Chapter 125 (Patreon)

Chapter 125

Stage 3 of 4.

The Mad Dune Mage

Time to Level Collapse: 10 Days and 4 Hours

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“I did all that sewing for nothing?” Katia said as we stepped out the front door of the house. She and the others were waiting for us. I came out and shook hands with Landry and the other archers. Louis and Firas were also there, all looking wide-eyed at the suburban house that now sat cockeyed in the sand dune.

“The parachutes will still come in handy,” I said. “Katia, this is Bonnie.”

“Hey there,” Katia said, taking a knee in front of the child. “How are you doing, sweetheart?”

“Do you know where I can get some lemons?” the child asked. “I want to set up a lemonade stand.”

~

The house had landed along the edge of the bowl about a half of a mile east of Hump Town. We still had a good hour of darkness left before dawn. After the death of Denise, the magical balloon started to slowly refill itself. The whole thing would take off again if we let it. Donut and I rushed out onto the little square and attempted to sever the lines that connected the home to the balloon, but the ropes were like steel cables. We were going to have to abandon the house if we wanted to avoid having to jump out.

I rushed to the kitchen to grab the kid, but she looked at me like I was crazy when I told her we had to leave.

“The house is about to take off again, and we can’t have you floating around up there by yourself. It’s not safe,” I said.

“Well let’s just leave the house down here, then,” she said. She pulled a small object from the inside of her oversized shirt. It was a necklace. It looked like a walnut. She fiddled with it, and I felt the house settle.

“What is that? What did you do?” I asked.

She took the necklace from around her neck and handed it to me. “My dad gave it to me when he gave me the potion. He said to give it to an adult. I guess you’ll do.”

I took the necklace from the girl and examined it. It was a little, purple-hued gem. I recognized what it was immediately.

Soul Crystal. F-Quality. Used to power the balloon that keeps this house afloat. Nothing too exciting. You probably want to avoid breaking it, though.

Charge: 89% Kill something to charge it up.

The crystal was housed in a sliding clamshell-like device. It appeared one could control how much power it fed the balloon based on how much the clamshell was opened. The thing had stopped feeding power to the balloon all together when we were under the anti-magic aura of the feral goose.

We’d seen plenty of these things before. They controlled the ghoul generators on the last floor. I had, still sitting in my inventory, a broken, about-to-explode soul crystal that would flatten everything within forty-five square kilometers the moment I took it out. That one was “C-quality” though it wasn’t much bigger than this one. I wondered how powerful a B or A quality gem would be.

“I’m going to keep this, okay?” I said to the kid. I kept the little shell open just a fraction, enough to keep the balloon off the ground, but not enough to lift the house. Hopefully. I’d have to go out there and experiment.

Bonnie shrugged.

The house sat at an angle along a sand dune. The interior looked how one might expect a house would after a boss fight with a murderous, indestructible goose. Everything that wasn’t bolted down was on its side or spilled. Now that I knew the house wouldn’t fly away, we had a lot of work to do.

Donut and I had both gone up a single level. I was now at 44, and Donut was 37. That was it. It felt as if we should’ve gotten more. Mongo had gone up three, hitting level 33. I was pretty sure I’d never understand how these experience points were allocated. It almost seemed random, despite Mordecai’s insistence that it was not.

“See if you can figure out what’s wrong with the kid,” I said to Donut. “Her dad gave her something. Talk with Mordecai and try to work it out.” Bonnie was on her hands and knees picking up the forks and spoons that had scattered everywhere.

The kid had barely reacted to anything that had happened. After the gruesome death of Denise, she complained that she didn’t have enough lemons to make another batch of lemonade and then set out to clean the kitchen. Her eyes remained dilated as she went to work, cleaning up like it was nothing. She worked around the corpse of her father. She was acting normal, which was absolutely abnormal in this situation.

The power to the house remained connected. Same with the water. That wasn’t coming from the soul crystal. While Donut talked to the kid, I had three goals. First I was going to check out the stairwell and throne room—aka the master bedroom. Then I would secure all the windows with tarp so this place didn’t get filled with sand. And finally, I was going to loot every damn thing I could pick up. I was going to inspect and remove the electrical panel if I could. Everything.

Mongo still clutched onto the stuffed pink rabbit he’d gotten from the kid’s room. I patted the durable dinosaur on the head as I went upstairs. The door to the master bedroom opened without any effort. I stepped into an unremarkable room. A king-sized bed with crumpled, blue sheets stood against one wall, and a tall dresser with all the drawers opened sat against the other, still miraculously standing. Spilled men’s and women’s clothing covered the floor. I eyed a uniform shirt for some plumbing company with the name “Dale” sewn on the breast. A framed, University of Arizona Master’s Degree in library sciences for the woman who used to live here had fallen off the wall, but the glass hadn’t broken. Her name had been Jennifer.

Jennifer and Dale. They’d had three kids. They’d likely all been asleep when it happened.

I couldn’t stop thinking about what Maggie had said, that they could bring people back. I didn’t want to think about it, about the potential horrors we could face if we lived past this day or the next.

You’re lucky, I thought. There’s only two people out there they could dredge up. For most, that number had to be a lot higher.

I noticed something else. On the nightstand, a photo that had fallen over. I picked it up. It wasn’t a photo, but a drawing. It was Kane, a woman gnome, and a baby. He’d removed the existing photo and placed it in the frame. He’d slept in this bed.

It also appeared he’d been jerking off to Cosmopolitan magazines. A pile of them lay scattered on the floor along with dozens of used tissues. I sighed and turned to the large walk-in closet.

I could see it on the map, the stairwell. I opened the closet door, and there it was. It was only wide enough for two people to walk down side-by-side. It didn’t make sense, physics wise, since we were on the second floor of a house, but there it was. A blue forcefield prevented me from entering. We still had two more throne rooms to capture before it would open.

After I secured the windows the best I could, mostly by duct-taping sheets and tarp over them, I went to work looting everything. Books, toys, furniture. The man had been pretty short, unfortunately, so there was nothing that’d fit me. The boys had been teenagers, and the girl had been about twelve or so. I secured everything I could, including two laptops, three televisions, and several gaming consoles.

Bonnie had been sleeping in the girl’s room. I took the bed and nightstand. The closet was filled with Barbie dolls and tons of little animal action figure things. I took it all.

I finally hit paydirt in the garage. In addition to two mountain bicycles and a cheap, plastic kayak, they had a full workbench filled with tools that had been meticulously organized. There were boxes and boxes of crap. A bunch of Christmas supplies, including a fake tree, had been recently put away. I took it along with a box of Halloween and Fourth of July decorations.

The electrical panel was also in the garage. I pulled the main house breaker, and the power didn’t go out. It was as if all the lines were just electrified without a source. I carefully snipped a line to test it, and the downline outlet still worked. I removed the outlet from the garage wall, and only then did it stop working. It didn’t make sense. It was some magic or game bullshit. If it was attached to where it was supposed to be, it worked, but not once it was removed.

I didn’t want to flood the house, so I didn’t try it with the pipes. I did, however, completely disconnect the main house panel and take it. I doubted I’d have use for it, but you never knew.

I did not locate what I was hoping to find, however. This house came from Texas. They had a doormat that claimed they had guns. If they had any in the house, however, the system didn’t include them when it reconstituted the place. If the couple had a gun safe, it’d probably been in that closet in the master bedroom.

Oh well, I thought. This was still a great haul.

I wandered back to the kitchen. This was the last room I needed to clear, and I hadn’t covered the window or back door yet. Donut sat on the counter, chatting away with Bonnie who continued to pick things up.

“She’s telling me about Sausage, her pig,” Donut said. “She says her mother bought him for her.”

“Ahh,” I said.

Donut: SHE SAID HER DAD GAVE HER A POTION TO DRINK AFTER WE BLEW UP THE WASTELAND. SHE’D BEEN CRYING A LOT BUT IT HELPED HER STOP. SHE WAS SLEEPING NEXT TO HER DAD IN THE KITCHEN WHEN WE CAME. MORDECAI SAYS IT’S PROBABLY GOING TO WEAR OFF SOON.

Carl: Jesus. Poor kid. I’m glad we got to her before it wore off. Katia and the others will be here at first light. They’re going to bring Juice Box, who’ll take care of her.

~

“Carl, look!” Donut exclaimed. We were marching back to Hump Town with the others. I turned my head to see the airplane slowly descending from the sky. It was the Nightmare II. It had dislodged itself from the main balloon during the boss fight, and the emergency balloon had finally lost its juice, sending the plane slowly back to the ground.

I sent Louis and Firas out to secure it and drag it back to the house. It would probably fit in that large garage. I tasked them with sticking it in there to protect it from the next storm. It’d give them something to do.

I watched the men scurry off. They both had a new borough boss star after their names. They, along with the archers, had gotten into a fight with the Thorny Devil queen. Langley said they’d held their own during the fight.

After they killed the queen, the regular thorny devil mobs just disappeared. We still had those small, explosive things that came out at night and the birds, but we’d pretty much cleared out the bowl.

Bonnie walked next to Juice Box, who’d taken on the form of a dirigible gnome woman. Bonnie clutched onto her hand as they waddled along the hot desert floor. The spell still hadn’t worn off.

“We’ll take care of her,” Juice Box said. “Orphans will always have a home in Hump Town.”

Donut: THAT SOUNDS OBSCENE.

Carl: Not now, Donut.

As we walked, I reached up and patted Donut on the head.

“That was too close, Donut,” I said.

“But we made it, didn’t we?” She was furiously rubbing sand out of her fur. “God, it’s hot. Carl, you need to invent a portable air conditioner. This is not acceptable.”

“Look,” I said. “We need to talk about that battle. I’m glad you and Mongo have bonded so well. And I know it didn’t really matter this time, but I need you in the fight. Mongo is going to get injured. You can’t get overwhelmed by that. We’ll protect him and each other the best we can, but you were in a full-on panic over his injuries, and it caused you to completely check out.”

Donut paused in her self-cleaning. “What are you trying to say, Carl?”

“I’m saying we’re going to die if you’re not paying attention to the fight. I can’t do it all on my own.”

“You didn’t. Who flipped the switch? I mean, really. I couldn’t cast my magic, and I am a magic class on this floor. What else was I supposed to do? Vomit on the goose? Besides, you had clearly figured it out.”

“I hadn’t figured it out until the last minute. We got lucky.”

“That wasn’t luck, Carl. That was you being you. I’m pretty sure we were supposed to drown the goose in the sink. Not rip her head off in the garbage disposal. You’re a good fighter, Carl. But you think fast. That’s why we’re still alive. You rarely think of the proper answer to a problem, but you usually come up with one that works anyway.”

I stopped dead in the desert. I remembered Mordecai had said something once about that being the best way to kill invulnerable monsters. Drowning. Of course. Still, we’d only had three minutes. How long does it take to drown a goose? I would’ve had to have figured that out before the fight even started.

I was going to say something else, but Katia approached.

“So what’s next?” she asked. “Are we going into the necropolis?”

I pulled the letter from the mage and showed her.

“I’m pretty sure this means we have to take care of the land quadrant before we even try to storm the catacomb. The mage guy says he’d destroy this world before he’d allow the ghost out. I don’t know what’s going on there, but it’s not something we want to mess around with.”

Katia was visibly relieved. None of us relished the idea of going into a dark tunnel system that was filled with water and traps. I had an idea to mostly avoid it, but not until after we took out that land quadrant castle first.

“We’re all going to fly away in that stupid house, aren’t we?”

I grinned. “It’ll be like a house party. It’ll be great. But it won’t be all of us, unfortunately.”

~

Zev and Loita messaged us as we entered back through the town gates.

Loita: Congratulations. Barely surviving battles is great for your numbers. Keep it up. Donut, you have a new box. They insist this version will not explode. Spend some time with it. If it works as intended, we are going to bring you two up to do the show a day early.

Donut: I’M NOT OPTIMISTIC, LOITA.

Loita: I don’t care if you’re optimistic, crawler. Just do as you’re told.

Donut: WELL YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE A JERK ABOUT IT.

Loita: Do not talk back to me. You keep forgetting your place.

Donut: I DON’T LIKE YOU, LOITA. YOU SMELL REALLY BAD.

Loita: The feeling is mutual. And if you talk back again, I will have Mongo taken from you. We’ll use him to feed a mob on the next floor and we’ll make you watch. I can do that. Don’t test me.

On my shoulder, Donut let out a pained stream of breath.

Carl: Now, now. There’s no need for you to get your fish panties all wadded up. We’ll play with the robot.

Zev: Anyway, the fans really enjoyed that battle. Good job you two. I’m sorry to say this is goodbye, however. I will still be Loita’s assistant working behind the scenes, but I’m afraid you no longer need a social media manager.

I held up my hand to stop Donut from saying anything.

Carl: What do you mean?

Loita: She means you have purchased the social media board, so you no longer need her to interpret and relay what the dry masses are saying about you.

Carl: Can you at least send her down here so Donut can say goodbye to her?

Loita: No. Of course not.

Carl: What about that infomercial for the robot? Can she go to that?

Loita: No. It is not her job anymore. I will be there, of course. Now get back to work.

The communication cut off.

“I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye,” Donut said. She looked over at me, eyes wide. “I wouldn’t have asked for the social media board if I knew we wouldn’t get to talk to her anymore.”

“It’s okay, Donut,” I said. “We’ll see her again. I promise.”

“You shouldn’t promise things like that,” she said. “You shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep.”

I patted her on the head. “We will see her again, Donut. I keep my promises.”

She butted her head against mine, purring loudly.

~

Once we returned to base, I slept for two hours, showered, reset my buffs, trained, and ate. We watched the recap show. They featured the fight on the falling house, and I watched updates on several of the others. Prepotente and Miriam were just as far along as we were. They’d managed to scale the interior wall of their bubble and kill all the spiders by applying some debuff that made them all fall asleep and plummet to their deaths. That had somehow also finished out the subterranean zone in their bubble, and they were now preparing to go underwater.

The two-headed creature that represented the Popov brothers were on a pirate ship firing cannons at other pirate ships. I didn’t know what was going on there. Lucia Mar fought some multi-limbed mummy ice thing and shattered him. She was actually working with a group of people, which surprised me, though the show was low on details. Quan Ch had already popped his bubble, and he was flying around farming all the mobs he could.

The top-ten list remained mostly the same, but Florin the crocodilian had dropped off. The last we’d seen him, he’d been sitting in the starting room refusing to choose a bubble quadrant after the death of Ifechi. I wondered where he was now, if he was even alive. The top ten list was:

1. Lucia Mar – Lajabless – Black Inquisitor General – Level 41 – 1,000,000 (x2)
2. Carl – Primal – Compensated Anarchist – Level 44 – 500,000 (x2)
3. Prepotente – Caprid – Forsaken Aerialist – Level 38 – 400,000 (x2)
4. Donut – Cat – Former Child Actor – Level 36 – 300,000 (x2)
5. Dmitri and Maxim Popov – Nodling – Illusionist and Bogatyr – Level 37 – 200,000 (x2)
6. Miriam Dom – Human – Shepherd – Level 34 – 100,000 (x2)
7.  Quan Ch – Half Elf – Imperial Security Trooper – Level 45 – 100,000 (x2)
8. Elle McGib – Frost Maiden – Blizzardmancer – Level 35 – 100,000
9. Bogdon Ro – Human – Legatus – Level 35 – 100,000
10. Chirag Ali – Human – Sacred Paladin – Level 35 – 100,000

I still didn’t know who that Bogdon Ro guy was. Quan had dropped several spots, probably because he’d cleared his bubble early and he wasn’t making any moves to leave the area. People got bored easily. He remained the highest level, but I was catching up to him. There was a new guy at the bottom of the list. I wasn’t sure if I’d seen him or not on the show.

“I still don’t understand how that goat is so popular,” Donut grumbled. “I don’t like being separated from you, Carl.”

“Do you wish to talk about it?” Robot Donut asked. “We can have a gab session, just you and me, girlfriend.”

“Oh be quiet,” Donut said testily. The novelty of her having “merch” had finally worn off.

This newest version of the robot toy weighed about three times as much as the last one, and it was slightly bigger, too. Mongo had immediately attacked it, but it hadn’t suffered any obvious damage this time. I spent some time playing with the thing, and it was pretty sturdy. They hadn’t fixed much else, however. It still threw out random, bootleg Garfield quotes. It still reacted oddly to situations.

Still, this was the best version yet. And it worked as intended. Sort of. Loita informed us we’d go on the show in a few hours to discuss the product. Katia was still scheduled for another show, but she would go on tomorrow evening. Hopefully we’d be in the land quadrant by then.

The robot toy had a small panel on the back of the head that was held closed with a little tab, much like a battery compartment from a toy on earth. I clicked open the flimsy tab and received a warning that the thing was going to self-destruct in five seconds if I didn’t put it back. I was genuinely curious what was going to happen since we were in a safe room, but at the last moment, I shoved the little rectangle back into place with a click.

Mordecai told me not to press my luck since this was a non-enhanced toy.

“What does that even mean?” I asked.

“You know how some video games required internet access to play? Even though they’re single-player? This is the same sort of thing. Most toys nowadays require access to a licensed enhancement zone to work. And some even take it a step further and require the child to have a license key installed in himself in order to unlock all the toy’s features. It makes certain his parents are current in their taxes. This one doesn’t have any of that. It’s not as fancy as most of the stuff out there, but it’s something that can be played with by a child who is on a long spacecraft voyage outside of a system’s net. Or by a family too poor to pay their access tax. If you activate the self-destruct sequence, the AI can probably teleport it away, but it might not, especially since that was added to keep you out of its head. I honestly don’t know what would happen. This isn’t something you want to test.”

The robot hopped up and down in agreement. “Carl, Carl, let’s go kill another mantaur!”

I reached over and patted the robot on the head. It moaned. Like a sexual, human woman moan. I jerked my hand back. “Jesus Christ!”

Carl: So this company, Veriluxx, they’re genuinely trying to help poor kids with this bullshit?

Mordecai: I wouldn’t go that far. I’ve never heard of them, but the logo on the benefactor box suggests they’re associated with Veritan Linkage. That’s a mostly-Soother lending fund that advocates for the enslavement of those who can’t afford their taxes. I’ve been thinking about why a company would spend so much on such a stupid toy, and none of it makes sense. Only a mega corp could possibly afford such an expensive campaign, and they’d only do it if there was some sort of pay-off. I doubt just selling a cheap toy is their intent. Odds are we’ll never know. It’s likely just a way to funnel money to Borant. They’re closely allied with them and the Bloom.

Carl: Christ. Is the whole universe filled with assholes?

Mordecai: Just the ones with the money.

“Oh goodie,” robot Donut said. “I can’t wait to go onto another show. I’ll get even more fans!”

~

I spent some time playing with the watch. The thing was identical to the other one Henrik had. The description was less than helpful. I turned the bronze watch over in my hand. There was a bone symbol etched onto the metal. I’d seen that symbol before somewhere, but I couldn’t remember where. The watch wasn’t ticking.

Mysterious Pocket Watch.

What in the hell is this thing? What does it do? It keeps terrible time. Sometimes the hands move on their own. And there’s a mirror built in that isn’t quite a mirror. You need to find a winding box to make it work.

That was it. I opened it, and the little mirror above the face showed nothing but blackness. There was a tiny indicator for an alarm. If I pulled the tab on top of the watch out three times, I could set it. I moved it so it reached the hour hand, and the watch vibrated in my palm like a cell phone buzzing on silent. I’d set the alarm off.

The image on the little mirror changed. A fish-like creature appeared and met my gaze. The window suddenly went dark.

That was Henrik, I realized. He was in the necropolis with the other watch, and he was in the form of an underwater creature. I’d set the alarm off and signaled him. I sighed and snapped it closed. At least we knew the old changeling was still alive.

“Hey,” Katia said, sticking her head into the personal space. “Bonnie is starting to wake up out of her stupor. She’s over at Skarn’s house. You should go see her before you and Donut leave for your show.”

That was a good idea. We were going to do the infomercial, and the moment we got back, we were all going to get into the house and fly it out of the bowl.

“How’s she doing?” I asked as I followed Katia.

“Not so great. But she’s a kid. Kids are resilient.”

The dromedarians, to their credit, didn’t treat the girl poorly even though she was partially responsible for bombing their town. I wasn’t so sure humans would be so forgiving. A group of the camels stood outside the home, quietly talking amongst themselves. I followed Katia inside.

“This is where you’ll sleep,” Juice Box was saying. She indicated a corner of the room.

To my surprise, Donut and Mongo were already here. I hadn’t realized she’d finished with her training.

“This isn’t my bed,” Bonnie said, looking down at the simple cot. The little gnome had her arms wrapped around herself. She’d changed out of the bloody, oversized football jersey into a simple dress that was also too big for her. Skarn stood next to her, his hand on her shoulder. He’d transformed into a gnome also.

“Hey, here you go,” I said, pulling the pink bed out of my inventory. Everyone moved out of the way as I manhandled the bed into place. It was absurdly large for the little girl, but the home was spacious enough to accommodate it. This was the same bed she was sleeping in before. I then pulled the little side table that had been next to it, and I placed it down next to the bed.

The girl barely reacted.

“Denise killed my dad,” she suddenly said. “He knew she was going to do it. He said there was nothing he could do about it. I started to cry, and he gave me the potion, and I wasn’t scared anymore. He told me to make lemonade. Do you have another one of those potions? Please?”

“No, sweety,” Juice Box said.

“It’s okay,” Skarn said. “When my town got bombed, my parents died, too. But they take care of me here. The camels are grumpy, but they aren’t mean.”

“Okay,” Bonnie said, her voice small. She rubbed her nose.

Mongo slowly approached the girl, and he dropped the stuffed pink bunny in front of her. The girl picked it up and held it tight. She closed her eyes. I took the photo from my inventory, the one of her and her mother and father, and I put it on the nightstand.

Loita: Oh for the sake of the gods. Audiences like drama, but not melodrama. Stop concerning yourself so much with NPCs. We’ll be transferring you to your program in five minutes.

I motioned to Katia and Donut, and we left the girl with Juice Box. I turned to look one last time, and the girl was sobbing, clutching onto the changeling woman while she held the stuffed pink rabbit. Juice Box stroked the girl’s hair.

That was the moment. Right then. I’d been toying around with an idea, but I’d dismissed it as too risky. Too soon.

That was the moment I changed my mind.

****

Hello all! Thanks so much for your continued support! It's been quite a month. I can't believe January is almost over. I hope you're doing well. I just got my car back from the mechanic after having the engine rebuilt. Do you ever hate having to be an adult? I do sometimes. Ha.

The Dungeon Crawler Carl audiobook is here! Audiobooks are how I consume most of my fiction, so it's always really exciting for me to have a new book out in audio. I think Jeff Hays from Soundbooth Theater does a really good job with it. He's already prepping book two.

Also, here's the art of book 3 featuring Gore-Gore the Mantaur on the cover. It's not 100% book accurate for a dozen little reasons, but it's close enough: