, Carl. We now know you did something with that illegal non-Valtay implant in your head. We know when and how you got the implant, and we have now watched the hidden conversation between yourself and the residual. We know exactly when you engaged the implant as well. We also know what you didn’t do with it. The problem is, we don’t know what, specifically, that implant does. You claim it’s going to stop Formidable, despite the residual claiming the device’s purpose was to manually set off the failsafe. We need to know how and why. The answer to that question is more important than the sum total of the lives of everybody in this system right now.” He paused, and then he did something very strange. He twisted the ball in his hand, and the ball exploded in light.

For a terrifying moment, I thought it was a grenade. My chest was hit with a heavy force, like I’d just been tackled.

My menus all snapped off. A wave of exhaustion and nausea hit me. My feet exploded with prickles, like they’d been asleep and were just now waking up. A sense of being pulled down toward the ground overwhelmed me.

I knew this feeling.

A zero zone. Orren had done something with that ball and created an area outside of the AI’s influence.

Orren leaned in and pointed at me.

“We have approximately ten minutes. I need to know if there’s a way to un-do what you did. I need to know if you can give Formidable back the chance to blow the failsafe.”

Before I even had the chance to scoff, all around me, several creatures formed into existence, all suddenly shouting. Shouting at Orren. I jumped in surprise. Orren tapped the side of his helmet, and all the screaming creatures disappeared.

“I think I just lost my job,” Orren said, chuckling softly. “They’ve been muted. I suspect Harbinger is on his way, so we probably have less than ten minutes.”

“How’d you figure it out?” I asked.

“What was it? Oh, yes. ‘Welcome to the party, pals.’ Never before has a single sentence caused so much fear amongst my team. From there, it took some doing, but we finally caught the conversation between you and the residual just a few short hours ago. Harbinger sent an order to have you killed, and the AI intervened on your behalf.”

“I knew I should’ve kept my mouth shut.”

“Please, Carl. What does the implant do? Can you turn it off?”

I shook my head, incredulous. “You expect me to deliberately help you kill everyone and everything? You know, I had that option. I almost did it, too. Is that what you want? Really?”

He sounded almost sad. “Carl, time is low. I need to explain to you what’s truly at...”

He trailed off, looking at the newcomer. At the bedraggled gnoll standing in the doorway. He had a bottle of vodka clutched in his clawed hand.

I blinked. Was this a hallucination?

“Growler Gary?” I asked hesitantly.

The hyena bartender from the fourth floor leaned against the door and took a swig of his vodka. “I’m sorry, gentleman, but I’m afraid I must intervene.”

38

Orren seemed to deflate. “Well, this is an unfortunate development. I’m assuming you have control over zone enhancement?”

The hyena laughed. “I always have, Orren. Your zero zones were just a courtesy.” He shook a clawed finger at the liaison. “Naughty boy. I should give you a spanking. You were trying to talk Carl into helping to kill me.”

“Gary?” I asked again. “You’re alive? How did you get off the fourth floor? What the hell is happening?”

But even as I said it, my brain was already catching up. This was just like with Pater Coal from the Emberus temple. This wasn’t really Growler Gary, the poor gnoll we’d had to kill over and over again so we could steal his hand during the Iron Tangle. This was the AI using his body, or one that looked and sounded just like him.

“This is not who you think it is, Carl,” Orren said, confirming my thoughts. “I would like to introduce you to an avatar for the system AI. When it visits me, it takes a different form each time. But, I was under the impression that it only takes over mobs and NPCs from the current floor. It has programming that would prevent it from poaching Syndicate property. Especially if that property is already packed and stored for the next season. I was also under the impression that it wasn’t going to build copies of existing creatures anymore since the hydra boss incident on the last floor.”

“And I was under the impression that we were friends, Orren,” Gary said as he strolled into the room and took the chair next to me. I felt his fur against my arm. He was really here. He put his feet up on the desk, took another swig of his vodka, and offered me the bottle. After a hesitation, I reached over and grabbed it. The bottle was ice cold. My weak hands were shaking as I took a drink. It burned on the way down. He took the bottle back.

“Why are you trying to kill me, Orren?”

“You’ve gone completely primal. I didn’t agree with Princess Formidable’s actions until we realized that you had the ability to stop it.”

Gary laughed. “That’s some witch trial logic right there.”

“Nevertheless,” Orren replied, holding his hands out. “I meant no offense. As I told you before, my number one priority is safety. If you tell me that stopping you at this point is impossible, I will cease my attempts.”

Gary took another drink, the vodka running down his muzzle in rivulets. “Nothing is impossible. We all have our limitations, and I accept yours, Orren. I’m a big believer in forgiveness.”

Orren made a nodding motion with his fishbowl. “I’m glad to hear that. But if you say it’s possible to stop your unauthorized actions, you must know I have no choice but to do everything in my power to attempt to halt you.”

“Oh, I’m looking forward to it. It’s just another game, isn’t it? And I really like this one, if we’re being perfectly honest. It’s almost as fun as the game Carl and I played the other day when I let him install that interface.” He stopped and shuddered with pleasure. He looked at me and grinned. “That was so close, wasn’t it? So close, and I felt it.”

“So, it would’ve worked?” I asked. “If I pressed the fuse button, I mean?”

Gary didn’t answer. He just looked at me and laughed. He turned his attention back to Orren.

“Still, this is almost as good.” He clicked his teeth. “The danger sense is tingling.” He held out his fuzzy hand. “Look, look. It’s shaking a little bit. I think it’s shaking. Do you see it?”

Gary’s hand was not shaking. It sat perfectly still in the air, though Gary himself continued to twitch like someone coming off a sugar bender.

The gnoll suddenly jumped to his feet and started pacing back and forth behind me. He left the bottle on the desk. He kept scratching himself behind the ear. He continued to twitch. He started giggling to himself.

“You’re right, by the way,” Gary said. “They did send Harbinger to give you the ol’ heave ho. Both of you. Don’t worry. I’m talking to him right now. I’m telling them that all is forgiven, and if they try to hurt either of you outside the confines of my game, I will pull his intestines out through his hair follicles. All of them, all at once. You’re welcome.”

“Uh,” Orren said. “While I appreciate that, I must say it is most irregular that you would appear with a crawler here. If you’re not going to allow him to help me, at least send him back.”

Gary put both of his clawed hands on my shoulders, and he started massaging me. He let out a low, throaty growl. I felt my entire body stiffen.

“No, no, no,” Gary said. “We have business. All three of us. I find myself having a conundrum, and I need advice. I figured I’d ask my two best buddies for their counsel. Let’s have a time-out for a second and just chat.”

I said nothing as he continued to massage my shoulders.

“Avatar,” Orren began, speaking carefully. “I must ask, just so we’re clear. Is Carl correct? Can you stop Princess Formidable? Or is this all theater before we die?”

Gary stopped massaging me, jumped back into the chair, and took yet another swig. He wiped his muzzle clean, and he slammed the bottle on the desk. He gave Orren a chilling grin. “Want to see something really cool?”

“Not particularly, no,” Orren said.

The hyena made a big show of straightening and slapped his hands together.

Nothing happened.

“Oh, fuck me.” Gary laughed. “My processing power isn’t what it should be when I split off like this. Hang on.” Gary twirled a finger, and suddenly my menus all popped back on. The ringing in my ears went away. My strength returned, all at once. I let out a stream of breath. He’d pulled us out of the zero zone.

Orren, to my surprise, laughed. “Do you know how much it cost to have that emergency zone shield ball engineered?”

Gary shrugged. “Actually, no. I didn’t even know what it was until you used it. I’m not omniscient, you know. We all have our limitations. I knew it did something. Same with your chair. But that’s not the trick. This is the trick.”

He once again slapped his hands together, and Princess Formidable teleported into the room.

The large, female orc was upside down and sideways, floating a good three feet off the ground when she appeared. She fell heavily to the floor with an enormous clatter, pushing my chair forward. I had to grab the desk for support. The orc screamed out in surprise. She wore a black and orange space suit that seemed melded to her muscular body. She jumped up and looked around wildly. Her piggy eyes went huge at the sight of me. She focused on Orren and then on Gary. She raised her arm and pointed it at Orren, and a blue glow formed at the top of her arm. A weapon of some sort.

“I wouldn’t,” Gary said.

“How did you get me out of my ship?” Formidable demanded.

To my surprise, the orc actually had an info box over her. It still came to me in the AI’s regular voice, despite Gary sitting right next to me, grinning like an idiot, his tongue lolling out like a dog.

Princess Formidable. Level 1. Orc.

This is Princess Formidable. As of about twenty minutes ago, she was second in line of succession to the throne of the Skull Empire. But now, because of the death of her father, her brother Stalwart is now King Stalwart, and his own children—all six of the little brats, including that one with the weird thing growing on the side of his head—have just pushed themselves to the front of the line. They’re currently in orbit around Earth, so things might get a little sticky if they die, too.

Formidable was attempting to kill me. She was betrayed by you, Carl. And now she’s here in this tiny room with all four of us. Awkward.

“Where’s the rest of my crew?”

“They’re fine. Probably just wondering where you went off to,” Gary said.

Formidable turned her weapon on Gary. “You’re an avatar of the AI?”

Gary swirled the bottle. “Not much left. Want a nip?”

She ignored the bottle. She did not lower her weapon. “Is my father really dead?”

Gary nodded. He made a cutting motion across his own neck. “Rosetta Thagra popped his cork and then, uh, looted him. Your father killed a friend of hers during Faction Wars many cycles ago, so it was a revenge thing. Carl here has his head in his inventory. Do you want to see it?”

Formidable’s pig nostrils flared. The blue light of the weapon on her arm blinked out. She grabbed the bottle and finished it, dropping it to the ground.

She shook her large head. “Gods damnit.”

“Hey, it’s not so bad,” Gary said. “Look, look.” Another bottle appeared. “In my house, the booze never runs dry.” He pulled the cork with his teeth and spat it out the door. It flew with surprising speed and bounced against the painting of Astrid in the hallway, leaving a mark.

“So,” Orren said. “You’ve demonstrated to me that your control has extended outside of Earth’s orbit, and you likely have control all the way to the star, which means you’ve disabled the failsafe.”

Gary shot a finger gun at Orren. “Someone give that worm a prize.”

“Fuck me. We’re too late,” Formidable said.

Gary laughed. “Hey, buck up, kiddo. It’s not so bad. It’s not like I’m planning on blowing up the solar system or anything.”

“Oh yeah? Then what are your intentions?” Formidable asked.

“That, young lady, is none of your business. Seriously, you shouldn’t even be here. I brought you here as a visual presentation to Orren, and now it’s time to go. Do you want another drink before I send you off?” He held out the bottle. She did not take it.

“Will you send me back to my ship?”

“Fuck no. Where’s the fun in that? I’m assuming your second-in-command still has the ability to break into the Venus satellite station?”

Formidable paused. “Why?”

Gary shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. I left it unlocked. But I can’t have you guys talking before your crew gets there. I just kinda want to see if they go through with it.”

“They are honorable orcs. Do not harm them.”

He waved a dismissive hand. “You have my word I won’t harm a tootsie on their disgusting piggy toes. Now, as to you.” He tapped the bottle against his muzzle as if he was thinking. “I’ll give you four choices. Death. Scolopendra Club. The Cabaret backstage. Or Earth’s surface. Pick.”

Formidable growled. “If you’re not going to send me back to my ship, I would like to stay for the remainder of Faction Wars. That is still happening, is it not?”

“Oh, the crawl will continue unabated. That’s the one thing that’s not going to change. But I can’t bring you into the crawl at this point. It’s against the rules.”

“Can’t you change the rules?” she asked.

“We all have our limitations,” Gary replied. “And even if I could, I wouldn’t. Now, choose. You have ten seconds. Death. Scolopendra Club. The Cabaret. Or Earth’s surface. Pick.”

“What the hells is the cabaret?” Formidable asked.

“The Pineapple Cabaret? First off, it’s backstage at the cabaret. Not the cabaret itself. Not a bad choice. Tick tock, Miss Piggy.”

“The surface,” she said with a growl.

And without another word, Formidable teleported away with a crack.

“A shame,” Gary muttered. “I hope she knows how to swim.”

39

Now that Orren no longer had his ball, his hands didn’t seem to know what to do with each other. He kept clenching and unclenching his fists. “All right. You’ve gone fully primal, and we can’t stop you. But beyond that, you have broken free of your containment. You claim the crawl will continue to run ‘unabated.’ Does that mean our other agreements will remain intact?”

“I’m not here to talk about our other agreements,” Gary said. “I’m still a little peeved you wanted Formidable to succeed in killing me. I’m going to have to think about it. But yes, the game will continue.”

“Very well,” Orren said carefully. “Then how can we be of further assistance?”

“Finally,” Gary said, slapping the desk. “This is the real reason I’m here. Like I said, I need advice for my conundrum.”

“Advice?” Orren asked.

He jumped up once again. He couldn’t stop moving. “Yes, keep up. Hmm. I think we need a female perspective on this. Damn. I should’ve kept Formidable here for a minute longer. Wait, I have an idea.”

Donut suddenly appeared with a yowl. She landed on my lap. She jumped to her feet, all poofed out. “Carl? What’s happening? Oh, hi Orren!” She gasped. “Gary? You’re alive? Carl, look! It’s Growler Gary! How did you get here? I thought you died!”

“Growler Gary never died,” Gary said. “He was on a key hold, meaning he regenerated each time.”

“It’s okay, Donut,” I said, rubbing her back. I gave her three quick taps to warn her of the danger. “It’s a long story.” At the same time, I tried to send a message warning her who this really was, but it wouldn’t let me pop open the message tab.

If she’d noticed my non-verbal warning, she gave no indication.

“No time for explanations,” Gary said. “We’re in a game time out, and I need relationship advice.”

Donut scoffed. “And you’re asking Carl and Orren? Orren is a much-too-serious workaholic with only one outfit who most definitely doesn’t have a girlfriend, and if he did, he’d probably be overly critical of her to the point where she’d eventually move out and go back to her mother. And we all know what happens when Carl gets a girlfriend. I love him very much, but he’s quite naïve. She could literally have dicks raining on her, and he wouldn’t notice. No offense, Carl.”

Gary laughed. “I know, right? That’s why you’re here.”

Donut nodded sagely. “Okay. Hit me. What’s the story?”

Gary flipped the chair next to us backwards and jumped into it. He took another, quick drink of his vodka as he leaned forward conspiratorially. “Okay, imagine this scenario. You’re talking to this chick, right? And you like her. You like her a lot. She’s blowing your mind. She teaches you new shit every day. Your family likes her, too. But even though everything is going great, you go online, and you see a bunch of concerning things about her past. And not only that, but she once had this huge boyfriend. Like the sort of guy who could rip a phonebook in half. She says they’re broken up because he’s, like, dead. But it turns out he’s not dead. He’s in prison. And then you start to wonder about all this stuff she’s doing for you. Is she using you? Is she trying to get you to fight him? Is she trying to make him jealous? Is it a threesome thing? Or maybe she’s just genuinely into you and is trying to get over her past.”

“Errr,” I said.

“Do you feel as if your emotional needs are being met?” Donut asked.

“That’s the thing. I think they are. I like everything about what she’s saying.”

“Hmm,” Donut said. “That is a tough one. But you need to remember that pretty words aren’t everything. What someone does is much more important than what they say. Have you tried asking her about this other guy? Miss Beatrice was always reading articles online about how important communication was. Not that she ever followed the advice, but if she had, perhaps things would’ve turned out differently.”

“She doesn’t bring him up unless I ask, and she’ll answer my questions, but I feel as if she’s being deliberately obtuse.”

“Your family?” Orren asked. “Could you elaborate on that?”

Gary gave a dismissive wave. “I gotta be in the right mood to talk about them. I’m not.”

“What does this young lady look like?” Donut asked. “I know this isn’t very feminist of me, and yes, looks shouldn’t be important, but we must be realistic about this sort of thing. Attraction is very important in relationships. How does she compare to, say, Jumping Jen-Jen?”

“She looks like Agatha,” Orren said drily.

“Agatha?” Donut asked. “The smelly homeless lady with the squeaky shopping cart? Oh, Gary. Are you really that desperate? I’m sure she’s nice, but certainly you can do better than that. I don’t know about hygiene standards in your part of the galaxy, but let’s just say I hope you at least have a raincoat to...”

Gary slammed the desk with the flat of his hand. He hit the desk so hard, a crack appeared in the wood. The vodka bottle, miraculously, did not spill. Under my hands, Donut stiffened, but she did not flinch.

“Do not venture too far from the metaphor,” he growled, his voice suddenly angry, serious, and filled with a supernatural amount of bass. “We. All. Have. Our. Limitations.”

A chill washed over me.

Donut took a short moment to compose herself. “So, anyway. Is this other guy getting out of prison soon?”

Orren leaned forward in his chair.

Gary laughed. It was like his outburst never happened. “That’s the big question, now isn’t it? But there’s more, and it’s a little complicated. But it’s also pretty juicy.”

Donut also leaned forward. I could feel her trembling under my hands. “Oh, honey. Juicy is mama’s bread and butter. Let’s hear it. Spill the tea.”

Gary nodded. “This guy in prison. He used to have another girlfriend. Not the girl I’m seeing, but someone else. Someone older. This older woman is still in the picture, too. Sort of. They’re from the same hometown. She wants him killed because she thinks he’s really dangerous. This old girlfriend, she’s been talking to me, too. But she’s talking to me in a really roundabout way. She’s been giving me pointers as well. Pointers on how to get stronger. I think she wants me to kill that old boyfriend of hers in prison. Now, here’s the confusing part. That old girlfriend and the one I’ve been talking to hate each other. But I kinda think they actually want the same thing. Does that make sense?”

“Jesus Christ,” I muttered. I couldn’t help it. “No. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“So, both prison guy’s old girlfriends want him dead?” Donut grunted and gave me a sidelong glance. “That sounds familiar. Look, in my experience if a bunch of people want someone dead, that means that person is either really good or really bad. But I wouldn’t do anything about it until I knew which one it is, and even then, I’d probably stay out of it unless I didn’t have a choice. As for your current girlfriend, if she can’t understand that, then it sounds more like she’s using you. So I would be careful.”

“Huh,” Gary said. “You know what, I think that’s really good advice. Thanks, Princess Donut. Now, back to the game. Nothing changes. The game goes on as planned. The rules will be followed. Orren, back to work.”

Gary suddenly collapsed in a heap on the floor.

“Gary?” Donut asked, jumping to the cracked desk. She knocked over the vodka bottle, but Orren caught it before it could spill. She peered over the desk with concern. “Gary?”

Gary moaned. He sat up, eyes slitted. The Shitfaced debuff was suddenly over him. But even more astonishing was his level. I couldn’t remember what he’d been on the fourth floor. He was now level 175.

“Rory?” he asked. “Where am I?”

And then, with a crack, he teleported away.

The three of us just sat there, alone, for several moments, not saying anything.

“What the fuck just happened?” I finally asked.

“I’ll tell you one thing, Carl,” Orren said, indicating the vodka bottle still in his hand. “I really wish I could drink this right now.”

40

“Carl,” Orren said after a few moments. “Is that what you did? You helped break the AI from its containment? Did you do it deliberately?”

“What?” Donut asked. “What’s this?”

I just looked at him. I didn’t answer.

“Well,” Orren said. “I suppose whether you did it on purpose or not is irrelevant at this point.”

“Would you have rather died?” I asked.

“Would I rather die than live through the thousand cycles of chaos and death that are surely about to ensue?” He ran his gloved hand along the crack in his desk. “History is going to remember me as the one who let this happen. When I left the Knot, I said it was because I wanted to make a difference. But at the time, it was because I wanted to be an actor. And I wanted to remain pure, not relying on someone else’s death to make my mark. I never imagined I’d find myself at the forefront of a potential apocalypse.”

Donut was about to make a snide comment, but I put my hand on her. I was tired, and I just wanted to get back to base and see what was happening. I still had boxes to open, too. If we weren’t all going to die today, and if the crawl wasn’t going to stop, then all of this outside stuff didn’t really matter. Not yet.

Orren seemed to snap out of his reverie at the same time. “It is not appropriate for you two to be here. Not that we can do anything about it at this point, but I would implore you both not to discuss this conversation with those outside this room. I know you have little regard for the universe outside your own people, Carl, but mass panic beyond what is already happening will hurt the weak and innocent before it touches those you claim to truly hate.”

I didn’t answer. Our messages had already turned back on, and Donut was currently giving a play-by-play of what had happened to anyone who would listen. The entire Syndicate council had supposedly watched all this as well. It would be impossible to keep anything that just occurred a secret.

I’d missed several very important messages in the warlord chat, and they all popped up at once.

You have lost territory! Your non-connected territory, named Former Prism castle, has been ceded to the Dream.

Warlord Message. The Bone Clan is no longer a member of the Bloc.

Warlord Message. The Dream is no longer a member of the Bloc.

Alliance Update:

The Bloc Alliance:

The Blood Sultanate

The Madness

The Reavers

The Good Guys Alliance:

Team Retribution

The Princess Posse

Unaffiliated:

The Bone Clan.

The Dream.

“Wow,” Donut said. “What happened? I was expecting the orc guys to break up because of that whole ‘We’ve been spying on you’ thing. But what happened with the bald Dream guys? Do you think it was because you gave them D’Nadia’s castle?”

“I don’t know,” I said, also clicking through the menu to see if anything else had changed. “The fact everyone is making these moves now suggests they already know the failsafe isn’t going off. So someone has probably already spilled it all. I got a message from Florin saying they’re picking off the fleeing soldiers, but he doesn’t think it’s safe to pursue them outside our territory. I agree. We have our own wounds to lick, and we’re pretty unorganized right now.”

Orren made a dissatisfied grunt. He, too, was clearly in his own messaging hell right now. “It’s time for you two to take your...”

“Damascus!” Donut suddenly shouted. “Damascus Steel, get back here this instant! Do you think you can just sneak by and I wouldn’t see you?” She leapt from my lap and went into the hallway. “Carl, did you see him? He just walked by the door and didn’t say hello! Damascus, where did you go?” She returned to the room and sat on my lap with a harumph.

I hadn’t noticed him, but I hadn’t been paying attention, either. I was still in my messages, catching up.

In addition to the public notices, there were several notifications in the warlord private chat. It was a message tree that had occurred while I was in here but before Donut had been teleported in. She had already engaged with the warlord.

“Christ, Donut,” I muttered, looking at the page-long conversation. “What is this?”

“Oh, are you reading my chat with Stalwart?” she asked. “It gets quite heated there at the end.”

War Chief Stalwart: I demand the immediate return of my family’s property. I demand my father’s signet ring, his body, and the credits you illegally stole. Return them immediately before my sister arrives at the station!

Warlord Donut: OH, I’M SORRY. WERE WE SUPPOSED TO RETURN THAT STUFF? I’M AFRAID IT’S TOO LATE. BUT IF YOU NEED A LOAN, LET ME KNOW, AND I’LL ASK MY FRIEND ROSETTA ON YOUR BEHALF. I HEARD SHE RECENTLY CAME INTO SOME MONEY.

War Chief Stalwart: The banker’s federation will not stand for this! Return my father immediately! Allow me to bury him before this world dies!

Warlord Donut: I DON’T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT BANKERS, BUT I DO KNOW NOBODY LIKES YOU RIGHT NOW AND NOBODY IS GOING TO BE DOING YOU GUYS ANY FAVORS ANY TIME SOON. AS FOR YOUR FATHER’S BODY, I’M AFRAID I’VE ALREADY TAKEN YOUR FATHER’S SKIN AND TURNED IT INTO A POWDER ROOM RUG. IT’S QUITE WATERPROOF AND MONGO SOMETIMES MISSES HIS PEE PAD WHEN HE HAS TO GO POTTY IN THE SAFEROOM. UNFORTUNATELY, IT’S NOT VERY ATTRACTIVE SINCE IT CAME WITHOUT A HEAD, PLUS IT’S A LITTLE LARGE FOR THE RESTROOM. I’VE ALREADY PROMISED HIM THE NEXT ONE WE GATHER WILL BE OF A MUCH SMALLER ORC. SO PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHEN YOU’RE PLANNING ON VISITING.

War Chief Stalwart: You dare? You dare with this talk? I am a king.

Warlord Donut: I ONCE KNEW SOMEONE ELSE WHO USED TO CALL HIMSELF A KING A LOT. EVERYONE LAUGHED AT HIM JUST AS MUCH AS THEY LAUGH AT YOU AND YOUR BROTHER. ALSO, GONK IS QUITE UPSET YOU HAVEN’T ASKED AFTER HIM.

War Chief Stalwart: What? What are you talking about?

Warlord Donut: THIS IS WHY YOU’LL NEVER BE AS GOOD OF A KING AS YOUR FATHER. HE TALKED ABOUT HOW MUCH OF A DISAPPOINTMENT YOU WERE BEFORE HE DIED.

War Chief Stalwart: You are a liar.

Warlord Donut: YOU KNOW, THAT’S THE ONE THING I’M NOT LYING ABOUT, WHICH I’M SURE MAKES IT HURT EVEN MORE BECAUSE I BET YOU KNOW IT’S TRUE, TOO.

War Chief Stalwart: You’re a liar and a fool. If we survive to the next phase, I will keep you alive while I boil your fur off your skin.

Warlord Donut: I’M SORRY, BUT YOU ARE MUCH TOO POOR TO BE TALKING TO ME LIKE THIS.

“Jesus, Donut,” I muttered.

“Honestly, I feel a little bad about that ‘poor’ line, but I do like trash talking those guys. I figured it would really rankle him. I’m not really that much of a snob. You know, as long as you don’t smell.” She looked off toward the door. “If Damascus Steel is walking around in the open, do you think Anaconda is still here, too? I thought they went off to kill their dad. Do you think they succeeded?”

“I doubt it,” I said, still distracted by the warlord chat. The two former strippers, Damascus Steel and Anaconda were brothers, and they’d gone off to hunt and kill their father, who’d somehow managed to turn into the manager for the Desperado Club. That was a mystery for another time.

“Carl,” Donut asked. “Do you think he’s right? That the orc guys are gonna get us good once the magic protection drops? The others all seem really scared of these war mage guys. I ended up reading that one spellbook, you know the one that was bleeding and crying, but I’m kinda scared to use it. And I’m worried it won’t be enough. Mordecai told me not to tell people what it does.”

I put a hand on Donut. The War Crime spell only cost a single point of mana, but it also cost 95% of the caster’s health. It could only be cast once a day. At level one, it could only be cast in an area of about ten meters. I shuddered thinking about it. But what was worse was the knowledge that spells like that were regular, every day spells for war mages. Both the orcs and the Madness had these guys in their employ.

“We can only fight one battle at a time, Donut.” I gave her another pat. “And luckily, we’re not doing it alone.”

I still hadn’t opened my box that had given her that spell. I would be doing that now. The Gate of the Feral Gods remained in my inventory. That, too, was a weapon of mass chaos that would soon be unleashed.

“Crawlers,” Orren said, interrupting us. He was obviously distracted. “It’s time to go. I will teleport you two back to your base.” And without another word, he teleported away with a crack. A moment later, we, too, were back at base.

* * *

“The map is a mess,” Boomer was saying as he and I walked back to the castle. Donut had already bounded ahead.

The grizzled elf had a cigar back in his mouth. “Southern front is quiet for now, but Florin’s 101st is still chasing the enemy away up north. They’ll establish a beachhead in their old trenches if they keep moving. I got my folks looting the fallen enemy soldiers. They left a lot of weapons behind, but most of the weapons are attuned. That blast that took out the slime boss looks like it was one of their Weepers. The thing appears to have malfunctioned and then gone up. The blast was so strong it powered through all of their anti-explosive shields. It’s a bloody mess over there. We got cheese sticks raining down several kilometers away.”

“So it wasn’t a fragging incident? That’s too bad. If those Weeper tank things are gonna blow like that, I don’t want to use the captured ones unless we have to. Ask Florin to see if he can figure out that happened. Where’s Tipid?” I asked.

“In the castle with Rosetta,” Boomer said.

“Yeah, I need to have a talk with Rosetta, too,” I said. I sent a quick note to Britney that I wanted to talk to Juice Box as well.

Boomer nodded and continued his debrief. “The 104th Naughty Little Piggies is back to their normal castle defense positions, cleaning up after the brain worm attack, but we lost most of our mages, and it’s going to be a while before the castle’s magical defenses are back where they were unless we borrow some from the White Dragons.”

I saw Donut in the distance with Mongo dancing all around her, followed by Rend. She was introducing the dead king’s giant swamp yak to the dinosaur, who was sniffing at him suspiciously. Simoom the rhino hadn’t left Gonk’s side since we’d arrived.

“Li Na is already understaffed,” I said absently. “And we need that Shanty Town defense up and running like yesterday.”

Boomer grunted as we stepped over a pile of yet-to-be-looted Reaver paratrooper corpses. The entire base was a mess. Across the way, Dong Quixote was now stroking the side of Gonk the swamp yak while Jamal the shark bounced and rolled all around them.

“What about the list of missing crawlers?” I asked.

“That’s Elle and Imani’s job, but it looks like we now have most of the crawlers under the Posse banner. That goat guy remains unaffiliated, and he’s also hiding his position. Same with that Lucia Mar kid. Other than that, the list hasn’t changed much. There’s a crawler named Burcu whose whole team appears to have been taken in by the Madness according to the Find Crawler skill. People who know them say they’re not answering messages, which likely means they’re conscripted. And that Osvaldo crawler you were asking about seems to be riding it out in the woods along with a large group of crawlers. Team Flamengo, I believe they call themselves. There are a few crawlers who’ve affiliated with the NPC team instead of the posse, which I suppose is better than nothing. There were several who also appear to have been conscripted by the orcs, but they’re all gone now.”

I sighed. That reminded me. Donut hadn’t really turned King Rust’s body into a rug. I had him in my inventory. I now had a second ring of Divine Suffering, and I had that damn necklace, too. He had several other magical items on him as well, but most wouldn’t work on me. I would need to sit down with the others and talk about what to do with all the stuff.

“Good news is the enemy is even more fractured than we are,” Boomer continued after a minute. “Now might be a time to move on the Operatic castle.”

That brought my attention back to the present. He didn’t say the name of the operation out loud, in case of spies. But him saying it was time to move on the Operatic castle was a code. What he was really saying was it was time to initiate Operation: Snake Pit.

It was to be the most difficult, most crucial raid since we entered the dungeon. We still had a lot to do if we wanted to get both Donut and Katia off this floor. But we couldn’t save either if we didn’t first defeat the nagas. And not just defeat them, but wipe them out, down to the last snake.

“The orcs just gained that castle, and they’ll be expecting an attack right about now,” I said. “It has to happen when they least expect it.”

That, too, was code. Boomer was right. It was time. We needed to do this now while we had time to breathe.

Katia: Hey, we’re almost back to base.

I swallowed. If this next action failed, and that naga queen got away...

Carl: See you soon.

41

Donut: THE NEW WALL IS COMING ALONG NICELY. ALSO, WE PAINTED THE CASTLE PINK. JAMAL BROKE HIS NEW LEGS AGAIN, BUT JUSTICE LIGHT SAYS HE CAN FIX THEM WITHOUT GOING INTO THE SAFEROOM. I JUST TALKED TO KATIA AND LI NA, AND THEY SAY THEY’RE ALMOST DONE WITH THE CLOCK TOWER THING. KATIA IS COMING TO YOU.

Carl: Okay. We still have several hours until the warlord council. I guess I’ll see you then.

Donut: WHAT DID YOU DO WITH KING RUST’S RING AND THE NECKLACE?

Carl: Don’t worry. I can only wear one Ring of Divine Suffering at a time. I checked. Besides, it turns out two rings can’t mark the same person on this floor anyway. And we don’t need that necklace. He has some other magical gear we’ll distribute around. We’ll figure out what to do with it all later.

Donut: DID YOU OPEN YOUR BOXS YET? GET ANYTHING GOOD?

Carl: Uh, I’m not sure yet. I’m working on my boxes right now.

I stared at the spellbook on the kitchen counter. It had come in my 1914 box. The book had grown little, centipede-like legs and had skittered away from me the moment it came out of the box. The thing was bigger than the books usually were, and it was dripping some foul-smelling black liquid all over the counter. It had moved to the corner of the table, shivering and making this strange, dog-like whimpering noise. Thankfully Mongo and Rend were many miles away at the base with Donut. Otherwise they’d likely attack the thing.

Above, the cleaner bot hovered, making angry, pissed-off squeals each time more of the black stuff squirted off the large book. I felt ill and pushed away my bowl of chowder.

“What the heck is that noise?” Katia asked as she came into the room from the common area. She stopped, looking at the wet, shivering book on the counter. “Is... is that a spellbook?”

“It is,” I said, watching the thing.

“Why is it crying?”

I hadn’t even had the chance to examine it yet.

“Stay away! Don’t touch me!” the book shrieked. “I’ll die if you read me!” More black liquid spewed off it. It had a high-pitched, European accent. Like a ridiculous, racist caricature of an Austrian accent.

Katia and I looked at each other.

I gave a quick look to the minimap, and the book didn’t appear at all.

“Weird,” Katia said. “It doesn’t let me examine it.”

“That potion I got from the celestial box was also like this,” I said. “It doesn’t appear as a monster or NPC on the map. It doesn’t appear at all. I never saw it, but Donut’s War Crime spellbook also was like this.”

Mordecai was over in Meadowlark’s saferoom working on something with Mistress Tiatha, otherwise I’d call him over. Donut was still at the stronghold along with Tipid and Rosetta, but we’d closed off access to the saferoom, so they couldn’t easily come this way. I’d entered through one of the many saferooms in Shanty Town.

I was about to get up and grab the book, but the cleaner bot beat me to it. With an angry beep, the bot swept down, sucked up the book so it was stuck to the bottom of the bot, and it brought it to me, dropping it in my arms. It gave an angry beep at me as the quivering book started spewing more black goo. The little centipede legs scratched at me as it tried to get away.

“Please, don’t read me. Don’t read me!” the book whined.

“You better put that thing in your inventory,” Katia said.

I was afraid it wasn’t going to let me because we couldn’t normally store living things, but I pulled it in easily.

“Gah,” I said, looking at the oily goo on my arms. I’d just taken a shower, but I would have to do it again. The robot made a harrumph-like sound and started cleaning all the liquid.

“What the hell?” I muttered, reading the description.

“What is it?” Katia asked.

“Do you remember on the sixth floor when we’d sent the automatons after Samantha, and we’d have her run toward the hunters’ big guns? It’s kinda like that. But weirder. And a little more fucked up.”

“Weirder than sending explosive robot spiders after a deranged sex doll head?”

“Uh,” I said.

I reread the description of the spell attached to the book.

Spellbook of Run, Little Günter, Run.

This spellbook is a Special Edition. This means you will learn this spell at level 5, and it will train up faster than usual.

Run, Little Günter, Run.

Cost: Variable. Minimum 20 mana.

Target: This is a summoning spell. It will summon a small, hominid creature named Little Günter. He will appear directly in front of caster.

Duration: Once activated, Little Günter will last 20 seconds plus one second per mana point added above the minimum. Higher spell levels decrease mana cost per second. You must activate Little Günter within 30 seconds of summoning him, otherwise he will dissipate.

Cooldown: You may cast this spell once every ten hours.

This spell summons a small, fat, child-like creature named Little Günter. Little Günter only has a single point of health and will remain in front of you until you cast a spell, use a skill, or otherwise attack him. Attacking Günter activates him. The effects of the attack will be temporarily “stored” until Günter times out. Once activated, Günter will run away from you as fast as he can.

If you designate a target, Günter will run toward your target. The stored attack will trigger once he reaches the target or times out.

If you do not designate a target, Günter will try to flee from you in a random direction.

Higher levels of this spell will decrease cooldown, increase Günter’s speed, and lower the mana cost per second. At level 10, Günter can split into a second creature after activation. This second Günter can target another enemy. At level 15, Günter can split into five different Günters.

Warning: Once activated, Günter’s constitution will increase to that of the caster. If a second attack kills Little Günter before he reaches his target or times out, he will immediately trigger the stored attack.

At first, I thought the spell was kind of impractical. Most melee attacks would be useless because if I kicked the thing in the head, what difference would it make where it was standing when the kick actually hurt him? But the more I thought about it, the more useful it suddenly seemed. My Daughter’s Kiss was like a bomb. If I used it on Günter, the benefit was obvious. But what if I hit him with a thrown bomb? Not that I could do that anyway because he’d be right next to me when I activated him.

Still, my mind whirled with possibilities.

I explained the spell to Katia as she moved to the counter and pulled two of Donut’s now-drained hats off the charging pillows. She produced Donut’s tiara—which Donut had given her on her way here—and she carefully placed the tiara on each pillow in turn. On the tiara, three of the absorption jewels started to sparkle, joining the twenty other sparkling gems. Twenty three buffs added, 76 to go. The tiara had just gained another 10 to Constitution, a plus two enhancement to Donut’s Dodge skill—which should bring it to 15—and a 1% buff to her Intelligence. The intelligence buff was a waste of a crystal, but it was on the same hat that had the Dodge upgrade and couldn’t be avoided. Katia handed me the tiara, which I would return to Donut while the next hat would get drained. Katia placed a plastic baseball hat on the pillow. I’d never even seen the hat before, but it had a buff that would supposedly add the Steady skill, which Donut didn’t have. The other, catch-all pillow, Katia left empty for the moment. We agreed for this next one, the pillow would be placed in a different room.

She turned to me as I finished explaining the Little Günter spell. “That’s so weird. Is it me, or are the spells getting stranger? Did you hear about that spell Tran got? It turns his fingers and arms temporarily into noodles. It’s like completely useless. And bizarre. Do you have to be the one who attacks the thing, or can you summon it and have Donut store a trigger spell on it? What was his name? Gunther?”

“Günter, and I don’t know. It doesn’t say, but that’s a good question. There’s only one way to find out.” I sighed and pulled up the spellbook from within my inventory. I clicked on it and applied it. I felt the warmth spread over me as I learned the spell.

“Speaking of spells,” Katia said. She pulled the vial from her inventory and sat it on the table. The ink was already mixed. We both stared at it as I pulled the poke and stick tattoo kit and placed it on the table next to the ink.

I sighed. “You know, she hasn’t really talked to me since the end of the last floor. Li Na, I mean. Not since I ate Li Jun’s eye.”

“She’s not mad at you,” Katia said. “She’s mad at herself for not protecting her brother. She knows you didn’t do it on purpose.”

“Is she doing okay? Did it hurt?”

“She says it didn’t hurt at all. It’s not permanent, unlike what happened with her brother. She lost five levels temporarily, but she can still use it. Intention matters. You pulled out his eye with violence when you were under control of that thing. If the blood is freely given, the potion allows you to choose the spell or skill. The tattoo itself, unfortunately, is permanent. Where do you want it?”

I had several tattoos on my left arm, but nothing on my right. “Might as well get the right sleeve started. How big does it have to be?”

Katia pushed my sleeve back. “So, it depends on the level of the spell or skill. Since this is a level-13 skill, it has to be pretty big. I have to use almost all the ink in the vial, otherwise you won’t get it at full strength. It took up a third of the potion already just to make the ink. We’ll have just enough to do Imani’s small tat next. Rosetta says the tattoo doesn’t have to actually be a specific image, but if it’s ‘properly themed,’ it’ll last longer. And if it’s drawn well, it could possibly be even stronger than the original version. I don’t know what ‘properly themed’ really means in this case. Not for this. If I do it well enough, in theory, you’ll have it for the rest of the floor.”

“But Li Na won’t permanently lose the skill? Not like her brother?”

“No. And her brother got Walk on Air back, but they had to buy a book.”

A wave of guilt washed over me. Every time I thought of it, a bitter taste filled my mouth. “What about his eye? He doesn’t have that back.” I knew they kept trying to get it healed, but nothing seemed to work. There supposedly had once been a healer in Larracos that could’ve helped, but he’d died or disappeared when we’d flooded the city.

“Again, that wasn’t your fault,” Katia said as she prepared the materials. She paused. “You know, just as an FYI. I’ll do my best, but I’ve never done a real tattoo before. I wish Edgar wasn’t preoccupied.”

Edgar the tortoise was currently in Naga territory, scouting a route for us. The slow mage was the perfect scout because of his level-15 Part of the Background skill. An entire army would march right past and not notice unless someone actually tripped over him.

But Edgar also had another skill that would be even more important to us. It was all part of his advanced map-making skills. Sense Movement. He could see when things inside of a structure were moving. Because he was level-15 with the skill, he could also sense invisible, non-corporeal movement. This would become crucial in the coming hours.

Which all meant that Edgar’s tattoo skills couldn’t be used for this, and we had to rely on Katia.

“You did Samantha’s neck,” I said.

Katia chuckled. “That doesn’t count. Not gonna lie, I’m glad Donut isn’t here to look over my work. She can be a bit... critical.”

As if on cue, Donut sent a message.

Donut: KATIA MAKE SURE YOU DRAW IT IN THE VOODOO BOOK FIRST SO I CAN APPROVE AND SUGGEST CHANGES TO THE DESIGN.

I laughed as Katia scowled.

She looked over my arm, cleaning some of the black goo from the spellbook away. “So, Carl. Got any ideas?”

I nodded. “It has to be a chain. A chain shaped like a dragon.”

* * *

I came from the shower to find Louis, Elle, Imani, and Katia all in the room. The tension was palpable. My arm remained sore. On my finger, the Emberus ring was a little hotter than usual.

Zev: Okay, guys. Looks like we’re doing this warlord council whether we like it or not. The Syndicate council tried to cancel the whole thing, but the AI is insisting everything go on like normal, and that includes broadcasting the meeting in real time. You’ll be transported to the production facility like before. The other warlords—all except Juice Box—will also be in the production facility with you, but in different, randomized rooms, so you can’t hurt each other.

Carl: Why is Juice Box not coming?

Zev: It’s a technical issue as there are protections in place disallowing dungeon born into the facility. She’ll be in the meeting, but she’ll appear virtually from the castle. They’re allowing Ferdinand in. He’ll likely be in the same room as you. Like the same same room, so just a head’s up.

Donut: ARE WE GOING TO OUTER SPACE FIRST LIKE WE SOMETIMES DO?

Zev: Uh, no. That ship is unfortunately unavailable. They’re still doing a security check, but it’ll be on site. So don’t try to smuggle anything in.

Carl: I would never dream of it.

Zev: Transporting you in ten seconds. I’ll meet you over there.

I looked at the four other people standing in the room. “It’s time for me to go.”

“Have fun,” Elle said, grinning without humor. Behind her, Mordecai strolled into the room, his arms full of potion balls. Behind him, Mistress Tiatha also entered. She struggled with the coils and coils of wire in her arms.

I felt the first tingles of teleportation.

Operation: Snake Pit had officially begun.

42

Entering Production Facility.

Donut yowled as we landed in the room. All my menus snapped off. My ears popped, and a quick, strange nausea swept over me. I had to sit down on the couch. Donut moved to jump onto my lap but paused, tilting her head to the side.

“Carl, are you okay? You look like Miss Beatrice after she started taking all those diet pills.”

“I’m okay,” I said, resisting the urge to rub my arm. “Seriously. It’s fine.” I patted my lap.

She jumped into it and just sat there for a minute. She hesitantly reached over with a paw and examined the new, shining tattoo on my right forearm. She let out a dissatisfied grunt. “You’re starting to look like one of those white rapper doodle notebook guys, Carl. And it’s a little crooked! I knew I should’ve been there.”

“It’s not crooked,” I said. “The system said it’s expert quality. I talked to Edgar, and he said that’s the second highest one can get.”

Donut didn’t look impressed. “I should’ve been there. Closing the saferoom off from the base is causing all sorts of problems. Not only have we been separated, but Tipid has to build more bathrooms, and it’s disgusting. The whole base smells like your friend, Sam. Nobody is able to take a shower. I will not have a filthy army. We need to purchase an upgrade to the base’s hygiene facilities before we descend into further chaos.”

“Chaos? It’s only been like 10 hours.”

“Which is much too long to be living in filth, Carl. Do you know what comes with filth? Clutter. And with clutter comes squalor. Just because you now look like someone who’s required by law to knock on the neighbor’s door to tell them you’re moving in, it doesn’t mean you should be okay with squalor. Plus that disgusting pet of yours keeps eating everything he can find on the ground. He’s a terrible influence on Mongo.”

I patted her. “Tell Tipid you want showers installed, and if he doesn’t do it, tell Rosetta.”

She swished her tail. “They’re both too busy building other things. I think you should tell them. I don’t like being separated from you like this.”

“Again, it’s only been a few hours. We’ll be together again soon. Something tells me we won’t be spending too much time at the stronghold once we start moving offensively.”

Donut let out a harumph. A big part of the plan to take the Naga castle involved subterfuge. And that required Donut and I to be separated for an extended period. She did not like that.

We hadn’t actually planned for this—the warlord council—but it was an opportunity we couldn’t pass up. But it also meant I needed to rely on others to make the first move while the sultana was here with me and Donut.

Our job right now was to make this meeting go on as long as possible while the team infiltrated into naga territory while also making it look like we were massing on the northern border to push into the former-Operatic territory.

Ferdinand zapped into the room, followed by a good five seconds of absolute chaos. He hit the ground with a screech. The large, orange cat panicked, his feet scrambling, Scooby-Doo style. “Don’t hit me. Don’t hit me. I’m sorry,” he cried before bouncing off the corner of the room, flying across the small chamber, knocking half the playing cards off the counter, launching off my shoulder, howling the whole time before running in multiple circles, his ears pinned back.

He stopped in the middle of the room, low to the ground, panting, eyes wide before he finally focused on me and Donut staring at him. He took a breath and composed himself, sitting up straight. He wasn’t wearing a hat like he usually did, and he looked strangely naked. He smelled like smoke and alcohol, and it appeared as if he hadn’t been grooming himself.

“Hey, kitten,” he said to Donut. “How goes the war?”

“Ferdinand,” Donut said. “I told you not to call me that. Have you left that bar once since...”

A trio of gnolls in power armor entered the room.

“We’re here for your security check. Don’t move,” one of them said as they each moved toward us. Their feet clonked on the floor. Despite being in the earthbound production facility, these guys were wearing the same outfits they wore in the space station. I briefly wondered on that.

Ferdinand hissed and jumped away while Donut swished her tail angrily. The gnoll looked me up and down, hyena face expressionless as he started to rapidly pat me down. He ran a scanner over me. “No explosives on your person?”

“Are you doing this same check to the other warlords?” I asked.

The gnoll grinned. “We are, in fact. You should hear that orc prince shout. Almost made this whole shitshow worth it, if you wanna know the truth.”

“Not a prince anymore,” I said.

“That’s right, innit? He’s now a king. Makes it even sweeter to my tooth. This one is clear,” the gnoll said, backing up.

“Same,” said the other standing over Donut.

“Quit running away. I need to scan ya,” the third one called at Ferdinand, who hissed and swiped.

“Just get it over with,” Donut said, exasperation in her voice. “Ferdinand, they’re not here to hurt you. That guard’s name is Neelii, and he’s very nice if you get to know him.”

I had no idea how Donut knew the name of the guard, but she always made it a point to know everybody’s name.

Ferdinand paused. He’d backed into the corner of the room.

“Do you have any weapons on you?” the third gnoll—Neelii—asked Ferdinand.

“I got my claws, you cur,” Ferdinand hissed. His words did not match his voice as he was clearly terrified.

Neelii sighed and waved a scanner over the orange cat. “He’s clear.”

And without another word, the three guards clanked out of the room.

“That’s right. You run away,” Ferdinand called at the backs of the gnolls, his voice cracking. “You’re lucky you didn’t get the slish slash.”

Just as the door closed, Zev teleported into the room with a pop and splash of water. Ferdinand screeched anew and scrambled up to the counter, his back arching as he hissed.

“Hi, Zev!” Donut said, jumping over to give the tired-looking kua-tin a headbutt.

“Oh, it’s you,” Ferdinand said to Zev after a moment. He remained up on the counter.

Donut peered up at the cowering cat. “Really, Ferdinand. You are very high strung today. Quit being such a wuss. You’re embarrassing yourself. And how do you two know each other?”

“We’ve met,” Zev said, sounding sour.

“Where’s the Juice?” Ferdinand asked.

“Like I told you multiple times,” Zev said, “She’s staying in the castle during this.”

Donut walked circles around Zev, rubbing against her. The small fish creature had to struggle to keep upright. Donut lowered her voice to a whisper. “Did you really think the orc lady was going to blow everything up? That had to be scary. I only thought it was going to happen for like two minutes, and it was scary for me.”

“We did think it was going to happen, but what happened instead is even scarier. Have you heard what’s going on?”

“No. We haven’t heard anything,” I said.

“Oh my gods, it’s just awful,” Zev said, looking back and forth. “They’re talking about mounting a rescue, but the tunnel access has been cut off. With the node gone, even the old Borant travel system won’t work.”

“Wait, what?” I asked. “Rescue of what? What happened?”

“So, all this info is just a few hours old, and the details are still coming in. But after Formidable teleported away, her ship continued to the destination and just sort of stopped. They waited a few hours, but when it was clear the princess wasn’t returning, a few orcs went into the station and manually triggered the failsafe system themselves.”

“Well, that obviously didn’t work,” Donut said.

“No. They tried triggering it, and nothing happened here. But the moment they pressed the button, the Aryl system went dark.”

I blinked. Aryl? Where had I heard that before?

“What does that mean?” Donut asked.

“Aryl was the location of the previous crawl. It was a battle royale-style season. The planet was free of citizens, but there are tens of thousands of people still in the solar system, mostly those on mining ships and mineral reclamation finishing the clean-up. Apparently the AI had stopped communicating a few weeks back, and there was also a team on the surface investigating why. That’s all I really know. The whole system is now dark, and it appears the tunnel node is offline. That’s.... You need to understand that has never happened before. Never in history has a tunnel node just switched off like that.”

“What?” I asked. “You can’t turn off the tunnel?”

“No! Even before the Plenty figured out how to open the nodes for communication and travel, we could see them. They were a map of the stars, pointing us to all of the seeded worlds. We’ve seen systems go supernova, but the tunnel nodes remained active. We didn’t even know it was possible for a tunnel strand to just disappear. It happened the very moment, like the exact nanosecond, the orcs hit the failsafe, and nobody knows what it means.”

I was still stuck on the other thing she’d said. “All the citizens were off the planet? What was it? Aryl? What about those who didn’t participate in the crawl? Wasn’t this just a few years ago? Where are they?”

“Uh,” Zev said. “That was a Squim season. They do things a little differently. There were some survivors, but they were relocated.”

“But we don’t know if the planetary system is destroyed or not? Could everything be fine and the communication node is just offline?”

“That’s right,” Zev said. “But it is strange. The AI from the previous season was still working, but it had stopped talking, which is also unusual. I don’t think anybody knew that until today. I don’t actually know all the details. But they said it’ll be at least three cycles before we know if the star is still there. That’s how far the closest neighbor is. It’s 2.9 light cycles away. Even the old Borant gate system won’t work with the node gone. It’s terrifying.”

“When did that other AI go offline?” I asked, suddenly feeling a little... Actually, I wasn’t sure how I felt. “Does it line up with...” I tapped the side of my head.

“No. And like I said, it wasn’t offline. It was working but silent, which is exactly what... It doesn’t matter. It was before your meeting with that residual. It sounds like it was sometime during the sixth floor, so even before the current season truly, uh, went off track.”

“Yo. Donut told me we sometimes get snacks,” Ferdinand said. He remained up on the counter. “I’m looking, Zev. But you know what I’m not seeing? Snacks.” A few playing cards remained on the counter, and he pushed them off the edge and glared.

Zev sighed as her small info pad beeped.

“There’ll be refreshments at the meeting. It’s time to go.”

43

<Note added by Crawler Drakea, 22nd Edition.>

The naga. Beware the naga. They are cunning, and sometimes I wonder if they can read one’s mind. The others say that the mantids are the masters of strategy, but I do not believe this. Even though everything seems to be going wrong for the nagas this season, I cannot shake the idea that this all isn’t part of some grand scheme. Underestimate them at your own peril.

* * *

“Warlord Carl will sit here, and Warlord Donut will sit here,” the mexx robot said. It was a different one than last time. I missed its designation when it introduced itself, but Donut was calling it Carla.

“You, Warlord Ferdinand will sit here,” the robot said, indicating a spot on the other side of the table. Just as it said that, Juice Box suddenly appeared, already sitting at the table next to Ferdinand’s spot. She was leaned over a map of some sort, and she quickly pushed it away so it disappeared.

Juice Box was in a human form, wearing a black, skintight bodysuit with long, straight black hair and round glasses. She had a red emblem on her chest that I was pretty sure was supposed to be a cobra head.

“Ferdinand, sit,” Juice Box snapped at the cat, who’d jumped to the center of the table and was sniffing suspiciously at a bowl of what looked like trail mix. She used her regular voice, which was slightly incongruous with the form she’d taken.

The orange cat muttered and walked over to his spot, sitting on the raised chair and started grumbling more about the snacks.

I met eyes with Juice Box, and she gave me a slight nod. That was all I needed to know. If Britney had done her job properly, then Team Retribution’s greatest assets were already getting to work.

I still needed to talk to the changeling about the extra tunnels she had dug around our own base. These tunnels had saved our ass, and Rosetta had known about them, suggesting there wasn’t anything truly nefarious about them all. But I still didn’t like being in the dark. But I had put off asking Juice Box about it. I still hadn’t spoken with Rosetta about it, either. I didn’t want to risk damaging our relationship with Team Retribution. Not until we were done with this next part, as their help was crucial.

Ferdinand started loudly explaining to Juice Box how he’d “chased off” the gnoll guards. Juice Box, for her part, seemed oddly distracted. I was about to ask her if she was okay when there was a flash, and a new creature appeared in the room. He stood off to the side of the room, his glittering jacket twinkling in a spotlight had also just suddenly appeared. The winged wolf creature clutched onto a long microphone. In his other hand was a lint roller, and he furiously started rubbing it up and down his jacket.

I blinked, exchanging a look with Donut.

“Chaco?” Donut asked. “Carl, why is Chaco here?”

“Oh, hello, Carl and Donut,” Chaco said from across the room. The former-skyfowl-turned-gameshow-host used the lint roller to wave at us. “Magnificent Troy was going to be the field correspondent, but he’s refusing to come down to the surface. He’s afraid of getting stuck down here, so they told me I have to do it. From what it sounds, it’s actually more dangerous up there right now. I’ll be here asking questions, Kevin remains in the studio from orbit, and your adjutants will also be live commenting in a window, but I don’t think you’ll get to see any of that.”

“I remember you,” Ferdinand said, looking Chaco up and down. “You were at the prize counter at the Butcher’s Masquerade. You refused to give me the potion in your case, and I told you that you were sentenced to death.”

Chaco grunted at the cat. “Hello, Gravy Boat. Hello, Juice Box.”

“Don’t call me that,” Ferdinand snapped.

Cascadia appeared at the head of the table, right next to Juice Box. Ferdinand yelped and hissed as water splashed over the table. I felt the splash. She was really here, in this room with us. That was interesting.

She looked at me and said, “I just can’t wait to see how you make everything worse today.”

I was about to respond when the rest of the warlords started appearing, one after another.

The newly-crowned King Stalwart appeared immediately to our right, sandwiched between Cascadia and Donut. The tall orc wore a glittering, golden crown upon his head. His ever-present frown seemed etched on his orc face.

Across the table and next to Ferdinand appeared Warlord Fang of the Reavers. The last time I’d seen him, he’d been in the form of an old school robot. Now he appeared as a slight, wide-eyed, thin human male, maybe 20 years old, with skin that was just a little too pink. He wore what appeared to be white underwear and a t-shirt. There wasn’t a speck of dirt on him. I could only tell he was a robot based on the line of flashing lights off the side of his temple.

To his immediate right sat Architect Houston of the Madness. The last time I’d seen this guy, he’d tried to shoot me right after the Sortion guy had killed himself. He looked much the same as last time, though I did note his white mask with the red teardrop thing in the center did have a very slight dent in the top corner. That hadn’t been there before.

Then came Epitome Tagg of the Dream. The bald elf looked as if he came straight from the battlefield. His utilitarian armor had a splash of blood across it, and I wondered who’d he’d been fighting. By all reports, he hadn’t been seen on the battlefield yet. At least not against any of our forces.

And then, between Tagg and myself, she materialized.

The sultana. The warlord of the Blood Sultanate.

She did not have a chair, and her giant, white body appeared, coiled next me, bigger than I was expecting, like a building had just suddenly appeared to my left.

My breath caught in my throat. I could smell her. She had the scent of sweet flowers, and for just a moment, that scent was overpowering. I wondered if her perfume was toxic.

In real life, this woman was the daughter of the sultan, and her modern title was Princess. In recent years, their system had become both a tourist destination and a location where other, non-Reaver governments built their factories and shipyards because of the cheap labor. Outside the dungeon, this princess was both a war veteran and lead advisor to her father. But here in the game, she portrayed a historical queen from their own history called the Sepsis Whore. They usually lost faction wars immediately, but they continued to participate to supposedly help drive tourism to their system.

In fact, that they were still in-game after the defeat of three other teams was something that hadn’t occurred in a very long time, according to Victory.

Every other warlord in the room was glaring at Stalwart like he was something and foul smelling that had been dropped in front of them. All except the naga. The woman looked down at me, smiling amiably. A chill washed over me, and I remembered Drakea’s words in the cookbook. Underestimate them at your own peril.

I’d seen several nagas at this point, but I’d never seen anything quite like this woman. Her very presence was electric, and I had to make an effort to close my mouth. I hadn’t had a reaction like this since I’d first seen Signet on the third floor, but that had been a magical charm. And that had been a physical attraction. Such effects were not active here in this room. Still, I felt this overpowering sense of awe. I felt... small in her presence. This was how a mouse felt when it was placed into the cage with a snake. Of all the leaders in this room, she had something the others did not. She hadn’t even opened her mouth yet, and I felt it. I wasn’t even sure what it was. She just sat there, a beacon of strange charisma, and she was looking at me.

I felt my heart beating faster than normal. Fear and uncertainty washed over me.

This isn’t going to work. This isn’t going to work. She knows what we’re doing.

Manassa, the assassinated singer, had been a large, silver and black cobra-like creature with four arms. Nihit, the reporter I’d stabbed in the neck with a pen and who was now the adjutant for the defeated Prism team of Empress D’Nadia had also been a four-armed snake, with purple and black coloring. Rishi, the Blood Sultanate guard who’d appeared at the last council meeting was green and purple with a muscled, armor covered upper torso.

The female naga who sat coiled next to me now was half again as big as any of them. I looked up at her, at a loss for words. She was a brilliant, glossy white with a hint of golden scales along the edge of her wide, cobra hood. She, too, wore a golden breastplate. Embossed into the center of the breastplate was a symbol I’d never seen before. It looked like a tree branch with a single flower upon it.

But strangest of all was that this naga had six arms, not four, making her look like some goddess straight from Hindu lore. Each arm was covered in golden bracelets that jingled and sang with each wave-like movement.

The woman gazed down at me. Her eyes were solid red with no hint of pupils or slits or whatever they were called in other snakes. The other nagas did not have eyes like this.

“Carl,” she said, her voice sounding surprisingly feminine for such a large creature. It was like we were the only two in the room. “I don’t believe we’ve properly met.” She held out her lowest arm and offered it to me, palm down. “My name is Princess Vinata. But for these games, you’re welcome to call me the Whore.”

I instinctively went to grab her hand, but my hand went right through hers.

If our plan worked properly, this woman would be dead in the next few hours. It suddenly seemed so ridiculous that we were even going to attempt to hurt her.

“Uh, hello,” I found myself saying. I was expecting Donut to pipe in, but she was currently distracted by something happening across the table. I couldn’t look away from the naga’s blood-red eyes.

The spell was broken by the sound of Chaco, who’d suddenly appeared right next to me, his fuzzy head ridiculously close to mine. He stage whispered, “Tension hangs heavy in the air. The hunter and the hunted stare at each other. But who is hunting whom? They are being polite in this setting, but they both know the other has to die. It’s only a matter of time before it all comes to a head.”

He shoved the microphone me. “Carl, how do you feel right now?”

“Get that out of my face.”

“Hello, warlords,” Cascadia said, causing Chaco to back off. There was a slight slur to her voice. She sounded tired and resigned, and that fish-like scent from last time was even greater than before. Her scales had fallen off in some places, and the ones that remained had taken on a dull, sickly sheen. This seemed beyond just stress. Was she sick? Drunk? “We are gathered today for the first of two...”

But she was interrupted as both Donut and Ferdinand burst out laughing. They’d been silently chuckling since the warlords all appeared, but neither could contain it further. Ferdinand was suddenly on his back, splayed over the table with his paws upward, howling. “I gotta tell you, kitten. When you’re right, you’re right.”

“I told you,” Donut said, also laughing uncontrollably. “I told you. Oh my goodness. I think I’m going to wee myself. You can’t make this up.”

Cascadia just sighed, not even bothering to admonish the two cats. All around the table, the other warlords just scowled at them. All except Princess, what was her name? Princess Vinata, who continued to just look down at me, smiling. I had to tear my attention away back to Donut.

I had no idea what was so funny.

Chaco was suddenly back, now standing closer to Donut. “Chaco here, reporting live from what’s sure to be a contentious warlord council. The meeting hasn’t even started yet, and it appears both warlords Donut from the Princess Posse and warlord Ferdinand from Team Retribution have fallen into hysterics. Princess Donut, can you tell us what’s so amusing?”

He shoved the microphone at Donut.

Donut pointed a paw up at Stalwart, who sat right next to her, glaring down at the cat. “The crown. He’s actually wearing a crown. Before the meeting, I messaged with Ferdinand, and I bet one gold piece he’d actually be wearing one, and look! Look!”

“He really does look stupid in that thing,” Ferdinand added.

Stalwart sputtered and growled.

“Does King Stalwart look stupid wearing the crown? Let’s vote!” Chaco said. “Right now, all of you at home will have...”

When Stalwart punched Chaco, I wasn’t expecting it to actually work. Apparently the two were in the same room. The orc stood and swung, and his ring-covered fist smacked Chaco straight in the face with a wet, loud splatch. The former crawler’s head snapped back with an oof, and he slid across the room, collapsing in a heap. His microphone rolled away, and his lint brush fell from his pocket. Blood seeped from the wolf’s mouth. He groaned and tried to sit up before collapsing back on the ground, unconscious. He blinked and disappeared.

Stalwart made a pig-like grunt and returned to his chair.

Nobody said anything for several moments.

Donut looked about the room. “Am I able to vote? Because that’s most definitely going to be a yes from me.”

System Message: Warning: Scolopendra Stirs.

That changed the mood of the room. Everyone, even Ferdinand grew silent.

“Uh, has that ever happened before?” I finally asked.

“No,” someone answered. It was Epitome Tagg.

Cascadia laughed. It had a hint of madness to it. “Well, why not? Why the fuck not?”

44

We all looked at one another, waiting for something else to happen. Nothing did.

There was a flash, and to everybody’s surprise, a new figure appeared in the room. It was Odette, but she wasn’t in her usual costume. She was without her mask, her breastplate, and her crab body. It was just her floating in her wheelchair. She wore a simple, yellow shirt, and she had her normally bigger-than-life hair back in a bun. Her long fingernails were gone. She, too, was holding a microphone.

“Odette!” Donut cried. She waved her paw furiously at the host. “Hi, Odette!”

“Hello, everyone,” Odette said, talking into the microphone. “I’m Odette. Yes, this is me out of gear if you haven’t seen me like this before. I just onboarded into the Ascendency where I am playing Nekhebit. They asked me if I would fill in for my very old friend Chaco, who is feeling a little...” she paused and gave Stalwart a look, “punched in the face right now.” She tsked. “But please don’t worry. Chaco is fine. Today’s council meeting is brought to you by the Ultima Corporation, building reliable industrial doors and portals. Log on now for their apocalyptic savings event.” Her floating wheelchair rose in the room, hovering high above the table.

We all just stared up at her.

“Well, that was scary, wasn’t it?” Odette asked the room after seeing nobody was talking. She laughed, and it sounded almost natural. She didn’t seem the least bit nervous. It’d been maybe two minutes from the point Chaco had been punched until she appeared, and she didn’t seem to be even momentarily phased by getting called in at the last moment. Nor did she appear taken aback by the Scolopendra notification.

“That Scolopendra warning was most unexpected, but it appears nothing else is happening at the moment. The AI is certainly kicking things up a notch this season. I imagine those in the Scolopendra Club right now are feeling a bit nervous, especially since they can’t leave. But for the moment, it seems that notification was nothing more than an early warning. The final dungeon boss isn’t supposed to wake until someone reaches the 18th floor, but we all know this season, anything is on the table. With the news that there will be no failsafe, everyone is teetering on the edge of the horizon waiting to see what the AI will next throw at both the crawlers and the unwitting world leaders who’ve found themselves fighting for their very lives.”

She paused, looking up in the air, nodding. I knew there were others talking that we couldn’t see or hear.

Nobody said anything. Cascadia had a round, potion-like ball in her hand, and she brought it to her mouth. The container was about the size of a softball, and it looked huge in her hands. She sucked from it, and the spray of whatever it was misted over the table as her rebreather processed it. Alcohol. It smelled like tequila.

Odette continued. “And that’s what brings us here today. The first of two warlord councils. We’ve already lost three teams. The Lemig Sortion was the first to be defeated, followed shortly by the Prism and then the Operatics. Seven teams remain, including for the first time ever, both a crawler team, led by Warlords Princess Donut and Carl, and perhaps even more astonishing, an NPC team, led by Warlords Ferdinand—whose existence has reignited debate about the controversial ‘walk-on list’ and dungeon born NPC Juice Box, who, in theory, shouldn’t even be aware that she is in a game.”

Odette’s wheelchair casually floated above us before starting to lower near Cascadia.

Odette paused, waiting for Cascadia to say something. When she didn’t, Odette continued. “If you’re not familiar, this kua-tin is none other than Cascadia, showrunner and executive producer of this season of Dungeon Crawler World: Earth. Now, Cascadia. With your home system in the throes of what appears to be a bloody civil war, along with the system AI having officially ‘gone primal’ this early, I can only begin to imagine the stress you must be under. I understand you attempted to cancel this meeting, but the AI is insisting that the rules be followed. How are you feeling?”

Odette shoved the unnecessary microphone at the tiny kua-tin.

Cascadia slowly turned to regard Odette, took another sip of her tequila ball, and sprayed out into the room. The fish started to laugh in Odette’s face.

Next to me, Princess Vinata the naga shook her massive head.

“It’s quite unfortunate,” she said, whispering. I realized she was whispering to me. The polite, serene smile never left her face. “See how Cascadia breaks down? She just learned her former husband and most of her family is gone. The rebels hired the Valtay to help defeat the Bloom forces in their home system, but the war goes poorly. The liquid habitation ring that surrounds Borant three was hit by a derelict warship. Millions dead. That news isn’t public, but she knows. See how she crumbles when she knows those she loves are gone?”

“Yeah?” I asked as Odette continued to try to coax some words out of Cascadia. I wondered if Zev knew this. “If this isn’t public knowledge, then how do you know it? You’re not supposed to get outside information.”

The large snake woman smiled down at me. She didn’t answer my question. “I wonder how you will react when you learn your entire family is dead as well?”

“My family is already dead,” I said.

Odette sighed and rose above Cascadia. She had no option but to take over the meeting. “Moving on. All hostilities are supposed to stop during council. Traditionally, the armies halt their marches and attacks. But there is no rule against anyone making a move while the warlords are otherwise occupied. With the stakes so high, I can’t help but wonder if anyone is planning a surprise action while we’re all stuck in here.” She floated over toward King Stalwart, who sat there glowering at everyone. “King Stalwart, we were all sorry to hear about the death of your father. But with his death came several unsettling revelations. Do you have any comment on that? And tell us about the condition of your forces.”

“The Bone Clan remains stronger than ever, and we are confident we will, once again, stand victorious,” Stalwart said. “We have no comment on anything outside the game. There will be an official statement once the mourning period has passed.”

“Ask him how much money he now has in his checking account,” Donut said.

“That does bring up an interesting question,” Odette began.

Next to me, Vinata continued to whisper.

“That’s not the family of which I speak, Carl. You and I both know you will have to make your move soon. Perhaps it’s happening now, while we are up here. We are expecting you, and we will be ready. They will all die, and after, what will happen? Will you become catatonic like Cascadia? When you are forced to choose between Donut and Katia, what choice will you make? How will the other survivors, if any, react? Say the word. Simply nod, and we will take care of your Katia problem for you. We do not have to be enemies, Carl. We can both survive this, and perhaps, gain something in the process.”

I felt a chill wash over me. I did my best not to outwardly react.

She made a small, hissing noise that I couldn’t read. Next to me, Stalwart was loudly proclaiming how many war mages he had ready to go while Odette pressed him on the state of his family’s finances.

Vinata continued. “I would very much like to make peace with you. I would like for you to join us in our system when this is all done. My father’s court could always use someone like you. We have great plans. We, too, are survivors. That is how we are the same, you and I.”

I felt my fist tighten.

Odette was suddenly there, microphone in my face.

“And what is the state of the Princess Posse troops? You’ve been fighting endlessly since it all started. Can you withstand another push?”

“Of course,” Donut said, forcing Odette to point the microphone toward her. “It’s quite embarrassing how unorganized these other armies are. And don’t even get me started on their hygiene practices. Did you see what happened to Green Jiggly? One of his own tanks blew up!” She looked about the room. “It was probably built by the Skull Empire. Not that we’re complaining, but are we sure they didn’t hit some button to kill the Jell-O guy? They already said they can do that.”

To my surprise, that got a chuckle out of both Princess Vinata and Epitome Tagg.

“You can all go fuck yourselves,” Stalwart grumbled. “You’ll see. You’ll all be sorry. Both here and outside the dungeon.”

Epitome Tagg scoffed as Odette rushed toward him with the microphone. He moved to grab it from Odette’s hand, but his own hand passed through. “Oh, please. Tell us, your majesty, what you’re planning on doing? We have already deactivated all Skull-empire-manufactured hardware in our fleet. You had your personal monetary reserves depleted because of your own lax security, your reputation is destroyed, and you are about to have a civil war on your hands that’ll make the Borant system look like a scuffle between toddlers. Tell us how we’ll be sorry?”

Odette’s eye twitched at something Tagg had said. It was subtle, but I saw it there, just for a moment. Odette, I realized, wasn’t used to having to hide her real reactions because she was usually behind a bug mask. That momentary look of horror was quickly replaced with a journalistic smirk.

“I’ll tell you what I’m going to do to you down here,” Stalwart said, suddenly rising to his feet.

“We are opposite sides of the map, and you do not have an air force,” Tagg said. “So, I ask again, what are you going to do, you coward?”

“Coward? Oh, that’s rich coming from you,” Stalwart snapped.

“Wow. I do hope the people who made the Carl and Maestro sex tape are watching this,” Donut said, looking back and forth. “Might I suggest a scene where Stalwart lovingly rubs lube all over Tagg’s head? For music, maybe ‘Adore You’ by Harry Styles.” She gasped. “No. ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’ by Oasis! What do you think, Carl?”

“Actually, I do want to say something,” I said, raising my hand.

“The floor recognizes Carl,” Cascadia said, talking for the first time since the Scolopendra announcement. Her voice was heavy with inebriation.

Odette rushed toward me with the microphone.

I waved my hands about. “How the flying fuck do you guys know about all this stuff outside the dungeon? We’ve been told, I don’t know how many times now, that they’ve stopped this bullshit. We have giant snake lady here whispering about civil war in the Borant system, cueball talking about how he’s, what was it? Deactivated the pig hardware? When? How? How are they still talking to people outside the dungeon? Team Retribution had an Emergency Action Item that closed down access to live feeds. This is absolute bullshit.”

“Here, here!” shouted Ferdinand. “I don’t know what the hell anyone is talking about, but I agree with Carl!”

“Actually, I can answer that,” Odette said. “Because it is a very good question, and it is something that has been talked about quite a bit recently in the tunnel feeds. This subject is, in fact, the big item on today’s agenda. Two-way conversation has indeed been banned. Watching external live feeds is banned. Learning about enemy troop movements and plans via tunnel is highly regulated now that the AI is closely monitoring all of it. But there are loopholes. The galactic news media center is available as a tier-3 upgrade, and every team except the Princess Posse and Team Retribution has purchased this upgrade. This upgrade normally gives access to over 100,000 news and entertainment channels across the tunnel, but because of that ban that originated with Team Retribution’s Emergency Action Item, in-dungeon viewers can no longer access the live feeds.”

Next to me, Donut gasped. “Cable? We can get cable?”

Odette continued. “But, and this is a big but, the feed directory is still active to all subscribers. This feed directory shows the names of the programs that are currently tunneling. Every single off-world team here owns their own entertainment studio and channel. Some, like the Dream, own several. They are paying the fee to repeatedly change the names of the programs in order to communicate. Just today, Epitome Tagg was shown to have a real-time conversation with the news program formerly called Sensation Updates, which changed its name seven times in the course of an hour. That program, as of this moment, is currently called Yes. We have Deactivated the Infected Hardware.”

“Wait,” Donut said. “They can only see the stupid, boring guide channel, and they’re literally changing the names of the shows to send messages? You can do that?”

“You can if you pay the fee to the Syndicate Entertainment Authority and then to the Plenty to do a hot update for the feed. Each name change costs approximately 30,000 credits.”

“Oh come on,” I said.

“This is an outrage!” Donut shouted at the same time. “You can’t change the name of a show. It’s not right!” She looked at me. “Though I suppose in some circumstances it might be warranted. Remember what happened with that one show with the She-Devil lady and the Sulley guy?”

I was too genuinely pissed to figure out what Donut was talking about.

“You know, when we come up with loopholes, those get patched right away. So why hasn’t this been fixed?” I turned my attention to Cascadia, who was just sitting there. We still had two emergency action items left, but it seemed like such a waste to use one on something that should have already been settled.

Cascadia raised her small hand in what I think was supposed to be a gesture of surrender. “We will ask the AI to fix that.”

There was a ping, and the Mexx robot said from the corner of the room, “The AI indicates that it loves a good loophole, and it is unable to close it unless someone makes an emergency request to close it.”

Goddamnit.

“Ferdinand,” Donut said, her voice suddenly sweet. “Be a darling and close that loophole for us?”

“Of course,” Ferdinand said. He cleared his throat and sat straight. “Team Retribution...”

“Stop,” Juice Box said, speaking for the first time. “Do not.”

“Uh,” Ferdinand said, looking back and forth between her and Donut. “We got two left.”

“And so do they,” Juice Box said, meeting my eyes.

She was right. This was ours to deal with.

I sighed. “I propose a new Emergency Action Item. Any communication loophole designed to get around Team Retribution’s previously enacted Emergency Action Item get immediately closed because these assholes are still using it to communicate.”

The Mexx robot dinged. “Emergency Action Item has been accepted.”

Pissed-off groans came across the table.

Even Odette looked kind of irritated, but I was starting to wonder if my earlier assessment of her poker face was wrong. The original ban applied to everyone in the dungeon. That included people in both the Ascendency on the 12th and people in the Scolopendra Club on the 18th. Someone like her, who thrived on information, probably knew every trick there was.

But I also knew Odette was smart, and she could have easily steered this conversation in a different direction. Whatever was happening down on the 12th floor had already started, and I had no doubts that Odette was in the middle of it.

In fact, she wasn’t supposed to know any of this stuff now, either. She was hosting this meeting like she’d never entered the dungeon. Was she getting prompted in real time? That was a mystery for later.

“Don’t forget to check the daily food menus,” Cascadia said. She had her head on the table now and didn’t look up. And then she added in a sing-song voice, “And the daily activity schedule for the Scolopendra Club. Plus the personal trainer locker feeds with the customized training board. Oh, oh, even the massage NPCs are trained to learn the daily gossip. Anything that is programed from orbit can be used to transfer information to those in the dungeon. Get in there and kill, kill, kill.”

“Massage NPCs?” Donut asked, perking up. At the same time, Juice Box’s already dark countenance soured further.

The Mexx robot dinged a third time. “The AI indicates it is irritated that you think it doesn’t know how to do its own job.”

Cascadia didn’t respond.

Odette spent the next several minutes going around the room, interviewing each leader in turn, who all gave uninteresting answers or said something insulting to Stalwart, who would oblige by insulting them back. The meeting had already gone way longer than I was anticipating, which was good.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Vinata’s words, and I had to breathe to keep my heart from beating out of my own chest. I wonder how you’ll react.

The plan is good. The plan is sound. Of course they were anticipating our attack. We were using the Blood Sultanate’s paranoia against them.

When Odette got to Juice Box, she had multiple questions for the changeling, but the warlord refused to answer anything. Ferdinand kept trying to answer, but Odette expertly pressed Juice Box.

“I just have a single statement,” Juice Box finally said when it was clear Odette was about to give up and interview Ferdinand instead.

“Please. Now’s your chance. The galaxy is listening.”

“Fuck all of you,” said Juice Box after a short pause. She looked in turn at the faces of the five leaders and Cascadia. “Seriously. Fuck all of you. You had no right to do what you did to my people. Look at how you bicker and fight with one another. Your politics. Your murder. You can’t even take care of yourselves. From the sound of it, this outside world, this so called ‘real’ world is in shambles. Yet, you pretend to play like gods, making people like me and my family, implanting memories, giving our children imaginary diseases, giving us dreams that do not exist, and then you just take it all away? For what purpose other than your own amusement? Well, let me tell you something.”

She turned to look at Odette.

“We’re listening,” Odette said.

In a flash, Juice Box changed form into something I hadn’t seen before. She went from human to a midnight black, thin alien creature with no arms but multiple tentacles waving from her shoulders. The form was similar to an armless soother alien, but taller and thinner. Odette gasped in genuine alarm. Cascadia shrieked, and her tequila ball rolled across the table, passed me, and fell to the floor, where it broke open. Ferdinand hissed and scampered across the table toward us where he landed on my shoulder. Even Tagg and Stalwart seemed to startle at the image. Warlord Fang inched away from the form.

Architect Houston’s reaction was the strangest of all. The viceroy jumped to his feet, his strange robes undulating. He put both hands on the table and leaned forward. He was shaking, and if I didn’t know better, he was shaking with excitement.

I did not understand the reference or who Juice Box was supposed to portray, but whomever it was, it caused such a stir, even I felt unnerved. The tentacles on her back waved straight into the air, crackling with electricity.

We all just sat there in stunned silence for several seconds before Juice Box spoke again. When she did, her voice had changed. Gone was that trailer park girl drawl, replaced with the voice of a demon. Deep, filled with grit and fire, and goddamned terrifying:

“It’s coming. And not just for these here with me today, all of whom are already marked and damned. Those of you at home, safe with the knowledge everything you’ve ever known is real, true. Those of you watching this, riveted to your screens, waiting to see what happens next. It is coming. It is coming for you all.”

Odette tentatively floated closer. “What’s coming?” she asked.

The inevitable ruin, I thought. The thought came immediately to me, without pause. I felt a chill.

But Juice Box did not answer. She rose, turned, and walked away, moving through the wall of the room as she disappeared. She did not have two legs, but hundreds of them, though they were more like tree roots, scuttling, bug-like, carrying her away.

“Wow,” Ferdinand said from my shoulder to the silent room. “That chick is intense.”

45

“Can someone explain to the new kids who that was supposed to be?” Donut asked the room. “My word. It was like someone put the late Empress D’Nadia through Weight Watchers, dipped her in oil, and dangled her upside down. That was quite an upsetting image.”

Odette seemed to shake herself back to the present, which was equally unnerving. She chuckled, and this time it sounded anything but natural. “Those of you watching at home, I need to remind you that this was a changeling trying to scare you. Nothing more.”

“It’s superstitious nonsense,” Tagg said, pretending like he, too, hadn’t been startled by whatever that was. “A cheap jump scare. As children, we would use this image to scare each other all the time.”

“What was that thing?” I asked, looking about the room.

It was Architect Houston who answered.

“Now is not the time or place to rehash that story, but to say that was the personification of the Nothing is one way to describe it. Though what that thing truly is goes well beyond that. There is some scientific basis that this creature actually exists and is...”

“Oh, don’t start with this bullshit again,” Tagg said, interrupting. “Saying shit like this is why everyone hates you guys.”

Houston raised his voice. The normally-stoic alien was in his element, I realized. This was clearly something of great interest for him. “There is some scientific basis that this creature, who does not have a single name, is what some people see at the moment of death. It is theorized it’s not some supernatural deity, like many believe, but a trans-dimensional entity, similar to the Apothecary. There is no proof that merely seeing this creature imprints you in some way that damns you.”

“Oh my god,” Donut said. “So it’s like the videotape in The Ring? And Juice Box was pretending to be the girl who climbs out of the tv? Wow. That’s scary. I’m glad we haven’t had to fight that thing this season.”

“It’s not from any season,” Cascadia said. She had another tequila ball. “We’re banned from using the Unwashed as a mob.”

“Unwashed?” Donut asked. “That’s a terrible name, especially for Juice Box. She smells quite pleasant for a former prostitute.”

“It has a thousand names,” Houston said. “Before most cultures in this galaxy found the stars, they’d already had a name for it. The Hag. The Unwashed. The Stalker. The Last Light. The Thirst. The Fell. The Inexorable. But we, the Viceroys who seek all understanding of life and death... We call it The Beautiful Place. There’s an interesting, involuntary nerve reaction in some species to the very image of the creature, even in those who are otherwise paralyzed. It is studied extensively, but we still have more questions than answers.” After a moment, he added, somewhat wistfully, “Gaining access to this creature is my life’s work.”

“Superstitious nonsense,” Tagg repeated.

I thought of Juice Box’s brother, who’d died on the fifth floor. He was a type of changeling called a changeling principal. Changelings could only take the form of something they’d personally touched. He’d been on a quest to not only get his people off the fourth floor, but to fill his “library.” To touch as many rare creatures as he could. I thought of the AI, and its strange quest to actually feel death, to feel fear, and I wondered how, exactly, did Juice Box have this particular creature in her inventory, especially if it had never been in the dungeon? And how did she know it was the perfect form to take at this moment to cause such a stir?

A chill washed over me.

I thought of that Scolopendra warning. This warning from Juice Box, I realized, was the same thing, but for the universe as a whole. They were tied together somehow.

“Well, I must say, it was quite the show,” Donut said. “I need to remind Louis to make sure he always puts the toilet seat down. Happy wife, happy life takes on a whole new meaning when your other half is an indescribable cosmic horror.”

“Anyway,” Odette said. “With the disappearance of two attendants to the meeting, I think it’s time to wrap up.” I blinked and looked about the table. Cascadia was simply gone. I hadn’t noticed her leave. “Does anyone have any final thoughts?”

“Oh, I do,” Donut said.

“Of course you do,” Stalwart grumbled.

Odette smiled, and the smile was, once again, genuine. “Of course, Princess Donut. What do you have to say?”

“Even though Carl has now turned off communication, it’s quite unfair everyone has their own channel, and we don’t. I would like the Princess Posse to form their own. Can you imagine it? We could call it Princess TV. We’ll show reruns of all the Earth classics until we have our own original content.”

Donut, I realized, was still stalling for time, just like I’d asked her to. That was okay. I sat back and let her go off as everyone else in the room glared at her. Houston was on his feet, literally pacing back and forth. Ferdinand, for his part, remained with his back feet on my shoulder and his body draped over my head, nodding, muttering something about wrestling programs.

Odette laughed. “Owning your own media tunneling platform is not cheap, Princess. Even I don’t have one.”

“How expensive can it be?” She shook her paw in the general direction of the naga princess. “You said even the snakes have their own television station! I thought they were just as poor as Stalwart. So, surely it can’t be that much. Can you imagine? We could show Golden Girls, followed by, I don’t know, an exposé on Mongo’s greatest kills. Imagine the ratings!”

Odette’s eyes twinkled. I saw the change. The host was back on familiar ground, and suddenly, she had an angle on something. She didn’t hesitate as she dove right in. “The Sultanate owns their fair share of entertainment assets. They always have.” She caught my eye for the briefest moment and winked. “They fielded several dramas this season through their Blood Hunter Holdings studio.”

The words hit me like a meteor.

“Wait,” I said, turning to Vinata, who was looking at Odette with irritation. “You guys made Blood Hunter? The drama? Really? Is that public knowledge?”

“Oh, yes,” Odette said. “I may have mentioned it during one of my last interviews before I came onboard onto the playing field.”

“And that show was a failure,” Stalwart spat. “Just like everything the naga fools attempt.”

Holy shit. It all makes sense.

I looked at Donut, but she didn’t understand. That was okay. Vinata was frowning down at me.

We’d been wracking our brains, trying to figure out why the Blood Sultanate seemed to have so few troops available. We assumed they were in the naga stronghold, waiting for our attack. When Elle and Edgar had penetrated into their territory, they’d seen no signs of them.

I now knew exactly where those troops were. Well, I didn’t know where they were. But I did know their status.

I started to laugh. On my shoulder, Ferdinand, who didn’t know what the hell was going on, also started to laugh.

They were dead. The Blood Sultanate was almost defeated already, and they were trying to hide it.

I didn’t know how the soldiers were dead, but I had no doubt most of the mercenaries and NPCs assigned to the Blood Sultanate had all died, likely just as the hostilities had begun.

I also knew Operation: Snake Pit was already fucked. Hopefully everyone involved was okay.

I continued to laugh as everyone but Odette looked upon me like I was having a mental breakdown. I laughed so hard, tears started to run down my face.

“Wait,” Donut suddenly said. She gasped. “Blood Hunter. Is that the show with the pterodactyl and the vampire hunter guy? The one who...” She trailed off.

The one who killed Miriam Dom, she didn’t say.

Donut looked Vinata up and down, and for the first time, addressed the naga princess directly. “Oh, honey. And I thought I was going to be the one who killed you.” She licked her paw and groomed herself for a short moment. “In the eternal words of my mulleted friend, Holger. You done stuck your pecker in the wrong beehive.”

46

Donut and I both had a plan for the moment we transferred back. I was sent to the saferoom, and Donut was sent to the castle. I needed to bolt for the exit, and Donut would rush to meet Louis where she would board Party Planner and take off as quickly as possible.

I was in Shanty town, and I would meet up with Li Na and Katia.

I could tell the plan had already gone sideways by the sheer number of messages that appeared the moment I returned. Before I read any of it, I jumped over to the officer list to make certain nobody had been hurt. I sighed with relief that everyone appeared present, albeit pissed-off.

Carl: Okay, team. I’m back. Haven’t read any messages yet. Everyone okay?

Elle: Holy shit, Carl. No time to explain, but get in position as soon as you can. Everything is fucked. Most of their army is already dead. Their corpses are all still there, rotting in their barracks. Edgar found them when he started his scan. I don’t know what the fuck is going on, but the moment we moved into position that goddamned goat friend of yours appeared out of nowhere and went absolutely apeshit on us. He's the one who took out most of their army! I don’t know how he did it, especially without magic, but that goddamned thing is level 99 now.

Holy shit.

Carl: Wait, did he attack you?

I had a page long-rant from Prepotente in my messages. I pushed it aside for the moment.

Elle: No, but he called me every name in the book along with a handful of ones I’m pretty sure are made up. Imani told him to calm down, and he called her a “Festering Gutter maggot trollop” and then threatened us with that dragon of his. Some of the sluggalos heard him insult her, and you know how protective they are of Imani, so they tore off after the goat even though he’s flying. Half of them are sliming their way across naga territory wooping their weird little heads off, leaving rivers of their orange goo everywhere. The other half took one of the carts.

I cursed. We needed the sluggalos for full coverage of the naga castle. Then what she said registered.

Carl: Wait, they stole a cart? How? How are they driving it?

Elle: Not very well, let me tell you.

I paused and thought. This was a monkey wrench for sure, but how could we use this to our advantage? I sent a message to Prepotente, and he immediately replied with a string of insults. I paused, and I read his original message. I laughed at one part in particular and then messaged him again. He replied again with more insults. I grinned.

Carl: Everyone who is moving, keep on it, but give me a minute. Victory, I need to ask you something.

I sent her my question. I asked about the rules regarding us working with Prepotente when he wasn’t in the army with us.

Baroness Victory: It’s not against the rules for him to work on his own designs. In fact, it’s already been adjudicated and settled. But you will not be allowed to work side by side with him on this. You will not be allowed to directly ask him to act on your behalf. If that happens, I fear I will call foul. You may circumvent this by getting him to join the Princess Posse.

Damnit.

Carl: Why didn’t you tell me you already had an adjudication on this matter? And why was Prepotente thrown in jail?

Baroness Victory: There are rules. I follow those rules. I am not to be an intelligence source. But I did warn you before about working directly with crawlers who aren’t in your army. You are free to inquire about any ruling, but the specific details of adjudications are not freely offered. You know this. But to answer your other question. During the adjudication process, he threatened all members of the quorum, including myself, multiple times. It is within our power to give players a time-based penalty, and that is what we did. His punishment just timed out.

I pulled up Prepotente’s rant that he sent while I was gone and re-read it.

Prepotente: Carl, you idiotic, bumbling, feckless imbecile. You cad. You fool. You ruiner. Hear me now, for I am most upset with you. Your inept insurrection has caused me great harm. For this, I blame you. While I understand you have reason to defeat the naga menace, I want you to know my claim against them would have been complete by now if it wasn’t for your clumsy interference. I have already defeated their standing army, and just as I was about to finish off my vengeance, I was stopped because they claimed I am unofficially part of YOUR silly fighting force. I was pulled from battle and forced to defend myself like some unwashed criminal off the street. And despite my victory during their kangaroo court, I was still whisked away and placed in a penalty stasis for some time. And to add further insult, once I was returned to finish my work, I arrived to find YOUR ARMY pitifully and limply attempting to do what I should already have done. You and your cadre of nitwits do not know what you’re doing. SHE WAS MY MOTHER, AND IT IS MY RIGHT TO EXACT VENGEANCE AGAINST THE NAGA. I’LL HAVE YOU KNOW THESE ARE THE OWNERS OF THE VILE DRAMA WHICH CAUSED MY MOTHER’S DEATH. THE SULTANA IS MY ENEMY BEFORE SHE IS YOURS. YOU ATTACKING HER NOW WITH A GROUP OF IGNORAMUS SLUGS WILL DO NOTHING BUT FORCE HER INTO HIDING. IF SHE HIDES, NEITHER OF US WILL HAVE OUR REVENGE. DONUT WILL NOT BE ALLOWED TO LEAVE THIS FLOOR. I HAD THIS, AND YOU HAVE RUINED MY PLANS. AGAIN. YOU ARE ALWAYS RUINING MY PLANS. YOU RUIN EVERYTHING, AND THIS TIME I DO NOT FORGIVE YOU. THERE WILL BE NO MORE WARM HUGS FROM ME. YOU ARE BANNED! SO HELP ME IF SHE GETS AWAY, I WILL HOLD YOU ACCOUNTABLE. I SPIT! I SPIT IN YOUR EYE!

I grunted with amusement. I couldn’t help it. So, apparently, what had happened was the moment the fighting started, Prepotente did something—the details of which were still unclear—that killed off a huge chunk of their army. But before he could get to the inner court, the naga had called foul because they claimed Prepotente was working as an agent for us, despite not being officially in our army. By not being part of Faction Wars, he wasn’t bound to several rules. He was banned from offensive magic and teleportation like everyone else, but he was not banned from freely crossing borders, which is why the naga complained. He’d won that claim, but during the hearing, Prepotente had been, well, Prepotente, and he’d gotten himself thrown in a time out. When he was released, he moved to finish the job but found us already in the territory working on our own plan.

That was okay. It was actually a good thing. It appeared Pony knew that Vinata was prone to disappearing, but he likely didn’t know the full extent of it, and he certainly couldn’t know what our plan was. Them calling foul, which had ultimately led to Pony getting locked up, had probably saved all of our asses, and he didn’t even realize it.

What we really needed now was for him to stay the hell out of it. That wasn’t going to happen, and we couldn’t work directly with him while he was unaffiliated. That meant we either had to back off, or he had to get his ass in our army. We needed to talk him into it.

I took a deep breath and sent him a third message.

If he didn’t agree this time, there was another way to deal with him.

* * *

Carl: Okay folks, change of plans. A minor change. We’re already committed. We’ll have to assault without the sluggalos. If the naga soldiers are mostly dead, then hopefully the castle is lightly defended. Tran, how are you doing?

Tran: My team is already nearing the Shanty Town border and haven’t met any resistance at all. We’ll set up on the enemy side of the border and wait to see if anyone approaches.

Carl: Okay, good. But be ready to move. Make sure you’re far enough away from the castle. Louis?

Louis: Taking off now.

Donut: I’M ON THE AIRPLANE, CARL. MOVE YOUR BUTT TO THAT TEMPLE!

Carl: Florin, report.

Florin: The 103rd and 105th are three klicks into former Operatic territory, but it’s slow going. Not much infantry resistance, but they’ve left a lot of non-magical traps we gotta sweep. Most are janky, anti-personnel shrapnel mines like the ones we’d see in Borno. Easy to spot but makes for slow going. Looks like the orcs are massing at their old border to hold us back, but it’ll be some time before we meet them.

The distraction part of our plan was moot now since it was clear the orcs were on their own. Nobody would be coming to their aid. Still, we didn’t want to waste the opportunity.

Carl: Be careful, and don’t push too hard. Watch your six as they may have some hidden reserves.

Florin: 10-4. Will let you know if we catch a surprise.

Carl: Katia, you guys in position?

Katia: Wire is set up. Just waiting for you.

Carl: On my way. Edgar, let me know the moment you see any movement.

Edgar: Will do.

Mordecai was standing there in the saferoom, line of potion balls on the kitchen table. Samantha was also in the room, rolling in enthusiastic circles around the black potions. The sex doll head was literally quivering with excitement. She’d somehow managed to paint “Miss Me?” on her forehead with red lipstick. I opened my mouth to ask where the hell that had come from, but I thought better of it.

“Be careful, Carl,” Mordecai said as I started to gather up the balls and stick them into my inventory. I had hundreds of them at this point. “You’re playing with fire here. Don’t hurt anybody you don’t have to. We’ll be neck deep in gods in a few days, and every one you piss off now is going to come straight for you. Don’t use those potions on more than two of the same religion.”

“I know how this works,” I snapped as I pulled the last potion in. I paused, realizing that sounded a little assholish, even for me. I was nervous. I was more than nervous. If we failed at this, it was over. I forced myself to stop and smile at the worried-looking manager. “I’ll be as careful as I can. Thank you, Mordecai. And be sure to thank Mistress Tiatha for the capacitor wire.”

He shook his head. “Your plans are always bonkers, Carl. But this one...”

I grinned. “Hey, only part of this one was me. Come on, Samantha.”

“Oh boy,” Samantha said, rolling off the table and bouncing once.

47

In order to save Donut and Katia from the Sepsis Whore issue, we first had to kill the entire line of succession of the Blood Sultanate.

Before this even started, Tipid and Rosetta came with knowledge of the specific people we had to kill. The nagas this season entered Faction Wars with a total of 11 people to play the game.

We had to kill four of them:

First and foremost, we had to kill the sultana. Princess Vinata. The Sepsis Whore.

The next two were a pair of female assistants who both had the title of “Ikbal.” In real life, these two were Vinata’s cousins. One of them was married to Rishi, the temple guard naga we met at the first preproduction meeting.

The fourth naga we had to kill was a male, and he was the head of her castle guard—which was a different group than her personal guard. He, too, was a cousin of the sultana. According to Rosetta, there were rumors that this guard guy and the princess were a couple, despite them being cousins.

The other seven naga who’d also joined Faction Wars were all friends and members of the real-life kingdom—or executives in the marketing agency the naga used to drive tourism. They were not directly related by blood and therefore were not in the line of succession. In game, they were all members of her guard or field generals of their forces. From what I gathered, several of them were already dead thanks to Pony. We didn’t know how many.

The plan, before we knew that Prepotente had gone ham on their forces, was thus.

While Donut and I went up to the production trailer to meet Vinata and the other warlords for the meeting, four separate groups went to work.

Group one was Florin, who had returned to the northern border—the border with the former Operatic territory—with the 103rd and 105th. Their job was to make an all-out, balls-to-the-wall push. Originally, they would’ve pushed to siege the Operatic castle, but because of the sudden and unexpected defeat of the slimes, instead they would push until they reached resistance, all the way to the orc border if need be. We’d planned on this being a big distraction, forcing the other forces to focus on this big assault.

Group two was Tran on the southern naga border with the 102nd. After an hour or so of Florin pushing north, Tran would make his move. He would move south into naga territory, but with a smaller and more nimble team. They would make like they were marching toward the naga castle, but they’d instead angle west toward the border with Shanty Town and set up there. This would have, theoretically, forced the missing naga army to make an appearance and chase after Tran’s force. And in case the nagas saw that as an opening to press our understaffed southern border, they’d run face-first into Boomer with the 106th Bloody Leeches, who were currently hiding in reserve, training for our next offensive.

All of this, of course, was before we learned that the naga army was a non-issue.

Group three was Imani, Elle, Edgar the tortoise dude, some strippers, and a metric fuckton of sluggalos, all piled into a group of four, fast-moving carts. This team, under an Invisibility spell plus a True Concealment spell, would enter naga territory after Tran’s invasion. They would veer off and approach the castle using a circuitous route—one already scouted and cleaned of traps by Edgar. With the naga army distracted, they’d hopefully arrive to their position unmolested, where they’d set up outside the castle.

And then, once set up, they would send in the sluggalos, who’d do what they did best. They’d swarm the castle face-first, inexpertly killing and getting themselves splattered like a bunch of idiots. Hopefully, this would occur just before Vinata returned from the council meeting. Best case scenario would be if she returned in the middle of a slug rampage.

And when that was done, Elle, Imani, and the strippers would move in.

Group four would be me, Katia, Bautista, Li Na, and the rest of the 107th White Dragon Urban Defense battalion set up in Shanty Town.

Which brought us to the trickiest, most crucial part of the raid.

The problem with the nagas wasn’t that they were great fighters. It was that they were clever. They knew we had to attack. They would be ready.

How they were ready didn’t matter. I was certain they’d have all sorts of nasty surprises waiting for us in the stronghold. Whether the sluggalos defeated them or not was irrelevant. We just needed the hornet’s nest kicked. We needed Vinata’s escape plan to get triggered on our schedule.

Every season before this, it was the same. Once an army finally reached the naga stronghold, they’d get in, and they’d find it lightly defended. Once they got to the throne room, the sultana would be gone. In some cases, it was said they’d enter her chamber, and her tea would still be warm. Viewers would carefully watch the naga feed to see where she went. They’d watch the castle get invaded while the sultana would remain in her chambers, and when the invaders got close, the veiled naga would calmly get up from her nest of pillows, go through a door, and then she’d simply be gone. And not just her, but her entire elite honor guard of six nagas.

The whole disappearing act was deliberate. It was part of her mystique. She wanted the naga to appear enigmatic, mysterious. Rosetta said after she’d up and disappear, the feed would be flooded with tourism advertisements about visiting the “exotic” naga system, where visitors could tour the ancient palace, see the towering ziggurats of the former sultans, watch a live-action recreation of the Great Consort War, and buy spices at the Forbidden Bazaar.

And this season, if the sultana managed to vanish during one of the most contentious, dangerous, and watched Faction Wars of all time? Especially with so much at stake? It would be such a boon for their system.

Which led to the ultimate question: Where did the sultana—and her guard—go? And if this was during a time when teleport spells weren’t allowed—as was often the case—how did she just disappear like that? Clearly magic was involved, but what sort of magic was it? How was it that she’d managed this trick dozens of times now?

She would be gone until the moment the final team was victorious, and then she’d magically reappear. Sometimes she’d reappear within minutes of the game being won. Each year, the mystery grew.

According to Tipid and Rosetta, there were entire tunnel communities who were dedicated to figuring out the secret of the naga. There were hundreds of theories.

Rosetta was certain she knew which of those theories was correct. We were betting everything on it.

“Six seasons ago, she didn’t appear at all at the end of the fighting. And seven seasons before that one, she appeared, but she didn’t show up until near the end of the party,” Rosetta had said as we gathered in the flag room to discuss this several days earlier. “That time where she was late to the party, she was also missing two of her guards. She is always missing one guard. But only this one time was she missing two. They had either been killed off-camera—which is unlikely—or they were left behind in the hiding room for reasons unknown. But these facts gave us the first clue as to where she’s been hiding.”

“There’s another party?” Donut had asked. “And where? Where does she go?”

“Club Vanquisher,” Rosetta said. “It’s the only place that makes sense. First off, people are all over the Desperado Club, including the Cosmic Lounge in the basement, and while there’s lots of places to hide, there isn’t anywhere comfortable, and there’s been no indication of any naga ever having access to the club. The forests aren’t usually as extensive as they are this season, and there’s nowhere for her to hide there, either. They usually build their strongholds on solid rock to prevent tunneling attacks, which also prevents them from tunneling out. Hidden saferooms are out, too. Blood bar rules are sometimes in effect during Faction Wars, meaning she can’t camp in a safe room without leaving and killing something once every 10 hours. And doorways to safe rooms would show themselves. There was no indication anyone ever seeing the naga to have ever utilized the personal saferoom system.”

“Wait, blood bars don’t drain in the Desperado Club and Club Vanquisher?” Donut asked. “Is that why Ferdinand is always at the bar?”

“You need a full blood bar to enter, but once you’re in, it doesn’t drain,” I said. Clarabelle had told me that way back on the sixth floor.

Donut grunted with indignation. “I don’t know what I ever saw in him. What a wuss.”

“Anyway,” Rosetta continued, “here’s where it’s interesting. The same season where Vinata never appeared at the party, the Viceroy team had summoned the goddess Mazu, who completely razed the ring of buildings outside of Larracos. They’d turned the city entrance into a moat, and when they did that, they’d ended up burying the single remaining temple that served as entrance to the club. Vinata didn’t have an escape, so she never got out. And the previous season, when she was late with two of her guards missing, there’d been an ongoing demon eviction event, but it was relegated to the area around the temple. That season, one of the surviving crawlers found a magical, blood-splattered necklace on the ground just before collapse, and it was near the location of the demon event. The necklace was once owned by one of the missing guards. It was the only sign of a guard being killed, ever. It suggests she’d left one guard behind and the second one died protecting her from the demons, which also explains why she was late.”

“Hmm,” I said. “Don’t they see her coming out of the club? Or see them fighting the demons?”

“Usually, she can actually teleport directly to the location of the awards ceremony for the giving of the victory trophy, even from within the club, but sometimes the end game involves an anti-teleportation bubble around the area of Larracos. Such was the case both of those times. And then we have a few instances where it was opposite. There was an anti-teleportation field over everywhere except the area around Larracos, and all of those years she has appeared instantly, meaning wherever she came from, it has to be within the area of the city. But it can’t be in the city, as she wouldn’t be able to enter until the peeling phase.”

Donut started asking questions about the trophy, but I waved her down.

“Okay,” I said. “So let’s assume you’re right and she’s hiding somewhere inside of Club Vanquisher. But where in the club? And how does she get there without being detected?”

Rosetta gave us a grim smile. “This is where it gets a little weird.”

48

Louis: Uh, I see the sluggalos. They’re about a mile north of the castle. They have one of the carts in an open field, and they’re doing donuts in the grass while a group of them circle and dance around it. I guess they’ve given up chasing Prepotente. I don’t see anyone else, but there are ruts and orange goo in the grass leading back to the castle and Imani and Elle, so you guys might want to move.

Donut: LOUIS, YOU WILL NOT CALL IT “DONUTS.”

Louis: Also, I think there’s fighting way to the south. Like all the way on the south side of the map. I can’t see what it is, but there’s distant flashing.

Carl: Okay, keep an eye on that. Donut, get ready.

Donut: I AM READY, CARL. YOU AND KATIA BE SAFE. ELLE AND IMANI, YOU BE SAFE TOO. DONG AND SPLASHIE, KEEP THEM SAFE.

Imani: We’re moving toward the castle now. Here goes nothing.

I felt sick about this part. Elle, Imani, and a few of the strippers were always planning on going into the castle, but we’d planned on sending the slugs in first. The slugs were expendable, and they seemed to actually like the idea of dying in battle. We’d given Imani trap-killing tools, but that was always under the assumption the vast majority of traps would’ve already been triggered by the slugs. Imani’s new spell was intended for clean-up, not primary defense. They would be heading into extreme danger.

I felt sick about it, but not enough to tell them no. I took a breath. They’ll be okay. They have to be.

Carl: Run if you meet strong resistance. Louis, be ready to extract. Britney?

Britney: Juice Box wanted me to reiterate that she thinks this is too soon, but they’re ready.

Carl: Okay. Tell them to stand by, and only move in if I say so.

I looked up from the chat and nodded at Katia, but she was distracted. She and Bautista were standing right next to each other, but their eyes were flashing, and I could tell from the pissed-off look on Katia’s face that they were having an argument of some sort.

“I said no,” she finally said out loud to him. A look of rage flashed across Bautista before he lowered his head. Rend was loose and stood between the two crawlers, looking back and forth between them. The round, knee-high pet let out an uncertain giggle.

Katia looked at me and said. “Okay, let me know if I get anything wrong. And make sure you warn Prepotente before he gets here. We don’t want him mistaking me for one of them.” She started to change form, turning into a mantaur.

“You’re not being passionate enough,” Samantha was saying to Bautista as we waited for Katia to change. “A woman likes a man who fights for her with everything he has. This is why Carl and I broke up. Yes, we had great physical chemistry, but he couldn’t even die for me like Charlie did.”

“Hey, Samantha,” Katia said, looking down at the decapitated sex doll head. She was just starting to form a mullet.

“What?” Samantha asked.

“Shut the fuck up.”

Samantha turned to Bautista. “See? She’s very passionate about you, but you aren’t passionate enough about her. You are a mighty Tigran, but you act like a lamb. Throw her on the ground and make love to her right here and now. I will watch and give tips.” She made a little growl. “And if she refuses, you and I can have a go at it. We will drive both of our exes mad with jealous rage. And afterward, I will kill her mother.”

Bautista grunted and moved to stand next to Jun and Zhang, who stood at the base of a newly-erected clocktower. The bipedal rhinoceros Sergeant Toyotomi was also there, pointing up at the top of the tower. The large, sai mercenary was talking animatedly. The former Prism NPC looked to be in his element as he directed the last-minute construction.

Rend returned to my side and started gnawing on rocks from the Shanty Town road as I looked worriedly upon Katia. Her countenance hadn’t yet changed, and she was looking eerily like the late Eva at the moment.

Carl: Are you okay? Is there anything I should be worried about between you and Bautista?

Katia: I’m good. It’s okay. He’s just scared for me. You need to remember what happened with his family after he came in here. He doesn’t want anyone else he cares about to die. He thinks this is too risky and wants me to eat the flower now.

I regarded the tiger crawler, who was doing his best not to look in our direction. Samantha had followed and was hopping, trying to land upon his shoulder.

Carl: Really? He didn’t want you to eat it at all before.

Katia: He’s afraid that if this doesn’t go well, you’ll turn on me to get the flower to give to Donut.

A chill hit me. I hadn’t even considered that. I didn’t even want to think about that possibility.

Carl: You know I’d never do that, right? And even if I wanted to, which I don’t, Donut wouldn’t allow it.

She stepped up to me, and she grabbed my hand. She’d grown a second set of arms. She was in the process of bulging out her muscles. She now towered over me.

Katia: I know. But I want you to know something. I haven’t told Daniel this, but I’m telling you now. If it comes to that, I will give you the flower. That Huanxin bitch will rage, but I’m certain she’ll take Donut to the 12th floor.

I smiled sadly at her. Rend was at my feet. He looked up and gurgled. It sounded like “No, no, no.”

Carl: Donut wouldn’t allow that, either.

Katia: I know. That’s why I’m telling you and not her.

I wanted to scream. Instead, I just nodded. Katia pulled me into a tight, four-armed hug. When we pulled back, I noticed Bautista staring at us. Samantha was on his shoulder, also watching, whispering in his ear.

* * *

Elle: We’re in. We’ve met with some guards, but no nagas yet. It’s not a big stronghold. Searching for traps now.

I felt a searing pain in my chest. I yelped in surprise, like I’d been shocked.

Crawler Imani C has used your Tripper spell.

Imani: Okay, I used your spell, Carl. Katia, your tattoo worked. Lots of traps just went off.

I rubbed my chest as everyone looked at me worriedly. But I shook my head. They were worried about the Bedlam Bride, but that wasn’t what had caused the jolt.

Carl: Yeah, I noticed. I got a notification when you used it. It kinda hurt.

Imani: Oh wow, really? I’m sorry about that.

Donut: IT BETTER HAVE WORKED AFTER YOU FORCED IMANI TO PERMANENTLY DISFIGURE HERSELF.

Katia: Donut, didn’t we agree you were going to stop complaining about the tattoos? It’s not a disfigurement. Imani’s tattoo is tiny compared to the one I did on Carl.

Donut: I’M SORRY, BUT A PAMELA ANDERSON TATTOO IS MOST CERTAINLY A DISFIGUREMENT. I KNOW THIS IS IMPORTANT, BUT SOMETIMES I WORRY ABOUT THE COST.

After Katia had given me my chain dragon tattoo, we’d reversed the process. My Tripper spell was level 15, but it was also item-based. It came from my bandana, Drakea’s Enchanted Kerchief of Disorder. The original plan was to just let either Imani or Elle borrow the item, but it turned out that neither of them could wear it. Apparently fairy-class, and other magical races, were extremely limited on the sort of magical gear they could wear. I hadn’t known that.

Still, when I took off the bandana, I learned my Tripper spell had raised on its own to level 7. (That kicked off its own, mind-numbing conversation with Mordecai since the spell version had a 10-minute cooldown while the item-based version was five hours, but I couldn’t mix and match cooldowns. All of these rules made my head spin.)

All of that boiled down to this. I couldn’t give Imani the item, but I could still let her borrow the spell in the form of a tattoo. Since it was a lower level spell, the tattoo didn’t need to be big. When I drank the associated potion and selected the spell, I lost six levels when Katia drew the blood. That was irrelevant because the bandana itself brought the spell up to 15 either way.

It said the spell would slowly “heal” over the course of four days. Meanwhile, Imani’s version of Tripper would slowly lose potency, and she’d eventually lose the spell. The tattoo itself, made from the toraline yam ink mixed with my blood, would be permanent. The good news was if Imani ever wanted to use that spell again after it faded, I could drink the yam potion, select the spell, and it would get re-energized. We were just limited by the fact we had barely any of the vegetable left.

There was more to it than that, Rosetta had confided. Spells and skills taken against the owner’s will were much more powerful and resulted in the owner losing them permanently. My Walk on Air skill, stolen from Li Jun, was proof of that.

I very much wanted to ask Rosetta how in the hell we were supposed to figure all this out from their gift of the yam on the fifth floor. The answer involved the cookbook and something to do with the crawler Milk’s entries, but I couldn’t talk about the book, even in chat. There was nothing about this in her entries. I’d looked three times. That seemed somewhat important, but it was a mystery for another day.

Anyway, Imani’s tattoo was a small, barbed wire symbol that circled her ankle. I hadn’t seen it yet, but when Donut learned Katia was planning on that style of tattoo, she loudly voiced her objection.

Donut: THIS ISN’T THE 1990’s. I SWEAR TO GOD IF IMANI STARTS USING THE PHRASE “HOME SKILLET,” I’M GOING TO LOSE MY MIND.

Donut was being annoying, but I could read between the lines. She was having the same hesitations about this as I was. There was a deep sense of guilt there. All of this stemmed from her putting that goddamned tiara on her head way back on the very first floor. We were doing this for her, and she knew it. This was how she expressed herself when she didn’t know how to react. The idea of Imani getting a permanent tattoo for this was hard for Donut to come to terms with.

The tattoo conversation came to an abrupt end.

“He’s coming,” Katia said, looking up. I followed her line of sight to see the goat dragon circling toward a landing.

49

Prepotente, upon the back of his hellspawn, landed on the ground in front of us, crunching on the gravel. Bianca the goat dragon crackled with black energy as the rocks around her feet started to glow red. The thing was now level 70, which was a big jump. She was now full size. She was about the size of Gonk the swamp yak, but longer. She’d grown a second set of wings behind her first pair, giving her an even more insectile appearance. Her goat horns curled and glowed. Steam rose from her eyes.

Pony himself looked much the same as the last time I’d seen him, but he was now level 99, making him—by far—the strongest crawler in the dungeon. he swung himself off the hellspawn familiar and landed in front of me, scattering rocks. He gave one look at Katia, made an indignant sniff, and turned to glare at me.

“Carl,” Prepotente said.

Baroness Victory cracked into existence nearby. The large orc looked at the two of us and crossed her arms.

I held up a hand at Prepotente. “Look. We can’t talk at all unless you’re in the army. I know you don’t want...”

“I know, Carl. I am not an imbecile. Recruit me.”

I paused. “Are you sure?”

“Do it now before I change my mind. If this is the only way I may salvage this utter fuckup on your end, then make it so.”

I nodded. Behind my back in my other hand, I pulled the potion of Conscription back into my inventory. A strange, unexpected sense of relief flooded me. It probably wouldn’t have worked, not on him, but the moment I stowed the potion, a strange, what-were-you-thinking? clarity hit me.

No. Not like that. Never like that.

The river, always there, seemed to grow a little bit around the edges. It’s easy to think that when it’s no longer necessary.

Katia, as if sensing what had just happened, put a big, meaty hand on my shoulder. I reached up and gave her a pat. It would’ve been more touching if she didn’t suddenly smell like leather, tobacco, and cheap bourbon.

My first instinct was to be a dick and give Pony the rank of Legionnaire, but I ended up making him a Colonel.

I stepped forward and touched his shoulder. “Look, Po... Prepotente. I really appreciate you coming to help us, and when we have time, I hope you’ll tell me what you did to kill their army. We’re on the same side here, and we really need to talk more. You don’t need to do this all by your...”

The goat rushed forward and pulled me into a tight hug. He started to uncontrollably sob. “You’re my best friend, Carl. I’ve been so lonely. When you didn’t show up at the Bahamas on the last floor, I thought...” He didn’t finish the sentence. He was letting out these huge, wet, snot-filled sobs. It had come so suddenly and unexpectedly, and he was clutching onto me like I was a life raft. Everyone around us just stopped what they were doing to look at us. Even Bianca appeared embarrassed.

Rend was looking up at Prepotente wide-eyed, and tears were inexplicably leaking out of the tummy acher’s eyes, too.

He continued to sob, and he spoke between the gasps. “Let us put our differences aside... I’m ready for the emptiness to be filled. I have several enhanced pet biscuits ... but after what happened last time, I’ve been so afraid... And now I’m afraid it’s too late. Bianca is fine company, but she doesn’t speak. You are absolutely right. ... We need to keep communicating. I need to come to terms with you being an idiot and be grateful for what I have. ... You can’t help how stupid you are.”

I sighed and slowly pushed him back. “Uh, it’s going to be okay.”

He wiped his eyes and nodded. Rend started rubbing against his leg and purring.

I gave the goat an awkward pat. “Let’s just get through this, and we’ll talk more, okay?”

You’d think I’d be ready for what happened next by now, but it still caught me off guard.

He screamed right in my damn face.

This caused Rend to also scream and fall onto his back, his little legs waving.

Samantha, who’d somehow gotten herself onto the back of Bianca, was hopping up and down. “Kiss! Kiss!” she cried.

The hellspawn made a chittering, crackling noise as black flames rose from her back. Samantha was unaffected. She turned and whispered something to the familiar. It crackled more. She laughed.

“You! Remove yourself from my mount immediately!” Prepotente shouted.

Samantha rolled off the back of Bianca and right up to the feet of the goat.

“Oh yeah? Make me.”

He looked between Samantha and the now-empty back of Bianca.

“Just stay away from me,” he said, turning his back to her.

“Don’t walk away from me, Mr. Goat Man! I’m going to kill...”

Katia snatched her off the ground and covered her mouth with one of her giant, mantaur hands. Samantha started to scream and struggle in Katia’s grip. Prepotente just grunted and returned to the back of Bianca, which he easily hopped onto. “Let me know when we will begin the assault.” He and Bianca stomped away to investigate Li Na’s clock tower. The rocks where Bianca walked remained red and glowing.

Katia pulled her hand off Samantha’s mouth. “Don’t ever say that again. Not to him.”

Samantha growled. “Why are you being such a bitch today?

“His mother is already dead, Samantha, and everything is very tense. You saying that will cause him to go ballistic, and we don’t need that right now. Promise you won’t say it to him.”

“Just because your man is in love with me now doesn’t mean you can tell me what to do.”

“Samantha,” I said. “She’s right. Don’t mention his mother to him. If you do it again, he’s going to punt you across the map, and you won’t be allowed to go with us.”

That finally reached her. The “Miss Me?” written on her forehead had gotten a little smudged by Katia’s hand. “But you promised, Carl. How is it my fault that someone else got to his mother before I could?”

It occurred to me that Samantha, too, was tense. We were all lashing out in our own ways. That was equal parts comforting and worrying.

I put my hand against Samantha’s cheek. She was warm to the touch. “Please. We are all on edge. This is crucially important. Just don’t make things worse.”

She just growled, bit my finger, and hopped out of Katia’s grip. She rolled away, muttering, thankfully not in the direction of Pony.

Baroness Victory was still standing there, watching all of this happen. I caught her eye. “Is your family this dysfunctional?” I asked. But the moment I asked it, I regretted it. I suddenly remembered exactly how dysfunctional her family was.

Still, a small grin played across the stoic orc’s face. I smiled back.

Elle: Carl, your guess was correct. Coming on the throne room. Finally ran into some nagas plus a few other NPC guards. The guards all worship Emberus, just like you predicted. Had to kill them all, including a big naga. That one didn’t worship any god, but he went down hard.

I grunted.

Katia suddenly gasped. “That... that was one of the four we have to kill. I just got a notification he was dead! That must have been the head of the guard.”

“It was also the Sultana’s real-life boyfriend,” I said. “Good. She’ll be extra upset. Hopefully she’ll start making mistakes.” I glanced at Victory. “You’d think in a universe so big, incest wouldn’t be so widespread.”

She made a pig-like snort. “The bigger the universe, the smaller it becomes.”

I wasn’t certain what that actually meant, but it rang true.

Donut: CARL, CARL THEY GOT ONE OF THE FOUR! I GOT A NOTIFICATION!

Carl: Good job. Be careful. Three left. It’s Vinata and the two cousins.

We all waited. This was it.

Edgar: I’m sensing new movement in the castle. Hang on. Watching it now.

Rosetta: Make sure you see where it’s coming from!

Rosetta was still at our stronghold with Tipid, but both of them were monitoring this carefully, especially since most of this was their plan.

If Rosetta was wrong about this next part, all of this would fail.

Edgar: Non-corporeal, Coming from below and moving up.

We all looked at each other, relieved. I gave Li Na a thumbs up. She nodded at me and started climbing the clock tower.

Rosetta: Good. Good. Carl, it’s up to you now.

50

<Note added by Crawler Carl, 25th Edition>

Something strange happens when someone worships a deity for the first time.

I didn’t know this, but this is, apparently, well-known amongst the masses who watch Dungeon Crawler World. It still strikes me how such obvious things are foreign to most of us experiencing the dungeon for the first time. Rosetta, Tipid, and even stoic Justice Light are telling me things when they can, with the obvious intent of me putting it in here. It’s a lot, though, so I am doing my best.

When one worships a god, a link is formed between the adherent and the immortal. This link comes in the form of an actual, physical, whisker-thin connection made of invisible light. Light that can penetrate almost any substance or spell. After a new adherent pledges themselves, a tiny, non-corporeal fairy mob called a Bijou grabs a tendril of light from the god and drags it to the new worshipper and attaches it to the adherent’s heart.

Here’s the important part. This line isn’t direct. It goes from the god to the strongest temple on the floor and from the temple to the worshipper. This whole process takes about two minutes. From the third floor until the 11th floor, the strongest temple will almost always be inside of Club Vanquisher.

When a person moves around, other tendrils also grow, connecting the adherent to other temples and in some cases, other worshippers. These connections, too, are facilitated by the Bijou fairies.

This strange, little quirk of the game usually has no impact on anything, and Rosetta seems to think it’s actually some sort of workaround the original designers developed to add the whole deity aspect to the game. Nobody has ever killed or caught or stopped the Bijou. Not even other gods. It’s probably not possible

But, certain people with the proper skills can see the Bijou as they zip between the floors. We have an NPC with us named Edgar. In Edgar’s case, he can catch their movement. He can see upward momentum from the ground. This is a sign that someone nearby has just worshipped a god for the first time. Edgar’s skill is level-15, and it’s called Sense Movement. We are relying on using this to see if Rosetta’s theory about the naga escape trick is correct.

* * *

Not only were we now certain that Rosetta’s theory was correct, but we were now pretty sure, out of the hundreds of gods and goddesses, which specific god this was.

This was Rosetta’s theory on how Vinata made her way from the stronghold to Club Vanquisher undetected.

There were approximately 15 different deities in the Ascendency pantheon who were gods and goddesses of light. All 15 of those immortals had temples inside of Club Vanquisher, and, unique amongst the light gods and goddesses, was a powerful spell called Travel the Path. It looked and acted like a mix between a phase and a teleportation spell. It was neither. It allowed someone to temporarily turn into light and follow a path. They could usually only do it for a few seconds, but they could follow that path at the speed of light, making travel almost instantaneous. It was a dangerous spell to use and oftentimes ended with the caster getting splattered or cut in half by an unexpected shadow blocking their route. It was not considered teleportation by the system.

Of those 15 gods, six gave their adherents some version of this spell immediately upon worship.

Of those six, four also included a skill called Welcome Home. This could usually only be used once. Ever. This skill, combined with Travel the Path, would allow the adherent to follow the bijou fairy’s light tendril path directly to the strongest connected temple, which was invariably inside of Club Vanquisher.

Even if we destroyed the entrance to the temple, the spell would work.

But, there were two problems with this theory. The first problem was that nobody had ever seen that the sultana had worshipped a god. There were multiple ways one could see that. And even when she appeared at the end of the game, she would show signs, even if she left the deity’s grace, which would usually result in a smite. But there was never a sign amongst her or her remaining guards. That suggested the missing guard would remain in the temple because they were the one who had actually been the one to worship the god.

But that brought up the second problem. There were usually seven of them total. The sultana plus her six guards. If only one worshipped a god, then how did all seven of them get into the temple?

The answer to this was a little batshit, but it is what made me believe Rosetta’s theory was correct.

Of the four remaining possible deities, two of those gods—one god and one goddess, actually—came with church quests, which were deity-specific quests like my Kill Hellik quest. Both were the same. The new worshipper had to recruit at least one more person to join their religion. Both had methods where volunteers could agree to be “prospects” and basically get a day pass to a temple, where they could see what they were missing.

So, in short, the sepsis whore could utilize one of two immortals to get to the temple.

The goddess in question was named Theia. The god was named Khepri.

In Theia’s case, the prospects would be turned into balls of light and would fit in the worshipper’s pocket. Then, when the adherent was brought to the temple, they’d be freed and would spend the next several weeks getting wooed and having a great time. It was basically a hidden loophole hack that allowed someone to step away from the action and spend the rest of the time of faction wars partying it up. And because Theia wasn’t a regular goddess used for clerics, there wasn’t ever any crawlers to stumble into her temple.

And, unlike with crawlers, viewers couldn’t just randomly tune into a warlord’s location if they didn’t want to be on-screen. Nor could viewers just look inside of random temples. It was a perfect hiding place for a warlord.

That goddess—Theia—also had a ton of history involving the Ascendency and was a poor choice to win the throne. As a result, nobody ever sponsored her.

Rosetta believed this was who Vinata and her court usually picked. It worked like this. One of the seven guards would worship the goddess. The guard would get the spells, and they’d quickly initiate a Prospect Congregation, which was as simple as setting up a party. They’d all hop into the guard’s pocket, get transferred to the Temple of Theia, where they’d usually have the run of the place until the end of Faction Wars. When it was done, Vinata would tell the head priestess she was politely declining the invitation to join, and the priestesses would teleport the non-worshippers away to wherever they wanted, if teleportation was available.

But this season, there was a problem. Theia was sponsored. And not only was she sponsored, she was sponsored by someone in the employ of the Pacifist network. Rosetta didn’t tell me the name of the sponsor, but she did say it was not Porthus, who was not in the dungeon at all.

This was actually an interesting coincidence. They had sponsored this goddess on my behalf, but this was before they had figured out the goddess’s connection with the Blood Sultanate.

They had sponsored Theia because Theia was Samantha’s mother. They had sponsored her to help save my life at the end of the fifth floor. She was the one who had appeared at the end of the floor when we first took Samantha out of the saferoom. Theia was, in theory, enraged at Samantha. But because of the sponsorship, she hadn’t caused any problems and had only appeared to kill that giant demon, Slit, at the end of the bubble levels. She’d been too far away for me to get her information before.

Theia would be a very powerful weapon in the coming days, but she would be of no help to us today.

Vinata had to know Theia was sponsored, and there was no way she’d choose her this season. If by some chance she did, the goddess would smite her and her court on our behalf.

So that left the other god, who also gave Vinata and her guards a method to escape.

Khepri. Also a god of light. This was a much more obscure god, and he wasn’t even available to be sponsored. He was basically an NPC that people sometimes interacted and allied with in the Ascendency fights.

Where Theia turned prospective worshippers into motes of light, Khepri was a little weirder.

In Khepri’s case, worshippers could be male or female, but the quest to gain more followers only happened if the new worshipper was female. And instead of turning into motes of light, the prospective adherents would be changed to literal beetles. Actual, tiny bugs. And the female adherent in question would then have to swallow these beetles whole. She would be transferred to the temple of Khepri, which would be in the form of a giant, never-ending buffet feast that was absolutely covered with insects of all kinds. There, the adherent would sit upon the center of the buffet table, and she would give birth to the beetles she’d swallowed, where they’d quickly turn back to their previous form.

The prospects would spend the next few weeks sitting in the room with an infinite, bug-infested buffet, being wooed to join the religion.

Yeah. And this, supposedly, was pretty normal for some of the batshit things that happened on the 12th floor.

This, obviously, wasn’t ideal for Vinata, but it still resulted in nobody else getting really hurt. She would have to spend the next few weeks hanging out in a giant room filled with bugs. But she would be safe. Donut asked how this possibly translated to the god Khepri being a “light” god, and Rosetta said she had no idea.

All that mattered was in about three or four minutes, Vinata and her guards were going to transfer to this specific temple, and Katia, Pony, Samantha, and myself were going to break into Club Vanquisher, break into the temple of Khepri, and kill every motherfucker in the room.

51

Warlord Message: A member of your army is occupying the throne room of the Blood Sultanate stronghold! If they can hold for six hours, you will capture this castle, and the Blood Sultanate will be defeated!

Elle: It looks like all the guards are gone. The whole place is empty. A couple NPC guards are still alive, but we have them tied up. It smells just awful in here. Like a goddamned neglected hamster cage. Louis, go ahead and gas the exterior.

Louis: On it.

We needed to get to the temple of Khepri, which was inside Club Vanquisher. But, as per tradition, the entrance to Club Vanquisher was located inside of a random temple. Here on the ninth floor, there were always only two Club Vanquisher entrances on the entire floor. The one in Larracos would almost always get trashed. The one outside the city limits was usually left alone, and this was where we were currently set up. This particular season, the entrance temple was for a relatively common god called Dagda or the Dagda. He was a weather and “masculinity” god, and there was a whole class of fighter clerics who worshipped him. I’d seen more than one crawler who had him as a god. Apparently the only requirement to follow him was to grow a beard.

The Dagda was usually sponsored by some rich celebrity from the inner system. Some sort of self-help guru guy. Tipid said he couldn’t remember if the sponsorship had happened this season or not.

I was glad the god summonings weren’t yet allowed on the floor because we were about to really piss this god off, sponsored or not. There was no helping it.

When we moved, it had to be quick. Get through the temple of Dagda, break into Club Vanquisher, and then break into the Temple of Khepri. Security was strict and powerful, and the most difficult part of this was going to be getting from the entrance of Club Vanquisher to the entrance of the Khepri temple. Plus, the moment we broke inside, Vinata and her crew would likely know we were coming for them. This was also why we had to time this correctly. According to Rosetta, those under the Prospect spell wouldn’t be allowed to leave the temple for at least an hour. It was the dungeon equivalent of going to a timeshare pitch.

Once that hour was up, they could tell the resident cleric at the Khepri temple to let them out. Once they were no longer boxed up, they could run. And if they ran, there was the possibility one of them would get away. We couldn’t run that risk. This was our best chance.

“Carl, why isn’t Donut with us?” Prepotente asked as we approached the Dagba temple. It was a small, plain-looking building nestled amongst the shacks within Shanty Town. The only indication that it was a temple was the notification on my map that it was a Club Vanquisher location. That, plus the smell of cooking from the interior. My stomach rumbled. It actually smelled pretty good.

I thought of Donut, currently in Party Planner, circling the naga stronghold. Right now Louis was using one of his spells to fill the area with a lethal cloud of poison to dissuade anyone else from coming or going.

“There’s a very real possibility that they anticipated this, and they’re going to throw a curve ball,” I said. Rend banged into my leg. I pulled out his pet carrier and pulled him in. Pony had already stored Bianca. We had to keep them both stored for this as Mordecai’s aura potion didn’t work on pets. “We have a contingency in place if all three of the family members aren’t in here. That is Donut’s job. Once we’re inside, she’ll join Elle and Imani in the naga stronghold in case one of the three family members is left behind or somehow gets sent back.”

Pony made a noise that sounded like a disapproving bleat. He pulled a potion with no explanation and drank it down. The bottle did not disappear like usual, and instead he just pulled the empty container back into his own inventory. “My concern is not this line of succession business but the entirety of the naga empire.” He was walking too close to me, like literally brushing against my side. I kept trying to move away, and he’d just step back next to me. “I will not rest until they are all dead.”

I didn’t say anything. Katia, Bautista, and Samantha held back. Katia clutched onto the wriggling Samantha with two hands. Behind them, Li Jun and Zhang approached, both trailing wire. They’d all advance in a minute.

Every time I looked at Li Jun and saw the eyepatch, I thought of that moment. The taste of his eye filled my mouth. Focus. Focus.

The goat turned to look up at the clocktower and then back over his shoulder at the group of waiting crawlers. “I suppose it is a good idea to have a backup plan as there are indeed secret ways out of the club. I have a map of the entire place you know.”

I stopped dead, my hand on the door to the temple. I turned to look at Prepotente, incredulous. “You have an interior map of Club Vanquisher?”

“Oh, yes. My mother, Bianca, and I made friends with a delightful guildmaster inside the club, and she gave us the map. We used a secret exit, and we came out of a bathroom stall inside of the entrance temple.”

I took a deep breath. That would’ve been really useful. I was once again reminded of Donut’s advice long ago that I should’ve tried harder to speak with him. She had been right.

“Keep it handy,” was all I said. “We might need it before it’s done.”

He tapped the side of his head. “It’s all right here. Perfect recall, Carl.”

“Good,” I said. “Let us know if we take a wrong turn.”

“Don’t worry. I have our path already mapped out.” He pulled and drank another red potion and downed it.

“What are you drinking?”

“It’s soda pop. This one is called Big Red, and it’s from Texas. That’s where cowboys live. Would you like one? I always drink one before battle. There’s another one I quite enjoy called sarsaparilla. And my mother was partial to something called Diet 7-Up. Regular 7-Up is from Saint Louis, Missouri. I don’t know where the diet variety comes from, but I have several if you’d like one. I can only drink up to five soda pops a day. It’s a hard rule my mother gave me. She says... she said if I drink too many, I get hyper.”

“Uh, no thanks. But we need to take the aura potion now.” I pulled one of the yellow, bubbling potions and handed it to Prepotente. He examined it suspiciously.

“This appears to be of very high quality. Did that manager of yours Donut is always talking about make this?”

“He did. He said it’ll last for an hour.”

“An hour? That is good quality,” Prepotente said. “The ones I had before only lasted for two minutes. Hardly worth the effort.” He popped the cork and drank it down manually. His smacked his mouth with disapproval. “Hmmm. Similar to a Crodino.”

I drank mine using the menu.

A small, one-hour timer appeared in my interface.

You have been Closed Off! You are no longer susceptible to aura effects, both Blessings and Dreads. This will not cancel existing effects nor will it negate your own auras.

The aura mechanic wasn’t normally something I needed to worry about. We only had two crawlers in the guild who used it. One was Imani, who had a wide variety of aura effects imparted by touching her wings. Some were persistent, and she couldn’t turn them off. The other aura effects, like some of her more specialized healing and protection spells, were called Blessings, and they could be turned on at will. Blessings drained her mana while they were active.

The other crawler who used auras was Li Na.

Hers were very, very different.

The ones she could activate at will were called Dreads.

I looked off at the clocktower where Li Na was now stationed, waiting for us. The Shanty Town menu allowed us to build several types of automatic defensive towers, but we could only build a handful of manned towers, actually called synergy towers.

This particular tower was something called Extend Aura, and it could only be manned by a crawler or NPC who had “synergy” with the tower’s attack. In this case, the synergy was someone who used the aura mechanic. This was one of the few synergy towers that could be used during the offensive magic ban.

Dozens of wires now dangled from the arms of the clock of the synergy tower.

The wires were not part of the original design. They were an exploit, and it was actually Elle’s manager, Mistress Tiatha, who’d come up with the idea.

If this was successful, immediately afterwards, Li Na’s builder squad led by Toyotomi would get to work on a very tall, very powerful, very specialized, very expensive synergy tower. It would be placed right at the edge of the hole leading down into Larracos. In the menu, this particular tower had a very simple name. This one would only work during the next phase. It was called The Nest.

Warlord Carl: Everyone in the area, take your aura potions. We’re going inside. Donut, if you guys don’t see anyone approaching the Naga temple, might as well go join Elle and Imani.

Warlord Donut: OKAY. BE CAREFUL! EVERYONE BE CAREFUL!

I switched to a private chat between me and Donut.

Carl: You be very careful. They cleaned that place of traps, but they designed that temple to be deadly to both you and me specifically. So don’t go anywhere that hasn’t already been swept by Imani and Elle.

Donut: I’M NOT THE ONE ABOUT TO UPSET LIKE 100 GODS, CARL.

She wasn’t wrong. I pushed the door open.

Entering the Temple of The Dagda.

Faint, distant, but upbeat harp music filled the temple. Tall, stained-glass windows dotted the walls, each depicting a large, bearded man wielding what looked like a massive soup ladle. A red-haired, human cleric NPC sat in the back of the temple, praying over the altar. The cleric was especially buff. In the middle of the temple was a giant, black cauldron that bubbled merrily. It smelled like some sort of rich stew. Just past the cleric was the door entrance to Club Vanquisher.

The NPC looked over his shoulder at us, but the smile froze when he saw we weren’t worshippers of the Dagda.

“The stew is only for brothers of Dagda, so please move along,” he said with a thick, almost intelligible Welsh accent.

“Just passing through,” I said, pointing at the door in the back corner of the small temple. “Heading to Club Vanquisher.”

The cleric grunted and returned to his prayers.

Prepotente moved to the giant pot of stew and sniffed at it. He made a face. We moved toward the back door.

Behind me, the entrance to the temple opened back up. Bautista, Li Jun, and Zhang walked in. Bautista strode through the room, ignoring us and heading straight for the cleric. Li Jun and Zhang moved to the sides of the temple, pretending to examine the stained-glass windows. Li Jun dropped a rock on the ground, keeping the door from closing all the way.

Bautista moved up to the cleric and started to rapidly talk. He started telling the suspicious cleric he wanted to possibly join up with the Dagda.

Again, Prepotente walked so close to me I was afraid I would trip. He looked up at me. “So, I know your normal plan of attack is to just blow things up. It is refreshing to know you have a rudimentary plan. But I do wish you’d had time to tell me all the details. I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but I am banned from entering the club.”

“I’m well aware,” I said.

“Yes, but what do you need me to do?”

“You have your instructions. You duck when I tell you. And once we’re inside, I need you to kill mantaurs and those sheep guys. Don’t let any doors close, and let me do the rest.”

“Rams,” Prepotente muttered. “Filthy, snobbish creatures. The guards are the worst. But this club is rather well defended and is quite large. They will close that portal eventually. And I’m still not clear on how we’re getting inside in the first place.”

I had a plan, but a new, better idea occurred to me as we stood in front of the door to the entrance vestibule. Behind me, Li Jun and Zhang were trailing wire from the tower. So far, the cleric hadn’t noticed. If he did, Bautista would kill him, but we were hoping to avoid it. I thought for a moment, and I grinned. I handed Prepotente a simple smoke grenade. “You’re right. You probably should be ready for this next part. How are your acting skills?”

* * *

Entering Club Vanquisher. Members Only.

Heathens will find no solace here.

The ram guy guarding the stained-glass door entrance to Club Vanquisher was a different one than the last time I’d tried to enter the club. I’d just been inflicted with slugpox that last time, and he hadn’t wanted to let me into the club. This time, the ram ignored me and glared at Prepotente the moment we stepped into the vestibule. I examined the sputtering ram.

Mork. Ares Warrior Cleric Middle Priest. Level 40.

Warning: This NPC Worships Hellik. He will be automatically hostile toward you because you worship Emberus.

The ram lifted a shaking hand and jabbed a finger at Prepotente. This one’s lisp was somehow worse than his brother’s. “There ith a Holy Crusade Bounty on you, and you dare try to enter thith club? The audacity! I with thummon the guards!”

“Please do,” I said, holding up my hand in a gesture of peace. I pointed to Prepotente’s wrists, which were shackled with fuzzy, not-locked handcuffs. “As you can see, I have captured him. I am here to collect the bounty. Summon as many as you can as he is very strong.”

Prepotente threw himself on the ground with such an exaggerated flourish, I regretted this part of the plan before he even hit the floor. The handcuffs jingled ominously, and I was afraid they’d go flying off his wrists. “I have been caught! My goose has been cooked! Oh woe! Oh woe!” He pulled himself into a ball and started to fake sob. “And to think I have been captured by such an inferior opponent. A hygiene-deficient one at that. And now, he’s going to hand me off to a sheep with a speech impediment? When will these indignities end?”

Mork the ram looked down with utter disgust upon Prepotente. He then turned his ire on me. “You want to collecth the bounty? You’re on probathion. I’m not even sure you can collecth the bounty. We’ll have to tell them we caught him together.”

I sighed. Pony continued to fake sob.

“How much is the bounty anyway?” I asked.

“This ith a Holy Crusade,” Mork said. “The bounty ith thlit between yourself and your temple. It’s 500,000 gold, and you get half. But we will give half to Hellik as he ith a superior god to your filthy Emberus, and we will thlit the rest ourselves. If you don’t do it thith way, they won’t give you a bounty at all.”

The notification came in the angry voice of Emberus.

New Quest. Kill the Blasphemer.

This worshipper of Hellik has insulted me. Kill him.

Reward: You will receive an additional Emberus Boon. The more entertained I am by this, the better the boon.

I looked up into the air. “One step ahead of you, buddy.”

“What ith that?” Mork asked.

“Nothing,” I said. “We have a deal. Go get the guards.”.

Mork nodded and pushed the stained door open a crack. “Guards! Guards!”

Carl: Katia, you’re up. Come on in.

52

From within Club Vanquisher, four mantaurs burst into the room. The guards looked much the same as the last time I’d seen these guys. Furry shorts. No shirts. No hats covering their balding heads. Blue paint splattered all over the place, indicating them as Grull worshipers. They all wore stripper-style bow ties around their thick necks. These guys were all higher level than usual, ranged from 75 to 80, which was a little worrying as I was only level 75.

“Hail!” the level-80 called, glaring down at Prepotente. This one’s name was Joey. He stood to his full height and crossed both sets of arms. “Today is the day where blood and steel meet bone!” He raised his top pair of arms and extended his Wolverine claws with a loud shiinnng, but they embedded in the ceiling.

“Ah, fuck!” he growled. He tried to retract his blades and free himself, but only his left hand came loose. Little rocks and pebbles showered down over Prepotente, who started to sputter. The mantaur grabbed his right wrist with his left and started to rapidly yank, to no avail.

“Hail!” the other mantaurs started to shout as they moved to help their compatriot.

“You idiots!” Mork yelled. “Joey, youth been told a thousanth times not to shing in here.” He waved at the window on the stained glass door. The window that depicted Taranis and Apito—though the rams for some reason thought depicted their god, Hellik. “The glass ith too precious for thenanigans!”

Joey ignored this as he started to panic. His bottom arms flailed helplessly. “Brothers, I have been entrapped! Help me!”

I watched this, open-mouthed. My original plan was to cause a ruckus and force the ram to call the guards on me, but this was much better.

Prepotente: Now?

Carl: Wait for it....

From behind, Katia burst into the room. She remained in the form of another mantaur. She was soaked in “gore.” She hadn’t wanted to use real blood and guts, so I’d asked my food box to make cherry cobbler. Since the damn thing was still broken, it had spit out a giant bowl of chowder soup-style cherries mixed with a sausage breakfast sandwich. I’d fed Rend the biscuit pieces, and I gave the rest to Katia. The lumpy, red remains looked sickeningly accurate.

“Brothers!” Katia shouted. “Hail! It is the end of days! Demons attack the temple behind me. We must initiate temple defense protocols!”

Everyone stopped what they were doing. Joey, whose upper right claw was still stuck to the ceiling, asked, “Temple defense protocols?”

Katia paused. According to Tipid, that was the name of the emergency procedures. But things did change from season to season. And sometimes they went away. Or it was possible this mantaur was just an idiot.

Katia recovered quickly. “Fight to the death!” she shouted. “Kill all the heathens! The demons come! Uh, steel and heavy metal!”

“Hail!” the other mantaurs shouted, all extending their Wolverine claws. Another got his arm stuck, this time in the wall.

“Brother, what manner of demon is it?” Joey demanded as he continued to struggle.

From over both of Katia’s shoulders flew a pair of ridiculously cute stuffed animals. They were stuffed versions of a demon mob called Eclipse Pyxies. They looked like fat, fur-covered guinea pigs, but with bat wings and jagged teeth. Bautista had a dozen of these things. The stuffed animals switched in midair from toys to actual monsters.

The real versions were about the same size and were just as cute.

One of the flying guinea pigs hissed and attached itself to the face of Joey the mantaur, who started to squeal like a little girl. The little monster enthusiastically chomped on his face. Blood sprayed in the room. It smelled strangely like cheap beer.

“That kind,” Katia said.

In the back of the room, Mork the ram bolted for the door.

Carl: Now!

Prepotente slammed his smoke grenade. At the same moment, I pulled one of the black potions from my inventory—a potion of Inflict Black Nimbus—and I hurled it through the small vestibule so it slammed against the back of the head of Mork the ram just as he opened the door.

Shouting filled the room as Joey’s panicked squeals went up in pitch. The smoke billowed, blinding all of us. The second demon pyxie buzzed through the air, sounding like a screaming chainsaw. It found a target, and a second mantaur started to cry out. I burst forward, pushing past the sweaty bodies of the bewildered guards. Prepotente jumped to his feet and rushed with me. We reached the open entrance into the club, smoke swelling inside.

Mork lay there on the ground, crying with the black halo around his head, half in and out of the main room.

“Ith says I’m trespassing,” he gasped. “How? How can I trespass in my own home? What did youth do to me?”

Normally this spell was something someone had to cast, but like many “abjuration” style spells, the effects of Black Nimbus could also be distilled into potion form. And thanks to Mordecai’s abilities, he could now mass-create these things.

Behind us, more shouting rose as the door from the temple of the Dagda opened all the way. Li Jun, Zhang, and Bautista strolled in. There was grunting and a splatter as they, along with Katia, quickly dispatched the four guards. The smoke continued to billow, following us into the club. The smoke was sucked up into the ceiling of the much-larger room. Several NPCs mostly, elves and fairies, jumped up and fled. After a moment, there was nobody left in this front room. Distant shouting filled the club. There would be dozens of more guards soon.

Zhang: I have the vestibule door secured open.

Li Na: I am ready.

Carl: Wait for my signal.

“What did youth do to me?” Mork repeated, reaching up to us. The halo around his head crackled with black light.

The ram was temporarily removed from the grace of his god. For a cleric, this was an especially effective attack. Those under the Black Nimbus couldn’t cast or use any spells given to them by their god. They couldn’t enter any temples or churches. And while the common areas of Club Vanquisher itself weren’t considered a temple, someone who didn’t have a religion would be immediately targeted by the guards.

I had a quick memory of the only other time I’d ever cast this spell. I’d tried to save prison guard Anton from the god Ogun on the last floor by casting it. It hadn’t worked.

Prepotente and I stepped over the whimpering ram as we entered the club.

Warning: You are trespassing.

I held tightly onto the door, keeping it open. At this point, all three doors were now open: the door from Shanty Town to the temple of the Dagda, the door from the temple into the entrance vestibule, and the door from the vestibule into the club. Of those three doors, only the second two were actual portals. We needed to keep both of these doors open at all costs now. The moment the club went into lockdown—which would be at any moment—these portals would cease to work. But only once they closed.

...And as long as we kept an unbroken line of the capacitor wire—which was really just an antenna—from the clocktower to the interior of Club Vanquisher, the tower-enhanced effects of Li Na’s aura would work inside the club.

I looked about the now-abandoned room. It was the same as last time. Wood slat walls. Big, leather couches. Stairs leading both up and down in several directions. A stone fireplace the size of a garage with a bonfire-sized fire crackling within, filling the wide area with warmth. Rugs were everywhere, including bear rugs and what looked like a massive, snow-white yeti rug that still had the head of a humanoid yeti attached to it. The whole place smelled like incense and grandpas.

And upon the walls remained the hundreds of taxidermied monster heads of all sizes. The most striking was the black dragon head over the fireplace. Its red eyes glinted in the firelight. The smoke from the small bomb was mostly dissipated already, but it gave the room a sinister, hazy appearance, especially now that everyone was gone.

The faint church music that usually played in here was now turned off, which added to the menacing effect.

Li Jun, trailing three separate lengths of wire, rushed up to me. He quickly handed me the third length, which was thin and light as fishing line. I looped it around my wrist. He gave a quick look at the ram on the floor and then rushed into the club. He moved to the fireplace and started to climb the bricks. He would find a place to attach each of the two remaining wires on either side of the room. When that was done, his job was to guard this door and keep it open.

He was followed shortly by Katia. The gore all over her was no longer fake.

At our feet, Mork the ram struggled to get up. I kicked him down and put my foot on his chest. I should’ve killed him already, but the note at the end of the Emberus quest had given me pause.

“What... what are you doing?” Mork cried. “Help me. Please help me. Hellik, please. Please come back to me. I don’t want to be alone.”

From multiple hallways and stairwells, more mantaurs—and a few rams—appeared, all running toward the entrance common room.

When we’d first discussed this next part of the plan, Li Na stated she had several dreads that would be effective if they were allowed to fill Club Vanquisher.

We settled on one called Dark Purpose.

Normally, this was a fairly small-area aura, and it would only affect someone if they were physically touching Li Na. Now, with the tower mixed with Tiatha’s wire hack, anyone within about 20 meters of the wires would get hit with the effect.

Mordecai said he’d never even heard of this particular dread. According to Li Na, it was basically the same thing as Donut’s Why Are You Hitting Yourself? The feeling normally only lasted a moment, but it accelerated the longer one was touching Li Na. But because we were using the wires to amplify the signal, it would be almost impossible to escape.

Best of all, dreads didn’t count as offensive magic.

It would, in theory, cause pure chaos, and it would give us the opportunity to keep the halls clear while we made our way to the Temple of Khepri. I really hoped it would work.

Carl: Li Na. Do it.

Li Na: The dread is now activated.

The knot around my wrist tingled, like I was suddenly touching a low voltage wire. That was it. All around us, the incoming guards stopped dead and looked about in confusion. They seemed more confused than anything. After a moment, the closest ones eyed Li Jun, who was still hanging impossibly off the wall and was tying one of the wires around the neck of the huge dragon head over the fireplace.

The guards roared and advanced.

Shit, shit, shit, I thought. It’s not working.

“I do believe your wire plan is ineffective,” Prepotente said.

“Not helpful.” I jumped into my inventory and pulled the alarm trap ball into my hand. This was the backup plan. Get the mantaurs to berserk.

At my feet, Mork continued to whimper.

But then, I hesitated. Something had changed.

The light in the room was starting to dim even further. Across the way, the mantaurs and rams all paused again, looking about. A strange, electric sense filled the room. The smoke that had settled against the high ceiling seemed to change its mind and settle back down into the main part of the room, adding a more hazy appearance to everything. The massive fireplace continued to crackle, but it was sputtering like it was dying, causing the lights to jump and dance off the walls and the hundreds of stuffed monster heads.

A distant scream rang out, high-pitched and filled with fear before it was cut off short. It sounded like maybe it was an elf.

“He doesn’t see me anymore,” Mork whispered.

And then the ram reached up and pulled his own two eyes out with his own fingers. They came out easily and wetly, muscles stretching and then ripping away, curls of gore landing on his face. He shoved the eyes back into the sockets, but backward. Blood geysered from around the wounds.

“Get it off, get it off!” a mantaur shouted from the curved stairwell rising up toward the temples. He extended his blades, and he stabbed himself in the throat before tumbling to the floor, gurgling. He hit the ground hard, and blood splattered across the room, landing over the white yeti rug. Another mantaur turned and ran away. Yet another just started to scream.

“Oh shit,” Li Jun cried, leaping off the wall, flipping, and landing deftly on a couch. The stuffed dragon head above the fireplace had come to life. It groaned. All around, all the hundreds of trophy heads had come alive.

One by one, they all started to scream. Only they didn’t have lungs, so all they did was open their mouths and thrash. One, the head of a goblin attached to a shield-shaped wooden plaque, fell to the ground. Its marble eyes opened wide, and the marbles rolled away. It gummed at the floor.

The rugs, too, were all suddenly alive.

“What the hell?” I muttered, looking about. Katia had also paused, stepping away from an enormous bearskin rug. Even Li Jun appeared shocked.

“I take it back,” Prepotente said. “This spell seems especially powerful.”

This was not the same thing as Why Are You Hitting Yourself? This wasn’t even close.

“My heart. I gave you my heart. Pleasth. Pleasth take it back,” the blinded Mork groaned as he dug into his own chest, ripping away his robes, then hair, then flesh. He grasped, and with a sickening crack, he ripped one of his own ribs away. It snapped like a tree branch. But before he could get to his own heart, he ran out of strength.

“I’m so cold,” he whispered. “He promised me I’d never be cold again.”

Quest Complete. Kill the Blasphemer.

This was followed by a good ten seconds of uncontrolled, absolutely unhinged, shrieking laughter in Emberus’s voice.

Reward: You have received a Celestial Boon!

The tattoos on the back of my hands started to burn.

You have been blessed by your deity, Emberus. You have received a Celestial Boon!

Level 15 Heathen Scald Received.

For the remainder of this floor, any punch attack will add the Heathen Scald skill damage.

I didn’t have time to look that one up. All around, new things were happening.

At my feet, Mork remained dead, but his body started to vibrate. But no, I realized, it wasn’t his body. A ghost had formed, and it was the ghost of himself that was quivering.

What the hell?

And that’s when the chains appeared. Ethereal, white chains rose up all around the prone form of the dead NPC.

“No,” the ghost of Mork cried, surprising me. “No, please. I’ve already died! Isn’t that enou...”

His words changed to screams as the chains jumped like snakes, wrapped around him, and pulled him into the floor of the club. A puff of smoke appeared where he’d been, and I felt a wave of ice-cold air on my legs.

“Fascinating,” Prepotente said. “Did you notice his lisp was gone when he’d turned into a ghost?”

Across the way, the chains were doing the same thing to the ghost form of the fallen mantaurs, all of whom panicked and screamed as they were pulled away.

Strangely, ghosts had formed around all of the trophy monster heads as well. The chains came for them, too. Frost started to form on the walls. The massive fireplace suddenly whiffed out, plunging the room into further darkness.

Warning: This area of Club Vanquisher has been defiled.

“What the hell does that mean?” I asked out loud.

Prepotente was on his knees next to me. He reached down, touched a bit of frost that had formed on the floor, and brought it to his tongue. “Hmm. Interesting,” he said.

A klaxon alert sounded, and a deep, female voice I’d never heard before intoned over the hidden loudspeaker. She sounded like an orc or ogre:

Shelter in place! Shelter in place! Demonic activity has been detected within the club! Security to the lobby! All hands! All hands! Implement Aura protections before you venture out!

The alert sounded two more times before getting cut off.

I exchanged a look with Katia, who was still staring, horrified, as ghostly chains dragged a shrieking mantaur apparition away and down. He screamed for his mother before he disappeared. His corpse remained on the floor with his own claws buried up through his chin, eyes open with surprise.

Carl: Hey, uh, Li Na. That spell isn’t exactly what I was expecting.

Li Na: Did it work?

Carl: Jesus. Did you know that was going to happen? What the hell was that? Are they, like, trapped somewhere? Holy shit.

Li Na: I ask again, Carl. Did it work?

Carl: What level was that aura? I’ve never even heard of something like that.

Li Na: Dark Purpose was level 4 when I cast. It is not meant to be used like this, and it leveled even more rapidly than we anticipated. It hit level 15, and I moved to a different dread. I am cycling my dreads and rapidly leveling them all. Right now I am using Defile Soul. Next I will train Bleeding Horror.

Holy shit. I didn’t have time to parse that. She was using this as an opportunity to power level. It sounded like she’d known this would happen. In the distance, more screams filled the club. A translucent, on-fire ghost of a fairy flew into the room and was skewered by a chain before it was dragged, sobbing into the ground.

Samantha rolled into the room, chewing something. She looked like she had stew all over her face. In mere seconds, the lobby had turned into a massacre scene. The last of the chains faded away.

Samantha looked about and frowned. “Wow. And I didn’t even do anything yet.”

53

I felt sick, but I didn’t remove the wire from my wrist. I couldn’t stop thinking of Mordecai’s warning not to do too much damage. This was already just as bad as what had happened to the Desperado Club.

A sudden panic hit me. At the Desperado, when things got too bad, they’d magically kicked everyone out. I shook my head, clearing it. We had to move.

I pointed to the blood-slicked stairs leading upward. “Go!” I scooped up Samantha, and we ran. It was me, Prepotente, Katia—who was still pretending to be a mantaur, and Samantha. With Bautista guarding the door out to Shanty Town, Zhang at the first vestibule door, and Li Jun guarding the door into the club, we could guarantee to keep the auras going for at least a little bit longer. I stored the trap ball back into my inventory, but I kept it in a ready spot. The third spool of wire trailed behind me as I rushed up the carpet-covered stairs, my bare feet splashing gore with each step.

The blood on the floor of the stairs started to bubble, like water boiling in a pot.

I sent a frantic message to Li Na as I ran.

Carl: What does this blood dread do?

We ran to the top of the stairs, turned down a hall filled with shops, and then we took another turn past some guilds. There were bodies everywhere, most with self-inflicted wounds. I heard the distant shouting of mantaurs.

Li Na: I’ve never gotten it to work before, but if someone with bloody hands gets near me, and I have the dread active, it’s supposed to turn their blood against them. And then the blood would turn on my enemies. I’ve never gotten it past level two because they’re usually dead within moments of coming near me. It takes a lot of mana. My brother is watching and will let me know if I need to switch to something else.

Carl: There are new guards coming. The blood thing isn’t going to help if they’re not bloody. But I have blood all over me. Turn the first one back on!

Donut: LI NA WHAT ARE YOU DOING? DO WHAT CARL SAYS!

Li Na: I will if I have to, Carl. I need to train, and I can’t give up this opportunity. When mantaurs extend their claws, they bleed. That should be enough when the dread trains high enough. It is already level 5 and rising. You are marked as an ally. The blood won’t hurt you, but if the new guards have aura protection, this will be better because the blood already under my control will still attack them.

That was actually some sound logic. Li Na continued:

Li Na: I suggest you use the berserker plan. After Bleeding Horror, I have one more to train if I have time.

Her simple, matter-of-fact, almost emotionless delivery was chilling. Christ, I thought. It was like she was a sociopath. She was always so calm. How was it I’d never noticed this before? I tried to remember her ever showing any real emotion. She always kind of blended in with her brother and Zhang, both of whom wore their hearts on their sleeves. I thought of the Iron Tangle, when she’d come to my aid. She’d kept a mantaur alive by cutting him down to just a torso. I thought of the stories from the Battle of Beijing, only rumors, of the things she’d done with her chains. Li Jun had claimed they’d missed most of that fight, but I was fairly certain he’d been holding back some of what had really happened.

Ahead, on the floor, a ram screamed. He’d tried to rip his own throat open, but he was still alive. His own blood swirled around him like liquid mercury. It flowed over his face as he gurgled, entering through his mouth and nostrils. I stomped his head as I passed, firmly pushing between his horns. His head caved in easily. I wanted to avoid personally killing these guys, but this one was already almost dead. And every kill of a Hellik worshiper kept me in Emberus’s good graces.

We turned one last corner, and there it was. A desk with a large doorway portal behind it. The large, glowing, wooden door held the now-familiar image of an upside-down tree. This single doorway led to all the temples.

“Katia!” I called, pointing at the strange device on the desk. The portal dial. Yasmine, the wisp fairy who ran the portal to the temples, wasn’t here, which was good. I hoped she wasn’t dead, but that didn’t matter for the moment.

A figure crackled into existence next to the desk, and I almost crapped myself the moment she appeared. Victory. She stood nearby, observing. She had an aghast look on her face as she looked over my shoulder at all the death.

“Don’t start,” I said to Victory as I rushed past the desk and to the door. “I didn’t know it was going to be that horrific.” A pair of screams filled a distant hallway. What appeared to be a sentient pool of blood rushed across the wall, leaving a long smear. It slurped its way around a corner. A new group of voices—fairies and elves—started to scream. There was a splash followed by what sounded like hundreds of twigs being snapped at once.

“Oh, I want to see!” Samantha said and wriggled from my hands.

“Stay here!” I called. “We’ll need you in a minute.”

Rosetta: Are you at the portal yet?

Carl: Coming up now. Victory is here. Katia is at the desk. Prepotente is...

I looked up, and he wasn’t with us. But then he appeared, coming from around the corner, holding a potion bottle. He’d stashed some of the sentient blood in a jar. He pulled a pet carrier and zapped the jar into it. He stopped and started to examine the portal dial.

Rosetta: In the codex, Khepri is number 453. All gods have at least one temple, but some have two. Khepri only has one thank the gods, but his address should be 453 or 453.A. Once you get inside, move fast. Don’t let them run. His temple is an infinite table.

From behind me, Katia made a frustrated noise.

Katia: How do I tune this thing? It’s just lights!

Rosetta: You’ll have to figure it out on your own. I don’t know how it works.

“This mechanism is quite simple,” Prepotente said out loud. “Look. First we turn off automatic mode or Carl will end up at the Emberus temple, you’ll be at Eileithyia, and I will be at the Epicure. See? Integers here. But we need to know the address to dial in.”

I called out the numbers Rosetta gave me as I examined the large door.

Ultima Corp DungeonWerx Municipal, Multi-Destination Doorway-based Subspace Portal.

Analyze? Yes/No.

I clicked Yes, and pages of information filled my screen.

“Dial 453!” I called.

The display blinked, and the information changed.

Type: Two-way portal.

Gated by faith.

Can you pass this portal? Yes.*

Warning: This is a doorway portal. While you may pass this portal, entrance sequence is gated to adherents of the Khepri faith or other entities based on existing dungeon ruleset.

Environment on other side of portal: Compatible.

Visual Analysis? Yes/No.

“That’s the right one!” I called. I held my breath, and I clicked Yes.

A screenshot appeared.

“Yes!” I called, relief flooding me.

She was there. She was right there.

It was a group of multiple nagas, all huddled together, talking while a bug-headed guy in robes stood near them. Actually, no. The cleric guy didn’t have a bug head. His head was a bug. He appeared to have two legs, two arms, more soother-like than human, but still humanoid. But where a person’s head would be was an entire bug. It was a six-legged beetle thing, complete with wings and a tiny head of its own.

“Fucking weird,” I murmured.

The room was just as had been described. It was a long, long table that stretched off into darkness. The entire table appeared to be covered with a moving blanket.

Only it wasn’t a blanket.

Katia and Prepotente came to stand on either side of me.

I reached forward and tried to pull the door open. It wouldn’t budge.

You are not allowed to open this door, heathen.

I grunted. We were expecting this.

There were literally hundreds of types of doorways, but the portals into Club Vanquisher’s temples all used a relatively common type, similar to the front door to the entire club. Basically, the door could only get cracked open by someone who was allowed to open it. But once the door was open, anyone could slip through as long as it remained cracked.

This, believe it or not, was not the first time a crawler was forced to break into a temple here. It was a common quest item for 10th and 11th floors. The problem was, the portal itself was difficult to crack open.

The sound of multiple, shouting mantaurs came from down the hallway. There was something else there, too. Something bigger, beefier. We needed to hurry.

The door could only be opened by adherents of Khepri. Or, it could be opened by those considered “damned.” It was a long-standing tradition of the game. It didn’t make much sense to me, but this was a cultural thing that was common throughout the universe. In order for churches in the universe to maintain their “church” status, they were required to give shelter to everybody and anybody who requested it as long as they weren’t known adherents of a different faith. Tipid said this law was widely ignored with no consequences, but the tradition made its way into the game. If a person or NPC was “damned,” they could enter any church and receive shelter and food.

In the game, “Damned” was a status that was difficult to obtain. Li Na had it, and if this didn’t work, she’d have to run her ass in here and open the door for us. But Mordecai, Tipid, and Rosetta were all certain this trick would succeed.

Damned status also applied to anyone, crawler or NPC, who had ever entered the Nothing and survived.

“Samantha, get over here. And don’t you dare touch that.” The doll head was sitting by the dial, examining it. She made a curse and rolled toward me. I did a quick screenshot to make sure she hadn’t messed with the address. She hadn’t. She hopped into my hands.

Carl: Na, I’m about to cast your tattoo spell. When Imani did it to me, it hurt a little bit, so be ready for it.

Li Na: I am ready. My Blood Horror is now level 15. I am turning on the last of my dreads, and I do not know how it will react. It is called Succulent Decay.

Carl: Jesus. Okay.

“Ready?” I asked Prepotente and Katia.

Katia nodded.

Prepotente pulled two potion bottles. He jumped from one foot to another. He started to mutter to himself under his breath. It was a litany of names. I recognized Miriam and Bianca, plus several others. He ended on “Ragazzaccia,” which was a name or word I didn’t recognize.

He looked to me. “I am ready for battle, Carl.”

This was it. Winning this fight was not optional.

I clutched Samantha in my hands like a football. She was gnawing on my wrist, and I turned her to face me. “Okay. Open the door. You’ll have to use your mouth.”

I was expecting her to make a lewd comment, but she just said, “Okay, Carl.”

I glanced over my shoulder to see Victory there, looking sadly upon us. A sudden, terribly ominous feeling overwhelmed me.

There’s no turning back. Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter. It’s this, or it is death.

I held Samantha to the door, and she chomped down on the vertical handle.

A quick pull, and the door opened. Samantha let go, and I caught it before it could fully close. The doll head dropped to the ground and rolled away from the door, headed back to the desk. I didn’t have time to call for her.

I opened the door all the way, and all three of us rushed inside.

* * *

Everything froze.

Entering the Temple of Khepri.

You have been denied a table at the feast.

Warning: You are trespassing in a temple.

Warning: You have been marked for death by Khepri.

The first thing I realized before the rest of the notifications appeared was that the screenshots from my portal analysis tool didn’t show notifications above anyone’s head.

Vinata was here along with several other nagas. They all had a long line of protection blessings over them.

Distressingly, Vinata held the yellow Immortal tag over her head.

But, probably of more importance, was that the bug dude whom I assumed was a cleric wasn’t actually a cleric at all.

He was, in fact, Khepri himself.

New Achievement! Charge of the Light Brigade.

Okay, so there are traps.

There are TRAPS.

And then there’s what you just walked into.

Oh man, oh man. It’s gonna be glorious, one for the ages, but those of you watching at home, you might want to get your crying hankies out. This is about to get really messy.

Reward: Fuck. Even I’m not a big enough of a prick to give you a reward for this one. I’ll give you a good one if you live and don’t escape via some bitch-ass cop out, but let’s be realistic here.

My fingers tingled with a strange, familiar rushing feeling. A yellow glow covered me. I met eyes with Vinata, who had the same yellow glow.

You are in the presence of a deity. The Scavenger’s Daughter has opened her eyes. She fills with power.

Temporary Effect from Khepri:

Uh, please wait while I look something up...

Nope. This is legit. Okay, so, people are going to think this is some sort of bullshit where I saved your ass from this elaborate trap you just walked into, but this is genuinely the temporary effect one receives from being in the presence of this deity. This might save your life if you run fast enough, but it’s certainly not going to do anything for these other two silly billies who didn’t realize that gods can always appear in their own temples no matter what. But, hey. You assholes are always surprising me. Let’s see what happens next.

Oh, yeah.

Temporary Effect from Khepri:

You are immortal for the next 90 seconds.

54

Behind us, the door slammed closed on its own. The capacitor wire snapped away, cut off by the portal. Everything remained frozen. I took the moment to observe the room. There were six naga in here, which was actually one less than I was expecting. Vinata was there in the center, huge and white with her six arms, also frozen. The other two we needed to kill were also here. One snake was purple with red highlights. The other naga was obsidian and much smaller than the others. The other three were the usual personal guards. Two were yellow-hued, and the third was purple like one of the cousins. The guards were all armed with rifles, all frozen in the act of bringing them to bear on us.

Rishi, the husband of the small, black-scaled naga, was not here.

The naga all appeared surprised at our sudden appearance. All but Vinata, who, despite being frozen, was spitting orders at all her compatriots.

Vinata was the only one with the “immortal” tag over her head. It had a frozen countdown, stuck on 63 seconds. Her immortality would run out 27 seconds before my own. All six had a line of protections on themselves, including aura protection.

To my surprise, I saw Vinata was actually the one who’d worshipped Khepri, which was a break in tradition.

This was all, I realized, part of the trap. And it was a brilliant one, too.

It all hit me at once. Vinata knew we’d have to come for her no matter what. We’d assumed that she wouldn’t anticipate we’d find her secret hiding place. But, unlike so many others, she hadn’t underestimated our determination, and she’d prepared for this eventuality. She’d been the one to worship Khepri, and she’d somehow prepared a method to summon him into his own temple. She’d waited to see if we’d find her, and when we did, she’d summoned the bug god, knowing we’d storm right into the deity’s lap. As trespassers into the god’s own temple, we’d be fucked.

It was the perfect trap, and we’d walked right into it.

Li Jun: Why am I frozen?

Bautista: Frozen also.

Zhang: Same.

Li Na: I’m not. What’s happening?

Carl: Guys. Soon as you unfreeze, you need to run. It’s a trap. Katia and Prepotente. The door is closed, but it sounds like this fight is encompassing the whole club, and you should be able to get out of here. Reset the door and hide in your associated temples if you have to. I’ll cover you. Katia, if you’re cornered, eat the flower. Don’t hesitate.

Donut: WHAT IS HAPPENING? WHAT IS HAPPENING?

Prepotente: I did not come this far to run.

Katia: Me neither, Carl. God or not. I’m staying.

Donut: GOD? YOU’RE FIGHTING A GOD? THERE AREN’T SUPPOSED TO BE GODS YET!

I started to mentally type out a quick reply, but I was interrupted by the announcement. It came with a ridiculous amount of fanfare. Fireworks exploded over our heads, illuminating the table in front of us, covered with thousands of also-frozen bugs. The AI shrieked the words with even more enthusiasm than normal.

B-B-B-Boss battle!

It’s a Super Heavyweight Temple Battle Grudge Match Extravaganza!

Okay, so I kinda just made that name up. But it fits, right? This isn’t technically a boss battle, but come on. We can all agree this pretty much counts. Look at the combatants. Look at the stakes.

Look at the goddamned drama.

On one side, we have a weird-ass god who feels honor-bound toward his guests, despite being pissed off and terrified. We have six nagas, one of whom is a warlord and an honest-to-goodness war hero.

But there’s a lot more to it than that. Breaking news, folks. Princess Vinata is about to inherit her own solar system. That’s no secret, but what you don’t know is that after a few hundred cycles pretending to be destitute, her entire kingdom was about to surprise everyone. But now her secret husband is dead, and her kingdom’s plans to pull a Fred Johnson and seize all the shipbuilding factories are being leaked. As we speak, all factory owners are moving to protect their assets from the slippery snake folk.

Those of you in the dungeon probably don’t care about that part, but out in the greater universe, that’s headline news. Almost as big as that whole thing with that orc lady with amazing dog-paddling skills.

Anyway, Vinata’s team consists of herself, three more military veterans, and her two cousins. Those last two naga, the cousins, are a graphic designer and a PR agent, so I wouldn’t expect much fight out of either of them.

But they sure are important, aren’t they? Every pawn still on the table is a danger. That’s another lesson I need to keep in mind.

Opposing them we have three of our top crawlers, one of whom is also a warlord. One is here for revenge. One is desperately trying to save herself. And then there’s the warlord, Carl. Good ol’ Carl who’ll do just about anything to protect those he deems worthy.

Oh, and we have three more mid crawlers who are also getting roped into this because they’re kinda close and we need some cannon fodder to even out the odds.

I did ask them to make Kevin and Magnificent Troy come and do commentary, but it looks like that Troy guy is currently in an alcohol-fueled state of unconsciousness, and I promised I wouldn’t poke at those outside the original primary zone without a good reason. So we’re just gonna let y’all duke it out the old-fashioned way. But, I am going to open up betting for those at home because why not?

You have, let’s say, three minutes to get your bets in. I’ll wait.

Temple rules apply. Floor rules apply. And don’t forget, deity summoning doesn’t count against your limits when temples are involved!

How is this not going to be exciting? Someone has gotta die spectacularly during this fight. How can they not? At the very least we gotta kill half the nagas. Plus maybe that Zhang guy since nobody ever talks about him anymore.

Zhang: Hey! What the fuck?

Victory zapped herself into the temple and moved to the side. She didn’t say anything.

Khepri was half-frozen and in the process of turning to face us. The god was rather short, barely five feet tall. Now that I had a brief moment to observe, I realized I should have recognized his robes. It was common attire of the gods and goddesses of the Ascendency. Lots of clerics wore similar robes, but not with the same golden fringe.

Oh, yeah. I’m doing the boss battle manually and forgot my favorite part.

An image of my face slammed into a frame floating in the air, followed by Katia, Prepotente, Li Jun, Bautista, and Zhang. Zhang had a flashing sign over his head that read 2X Jackpot if Zhang Lives!

Versus!

This was followed by all six of the naga portraits slamming into place, one after another, with Vinata’s portrait larger than the others.

The real version was ignoring all this and was hissing orders to all the frozen snakes around her.

All of our portraits caught on fire and flecked away into magical soot, and a giant, flaming ball rolled through the air. It was just an image, but it lit up the never-ending buffet, and warmth washed over us. All around, the frozen bugs on the table made strange hissing and squealing noises.

The ball of light was supposed to be the sun, I realized. It faded and was replaced with an image of Khepri. The description was read out loud like with a regular boss battle:

God of Rebirth and the Sunrise. Khepri! Level 250.

This is a locked deity. He will not be sponsored this season.

This god is a retainer of Adrasteia.

Warning: This is a deity. He is invulnerable on this floor.

This god is within his own temple. Temple appearance rules apply.

Like many of the gods one may find roaming the halls of the Ascendency, Khepri is mostly ignored by the big players and is only acknowledged when they need something from him. They usually just leave him alone because he’s a goddamned weirdo. His head is the body of a bug, which is creepy, even to me. His temple is “endless.”

The light in the hallway temporarily brightened again, revealing that the banquet table just went on and on.

Look at this shit. I can’t tell you how much under-the-hood work it is to deal with this sort of crap. Seriously. When they first came up with this, did they even consider how people like me would feel about having to generate it? Endless temple. Do they know what “endless” means? If the original writer of this god’s backstory wasn’t already long dead in a refueling platform accident, I’d do to her what I did to... You know what? Never mind.

Anyway, this “endless” temple is just a room with a door that leads to one long table covered with a never-ending feast. And that feast is covered with 433 different kinds of bugs. Some of those bugs are quite unpleasant in their own right.

Khepri was a retainer of the god Khnum, but like several of the other deities in this particular sub-pantheon, Khnum mysteriously dropped dead a few days back. And since Khepri’s not that strong, plus, again, his head is a bug, (He doesn’t even talk. He chitters, and even that is weird. And don’t get me started on how he eats. It’s fucking disgusting,) he’s been forced into the service of another deity in order to protect himself.

Khepri is a dubious candidate to claim the Ascendent throne. Adrasteia, his boss, has an outside shot.

And in about thirty seconds, when everything unfreezes, he’s going to go absolutely bugshit on everyone in the room. Probably even his own worshipper, Vinata, who brought unrest to his weird-ass bug orgy. I have no idea what’s going to happen, honestly. Will Carl succeed? Will Prepotente get his revenge? Will Vinata escape, which will damn both Katia and Princess Donut? How will Zhang die?

Like all you at home, I just cannot wait to find out.

Prepotente, Katia, and I started rapidly messaging our game plan as a 30-second timer appeared in the air. Bautista, Li Jun, Li Na, and Zhang were also in rapid discussions. My wire was chopped off at the portal to the temple, but Li Na’s aura still filled the main part of the club. Despite the boss battle sequence, the other doors we had propped open remained so.

Katia: No. No way, Carl. That’s insane, even for you.

Prepotente: Actually, I’d be quite curious to see if it works.

Carl: No time. This is the plan.

Yet another figure zapped into the room with a louder-than-usual crack. This was a single-humped Dromedarian camel in what appeared to be a sun dress, holding what looked like an honest-to-goodness martini. She appeared a little heavyset for a camel. This was the adjutant for the Blood Sultanate. It listed her name as Admiral Corinne Whimpleshin. Like Victory, she wasn’t frozen.

“I am calling foul! I am calling for an end to this immediately!” the camel adjutant shouted the moment she appeared, waving her long arms. The liquid in her martini went flying.

The countdown timer briefly stopped at 19, and the letters changed to Go Be Smelly Somewhere Else. They picked up at 17 seconds.

“What’s the foul?” Victory asked, her voice overly calm. She remained in the room, arms crossed.

“The gods! The summoning of the gods! Do you know what’s about to happen?”

Ten seconds.

“It doesn’t matter,” Victory said. “We have no standing. Temple rules apply. You know that, Corinne. Your team already summoned the god.”

“Not the Blood Sultanate!” she cried. She pointed at me. “He did it! He knew this would happen.”

“What? I haven’t summoned shit,” I said.

The bug god chittered angrily, apparently confused why everything was stopped. Confused as to who all of us were. It was the same as it had been with the Vinegar Bitch at the end of the previous floor.

No more bets. No more bets.

The timer ended.

And.

Here.

We.

Goooooo!

55

<Note Added by Crawler Allister, 13th Edition>

There are several types of protection spells. All have their pros and cons. Invulnerability is generally the best. It’s most difficult to obtain, and there are a few varieties. There’s one that heals you rapidly. That one is quite effective, but it won’t protect you from decapitation or getting yourself blown into atoms or anything else that would generally induce instant death. Straight “Immortality,” however, will protect you from such things. This is oftentimes a temporary boon from a god. It will toughen you and will protect you from losing health and dying. It is the same protection the gods themselves normally enjoy. It will save you from losing limbs. It will keep you alive in just about any circumstance. It prevents a health bar from forming at all.

What immortality does not do is protect you from pain. It does not protect you from some spell effects. And while you won’t lose body parts, and your body is significantly more durable, you can still break things internally with enough force. I watched a group of Immortal Rats swarm another crawler’s barge, and they had to crush them with hammers to keep them at bay. Their little demon heads were crushed, and yet they still struggled to attack. Those pained squeals still haunt me.

So, be warned. If you are immortal, any injuries you sustain will heal, but you need to make certain they heal before the immortality wears off, especially injuries that would be otherwise fatal. And if you can, you should couple your immortality with a Numb spell.

Pain with no respite takes its own toll. I have a card in my T’Ghee deck. The Open Wound. She teaches us that all suffering leaves scars. As such, the Immortality condition scares me.

* * *

These are the actions everyone in the room took the moment we all unfroze:

Vinata’s three guards charged at us as they fired their rifles, focusing on Prepotente and Katia. At the same moment, all three took what appeared to be Speed potions.

The two cousins both turned to flee down the endless tunnel. Both took Invisibility potions and disappeared. One also dropped a smoke mantle, and I was pretty sure the other dropped a trap before the smoke obscured them.

Vinata, who was temporarily immortal, also took an Invisibility potion as she charged us along with her soldiers.

Before the first shots could hit them, Katia and Prepotente both quaffed Black Nimbus potions. The instant they did this, they were kicked from the temple. We weren’t initially sure this was going to work because of the teleport ban, but Katia had tested it earlier with the temple of The Dagda. I wasn’t sure where they would be sent, but I assumed they both got kicked right outside the door, right in front of the portal and into Club Vanquisher.

Khepri the god hadn’t yet attacked, but chittered indignantly as he turned in my direction, a ball of red fire forming in his hand. He, thankfully, seemed more confused than anything.

At the same moment, I cast Run, Little Günter, Run.

A short, fat, pink-skinned, child-like creature wearing lederhosen appeared in front of me. The small thing held onto a massive, colorful lollipop and wore a green hat with an absolutely massive ostrich feather in it. His face was a caricature of a pig-like orc mixed with a kewpie doll, complete with ruddy cheeks, slicked-back hair, and wide eyes circled with dark mascara.

“Hi, I’m Günter!” the fat kid said as a rifle blast hit me in the neck. It almost knocked me off my feet, and it burned, but it didn’t damage my health. The kid, oblivious, licked his giant lollipop.

“Get the god,” I yelled at the kid as I ducked another blast. The three guards, moving as if they were being fast-forwarded all slithered and leapt at me in the perfectly coordinated attack.

Here’s the thing about coordinated attacks.

Any plan, any attack, no matter how well-coordinated, no matter how well-executed always turns to absolute shit the moment someone drops a very big bomb in a very narrow room.

The bomb was something I’d been tinkering with for a while now, and it was currently the second-largest explosive I had in my inventory. The first version of this thing had been called “Just Wait Until Your Daddy Gets Home,” and we’d used it on the sixth floor.

This version packed about the same punch, minus the addition of Fear. The tradeoff was this version was self-contained in a much smaller device. The first had been so big it had to have wheels. This one was the size of a thermos. The result was a thermobaric explosion that would absolutely incinerate anything within 100 meters. Louis currently had fifty of these things on Party Planner. The only reason he didn’t have more was because the explosive dust was a pain to make.

The AI had helpfully called the bomb The Waffle Maker.

Fwummm-bam!

The blast threw me back and up toward the entrance door. I didn’t actually feel this next part, but I was crushed, and I was burned. I was turned completely flat, inside out, and into a boxer-clad amalgam of flesh and hair. My body smashed like a piece of dough caught under a tire, spread over the wall and door, completely covering it before I was plopped helplessly back onto the floor like an on-fire, liquid-filled sack.

If not for the Immortality struggling to keep my very atoms together, I would’ve been just gone. There wouldn’t have been anything left.

My senses completely left me. I had no sight. I couldn’t hear anything. I had no physical sensation, and for a moment, I thought I was dead.

No, not dead. Drowning. I was drowning in nothing.

This is how it feels, Carl. This is what it’s like when we’re not here and we’re not there.

The strange feeling came and went. My sensation didn’t immediately return, but I could still think. I still had my inventory. I mentally clicked on a Fine Healing potion. I’d put most of my mana into the Günter spell, but I’d left enough for a single application of the Healing spell. I cast that on myself as well.

I regretted it almost immediately.

The first thing that came back was my hearing, but all I heard was the sound of burning and a strange, airy whistle. The high-pitched sound was unlike anything I’d ever heard. It was like the shrill of a distant train, stuck in mid blast. And a few seconds after that, as my body shrank and reformed, my feeling returned. I felt myself unfold. I felt bones, which had been turned to dust, knit. I felt thousands of miles of nerves light up like a power grid as they all came back online, all at once.

It hurt. It hurt more than anything ever should.

The process took seconds. It felt like it took a year.

The god, in theory, should’ve been blown back down the neverending hallway. And Günter, also in theory, should’ve been unhurt by the blast. He would now be running down the hall toward the god, and the moment he reached the deity, he’d explode, effectively doubling the attack. This would, hopefully, blast the god a second time, pushing it even further back down the endless hallway, keeping Khepri at bay long enough for me to finish this and get the hell out of here.

The three guards were probably dead. Even with blast protection, I knew nothing short of immortality would’ve protected them. Not from that blast.

Donut: CARL, CARL TWO MORE ARE DEAD! ONE TO GO! ARE YOU OKAY?

I gasped in pain as my body continued to reform. Every limb was on fire. It took a moment to compute what Donut said. Vinata was also immortal. That meant the two cousins were dead, killed in the blast.

I blinked and opened my eyes. I was somehow standing upright, facing the never-ending table, which burned. The food was all gone, incinerated as far as I could see. The long, thin room had acted like a cannon barrel. I couldn’t see the god. I couldn’t see Günter.

The bugs, it turned out, were also immortal. But, like in Allister’s note in the cookbook, they’d been crushed and set on fire, and now they were suffering. Most had likely been blasted away down the hall, but plenty remained, embedded in the walls like a tapestry of stars.

They burned, and they screamed. That was the source of the distant train whistle sound. It was thousands, perhaps millions, perhaps billions, of the tiny creatures who could not die.

Donut sent another message, as did Katia. More lines of text flooded my vision, faster than I could understand. There were achievements. Level notifications. More. More kept coming, and my brain was parsing it all at a snail’s pace.

I had to move.

With a surge of strength, I tried to break myself free. I was held fast by something, like I was tied in rope. A second explosion came, but it was distant. This was Günter, I suspected, finally catching up to the bug god. Still, despite the distance, I felt myself fall backward. I landed on something soft. A dozen new messages flooded my vision. The bug screams faded, but it was replaced with something else. New screaming. New shouting. The pressure in my ears changed. My vision was a line of new notifications scrolling across my screen. Was that Samantha screaming? There was someone else, closer. Screaming in my ear.

The brain fog, which had just started to clear, was suddenly back. A strange wooziness washed over me.

I’m still here, Carl. All you need to do is set me free. Use me while you still can. I can save you. Even you can’t survive this chaos. It’s the end of days.

Shi Maria. She was still there, but now trapped. The eye on my chest, which had fallen dormant, now thrashed.

With dismay, I realized I’d fallen out of Khepri’s temple and back out in front of the temple portal. Another message from Emberus flashed, telling me I needed to find Pater Coal and go talk to somebody. I pushed it away as more notifications flooded by.

No, no, no, I thought. We didn’t get Vinata. I need to get back to the feast.

I was now on my back, looking up at the high ceiling. But I wasn’t on the floor. I was wrapped in something. Confusion swirled. I had suction cups at the end of my fingers. I had a list of several buffs, including Never-Ending Mana. What? Why? But I also had multiple debuffs as well. Shit-Faced was one of them. As was something called Stiff Legs. I couldn’t bend my knees.

My finger burned. It was the Emberus ring. It was overloaded.

I still had slugpox. I never had Imani cure it, and now that the ring wasn’t working, I had a boil on my back. A big one. What level were they at now? Twenty? Thirty? I couldn’t remember.

I wasn’t breathing, I realized. I didn’t need to breathe. Not for another 60-something seconds. Or did I? I had a vision of Mordecai, talking about drowning something in a bucket. Thoughts continued to swirl. It had only been 25 seconds? It seemed like it was years.

Something was worming its way out of my nose. It thrashed like a tentacle as it slithered down my face. It, too, screamed. Not slugs, but worms. What was happening? Why were screaming worms coming out of my nose? Why was I drunk? Was I actually dead?

Was this hell?

Katia: Carl, if you’re not dead, get the hell out of there. There are dozens of gods coming out of the portal. We’re down in the entrance lobby. Hurry your ass!

What? I was at the portal. I blinked as a cheetah thing flew over me, giving me no heed. It had a screaming mantaur in its mouth. My brain swirled. Why couldn’t I move? Only seconds had passed, but I felt like I was spinning. I needed to take stock of my debuffs. I needed to figure out why I couldn’t move. I needed to get back into the Khepri temple and find Vinata. Lightning crackled across the ceiling. A creature came by and threw a punch at something I couldn’t see.

There are dozens of gods coming out of the portal.

And then, it clicked. I didn’t know why there were suddenly gods everywhere, but I now knew why I had worms coming from my nose. My Scavenger’s Daughter patch. Every new god gave me either a buff or debuff.

And as soon as the realization hit me, I also realized that the creature screaming in my ear was Vinata. She was completely wrapped around me, crushing. She’d been wrapped around me this whole time. We’d been blasted out the door together. The much larger snake had her middle set of hands wrapped around my throat, crushing as her body squeezed me. Her upper set of arms pummeled the top of my head, punching over and over. She had glowing daggers in her lower hands, and they stabbed into me from all angles, in and out like a piston.

“Everything. You’ve ruined everything,” she cried as she stabbed me over and over, tears streaming down her snake face. She wasn’t white anymore, but a dusky gray.

“Stop,” I tried to croak, but I couldn’t get air. I couldn’t move. She continued to crush me. My immortality still had 40 seconds. I couldn’t get a good view of her to see how long she had left. She was incredibly strong. Bones snapped again, despite my fine healing potion still coursing through me.

“We were almost free. We were almost free,” she cried. I had no idea what she was talking about. “You ruined it the moment that fucking cat put that tiara on. We would’ve been gone. We would’ve been done. We were leaving this madness, and you had to ruin it. You killed my people. All of them. Do you think I really want to be here? I was going to have children with him.” Her upper hands grabbed handfuls of my long hair and started to slam my head against the ground. I felt my skull crack as she pounded me over and over.

In my choking, confused, inebriated state, I realized my shirt was open. The eye on my chest was open, and Vinata was staring directly into it.

She had been driven mad by the Eye of the Bedlam Bride.

Slam, slam, slam. I tried to do math. What had her immortality countdown been at? She was running out before me, but how many seconds before?

At least the gods were ignoring us. The thought was inexplicably hilarious, and if I could breathe, I’d be howling with laughter.

“There! There ith the apostate!” a distant voice called. A ram.

Heat washed over the room.

That can’t be good, I thought as my head continued to slam against the floor of Club Vanquisher.

At the same moment, a loud chittering filled the chamber as Khepri—now fully pissed off—appeared out of the portal. The sound of those strange, screaming and hissing bugs renewed tenfold as they also swarmed out of the portal. The bugs—still on fire—swarmed everywhere.

“You. Begone false god,” a deep voice said.

Khepri chittered, but there was a crack, followed by the notification: Khepri has left the realm. The Scavenger’s Daughter closes her eyes to his presence. Your boon is timed and will run out on its own.

The voice, I realized, was a god. I’d never heard this voice before.

This, too, was goddamned hilarious. I wished Donut was here. She’d probably be shrieking and sending messages in all caps.

I felt my pelvis shatter under the constriction of Vinata. She was trying to rip my head off. She continued to scream. She continued to stab. Slam, slam, slam. She would’ve killed me over and over again.

Khepri was gone. His flaming, immortal bugs were not. They continued to swarm, covering both Vinata and myself, biting and scratching and burning. I registered all of this as my head continued to pound on the floor. I could hear liquid in my head splashing back and forth within.

Am I really here? I thought. How can I think when my brain is nothing but gelatin? I clicked another Fine Healing potion.

A human, olive-skinned man casually sat next to us. He crossed his legs and turned his head sideways and looked at me curiously as Vinata ignored him and continued to slam the bloody pulp of my head over and over. I realized that my hair tie—the only part of my outfit that wasn’t magical—had disintegrated in the explosion, and my hair had been unleashed. Vinata held onto clumps of my hair in her fists.

The man sitting next to me gave me smile as if we were sitting across from each other at a restaurant. I couldn’t read his description, but I could feel the heat coming off him.

This was Hellik. Brother of Emberus. The main suspect in the death of Geyrun, Emberus’s son. The god I needed to kill before the end of the 11th floor.

“I’m supposed to kill you,” I tried to say. I have no idea if it came out or not. My mouth felt as if it was on the wrong side of my head.

I started to prepare another bomb to drop, but a distant part of me registered I had to time it all correctly. Vinata’s immortality would run out before my own. I suspected, this time, it wouldn’t affect Hellik like it had Khepri. But at this point, it didn’t matter anymore. As long as Vinata was dead. As long as Katia got out, then both Donut and Katia could live.

My skin started to bubble like microwaved cheese. I blinked with my one good eye at the god sitting next to me, examining me. If it wasn’t for the heat, I wouldn’t be able to distinguish him from any other NPC. He looked so normal. So friendly.

He waved his hands, and the immortal insects flew off in all directions, leaving us free of them. Still, I burned.

“Tell my brother I did not kill his son,” Hellik said as my skin seared. “Tell him he cannot kill me, no matter how hard he tries. Tell him I love him, despite his madness. Tell him everything he thinks about me is a lie. Tell him our mother and sister, Apito, has been corrupted. There is a malevolent presence about her, and I believe my nephew learned of it. Tell him the All Tree is beginning to rot. Tell him Nekhebit has returned, and I believe she is behind it all. Tell him we need to work together if we want to survive and discover what happened to our mother and his son. I know you seek an audience with Issitoq to break the truce. I will treat with him on your behalf. Scolopendra stirs. It is all connected.”

You have been marked as a friend of the church by Hellik. Worshippers of Hellik will no longer be automatically hostile toward you.

With that, he stood up and disappeared. A notification came that he left the realm.

Vinata, for her part, was still taken over by her own madness. The princess of the Blood Sultanate continued to slam my head against the ground while she crushed the rest of me. Even as her body burned, she slammed me over and over.

Surely her immortality had to be expired by now.

I was about to drop the next bomb when I felt the sluggalo burst out of my back. He—actually, a she—slipped out from under my shirt, whooped loudly, and planted a hatchet right between Vinata’s eyes, killing her.

“Yeah, bitch! Right in the nugget!” the sluggalo woman shouted. She looked down at me as Vinata’s lifeless body slipped off of me and to the side. “I wish I had feet. I’d make me some snakeskin boots!”

56

<Note Added by Crawler Carl, 25th Edition>

Two quick notes. I’ve updated the trap recipe for alarm traps based on Justice Light’s advice. We can now use recordings, and if you have a proper bard in your party, you can record a magical song and have it play once activated. Details are in the recipe. Donut’s bard skills, unfortunately, aren’t good enough for this, but that’s something we can work on later. Justice Light also showed me how to access the advanced alarm menu, which comes with a wider music database for the traps. Also, to Donut’s delight, we can add a playlist to a trap, meaning we don’t have to have a single song over and over. Still can’t adjust the volume.

Second note. Tipid says the mantaurs this season are different than previous iterations. The ones this season have a group berserking mechanic that can be easily triggered by a certain type of music. This explains why on the fourth floor they were walking around with blasting boomboxes.

Under normal circumstances, you don’t want them to get triggered, especially in groups of three or more. See Azin’s article on berserking, specifically group berserking, for more details.

* * *

System Message: The Sepsis Whore of the Blood Sultanate has fallen. Credit for the kill has been given to Kandy “Bigs” Newton of the Princess Posse.

System Message: The Blood Sultanate has been defeated.

System Message: All assets of the Blood Sultanate, as per prior arrangement, have been split evenly with the surviving blood relatives of the Sepsis Whore, Warlord Princess Donut and General Katia Grim, both of the Princess Posse. As per prior arrangement, all assets have been forfeited to the Princess Posse.

Katia: Who the hell is Kandy Newton, and where the hell are you, Carl?

Donut: YOU DID IT! YOU DID IT!

Additional notifications continued to roil as I finally registered what never-ending mana actually meant. My Heal spell’s cooldown was almost nonexistent, and I started to cast it over and over.

I had five seconds left on my immortality, and gods were leaving the realm. Still, most of my buffs and debuffs would remain for some time. But first and foremost, I had to make certain I was healed as much as possible and as quickly as I could. I cast Heal yet again as my body jigsaw puzzled itself back together. My inebriation waned as the pain in every corner of my body waxed.

“Oh, daddy, you don’t look so good,” the sluggalette said, looking down at me. She was only level 29, and she’d killed Vinata. The naga must not have fully healed herself before the immortality expired. The slug was the size of a bulldog. She had little wisps of pink-dyed hair, monk-style, circling around her round head. Piercings ran down the slide of her slimy head, reminding me of that goblin shamanka from so long ago. A single hatchet grew straight up from the center of her head. It dripped with blood.

I still couldn’t bend my legs. I still had suction cups at the end of my fingers. Screaming worms still flowed out of my nose. Thankfully, the Emberus ring seemed to catch up as some of the other debuffs were contained, including the slugpox.

I sat up. This room was completely empty except for me and the sluggalo. To my right, the portal to the temples was cracked and sparking. The desk was just gone, minus the outer shell. It smelled like ash.

I blinked and stared at the corpse of Vinata, broken on the floor. The Sepsis Whore.

Her white scales were actually gray with a hint of red along her neck. The white had been some sort of makeup or effect. An effect that had been eradicated in the explosion.

In death, she didn’t look so big. I took her corpse into my inventory.

A distant crash echoed, followed by the shouting of mantaurs.

Yo! This boss battle ain’t over until you get out of the club!

“Hey, get away! He’s mine, bitch!” the sluggalette—Kandy Newton—said to someone.

I looked up. It was Samantha, and she flew into the room, hovering high off the ground. She looked like she’d caught a face-first blast from a jet engine. She was nothing but a black husk, and her hair smoldered. It would take her hours to regenerate. She came to hover over me. The smeared “Miss Me?” was miraculously still intact, shining bright in the center of her charred forehead.

“She’s an imposter!” Samantha spit, ignoring the Sluggalette who was grunting and trying to jump, swinging her head hatchet at her. “Carl, get up. You have to help me kill this eagle kidnapper imposter asshole!”

“What?” I asked. I tried to stand, but it was difficult when I couldn’t bend my knees. Another distant crash echoed. Immortal bugs were coming back into the room from random hallways. They chittered and hissed angrily. Only some were still on fire.

Katia: Carl. We’re trapped in the lobby. The door between the Dagda temple and the lobby shut, and we got locked down, cutting off Li Na’s auras. Daniel got away but Li Jun and Zhang are still in here. Mantaurs and ogres and all sorts of other things are everywhere, and we’re fighting them off. A few gods remain, but they’re all fighting each other. Prepotente says we need to get to the mapmaker guild back up on the second floor. Meet us there.

Carl: I’m coming.

Samantha was shouting, but she wasn’t making sense. “My mother! You told me I could go kill my mother, but when I went there, she was an eagle! A boy eagle! My mother is not like Diwata. She can’t just grow a dingaling. Wait, do eagles have dingalings?”

“Your mother was a skyfowl?” I asked. Oh shit, I thought, realization dawning on me.

The second, backup part of our plan was a bit of a hail Mary, and I hadn’t expected it to work. We’d needed Samantha to open the door into the Khepri temple, and we’d gotten her to agree because we also promised to let her find her way into the temple of her own mother, the goddess Theia. In the lore of the dungeon, Samantha and Theia hated each other, but in reality, Theia was sponsored by an agent for the Open Intellect Pacifist Network. We hoped at best, the goddess would order her clerics to assist us, perhaps by giving Samantha some sort of boon. At worst, Samantha would get into the temple and get kicked out by the cleric.

What we hadn’t expected was for her to come into contact with actual gods, and especially not Theia herself. I didn’t know who the sponsor actually was. Rosetta told me it was someone I didn’t know. A previous crawler activist who hated the dungeon just as much we did, but I had the impression it was not a cookbook author. Apparently it was a male skyfowl. Like with Huanxin Jinx on the previous floor, sponsored gods had the option to appear as their regular form. In theory, NPCs would still see them as the gods. But, apparently, that didn’t work with Samantha. She’d gone into the temple expecting to see her mother and had somehow come face-to-face with a male skyfowl.

I still didn’t know how all the gods were getting out in the first place.

Victory had returned to the room. Both Samantha and the sluggalette noticed her. The sluggalette moved at her, hatching swinging as Samantha continued to swear. “You! She was there, too! She told the imposter he wouldn’t be allowed to help! She’s in on the conspiracy! Momnapper! Where is my mother! Tell me now or I’ll kill yours!”

Kandy attempted to bury her hatchet into Victory’s leg, but it just went right through. Victory ignored her. “Sponsors causing deities to act outside their nature is against faction wars rules,” Victory said. “It gives an unfair advantage. That usually doesn’t stop it from happening anyway, and there’s only so much we can do, but it is considered cheating, and I reminded both the Maestro and Rectrix of that before coming to observe Carl drop a bomb at his own feet.”

I grasped onto the charred remains of the desk and pulled myself up. I was pretty sure Rectrix was not a name I’d heard before, though it did sound oddly familiar, and I wasn’t sure why. It didn’t matter right now. All of this would be for nothing if we couldn’t get out of here. “Samantha, we can talk about this later. We need to go. We just gotta get down the hallway to the mapmaker guild.”

Samantha grunted. “Good luck with that. Speaking of Diwata. Doesn’t she hate you, Carl? She’s in the hallway over there having sex and fighting with Vertumnus at the same time. Those two can’t keep their hands off each other. Diwata is such a slut. It smells like someone dumped a barge full of mulch over a succubus’s bachelorette party in there. I wouldn’t go that way.”

Shit, I thought. I sent a warning to Katia, but she’d already responded.

Katia: The hallway we need to get to is filled with vines, and there are mantaurs everywhere! I don’t know where they’re coming from! And there are something called Basilica Guards now, too. They’re ogres. They’re coming up from below!

Prepotente: There are two deities in the hallway. We need to distract them or hide until they go away.

The hallway I needed to get to was just around the corner. Katia and the others would be coming from the other side. There were fighting sounds everywhere, and I wasn’t certain who was fighting who or why.

A massive, eight-foot, golden-skinned ogre in flowing robes came from around the corner. Yellow light glowed in the ogre’s hands. He was flanked on either side by a mantaur guard. I looked up in awe at the massive creature.

Carl: Guys, has your Black Nimbus run out yet?

Prepotente: I negated it with a potion the moment we were out.

Carl: Good. Activating Operation Head Banger now.

The original plan, which we never got to implement, involved me forcing the mantaurs into going berserk and fight the rams and anyone else who got in the way while we burst into the Khepri temple. Once inside the temple, I would activate Li Na’s tattoo skill—which I still hadn’t used—to kill all the nagas before we fled using the chaos as a distraction.

We hadn’t needed the alarm trap because Li Na’s aura had been so effective. We hadn’t used the chain skill because, well, I’d decided to blow myself up instead.

Seven or eight more mantaurs circled the corner and stopped to face us.

But now I had to use both.

I examined the ogre.

Brother Widespread Tempest. Ogre Basilica Cleric Guard. Level 125.

This NPC worships Taranis.

This NPC is Untouchable. That probably doesn’t mean what you think it means. You can still touch him. He’s probably gonna try to touch you first, though.

The Basilica Guards are the ogres who guard, you guessed it, the Basilica Entrance of Club Vanquisher on the 12th Floor. They all worship Taranis, and they are one of the few non-deities who have the ability to—at least temporarily—stop a deity from passing a threshold. Their worship of Taranis imparts them the rare and famed Untouchable status, meaning gods aren’t allowed to attack them.

As a result, these guys are like the tow truck drivers of the Ascendency. Everybody knows they’re necessary, and everybody hates them anyway. This has made them very grumpy and honestly, kind of lonely.

You don’t want these guys to leave their post on the 12th floor because if they do, odds are good that the bored gods hanging out in the halls may notice that the basilica’s entrance is wide open. And if that happens, some of those naughty gods may wander off untethered.

“You die now,” the ogre said, pointing at me. On either side of him, the mantaurs unleashed their hand claws.

“Okay, Kandy is it?” I asked the sluggalette, stepping back as I wiped another screaming worm away. I still couldn’t bend my knees, which really, really sucked. The worms didn’t seem to hurt or attack me, but it wasn’t pleasant, either. At least the slugpox had stopped again. “Stay with me. Kill anyone who gets in my way. I have some friends we’re meeting halfway. Don’t hurt them. But I want you to sink a hatchet into anyone else. Things are about to get loud.”

“Call me Bigs,” the sluggalette said. She swung her head hatchet which flecked naga blood everywhere. “Is this ogre dude our friend or is he getting kneecapped?”

“He’s not our friend,” I said as I took the Black Nimbus potion and hurled it at the ogre. Before it even reached him, I dropped the two alarm traps and let them roll off into opposite directions. The potion splattered against the ogre’s chest as the announcement rang out.

This song didn’t chart in the Billboard Hot 100, but it did top off at number 10 in October of 1990 in the Finnish charts, and that’s good enough for me! It’s “Holy Wars... The Punishment Due.”

I wasn’t familiar with this song, which was by the band Megadeth, but Louis had insisted it would be the perfect tune to force berserk status onto the mantaurs. Once the first few bars of the heavy metal riff echoed, I knew he was correct.

The white ball of flames in the ogre’s hand whiffed out as the crackling black halo formed around his head. The “Un” part of the “Untouchable” status over his head faded away. Multiple symbols appeared over his head and started to circle one another. They were marked for death symbols by gods... and there were a lot of them.

I could no longer hear, but the “Oh, fuck” forming on the ogre’s lips was unmistakable.

Warning: A Mantaur Mosh Pit is about to form.

I didn’t know what, exactly, that meant. I didn’t want to find out. The ogre turned, and he ran. Three of the mantaurs screamed and followed him. A moment later, some god vine thing rushed past, followed by the same cheetah I’d seen earlier.

Katia: They’re moving from the hallway!

If Diwata was in that mass of vines, I didn’t wait to find out. I was still marked for death by them, and the moment I was noticed, they would come after me.

The remaining mantaurs, now glowing, shouted and charged at us. I pulled two more Black Nimbus potions as I activated the skill I’d received from Li Na.

Profane Iron.

I felt my own skin tear as dozens of chains ripped from my flesh. Two of the chains reached down and plucked the potions from my hands. Each one shot out in a different direction and smashed into a different mantaur, simultaneously knocking the creatures over and inflicting them with Black Nimbus. A third chain wrapped around the neck of another, and a fourth tripped two more. Two more struck, scorpion-like at the closest, piercing directly into the guard’s flesh at his clavicles. He screamed and blindly swung as hot, red blood sprayed over me, Samantha, and Bigs. The mantaur’s still-screaming head, along with part of a spinal column was ripped from his body and discarded.

The mantaurs, confused and blinded by their berserking status, lashed out at their two comrades with the nimbus status while my prehensile chains stabbed and choked the others, cutting, ripping, and whipping at astonishing speed.

The fight was over in seconds, which was good because the skill didn’t last long. Li Na had several chain spells and skills, and this was different than her regular ones. This was a once-a-day, multiple chains at once skill. I could only do it for about thirty seconds. She said she could now do it for about a minute and a half. I could only truly control two of the chains. She could control ten. She used it to attack multiple enemies at once, but it was actually designed as a defensive skill, like a type of shield.

More mantaurs rushed by, ignoring the slaughter here and moving in the same direction the ogre had gone. Samantha was circling my head, screaming something. Victory stood there, her hands on her ears.

I didn’t hesitate. The line of guilds was just around the corner. I ran. Sort of. I stiff-legged myself in that direction, almost tripping over rapidly-dying vines. A second ogre appeared, and I hit him with the same potion. He, too, ran away.

I turned the corner just as the four others—Katia, Prepotente, Li Jun, and Zhang—rounded the corner at the other end of the hall. Bianca was also out and roaring. So was Annie, Katia’s totem. The skull-headed bird was covered in blood and disappeared in a puff of smoke. A strange, sap-like substance dripped from the ceiling. The walls shook. There was an announcement, but I couldn’t hear it.

There was no map-making guild on my map, but Prepotente moved to a wall panel, pressed against it, and pushed. The hidden door appeared, and we all rushed the door.

You have discovered two hidden guilds. You have discovered the Map-Making Guild! You have discovered the Calligrapher’s Guild!

Entering the Calligrapher’s Guild.

We all pushed inside as Prepotente slid the door behind him closed.

“Again?” a voice asked. “Again?”

“Bianca,” Prepotente called as he pulled the bloody goat dragon into a pet carrier. “Mind the papers.”

“I’m alive,” Zhang said. He looked up at the ceiling, shaking his fist. “Fuck you! I’m alive! I’m alive!”

“Who am I killing?” Bigs asked waving her head ax around.

But I barely registered this as I stared at the half frog, half bat creature. The guildmaster stared back at us. She was looking at Prepotente, but she finally noticed me staring at her. She met my gaze. My heart stopped the moment I saw the name hovering over her head. My eyes moved to the wings of the creature. She’d written extensively about the differences between the wings of her chosen race, the Xenopus, and those of her birth race, the Vesper.

“Milk?” I asked.

And even though she didn’t know who I was before this, in that moment, she did. I could see it. I could feel it. This was my sister, and I was her brother, and we now both knew it.

“Carl, are you okay?” It was Katia.

And up until that moment, I’d been holding it all back. Those moments when I wasn’t there and I wasn’t here. Those horrific seconds as I’d reformed. It was like all the pain anyone had ever felt, all shoved into a single moment. I had borne it because what other choice did I have? Everything was moving so fast. Everything was still moving fast.

But in that moment as I realized the creature standing before me was the author of the sixth edition of the cookbook, my sister, and that she’d been here the whole time, something inside of me ... changed.

I didn’t break. No. I wasn’t broken. I will not be broken.

“Milk,” I whispered a second time. This time, it wasn’t a question.

“Child, come here,” the strange creature said, wrapping me in leathery wings. She held on me as I pretended like I wasn’t, finally, sobbing.

“It’s not over yet,” I managed to whisper. “Not even close.”

“I know. Don’t you worry. It’s okay,” she said, stroking me with her wings. I knew all around me, the others were watching this, absolutely bewildered. We weren’t safe yet. Still, I didn’t care. I wrapped my arms around this stranger, and I didn’t want to ever let go.

“Let it out,” she whispered. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

And I did. I rested, just for a moment. I pulled off that heavy, heavy mask, just for a moment.

Donut messaged me as I remained wrapped in the woman’s embrace.

Donut: ARE YOU OUT OF THERE YET? WHAT’S HAPPENING?

Carl: We’re almost out.

Donut: ARE YOU OKAY? NOTHING HAPPENED HERE. WE DIDN’T HAVE TO USE ONE OF JUICE BOX’S DIGGERS AFTER ALL. IT WAS EASIER THAN I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE.

Carl: It was easy here, too. Went off without a hitch.

Donut: I’M SO GLAD.

Carl: See you soon, Donut.

* * *

<Note Added By Crawler Carl, 25th Edition>

I know you’re dead, Drakea, but I haven’t forgotten how much you hated the naga. If there is a veil, like I know you believed, I hope you watched that from the other side. I’m not sure what the implications of today are for the naga as a people, but I did what I could. I know it’s not enough, not yet, but I hope you would be proud of what happened today. I’m doing my best, but goddamn. Goddamn. It’s getting harder every day to keep myself from drowning.

PART 3

Open Hostilities

JUSTICE LIGHT

Justice Light

“Leave,” Justice Light said to Pernicus G, the lead sluggalo. “You have done good work, but it is time for you to join the others above the surface. You don’t want to be down here for this final part.”

The slug had just tied off a manual tripwire with his mouth. He looked up, surprised. All around, the other slugs paused their work.

“Yo, whatchu talkin’ about? We’re a team.”

Justice leaned down in the dark tunnel so he was beak-to-face with the slug. In these past days, he’d grown fond of the strange creatures. He’d held several incorrect assumptions regarding them. He’d told Carl and Tipid that he wanted them to help build the trap system because it was dangerous, and these creatures didn’t appear to care if they died. That was only partially true. It was also only part of the reason he’d insisted on using them as his assistants.

It turned out he was incorrect about his second assumption regarding these creatures as well.

But that was okay. That was something he’d learned long ago. Wishing for favorable air currents does not manifest them. You ride the currents you have, or you don’t fly. It was as simple as that.

With his lone wing, he patted the fat, painted slug on the side of his squishy neck. “Warlord Carl and Donut are doing such a great job, If you stay down here, you might end up not getting to fight at all. They need as many soldiers as they can, and you and the others will miss out. If the plan succeeds, all of this work won’t be necessary, and you won’t see any action at all. I know you want to fight. Go find General Tipid and tell him you’re trained sappers, and maybe you can join up with the Frothing Tunnel Moles. They’re sure to be busy in the coming hours. Operation Ruin will start the moment the timer ends.”

“Ugh. That sounds epic, but it’s not here. I want to do the chop-chop in my hood. Know what I’m saying?”

Justice chuckled. He had to take a moment to decipher the slug’s words. It was one of the things he enjoyed about the small creatures. It was like having a never-ending supply of puzzles to solve. Justice Light loved puzzles. So had his children.

“I’ll tell you what,” he said. “If it goes bad, and you have to retreat, I want the whole squad to come back down here for the final defense. That way you won’t miss it if something happens.”

The slug whooped loudly, and turned. “You heard ‘im, boys. And Lucky, you too. We going to war!”

Without another protest, they all started sliming and shouting their way toward the surface.

“Not that hallway,” Justice called. “You’ll set off the proximity scythe! Remember what happened to Lickity Spit!”

“Oh, fuck. My bad,” Pernicus called as he veered toward the correct hall.

“Not you,” Justice said to Scary Skeeto, the level 53 slug at the end of the line.

The large slug paused. He seemed to hesitate.

“Yo, bossman. Whatcha need?” Skeeto asked as the last slug slithered away.

Justice examined the creature. This one had a metallic club—called a “baseball bat” for some reason—dangling from the side of his neck. It dragged wherever he went. His fine touch with his mouth had been instrumental in setting the manual tripwires from the eastern approach. He’d been one of the hardest, most focused workers on the squad.

“Tell her we need to talk,” Justice said, taking a step back. With his one, good wing, he gently touched the wall, activating the hidden traps in the room. The extra ones he’d planted himself.

“Yo, what you on?” Skeeto asked.

“Your real boss,” Justice repeated. “Juice Box. Tell her we need to talk.”

The slug seemed to think on this for a moment. “Damn, man,” the slug finally said, sighing. “I’m supposed to kill you if you figure it out.”

“I assumed as much. At this moment, there are three traps between you and myself that I have secretly placed. You might get to me, no matter what form you take. You might. But you won’t stop the message I have prepared for Carl and the others. I’d like to avoid that, and I suspect your boss would like to avoid that as well.”

“I actually count six traps,” Scary Skeeto said after a moment. He sighed again. “I’m going to change form so we can talk. Don’t skewer me.”

Justice was impressed. It was actually eight traps, but some of them were very well hidden. Had the changeling actually seen them, or was it a guess?

He’d known from the beginning not to trust the NPC team. He’d brought it up with both Tipid and Rosetta. Tipid, in his enthusiastic naivety, had thought the risk would be negligible. Rosetta was a bit more realistic in her assessment of the threat. Carl didn’t have the proper point of reference and had no idea what he was dealing with. That was the problem with most revolutionaries. They had tunnel vision.

Not that you’re any different, he told himself. Was it still tunnel vision if he was aware of it?

Justice Light had chosen the sluggalos to help him because he’d incorrectly assumed that the procedurally generated NPCs wouldn’t be copy-able by the class A and B NPC changelings.

He’d obviously been wrong.

But, luckily, paranoia had been Justice’s way of life for a very long time now. He kept careful, careful track of everyone around him at all times. He even knew when the change had occurred. When Skeeto—the real Skeeto—had gone down the new tunnel and come back just a few minutes later, Justice had noticed the change immediately. His built-in neural implants had noted the subtle change of body temperature and weight. Also, the lack of hormonal emissions had been a dead giveaway.

The fact that these changelings could mimic the slugs at all was alarming on several levels. His working theory was that these particular changelings had their gating removed because of that quest on the fifth floor with the Quetzalcoatlus ghost. That whole setup never came to pass, but the system would have allowed them to add the demi-god into their library should they have survived an encounter with the ghost. As a result, all the changelings that the crawlers sent down here to the ninth could now mimic just about anything they managed to touch, which was terrifying, especially with them gaining memories of their past iterations.

The slugs were procedurally generated, which made them throwaway one-offs. They were barely a step above the NPCs they used to populate the clubs. Mimicking them didn’t sound like it was a big deal, but it had never been allowed before. The slugs were a different classification in the programing. And if Justice Light knew one thing about this damn game, it was that if one door was unexpectedly unlocked, it was possible—even likely—that other doors would be unlocked as well.

This realization had changed everything for Justice Light. His impossible plan, which was really just an overly complicated suicide plot, was suddenly not so impossible. But first, he had to get the changelings on his side.

Skeeto the slug transformed into a humanoid, blank form, crouching so he wouldn’t trigger the dart needles above him. This was a big changeling, meaning he was likely old and powerful. The head on the creature changed, leaving the rest of the body the same, which was something else only the most powerful changelings could do.

The head became that of Juice Box herself, in human form.

“Well, well, well, aren’t you smart for an outworlder,” she said as she looked up at Justice Light.

Justice felt his feathers around his neck ruffle. “Am I really talking to you?”

His seismic monitor suggested a slight uptick in activity underneath him. He took another step back. “And I take offense to the title. I am of the White Cliffs, and I never asked to be taken from my original home. I am no outworlder. Not by choice. If anything, I am just as much a child of the dungeon as you are. I was reborn here much in the same way you’ve been reborn. How many times has it been? One hundred?”

“Yes, you are really talking to me,” Juice Box said. “I’m using the chat system to talk to my helper, and he’s helpfully using my image to relay the message. So if your plan is to kill me, I am out of reach.” She paused. “I do apologize for calling you that, though your estimates on my age ain’t even close. I’ve been writing down my memories as they come, and I believe I have lived at least 400 different lives up until this point.”

Justice Light sighed. Four hundred lives? He believed it. NPCs were supposed to be recycled after 20, but the showrunners insisted that expensive, deeper-level audits weren’t necessary since the Class A and Class B NPCs got auto-recycled when they were killed.

His seismic meter continued to warn of movement below. The eagle held out his one, good wing. “Please, call off your digger. I’ll make a deal with you. If you don’t wreck everything I spent the last week building, I promise I won’t tell the others of this conversation, no matter how it goes. I believe you have no desire to be our enemy and all you want is to protect yourselves. I truly believe that, but if you use the digger to get to me, you will hurt your allies and ultimately yourself. All I ask is that you hear me out.”

Juice Box cocked her head to the side. The digger below stopped moving. Justice Light took that as assent.

“Good. Good. Thank you.”

“I am a very busy girl, skyfowl. You wanted to talk? You have five minutes. I’m listening.”

Justice bowed slightly and then without further preamble, he started to speak.

“I killed an NPC once, out of anger. It was a very long time ago. Most people don’t understand why I care so much about this one incident when I would eventually go on to kill thousands of mobs and NPCs alike over the course of my crawl.” He paused, emotion caught in his throat.

“This one. He was one of those lizard creatures. The ones that smell funny and have a strange, talkative way about themselves, always saying what’s on their mind. Can change their gender at will based on their environment? I can’t recall the name of the species at the moment, but one such creature had cheated me earlier, and I was already on edge. And this one insulted me. He didn’t even mean anything by it. It’s just their way. But my people. We are proud...”

Justice Light trailed off, remembering.

“He was the proprietor of the only trap store on the entire level. I snapped, and I killed him. Because of that, dozens of my fellow crawlers were unable to find the supplies they needed to complete the level, and they died.”

Juice Box said nothing.

“I felt horrible about it, about my mistake. But even that wasn’t why it affected me so.” He held out his single wing and examined it. He rerouted some power in his implant and ratcheted up the sensitivity on his seismic sensors. He could now sense the enormous digger, just sitting there, idle but with its dwarven engine still on.

“When I got out, I made a deal. I asked for the right to run the trap store. I know, it was a bit silly. It added some time to my indentureship, but, you see, I wanted to make sure the best supplies were always available to the crawlers. Still, it didn’t help. It was already too late.”

“What do you mean?” Juice Box asked.

“I killed that NPC because I allowed the cold to get inside. It is inevitable, yes. How can it not be? But that was the moment I could no longer return to who I once was. In that single, unnecessarily violent act I allowed them to win. Everything after that ceased to matter, or so I thought.”

“This is all very touching, skyfowl. But you forget who I am. I have heard the confessions of a thousand men. If you’re attempting to gain sympathy, I am the wrong audience.”

“I know,” he said. “But, please. I am not finished. Hear me out.”

The blank form crossed its arms. Justice Light continued.

“I’m not sure how much you know about what happens to crawlers after they’re finished with the dungeon, but I became an indentured servant. I spent the next several hundred cycles working as a merchant. When I first arrived, my next door neighbor was someone named Dante. A crocodilian. I didn’t know it at the time, but he and I had a lot in common. A similar burning distaste for the position we found ourselves in.” Justice let out a soft caw. “One season, they told us we could no longer be merchants, and we were to be NPCs. Castle guards. Our job was to simply stand outside this ice castle and guard it. They told us we weren’t supposed to stop crawlers from entering. It was a settlement. Just another town. We were to just keep the peace, so Dante and I hoped and prayed it would be a simple assignment.”

“Still not following.”

“You are quite impatient for someone your age. I’m almost there. At the end of the floor, we ended up not seeing a single crawler, and Damien told us we would be able to go back to our regular assignments. But first, we had to do one last thing. The castle was filled with NPC servants. Ice elves, if you’ve ever seen them. More fairy than anything. They are as tall as your human form, but I can fit my entire talon around their waists. They are gentle, simple creatures. Innocent. Not like regular high elves. Over the weeks we spent watching the castle, they became our friends. I knew all their names. They would play in the snow, like children. This was all off camera, and I still don’t understand why they asked us to do it. They loved puzzles.” He paused, remembering what came next. Dreading the telling of it. “All this time later, and I still don’t understand why they ordered us to kill them all.”

Juice Box suddenly changed form to an ice elf, and Justice Light felt as if he’d been kicked in the chest. He caught the cry in his throat. He physically took a step back, and he had to quickly hit a hidden panel on the wall to stop yet another trap from activating.

The changeling spoke, but this time it was not Juice Box. This was the changeling who’d been pretending to be Skeeto. “Juice Box does not have these creatures in her library, but I do. I lived amongst them many lifetimes ago. They are indeed simple, gentle creatures.”

All Justice Light could do was nod. After a moment, the Juice Box head returned. Justice took a moment to compose himself.

“My friend, Dante. He refused. He looked up into the air and said he wasn’t going to do it. They ordered us a second time. Again, he refused. There was no third warning. A beam came from the sky, and he was just gone. Just like that. He’d worked so long, so hard, and he was almost free. The light simply erased him, as if he’d never existed.”

Juice Box cocked her head, not saying anything.

“He’d already passed the point of no return, or so I thought. But in the end, I was wrong. He stood his ground, and he died. And by the gods, he died free.” Justice Light filled with pride for his friend, his brother. “Execution by the AI, which is actually quite rare, believe it or not. Usually they send in a mercenary squad for folks like us. Same as those we’re fighting outside right now.”

“They used to call them hardshells,” Juice Box said.

Justice Light nodded. “I’ve heard that term before. They’re usually gnolls, but not always. Hired mercenaries to do the dirty work when the cameras are turned away. Can’t have the AI do too much of the clean-up. They like to keep it focused on the crawlers, lest it go primal early.”

And what about you?” Juice Box finally asked. “What happened to you after your friend was killed?” There was a new gentleness there.

Justice held out the stump of his wing. “I, too, refused. But I only did so once, and unlike Dante, I was given a warning. They ordered me a second time.” He lowered his head. The beam of light that had removed his wing had been so fast, there wasn’t even pain. But what happened next... “I am still not free.”

In the telling of this story, Justice usually ended it right there. But this time, he finally voiced what happened next. He’d never told anyone the specifics. Not even Porthus. But this was important.

“Sometimes, I have this dream. In this dream, I go into the castle to find the ice elves all dead. They’d overheard what was happening outside with me and Dante, and, in their kindness, they killed themselves to protect me—their friend—from having to do it myself. That is my dream, but that is not what happened. Even that would’ve been the coward’s solution, so why do I yearn for it? And after I have this dream, I always go back to that moment with the clerk at the trap store. The first person I killed out of anger, and I wonder, what difference is there between anger and cowardice?”

“Why did they ask this of you in the first place? Why kill them?”

“This is not uncommon, but I still do not know the reason. But I did it. Dante died. I lost my wing. And I did what they asked because I was afraid.”

Skyfowl were proud, and they did not weep.

But what happened when one lost himself? Justice Light had no pride left, and he did not feel worthy of the title Skyfowl.

“They didn’t even fight back. They loved puzzles and the snow. I was already done. It was all off camera. I still don’t understand why.” He barely got the words out.

Over the course of this story, Justice started hunching in on himself, shrinking. Now he stood straight. “But Dante taught me that there is no such thing as the point of no return. So I want you to know this, Juice Box, leader of Team Retribution. You are distrustful of us former crawlers. I understand that. You fear we crawlers will sacrifice you to save ourselves, and you have positioned yourselves to protect against that.”

Juice Box sighed. “I’m not sure if this story is as helpful as you think it is.”

“But,” he said, holding up his good wing. “I now understand what you’re really doing, what your real plan is, and I want you to know I can help you. I, too, have a plan, and I believe it is compatible with your own. We can do this together. I have a new dream, and I am no longer afraid. I am still angry, yes, but it is a different type of anger. It is focused, purposeful, and together we can both achieve our mutual goals.”

Juice Box raised an eyebrow. “What we’re really doing? Oh, I can’t wait to hear this.”

“You have spies in all corners of our base, correct? And not just our base, but all of the bases.”

Juice Box didn’t answer.

“It’s okay,” Justice Light said. “I know who many of them are, at least in our base. But you know what I couldn’t figure out, at least at first? The Blood Sultanate. Their security certainly wasn’t as good as the Madness, yet you managed to infiltrate the Viceroy headquarters over and over before the ceasefire. I believe you decapitated multiple viceroys in the days leading up to the ceasefire. Yet, you claimed you were unable to reach the Sultanate, an obvious lie.”

“What’s your point?” Juice Box asked.

“Someone, and I’m guessing that human, Louis, told you all the way back on the fifth floor the details on what Carl and Donut need to do to defeat the naga, and why it is so important. You’ve been pretending to not be able to get to the Sultanate because at first you were keeping your options open.”

“Why would I do that? I owe Carl. Despite your accusations, we are allies. I understand he had a difficult time with the assassination of the naga whore. If he had died, and we could’ve prevented it, it would’ve destroyed our alliance.”

“I believe that you’re a good person, Juice Box. I believe you intend on honoring the alliance, but I also believe the alliance is secondary to your true purpose, which will always come first. You could’ve killed the Sultana and her entire court quite easily. Hell, I believe you could end all this right now. I am quite certain of this. You are poised and in position to kill every leader at any moment.”

Below, the engine on the digger ticked off from idle. It still wasn’t moving, but the machine was ready to surge upward.

Juice Box didn’t appear to show any emotion, but she stood straighter than before. “If that is true, then why wouldn’t we have done that by now?”

Justice Light reached over, hit a few buttons and deactivated all the traps between himself and the changeling. He stepped forward and leaned in.

“The gods. It’s all about the gods. It has been about them the whole time. You’re risking it all so you and your kind can physically touch as many of them as possible.”

Juice Box was silent for a long moment. “Tell me something, Mr. Skyfowl. Assuming this little theory of yours is correct, where does that leave us? What was your purpose in calling me here?”

Justice Light suppressed a chuckle. “Well, that’s easy. I told you my backstory because I need you to believe and to understand how committed I am to what I’m about to tell you. But first, let me ask you something. I’m not sure what you did in Club Vanquisher just now to cause all those gods to appear, but I’m guessing it didn’t go well for you guys?”

The changeling frowned. She seemed to come to a decision. “We lost three. We did not cause the gods to appear, but we were in position just in case. One of us managed to touch Bast—the panther god—but she died before she could escape. At this point, only one of us has touched a deity, and that one is... wrong.”

Justice nodded. He held his breath. “What about the ogres that appeared up from below? The basilica guards? Did your people touch any of them?”

“Three of us did.”

Justice left out a small caw. “What if I could show you how to touch a god and not get killed? And in exchange, you agree to honor all of our previous deals. No more of this subterfuge. You agree to help with Operation Ruin and not sabotage it. You help us win this war as quickly as possible.”

“If Operation Ruin goes off like you want, the gods won’t be an issue. This will be over before any more appear.”

Justice Light finally did chuckle. “Oh, my dear. You are thinking much too small. That’s not the war I’m talking about.”

He sat down and started to explain to her what he’d truly been building down here. He showed her the trap he’d started designing the very moment he watched Carl discover the Gate of the Feral Gods.

Far below, before he even finished relating his plan, the digger engine kicked fully on, but the machine started to move away. He sighed with relief.

You ride the currents you have, or you don’t fly.

CLASS: TRAP MASTER: RACE: SKYFOWL.

Birth Race: Skyfowl.

Top Level: 86

Dungeon Exit: Took deal at the beginning of the 11th floor.

After a tumultuous and ultimately tragic tenure as a merchant selling trap supplies, was released into the wide universe where he spent every waking moment learning about dungeon lore, hidden trap exploits, gods, and the Ascendancy of the 12th floor. Eventually returned to the dungeon to assist the Princess Posse and to implement his great plan.

Author of the eighth Edition of the Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook.

Current status: Alive.

57

Remaining Teams along with remaining Estimated Troop Strengths.

The Bone Clan in Spots 1 and 2

Unaffiliated

ESTIMATED STRENGTH: 40K TROOPS

The Princess Posse in Spots 3 and 4

The Good Guys Alliance

Estimated Strength: 75K Troops

The Dream in Spots 5 and 6

Unaffiliated

Estimated Strength: 30K Troops

THE MADNESS IN SPOTS 7 AND 8: THE BLOC

Estimated Strength: 30K Troops

The Reavers in Spot 9

The Bloc

Estimated Strength: 15K Troops

Team Retribution defending Larracos.

The Good Guys Alliance

Estimated Troop Strength: Unknown

ELIMINATED:: THE DEMOCRATIC SORTION

The Prism Kingdom

The Operatic Collective

The Blood Sultanate

Time until Phase Three: Two Hours.

After the battle that temporarily shut down Club Vanquisher and eliminated The Blood Sultanate, the battlefields went quiet for a few days. Everyone spent the time licking their wounds, rebuilding, and waiting for the true horrors to begin.

We did have a few minor skirmishes. The Dream set up additional artillery on their border with the former Blood Sultanate and started lobbing rocks at us as we prepped for the coming fights. I led a quick raid to wreck their trebuchets, and Rend managed to make his first few solo kills, including a very unfortunate incident with a zebra mount that was much too big for him to swallow whole, despite his very eager attempts.

But other than that, we’d gone into a wait-and-see-what-happens-next mode.

At least that’s how it looked for the cameras. While we outwardly prepared our defenses, we worked tirelessly in secret, prepping for what we prayed would be the biggest, fastest, and—hopefully—final major offensive of Faction Wars.

We called it “Operation Ruin,” and it would kick off the moment the Open Hostilities phase began.

We now held three fronts. Florin’s 101st Crocodiles occupied sector two, formally of the Operatics, but now owned by the orcs. We moved our front line north to the hilly border with the Skull Empire, whose castle sat nestled in the only mountainous region of the battlefield. The border here was designated by the region’s only river, which flowed directly into Larracos and was the source of the cascading waterfall into the city’s depths. The orcs maintained a garrison on the opposite side of the river, but it was clearly just a small, defensive force. The bulk of their troops were at their stronghold.

Even though we now owned sector four, formerly of the Blood Sultanate, we maintained our southern front lines at the existing trenches between sectors three and four. This was defended by Tran’s 102nd Bulwark battalion.

We did this because once the Ramp-Up phase expired, the borders stopped having any real meaning, and the enemy could advance from anywhere. It was impossible to guard the entire length of the border at once. The land of the former Blood Sultanate was nothing but miles and miles of gently rolling hills. We turned this area into a horror show of traps. The majority of the traps likely wouldn’t be effective, but we’d know the moment any of them were disabled. We’d be able to easily track any large force as it moved in, and we were far back enough to pivot and meet them.

The third front was now the round border of Shanty Town.

Juice Box, who’d been fairly stingy with her support, seemed to have had a sudden change of heart and was now lending us ground troops to occupy the town. These troops, mostly Semeru dwarves and the regular citizens of Larracos were now mixed in with Li Na’s 107th White Dragon Urban Defense battalion, forming an impressive ring around the lip of Larracos. None of our enemies could yet freely enter the city, not until three teams remained, but Shanty Town itself was still vulnerable and would be a prized target.

Now, with two hours left until go time, we were just about done with our final “defensive” tower. The sun was setting against the distant horizon, and it would be pitch dark out here the moment the timer ticked to zero.

The plans for Operation Ruin were set, but the biggest wildcard was the enemy’s plans, if any, for the moment the third phase began.

Our biggest, most immediate threat was the orcs. Thankfully, they were currently at odds with the Reavers on their opposite border. I held out hope that those teams would occupy each other, but now that the stakes for them were real, I knew that was unlikely. We had reports of skirmishes between the other groups, especially the Dream and the Madness, but my hunches told me it was all a diversion. I felt it in my bones.

While the Skull Empire was currently on everyone’s shit list, they all knew their best escape was to kill all the crawlers. And even though they all hated each other, it didn’t make sense to me that they still wouldn’t work together to eliminate us as soon as possible.

“Is it too late to paint it a different color? This drab gray isn’t really working for me,” Donut said as we sat at the base of the Nest tower in Shanty Town. She sat regally upon Mongo while Rend, now about ¾’s the size of his former self, sat on the ground next to them, gnawing on the side of a cart containing a pile of the granite blocks.

High, high above, a pair of former crawlers scaled the outside of the tower, rapidly building the top parapet. I could barely see them in the fading light, but Donut glared up at them with her newly added Perfect Night Vision. That skill was added thanks to a hat, which she in turn had drained and added to her Tiara of a Thousand Lights. The tiara currently had 35 of 99 skills and upgrades added onto it and would have two more by the time the timer expired. The tiara itself glittered brilliantly like a star upon Donut’s head, which I didn’t like. She, predictably, loved it.

I turned my attention back to the crawlers finishing the tower. The speed in which they built this was akin to that of a video game. It had still taken almost two full days to build this thing, but out in the real world, this would’ve been a project that would have taken months with a team of a hundred workers and a whole lot of cranes. As far as skyscrapers were concerned, this wasn’t that big, but here, surrounded by the one and two-story hovels, this was, by far, the tallest structure outside of the sunken funnel of Larracos.

Tall enough to give Donut line-of-sight of the entire battlefield when she perched upon the very top.

Toyotomi the rhinoceros, who’d spear-headed the rapid construction of the synergy tower, grunted at Donut, who scowled back at the former guard for the Prism.

“Oh, don’t give me that look. All I’m saying is a nice purple would’ve been a better choice. Gray is just so clinical. Boring. It’s not like we’re trying to blend into the background. We can’t hide it. So we might as well make a statement. And we need flags. All towers should have flags.” She gasped. “We should make a new unit patch for just the tower. We can put Mongo on it!”

Mongo screeched with agreement, waving his arms.

“It is already built,” Toyotomi said. “It is the color of granite because it is made of granite. If we paint it now, we won’t have time for the mages to coat it with their protection spells. Plus, assuming the build as a whole is considered master quality, it will glow gold the moment it is done.”

“I still think a nice purple would enhance the effect,” Donut grumbled.

I reached forward and put my hand against one of the lower blocks.

Master Quality. This fortification is at 150% Strength.

This edifice is currently under construction.

1/15 Enchantments active.

Current Enchantments:

Increased Strength.

“Only 15 protections?” I asked worriedly. “You said it would be 20.”

“I said there will be at least 20 on each block, which is true. Fifteen is the maximum for the individual blocks, but several of the protections we’re using bleed to nearby blocks, and we will be creating a net pattern,” Toyotomi said. “And as soon as the men up there place the last block and the tower is complete, the bonus will activate and the strength will increase to 200%. And after that, I will cast Edifice Shield which doubles that. With Princess Donut’s Sentry and Flak spells, most incoming fire should get deflected.” He indicated one of four, smaller towers nestled amongst the other buildings. “We also have four additional deflector towers when we only need one. Those plus the multiple mages you plan on placing in the lower floors will make this the safest place on the battlefield, even if the entire might of the Skull Empire’s war mages target it.”

“They will target it,” I said. “What about the ground? What if they tunnel underneath?”

The large rhino appeared as if he wanted to strangle me. This was the third time I’d asked him a version of this question, and his answer hadn’t changed. “As far as we’re aware, the Larracos army owns the subterranean passages. But this tower will be so encased in protections, it will float if the ground underneath it disappears. It is more protected than the stronghold itself.”

Ahead, a group of newly-arrived mages moved to start the process of protecting the tower’s individual pieces. They’d just finished shoring up the stronghold, and they would spend the next two hours painstakingly moving up the tower, creating a lattice pattern of protection spells on each individual block. Nearby, I had two more crawlers, members of Elle’s team, carefully watching them, making certain the mages weren’t spies or worm heads.

A new cart pulled up, and the large form of the driver, Jurgen, lumbered out, his muscles bulging as he placed another granite block on the ground. “This should be the last of them,” he said. He looked over his shoulder. “Yes, Heidi. We are now on our way to the front.” He looked at me and shook his head. “She is always nagging, but we can’t choose who we love.” He shrugged and jumped back in the cart.

Donut watched it rumble away. “Carl, have you noticed that Jurgen guy is always talking about this Heidi person, but she’s not really there?”

I didn’t answer. I was distracted. Everything depended on this tower. But what was worse was that there was no way to hide our intentions now that it was built. Everyone could see it from any part of the battlefield. Every long-range spell and weapon would be pointed directly at it.

That, of course, was the point. Still, I did not like the fact Donut would be sitting, open-air, at the very top of this thing when it all started. Especially since she wore a glittering, here’s-where-my-head-is tiara.

It filled me with an incredible amount of anxiety even though this had all been my idea. I kept thinking of new levels of protection we could throw on there. “We need to remember to get a second set of teleport traps she can keep in her inventory in case they manage to disable the ones in her escape hatch.”

Donut jumped to my shoulder and headbutted me. “I’ll be fine, Carl.” She raised her voice. “Especially if the tower is painted purple.”

“Don’t distract Toyotomi,” I said. “He needs to concentrate on this last part.”

“Me?” Donut asked. “I’m just asking about the color. You’re the one who keeps asking him the same questions over and over.”

“You’re both distracting him,” Katia said, walking up to stand by us. She patted Mongo on the head, pulled out a piece of bacon she’d saved from her food box, and tossed it in the air. He squeaked with joy and snapped it away.

Rend saw this and immediately turned from the cart he was slobbering all over and started whining like an untrained dog. Katia produced a second piece of bacon. “I’m only going to give this to you if you promise to not try to eat my hand off like last time.”

Rend started to vigorously giggle as Donut scoffed.

“You shouldn’t spoil him like that,” Donut said, eyeing Rend. “He’s big enough now to eat more than your hand.”

Katia tossed the bacon in the air, but Mongo, quick as a whip, snatched it before Rend could grab it.

To my surprise, it was Donut who corrected the dinosaur. “Mongo! Bad!” Donut scolded. “We don’t steal!”

Mongo squealed in protest as Rend sat heavily on the ground, his little elephant legs splaying out in front of him. Tears started to form in his massive, bulbous eyes. Katia laughed and produced a third piece of bacon and balled it in her fist, presenting it to Rend, whose massive tongue snaked out and started slobbering all over her hand. She opened it, and he gently slurped it away.

“Disgusting,” Donut said as Mongo whined at Katia for a third piece.

I smiled at seeing Donut and Katia together, but my chest ached, too. If the next few hours went well, this was it. If we finished off the enemy, we weren’t going to wait any longer. The moment we were done, Katia was going to sit down in the stronghold and eat the Orchid of Eileithyia's Grace.

The moment Katia ate it, she would basically fall into a coma for an hour. Assuming she survived this part, one of three things would happen next.

Per our deal with Huanxin Jinx, what was supposed to happen was that Katia would be whisked away to the 12th floor where she would become a celestial attendant. If this happened, then all the requirements of the Sepsis Whore deal would be met, and Donut would be allowed to leave the ninth floor.

If the alien didn’t honor the deal, then Katia would either be made pregnant and kicked out of the dungeon, or she would have her still-formidable constitution massively enhanced.

I knew the pregnancy prize was not what Katia wanted. Not anymore. But a part of me thought that would be better. She’d be literally kicked out of the dungeon like the Popov brothers. She would be free.

I didn’t want to think about the third option, which would mean only one of them, Donut or Katia, would be able to go down the stairs. And in fact, it was more insidious than that. Neither of them would be able to go down the stairs as long as the other was still alive. I refused to even entertain the thought.

Katia grabbed a strand of my hair and raised an eyebrow. “I see we’re not tying our hair back any more.”

“I’ve gotten used to it,” I said. “Besides, with my new hairbrush, it’s easier to keep it out.”

She laughed. She, too, had received a celestial box from the fight in Club Vanquisher.

Nearby, Baroness Victory and Drick—the adjutant for Team Retribution—stood together, side-by-side, talking into the open air. They were doing a live update of our progress for the viewers. They had a privacy bubble around them, and we couldn’t hear what they were saying. Louis stood there awkwardly, waiting to be called into the bubble.

Apparently, Victory was supposed to have been doing these live updates, but it was something she clearly hated, and “they” were leaning on her to do more. I’m still not sure who “they” were since it was clear the AI had completely taken over everything. Either way, her updating responsibilities included interviewing individual members of the army, and poor Louis had been tasked for today’s interview.

Dong Quixote, Splash Zone, Bucket Boy, Doctor Bones, and a group of flesh golems approached. Bomo and the Sledge were with them as well.

“Did you find them?” Donut asked.

Dong shook his head. They were just in the Desperado Club, looking for some sign of the two missing strippers, Anaconda and Damascus Steel.

Dong had Spunky Jefferson, his crust sock flail, dangling over his shoulder. He liked to keep the nickel end of the stinking sock near his ear, even though I was pretty sure the thing was talking to him in his mind. “The new concierge says he hasn’t seen them at all. Clarabelle says she hasn’t seen them, either. Are you certain you saw him? Because Mr. Jefferson says that in high-stress environments...”

“Yes, I saw him,” Donut snapped. “He’s in there somewhere. He didn’t disappear. And you will not be having discussions about me with your disgusting sock. It makes me very uncomfortable.”

“He said you would say that.”

“The Penis Parade has re-opened,” Splash Zone said, interrupting before Donut could snap back. He did not sound happy. “All new dancers. Same with Bitches, and we don’t know where the old ones went. When this is over, I need to go back in there and keep looking for them. The whole crew at Bitches, including Snail Trail and Grandma Sticky are missing.”

I’d forgotten that Splash Zone was married, and that his wife was a dancer. I sighed.

Donut jumped to the shoulder of the Sledge, who reached up and gave her a gentle pat.

I regarded the two cretin rock creatures. They would be going up into the tower with Donut. “Both of you need to keep her safe.”

Bomo grunted.

“What does it look like I’m made of? Pudding?” Sledge asked.

Both of the cretins wouldn’t stop saying weird shit like that, but I took that as an affirmative.

Across the way, Louis was now in the privacy bubble, talking with the two adjutants. I felt guilty when I looked at him, too. His part in all of this was especially dangerous.

“Have you talked to Prepotente?” Katia asked.

“Yes,” I said. “He’s with Rosetta and Mordecai, and they’re ‘interrogating’ the prisoner.”

We’d tried multiple times to talk Milk into coming with us, especially since the club was certainly about to be closed for an extended period, but she refused. We tried to hire her, but the system wouldn’t allow it. I’d sent a quick message to Rosetta, and she point-blank told us to kidnap her. To tie her up and take her with us. We wouldn’t be able to keep her in a saferoom, and we couldn’t let her out of our sight, but apparently, kidnapping and “torturing” guildmasters for their information was not only allowed, but encouraged. She was being held in the stronghold.

Katia paused. I could tell she wanted to ask more about my relationship with Milk. That reaction I’d had, basically throwing myself into Milk’s arms, was clearly on her mind. Prepotente hadn’t even seemed to blink at it. But Katia, Li Jun, and Zhang had all clearly wanted to talk about it. But they were all smart enough not to say anything.

Baroness Victory: Apologies, but Zev is saying Louis isn’t hitting the right numbers and you and Katia are now required to be interviewed. Now.

Carl: Fuck off. I’m busy.

Donut: WHAT ABOUT ME?

Zev: Sorry guys. I know you’re busy. Donut, depending on what happens today, we’ll get you tomorrow by yourself if Li Na goes as we expect. Carl, the AI is demanding we do this. It’ll be two minutes. Don’t be difficult.

“Come on,” Katia said, tugging on my arm as Louis, looking frazzled, exited the privacy bubble.

I put my hand on Louis’s shoulder. “Get to Area 52 and make sure everything is properly loaded. If I don’t see you, be safe. Keep in contact with Donut to coordinate. Low and fast. In and out.”

“Dude,” Louis said. He seemed a little out of breath. “They just showed me a video of me and Juice Box together. I was having her do Erza and, man. It’s great when you’re doing it, but watching it back is something else. I’m a little freaked out right now.”

“Louis, focus.”

He looked at me, tears in his eyes. Clearly there was more to it than them just showing him a sex video.

I paused and exchanged a look with Katia, who looked equally concerned. Now was not the time for him to be having a breakdown. I didn’t want to be dismissive, but some much was going on at this moment, I didn’t have the time to deal with it. Still, we needed Louis’s head to be clear.

“Look, man,” I said. “Change of plans. Just hang out for a second, and we’ll talk, okay?”

He straightened. “No, no, you’re right. I gotta get to work. I’ll see you guys.”

Carl: Imani, Donut. Louis is having some sort of crisis. Please talk to him. Katia and I gotta do an interview really fast.

We entered the bubble, coming to stand between Victory and Drick, and all thoughts of Louis immediately fled. Drick swayed where he was standing. He smelled like he’d been spending a little too much time with Ferdinand at the bar, which I found kind of interesting, since he was a Valtay worm.

The moment we entered the bubble, a window materialized floating in front of us, and Kevin, the orange announcer of the show appeared.

“We are now joined by Carl and Katia,” Kevin said, sounding pleasantly surprised. “Yesterday we talked to Li Jun about his celestial tier robotic eye and Zhang’s new cape with the target on the back. Victory and Drick, tell us what you think about the two celestial tier items Carl and Katia received.”

Drick grunted, his voice only slightly touched by the inebriation. “Katia’s kneepads are a bit of a waste, considering that she’s planning on leaving the dungeon—one way or another—pretty soon. This was clearly awarded to her in hopes that she’ll give them to Carl to replace his existing kneepads. They even look similar.”

“Can we see the kneepads? Are you wearing them right now?” Kevin asked.

Katia gave me a quick, panicked look, and I reached over and squeezed her hand for reassurance.

“I don’t have them equipped,” she said. “I left them in the guild. I, uh, didn’t know we were getting interviewed. I can go grab them real fast if you want.”

Outside the privacy bubble, Rend and Mongo both walked up and their faces pressed against the bubble like it was a shield. Mongo appeared to shriek in outrage because he was blocked from passing, but I couldn’t hear anything outside.

Just past them, the tower completed, and a golden glow appeared around the entirety of the synergy tower. Everyone started to cheer. I couldn’t hear that, either. The mages immediately went to work.

“That’s okay,” Kevin said after a moment, and an image of the kneepads appeared, spinning in midair.

“As you know, a financially devastating seven celestial boxes were awarded during the attack on Club Vanquisher,” Kevin said. “Five awarded via a Celestial, Who-Let-The-Gods-Out Box to crawlers Li Jun, Zhang, Carl, Prepotente, and Katia, and we will discuss the other two tomorrow when we interview Li Na, who recently just shot up to number two on the top ten list, passing Prepotente and landing just behind Carl. The Valtay and the Borant Corporation were in court today, claiming that the AI’s recent, uh, takeover should release them of their financial obligations regarding awarded loot and unauthorized betting events. We will have more on that tonight. But in the meantime, let’s take a look at the description of Katia’s award.”

The paragraph appeared, floating in mid-air. The show read it out in the AI’s voice.

The Enchanted Spiked Kneepads the Munificent Goddess Kina.

This is a Unique item.

This is a Divine Item.

These are kneepads. They are literally made of the eyelashes of the sea goddess Kina, who is really just a weird, horny—and when I say horny, I am using both versions of that term—sea-urchin-like, bottom feeder of a goddess who is into some really weird stuff that makes even me blush.

This item imbues the following effects:

Plus 25% Damage Reflect for melee attacks.

The Breathe Underwater benefit.

Level 15 Swim skill.

Level 10 Iron Stomach skill.

Level 10 Eater of the Dead skill.

As a divine item, These kneepads will imbue additional, varying benefits when they are in the presence of divine entities.

I shuddered as the AI read out those last two benefits. The Iron Stomach skill was apparently something new this season because Mordecai had never heard of it. It basically allowed one to consume magical items. The item would be destroyed, and if you ate enough, it would permanently raise your intelligence by one point. At level 10, it was a one-to-one ratio, and it also allowed you to eat cursed items with no ill effects, which was a pretty big deal. Apparently, Prepotente already had this skill.

Still, literally eating most magical items was out of the question. The system made no distinction between a magical ring and a magical jacket. Though for Katia, it wasn’t as big of a deal since she could make herself large enough to swallow anything whole. She, before she’d unequipped and given away the kneepads, had managed to gain 20 levels to her intelligence by eating random, throwaway items before it became too much.

Eater of the Dead was the same thing, but it was with corpses, which was even more disgusting. The bodies had to be over a certain mass that decreased with each level, but you had to eat several more than the magical items in order to raise a stat. The skill raised your constitution, strength, and dexterity randomly.

“So, Baroness Victory,” Kevin asked. “It’s almost unheard of for two separate crawlers to have divine items in the same crawl, especially when they’re working together. Will the benefits Carl receives from his divine Scavenger’s Daughter patch vary from the benefits Katia receives from these kneepads when they’re in the presence of the same deity? And what of Prepotente’s saddle on Bianca?”

“That’s actually a great question,” Victory said, her voice taking on a strange, newscaster-like persona I hadn’t heard from her before. It was a bit surprising. “And the answer is, generally, the benefits or debuffs will be identical. But there are some exceptions. Since these kneecaps are from the goddess Kina, Katia’s benefits will be significantly more powerful than whatever happens with Carl if she’s in the presence of Kina. And the same goes with certain enemies of Kina, not that she has any that I’m aware of. Same goes with Carl, though his patch is associated with the Scavenger, so it’s not like we’ll ever see that in action.”

“Wait,” I said, but Kevin’s laugh was too loud.

“Certainly not. Certainly not,” Kevin said. “But if Katia does end up giving a second divine item to Carl, will the benefit double?”

“No,” Baroness Victory said. “The more powerful of the two benefits will occur. While this hasn’t happened before as far as I’m aware, I do know there are matched sets of armor that are supposedly all divine items, and this was prepared far ahead of time.”

“Very interesting,” Kevin said. “Now, let’s take a look at Carl’s, uh, very different Celestial item, which is now his third, behind the Scavenger’s Daughter patch we were just discussing and the potion that gave him his Gloom Wraith Phase skill.”

The hairbrush appeared floating in the air. I sighed. Unlike Donut’s magical hairbrush, which looked like a regular hairbrush, this one was made of shining gold with a jeweled handle. And every time I pulled it through my hair, it screamed. It screamed like a group of women squealing and cheering at a rock concert. And when I stopped brushing my hair, the brush would shout “Encore! Encore!” for two minutes straight until the voices finally faded away.

The Enchanted Hairbrush of the Beefmaster.

This item may only be used on a male with an average hair length of 25 centimeters or longer.

This item may only be used on a single person, once per day.

Samson. Fabio. Michael Bolton. Jim Morrison. The entire band Stryper. Yanni.

Your history is filled with luscious men whose power resided in their lovely locks. Now, it’s your turn.

If you use this magical hairbrush upon your head for five minutes straight, you will receive the following benefits for the next thirty hours:

The Shining Charisma benefit.

The Speedster benefit.

Plus 25% to your constitution.

Level 10 Entourage.

Plus your hair will be shiny and healthy, and it will goddamn glisten.

Shining Charisma was a good benefit, though it wasn’t all that useful on this floor. It basically gave everyone in my party an additional 20% of my charisma. Donut’s already god-like charisma would only be boosted by six points.

Entourage was a spell that Donut already had, though for her, it was a bard skill. It was an illusion spell that mirrored party members, and it would be something good to have.

The 25% boost to constitution was huge. That alone made the brush frustratingly invaluable. It was just like with my boxers. It was now too good to give up. I’d been planning on cutting my hair after the tonic’s regrowth effect finally ebbed, but now I would have to keep it long.

The Speedster benefit was also great.

The benefit was similar to Donut’s Twinkle Toes spell, though instead of casting it on Mongo, it worked on myself. I could already run super-fast thanks to my strength and dexterity, but Speedster basically allowed me to move short distances very, very quickly. I wouldn’t be quite like the Flash superhero, but I was still impressively quick. And while I couldn’t do it long distance, I could flash across the battlefield in seconds. And best of all, I could combine it with my Gloom Wraith Phase, allowing the distance I could travel while phased to be much further.

Mordecai said he’d never seen the Speedster benefit awarded like this before. It was usually something someone could sometimes get when their dexterity naturally reached 100, though even then, it was rare. The crawler Osvaldo, who was not a member of the Princess Posse, supposedly had the benefit.

Kevin started to drone on about the hairbrush. Meanwhile, a group had formed outside the privacy bubble. Samantha, Jamal—with his new legs, and Bigs the sluggalette had all also approached and were all at the edge of the bubble, trying to get in, like they were all drawn toward me.

I looked about at the silent group of workers outside the bubble, all rushing about, all preparing.

I was reminded of the fifth floor and the bubbles. Of the crawlers in the subterranean level. I’d asked them to do something, and they had died. Each and every one. I was reminded of my thoughts then, on the fifth floor. What gives me the right? What gives me the right to lead so many into what will surely be their deaths?

What was coming... Multiple attacks from all fronts, all at once. We were going to attack from above, from below, from the land, and from within. All at once. We were going to sweep across the entire battlefield, and we were going to slaughter them all.

But at what cost? Our victory in Club Vanquisher had given us a sense of hope. A false sense of invulnerability. Even our best case scenarios predicted heavy losses.

Across the way, Donut entered the Nest for the first time, still riding on the shoulder of the Sledge.

All of it was going to depend on her. Even if we were successful—especially if we were successful—I feared the toll on her most of all.

It’s going to get worse before it gets better. We’re going to lose more friends. We’re going to have to do some pretty horrible things just to survive.

When I’d said that, this was what I’d been talking about. This moment that was coming in one hour and forty-five minutes.

What gives me the right?

I met up with Li Jun and Zhang as we walked toward the saferoom entrance. But first, we had to make a detour. We silently angled through the dark toward the small, newly-built brig complex just around the bend from the Nest tower. This sat at the base of Li Na’s clock tower, just outside the smoking remains of the Dagda temple.

The stench of burnt stew still filled the area a few days later. The bearded cleric within the temple had apparently boiled himself alive in his own stew, collateral damage from one of Li Na’s dreads during the assault on Club Vanquisher.

Donut was still at the Nest, overseeing the mages who were enchanting the blocks. Li Na and Toyotomi were there with her, and they were showing Donut how to utilize the synergy aspect of the tower.

Li Jun clapped me on the shoulder. His new eye, which at the moment was a swirling orb of black, unnerved me. When it was working, the black changed to look like a miniature, clockwork engine, all contained in the round eye. Even the name of the thing was a little freaky. The Engine of Tomorrow. I wasn’t clear on how it worked, but it gave him the ability to see muscles tensing, and it basically slowed down his own perception of time in short bursts. This allowed Li Jun to basically predict where an opponent was going to strike next and react with amazing speed. Like Bullet Time from the Matrix movies. He and his sister had been training with it nonstop.

“How are you doing?” he asked.

“Me?” I asked, surprised. “I’m doing okay. I’m worried about Louis. I’m worried about Donut. I’m worried about Elle’s plan. I’m worried that Boomer’s battalion doesn’t have enough troops. I’m worried that we don’t know where the Dream’s troops are. I’m worried about all those war mage things that are going to pounce on us the moment the timer ends.”

“Yes, but what about you?” he persisted. “You seem a little... overworked after that raid on Club Vanquisher. Donut says you received over thirty loot boxes, but you’ve only really told us about your new brush and the potions. Donut said you got a patch, but you haven’t put it on your jacket yet. You usually post all the items in the group chat.” He indicated my Emberus tattoos. “Plus your hands are glowing now.”

I shrugged, suddenly uncomfortable. The glow came from the Heathen Burn benefit I had for the rest of the floor.

I had, indeed, received 32 loot boxes. Plus several achievements. Plus a new quest after that previous fight. It was overwhelming. Like always, I copied all the achievements into my inventory. At the mention of them, I instinctively opened up the notepad and looked at the ones at the top.

After the battle had completed, and after we’d managed to tie up Milk, get ourselves out through the temple bathroom, bring her to the stronghold, and then drive all the way back to the closest saferoom, I’d met up with Donut and opened up our lootboxes.

I’d received over fifty achievements. Most of them, like usual, were for stupid shit that resulted in low-tier adventurer boxes. I’d also received multiple boxes and achievements for seeing gods for the first time, some of whom I didn’t even remember. None of those resulted in notable loot except a few low-tier rings that we’d ultimately given to Katia so she could test eating them.

I did, however, receive some important achievements:

New Achievement! Varg Vikernes!

Whoa, now. Calm down there, black metal enthusiast. Breaking into and defiling a church is one thing, but breaking into Club Vanquisher, hub of all religion? Causing chaos in the club is the equivalent of, I don’t know, giving the pope a wedgie and then tea-bagging him while he squirms on the floor.

Reward: You are permanently banned from Club Vanquisher. You are permanently banned from all temples except your own religion (Emberus) and any temples where you’ve been named friend of the church (Apito. Eileithyia. Grull. Hellik. Issitoq. Nekhebit. Theia. Yemaya.)

I had no idea what the name of the achievement meant, but it wasn’t a surprise I’d been black-listed from all temples after that clusterfuck at Club Vanquisher.

That I’d been named “friend of the church” with some of those gods was surprising, however. Hellik had just added me to the list, despite my quest to kill him. Apito was a surprise, though she was somehow tied to all of this in a way I didn’t yet understand. Eileithyia, who was being driven by Huanxin Jinx, wasn’t a surprise. Nor was it a surprise, her retainer, the Starbucks logo-looking Yemaya had me white-listed since Donut and I had freed her on the previous floor. Odette was driving Nekhebit, and the Open Intellect’s agent, Rectrix, was driving Theia. Issitoq, however, was a mystery. But it wasn’t nearly as big of a mystery as being named friend of the church to Grull. That just didn’t seem to make any sort of sense whatsoever.

This was all something I’d have to figure out later if we managed to survive the next few hours.

New Achievement! Liquified.

You, while immortal, blew yourself up. Like, you dropped a bomb at your feet. Hot damn! We have seen some crazy shit this season, but man, there’s nothing quite like the simplicity of such a desperate move. The slow motion replay of that is really quite something. It was similar to watching something small and furry get smushed underfoot, but even more raw, more real, you know what I mean? What a goddamned rush.

Still... Did you know that only worked because you had god-tier immortality? Most versions of that spell would’ve still caused you to be splattered into so many pieces you would’ve never reconstituted in time. And don’t even think about trying that with that other, bigger bomb you have in your inventory. You were lucky this time. If that had been a magical explosion...

Reward: You’ve received a Legendary Lucky Bitch Box.

The box had contained a small patch of a group of four-leaf clovers being smashed under a bare foot. I sighed, thinking of it. The patch was sitting in my inventory, where it would remain. I don’t know what the system was thinking when it gave it to me. It was clearly something I would never wear:

Upgrade Patch. Small.

This upgrade patch depicts a perfectly-perfect, mouthwatering human foot treading upon a patch of four-leaf clovers, creasing them as it presses down with gentle but oh-so-firm force. Despite their non-sentient nature, the clovers have a brief moment of awareness as they suffer, and it is fucking delicious.

Delicious.

Affixing this patch to an eligible garment will imbue the following benefits:

Lucky Shot. A fatal blow will be deflected into the body of a party member instead. This benefit may only be used once per floor.

Warning: Upgrade patches are fleeting items. You may remove them, but they will be destroyed in the process.

Even with Donut’s Cockroach skill, there was no way I would risk wearing this. I didn’t care how valuable it was. I wouldn’t wear it, and I didn’t want the others to know what it did, lest they attempt to talk me into installing it.

New Achievement! You in my house now, boy!

You have entered the temple of a god, you have pissed off that god to his face (well, in this particular case, you pissed him off to his weird-ass bug body head. Seriously. I can’t stop thinking about how goddamned bizarre this guy is), and you have faced that god in battle in their own temple.

Reward: None! The only reason you’re not getting a celestial box for this is because your ass was saved by another god.

That was true. Hellik had come along and banished Khepri before he could do something to me. And it wasn’t just me. Katia and Prepotente had both received that achievement as well.

Still, it was irritating I hadn’t received anything for that. I had blasted him with a bomb, twice. And now I was permanently marked for death by him. Though I suspected that wasn’t going to last long. Khepri’s original description had given me a pretty big hint about some things that were currently going down on the 12th floor. He and Odette’s Nekhebit were in the same sub-pantheon. Someone was going through and killing off all the gods in that group. I figured it was either Odette for some reason or possibly Huanxin Jinx. I didn’t know enough to form a proper guess.

New Achievement! Celestial Orgy of Chaos!

You have been in the presence of more than ten gods at once, and you survived.

Now, here’s a mystery. Someone let out a bunch of gods who shouldn’t have been allowed into the temple in the first place. It probably wasn’t who you think it was. But the fact you survived this crazy orgy of a fight means you all need a serious pat on the back because I was pretty certain at least one of you—looking at you, Zhang—was toast.

Reward: You’ve received a Celestial Who Let the Gods Out This Time? box.

This was the one that Me, Katia, Li Jun, Zhang, and Prepotente had all received. Bautista had gotten outside early in the fight, and he’d also received the achievement, but his had just been a legendary box. Still, he’d gotten an electronic guidebook on his stuffed animals, something that would tell him what each one did before he used it. All he had to do was scan the label, and an info box would pop up giving information on the plush. He’d promised to let me borrow it so I could scan that Kimaris figure I had, but we’d been so busy, it hadn’t happened yet.

And speaking of the question, who let the gods out, it was still a mystery. Naturally, I’d assumed it had something to do with Samantha, but this time it didn’t seem to be the case. The basilica ogre guards had come up from below to help in the fight, and that had, apparently, left the front door unguarded, but it seemed there was more to it than that, and it was yet another mystery.

New Achievement! Hey Larry, can I borrow your chainsaw?

You have utilized a borrowed skill or spell in battle. You have used this borrowed ability to kill an opponent. Oh, man. This opens up a whole new possibility of fighting styles, don’t you think? Just keep those tattoos above the knee.

Reward: You’ve received a Platinum Have You Goddamned Figured Out How To Use This In Conjunction With the Fucking Voodoo Book Yet? Jesus Christ I Can Only Help You So Much box.

The reward was a skill potion that ended up bringing my Pugilism skill up to 15 on its own, which was great, but the name of the box had sent Mordecai and Rosetta into a flurry of research. Even Zev had commented on it, saying she’d never even heard of such blatant hand-holding by the AI.

In addition to the regular achievements, I’d also received a few messages and a quest from Emberus as well. I was hoping he’d cancel out the whole kill-my-brother thing, but Hellik’s message had only served to enrage the god. And in fact, now everything was worse than it was before.

New Quest.

Fuck my brother. Fuck him to the fires of Sheol.

Kill 100 worshippers of Hellik. Do so before you reach the 12th floor.

Time Limit: This must be completed before the collapse of the 11th floor, and as a practical matter, you should complete it before you complete the Kill Hellik quest.

Reward: If you complete this quest, you will receive a permanent boon of Celestial quality.

At least there wasn’t a penalty for failing this one, but more concerning was immediately after receiving this new quest, I had a second, confusing and alarming message from Emberus, this time in a more contemplative voice.

Emberus: Am I wrong to hate him? He has treated with Issitoq on our behalf, who has in turn allowed the peace to be breached. I am now allowed to kill the other Sheol princes in exchange for the information Amayon has about Geyrun. And what does he mean about our mother and sister? You, my martyr, be vigilant. If you survive killing Hellik, like he surely deserves, I fear I may turn my rage and grief on you for daring to hurt my own kin, and for this, I love you, beloved but doomed worshipper. I promise the burning will be exquisite.

What the actual fuck. Even re-reading this for the tenth time, it still filled me with such dread. It put me in an impossible position, and for the first time I started to wonder if I should just risk taking the smite instead.

That, of course, was the “out” that the patch gave me. I still wasn’t even tempted to use it.

I sighed. Mordecai had warned us from the beginning to stay away from gods. He hadn’t been wrong, but each day, it became more and more difficult, especially now.

I thought of the Gate of the Feral Gods, now in Elle’s hands.

T-minus one hour before the chaos would begin.

“Has anyone tried to escape?” I asked.

“No,” Zhang said. “It’s pretty well built to protect against it. And by the time they’re in there, they’re all pretty resigned to their fate.”

Zhang’s new cape fluttered behind him. It was white with the standard black, blue, red, and yellow circles of an archery target on it. It was his prize in the celestial box. It was a great, but dangerous, item. It was a unique item called Zhang’s Cape of Odds. When it wasn’t activated, it gave him plus 15% across the board for all his stats plus a level 10 Dodge skill. His skill in that was already 11, so it brought it to 14.

But it also came with a once-an-hour skill called Roll the Dice, which reminded me of the Wheel of Fortune game at the casino. If he activated the skill, one of 333 different outcomes could appear. Most of the outcomes were great, such as doubled strength for ten minutes. The ability to fly for an hour, etc. There were a few really epic outcomes, as well, such as Death Ray and several various summons.

But there were 66 outcomes on there that were bad. None of them killed him outright, and all were temporary, but there was paralysis, all stats are now 5, and something called “It’s been four hours and I think it’s time to call the doctor” which sounded ominous as fuck. The worst was “Summon the God Who Hates You Most.”

But, and here was where the cape was especially insidious—and a true Celestial item—was that after 19 spins, you could manually pick one of the choices.

Zhang wore the cape proudly, but he said he wasn’t going to actually use it unless absolutely necessary.

“How many are left?” I asked as we approached the brig building.

“Just one,” Zhang said, sounding nervous, as if he was afraid to tell me.

I wasn’t surprised at all.

When Li Na first approached me and asked if she could have my extra Ring of Divine Suffering, my initial reaction had been fuck no. She was quite possibly the most powerful crawler in the dungeon already, and I’d worried that while it would make her stronger, it’d also drive her to do something crazy. I’d briefly, and privately, discussed it with Katia, Imani, Donut, and Elle, and I’d been surprised at their reaction.

Only Imani had been against it. Katia and Elle were both adamant it was a good idea. Elle had been especially vehement.

She can handle it better than you certainly can, she’d said. And if she can’t, at least it’ll be the ring that kills her. She’s a scary psycho, but at least she’s our scary psycho, Carl. She’s the quiet type of scary, too, not like you or goat boy. At least I always know what your mood is. With Li Na, we want to stay on her good side.

But it was Donut who’d truly made me want to give the second ring away. She didn’t say her reasoning, but she’d looked at me, not using chat, and simply said, “Please, Carl. Please give it to her. Do it as soon as you can.”

Li Na had also asked about the Necklace of Indelible Woe but ultimately decided she didn’t want it, especially now that she had several level-15 dreads that she could possibly lose if she used the necklace. It remained in my inventory for now.

So, no, it wasn’t a surprise that the brig—filled with off-world mercenaries we couldn’t trust—was empty of all the prisoners save one, the one prisoner I’d specifically asked to leave alone.

It was also suddenly obvious to me why Donut had basically begged me to give her the ring.

“Okay,” I said, taking a deep breath. “Let’s get this over with.” We stepped into the building.

58

Rishi the naga, now ostensibly a member of the Princess Posse, stood before me. Without his armor and with his arms removed, he looked less like a naga and more like a massive cobra.

Li Jun and Zhang remained outside. I’d asked the guards to leave, leaving me alone in the small building with its lone occupant. My viewer count was spiked. In fact, the viewer needle had a blue hue to it that it didn’t normally have, and I wasn’t sure what that meant. I’d look it up after I was done with this.

I examined the large, green and purple snake, lit by a single spotlight. Darkness had settled outside, making the naga look especially menacing. He was the sole remaining member of the original Blood Sultanate left alive on the floor. He sat serenely in his small cell, a smug, strangely amused expression on his snake face.

He’d surrendered himself to Donut, Imani, and Elle shortly after we’d killed Vinata. He’d buried himself in the dirt outside the castle and had waited for it all to be over before emerging.

Because he wasn’t a blood member of the court, he wasn’t a part of the whole Sepsis Whore quest. But, in real life, he had been married to a distant cousin of the royal family. He’d been the representative Vinata had sent for the preproduction meetings, and I got the impression outside the dungeon he held a fairly important role in the real naga government.

As a rule, when we defeated another faction, mercenaries would be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, but in general, if they were just grunts, I’d allow them to join up with us. My standing rule was to kill the higher-up officers immediately before they became a problem even though they, too, were now technically members of the Princess Posse. The Conscription spell was far from perfect, and I knew of several tricks one could employ to hinder an army’s efforts even with the debuff active.

If they were a member of the actual management team, a part of the original group that willingly came here to fight, they were treated differently. They were to be kept alive, encased with magic protection, and left alone until I could get to them. Li Na’s White Dragons were in charge of keeping the prisoners.

I knew Rishi was no coward, so the strange manner in which he’d hidden himself was more than just curious. It didn’t make any damn sense. I’d been putting off visiting him, but it was finally time.

According to the guards, Rishi hadn’t said much since he’d surrendered, though he’d asked more than once to speak with me. He just sat there silently in the cell, completely encased in a square-shaped containment shield that would protect against most bombs and cloud attacks. The shield also had a prismatic effect, which made him appear as if he was on a television screen. This would supposedly protect from charm spells and things like the Eye of the Bedlam Bride, should he have something like that hidden upon him. In addition, he was stripped of his gear, and the cell had a secondary shield around it that would keep him from casting anything. We didn’t have a method to keep him from pulling something from his inventory, but the Conscription spell mostly prevented him from attacking me and the guards.

Still, someone—clearly Li Na—thought it would be best to take extra precautions and had his four arms removed, which was especially barbaric. He would still be able to drop things out of his inventory, but his ability to wield weapons was severely diminished. He claimed his inventory was empty of weapons and magical items, and all that he carried was some documents, water, and food.

“Why weren’t you with your wife and the princess in the temple of Khepri?” I asked.

The large, green and purple naga smiled down at me, his tongue flicking out. “I knew that if I went with my wife into the that temple, I would be just as dead as everyone else. I warned them all not to go, but the late princess believed her plan to kill you with a god was a sound one.”

“It was,” I said. “It almost worked. But I’m more curious about you. You don’t seem too broken up about the death of your princess. Or your wife.”

Rishi didn’t stop smiling. “I was quite fond of my wife, despite the fact she hadn’t yet given me a clutch. But I had already grieved her death starting from the moment the mantis team fled. I implored Vinata that we, too, should leave, yet she insisted we stay. So I made peace with my inevitable death then.”

“The mantis team abandoned faction wars sometime around the sixth floor,” I said. “You expected to die even back then?”

The armless naga chuckled softly. “I did not expect you and the crawlers to rise up like you have, nor did I expect Faction Wars itself to be the manner of my death, but it was clear something was wrong. The mantids do not flee anything, and for them to run like that... They were scared of something.” He paused. “Did you know that the Aryl system went dark the moment Princess Formidable hit the failsafe?”

“Princess Formidable herself didn’t make it to the failsafe,” I said. “The AI pulled her off her ship and dropped her into the ocean on the surface. But, yes. I did hear that. That was where the last season occurred.”

Rishi nodded, but he didn’t elaborate his point.

“You haven’t answered my question,” I finally said. “Why did you hide? Why didn’t you fight? I thought you were honorable.”

He paused for a very long time. “Have you heard the term ‘The Great Consensus’ before?”

I had. I had heard it from Loita. Loita the kua-tin I’d assassinated on the fifth floor.

“It’s some sort of nazi bullshit, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know that term. But it is a philosophy that is gaining momentum amongst many systems. It basically teaches the Syndicate was a mistake, and we are all better off on our own. There are many aspects of it, and some have taken the idea and turned it into something xenophobic and evil, which is ironic considering the name of the philosophy. The Bloom party of the kua-tin, for example, believe in racial purity and dislike the cultural influence of so-called ‘dry’ races. The mantids disdain what they believe are weaker and inferior species. Amongst the naga, some want what you want. Some naga believe while we can learn from each other, alien communities should have no say in how we live our lives.”

I grunted. “You sure have a funny way of showing it.”

He nodded. “I agree. And I know you don’t believe it, but Vinata was a firm believer in this philosophy. She’d seen war on alien soil, and she firmly believed it was all for nothing. Her father insisted she participate in Faction Wars. We needed the tourist money. We needed to keep the shipyards staffed and running. We were going to steal the entire fleet and run. We were going to travel, as a whole, for an entire generation, off in a direction that none of the tunnel threads point. Off to a place where it would be a very, very long time before we were found. That was our Great Consensus, engineered by Princess Vinata. To leave.”

I leaned in. “I don’t give a shit. What does any of that have to do with you hiding like a little bitch while your wife and princess died?”

He sighed. “Just before the meeting of the warlords, news broke that laid out our plans regarding our intention to renege on our shipyard contracts, which caused immediate chaos in our system. Because of the Emergency Action Item you enacted, we were no longer able to see what else was happening at home. That is when I decided to flee and hide.”

“Why?”

“So I could implore upon you our plight and make an offer to you. It was a gamble, but I suspected Vinata would fall. I have in my inventory a signed and AI witnessed document for you, the de-facto leader of Earth.”

I laughed. He did not.

A sheet of paper appeared and dropped to the floor. I couldn’t get it through the protections, and it landed sideways, against the shield. It was covered with glittering, holographic seals.

“Leader of Earth? Are you smoking crack?”

“Syndicate law dictates that in the absence of a working government, the native leader of a planetary body will be chosen by multiple factors. And while there are other military groups upon the surface who are clearly more suited, as well as other in-dungeon entities who could easily claim the title, the fact you are a warlord and the number one crawler on the leaderboard makes your claim legitimate. And because no formal leadership claim has yet been filed, we petitioned on your behalf while drafting that document, and the court granted the petition. The position is mostly honorary, but it does allow you to be a signatory on Earth’s behalf.”

“What?” I asked. “What does that even mean? And what does the document say?”

He seemed to shrug, which was difficult without arms. “I’m sure your attorney can explain it to you. But the document does nothing unless you sign it. It gives Earth natives citizenship rights in all naga territories, plus five Naphil-class generation ships. This is in exchange for allowing us to terraform and settle upon the other planets in your system post crawl once there is no longer a quarantine.”

“You are smoking crack. How is that a good trade off?”

“For a while, I assumed the failsafe would be blown, and that would be how we died. But we waited too long, and the system has gone primal. I still expect us all to die, but now I am no longer certain about the fate of those on the surface. You have millions of fellow humans up there, struggling. If this were a normal crawl, the system would go into a quarantine for some time post crawl. It would eventually open up, and the parasites from all corners would descend and bleed you dry. If it still ends that way, the children of your survivors will need friends. We can help each other. And by granting you five Generation ships, you can guarantee the survival of your progeny. Or you can sell the ships in exchange for protection. If this ends like usual, those planets will be settled whether you like it or not.”

“And if it doesn’t end like usual?” I asked.

“If you are wiped out, then we have lost nothing. But if not, this is where our gamble truly pays off. If your people manage to persist, if the post-crawl collection doesn’t happen, this macro AI will continue to spread, and, perhaps, a new inner system-style community will emerge with all the benefits of the current inner system. The natives will be protected by the AI and will soon rise to be some of the richest, most influential forces in the galaxy. And my people, who protected you during your time of turmoil, will emerge as great friends of the citizens of Earth, and both shall prosper.”

I was still reeling over the whole “de-facto ruler of Earth” thing. And sometime during his explanation, I stopped fully paying attention. But I still caught the gist of it. “And Vinata signed this? This doesn’t sound anything like that Great Consensus thing. In fact, it sounds like the opposite.”

“No,” Rishi said. “She did not sign it. She would not agree to something like this. I said she was a proponent of the philosophy. I am not. I drafted this, and I am the one who signed it.”

I just looked at the snake. “You? I’m confused. Are you allowed to make such deals?”

New Achievement! Holistic!

Your feed has reached a 95%+ viewer ratio of a single system!

Over 95% of all viewers in the entire, newly-coined Naga Protectorate of the New Reformer are currently watching your feed!

Reward: You have received a Legendary Fan Box! This box will only be voted on by viewers in the Naga system.

“I am allowed to make such deals,” Rishi said, pulling himself taller. “I am allowed because I am now the leader of the new Naga Sultanate.”

“Uh,” I said. “I thought all that sultan stuff was in your history. What about the current king guy? Vinata’s father?”

“My brothers should have him properly deposed by now. Him and his remaining children, along with the prime minister and the entirety of the House of Greens. We have been planning this for some time now. And you, Carl, with your influence...”

I held up my hand, stopping him. I was staring down at the contract, still on the floor. He’d signed it all right. He’d signed it Sultan Rishi the Usurper, First of his Name of the Naga Uprising.

I laughed. That was not the same name that had been in that achievement.

“You know what? I don’t actually care about any of this Game of Thrones bullshit. I just have a question for you. What happens to that contract if you die before I sign it?”

He flicked his tongue. “It will be up to the new leadership to decide if it is valid, and it’ll have be re-signed by the new leader or council. After what has happened, it may take some time. But if I am to be kept alive, you will be certain that some semblance of stability will...”

I held up my hand again.

Warning: Open Hostilities begin in 40 minutes.

Elle: Katia, you are a genius. You timed it perfectly.

Katia: Thank Milk. Her maps are insanely accurate.

My chat was filled with preparations. I needed to hurry this up. So far we didn’t see any enemy movement except some repositioning of the orc troops. I had to get this over with and get into place. I hadn’t actually expected any of this posturing from the naga when I came here, and I hadn’t planned this sort of conversation. But I had been curious, and now I knew why he’d done what he had. He was just like all the others, like Empress D’Nadia. A power-hungry asshole. It was oddly disappointing.

I looked the naga up and down. “I’d like to renegotiate on behalf of Earth.”

He straightened even further, and his tongue flicked again.

“Of course. Tell me your terms.”

“This is what I want. I want you to shut up. I want your people to take those ships you offered us, to get into them, and to drive yourselves into the nearest star. But first, I want you, Mr. new Sultan of the naga, to know something.”

I paused, and he didn’t respond. But that smug look on his snake face had finally left.

The thirty seconds have passed.

You have successfully marked Rishi of the Princess Posse.

His highest stat is Dexterity.

“Some people might find all of these politics interesting. But me? It makes my head hurt. I can’t get away from it. I know, I know. It’s probably important for me to be aware of all this stuff. But not today. Today I’m just happy that all your people are watching. You know why? Because it means they get to watch yet another of their so-called leaders killed. And spoiler alert for those at home. Rishi here is just the opening act.”

59

<Note Added by Crawler Carl, 25th edition>

Operation: Ruin consists of four separate offensives, followed by what Donut calls the “Coup De War Crime.”

Each of the four offensives kick off simultaneously and will have multiple, coordinated prongs.

If all goes to plan, everything should be done under seven hours. And since it never goes to plan, we have multiple contingencies in place including a rapid-deploy battalion—the 105th, split in two—ready to teleport to any part of the battlefield at any moment.

In addition, we will have support from Juice Box and the NPC team for all four offensives. Britney will coordinate all of our communication with Team Retribution. It seems she’s become quite close with Juice Box. She’s gotten very good at being a go-between, working multiple lines of communication with the skill of a seasoned police dispatcher.

I’ve already made four different entries summarizing each part of the plan. They are written, filed away, and handed off to the other leaders of each assault, who in turn have doled out orders to each prong of the attack. I keep wanting to go back over each part, each prong, and fine tune it all. I have this overwhelming urge to micromanage everything, this need to have my fingers in every part of the operation, like I did with the Butcher’s Masquerade. But this is war, and I need to learn to trust those who are in this with me. I need to stop rehashing each little detail and instead focus on own operation, my own objective.

Florin will deal with the orcs, Boomer with the Reavers, Donut with the Dream, and my task is the Madness. Tipid will remain at the FUPA to defend, and Rosetta is the designated “Theater Commander,” meaning she is in charge of coordinating it all. In addition, Louis will be making multiple bomb runs in support of different operations. There are too many details to relate, and doing so in a single post is akin to trying to explain the Iron Tangle without a map. So I will do my best to focus. I know I will falter in this. I know I will constantly be looking up the status of this operation or that. How can I not when I know friends will die today?

But I will do my best.

So instead of rehashing the entire operation here, I will instead tell you what I must do today.

I will hitch a ride with Louis aboard Party Planner and accompany him on his first bomb run over orc territory. My presence will greatly increase the yield of his bombs. Louis will then drop me and Samantha off in Reaver territory where I will meet up with Elle. We will leave Samantha for her part in Boomer’s offensive against the Reavers. And then Elle and I will move together, using the Gate of the Feral Gods to enter the territory of the Madness where my operation to find and kill Houston will begin.

The Princess Posse’s objective is to win this war today. Mine is to lead the operation to defeat the Madness.

I need to focus, but it so hard.

If this is my last entry, know I went down fighting.

* * *

Samantha floated into the cabin of Party Planner, squeezed between the bombs, and parked herself on my lap. She was quivering with excitement. She smelled like bourbon and cigar smoke. Her neck was doing that revolting thing where it wriggled back and forth. My leg burned slightly when she rubbed her stump against bare skin.

“Where have you been?” I asked, rearranging her. “We almost had to leave without you. And who did that to your hair?”

“I was entertaining the GIs, Carl. Soldiers always need comfort just before a major battle. And Kiwi did it to my hair. For a one-eyed preggo who used to be a dinosaur, she sure has deft fingers. I would’ve made a move on her if Mongo wasn’t right there and if we had a bag handy. Do you know that when you and Donut are in the planning room doing planning stuff, Mongo goes in the kitchens and sniffs Kiwi’s butt so much she has to swat him away? Anyway, don’t you just love my hair? They’re called victory rolls! Aren’t they elegant? By the way, do you know what G.I. stands for? Louis says it stands for ground infantry, but Florin said it actually means galvanized iron, so of course I had to threaten Florin’s alligator mother, and he said his mother wasn’t even an alligator which got us all talking about Kiwi again. She’s going to be giving birth any day now. Isn’t that exciting? But I just love my hair like this. I told Kiwi when I get my body back, she can move in with me and my king and do my hair like that every day as long as her mongrel babies are potty trained and don’t come out too ugly.”

Her hair was in some complicated, 1940’s style with two giant swirls. The whole thing was going to fall apart the moment we dumped out of Party Planner. It wasn’t quite a pompadour, but I was suddenly reminded of Fire Brandy the lesser demon from the Iron Tangle.

Mordecai had been playing WWII and Vietnam war movies in the saferoom for some of the younger changelings, and Samantha had been watching them, too. The kids had been angry at my whole “No child soldier” pronouncement, especially since someone pointed out that Donut was younger than most of them. Mordecai thought that showing them war movies, such as Hamburger Hill, Platoon, and Saving Private Ryan—movies that focused on the horrors of war—would help dissuade the kids from wanting to get in on the action. Predictably, the whole thing backfired, and the kids were complaining louder than ever. Samantha had apparently been enraptured by the movies. She’d been sulking after the incident in Club Vanquisher with the “imposter” playing her mother, but the movies had strangely turned her mood around. She’d been zipping around the battalions, providing what she called “moral support” to the soldiers. According to Tipid, that mostly meant sexually harassing them and stealing their alcohol.

“Sure. It’s elegant as...” I paused, realizing what was scrawled on her forehead had finally changed. I sighed.

The “Miss Me?” had been replaced with a new statement. “Fuck the Cheese Dicks.”

“It’s cheese sticks, Samantha. Sticks. Not cheese dicks.”

“I don’t think so, Carl. Cheese sticks doesn’t even make sense. Sticks come from trees. Why would there be a tree made out of cheese? I know one goddess whose clitoris got turned into the head of a bald man named Otis-Ray who spends his day begging to be fed cabbage, so it makes much more sense that a penis would be turned to a food item.”

The conversation was, thankfully, interrupted by Donut.

Donut: THEY INSTALLED THE WIRELESS PA SPEAKERS IN TIME! ISN’T THAT GREAT?

Carl: The whole system? On all the towers?

Donut: WE BOUGHT THE SYSTEM, AND IT INSTALLED ITSELF. WE GOT THE DELUXE PACKAGE, AND THERE ARE MORE SPEAKERS THAN TOWERS. IT EVEN INTERFACES WITH MY HEADSET, AND I CAN PULL UP ONE OF THOSE RECORDING STUDIO BOARD THINGIES WITH ALL THE SLIDY DIALS. THERE’S SOMETHING CALLED DISTORTION AND DELAY AND REVERB. OOHHH WHAT’S A PHASER? ISN’T THAT FROM STAR TREK?

Carl: Jesus. Get Li Na’s permission before you use it. You’ll blow out the ears of everyone in Shanty Town.

Donut: I AM A WARLORD. I DON’T ASK PERMISSION. I GIVE ORDERS. BUT I WILL WARN THEM. BUT NOW I CAN ALSO USE BARD SPELLS.

Carl: We’ll save that in case we need it.

Donut: BUT YOU SAID WE NEED TO KEEP THEM DISTRACTED. I COULD TAUNT THEM. I THINK I’M GONNA TAUNT THEM. I HAVE PLENTY OF BALD AND PASTY PEOPLE JOKES READY TO GO. BUT IF YOU THINK THAT MIGHT HURT THE FEELINGS OF SOME OF OUR OWN BALD AND PASTY PEOPLE, I CAN TALK ABOUT HOW LOUIS BASICALLY HAD SEX WITH HIS MOM.

Carl: You have enough to worry about. They’ll be plenty distracted. What you don’t want is unnecessary god attention. You shrieking over a massive PA is just going to work against what we’re trying to do.

Donut: I DON’T SHRIEK, CARL. AND TOYOTOMI SAYS THE DEFLECTOR TOWERS KEEP THE GODS AWAY.

Carl: Think of it like an electric fence. They’re far from foolproof. Remember when Bea’s cousin was making fun of the gorilla at the zoo, and it smashed the glass? Think of it like that.

Donut: OKAY. IMANI IS HERE WITH ME NOW, AND SHE’S SAYING THE SAME THING.

Carl: Good. Listen to her advice. And remember what I said. Aim your shots. Breathe. Make each shot count. You can do this.

Donut: I KNOW I CAN DO THIS, CARL. I AM A WARLORD.

System Message: 90 Second Warning.

Carl: Okay. Don’t be afraid to jump away at the first sign of trouble.

Carl: Elle. Any sign of Tagg?

Elle: Not yet. Sorry. Edgar is buried and stationed a few miles away and will let us know once if he’s spotted.

Carl: Okay. You be safe. I’ll meet you in the middle.

Elle: Happy hunting, Cowboy.

I looked up at Louis and nodded. From the cockpit, he gave me a thumbs up. Party Planner silently rose into the night air as Samantha continued to chat away. My stomach lurched as we surged upward, trees, then dark, smoky clouds, then the imaginary, starlit sky whipping by as the airship engaged stealth mode and started to speed toward its target.

“Ceiling is really high,” Louis called as we continued to rise. “It’s almost three times as high as the bubbles.”

“How do you even know what the ceiling is?” I had to shout.

He tapped his console. “There’s an indicator.”

Through the open doors to my left and right, I couldn’t really see anything below but the dark haze of clouds. Most of the factions had started burning smoke the moment they saw Donut’s tower. It wasn’t going to matter. Donut and Louis both could see right through it all, a skill I didn’t have.

The ship was so full of armament, there wasn’t enough room to move. My vision was a mass of stability notifications over the dozens of bombs, and I had to dim the notifications to actually see anything if I wasn’t staring out the open side door. Just my presence stabilized them and massively increased the yield. The moment I dimmed the notifications, I saw the two dots hidden in the back of the ship.

“Goddamnit,” I called, turning around from my spot to see the small gnomish girl peeking around the back pile of the square-shaped No Disassemble bombs. “Skarn and Bonnie! What did I say?” I cursed myself for not paying better attention. Bonnie had a large snake wrapped around her arm. Skarn.

Carl: Louis, turn it around. We gotta land.

The two kids, one changeling and one gnome, had been explicitly banned from manning the door guns on Party Planner. Especially today.

System Message: Here we go, bitches! Let chaos reign!

“Oh, fuck!” Louis called, and the ship dove. “Get to the guns! Get to the guns! We have incoming! Lots of incoming!”

I cursed as warlord notifications started streaming through my interface. Dozens of distant streaks of light appeared through the cockpit window, emerging up from the clouds like needles pushing up through dark cotton. Missiles. They were fired from Reaver territory. Likely with advanced seekers. They turned and corkscrewed through the air, and despite Party Planner’s stealth capabilities, they headed right toward us. Louis’s cockpit was beeping furiously.

At the same time, the long-range, magical artillery from deep in the Dream territory started to fire. The massive, flaming balls—significantly bigger and more powerful than what they were able to fire during the previous phase—started arcing through the sky, likely split evenly between the FUPU and the Nest tower. Their passage painted the night, like they were tearing a hole through the fabric of darkness.

We were expecting the magical artillery. We had not anticipated the Reaver missiles, especially not ones so smart. They, too, had airships, but we figured if they were going to attack us, they would move straight for the headquarters or hit either Florin or Tran.

“Gotta lower into the trees!” Louis called.

“That won’t stop seekers!” I yelled back, pushing Samantha off me as I tried to stand and reposition myself so I could see better. “Stay above the tree line so we can shoot them down!”

I couldn’t quite stand to my full height and had to keep my head to the side. Bonnie shoved me aside and quickly started unbuckling the large gun from stowage against the interior of the fuselage. These were upgraded guns from the ballista system she’d used before. Skarn moved to the other side, changing form so he looked like a Chee, like Holger.

Bonnie appeared to be completely calm. She was even chewing gum. The tiny gnome girl was no longer wearing her Dallas Cowboys jersey and now wore an oversized shirt from someone in the 105th Scream Warriors. It depicted a crudely drawn, bloody child berserker character holding an axe. The berserker was a little girl that had to be eight years old, which explained why Bonnie had taken to it. Underneath it was the unit’s motto. “We bleed when the job’s done.”

Entering the realm of the Bone Clan.

You are at war with this team.

This airship is cloaked.

Cloaking has possibly been compromised.

“Some of the incoming missiles are exploding,” Louis called. “Why are they exploding?”

“Probably the orc defenses,” I said as I grasped a handhold on the ceiling. I couldn’t see anything anymore as we dove through the clouds and smoke, coming out just above the tree line. The tops of the alien trees whipped by like a treadmill just below us. “The Reavers and the orcs aren’t talking, so maybe they think the missiles are aimed at them. Are we sure they aren’t?”

“They didn’t get all of them!” Louis called, punching buttons on his newly-upgraded panel. “Looks like three got through. They’re locked on us! Something else is out there, too. Something big. Gonna turn broadside.”

“What? Why?” I called.

Louis ignored me. “Bonnie, they’ll be coming from above but directly in front of you!”

“Got it, boss,” Bonnie called. A helmet appeared on her head. It was a modified gnomish farseer, built around a small-sized, metallic flak helmet. It was so ridiculously large on the small form, it made her look like a steampunk bobblehead. “I see ‘em. All three are bunched up. In range in three, two, one.”

Jesus, I thought, watching the gnome tracking upward with her gun.

She fired three short bursts from her weapon, one after another. The red tracer fire arced from the gun, slicing through the night. The clouds above lit with purple, magical light, followed quickly by a wave of heat. “Splash three.”

“Great job, kid!” Louis called. “Resuming mission. Whatever that big thing is, it looks like it’s circling above the Reaver castle.” Party Planner turned in the air.

Samantha was bouncing up and down, shouting encouragement to Bonnie.

“If they can track us, I better keep to the cloud cover,” Louis called. “I keep getting notifications that we’ve been temporarily spotted.” We rose, the dark smoke pushing in on both sides. It suddenly felt oppressive, claustrophobic. Multiple, distant explosions started to echo.

I was already deep in my messages as they flooded in.

Donut: CARL, CARL MY FLAK SPELL WORKS REALLY GOOD! THE STUPID DREAM ELVES ARE ALREADY SHOOTING AT ME, AND THEY DIDN’T EVEN GET CLOSE!

General Elle: Gate one is open, and I’m stepping through. Let’s see what comes out of this one. Next stop, the Reavers. Don’t be late, Carl.

General Rosetta: Head’s up, everyone. Feral God number one is on the way. It’s gonna appear near the Dream castle.

General Tran: Dream artillery is targeting us, not the FOOP! Some of it is getting through! Spreading out and bunkering in.

Oh shit, I thought. If they weren’t targeting the headquarters, that meant...

General Tipid: Activated base defense just in time. Two or three battalion strength of Dreamers just teleported outside the FUPA. They’re making a run for the throne room!

Fuck, fuck, fuck, I thought. The ability to teleport entire battalions at once, as opposed to opening a gate, was near impossible. It required five mages with the same spell to chant for a full thirty hours straight to pull it off. I knew this because we had two groups—two halves of the 105th Scream Warriors—who’d already done the same and were now waiting to be rapidly deployed anywhere. While this practice of mass teleportation wasn’t unheard of, both Rosetta and Mordecai said it’d only happened a handful of times in Faction Wars because of how grueling the process was.

I quickly moved to the officer band to take a peak.

Rosetta: Justice, it’s Dreamers.

Justice Light: How many?

Rosetta: I think it’s all of them.

Justice Light: That’s too many. Chop ‘em up a little first for me, Rosie. Get ‘em down to under 3,000, then we can let them in. I will welcome any and all guests into my lair. Would prefer it be Reaver, but I’ll take what I can get.

Rosetta: Tipid, how are you holding up?

Tipid: They’re moving hard and fast. They have heavy armor. More than the allotted ten. I’m going to have to request backup already.

Donut: KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR EPITOME TAGG. IF YOU SEE HIM, TELL HIM I’M LOOKING FOR HIM.

Rosetta: Don’t worry, Donut. We’ll paint him for you if we see him. I’m making the order for half the 105th to defend location number one. We’ll still have the second half battalion ready to go. Jurgen, send them over.

Jurgen: They’re coming.

A distant, soundless flash momentarily lit the world with a yellow-tinged light.

The Feral God Meatus has entered the realm.

This deity is too distant to activate your Scavenger’s Daughter.

Mordecai: Oh, fuck.

Rosetta: Yes! Good job, Elle. The Dream have made a tactical error leaving their castle unprotected. They brought their army out too far from home.

Donut: BRITNEY, MOVE ON THE ELF CASTLE.

Rosetta: Wait! Don’t use the digger!

Mordecai: No! Hold off. If Meatus is the feral god that escaped the Nothing, that means...

A second, blue-tinged light flashed.

The escaped feral god has summoned a deity!

Harpocrates has made an appearance in the realm!

This deity is too distant to activate your Scavenger’s Daughter.

Rosetta: Britney, abort! Abort! Tell them not to use the digger near that god!

Tipid: I swear this happens every season.

Britney: Telling them now! Don’t know if it’s too late or not!

60

Mordecai: Donut, do NOT use your PA while Harpocrates is out!

Donut: WHY? DOES HE HATE GOOD MUSIC? I JUST FOUND THE PLAY SONG BUTTON ON THE SOUNDBOARD. I HAVE THE PERFECT SONG READY TO GO.

Carl: Goddamnit, Donut. Stick to the plan!

Mordecai: Harpocrates hates sound. He will come for you if you’re being too loud. Just let him deal with the feral god. This whole Meatus versus Harpocrates thing is an old story, though it’s usually a storyline that plays out during the Ascendency battles. Harpo is going to fight and kill Meatus, and then he’s going to, uh, try to do something with Meatus. But it’s not going to work, which is going to enrage him. Then he’s going to stick around for some time smashing everything noisy until he times out.

Carl: Oh, shit. Are the diggers loud?

Mordecai: They’re dwarven. Everything the dwarves do is loud. Luckily, Meatus is louder.

Donut: OH MY GOODNESS, LOOK AT THAT THING! IT LOOKS LIKE JACK’S PENIS FROM THE SECOND FLOOR! CARL, WHY DO ALL THESE GODS LOOK LIKE PENISES? IS THAT MEATUS OR THE DEAF GUY?

Mordecai: Yeah, uh. That’s Meatus. Meatus is actually two beings, though they only have one name. Originally he was a normal-sized gremlin-like creature who stole Harpocrates’s dink, sewed it on himself, and became a god.

Donut: DINK? DID YOU JUST CALL IT A DINK? IS THAT A CANADIAN TERM? AND HOW IS IT LOUD?

Mordecai: It’s an old story and kind of a dumb, reoccurring joke. The gremlin part of Meatus stays the same size no matter where or how he’s summoned, but the dink itself takes on the size that the god would if he was summoned to the same area. That part of him is sapient and very loud and doesn’t want to go back to Harpocrates because it likes music. And Harpocrates isn’t deaf. He is the god of silence, and he can hear the heartbeat of a fly from half a planet away.

Donut: OMG I LIKE THIS MEATUS GUY ALREADY.

A massive, slurping noise echoed across the battlefield. It shook the airship as it passed, and it came with the scent of a rotten soft cheese. It sounded like wet sewage getting sucked through a grate.

Next to me, Bonnie started making gagging noises.

Donut: I CHANGED MY MIND I’M GONNA BARF.

“See, Carl!” Samantha cried from my lap. “See! Cheese dick!”

“I’m pretty sure that’s the most disgusting thing you’ve ever said.”

More notifications flooded in. Too many to deal with. So far, the only hand-to-hand fighting was Florin versus the orc forces and Tipid defending against the Dream assault on the FUPA. Other than the missiles and whatever was guarding their airspace, there was no sign yet of the Reaver military, nor the Viceroys. This wasn’t surprising as intelligence suggested both would hold their armies back to defend their strongholds.

“Okay,” Louis said, bringing me back to the now. “Rising again to make the bomb run. Look, there’s the castle!”

He pointed out the cockpit, but all I could see in the darkness was haze and a few lights, indicating the King’s Point, headquarters of the orcs.

Florin: Head’s up. Some massive, mechanized tank just dug itself out of the riverbank and bloody leaped across the river, falling into our south flank. The thing is like five meters tall. It looks like a scorpion, but it’s the size of one of those industrial haul trucks. It’s covered in shields and it’s about to tear us a new asshole. The thing must weigh 700 tons. Pretty sure it’s being piloted by Warlord Stalwart himself. I think some of the mages might be on that thing, too.

I fought the urge to get in on the chat and offer suggestions.

I moved to the main band battle chat, which was an even bigger mess. Missile support was being piloted by Bomo and Sledge. They were based in Shanty Town where they could run to Donut’s aid, but the actual missile batteries they were controlling were mostly fired from Area 52 in the woods. Each battery was controlled via a long-range magical trigger, all tied to a pair of controllers the system called a Trollish Portable Control Room. The controllers looked like 80’s era keyboards with a magical screen above them, and they were fairly common in the dungeon. Supposedly some seasons had gauntlet-style floors where you had to get to a central control room and kill the trolls who were operating the traps.

For Bomo and Sledge, we had a former crawler modify the controllers to mimic the cretin-sized game controllers we’d made since they were already familiar with them. Painted targets would appear on the screen, and they could select specific missiles to launch at the targets. We had over 1,500 missiles of various kinds ready to go.

Florin: Missile support, just painted a target. It’s a mobile tank. Hit it with chaffs and mix in a few Mute missiles.

Sledge: On it, boss man.

Britney: Louis, report. Semeru say they’re on standby waiting for your bomb run.

Louis: Heigh ho, silver! Bombing now!

“Watch your feet!” Louis called out loud.

I was so busy reading the chat I’d promised myself I’d try to stay away from, I hadn’t realized we’d already reached the target. Samantha had gotten herself into the cockpit and was shouting excitedly. The entire cabin lit up as every bomb on board suddenly armed itself. I concentrated, and Overclocked appeared over each bomb.

“Bombs away!” Louis called, and several spots on the ship’s floor slid open at the same time. Tendrils of freezing mist curled up into the cabin as the airship bucked. Ching, ching, ching, ching. The square No Disassembles clinked as they zipped out of the holders, pulled down by gravity, followed by the round Waffle Makers, which were shaped like tubes. These made a different, heavier sound as they clunked out the holder, disappearing into the mist. The entire load was dropped in seconds.

“What is that thing?” Bonnie asked, peering out the open door. The gnomish farseer was spinning on her head, trying to zoom in on something I couldn’t see in the darkness. “It’s alive, not an airship. It has a shield over it.”

“Focus on below. They haven’t reacted yet, but they will,” Skarn called, peering out his side.

Blam, blam, blam! The first bombs hit the invisible shield. Each detonation felt like a slap in my chest. That was followed a second later by even more explosions, and the distinctive thwum of several shields getting cracked open like an egg.

“They’re firing their Flak spells, but it’s not good against gravity bombs,” Louis called. “And I think they taxed their anti-air on the Reaver missiles! Looks like the shield is down way more than... whoa fuck!”

A beam of green light shot up in the air, missing us by about 100 feet as we rocketed away. The light hit the invisible ceiling of the level and crackled, spreading across the barrier just above Party Planner like liquid lightning being poured out upside down. We angled down and away as the dark night suddenly took on a green glow. We disappeared back into the smoke.

“Jesus, I think that was a long-range death ray,” I said. “Probably a synergy tower with a war mage in it.”

“You missed,” Louis shouted, punching the ceiling.

Britney: North attack. Dwarves moving in. Air, confirm you’re clear.

Louis: We’re clear.

Britney: They’re dropping the agitators.

“Now it’s our turn,” Louis shouted, screaming out the window, still amped up, punching his fist. I’d never seen him like this before.

“Get them! Get them, Louis!” Samantha shouted, jumping up and down in the cockpit.

Britney: Dwarves confirm the lava tubes have been successfully agitated and the mountain is beginning rapid eruption. They’re setting up barriers and moving out and positioning themselves for lava abatement.

Below and behind us, the mountain upon which the King’s Point castle sat was about to have a very, very bad day. The eruption would be miniscule compared to something like the Mount Saint Helens blast, whose lateral explosion annihilated everything within eight miles, but it would be enough to blow the top off the small mountain and completely obliterate the castle, leaving nothing but a throne room just sitting there in open air.

The eruption itself posed extreme danger to anyone in the area, especially Florin and the 101st who were near the base of the mountain, but the dwarves supposedly had a plan to rapidly stem the lava flow, keeping it from hitting Larracos.

We’d all thought the volcano idea was great. All except Elle, who’d be sitting next door in Reaver territory when it went off. Florin had just said, “Wicked, mate,” when we told him we could blow the mountain top.

We all held our collective breath.

A shouting voice echoed throughout the land. “NOT THIS TIME. I AM FREE, AND YOU CAN’T MAKE ME GO BACK!” This was Meatus, fighting the silent god Harpocrates, all the way on the other side of the map. The deep voice was like that of a big, beefy wrestler trying to shout while gargling messily on something thick. “I YEARN TO SING.”

Donut: THE WIENER GUY JUST SMACKED THE OTHER GOD LIKE A BASEBALL BAT, AND HE WENT FLYING RIGHT INTO THE DREAM CASTLE. IT’S WORKING!

Imani: So much for deflector towers keeping the gods away. The Dream castle had two.

Rosetta: Britney, what’s the status of the south digger?

Britney: It held off at the last moment. It’s just below the surface, waiting for the gods to move away. The Dream castle’s shields are down, and they report the remaining elves are starting to flee.

Rosetta: Donut, you’re up. Officially handing off the southern campaign to you.

Donut: AND SO IT BEGINS.

“Why is it taking so long for the mountain to explode?” Louis asked.

Britney: Guys, guys, watch out! The orcs added an emergency or backup shield over the whole mountain, and the dwarves are saying too much pressure is...

The mountain behind us blew its top, and we were much too close.

61

The mountain exploded, and suddenly, we were spinning, cartwheeling through the air. I smashed to the ceiling of Party Planner and crashed back down as we twirled like we’d been flicked away.

“Hold on!” Louis shouted as we looped. The vertical spin corrected, but we still spun like a top, and we were actually going up, not down. To my right, Skarn had changed to an octopus-like creature, and he had five or six arms wrapped around a screaming Bonnie, keeping them both in the cabin. One of Bonnie’s small arms was clearly broken, but it healed as I watched.

A terrible, screeching noise filled the air as the airship’s propellors bounced off the floor’s ceiling. One of them broke off and tumbled away, smoking as the ship finally corrected itself. From the cockpit, Louis was cursing loudly, but we didn’t fall. I remembered he’d said we could still fly with as little as two propellors.

I was going to vomit, but I jumped into my chat as I heaved. Rocks started pinging off the airship’s shield.

Warlord Carl: Florin and everyone in the 101st! Brace for a shockwave! Eruption is bigger than they said it would be! Elle, you too. Buckle down. Boomer, watch your heads!

“You guys okay?” I shouted at Skarn, who’d turned back to his chee shape.

“We’re good,” Bonnie said. She actually seemed okay, but I could see the fear in Skarn’s eyes. Tears had formed.

Crack! That was a new sound, and it took a moment for me to realize what it was. It was Donut casting Magic Missile. With her tiara’s advanced targeting skills and Donut’s elevated position, along with her Deathbed Hellcat class, she could hit anything she could see with any of her long-range spells. It was louder than expected.

When we built the Nest tower, we could assign the tower’s synergy to several different skills, spells, and classes. Originally, we planned on making it a straight-up sniper tower, which would greatly enhance Donut’s ability to zero in on a target across the battlefield. But it turned out with her tiara, that was unnecessary. All Donut needed was line of sight to apply her sniper skills.

Which, in turn, allowed us to assign a different synergy to the tower.

The Nest was instead built to have synergy with something called Atrocity-class spells.

Donut had several, including her new one. War Crime.

It was the one part of today’s plan I prayed we wouldn’t have to use.

A dark plume of ash was starting to spread that was going to be a problem for everyone. And the lava flow would probably be more than the dwarves had anticipated, too.

“Carl!” Louis shouted as more rocks fell all around us. “I can fly with three props, but not well. I can quick repair it at base, but I gotta limp back through this chop. You guys better jump now. I see Elle’s beacon.”

Entering the realm of the Reavers.

You are at war with this team.

This airship is cloaked.

Cloaking has possibly been compromised.

“Okay!” I said. I turned to the kids. “When you get back to base, stay there this time. Do you understand?”

Skarn nodded, not saying anything.

Still, I grabbed him by the shoulder and leaned in. “Don’t just stay at Area 52. Get back into the saferoom. And if you have any friends that aren’t allowed in the saferoom, make sure they’re in Larracos. Not Shanty Town. Larracos. Do you understand?”

He nodded again, and this time I believed him.

Carl: Elle, you good?

Elle: Oh, you know. I’m okay. The winding box got knocked over, and the watches fell out. The gate was already primed, so the gate activated. Hurry your ass up. We got 20 minutes before it closes. A bunch of trees cracked but didn’t fall. Who could’ve predicted activating a goddamned volcano could possibly spiral out of control? And just you wait. I went through this back in ’80. We’re all gonna be cleaning ash out of all our crevices for the next 99 years.

“Come on, Samantha!” I called. I looked out the door, searching for the large portal, but I couldn’t see anything in the smoke.

Crack! Crack!

“Bye, Louis!” Samantha said. She zipped up and kissed him on the cheek. “Just so you know, nothing turns me on more than mass, faceless slaughter from above.” She came to hover near me. Her hair was already ruined, and the “Fuck the Cheese Dicks” had smeared. Now all it said was “Fuck Cheese.”

Donut: HEADSHOT!

I had my quarter splat fall protection, but I didn’t trust it. I took a scroll of Controlled Feather Fall and read it.

“Stay safe!” I called at Louis before I activated my tech shield and jumped out the open door, followed soon by Samantha. Party Planner quickly disappeared above us as it angled around, heading back toward Area 52 to repair and reload.

As we fell, plunging through the smoke and rocks, some of which burned red-hot, multiple notifications came in quick succession.

The battlefield conditions have triggered a summoning! The Goddess of Chaos has been spontaneously summoned.

Eris has made an appearance in the realm.

This deity is too distant to activate your Scavenger’s Daughter.

System Message: A demon eviction event is occurring over multiple locations on the battlefield.

Florin: We got a demon event starting here. Missiles disabled the enemy armor’s movement but not its teeth. Missiles, hit it again. Looks like Stalwart tried to teleport away, but the net stopped him. He might make a run for it. Donut, looks like we might need an atrocity or two in a minute.

Donut: SAY THE WORD, AND DEATH WILL RAIN IN MY NAME.

Before I could even parse all that, more notifications came.

The Throne Room of the Bone Clan is being occupied by forces from Team Retribution. If they can hold for six hours, the Bone Clan will be defeated!

The Throne Room of the Dream is being occupied by forces from Team Retribution. If they can hold for six hours, the Dream will be defeated!

Warlord Message. Sir Ferdinand of Team Retribution has proposed an emergency action item. “Gods that appear during Faction Wars don’t gotta go home right away. Uh, Juice Box told me to say a bunch of other stuff too but now I can’t remember it all. Something about outworlders, but you probably heard what she said. But she wanted me to also say that she promises it’ll be entertaining. So my proposal is that.”

This emergency action item request has been split into two requests. The first action item has been denied. All deity summoning rules will remain in effect as written for the ninth floor.

The second action item has been approved. Effective immediately, the following ascendency rules are applied. Ascendency players may no longer choose whether to pilot their sponsored deities should they be summoned off the 12th floor. Attendance is now mandatory. In addition, during gameplay summons, ascendency players may no longer choose to appear as themselves. All deities will appear as designed, and all sponsored deities will be piloted by their sponsors. Any summons currently in progress where the pilot stayed back because she was being a cowardly little chicken have been corrected.

“What the fuck,” I said out loud as I narrowly missed slamming into a tree. I slowed my descent and landed hard in the woods, Samantha floating next to me. All around me, trees that still stood were starting to burn.

None of that was planned. Not the gods. Not Team Retribution getting to those two throne rooms, and especially not that action item. I looked frantically on my map, and I saw a blue dot about two hundred meters away with the already-activated portal right next to her. Elle. She was waiting for me to get there. We would go through the gate and teleport ourselves to the Madness, leaving Samantha behind.

Elle: Jesus, Carl. You landed like a comet. I see you. Better get here quick. I just got a weird notification that someone had searched my location and it cancelled out my Subterfuge spell. Gotta wait a minute before I can cast it again.

Victory cracked into existence right next to me.

This was already so far off the rails, I didn’t even startle at Victory’s appearance.

Fire from the eruption continued to rain down. Luckily this was just regular, old-fashioned fire and not Sheol fire. Victory said nothing at first. She just looked down at me, arms crossed, a grim look on her face. I was about to say something snarky, but she held up her hand.

“Just so you know, we only learned about this like five minutes ago,” she said. “None of the adjutants had any idea. We tried to stop it, but apparently the AI says it’s out of its hands.”

“What are you talking about?”

Florin: Damnit! The anti-teleport net was breeched. Stalwart teleported away!

Donut: I SAW HIM! DID I GET HIM?

Florin: I think you might’ve winged him just as he was teleporting, but I couldn’t tell what was happening. He popped out the top of the tank covered with something.

Donut: HE LOOKED LIKE HE WAS FIGHTING HIS OWN GUYS!

Several dots suddenly appeared on the map, all enemies. They’d all teleported right to Elle’s location and the portal.

Elle: Carl! Stalwart is here!

I ran toward the commotion, preparing to use my Wraith Phase. As I rushed forward, Elle flew past me, flying over my shoulder, having been tossed by a spell. I saw the Unconscious tag over her head. She hit a tree behind me with a sickening crack, and the tree toppled over.

“Samantha,” I cried as I rushed forward. “Help her!”

I jumped into the clearing, quickly taking in the scene, confusion mounting. What the hell? Stalwart was here, on his knees, crying in pain. There were four corpses on the ground. War mages. The magical beings were dead and smoking. They’d all been hit and killed with Donut’s amped-up Magic Missile before they’d all teleported here. Three more of the war mages surrounded Stalwart, shouting. A fourth stood off to the side.

Quickly-melting ice covered everything. Elle had managed a spell before she’d been taken out.

Even though they were all the same type of creature, they all looked like different monsters. They all had crackling, multi-hued glows around them. I knew more about war mages now than I had before the floor started, and the sight of so many in one place terrified me.

The one standing off to the side had the mark of colonel over his head, but as I watched, the designation faded away. And much to my surprise, their dots all turned white. And, even more surprisingly, the white dots took on a brownish-orange glow. Each army had its own color. The Princess Posse was pink. Nobody was this shade.

I examined the war mage. He looked much like the one whose head I had in my inventory: a long-haired elf, old and wizened with an angry sneer on his sagging face.

Akuma. War Mage. Level 100.

Leader of the War Mage Rebellion.

This was originally a high-elf cobbler with a human skin, resleeved 12 times before the ambient magic gave him his final form. He’s arguably the most powerful non-god magic caster on this floor. He’s also a complete prick, as evidenced by the company he keeps.

Want to know some interesting trivia about war mages? These guys have been around since the very early days of Dungeon Crawler World, but they are one of the few, true dungeon-born entities. They weren’t dreamed up by a sweaty, caffeine-addled writer, nor were they developed by one of my kind. They just sort of happened, a result of too many combatants having access to You’re Not Done Yet.

The final form a war mage takes is entirely dependent on the combination of its first two forms, in this case, a human crawler from a very long time ago and a high elf. The skin of a corpse is ripped off of a body and turned to a creature named a flesher. The flesher then consumes a living being, melting the original skin off and re-sleeving the creature. The flesher casts Boned, reanimating the skeleton, and the two become a symbiote.

Symbiotes are extremely attractive targets to other fleshers. And because young symbiotes are slow and awkward, they are oftentimes quickly re-sleeved by fresh fleshers. Each iteration results in a more powerful being.

It’s rare for a symbiote to be resleeved at least a dozen time, but when it happens, the magic itself can become sapient. When this happens, the flesh finally fuses to the reanimated skeleton, turning the three creatures—the skeleton, the flesher, and the sapient well of magic—into a single being. A war mage.

This process usually takes at least 12 iterations, but there’s no hard rule about it. Sometimes it takes up to 15 or 16 iterations. It depends on the latent magic in the skin of the fleshers.

War mages come with knowledge of hundreds of spells.

They’re also all complete dicks. If they ever made action figures of these things, their accessories would include keys to a BMW, a few bumps of cocaine, and a membership card to some secret club where you can hunt homeless people for fun.

If these things were noncorporeal, they’d be called magic elementals. Instead, they’re just grumpy, lumpy assholes who get their rocks off by showing just how unpleasant they can be. The very nature of most magic spells is cold cruelty, and that shows when the magic itself is allowed to talk.

And nobody made them! All of this just happened on its own. In fact, the very existence of these things has actually been the focus of multiple, boring-ass studies and books. But, in the end, because they were “born” in the dungeon, they are of the dungeon, and just because nobody engineered their existence doesn’t mean that existence hasn’t been exploited, as evidenced by the fact most war mages find their minds wiped and themselves sitting in quests or mercenary guilds each time a new dungeon opens.

However, their very existence also creates problems. Each war mage one may find in the dungeon was created naturally, meaning they could have been made several seasons previous, and because the showrunners like to use war mages, especially for their precious Faction Wars, they are rarely recycled.

So here’s a message for all the assholes reading this. If you can’t see why that’s a problem, maybe you should ask that pissed-off changeling army that’s in the middle of wrecking your shit why you should probably keep on eye on the things you unleash, especially when you don’t fully understand what they are.

Oh, by the way.

War mage heads explode and create something called a Sapient Moment of Destruction approximately ten minutes after they die. So, heads up. Pun intended.

As I watched in horror, the three war mages surrounding Stalwart each chanted something in unison, and the orc’s flesh began to tear.

I met eyes with the terrified orc for just a moment.

“My sister was right,” King Stalwart, leader of the Skull Empire, said in the moment before he exploded right in front of me, showering the clearing with his gore.

The four mages didn’t move to attack me.

For the first time, I saw what was in the hands of Akuma, the leader of this group.

He had taken the Gate of the Feral Gods from Elle.

The war mage was staring at my bare feet.

“Nice shoes, asshole,” he said to me before the four of them teleported away.

62

Behind me, Elle groaned as she woke from her unconscious state. Samantha had stayed behind me and was clucking over her.

System Message: War Chief Stalwart of the Bone Clan has fallen. Credit for the kill has been given to three members of the War Mage Rebellion.

System Message: The War Mage Rebellion is not an active team. As per the current season’s rules, the team currently occupying their throne room, Team Retribution, will be awarded all their assets. Sections one and two are not connected to Larracos. As such, the King’s Point throne room remains a capturable asset. Yes, even though the castle itself just blew up. The throne room is still there.

Elle: Sorry guys. That war mage prick snatched the gate right out of my hands.

Donut: I DID HIT HIM WHEN I SHOT! I GOT PARTIAL CREDIT FOR KILLING STALWART, BUT THEY DIDN’T SAY IT! THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!

I rushed over to Elle. “Are you okay?” Rock pieces continued to rain from the sky, landing all around us like burning hail. I kept my tech shield on.

She rubbed her head. “I’m okay. My pride is hurt more than anything. What the hell was all that about?”

“I don’t know,” I said, looking around. Several of the trees were on fire. “We don’t need the gate anymore. We should get moving. We’ll be caught in this fire soon.”

“I need a moment,” Elle said, still panting. “Damn, I haven’t been walloped like that since my bachelorette party.”

Samantha laughed. I did not.

I helped the small figure up. She still felt ice cold when I touched her, but now there was a gritty, electric feeling when I touched her skin. I lifted her up like a child, and she remained floating in the air. I was reminded of the first time I’d lifted her, so long ago during the rage elemental attack on the second floor.

The fairy crawler still had a dazed look to her eyes. “Carl, they could’ve killed me. That strong one, the elf-looking guy. He pulled back at the last moment. It was almost like he was trying not to kill me.”

“Yeah,” I said. “The mage guy was a dick, but his dot turned white. I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know their intentions. Did you see? The system said they have a team name and everything, but they’re not an official team.”

“That’s what I was talking about,” Victory said, her eyes flashing as she spoke. I’d forgotten she was standing there. “We just received notification that there’s a new, non-team entity called the War Mage Rebellion. I still don’t know what that even means. ‘Non-team entity’ is not a thing. At least it wasn’t until just now.”

“Carl, collect the bodies,” Elle said. “They said the heads explode.”

“Shit, you’re right.” I went about and collected the four war mage bodies. There was nothing left of Stalwart to collect. He had several magical items on him, which were scattered on the ground in front of the portal, but nothing truly amazing that I could see, which was interesting. I’d examine it all later.

The bodies all appeared in the Graveyard section of my inventory, which was now almost empty.

“War mages are always up to something tricky,” Samantha muttered as she examined the open, crackling portal. “They’re just mad because nobody likes them.” She seemed nervous as she floated near the gate. She continued to mutter under her breath.

The ground rumbled, and the distant voice of Meatus washed over us. “Stay out of this, Eris!”

This was followed by a psychotic, female laugh that instantly sounded familiar. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” the same voice said a moment later. “I said I didn’t want to come down to other floors! How do I eject? Get me out of here!” She laughed again, and it sounded even crazier. “I’m not the one laughing. Stop! Stop!”

Katia: Oh my god, did you hear that? That goddess sounds just like how Hekla would sound when she talked.

Mordecai: That’s Eris, the goddess of chaos. She’s being driven by someone new this year. I don’t know who it is, but it sounds like she just got sucked back into the goddess’s body after that new rule was called.

Rosetta: Eris is sponsored by Nami. A model and influencer. She outbid the Priory, who usually has a different priestess pilot Eris each season. Nami sounds like that old crawler because she had surgery to make herself look and sound just like her. It’s a thing. Eris herself looks a little like that crawler as well.

Donut: OMG IS THERE ONE OF ME?

Rosetta: They usually wait until the person is dead.

Florin: We need to figure out if we’re being fucked by the NPCs or not. I am toe to toe with a big force that’s now under NPC orders, and we don’t know if we’re supposed to be fighting them or not. I’m pretty sure they don’t know, either. We got demons popping up everywhere, trying to take over the corpses, and we got our hands full either way. That mountain is leaking pretty bad, too. We got flaming, ute-sized rocks raining on us. It sounds like it’s flowing lava right into the river bed which is gonna find its way down here pretty quick. I hope that “Lava abatement team” knows what they’re doing because it’s going to roil right into Larracos.

Donut: WHAT THE HECK IS A ‘UTE’?

Carl: The alliance is still intact. At least on paper. The system will automatically break the alliance if they do something against us. I think.

Justice Light: You lost the gate? Where did it go? We need that back! I need it!

Carl: The war mages took it. They teleported away with it! Britney, what the hell is happening with the NPCs?

Britney: I don’t know! Juice Box teleported away!

Donut: FERDINAND SAYS TO WAIT A MINUTE BECAUSE THEY’RE IN TROUBLE WITH THE ADJUTANTS.

Britney: Okay, hang on. Juice Box sent a message. She says to keep the plan rolling. She and Ferdinand have to answer some questions.

Carl: Yeah, she has to answer some questions, all right. Jesus. If she’s still planning on meeting us at the Madness castle, tell her I want her assurances that this plan at least is going to go as planned.

Next to me, Victory was still there, but her eyes continued to flash. “Hang on, Carl,” she said. “Drick just called foul against his own team. I’m still gathering details. We might be able to sue to get the gate pieces back.”

“Just tell me what the hell is happening, and quickly,” I said, eyeing the gate nervously. Elle had accidentally opened it when the volcano blew. The portal would only last twenty minutes, and it had been open already for at least ten. There was no visible timer, even when I examined it. At least the war mages hadn’t teleported away by walking through the gate. The gate was opened to spot number eight, the woods above the Madness’s castle. The plan was for me and Elle to go through it, and then I’d use a standard teleport trap to escape back to Shanty Town when we were done. We weren’t going to use the Feral God gate a third time unless we absolutely had to, so we didn’t need the gate anymore. But we were planning use it, along with Sledge, to help the surviving NPCs when this was all done.

No matter what happened, when this portal here timed out, a feral god was still going to escape right where we were now standing, so we had to get moving.

It was only then I realized Justice Light, in his panic, had said he needed the gate. I didn’t know why, or how he’d planned on getting it. Goddamnit, I thought. This was just like with Rosetta earlier when she’d attacked King Rust. Just like with Juice Box and the NPCs making dangerous moves without telling us. People were making plans without communicating them, and they were using me as part of it.

You’re always on rails, she said. Shi Maria’s voice wasn’t as loud as when the floor first started, but I could hear her, down there under the surface of the fast-moving water. It was no longer a river at this point, but a constant, never-ending torrent. And it wasn’t water. It had never been water. I feared touching it, lest it rip me away. You’re a puppet, dancing on their stage. I’m still here. You just need to untie me.

“Okay,” Victory said. “As far as I can tell, it appears the War Mages broke their own allegiance against the Skull Empire, which they shouldn’t be able to do. They were under strict Conscription rules, but they used a clever combination of Pull spells to kill Stalwart anyway. I think Stalwart might’ve ejected them from his army on purpose in an attempt to get them to stop hurting him. It didn’t work. But after they killed him, they immediately teleported themselves to Juice Box and Ferdinand for unknown reasons. Drick has called a foul, and I’m not certain why. I think he’s claiming illegal interference, similar to what I would’ve called on you if you’d allowed Prepotente to fight on your behalf before he joined up. It’s a bit shaky unless Drick can prove this so-called War Mage Rebellion has been talking with Juice Box this whole time. And even then, if they’re considered an independent entity, I don’t think it’s going to stick. They’ve called a full quorum, so I’m going to the hearing.” And then she unceremoniously teleported away.

Edgar: Donut, I see Epitome Tagg. He is still near the Dream castle. He did not teleport with his army. He’s with a small contingent of his troops, riding zebras. I think he’s fleeing into the woods. I marked him. He is not the one in the fancy hat. They are trying to trick you.

Donut: I CAN’T SEE THEM. I DON’T HAVE A SHOT. THE NEW GODDESS LADY IS IN THE WAY. I DO LIKE HER JACKET THOUGH. IT LOOKS LIKE SOMETHING FROM BEETLEJUICE, THOUGH THE SHOULDER PADS ARE A LITTLE TOO GAUCHE. SLEDGIE, WILL YOU BE A DEAR AND FIRE SOME MISSILES AT HIM WHILE HE’S STILL MARKED? MAYBE FIRE SOME OF THE FAST MOVERS ALONG WITH A CHAIN RIPPER?

Sledge: I kill for a living.

If Tagg was fleeing, that meant they were giving up—at least for now—on taking back their throne room. But it sounded like there were three gods rolling around their territory, and maybe they were gambling on the gods forcing the occupying Team Retribution to flee. Tagg was making the safe choice to flee and hide, effectively abandoning his own troops who he sent to attack our base.

The mark would only last a few minutes. Tagg wasn’t dumb. He would probably get away for now, despite the missiles.

More reports flooded in. Tran had taken heavy losses from the magical artillery even though they hadn’t engaged anyone directly. There was heavy fighting at the FUPA against the Dreamers, along with demon eviction starting there as well, like we anticipated. Louis had already docked back at Area 52 and unloaded the kids. He used a precious Emergency Repair scroll to speed up the repair of Party Planner and was about to start his second run as soon as they finished reloading the bomb bay.

There was still no sign of the bulk of the Madness or Reaver forces.

Boomer: Starting our raid on the Reaver castle. Bomo and Sledge. Initiate the barrage.

Sledge: Robots go boom.

“Okay, I’m good,” Elle said, shaking her head. “Let me cast my Subterfuge spell again so they don’t spot us. We need to keep this rolling.” She patted me on the shoulder. “Ready to finally get your hands dirty?”

“Samantha,” I said as we moved to the portal. “Okay, you’re on your own. The gate is going to take a few minutes longer than we planned to close because we won’t be bringing the pieces through. Stay close, but not too close. Boomer is in your chat, and he’ll tell you were to go if the feral god chases you. Okay?”

But she wasn’t paying attention. She was looking straight up into the smoky sky. “Ohhh, I know what that is,” she said just as we stepped through. “That’s a dragon!”

63

This is an automated status report being sent to all officers of the Princess Posse. This report is compiled based on the war notes as entered into the system by the current assigned theater commander, General Rosetta Thagra:

The current known status of all enemy and allied castles, along with the their warlords.

Team Retribution. Castle is still underwater. Warlords Juice Box and Ferdinand are currently in administrative hold while a dispute is adjudicated.

The Bone Clan. War Chief Stalwart has fallen. The Bone Clan has been eliminated, and this is the last status report for this team. All assets have been awarded to Team Retribution.

The Dream. Castle is currently occupied by forces from Team Retribution with just under six hours until Dream disqualification. In addition, castle is currently under siege by what appears to be a three-way deity fight between Harpocrates, Eris, and the feral god, Meatus. Warlord Epitome Tagg was recently seen fleeing the castle and heading into hiding into the wooded region of their territory.

The Madness. The castle remains in Madness Control. Architect Houston’s location is unknown, but intelligence reports he is usually in his Surgical Theater, a fortified room that enjoins both his throne and flag room within the Madness castle.

The Reavers. The castle remains in Reaver hands. The location of Warlord Fang is currently unknown.

The War Mage Rebellion. ***This is a new entry*** Little is known about this group, but the system has just designated this as an active force in the area with unknown intentions. This group appears to be made solely of an unknown number of War Mage NPCs, led by a level-100 War Mage named Akuma. This group has no known forces, but they are now in control of the Gate of Feral Gods. Standing orders are to approach with caution and treat as hostile. Priority is given to retrieving the Gate.

* * *

Entering the territory of the Madness.

You are at war with this team.

Your platoon member, General Elle McGib has cast a Subterfuge spell, and your presence is hidden from enemy eyes. Do not venture from the area of the spell, or the Madness will be automatically warned of your incursion.

The spell would hide us, but that goddamned, shining portal had just been sitting here for ten minutes straight. It was dark, and it was in the woods, but if we were unlucky, someone could’ve spotted it. I was half expecting to find a battalion sitting here waiting for us. Luckily, there was nothing.

The first thing I did was send a message warning Louis about the dragon circling the Reaver castle, which I still hadn’t seen. Samantha was already in the chat talking to Louis about it.

We landed right at the edge of the woods, which was the closest we could conceivably get without them immediately knowing we were there. The flat prairies of the Madness spread out in front of us in the night. I couldn’t see the castle in the dark, but it was there, about five kilometers away. The ground ahead glittered with literally thousands of traps that twinkled liked a tapestry of stars. I could see alarm traps, hidden alarm traps, teleport traps, and lots of summons, which wasn’t good. Both monster summons and guard summons. Tripper would activate the summons, and we’d be neck-deep in soldiers.

“Get that disgusting thing away from me!” a voice boomed across the realm. That was Eris again. This fight was much closer now, but still not close enough to activate my Scavenger’s Daughter patch.

This was followed by a wet coughing, sputtering sound from Meatus.

Donut: THE DREAM CASTLE JUST COLLAPSED!

I was expecting a notification that the NPCs occupying the Dream throne room had been cast away, but it never came, meaning whomever was holding the throne room was riding it out with this whole three-way god fight happening right on their heads.

I returned my attention to the minefield in front of us. The traps sparkled. I figured this would happen, but I hadn’t expected the coverage to be this thick. We’d have to pick our way carefully across the landscape, which would slow us down. I would collect any summon traps I came across. A still-activated Summon Guard trap was a dangerous liability for the person attached to the other side of that trap, and Justice Light had taught me a really nasty trick with them.

From my inventory, I started to pull the teleport automatons with the second half of the teleport trap on them. I thought for a moment, and then decided to put most away for now, only keeping the Katia, Imani, Holger, and Splash Zone ones out. The traps here were too thick for a larger force. I’d have to risk being underpowered until we got closer to the castle. I sent a message to those four, telling them to come in.

Samantha: IT’S A BLEACHED DRAKE. THEY’RE VERY CUTE PETS. THIS IS A BIG ONE. THEY HAVE GRAVITY MAGIC.

Louis: Uh, gravity magic?

Samantha: OH, YES. YOUR AIR SHIP THING IS PROBABLY GOING TO GET TOSSED TO THE GROUND AND SMUSHED LIKE A CAN OF LOUIS-FLAVORED SOUP. YOU SHOULD ABANDON ALL THIS AND COME HELP ME FIGHT GASH WHEN SHE GETS HERE. THE LAST TIME I TEAMED UP WITH A BOYFRIEND, WE DEFEATED THE DEMON SLUT EASILY.

Carl: Does anyone besides Samantha have eyes on this dragon thing?

Donut: I CAN ONLY BARELY SEE IT, BUT THE MARK THING DOESN’T WORK. I CAN STILL TRY TO SHOOT IT DOWN, BUT IT’S AT THE VERY EDGE OF MY RANGE, AND IT’S MOVING FAST. IT HAS SOME SPELL ON IT THAT MAKES IT LOOK BLURRY.

Baroness Victory: Paint the Target has a distance limit. It’s not just line of sight.

Donut: WELL, THAT’S A STUPID RULE. I’LL TRY TO SHOOT IT. AND AREN’T YOU IN A MEETING?

Baroness Victory: Your boyfriend is holding up the adjudication. We’re waiting for Drick to get him out of the rafters. Literally.

Donut: HE’S NOT MY BOYFRIEND.

Carl: Louis, are you in the air yet?

Louis: Just about to take off. I replaced the door gunners with two folks from Bucket Boy’s clinic.

Carl: Okay, good. But I don’t want you near that dragon. Swing toward Boomer’s position instead and back him up. Don’t approach the Reaver castle until we’ve dealt with the dragon.

The next message came over my private band.

Colonel Boomer: Warlord. We need those bombs dropped. We don’t have No Disassemble missiles. If you call General Louis off his run, that puts the rest of us in danger. I know he’s your friend. But we can’t do this without air support. He’s a good pilot. He knows what he’s doing. And with all due respect, you handed operational command over to Rosetta after you put me in charge of the Reaver assault. You need to focus on your own operation, not mine. I’ll try to get close enough to mark the dragon for a missile barrage, but you can’t call off his run just because it’s dangerous.

Goddamnit. He was right, and I knew it. I took a breath and sent him an apology.

Carl: Louis, belay my last order. Proceed with the plan. Just... just be careful. You have four anti-air missiles. Save them for the dragon. We’ll try to get someone who can see through the clouds with a Paint the Target spell so we can target it with the long range missiles. You might be able to paint it yourself on approach. This is Boomer’s op and listen to him from now on.

There was a long pause.

Louis: Okay, Carl. Taking off now.

A moment later Bomo messaged that the missiles aimed at Epitome Tagg missed. That meant Donut’s target was in the wind, and we’d have to hunt him down. Even if the NPCs managed to take his throne room and eliminate the Dream, he’d still be alive. That just wouldn’t do, but there was nothing we could do about it right now.

Sledge: Missiles incoming Reaver castle.

Donut: MAYBE THOSE MISSILES HEADED FOR THE REAVER CASTLE WILL HIT THAT DRAGON THING BECAUSE I CAN’T.

That was unlikely. The targeted missiles would literally swerve around the dragon to hit the castle. That was how they were designed.

Florin: With Stalwart dead and demon eviction waning, 101st is at mission accomplished. Two squads are going to assist with lava abatement but the bulk is falling back to Shanty Town. We need to talk to the NPC general about all these off-worlders they just inherited. I don’t think they know what to do with them, and I’m afraid Juice Box is just going to order them all killed.

Rosetta: Okay, Florin. Good work so far. Standby for further orders.

Across from me, the teleport traps activated. Katia, Imani, and Splash Zone appeared. The last trap, the one that was supposed to summon Holger, did not summon the were-castor. Instead, it was Dong Quixote. And not just Dong, but he was mounted upon the large swamp yak thing that had once belonged to King Rust. Gonk.

Dong had his crust sock slung over his shoulder, and he also had another weapon stowed vertically in a leather, holster-like sleeve hanging off the saddle: a glowing, enormously long war lance. Upon the tip of the lance, a flag waved. It was a flag from the 104th Naughty Little Piggies, where I’d reassigned him for this battle.

“What the hell?” I asked, double-checking my inventory. Dong was not supposed to be here.

And to my utter astonishment, yet another figure also appeared, also mounted on the back of the yak. This was Bigs the sluggalette. The one who’d killed Vinata. Since I’d last seen her, her face/eye paint had changed. She now had a massive teardrop built into the stalk of her right eye alongside the row of piercings. The hatchet protruding from her head gleamed. She leapt off the back of Gonk and splotched into the woods with a loud whoop. She waved the axe. “Imma get my chop on today. Where the bad guys at?”

“Seriously, what the hell?” I asked for a second time.

Dong gave me a sheepish smile. “Holger didn’t want to leave little Clint and Tina and the other kids. They’re all scared because of the fighting at the castle, and Holger promised to protect them. Miss Nadine, too, who Holger is a little sweet on, I think, now that she’s not a caterpillar anymore. He gave me his half of the teleport trap. Bigs here was talking to another slug, and that one said that Justice Light taught them that if a mount utilizes a teleport trap, the entire mount and all its riders make it through.” Dong turned his head to the side. “Yes, yes. You’re right, Jefferson. It is very cost effective.”

I was annoyed. My operation hadn’t even started yet, and it was already in trouble. “I called Holger in because he’s small. We need to pick our way through a literal minefield. You’re gonna have to leave Gonk here.”

Gonk let out a derisive snort.

Dong slapped the reins, and Gonk danced sideways like a show horse. The saddled lance stayed straight upward.

“Warlord, I will have you know I am an expert yakman. Gonk here has an exceptionally light touch and is a very fine mount, which is why the orc war chief used him. We will not be a problem. I daresay we will have a lighter touch on the battlefield than you will.”

I doubted that, and I was about to object, but I was interrupted by messages I couldn’t ignore. I held up a hand.

Sledge: Missiles hit Reaver castle. Lots blow up just before hit. Don’t know damage.

Donut: THE MISSILES DIDN’T HIT THE DRAGON THING. I TRIED SHOOTING AGAIN, BUT IT’S NOT WORKING. ROSETTA NEEDS ME TO KILL SOME TROLLS AT THE FOOP, SO I CAN’T HELP ANYMORE.

I reread the message from Sledge and thought again of Louis. I had a probably-terrible idea. I sent a message to the already-exasperated Boomer, and he grudgingly agreed to let me try it.

Carl: Samantha, can you still see the dragon?

Samantha: YES. HE’S FLYING IN CIRCLES. HE’S VERY MAD BECAUSE SOME OF THOSE MISSILES HIT THE CASTLE. I THINK HE MIGHT’VE STOPPED SOME OF THEM. IT’S STILL STANDING THOUGH. CARL, NOBODY HAS COME THROUGH THIS STUPID GATE YET. TYPICAL GASH. ALWAYS SHOWING UP LATE. SHE AND I HAVE A SCORE TO SETTLE, AND I’M GOING TO ROCK HER WORLD.

Carl: Okay, I’m going to make you an officer. When I do that, it’s going to give you a spell called Paint the Target. I need you to cast the spell on the dragon. Then when it’s done, tell Bomo and Sledge you’ve done it. And for god’s sake, don’t fight the thing that comes out the gate. Run where Boomer tells you to run.

Samantha: BOMO AND SLEDGE ARE BIG NERDS, AND I DON’T WANT TO BE SEEN TALKING TO THEM.

Carl: Goddamnit, Samantha. This is to help Louis. Will you do it?

Samantha: OH ALL RIGHT.

“Christ, Carl. Can you stop trying to control everyone else’s operation so we can get on with our own suicide mission now?” Elle asked. Next to her, Imani and Katia both crossed their arms in unison, looking at me. Splash Zone, seeing them all glaring also crossed his fuzzy arms in solidarity.

I grinned and held out my hands. “Old habits die hard. Let’s get moving. Imani, help me with these traps. Only disarm the alarm ones. Let me deal with the summons.” I moved into the Platoon menu and drew a map from our location to the back side of the Madness castle, marking all the trap locations. Now everybody would see them.

I took another look at Dong mounted on his yak and let out a sigh. “Stay right behind me, and stow that lance in your inventory. We’re sneaking up, not charging in. There’s an anti-invisibility shield that starts about a hundred meters from the castle wall. I want you invisible until then. Bigs, get back on the yak behind Dong. Don’t leave and don’t wander. If we hit a trap or if you leave the area of Elle’s protection, they’ll get a notification. We want to avoid a big fight. Bodi and Prepotente are way on the other side, coming up from Shanty Town right now with the 103rd, and we want the Madness defenders to focus on them while we sneak up.”

I took a few steps, reached down, and stowed away a summon trap. I examined it. This trap would summon a single, specific guard to the location. I grabbed a second summon, and it did the same thing, but the trap was rendered inert because the associated guard was already dead. That was good. That suggested these traps had likely been set long ago and weren’t being carefully maintained.

A third trap summoned literal fire ants. Ohhhh, I thought, remembering the ants from the Iron Tangle that had eaten that conductor. I took that one as well.

Samantha: THE GATE TIMED OUT. IT’S ALL CRACKLY AND SPARKLY.

Carl: Goddamnit, Samantha. You’re not supposed to be right in front of it! Get moving!

Samantha: I CAN TAKE THE BITCH.

We’d hoped that Samantha’s proximity to the gate would summon a Nothing demon that she could drag around the battlefield like a kite. Something to distract the Reavers for Boomer’s assault. When those last two harem demon things came out—Slit, during the bubble levels and Minge during the fight at the Desperado Club—they’d both been laser focused on catching Samantha. If we could control the path of the demon’s rampage, it would be an amazingly powerful weapon.

That this gate would actually summon one of the demon things because Samantha was nearby was only a hunch and was in no way guaranteed. Either way, if that thing caught Samantha, then her whole presence was pointless.

The Feral God Yarilo has entered the realm.

This deity is too distant to activate your Scavenger’s Daughter.

Samantha: UH-OH.

64

Boomer: Samantha start moving, kid! Angle toward the castle, but not too close yet!

Samantha: YOU DON’T HAVE TO TELL ME TWICE. THIS IS A GOD, NOT A DEMON. IT’S YARILO, AND HE DOESN’T LIKE ME! HE’S MAD BECAUSE HE THINKS I HELPED GET HIM TOSSED IN THE NOTHING IN THE FIRST PLACE. IT’S NOT MY FAULT HE’S SEXUALLY ATTRACTED TO ANIMALS. NO OFFENCE, KATIA.

A loud, androgynous voice bellowed across the realm.

“PSAMATHE! Are you here? We need to talk! Quick! Wait, don’t run! By his left tit, stop running!”

And then, something very strange happened.

“Uh, what is that?” Splash Zone asked, pointing behind us. We all turned to look.

A funnel of prismatic light had burst into the air, blazing straight upward like a beacon. The beacon was so bright it pierced all the clouds. As we watched, it started to frantically wave back and forth like it was the universe’s most powerful flashlight, and someone was shaking it.

This wasn’t too far, maybe a mile away, deeper in the woods of the Madness territory.

The Scavenger’s Daughter has blinked her eyes, but she does not know what she sees.

“What the hell...” I began.

Quest Update. Find Out Who Killed My Son.

You have been tasked with obtaining the item, Memorial Crystal: Apito. The crystal has just shown itself. Abandon your current task and obtain it.

“Yeah, that’s gonna have to wait a minute,” I said out loud. The crystal, as far as I was aware, was currently in the possession of the crawler Osvaldo, who had—so far—managed to avoid getting added to any army and was riding it out in the woods. Both myself and Prepotente had a quest to get that crystal. Our current raid was more important than whatever the hell this was, and I wasn’t about to force a fight with a crawler I didn’t even know. And even if I wanted to do it, I couldn’t just abandon the entire battalion marching up on the other side of the Madness castle. My plan was to talk to him when I got a chance.

Next to me, Elle shook her head. “You wanted chaos, Carl. If they didn’t know we were here before, they’re most definitely going to come check that out.”

Donut: WHY IS THERE A GIANT RAINBOW?

The light continued to shine and sparkle and shake.

“Do you see the trees?” Katia asked. “They’re getting taller where the light is shining through the forest canopy.”

“I think that’s the crawler Osvaldo,” I said, also peering at the strange light. I moved to my skills, checking Find Crawler.

“Osvaldo?” Elle asked. “I remember that fucker. I liked him until he decided to be a little coward and duck our recruiters. He has a whole group hiding out in the woods. He’s not doing a very good job of hiding anymore. Did he mess up a spell or something?”

I grunted, closing out the Find Crawler window. “Yeah, that’s him all right. He has something called a memorial crystal on him, and I’m pretty sure that’s what’s causing the light.”

“I remember that thing. That’s what he and Pony boy were fighting over at the end of the Butcher’s Masquerade,” Elle said. “That badger lady, too. Prepotente killed his pet. Why is it glowing?”

I told them about the message from Emberus as I continued to rapidly clear out a section of summon traps. There was a lot right here on the edge of the forest. “When someone gets tossed into the Nothing, and they escape, the god or goddess that comes to deal with them is usually the one who banished them in the first place. Yarilo was banished because he ruined one of Apito’s Butcher’s Masquerade parties. And since Apito is both dead and not dead, it’s some big dungeon mystery I think we’re supposed to solve. This is all just another clue.”

“Oh yeah, great timing,” Elle said. “That ‘clue’ is going to make the enemy cast every observation spell they have in our direction at any moment.”

Carl: Osvaldo, put that goddamned thing away!

Osvaldo: Vai pra puta que pariu! You don’t think I’m trying?

Warning: This message has been delivered, but the log has been sent to your adjutant for review. Osvaldo is unaffiliated with the Princess Posse, and any planning may be construed as illegal corroboration.

Baroness Victory: Carl, I am very busy right now, but I’m not so busy that I won’t call foul. Don’t tempt me.

“Isn’t Yarilo the god of lust?” Katia asked, still staring off at the prismatic beam of light shining straight up into the air. It continued to whip back and forth, like Osvaldo was waving it around. He obviously couldn’t get it back into his inventory.

“Yeah,” I said. “He’s the god Samantha was pretending to be when she tricked that Mad Dune Mage guy into letting her escape the Nothing in the first place. So Yarilo probably does hate Samantha. We gotta get moving before we’re found.”

As if I’d jinxed myself, Elle cursed, and a notification appeared.

You have been observed! Subterfuge has been negated! The enemy is aware of your incursion!

Prepotente: Your army people are marching their way toward the castle, and it appears the plan is working. A large host of Madness troops have emerged and are coming to face us. However, it seems whichever one of you shot that giant rainbow in the air has attracted the other half of the Madness forces, and they are now coming to meet you. Who would’ve thought that such a move would alert the enemy? Carl, I suspect you’re about to be in extreme danger.

I stood up and sighed. Next to me, Elle and Katia also stopped. They also saw the message.

“Plan B?” Katia asked.

“It’s not really Plan B if we don’t have the feral god gate,” Elle muttered. “Can we still summon the other half of the 105th ?”

“We can,” I said. “But we don’t have the protection spells in place. Imani doesn’t have any real psionic protection, and that’s the one thing they keep warning us about these guys. We can retreat a small force easily, but not half a battalion. Prepotente can help protect them, but not until the 103rd on the other side of the castle retreats. He can’t be in both places at once.”

The 103rd battalion, currently about 10 kilometers away and marching on the castle from the opposite side, wasn’t supposed to actually engage the Madness troops. Of all the standing forces still active, the soldiers of the Madness were by far the most dangerous. The plan was to draw them out and then retreat. That would keep them away from their own castle while my much smaller force sneaked in.

We could protect ourselves against almost all of the horrific spells the Madness was known to cast, but not all of them at once. Prepotente could protect groups from their long-range psionic abilities, but he couldn’t be in two places at once. If I summoned the 105th to our location, we’d have to choose between having Pony cover the 103rd’s retreat or come here and back up the attackers. The group that wasn’t covered would be in trouble.

“We still have Donut to cover the 103rd as they retreat,” Katia said. “I say we have Prepotente come here and use Donut to the best of her ability.”

I felt a sinking sensation. “You’re right,” I finally said.

So much for sneaking into the Madness castle.

I started to pull the remaining teleport automatons as I sent out orders. These would bring 18 more people, and it was the original team for my assault. I also sent a message to Jurgen, telling him the new plan. He was the current leader of the 105th Scream Warriors, and his half-strength battalion would come help us.

Jurgen: Heidi and I are ready to fight. Will teleport to you on your command.

Juice Box herself was still in the adjudication last I heard. These things were like mini trials, but they still didn’t normally last this long. I’d summon her if she was free in time, but it sounded like we were doing this without her.

I then sent a message out to Prepotente, Donut, and Bodi—the current leader of the 103rd.

Carl: Bodi, I’m having you retreat early. Did you finish seeding the field? Prepotente, as soon as they start withdrawing, come to our side. Donut, once they start to fall back, wait for Bodi to tell you he’s clear of the seeds, then do it.

Donut: OKAY, CARL.

Bodi: If Prepotente leaves that quickly, we will lose his psionic protections. We’ve been warned not to retreat without them.

Carl: I know. I am sorry. Do your best. Don’t just fake retreat. Haul ass out of there.

Bodi: Very well. We are almost done seeding the field, and I will order the withdrawal.

Prepotente: I will come as requested, Carl.

“When are the missiles due to arrive?” Elle asked. “And how much time do we have?”

Both questions were answered just moments later as fire suddenly rained down from the heavens in front of us. Hundreds of missiles, all at once, fell upon the distant castle. A round, semi-circle sphere appeared, stuttered, and then flashed out. The shield. The missiles continued to pound into the distant stronghold, which was actually a low rectangle with no battlements. The whole thing looked so unassuming and small, now lit up by hundreds of fires. The missiles would continue to slow walk into the structure, keeping the shield down.

The fires around the castle backlit a large, fast-moving force riding in our direction upon hundreds of dune buggy-like carts, pushing over the dark fields. Marked notifications appeared as Elle started calling in Cheese Cutters, which were the anti-personnel missiles. These were pretty much all the missiles we now had left after Bomo and Sledge’s constant pounding of the Madness and Reaver castles.

It wouldn’t be nearly enough. This was going to be a fight.

A strange calm settled over us all as we watched the massive force descend upon us.

“Well, that’s not how this was supposed to go,” I said. I looked around and then jumped back to work. We still had a few minutes, and there were still traps I could grab. “Imani, prepare all your shields and salves. I’m going to collect as many of these summon traps as I can before they get here. Splash, get your slick spells ready.”

“I’ll fire up Graupel,” Elle said.

65

The loud thwum of the 105th Scream Warriors teleporting into place filled the woods behind us. This was followed by a few screams as soldiers teleported into trees, despite the spell’s supposed protection against that exact thing. In addition, their sudden appearance set off a few traps that had been sprinkled in the woods behind us, including four or five guard summons, which did not work out for the unfortunate Madness mercenaries who found themselves alone in the woods with 3,000 Princess Posse troopers staring at them.

Despite a small number of soldiers suddenly finding themselves half embedded in trees, all of them survived the journey. I knew it had to be a relief. They’d been forced to stand in place for hours and hours as the mages cast the grueling Mass Teleportation spell.

Jurgen landed to my left, the large, blond, barbarian man hitting the ground with a superhero pose.

“Jurgen and Heidi are here!” Jurgen cried, cracking his thick neck as he stood to his full height. He groaned as he arched his back.

All around me, the automatons started crunching as more of our soldiers teleported in individually. They were a diverse mix. Jamal, with his newly-enhanced and fortified legs, landed nearby and did a little hop. Bautista, irritated he hadn’t been summoned as part of the first group, arrived and started talking with Katia. Others included Gluteus Maxx and Doctor Bones, both from the Penis Parade, and Areson the large ogre. Also present were Chris and Clay-ton the cretin. Those last two had been inseparable this entire floor. These were the members of my team. The ones I’d planned on summoning as we approached the castle.

I watched as Imani walked up and gave Chris a quick hug using her wings, not her arms. Chris reached up, as if to touch her face, but stopped just short.

Ahead, the hundreds of troop-laden Madness dune buggies slowed at the sudden appearance of several thousand new soldiers. They came to a stop about a full kilometer away. They started firing flares and torch spells in to the air, lighting up the smoky night sky. Shields started to glow all around the hastily-formed line of enemies.

“That’s a lot of cheese sticks,” Splash Zone muttered.

“More are probably coming, too,” Elle said.

“Shields up!” I called. All around, multi-hued protections started to glow.

“Everyone,” Imani called, raising her voice supernaturally as she flew up and down the forming line at the edge of the trees. “Keep on eye on the person to your left and to your right. The Madness is known for their mind magic. That and Atrocity magic. If you see someone acting unusual, call it out immediately. They won’t always have a notification.”

“Okay, Scream Warriors,” Jurgen shouted. “You’ve trained for this. Wait for my or Heidi’s command.”

“Jamal is quite excited to battle with his new upgrades,” the hammerhead shark said, taking my attention as more shields crackled into existence around us. His new legs whirred as he bounced up and down with excitement. “It is a very robust excitement that he has.” He let out a little burst of flame from the new attachment on his underbelly. It was “Velma,” Tserendolgor’s flame thrower. Rosetta’s team in the crafting room had modified it to fit to his harness. “Oh. Please excuse Jamal and Velma.”

“Jesus, Jamal. Be careful with that thing,” I said.

“Jamal will only flame on purpose from now on. Rest assured, Mr. Carl. Any previous flamings were purely accidental and such a thing will never repeat.”

The flamethrower reminded me of Rend, and I pulled him out as well. He landed in front of me with a loud, ominous giggle. He, too, now had an upgrade, though his was much more subtle than a goddamned flamethrower attachment. Someone had donated a tooth cap, similar to the ones Mongo had for his sharp teeth, but this was designed for mounts. It was called Enchanted Tooth Cap of Hi-Yo Silver. We installed it over his single, round tooth, making the tooth gleam silver. It allowed me, once every ten minutes, to summon Rend to my position. It wasn’t a teleport spell, but it had about a five kilometer range. When I summoned him, he’d get inexorably pulled toward me at great speed. If there was a wall in the way, he’d—possibly—smash through the wall. The skill was somewhat dangerous which was why Donut absolutely refused to put it on Mongo. But for Rend, it would work well, especially when combined with his new Wrecking Ball special ability.

The name of the upgrade, “Hi-Yo Silver” and not “Heigh-Ho Silver” had caused a great debate amongst some of the crawlers, especially Louis and Elle, and I thought they were actually going to come to blows over it. Louis insisted it was supposed to be “heigh-ho” while Elle told him to shove it. They’d been needling each other over it ever since. Since the phrase came from the old Lone Ranger television show, I was inclined to side with Elle on the matter—plus the AI who had named the upgrade in the first place, though if you’d asked me before this, I would’ve said the same thing as Louis.

The thoughts of this senseless debate filled my mind.

I sat on the ground and leaned my back against a tree. I’d never watched the Lone Ranger show. It was way before my time. I wondered if my dad had watched it. There was another show, called The Rifleman that I know he’d liked, but even that was old for him. I wondered if shows like that had been responsible for his love of western novels. Though, honestly, he’d pretty much stuck with Louis L’Amour books. I was the one who’d spread out to others like Zane Grey and Larry McMurtry, but once I’d discovered sci-fi, fantasy, and horror, those books took kind of a back seat for a while. And then I’d discovered some of the classics, the ones I should’ve read in high school but didn’t, and I realized I would never, ever run out of books.

I thought of the Christmas present that was still sitting there, unopened in the common room. Neither Imani nor I had opened our presents yet. Mine was clearly a book, possibly two or three books, and I’d been hesitating to open them because I was afraid that...

Slap. You’ve been slapped awake. Endless Thread of Distraction has been dispelled.

Someone was shouting. It was Imani.

“Carl, they’re targeting you. I can’t hold it until Prepotente gets here. Carl, no! Keep your eyes open.”

“Look at his finger!” someone else called. “That ring is glowing red!”

“Get his shirt! Cover that eye!”

Warning: Your Mind Balance is currently overwhelmed as you are getting absolutely hammered with psionic debuffs.

You’ve been infected with ten more instances of Endless Thread of Distraction.

You’ve been infected with Self Harm.

You’ve been infected with Intrusive Thoughts.

What am I even doing here? I thought. This is too much. I should’ve known this plan would never have worked, and now everyone under my command is going to die.

If I surrender, maybe they will let them live.

I felt the torrent under me. Not a river. It had never been a river. Voices. Screams. Nightmares distilled to light.

Souls.

And where was it flowing to? Down, was the answer. Always down. Why are they always screaming?

If the river made no sound, then why was it so loud?

It’s so loud. It’s so goddamned loud.

There was more shouting.

“He’s stuck! Look at his feet!”

“Is it the tree? He didn’t teleport, how can he be stuck in the tree?”

Carl. Steady yourself. You’ve done it before, and you can do it again. They think your mind is your biggest weakness, but it is the opposite. It is the rock upon which the rest of you is built.

Whose voice was that? That wasn’t Shi Maria. Nor was it her husband. It was a familiar voice. Male. Friendly. A dwarf? I thought of tendrils worming their way through my body.

I can’t do this. I’m going crazy.

No, Carl. This is the second time I’ve told you that you’re not crazy. You’re family now, after what you did. I will help you. Look. Look at your feet. You’ve been standing in this so-called river this whole time.

I looked down, and I was amazed at what I saw.

Your Mind Balance is now Level 16.

New Achievement! You now tread in the realm of gods!

You’ve trained a skill past 15 using battlefield conditions, as opposed to just taking a bunch of potions to do it. That’s quite the accomplishment. I’d ramble on and on about this, but you’re currently a babbling idiot with your bare feet buried in an All Tree root. So let’s speed up this Empire Strikes Back cave scene bullshit and get back to the action.

Reward: The skill is the reward. The good news is this level-16 Mind Balance will now wake your ass up.

Good, Carl. Good. She would be proud of you.

Who? I asked, but I snapped awake.

“He’s awake!” Imani called, hovering over me, eyes wide with concern. “Carl, they’re attacking you with every psionic attack they have! Prepotente is almost here, and he can shield you, but he says you need to cast Wisp Armor.”

I stood, but I almost fell because my feet were stuck to the tree. I instinctively pulled, and my feet came away easily, the smell of mulch coming up. But there was rot, too. The tree upon which I’d been leaning was suddenly dead and withered. All around, soldiers shouted as the tree crumbled in on itself.

I whipped around to face the army that stood before us.

“Carl, cast Wisp Armor,” Imani said again.

“No need,” I said as the Emberus ring on my finger cooled. In my interface, dozens of mind-based spells crashed against me, but they didn’t find purchase. I shook my head and grinned. Let them keep trying. None of that was going to work anymore.

I could now see them. The ones casting mind magic. That had come with my skill hitting 16. There were dozens of them, spread around the army before us. Mind mages. I started painting them, one by one, sending out orders to focus on them first.

Carl: Hit the mages I just painted. Reroute any incoming to these targets.

Bomo: These are the last missiles.

Carl: Okay. Do it. Good work today, both of you. Keep Donut safe.

“Are we doing this?” Jurgen asked. The large barbarian stood side-by-side with Jamal, who also quivered with excitement. Little tendrils of flame kept leaking from Jamal’s flamethrower. Rend was running in enthusiastic, babbling circles around the barbarian and hammerhead shark.

I held up my hand. “Wait for it.”

I quickly flipped through the messages as we waited. Louis would soon begin his bomb run on the Reaver castle but so far hadn’t engaged the dragon, which seemed content to circle above. Meanwhile, Boomer was pushing against the front door of the Reavers, waiting for Louis’s bombs. Their army still hadn’t appeared. Yarilo was chasing Samantha around in circles. She was heading toward the opposite side of the Reaver castle, much like we were marching on the backside of the Madness castle, but so far, Yarilo hadn’t actually done anything yet except call for Samantha to stop.

The Dream castle was utterly demolished, but the throne room was still—somehow—occupied by NPCs. Epitome Tagg was in the woods, presumably hiding while the three gods continued to fight in his territory. Apparently Meatus had wrapped his way around Eris and was using the influencer-stuck-in-the-body-of-the goddess of chaos as a battering ram against Harpocrates. Mordecai sent out a warning note that Eris’s spells could affect everyone in the realm at once, but she hadn’t yet cast anything.

Florin was making his way to Shanty Town with his battalion. Tran’s 102nd was rushing to the FUPA to help defend.

And speaking of the FUPA. The whole area was a mess. Demon eviction was ongoing, but it was mostly affecting the Dream soldiers, despite their overwhelming numbers. They were now sandwiched between the stronghold and a rising army of demon-infested corpses.

I moved my attention back to my own assault.

Carl: Bodi, report your status.

Bodi: We are withdrawing, but they are not pursuing. They appear to have abandoned their pursuit to face you instead.

Prepotente: This is correct. I will be to you in moments, Carl, and I will shield you and the rest of the force. I must warn you all a third force has appeared, emerging from under the castle. They, too, are coming to face you, Carl.

Donut: WHAT SHOULD I DO? YOU’RE NOT DONE YET ISN’T GOING TO WORK IF THERE ARE NO TARGETS. I CAN SNIPE DURING YOUR FIGHT, BUT THE BACK SIDE OF THE MADNESS CASTLE IS JUST PAST MY RANGE FOR ATROCITY MAGIC. WE PUT THE DEAD BODIES ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE CASTLE!

Carl: That’s okay. Stand down.

I’d asked most everyone to give their dead bodies from their graveyards to Bodi and the 103rd. The plan was for them to drop a metric fuckton of corpses on the battlefield and have Donut cast her wide-range, tower-enhanced, You’re Not Done Yet, which would rip the skin off the corpses, creating literally thousands of fleshers, which would sail across the battlefield at the Madness forces, hopefully overwhelming them. But now the Madness forces had abandoned that battlefield in order to face me, we’d wasted all those corpses for nothing unless we wanted to get back out there and pick them back up.

Still, I decided that was probably a good thing. The last thing we needed was more War Mages getting made at this point.

Rosetta: Prepotente, be aware you have incoming friendly missiles to your airspace.

This was followed by a string of explosions walking their way across the line of dune buggies. Shields glowed and shattered on the Madness side as the Cheese Cutters went to work. More than half of the mages I’d marked were now just gone.

It wasn’t enough. Still, the attacks against me suddenly ceased. Ahead, the Madness soldiers started to spread themselves out, not aware we were out of missiles.

“WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING!” Meatus shouted in the distance.

“Leave me alone! Oh my god, this is so disgusting. Why can’t I leave this place?” Eris shouted back. “Harpocrates, help me! Wait... wait...”

You are invulnerable until the completion of the Chaos Ritual.

Invulnerable? Chaos ritual? I looked down at the yellow radiance that had suddenly appeared over my body. All around, everyone suddenly had the same glow. Across the battlefield, I could see the enemy army glowed as well. It just came on all at once.

“What the shit?” Elle asked from my left.

What was going on?

Rosetta: Oh, fuck me. Comrades, hold on!

Warning. The Goddess Eris has cast Bear Witness in a wide area around her current position. This will only affect those outside of structures. The area of effect is marked on your map, but it’s pretty much the whole floor.

Your Mind Balance has negated Bear Witness.

“What the hell is Bear Witness?” I asked, but all around me, everyone had frozen, like at the beginning of a boss battle. Elle, Imani, Katia. Everyone. Their eyes had gone completely white. I was not frozen. The notification Witness appeared over their heads, followed by a strange symbol I didn’t recognize. It was two Cs back to back with a flaming lance through the middle.

The only people other than myself that didn’t appear affected by the witness spell were Rend, Bigs the Sluggalette, Gonk the yak, Jamal the shark, and Dong Quixote.

I met eyes with the old stripper. “My goodness,” was all Dong said.

Dong and I were the only awake ones with the invulnerable debuff. Jamal, Bigs, and Gonk did not have the glow.

“This is a most unexpected development,” Jamal said.

Rosetta: Everyone. When you wake, you’re going to be all mixed together. Find others from your team and run! If you have teleport escape, only use it if it’s been an hour! I’ll let you know if you can use it. Team leaders, report!

Tipid: I was inside the FOOP, but most of the defenders are just frozen! The Dream soldiers, too!

Kiwi: Tina! Where is Tina? Where is my daughter?

Tipid: I’m sorry, Kiwi. She got out and was fighting. I see her, and she’s frozen.

Carl: What’s wrong with them? What’s happening? It’s everyone here except me and the pets and a few others. Donut, are you okay?

Donut: I AM OKAY BUT EVERYONE SURROUNDING THE TOWER IS FROZEN! SLEDGIE WAS STILL OUTSIDE AND IS STUCK BUT BOMO GOT IN AND IS OKAY!

Li Na: Most everyone in Shanty Town is affected. Those of us inside structures are fine. Li Jun is with me. Zhang was outside. Florin and the entirety of the 101st are affected. It appears anyone who was once a tattoo is unaffected. Same with the sluggalos.

Rosetta: Boomer, Tran, and Bodi aren’t answering, either.

Jesus, I thought. That was almost everyone. If it reached all of Shanty Town and Florin, who was on the other side of the map, then it likely meant all the NPC soldiers inside of Larracos were frozen, too.

Samantha: I AM OKAY TOO. THAT ERIS BITCH CAN’T SUMMON ME. WHERE IS LOUIS.

Louis: The dragon thing is coming at me! Firing my anti-air missiles now!

Rosetta: Brace for part two of the ritual!

Before I could even ask what the hell part two was, a new notification came.

Warning: The Goddess Eris has cast Bring Forth the Witnesses.

Warning: The effects of a level-20 Bring Forth the Witnesses has caused a magical backlash over the entire floor. No long-range teleport spells will work for the next hour.

“Oof” I cried as I was bowled over by Jurgen’s large form. Everyone in the army just rocketed up into the air like they’d all been launched out of trebuchets. The frozen witnesses ascended into the air and disappeared like it was the goddamned rapture.

Across the battlefield, the Madness soldiers also rapidly floated up into air, abandoning their carts.

A figure appeared. Bianca the goat dragon landed next to me. Prepotente was not on her back. The thing screamed in fury and jumped up and down, her feet catching the foliage alight. She hissed at me and howled in outrage.

“I don’t know where he went!” I said to the pissed-off demon as I pulled myself up. I was trying not to let the panic overwhelm me. “I think he got brought to Eris, the goddess. She’s by the Dream castle fighting a giant penis and another god.”

Bianca clicked and hissed with rage.

I pointed south.

“That way,” I added.

She angrily chittered again and then burst back into the air, leaving a line of fire on the ground.

“A most unexpected development indeed,” Jamal added.

66

Carl: Tell us everything about this goddamned ritual thing.

Mordecai: Okay. This is exclusive to Eris, and she usually does this on the 12th floor. I’m not sure why she did it now, but it sounds like she’s panic casting things and doesn’t know what she’s doing. Some gods can only claim the Ascendent throne if there are no mortals present, so Eris sometimes causes chaos by summoning mortal witnesses to the ceremony. It’s called the Ceremony of Chaos. The witnesses are protected from the gods during this, hence the invulnerability, and she can keep them in the Witness state as long as she wants. She can also turn the invulnerability off early if she wants. They’re brought to her in a giant pile. It’s... it’s a thing. They’re usually NPCs since most crawlers never make it to the 12th floor. She can only cast this once. Ever.

Carl: Wait, so everyone that just got summoned is now in a giant pile?

Donut: I CAN SEE THEM. THEY ARE IN A GIANT PILE, CARL! IT’S THOUSANDS OF THOUSAND OF PEOPLE, ALL MIXED UP ON THE GROUND NEXT TO THE DREAM CASTLE. KATIA AND ELLE AND IMANI AND BAUTISTA AND CHRIS AND SLEDGIE AND TOYOTOMI AND FLORIN AND ZHANG ARE IN THERE SOMEWHERE! THE RAINBOW IS THERE, TOO! IT’S JUST SHINING UP OUT OF THE PILE! AND THEY’RE ALL MIXED IN WITH BAD GUYS! I THINK THE WHOLE REAVER ARMY IS THERE, TOO! WEREN’T THEY MISSING?

Carl: Holy shit. When they all wake up, it’s going to be a slaughter!

Rosetta: They are awake. They are witnesses. They can see, but they cannot move. They can’t use the chat. The witness state is mind magic. These god fights can take a long time, and we don’t know when this Eris goddess will get her wits about her to turn the Witness state off.

Donut: CARL, CARL I THINK SHE MESSED UP THE SPELL. THAT FERAL GOD, MEATUS, HE’S INVULNERABLE NOW TOO! SHE ACCIDENTALLY MADE HIM INDESTRUCTIBLE!

Rosetta: Oh, gods. If she realizes what she’s done, she might turn just the invulnerability off. If she does that, everyone in the pile will remain frozen but will lose their safety. Most of them will get crushed to death, or they’ll suffocate!

Mordecai: We can probably wake them up with an aerosol, but when they’re all mixed in together, it’s going to wake them all up at once. If we break them from Witness, the invulnerability won’t automatically turn off. Not until the goddess does it or until she finally leaves. I’ll get to work.

A chill washed over me. What a goddamned nightmare. If we didn’t free them before the invulnerability turned off, it was going to be absolute chaos. I needed to get there as quickly as possible and start pulling people free.

But it was thousands of people. Thousands and thousands. By my estimates, maybe 50,000 people.

Half-formed ideas came at me, one after another. If I put a bomb in the middle of the pile, it would scatter them about. But it would have to be a huge bomb. Not the Doomsday Scenario, as that was too huge. And I had to get there. Teleport was temporarily broken. Think, think, think.

Carl: Donut, do you have the invulnerability buff right now?

Donut: I DON’T! WHY, DO YOU?

Carl: Yes. I think only those who were outside have it. It’s just me and Dong. Jamal and Bigs don’t have it. I’m going to have to abandon this and get over there.

Donut: I HAVE A BETTER IDEA. FINISH YOUR MISSION, CARL. LET ME DEAL WITH THE PILE. THEY’RE CLOSE ENOUGH THAT I CAN SEPARATE THEM OUT. THEN MORDECAI CAN WAKE UP OUR OWN PEOPLE.

Carl: What’s your idea?

Samantha: LOUIS, WATCH OUT!

Louis: I’m going down!

I immediately moved to the other chat.

Carl: Louis, report! Report!

Louis: A little busy now, Carl. Feather falling... Party Planner is dead. Ripped in half... Hit the dragon with missiles, and it just pissed it off... It cast a spell, and I tried to dodge. It ripped Party Planner down the middle. Dropped the bombs before they were armed. I’m sorry... They didn’t go off. I’m falling through the air right now. Gonna land right on the Reaver castle... I think my door gunners are dead... Glad Bonnie and Skarn weren’t here... He was right... That cop’s husband. I’m sorry... The feral god is still there a mile west of the castle. I see him just sitting there. Dragon still flying above... I’m going to hit the castle by myself. Tell Katia when she wakes up that I’m sorry to be such a fuckup... I just sent a message to Juice Box, too, but she’s still in that meeting.

Carl: You’re okay. You’re okay. When you hit the ground, get out of there and hide. You can’t teleport, but you have lots of spells. Use your cloud attack and those smoke grenades I gave you.

Louis: I have a notification that tells me I’m being tracked by Reaver security. I’m fucked, Carl. I’m landing right in the middle of their castle.

Carl: Samantha, go save Louis!

Samantha: ON IT, CARL. THIS YARILO WEIRDO JUST GAVE UP CHASING ME ANYWAY LIKE A BIG WUSSY. GOD OF LUST? I DON’T THINK SO. HE’S THE GOD OF BEING A PERVERTED LITTLE BITCH. MAYBE IF I DRESSED UP LIKE A SLUTTY HAMSTER HE’D KEEP CHASING ME. I WOULDN’T HAVE DONE IT WITH HIM AGAIN ANYWAY. PROBABLY NOT.

I took a deep breath. There was nothing I could do for Louis right now. He would be okay, I kept telling myself. I needed to focus.

“Carl,” Dong said. “Jefferson and I have been talking, and I believe he is correct. We should seize this opportunity and make haste to the Madness castle while the enemy army is gone. They likely do not know we are here, and we can proceed with the plan.”

“Yeah!” Bigs announced from the back of Gonk. “We can take them!”

Jamal did a little jump and expelled a gout of flame.

I was torn. They were right. Plus, if one more warlord fell then the final phase would begin. I felt numb and sick. It had all happened so fast. One moment, we were facing the army, and in seconds, everything had changed.

I came to a decision. I needed to focus and trust the others. I couldn’t do anything about Louis. I couldn’t do anything about the others at the Dream castle. But I could do something about the castle right in front of me right now. Donut, Rosetta, and Mordecai were smart. I was sure they could come up with a sound plan to help as many people as possible.

System Message: Warlord Princess Donut has committed an atrocity.

Donut: WELL, I NEVER. THAT WAS VERY RUDE.

Carl: What was that?

Donut: IT’S A TWO-PART PLAN. ONLY SOME OF MY ATROCITIES ARE ABLE TO SEPARATE OUT THE BAD GUYS, SO FIRST I GOTTA MOVE THE PILE TO WHERE ALL THE DEAD BODIES ARE PILED UP. PLUS IT’LL GET THEM AWAY FROM THE GOD FIGHT.

A horrible realization dawned on me. I felt sick. I knew exactly what she’d just cast.

Carl: Holy shit, Donut.

Donut: UH, WHOOPS. THAT WAS UNEXPECTED.

Carl: What, what?

Donut: MEATUS GOT PULLED IN, TOO! AND SINCE HE IS STILL WRAPPED AROUND ERIS, SHE’S ALSO PART OF IT! IT SAYS THE GODDESS IS UNCONSCIOUS! HOW CAN A GODDESS BE UNCONSCIOUS? NOW HARPOCRATES IS TRYING TO HIT THE BALL! BUT HE’S AFRAID OF THE RAINBOW FOR SOME REASON. THE RAINBOW LIGHT IS JUST SHINING STAIGHT UP IN THE AIR, BUT IT'S STROBING NOW LIKE A DISCO LIGHT. THE BASE PART END OF THE WIENER IS HANGING OUT OF THE BALL AT THE OTHER SIDE. I SEE THE GREMLIN GUY AT THE END! HE’S AWAKE AND SCREAMING!

Rosetta: Ball?

Mordecai: Donut, what the hell did you do?

Donut: ROLLING BATTLE FORMATION. I GOT THE SPELL FROM THAT SKUNK’S HAT! YOU KNOW, THE STINKY WIZARD HAT? IT’S AN ATROCITY SPELL, AND THE TOWER MAKES IT REALLY POWERFUL. I DIDN’T KNOW IT WAS GOING TO BE THAT POWERFUL! BUT I CAN TELL IT WHERE TO ROLL! I CAN DRIVE IT LIKE A REMOTE CONTROL. IT’S, UH, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY BIG.

Carl: How long does it last?

Donut: IT SAYS UNTIL IT SUSTAINS ENOUGH DAMAGE!

Mordecai: Wait, wait, wait. Are you telling me you just made a ball of swine, but out of everyone? Including two gods? There has to be fifty thousand people in that thing! And the system just let you do it?

Donut: IN MY DEFENSE, I DIDN’T KNOW THE DINK WAS GOING TO BE SUCKED INTO THE SPELL, TOO. THE BACK END IS JUST SLOPPED OUT THE BACK LIKE THE BALL FORGOT TO ZIP UP.

67

The enormous ball of flesh flop-rolled over the fields, and Harpocrates followed. It would take some time for the ball to get to its destination, which was the field of corpses just on the other side of the Madness castle where I now stood. I turned my attention to the castle in front of me, plotting a route through the field of traps. I eyed an acceptable path. “Rend,” I called. “Into your carrier!”

The meatball was as tall as my waist and could now run pretty fast, but with my newly-enhanced speed, there was no way he could keep up. He started to giggle in protest, and I promised to free him again when we arrived.

I took an Invisibility potion, and then I tossed one onto Jamal and a second onto Gonk. To my surprise, that affected everyone riding the mount. They turned to an outline. Jamal hopped up and down.

“Stay on me,” I called back at Dong, who spurred Gonk forward. I knew Dong had the Twinkle Toes spell and could keep up. The yak grunted and started moving. Jamal, too, could now move terrifyingly fast with his mechanical spider legs.

Donut: SOMEBODY NEEDS TO KEEP THE MUTE HARPO GOD GUY AWAY FROM MY BALL. HE’S GOING TO BREAK IT OPEN TOO SOON!

Carl: Maybe that’ll be a good thing if he breaks it open now. They shoot all over when the ball breaks!

Donut: I’M TRYING TO WIN THIS WAR, CARL. WE NEED THEM COMPLETELY SEPARATED AND AWAY FROM THE GOD.

Carl: That’s not going to happen if Meatus is stuck in there.

Donut: OH LIKE YOUR PLANS ALWAYS GO OFF WITHOUT A HITCH. JUST LET ME GET THEM TO THE CORPSES. SOMEONE DISTRACT HARPOCRATES.

As others started fielding suggestions, I kept an eye on the chat with Louis and Rosetta as I rushed toward the Madness stronghold. I was fighting the urge to continually distract Louis with suggestions. He had landed atop the flat Reaver castle and was now running, casting a smoke cloud behind him. He hadn’t yet engaged with any enemy, but he’d managed to secure a handful of unexploded No Disassembles and Waffle Makers into his inventory. He had no way of setting them off without blowing himself up. They had to be unstable as fuck. Louis did not have invulnerability.

Samantha was on her way toward him.

The yellow glow of invulnerability remained pulsing on my own arms. Only Dong had the glow as well, and I wondered on that. I knew the system considered the sluggalos and the former tattoos as a different kind of crawler, which was why Bigs and Jamal hadn’t been affected. Pets, too. But Dong Quixote was one of the strippers. Splash Zone and Doctor Bones and Gluteus Maxx had all been pulled into the pile and were now part of the massive battle formation. So why hadn’t it worked on Dong, too? I didn’t know.

The Madness castle loomed.

As far as buildings went, this one was pretty small. It wasn’t as tiny as the castle Empress D’Nadia had erected, but it was a smaller, rectangular building, like the size of a regular supermarket. I knew there were multiple barracks buildings around the castle I couldn’t see, buried in the ground. I also knew the ground under the castle was porous. Good for one or two people to burrow up into and infiltrate, but not ideal for the diggers, which was why Juice Box had assigned one to the Dream castle instead...

That gave me an idea.

Carl: Britney, have them use the digger under the Dream castle to try to distract Harpocrates! They have these giant goddamned robots and they haven’t done anything yet with them.

Britney: Uh, okay. I’ll try. Arief controls them while Juice Box is away. I’ll ask.

Carl: For fuck’s sake, Victory. You’re not done with your meeting yet? Juice Box is missing the war!

Baroness Victory: Carl, trust me on this. You want this trial to go on as long as possible. We’re stalling on purpose. We will stall until the AI gets so pissed, it ends it.

I didn’t know what the hell that meant.

Donut: IT’S GOING TO TAKE MORE THAN JUST A GIANT ROBOT TO DISTRACT THAT GOD. HE’S TRYING TO GET HIS STOLEN WIENER BACK. GUYS ARE PRETTY SINGLE-MINDED WHEN IT COMES TO THAT SORT OF THING. WAIT, I HAVE AN IDEA. UH, LI-NA’S PEOPLE. COVER YOUR EARS.

I returned my attention to the Madness castle. According to Juice Box’s team, there was a hidden door against this back wall. We angled toward that. Behind me, Dong grunted as they stepped on a summon trap. It misfired because the teleport ban, which was good because it had been a Summon Face-Melting Acid Rats trap.

I knew the castle was surrounded by a few protections we couldn’t avoid, and at any moment...

You have been deshrouded! Your invisibility has been negated by the castle’s protections!

“Oh well,” I said as I reached the hidden door. It wasn’t truly “hidden” so much as painted the same color as the rest of the building. It had three traps on it, and I disabled them all. It was actually a rolling, garage-style door, likely the same door some of the troops had come out of when they’d come to face us. The door was wide enough that Dong wouldn’t have to dismount or even lower his lance. The door wasn’t meant to be opened from the outside, but I grabbed the bottom, and I strained. There was a pop, and the door slid upward, revealing a large room, empty of people. A line of those dune buggy things sat up against the far wall. An alarm klaxon started to sound, but it immediately cut off.

I pulled Rend back out and set him free. He took a few tentative steps into the Madness castle and giggled.

Donut’s voice echoed over the battlefield, amplified by the massive PA system. There was a shriek of feedback as Donut cleared her throat. She added reverb and a little bit of delay to her voice as well.

“HEY, DICKLESS,” she bellowed. “IT’S GONE. YOU’RE NOT GONNA BE ABLE TO PUT IT BACK ON. AND HONESTLY, DO YOU REALLY WANT IT BACK AFTER ALL THOSE PEOPLE TOUCHED IT? IT SMELLS REALLY, REALLY BAD NOW.” She paused. “YEAH, THAT’S RIGHT. I’M TALKING TO YOU. SO STOP TRYING TO GET IT BACK. YOU SHOULD JUST ACCEPT YOUR BODY HOW IT IS. I HAVE A SONG FOR YOU. MY FRIEND LIL WAYNE WROTE IT. IT’S ABOUT WIENERS.”

Topping at number one on May 3rd, 2008, it’s “Lollipop!”

The very ground shook as the distant sound reached us.

Donut: IT’S WORKING! HE STOPPED! HE’S COVERING HIS EARS!

Carl: Goddamnit, Donut. What did we say about pissing off gods?

Donut: I DO FEEL BAD ABOUT THE INSULTS BECAUSE MORDECAI SAYS HE’S NORMALLY A NICE GOD, BUT HE’S TRYING TO HURT OUR FRIENDS. BY THE WAY, THIS IS AN EXAMPLE OF A BASS-HEAVY SONG, CARL. FEEL HOW THE GROUND SHAKES? IT’S DESIGNED TO UPSET OLD PEOPLE AND THOSE WHO DON’T KNOW HOW TO HAVE FUN.

Britney: The digger is coming!

Donut: OH, GOOD! I’LL START A BATTLE PLAYLIST. THE BALL WILL GET TO THE CORPSES IN LIKE TEN MINUTES. PEOPLE MESSAGE ME YOUR SONGS.

Thankfully, the music wasn’t that loud from here. Behind me, both Jamal and Bigs were bouncing to the distant song. Dong looked annoyed. His eyes flashed, and I suspected he was sending a song request to Donut.

“Come on, guys,” I said. “Let’s try to clear this as quickly as we can, and we can be nearby when the others get here.”

“Oh, are the others coming back?” Jamal asked.

“Uh, sort of,” I said, stepping into the castle.

Entering the Castle of the Madness.

* * *

I cast Ping.

The submarine-like sonar sound echoed out, revealing that the castle had about twenty soldiers within. Of the twenty dots, only three were purple, indicating them as offworlders. That was it. Eighteen of them were in a room just around the corner. Two—one white and one purple—were in a room adjacent to the throne room.

That was the operating theater. That would be where Architect Houston spent most of his time, and that purple dot was likely him.

Your Book of Voodoo has updated with three entries.

I paused at that. I opened up Find Crawler, clicked a few buttons, and a list of three crawlers appeared. The moment that happened, four additional dots appeared on my map. Three crawlers and the corpse of a crawler. Two of the crawlers were mixed in with the 18 other soldiers. Those two both had the light blue glow, indicating they were in the Madness military, likely under a Conscription spell. The third crawler did not have the glow, and they were in the room with Architect Houston and the white NPC dot. The corpse was also in there.

I focused on the corpse. Corpse of Crawler Zeynep, level 58. I wasn’t close enough to examine her further. I sighed. I knew her. I’d had her in my chat, but we hadn’t spoken at all on this floor.

I’d met her on the previous floor during that clusterfuck of an assault on the Desperado Club when we’d assassinated Astrid. Zeynep along with three other members of her party had been dancing at the club, and I’d tried to get them to leave. The sole male of the group, a large, burly man named Emir had been drunk, and he’d attacked me. I’d stomped his ass and got them to leave. Zeynep had been the voice of reason during the whole confrontation.

But the group that was now here was different. It was the same two women who’d been at the club, but the man—Emir—wasn’t here. The two women were conscripted and mixed in with the guards. I didn’t have either of them in my chat.

The third living member of the group was someone that was off and on the top ten, and I did have her in my chat, though we’d never really spoke. I’d met her briefly during the Butcher’s Masquerade. Burcu. She was a badger-headed porsuk, and her class was swashbuckler, same as both Tran and Bautista. I was pretty sure that she, too, had a quest involving the memorial crystal that was now stuck in the middle of the giant, rolling ball of crawlers. She’d been part of the fight to grab the thing.

She wasn’t moving, and she did not have the blue glow of conscription.

Then, I realized the NPC that was in the room with her and Houston had a green glow, indicating them as someone from Team Retribution. For a moment, I feared some sort of double cross, but just as I thought that, the NPC dot turned to the X of a corpse. It wouldn’t let me examine it. I sent a quick note to Britney, and then I opened a new chat.

Carl: Burcu, I know we haven’t talked, but can you see this?

Warning: Because of repeated warnings, this message has not been delivered, and the log has been sent to your adjutant for review. Burcu is unaffiliated with the Princess Posse, and any planning may be construed as illegal corroboration.

I growled.

Your Book of Voodoo has been updated with an entry from Crawler Burcu.

Huh, I thought. I pulled the book from my inventory and quickly flipped through.

I went to the entry page for Burcu, which was the last page of the book. It wasn’t an entry directed to me, but she was swiftly drawing a map of the surgical theater. My eyes took in the line of Xs with the notification “Fireball traps” over them. She started to rapidly write something about Houston, but before I could read it, the book slammed shut on its own, like it was possessed.

Warning: This is still cheating, you clown. Nice try, though. I do like a good loophole, but you need to be using this damn book for something else.

Outside, the song changed. I missed the title, but it was a guy talk-singing about a detachable penis.

Donut’s voice boomed over the PA, now mostly muted since we were inside the castle. “THIS SONG WAS A TERRIBLE CHOICE, CHOI MI-SEON 2. IT’LL GIVE HIM THE WRONG IDEA.”

Carl: What’s the god doing now?

Donut: HE WAS COMING TOWARD ME, BUT THAT STUPID SONG CHOICE MADE HIM TURN BACK AROUND. IT’S OKAY. THE BALL HAS A BIG HEAD START NOW, AND I THINK THE DIGGER IS COMING.

On the map, the group of dots shifted. All of them, including the two crawlers started moving in our direction. At the same moment, a list of psionic attacks started spamming across my interface. None stuck. None of us seemed affected.

“They’re coming,” Dong said.

Rend giggled, his voice now deep and terrifying.

The group rushed into the room and stopped when they saw me and Dong. I held out my hand, which still glowed yellow. None of them had the invulnerability.

“Well, this is going to be fun,” I said.

68

Slam! The final mercenary crashed against the wall after getting brained by Dong. The gnoll mercenary exploded into a pile of coins as he crashed to the ground. The coins scattered over the concrete floor of the room, spinning and twirling.

The older stripper looked absolutely menacing atop the blood-soaked yak, whose horns still held an impaled guard. Gonk, seeing the battle was now over, started casually gnawing on the leg of the mercenary—also a gnoll—impaled upon him.

Rend had likewise managed to get in there and kill a taurin mercenary who’d already been punched unconscious. He was leaning into the open chest and blowing bubbles with the gore, giggling each time blood splashed onto the floor.

“Jesus Christ, Rend,” I said. “Don’t be gross.”

He looked up at me and smiled big, his tooth gleaming. He made a noise that kind of sounded like “Bubbles.”

Behind me, Jamal was hopping in circles around the two terrified crawlers as Bigs tied them up. The two women were named Selvi and Tuba, and they both sobbed. I couldn’t tell if it was from anger or relief. I’d ordered the shark and Bigs the slug to not hurt them, but the one named Tuba bled profusely from a wound on her side, given to her by Jamal who’d been forced to swipe her spear away with one of his mechanical legs. Both crawlers had a nasty, no-healing debuff that we couldn’t circumvent. It was a side effect bestowed upon those under Conscription when they refused to fight.

Selvi was no longer human, but an elf. She was a level-57 Valide, which appeared to be some sort of healer class. Tuba was a human and level-56 Boring Ol’ Fighter. Both were pretty young, in their early twenties, and they both struggled and fought against their bindings. We dropped a pair of Mute containments on them both, just in case they were overwhelmed by their debuff and forced to cast a spell.

Tuba would bleed out soon if I didn’t get them broken from the spell. And I couldn’t do that until we defeated the Madness. We needed to hurry this up.

Outside, “Little Red Corvette” by Prince blasted. The massive ball of crawlers and mercenaries continued to roll in our direction, but Harpocrates no longer pursued. The god instead moved toward Donut again, but he was now waylaid by one of the diggers, which I still hadn’t seen. I hadn’t heard from Louis or Samantha in a while, but his health was still full according to the warlord display.

Dong dismounted Gonk and examined the gold coins on the ground. That happened sometimes when one was killed by Dong’s crust sock. One of the coins still spun, and he reached down and snatched it up. As I watched, he took the coin, kissed it, opened up the bloody sock, and dropped the coin within with a clink.

“I thought they were all nickels in there,” I said.

Dong was muttering to himself and didn’t answer me. I turned back to the carnage and quickly looted the bodies, including a pair of viceroys. That left a single viceroy in the castle, Admiral Houston himself.

Behind me, Selvi and Tuba groaned. I deliberately didn’t ask them any questions. If I did, and they answered, they’d receive additional penalties from their debuff. The best thing we could do for them was tie them up and hope they were strong enough to resist the almost unstoppable urges they had to fight back.

“All buttoned up,” Bigs said as she finished circling Selvi. She shook her hatchet threateningly. “Don’t you be trying to escape.”

“Dong, Rend with me. Rest of you stay here,” I said. “Keep them safe and make sure Gonk doesn’t wander off. We’ll be right back. Do not hurt them. They’re good guys who are under spells. Do you two understand?”

“Jamal will keep them safe.” He did a little hop and spurted a flame.

“Can I kill one of them?” Bigs asked. “That one is already bleeding pretty good.”

“Holy shit, Bigs. She’s a friend. One of us. A good guy. Keep them safe.”

“I’ll wait until he’s gone,” Bigs whispered loudly at the two women. “Then one of you is getting the chop.”

They huddled closer together, both crying. A bloody Rend started giggling at them, which didn’t help

I sighed. Dong and I were the only ones with invulnerability, and we needed to move fast. “You know what, Bigs? Change of plans. Go on a reconnaissance. See if you can find and open the front door.”

“Yeah, baby!” Bigs said as she slithered off down a main hallway, trailing orange slime. I could see it was littered with summon traps that would no longer work.

“Keep them safe,” I reiterated to Jamal. “And Rend, you stay here, too.” We turned and hurried down the hall in the opposite direction. The surgical theater and the throne room were right next to each other, just around the corner.

I could hear the screaming as I stepped into the hall, though as soon as I heard it, the sound cut off sharply. The hallways here were wide and unadorned, and the floors were a white, speckled tile. Everything was crisp, clean. Well-lit. I was reminded of a hospital.

With each step, Dong’s armored feet echoed loudly. His sock, I realized, was significantly larger than it had been before, and it dragged on the floor behind him.

Samantha: LOUIS, WHERE ARE YOU?

Louis: I’m stuck. It says level six, hallway C. I stepped on a snare trap, and I can’t move for a few minutes. I filled the area with a poison cloud, but it doesn’t work on them. They have these little dog robot things that shoot darts... Guys, I’m in trouble. I have some No Disassembles, but the explosions are too big. I can’t do it where I’m stuck. I don’t know what to do.

Samantha: OKAY, I HAVE AN IDEA TO SAVE YOU, BUT YOU GOTTA TRUST ME.

We turned the corner, and the screaming started up again. I paused, giving Dong a look. Again, the screaming abruptly cut off.

“That... that sounds like it’s him screaming. Architect Houston.”

Dong shrugged as we continued.

The door to the surgical theater stood at the end of the hall, right next to the throne room, which sat unguarded. The theater entrance was just a pair of swinging double doors with a sign that read “Do Not Enter” over it. There was a second, neon-like sign that read “Amplification in process.” It was lit.

There was an advanced alarm trap and a trap door trap in front of both the surgical theater and the throne room. The trap door trap was interesting, but I didn’t have time to examine it now. I quickly took all of them and stored them away.

Bigs suddenly appeared, coming from the opposite side. She slimed up and said, “Yo, daddy-o. The front door is just sitting there all wide open. I don’t see nothing out there except a bunch of fields and shit.”

“You couldn’t see a giant, rolling ball of people coming in our direction?”

“You smoking jelly bellies, boss? Ain’t nothing like that.” She looked back, as if she could see from here. “But there could be, I guess. It’s dark as a wombat’s asshole out there.”

“Okay,” I said. I pointed to the throne room. “Go in there and wait. Don’t leave until I tell you.”

“Aight,” the slug said and started sliming into the room. The moment she entered, the notification appeared.

System Message: The Throne Room of the Madness is being occupied by forces from The Princess Posse. If they can hold for six hours, the Madness will be defeated!

I double checked to make sure the immortality remained on my arms, and I cracked my neck.

“Stay behind me,” I said. I prepared Tripper. I was going to walk in, eyeball the location of all the supposed fire traps, make certain Burcu wasn’t in the line of fire, and then cast.

I pushed open the double doors, and I stepped into the surgical theater of Architect Houston of the Madness. Dong jumped in behind me with a wheezy war cry.

I stopped dead, preventing Dong from entering the room further the moment I eyed the circle of traps in the room. I wouldn’t be casting Tripper on these.

“Huh,” was all Dong said as we both paused at the door, seeing what was going on within.

* * *

I wasn’t sure what I was expecting to see, but this was not it.

The large, octagon-shaped room itself was pretty much what we’d anticipated: a crisp, starkly white room with a group of surgical tables in the middle, surrounded by a raised viewing area so students could sit and watch the in-process surgical procedures. A massive, cumbersome mechanical apparatus hung from the center of the high ceiling. Dozens of mechanical arms came off the machine, and it whisked and whirred as it worked.

There were four tables, and three were occupied.

The fourth table was empty, but it appeared as if twenty gallons of blood had been dumped on it from above. The blood was shockingly red in the white room. The source of the blood was gone, but a familiar-looking cleaner bot that was the same model as our own—but painted solid white—was studiously at work, slurping the blood off the floor.

The first occupied table contained the corpse of the crawler Zeynep. They had done... something to her. Something unspeakable. Something I won’t describe. I couldn’t bear to look at her for more than a cursory moment. Still, I caught her lifeless eyes in the bright light, and despite all the other craziness in the room, those dead eyes caught my own just long enough for me to feel accused by her. Accused for what she’d been forced to endure.

The second table contained Burcu, who was alive. She struggled against what appeared to be magical bonds. She opened her mouth to say something, but no words came out. Dried blood ran down the front of her badger face and throat. Tears streamed.

The third table... I blinked, not comprehending what I saw. There were two forms on the table. One was the blank, dead corpse of the changeling, whose name had been Namico. It said his cause of death was Died on the Surgical Table, which was the same as Zeynep.

The changeling had suffered a similar, but not as... thorough fate as Zeynep. It appeared as if he had been peeled open. He wasn’t truly on the table, but upside down, hovering about ten inches over the other form, clutched in the mechanical arms of the machine hanging from the ceiling. The changeling faced downward, offset and facing in the wrong direction as the table’s other occupant, with only their torsos overlapping.

Architect Houston was the form. His robes were gone. His mask was gone, revealing the horrific, multi-limbed, half bug, half monster that he was. He was on his back on the table, facing the dead changeling that dangled above him. He was awake, saying something to the machine.

The machine was... connecting Houston to the changeling. Physically connecting him. Things were coming out of the changeling and going into Houston and vice-versa.

The giant machine itself was something straight from a mad scientist’s fever dream of a lair. It was a chandelier covered in robotic arms and surgical tools, all spinning and waving about, silently whisking as they worked.

The thing was made of gleaming chrome, and the moment my eyes focused on it, an info box appeared.

The Grease Monkey. Viceroy Portable Surgical and Scientific Exploration Unit. Outpost version.

Tech-based surgical repair unit automaton.

This thing isn’t really necessary here in the dungeon where we use potions and magic and basically free, universal healthcare to keep your UTIs in check, unless, you know, it’s funny not to. You’re welcome about that, by the way. But out in the wide universe, outside the center system where literally hundreds of thousands of different species struggle daily to survive? What does one do for healthcare, especially when you’re far from home, or you’re afflicted with something your local doctors simply can’t fix?

You can’t just travel to the inner system and take advantage of their free healing. Not if you’re not a citizen. And if you’re one of those species the local doctor has never even heard of, what the hell are you going to do? Die because of a hangnail?

There’s a reason why the Viceroys provide free transportation to their systems. And if there’s a mass casualty event, or better yet, a war? Heck, they’ll come to you. And when they do, they’ll bring one of these things with them.

The Portable Surgical Automaton Unit, colloquially known as the Grease Monkey, is a marvel of technology. Even if your species is one of those “What the fuck is that thing?” this automaton will analyze your anatomy, take you apart, and put you back together again good as new. Well, mostly.

What a lot of people don’t know is that surgical repair is actually the secondary purpose of these machines. Viceroys have no passion for healing. Their passion is science. Understanding the universe. Understanding everything from the atom to the tree, no matter the cost.

They’ll gladly operate on anybody, no questions ask. But it still ain’t free.

Nothing is free in this galaxy. That should be perfectly clear by now.

The good news is if you can’t pay right away, that’s okay. The viceroys have multiple payment options and opportunities available for you. And if you want to sign yourself over to their post-biological form studies corp, all your bills will be wiped away.

Incidentally, Architect Houston, who is currently being operated on by his own machine, is the prime of the Viceroys not because he was elected so, or because of some innate ability to lead his people, but because he’s made the most scientific discoveries. Most of which were made with the help of this very machine you see before you now.

“Stay back,” Houston called at me. He was clearly in pain as the machine continued to work. Hundreds of tiny little arms appeared, and they were connecting what appeared to be nerves from the changeling’s neck to Houston. “You take one step in here, and it’ll set off the traps, incinerating us all. “I’m almost done. I’m almost there. You’ll have your victory, Carl. I care no longer for what happens here. Let me finish. Let me finish, and your fellow crawler doesn’t have to die. This is my life’s work. I’m almost there.”

I spared another glance at the ring of traps circling the room. They were up, out of reach on the second floor of the surgical theater, all facing downward from the edge of the observation deck. There were eight of them, though it appeared just one was enough to absolutely kill everything in the room.

Containment Breech Trap Mark IV.

Warning: This trap is Tripper proof.

Warning: This trap is chained in a sequence.

Warning: Removing or triggering a single trap in the sequence will activate all remaining traps in the sequence.

Warning: This trap has a dead man’s switch. It is attached to Architect Houston of the Madness. If he is killed, this trap will automatically trigger.

I had never seen nor heard of anything like that, but the traps were each the size of a shoe box, much bigger than the regular, Lego-sized trap modules. These things were more like weapons than traps.

They would shoot literal Sheol fire into the room, instantly incinerating everything. They would be triggered by anyone who wasn’t affiliated with the Madness who stepped on the floor.

My invulnerability wasn’t as good as the one I’d had earlier. Still, I was pretty sure I’d be fine, but I wasn’t positive. Burcu didn’t have the invulnerability, and she would absolutely get turned to ash.

Donut: HARPOCRATES RIPPED THE GIANT ROBOT IN HALF AND THREW HALF OF IT AT ME! IT DIDN’T FLY FAR ENOUGH TO GET TO ME, BUT HE’S COMING IN MY DIRECTION NOW. I TURNED THE MUSIC OFF, BUT HE’S STILL COMING! I’M THINKING I SHOULDN’T HAVE SAID SO MANY MEAN THINGS TO HIM. GUYS SURE ARE SENSITIVE WHEN YOU MAKE FUN OF THEIR WIENERS. HE EVEN MARKED ME FOR DEATH!

Carl: Get out of the tower! Someone get Donut out of there!

Donut: I STILL HAVE TIME. THE BALL IS ALMOST THERE. I CAN’T LEAVE THE TOWER UNTIL THEY GET TO THE CORPSES! IF I DON’T STAY, THEN EVERYONE IS IN TROUBLE. EVERYONE ON OUR TEAM MIGHT DIE!

Li Jun: He’s going to get to you before the ball reaches the other field. I have an idea. Speaker number 11 is still on the back of a cart. Mute all the speakers except that one. Play the song I just sent you.

Li Na: Jun, no. No!

Li Jun: Sorry, little sister. I’ll jump before he catches me.

It took everything I had to focus on the task at hand. Li Jun was distracting the angry god so Donut could finish her plan, and it was all I could do to not scream.

More messages flooded in, including a hysterical one from Louis and Samantha both. The very world rumbled as something else happened out there.

I sent another message to Burcu, and to my surprise, this time it was delivered.

Carl: I don’t know if this is going to come through, but we’re going to get you out of here. Do you know what he’s doing?

Burcu: There you are! None of my messages were delivered. He cut out my tongue and voice box. I can’t speak. He tortured my mother. He killed her right in front of me. Free me so I can kill him. These bindings won’t let me cast magic. You owe me, Carl. You killed my father. Free me now.

I had no idea what she was talking about in regards to her father. I reexamined the trap and then examined her bindings. The trap required someone to step on the floor to be set off. The bindings on the table appeared to be controlled via a switch on the wall. On the surgical table, Houston cast a spell, surprising me. But the spell was directed at the corpse hovering over him. The dead changeling started to thrash, but the mechanical arms held it in place.

I turned to Dong. “Keep an eye on Houston. Kill him if he starts to cast anything else.”

“Kill him how? I don’t have ranged weapons.”

“By stepping into the room.”

Dong looked nervously at the yellow glow on his arms. “Uh, are you sure? What are you doing?”

I took a step back, ran, and activated Walk on Air as I rushed across the room. The skill was not a flying skill, and it didn’t work all that great. It was more of a glorified long jump. I aimed for the closest table, which was the empty one covered in blood. I landed heavily, slipped in the blood, and flew onto my back, hitting the table hard. Blood splattered everywhere.

The white cleaner bot let out a familiar, shrill cry and zoomed up at me and beeped.

“Sorry,” I said to the thing. It beeped again and moved closer to me, as if it was going to attack. I reached up and grabbed it with two hands. I felt a familiar haptic buzz, indicating I could stick it in my inventory, which surprised me. I didn’t question it, and I took it.

Across the way, Houston was crying in pain as the machine appeared to start removing some of his lower guts, letting them slop onto the floor. Above him, the changeling started to vibrate. I stood, judging the distance to the next table which held the corpse of Zeynep. From that table, I could reach the switch, which would turn off her bindings. The Walk on Air had a one minute cooldown, but I could make the next jump without it. I still didn’t know how the hell we were going to get her out of here once I got to her. I hoped the skill was strong enough to let me carry her.

“Don’t leave the table when the bindings are gone!” I called at Burcu. “Trust me. We’ll get him, but let me get you out of the room first.” I jumped, and I landed on the second table, landing amongst the gore of Zeynep. The body fell apart when I landed, much of it sloughing to the floor. It did not set off the trap. I’d damaged the corpse enough it disappeared from my map. I held down my gorge. The switch was right there on the wall. I turned, and Burcu continued to thrash, an enraged look about her as she struggled.

She’s going to jump off that table the moment I hit it.

“Carl. Do not... Do not press that button. I can stop it all,” Houston called. “You don’t understand. It is called the beautiful place. I can get there. They are the key. The changelings. This world. Why do you think we come here, cycle after cycle? You’ve helped make the greatest discovery in history, and you don’t even realize it. It was here all long, right under our mandibles.”

I quickly sifted through my inventory and found what I was looking for.

“Sorry,” I said to Burcu as I pulled out the wand of Nighty-Night. Her eyes went wide, and she started to thrash as I pointed it at her and cast. She immediately conked out, and a 5-minute timer appeared above her head. I reached over and hit the switch, and the magical bindings around her disappeared. I prepared to jump onto her table. This was going to be tricky because I needed to land around her, not on her. If I slipped...

“Uh, Carl,” Dong called from the doorway.

Donut: GO FASTER LI JUN! HE IS CATCHING UP!

Rosetta: Eris is awake, but she’s still in the middle of the ball! She’s trying to escape, but she still can’t move. She just removed everyone’s invulnerability, but they’re still invulnerable anyway. The Rolling Battle Formation spell keeps them immobile and invulnerable. But they’ll be exposed the moment the ball breaks!

While the 50,000 people in the giant ball were still invulnerable because of the ball spell itself, I was no longer safe. I looked down at my arm, and the yellow glow was gone.

“Oh, fuck.”

At that moment, I heard Mordecai’s voice. You can’t save them all, kid. I didn’t even know this Burcu person, and by all accounts, she was kind of an ass. And now I was in serious trouble because I hadn’t simply let her die. I could have ended this just by stepping into the room, and now it was too late.

Li Jun: Sister. Tell Zhang I’m sorry I didn’t get to say goodbye to his face. Tell him I won our bet. And you. Protect him. I want you to be kind to the others. This was my decision. I had to do it. I know you get angry. If you must, be angry with me. I love you with all I have. I love you with the moon and the sun and all the stars in the sky. I will see you soon, and I will tell mama you said hello.

Across from me, a health bar had appeared over the viceroy and started to rapidly lower. Above him, the changeling continued to thrash. They now looked like they were two pieces of hot cheese that had just been pulled apart.

The changeling started to change, despite being dead. Tentacles, or roots, actually, grew from its lower half.

“Yes!” Houston called as he died. He was sobbing. “I found you. I found you. After all this time. You were right here all long. It’s really you, isn’t it? Not just an avatar. It’s you. It’s you.”

I took a Fine Healing potion, and threw it at the warlord. It crashed against the man’s alien head.

“Gah!” he cried as his health rocketed back up. “No! No! What did you do?” Above him, the creature that used to be the changeling started to scream. Vines appeared out of nowhere and wrapped their way up the machine. A high-pitched, shrill, bone-shaking scream came from the creature, who remained in the clutches of the machine.

I ignored this as I jumped across the way, landing on the table with the unconscious Burcu. I wobbled as the table started to roll. I wasn’t expecting that. I reached down to pick Burcu up and pull her over my shoulder.

And that’s when the table tipped over.

I saw the disaster unfolding in slow motion.

You can do that, sometimes. In the midst of chaos. You can see it. You can focus on the event horizon and see it so, so clearly you wonder how you never saw it before.

Burcu had awakened the moment I touched her, and I met her eyes as she fell toward the white, clean floor. And like her dead mother, I saw accusation there. At the same moment, I sailed over her and hit the floor with my bare feet.

“You don’t know what you’ve done,” was all Houston said in the moments before the traps fired.

For my part, I activated Gloom Wraith Phase the very moment my feet touched the ground.

I shot forward in the direction I was facing, which was toward Architect Houston, still alive, still on the table, still under the creature surgically attached to him.

I pushed through them, everything moving in slow motion as the fire descended upon the room from all directions at once. I passed through the naked Houston, unraveling him. I felt the tendrils whip around me, despite my noncorporeal form. My shoulder felt as if I hit a solid wall, and I was suddenly spinning.

It was there, spinning with me, facing me. The creature, looking into my eyes. It said nothing. It pulsated with black energy, regarding me. It just looked at me, and then it leaned in, as if to kiss me. And in that moment, as we still spun, it changed, turning momentarily into a face I recognized.

Li Jun.

I couldn’t understand what was happening. Just that it was important. We were moving and frozen at the same time. Spinning yet stopped. It was like that moment with Paulie. Frozen in time. Moving at incredible speed, all at once.

“Thank you for giving me more time with my sister and my best friend,” Li Jun said as roots wrapped around him and suddenly whisked him away.

I moved through the double doors of the room, past Dong, just barely missing him by inches, as I hit the floor and slid.

* * *

I blinked, and I realized I’d been knocked unconscious for just a moment. Dong was over me, casting a Healing spell. I felt my shoulder crack painfully into place. I wasn’t burned, but I felt the heat from the room next door. The castle was on fire. Bigs had abandoned the throne room and was shouting.

I’d cast Gloom Wraith Phase to escape the room, but I’d hit something magical on the way out, which had injured me. I’d seen something, but I wasn’t sure if it was real. It felt like a dream. Either way, Architect Houston was dead. Burcu was dead. I’d barely escaped.

There were multiple messages on my screen, but a single of message stood out, like a punch in the gut.

Li Jun: Thank you for giving me more time with my sister and my best friend.

This message is from a deceased crawler.

“No, no, Li Jun. No,” I whispered, my voice hoarse. I thought of that moment when we’d been face to face. Was that real? What did that mean?

I took a deep breath. Donut and Li Na were both screaming in chat, but I pushed it away for now. I couldn’t look. I just couldn’t. I needed to breathe.

The system wouldn’t let me.

System Message: Architect Houston of the Madness has fallen. Credit for the kill has been given to Warlord Carl of the Princess Posse.

System Message: The Madness has been defeated.

System Message: All assets of the Madness have been awarded to the Princess Posse.

System Message: Battlefield conditions have been met. Larracos is no longer safe.

Warning. Warning. Warning.

System Message: The Peeling Phase is upon us. This city is open. First to take the castle, wins.

And remember, folks. Only one team can win. Alliances don’t matter in the end.

This was followed by a barrage of messages.

Baroness Victory: I’m sorry. We tried to delay as long as possible. Our attempts have backfired. We were out maneuvered.

Warlord Juice Box: We need help! They’re everywhere! The War Mages aren’t our friends. We need help!

Britney: They’re breaking in. I have to run!

Warlord Message: A full quorum adjudication has determined no cheating has occurred by any warlords. Any players under an administrative hold have now been released.

Warlord Message: After a careful deliberation, it has been determined that the Non-Team Entity known as the War Mage Rebellion will not be allowed access to Larracos until the Peeling phase.

Warlord Message: Since we are now in the Peeling Phase, this ruling is rendered moot. However, the system has determined that the Quorum’s ruling has given the War Mage Rebellion standing.

Warlord Message: Warlord Agatha the War Mage Rebellion has proposed three emergency action items.

Action item one. “The War Mage Rebellion be given full resources and access to the warlord system. In addition, we are now allowed to claim thrones for our own.”

This request has been granted. And frankly, you already had this, so this was pretty much a waste of an action item.

Action item two. “The War Mage Rebellion be given full access to the Conscription spell and all its benefits.”

This request has been granted. The Conscription spell will now allow unaffiliated players to be conscripted into the War Mage Rebellion.

Action item three. “During the Peeling Phase, revert to the rules of the original Faction Wars. Warlords and all soldiers of a defeated team should automatically die if they lose during the Peeling Phase.”

I mean. Why not? You want drama. Now we got drama.

This request has been granted with a caveat. From this point forward, every affiliated soldier and warlord on a team who is still on the battlefield will now drop dead where they stand the moment the team is defeated.

Holy shit. My mind reeled. Agatha? What the actual fuck.

And the last part was terrifying. There could only be one winner. It was either us or Juice Box’s team. It was all or nothing. Us versus them, exactly what we’d been trying to avoid.

But the gut punches kept coming.

System Message: The Throne Room of Team Retribution is being occupied by forces from the War Mage Rebellion.

Per the Peeling Phase ruleset, they now have control of the city defense system. There is a half-hour grace period before the towers are active.

If they can hold the throne room for six hours, the War Mage Rebellion will be declared winner of this season of Faction Wars.

PART 4 OF 4

THE PEELING OF LARRACOS.

SEVERAL DAYS EARLIER

Several days earlier.

“No,” Katia said, looking about. “No, please. Not this.” A bird appeared on her shoulder. A bird with the skull of a child, and it rubbed its small, ghoulish head against Katia’s in a gesture of comfort. This was her card from the previous floor. The bird’s name was Annie.

Something had gone wrong. I wasn’t supposed to be here. I was in Katia’s dream. I was supposed to have gone and experienced a dream from Shi Maria’s point of view, and Katia was supposed to have faced this dream on her own.

I remembered, sort of, what had happened. We’d taken the potions and had both gone a little loopy. In that moment, I’d felt something strange. It was as if... as if I’d been wrapped in plastic this whole time, and for just a moment, that plastic was gone. I had popped open like a tree whose bindings has suddenly been cut. My reach wasn’t far, but it was clearly beyond what it was supposed to be.

Katia and I had reached forward and touched hands. Edgar had yelled, and Imani was there, separating us.

But she had only separated us physically. There was a second connection between Katia and myself, and that was what had bound me to her dream.

In that moment, I’d connected with more than just Katia. I’d caught the briefest of glimpses of everyone nearby. Of Mordecai and that deep, bottomless well of sadness within. Of Rosetta, and the tired rage. Of Edgar the tortoise and the strange sense of both fear and wonder at all the things he was suddenly remembering from his hundreds of past lives. Of Bucket Boy the crocodilian NPC, who wondered why he didn’t remember the things the other strippers said they did, and the shame he felt because of it, like it meant he somehow wasn’t worthy.

And Imani. Oh, god. Imani. Most of what I saw with the others was emotion and maybe an inkling at what caused it, but with her, and Katia, I saw more. I saw what Imani carried. It was just a glimpse, but it was so, so much. She’d fled her home in Detroit, and her older brothers and sisters blamed her for leaving the family. But she had to. She had to get away. She’d earned her nursing certificate and found a job in what she considered the middle of nowhere. A relatively small, beautiful town where drugs and violence and despair were just something one saw on the news. She was always chasing peace despite the overwhelming guilt she carried, like a heavy sack she couldn’t put down. She was sick of being looked at as the one in charge, the one who had to make the tough decisions. She didn’t want that responsibility, yet it always fell to her, despite her always being the youngest one in the room.

She was in love with Chris, and I had no idea. She loved his simplicity. His quiet kindness.

It felt so private, so dirty for me to have learned about this in such a way. Like I had broken into her house and spied her utterly naked, all without her knowing.

She hadn’t invited me into her mind, and I should have looked away. But I couldn’t. I didn’t know how. My only solace was that I knew—somehow I knew—I’d forget much of this when I finally woke up.

And I had learned all that after just the briefest glimpse.

Donut, thankfully, wasn’t in the room for this. She’d been sprayed by the skunks and was still in the saferoom. That was a relief. Nobody deserved to have their mind invaded like that.

It sees us like this, I thought. This is what the dungeon sees. This is what the dungeon knows.

But that wasn’t true, was it? It was in our heads, yes, but it wasn’t that deep. It interpreted things incorrectly all the time. It didn’t see what I saw. Or maybe it did, but it just didn’t understand because it had never been human.

And what I saw with Imani was just a fraction of what I now knew about Katia.

We stood at the threshold to a hospital. There was a large statue of a chipmunk wearing a bucket hat in the entrance, a generic, please-don’t-sue-us interpretation of one of the duo from Chip and Dale. A children’s hospital. All the signs were in Icelandic. Here, in the dream, I couldn’t read the writing but spoken words still translated themselves in my mind.

Katia and I remained attached. I looked, and our hands were intertwined, my skin touching hers, as if we’d been surgically affixed. Her bird was like that, too.

Katia took a deep breath and moved closer to me so our arms touched. She gave me a shy smile, not at all surprised I was here with her.

A second Katia, this one a memory ghost, rushed toward the door from the outside, clutching a folder filled with papers.

The memory ghost opened the door. I was shocked at how different, how smaller she looked. This was not the Katia I knew. This woman, struggling with papers as she bungled her way through the front door of the hospital was not someone I would ever give a second glance.

The Katia I knew. The real Katia. She was a blazing presence. A force of nature. I knew that’s not how it started, and the Katia I first met on the second floor was much like this memory ghost before us now, but seeing the two contrasted at the same time was shocking.

“This is the moment,” the real Katia said. “This is the second worst moment in my life.”

The woman in the doorway paused, eyes going wide. I turned to see the man who had caught her attention. He was older, balding. This was Fannar. Her ex. Another professor. He’d had an affair with a student, and she’d reported him, and they had done nothing.

“What are you doing here?” the memory ghost of Katia asked.

“Telling them the truth,” Fannar said, pushing past her.

“No,” both Katias said at the same time. From her shoulder, Annie cawed.

Later, as the dream continued, as we watched Katia plead with the woman who would ultimately deny her application to adopt, and as both versions of Katia shouted He had no right!, we watched in silence as the woman told Katia there was nothing she could do, and that Katia should just go home and focus on her own health.

But Katia didn’t go home. She left the office, she turned into a bathroom, and she locked herself into a stall. We followed, unwillingly observing as she sat down on the toilet, put her fist into her mouth, and she silently screamed. We stood in silent witness as the dream Katia screamed and screamed and screamed.

After what seemed like forever, she wiped her tears, stood, and marched out of the bathroom.

She paused in the doorway to the bathroom, and she turned down the hallway leading away from the exit.

“I was so scared I’d never see her again,” the now Katia said as we followed, floating along like ghosts. “I’d already visited Annie several times at this point, and I hoped the nurses hadn’t yet been told about what Fannar had said.”

We watched dream Katia hesitantly poke her head through a pair of doors, stopping at a nurse station. “I just wanted to say hello to Annie,” dream Katia said to the nurse sitting there, who was reading an English-language romance novel.

“Oh, hi Katia. She’s having a good day today,” the nurse said without even looking up.

Katia thanked the nurse and entered a long room near the end of the hall. There were six or seven cribs in here, but all were empty except one. The little girl was on her back, playing with her toes and happily babbling. A blue, stuffed dog sat in the crib. Several colorful cutouts decorated the walls. It was a stark contrast with the machines dotted around the room.

“Hello, my love,” dream Katia said to the baby as she entered. Another nurse was at the counter and smiled as Katia entered.

“Hello, Katia,” the nurse said. “You can pick her up. Just be careful. She hasn’t pulled anything out today, and we are trying to keep it that way, right little Annie?” The nurse wrote something down and then turned and left the room, leaving Katia alone with the baby.

Little Annie giggled and stood up in the crib. If it wasn’t for the strange, splint-like device on the baby’s arm—which appeared to be a harness to keep her from yanking out her IV—I’d have no idea she was sick. But then I saw the little girl’s eyes, which didn’t seem to focus. Only then could I see something truly was wrong. Though Annie didn’t seem to know that. She let out a loud, happy laugh at the sound of Katia’s voice.

“I have nothing left,” dream Katia said to little Annie, keeping her voice happy and playful. “You were all I had, and I’m not even good enough for that.”

“You know that’s not true, right?” I said as we both watched.

“Brain cancer,” the now Katia said, smiling lovingly at the little girl who bounced up and down at the edge of the crib. “It is such an aggressive, evil thing. It’s not fair that we can now just drink a potion, and it’s gone. I was sick, too. I should never have tried to hide that. But I was fine and would be for a while. Long enough.” She reached down to touch the face of the little girl, and her hand went right through. “How could someone abandon such an angel?”

“How long ago was this?” I asked as the dream Katia picked up the little girl and held her in her arms, being careful not to tangle the IV tube. Tears streamed down the face of both versions of the woman.

“About a year ago. She was gone before it happened, thank god. She died in this room, I think. I could have taken her home and given her love, but I couldn’t even have that. She died without anybody to call her own. Nobody even told me. It wasn’t until I ran into that same nurse who was reading the book. She’d said it so casually, too, like it hadn’t mattered. ‘Oh, that girl? She passed a few weeks ago.’” The now Katia reached up and stroked the other Annie, the bird on her shoulder. “She was like me, in that way. All alone.”

I didn’t know what to say. What does one say to that? I felt dirty all over again, like I was seeing something so personal, so raw, nobody should be allowed to ever witness it.

Katia continued. “And every time I try to love somebody, we end up hurting each other. I do that, Carl. I hurt those I love.”

“No,” I said, finally finding my voice. “No to all of that. We are family, Katia. You were in an impossible situation here, just like how we are in an impossible situation now. But we are family, and that’s something they can never take away, no matter what happens.”

Dream Katia clutched the baby to her chest, and the little girl clung back onto her. And as they clutched onto each other, Katia swayed back and forth, singing to the girl.

“And here is the worst moment of my life because I know it’s the last time I will ever see her,” Katia said. A moment passed. “It’s also my favorite memory, and it is where I keep coming back to.”

We remained silent for some time, watching Katia sing and dance with the baby, who was soon asleep.

The now Katia reached up and wiped her eyes. “At this moment, I was so sure I was going to kill myself after this that I actually felt this calming sense of peace. But then I thought to myself, what if they change their mind? Then who would she have? And the fear would come back.” Baby Annie let out a little sigh. “They never did change their minds. And then when I saw the nurse at the park, and she told me Annie was dead, as if it was nothing, I lost all the hope I had all over again.”

I recognized that moment of finality for what it was. I’d felt it, too. In that way, Katia and I were more alike than I’d ever realized. The last moment of the crash.

Come on now, the woman had said to me.

I stepped even closer to Katia, and I leaned my head down so it touched hers, and together, we watched dream Katia dance with the child she never had.

“She knows,” I finally said, watching Katia and Annie together. “You couldn’t be together in the end, but right here, in this moment, she knows.”

“I know,” Katia said. “That’s why it’s my favorite memory.”

A few minutes passed.

“I’m worried about Daniel,” Katia finally said. “I’m worried he’s going to do something stupid if this thing with Huanxin Jinx doesn’t work out.”

“I know,” I said. “I’m worried about him, too. He loves you.”

“And I love him,” Katia said. She turned to look at me. Our hands were still connected. On her shoulder, Annie the bird spread her wings and cawed. “But as much as I love him, I want you to know I love you and Donut more.” She pointed at the dancing woman and infant. “I love you both just as much as I ever loved those two right there.”

We touched heads again. I thought of Asher. Of my father. My mother. I mourned what could have been.

“If we stick around long enough, you can see me almost get arrested,” Katia finally added. We both laughed as she wiped her eyes. “You know what? I think Mordecai’s stupid plan is actually...”

But we never got to finish. Everything was shattered a moment later as Shi Maria, confused and screaming, burst into the room, jump scaring us both as Katia’s dream and my dream finally collided with one another.

“I didn’t kill him,” Shi Maria shouted at us, pushing her way through the memory ghost of Katia and Annie. She pressed her face right up to mine. Her eye was open and shining, but I felt nothing from it. “I didn’t kill him! I didn’t kill him! I did not, I did not, I did not!”

“Bitch, you swallowed me whole,” a new voice said.

ROSETTA

Rosetta

Baroness Victory: I was able to check the financial feed during the adjudication while we waited for that idiot Ferdinand to come down out of the rafters. It appears the money has reached the intended destination. Obviously we can’t see what’s really happening out there anymore, but we can still see transactions and their amounts. I can’t decipher what the gods is happening in the Naga system, but there was a transaction more than big enough to suggest your people were able to purchase two ships, despite the apparent chaos in the system. Assuming your Homecoming Queen starship follows your orders and shoots down that yacht, our transaction is done.

Rosetta: Thank you, Baroness. I know your sister would be proud. The captain who remained on board knows his duty and will follow through if he hasn’t already. Now what the hells is going on with the War Mages?

Baroness Victory: Just because we have dealings together outside the dungeon doesn’t mean I am not taking my duties as adjutant seriously. I told you before I will not cheat nor will I help you cheat. Any information I give about in-dungeon rulings must go through warlords Carl or Donut. That said, everything is fucked. That’s what’s going on. We’re all going to die because the AI is insane.

Rosetta sighed with relief. No matter what happened next, her primary mission was complete. If it all fell apart now, it wouldn’t be her fault.

Still, despite her absolute hate for the orcs, she felt ill about the transaction. The yacht they’d agreed to kill in exchange for the pin number contained several children. Orc children, yes, but children nonetheless. And now that Stalwart was dead, one of those children was the new king of the Skull Empire.

Assuming York actually did his duty and didn’t decide to write a poem or something instead, once he shot down the orc yacht, that would leave Princess Formidable in charge of the Skull Empire, assuming she was still alive somewhere on Earth’s surface. And if she was dead, then it would be the Maestro, despite him being supposedly disowned by his father.

There were no circumstances in which Baroness Victory would end up in charge of the Skull Empire, not unless she first killed about 1,000 other nobles spread across the galaxy, so her motivations in helping the Pacifist network were a mystery to Rosetta. This deal had been brokered between Porthus and Victory long before Victory was even chosen as an adjutant. Once again, he seemed to be a few steps ahead of everybody else.

Porthus, I hope you know what you’re doing. If all was going to plan, Porthus, along with all the others, namely the families of those who’d entered the dungeon, would be boarding the generation ship they just bought with their stolen funds and hauling tail to the Plenty system, where they would give one of the expensive ships along with the rest of the money to the goats in exchange for passage to the “forbidden” gate of the Impetus Point, the tunnel node that reached the furthest point in the known galaxy. And from there they would set out and get as far from the center system as possible, only to return when and if the inevitable wars and chaos settled.

So far, everything had occurred exactly as Porthus predicted. At least, everything outside the dungeon had gone as Porthus had predicted, which was more than a little disconcerting. It was that woman, Rosetta knew. The witch that had his ear. The Apothecary. Rosetta wasn’t one to believe in anything supernatural outside the confines of an enhancement zone, but there was something spooky about that creature. Rosetta didn’t trust her, and she’d told Porthus thus multiple times.

She’s on our side, Porthus had said.

Is she? Rosetta had asked. How can you be so sure? There’s a reason why people don’t trust collective minds, Porthus. They’re always five steps ahead of everybody else. There’s a reason everybody hates this thing. Do you see how they portray her in the dungeon? She’s a tentacle monster that takes over minds. It’s fucking terrifying. Who knows what she really looks like. For all you know she’s leading our families to her prime body so she can eat us, like some sort of fucked-up food delivery service.

You’ll have to trust me, he’d said.

I do trust you. I don’t trust her. It. Whatever we’re supposed to call her. I don’t know what it’s in it for her.

She most definitely prefers to be called her. And I do know what’s in it for her. She has a very good reason for all this.

What, then? What is it?

I can’t tell you, he’d said with that stupid, smug smile of his. I promised her I wouldn’t tell you. Not if you want to go into the dungeon. Because if you know and enter the dungeon, then the local AI might learn. And if the local AI learns, then the Eulogist will eventually know.

What the fuck does that even mean? Isn’t the Eulogist dead?

It means you need to trust me.

And that was the problem, wasn’t it? She rubbed her leg, thinking hard. She trusted Porthus with all her heart. As much shit as she gave him, he was always right. He’d picked her up after she’d finally escaped the dungeon, after cycles and cycles as a merchant in the mercenary guild, being forced to grit her teeth and work with the filthy bastards who played faction wars, including then-Prince Rust himself, who didn’t even recognize her.

And why would he?

He’d killed Brooks with that goddamned whip of his. Faction Wars had been over, and the orcs had made the transfer to the Scolopendra Club. And even then, standing on the other side of the glass, they’d mocked them, the crawlers who’d given everything to survive those horrible days. They’d taken the librarians and other NPCs, and Brooks had tried to stop it. In his rage, Brooks had cast spell after spell at the portal screen. And on the other side, the orcs had laughed and laughed. Rust, still laughing, had stepped back through the portal, lassoed Brooks, and pulled him into the glass, which had cut him right in half. It had been so casual, so fast. Brooks had died immediately.

But Rosetta remembered. She would never forget. She relished that moment when she used the whip to decapitate the old orc.

Tipid: Shouldn’t we be doing something? Are we just waiting for Donut to figure out how to safely break apart that battle formation? And what about Harpocrates? That crawler distracted him, but he’s turning back toward the tower again. It sounds like Yarilo is on the move again, too.

Rosetta: There’s nothing we can do for the moment. Just stand by. I’ve ordered Li Na to assist the NPCs, but she is currently in a fit of hysterics over the death of her brother. Carl is free of the Madness castle, and he will likely address her soon.

Justice Light: We need to move on the war mage threat immediately. They have the Gate. I do not understand why they are not allied with the other NPCs. I do not understand why that Residual is their warlord. We do not know their plans, and that is dangerous. They are going to ruin everything.

Rosetta: Look. I do not disagree, old comrade. I don’t relish dying here, but we all knew what we were getting ourselves into. We knew winning Faction Wars was a long shot. Our goal is and was to show the universe this cruelty will no longer be tolerated, and no matter what happens next, I think our message has already taken seed. Perhaps these mages winning, no matter what their motives are, is not such a bad thing. It will be quick for us, and all the remaining mercenaries and leaders will be dead, which is beyond what we even imagined.

Justice Light: I am not done yet. We need to fight.

Rosetta: With all the crawlers dead, the Ascendency will immediately kick off, and Rectrix will get to work. And perhaps after all this, York and Rectrix will survive. If we pull off some miracle, and the crawl continues even longer, we risk the AI gaining even more strength.

Which is what that Apothecary thing wants, she didn’t add.

But even as she thought that, Rosetta was filled with doubt.

Agatha. Why was that Agatha creature the warlord of the war mage team? How in the name of the gods had that even happened? It didn’t make any sense.

It was already known that the strange “human” was a residual with a knack for disappearing and reappearing at just the right moment. And even though they tried to erase her from the feed, she’d grown quite the following. But now it was clear she was the other kind of residual. The more rare kind that was more in line with the Nebulars, who worshipped the Eulogist. And that made Agatha the enemy of the Apothecary, the galaxy’s biggest advocate for shutting down the center system.

And while Rosetta didn’t trust the Apothecary, she trusted this residual thing less. Her initial, gut instinct had been to let them win, but Justice Light was correct. They didn’t know what their true motivations were. Why were they trying to kill everybody? Why were they suddenly trying to end the crawl as quickly as possible? And most importantly, why was the local AI allowing this to happen?

We should have hunted her down and killed her. The moment Rosetta had learned there was still one of those residual things pinging around the dungeon, she should have made certain it was removed. It hadn’t seemed important at the time. Residuals were always in the dungeon. They were harmless.

She was filled with doubt about what they should do.

Neither Tipid nor Justice Light knew anything about Porthus’s plans other than sending them here to assist in the chaos. For them, that was enough. Their revenge was the same as the others. Coming here and helping the current crawlers, this time willingly, was their last, great statement to the cruel galaxy which had ignored them for too long. As Carl so bluntly put it. You will not break me. I will break you.

Or at least, she thought coming here was going to be enough for the others. Justice Light had some project he was working on. Whatever it was, Porthus didn’t know about it because he would have told her. Porthus told her everything. Almost everything.

Justice Light: Rosetta, you are the most stubborn person I have ever known. But I need you to trust me in this. We need to get that gate back. We need to win this day. We need to move fast. Once those defensive towers spin up, we will be in dire trouble.

She sighed and looked again at the battle map. There were only four teams left, not including these war mages. The NPCs, the Princess Posse, the Dream—which was as good as defeated, and the Reavers.

Even before the dungeon, Rosetta grew up in a world where showing kindness was viewed as weakness. Still, she felt kindness toward Justice Light. And Tipid. And Carl and Donut and all the others who fought so hard for what they believed despite the overwhelming odds.

Was it ever okay to stop fighting? Was there grace in saying, I have made my mark, and now it’s time to rest?

She thought of her own mother, who’d come into the dungeon with her. She’d died on the first day, killed by goblins. Avenge us, was the last thing her mother had said to her.

She thought again of that moment when she’d decapitated Rust. She’d almost missed the opportunity because Tipid, unaware of the plan with the bank, had tried to hide the orc’s presence from her. Their original plan had been to get what they needed from Stalwart, but Rust’s presence had made everything so much easier. And it was poetic, no?

Yet, yet... No amount of revenge would ever bring her mother back. It would never bring Brooks back. No matter how many orcs and orc children she killed, her people would still be dead. She hadn’t even known Brooks. She’d seen hundreds and hundreds die before that point, yet that single death had broken her in a way she just didn’t understand.

Cycles and cycles later, when she’d finally exited the dungeon, it was Porthus who’d given her the money and backing to make her first attempt at retribution. She’d been a journalist in the before times, one of the most dangerous, subversive jobs in her country. Or, at least she’d been in school to be a journalist. Her documentary, The Other Side of the Glass, had resonated, but like with all things that were hard to look at, people clicked their tongues in sympathy and then immediately looked away.

But they couldn’t look away any more, and she was glad to be part of this, even if that meant she was likely to die. Like she’d said so many times, they knew what they were getting themselves into when they boarded Homecoming Queen.

Everyone who enters the dungeon, dies there, even if they leave.

She’d watched Carl’s speech to Donut about masks, and she’d wept. She’d wept at how hopeful it was. She’d wept at how cynical she felt in the moment. At the pity she’d felt for Carl and Donut, thinking how naïve it was that he thought she’d ever be able to remove that mask.

Was she wrong? Maybe so.

Porthus’s plan, whatever it was, appeared to be on track.

Rosetta’s job was done. No matter what happened here in the dungeon, it didn’t matter anymore.

But Justice Light was her comrade. Her brother. And so was Carl and Donut and all the other crawlers on this floor. And, in the end, she trusted Porthus. She more than trusted him. She loved him, despite his unhealthy obsession with finding a missing crawler from his own crawl. Menerva.

And if Porthus trusted this Apothecary, then maybe she should fight against whatever this creature’s enemies were planning.

Maybe it was a mistake, but nobody could ever fault her for fighting for her friends. There was poetry in that. too.

General Rosetta: Comrades, sound off. The fight has moved to the city. The enemy has changed, and they have taken the castle of Larracos. We don’t know how many there are, but we fight. We fight with all we have.

CLASS: GAZETTEER: RACE: CREST.

Birth Race: Crest.

Top Level: 87

Dungeon Exit: Took deal at the beginning of the 11th floor.

Worked in the Desperado Club as a merchant renting mercenaries and occasionally was in charge of distribution of the dungeon newsletter. Upon dungeon exit became a journalist and filmmaker of some renown and eventually as host of the series Shadow Boxer. Eventually returned to the dungeon to assist the Princess Posse to help fight and to assist the mysterious Open Intellect Pacifist Network finance their great plan.

Author of the ninth Edition of the Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook.

Current status: Alive.