Chapter 147 (Patreon)

Chapter 147

(Note added by Crawler Everly, 7th Edition)

We ended up hiring five mercenaries. I got four from the Merc guild on the sixth floor of the Desperado Club, and another party member got a healer from Club Vanquisher. It was and continues to be a disaster. My guys cost us 1,500 gold a day each, and I’m not sure if it was worth it. First off, you have to be very careful with them. If they die, you can’t loot their bodies, and our contract stipulates you have to pay their daily rate for the rest of the damn floor. It’s outrageous. The healer charges per spell cast. Second, getting them from one place to the next is difficult if you use a personal space. It’s easy to lose them. If they leave with me, it’s fine. The door opens, and we walk out together. Otherwise, it automatically defaults to the last place they entered, as if they were a regular crawler. So if they’re not right there with you when you exit, they could end up three or four saferooms away. One of our guys left and never came back. He’s still alive, as I can see him in the chat, but the prick is just wandering around some town having a good ol' time and I can’t even fire him because you have to bring them back with you to let them go. Plus their levels mean next to nothing. My level-40 orc is a significantly better fighter than my level-50 dwarf, who is now dead, by the way. Got hit by a chair, of all things, and he died. Twenty-two more days at 1,500 gold a day. The whole thing is a scam.

~

My eyes fluttered open. I felt as if I’d been trampled by elephants. Everything hurt. I still had a page of notifications, and I blinked them away.

Donut sat on my chest, looking down at me worriedly. We were moving. I felt gravel crunch underneath me. I was in the back of a cart. I stared up into the night sky. It was still dark outside, but the air above us shimmered with an opalescent sheen, like the skin of a soap bubble catching the light. A magical shell of some sort, I realized. I was under the dome of a spell.

“He’s awake!” Donut said. She looked up and said, “His health is still going down.”

“The debuff runs out soon,” the woman said. “The worst is beyond us. Do not worry, little one.”

“What happened?” I groaned. “Did we get any of them?”

“You almost died, Carl,” Donut said. “And you would’ve deserved it, too. What in god’s name was that anyway? From now on, I’m not participating in a Carl plan unless I know what I’m getting myself into. Mongo is quite upset with you.”

I felt a warm glow, and my health moved back up. The woman had cast something. I felt my health immediately start to seep out of me again, like I was a leaky pipe. Whatever this was, it was a slow, painful debuff. I moved over to my health menu and looked at my current debuffs.

Sore as Shit and Blood Trail.

Sore as Shit was one I’d seen before. It popped up every time I’d been severely injured. It was exactly how it sounded. It usually lasted for about an hour, but this time it was at six hours and counting down. I didn’t have anything to remove it. It didn’t affect any of my stats directly, but everything hurt while it was active.

Blood Trail was a new one. It was about to run out, but it was an insidious debuff.

Blood Trail

A favorite of game hunters and medical debt collectors chasing after deadbeats, this magical, bleeding debuff is usually applied to ranged weapons. Your health seeps downward at a slow, steady pace. You may heal, but all open wounds at the time you receive this debuff will continue to weep, allowing for you to be tracked easily. It also makes you smell really bad. Or really good, depending on who’s doing the sniffin’

I’d been hit with a half dozen other debuffs, too, but they’d all expired.

“How long was I out?” I asked, trying to sit up. I was completely soaked in blood. “I know we got two. Did we get more?”

“Don’t get up yet,” the woman said. She put a gentle hand on my shoulder, pushing me back. I winced.

“You were in a coma!” Donut said. “It was only for a half hour. If we hadn’t gotten out of the city, you’d be dead right now. Miriam, Prepotente, and Bianca saved you.”

I felt myself groan.

“You need to rest for a few more minutes, sweetie,” the woman—Miriam Dom—said. “We’ll be at the town in about an hour, and then you can get to your saferoom and sleep.”

“Where am I?”

“We’re in the back of a cart,” Donut said. “It’s being pulled by Bianca, and Prepotente is ahead of us making sure the road is safe. Miriam has been helping you heal, so you need to say thank you.”

“Thank you,” I said. My head was still swimming. The fog was lifting away, but I felt as if I was waking from a long sleep.

Donut: ALSO, I DON’T THINK PREPOTENTE LIKES YOU VERY MUCH. HE SAVED YOU, SO YOU GOTTA BE NICE TO HIM.

A hand touched my forehead. Her fingers were ice cold. She stroked my hair. “You just rest for a minute, okay?”

You have been Soothed! Everything hurts a little less. Debuffs are 10% less effective.

Donut leaned in. “Seriously, Carl. What, exactly, was the plan there? Go into town and then blow everything up and then run? You may have killed a lot of them, but all you did was make them extra angry. This is why you tell me the plan first, so I can point out why it’s stupid.”

“I wanted to block off the entrance to the Desperado and see if I could identify the mayor and maybe kill him. Or her. The mayor was Vrah, a woman. She’s a race called a mantis. If I killed her, I’d become the mayor and then I was going to order the city guards to kill all the hunters.” I gasped. “Jesus, why am I so tired?”

“You were knocked comatose accidentally,” Miriam said. She sat behind me and was stroking my hair. It felt weird and kinda nice all at the same time. “It was a Woozy debuff from the crossbow bolt, but it was enhanced because of Pony’s spell.”

“Sorry I messed it up,” I said.

“It is okay,” Miriam said. “It was taking much too long, and I believe we’d been discovered. Someone was casting a countermeasure, and it likely wouldn’t have worked in time.”

“That’s because they’re cheating,” I said, raising my voice. “The hunter guys have people watching the show and are feeding the information to them.”

I heard a distant scream.

“Pony captured something,” Miriam said. “Your bleed debuff is all better now. I am going out there to feed. You just stay here and rest, and I will be back to check on you, okay?”

I grunted. I felt her stand behind me, and I watched as the dark-haired, robed woman floated out of the cart and away.

“She can fly?” I asked.

“That’s new,” Donut said. “She’s a vampire now. She can float, but she has to drink a lot of blood to survive. She’s still a healer. It’s very strange. She’ll only drink blood from something that Prepotente has just killed. She has to do it fast. I don’t know if she can turn into a bat or if sunlight hurts her. Or if she’s allergic to garlic. I hope not. She’s Italian, so that’d probably be extra terrible if she couldn’t use garlic anymore.”

I just sat there, breathing. As long as I didn’t move anything, it didn’t hurt. The crunch of the trail under the cart was oddly familiar. I thought of riding in the very back of my parents’ car. I heard a snort, like from a horse, then it was followed by a bug-like chittering noise. I finally thought to look at the map. We were moving through a dense, wooded area. There was a massive, orange dot right in front of us, and the two blue dots of Miriam and the goat were up ahead, along with a few mob Xs and a red dot. Donut remained in the cart with me. I didn’t see anyone else.

“Mordecai wants to know if you used that ring,” Donut said after a moment. “I told him I didn’t know, but it’s on your finger, so I’m assuming that you did.”

I reached over and pulled it off and put it back into my inventory.

“I used it once on the drunk guy, and I copied my debuff to that flying hunter. I wanted to draw out the mayor. I figured she would be the strongest one in town. But I also wanted to make sure it worked right before I started really using it. I wasn’t sure that super spreader thing was going to work. It does. It works really well, especially when combined with Ping because I can apply it to hunters who are pretty far away.”

I pulled myself up, but my head swam, and I lowered myself back down onto the wood. I realized the cart was actually one of the smaller railway carts from the previous floor, modified with wooden wheels.

Donut sighed. “You only used the ring once?”

“Yeah. I was about to use it again on the orc, but the barrel was rapidly destabilizing, and the list of names was really long. It’s not sorted by proximity. I didn’t have time.”

“Mordecai said it’s addictive. I don’t like that. I’ve already broken you from your tobacco and chronic masturbation addiction. I can’t have you gaining a new one, Carl.”

I tried sitting up again. I groaned as I looked upon the creature pulling the cart. It chittered angrily. Heat washed off the massive pet. It had grown since I’d seen it last. It was now the size of a draft horse.

“Bianca, huh?” I asked.

The creature, once a regular goat, had been transformed by the same enhanced pet biscuit that had turned Donut and Prepotente into regular crawlers. Black, ethereal flames licked up into the air off the demonic, horrifying creature’s hairy back. Its dark skin emanated a crackling noise, like a campfire. It smelled like fire, too. A stubby pair of wings erupted from the ridged, hairy back. The thing was so black, its presence drank the meager light, like it was a hole in the fabric of spacetime. The heat of it washed over me in pulsing waves.

Bianca Del Ciao. Hellspawn Familiar. Level 32.

This is a pet of Crawler Miriam Dom.

Somebody once said, “All Dogs Go to Heaven.” Whoever said that obviously never met Susan, the Pembroke Welsh Corgi gifted to future Queen Elizabeth II by her father upon on her 18th birthday.

Susan was an unholy terror. The corgi was known as a vicious little psychopath. She attacked and bit numerous members of the royal court and visitors, including multiple police officers and even the royal clock winder, who was said to suffer nightmares after the incident.

What I’m getting at is that Susan was an asshole. I know, I know. It’s not PC to call pets—or toddlers, since we’re on the subject—assholes. But that doesn’t change the fact that these assholes exist. And if there is a hell, Susan the corgi is there. She’s there along with all the other dead asshole pets, including Brandon from Punky Brewster and Misty Malarky Ying Yang, Jimmy Carter’s Siamese cat.

A hellspawn familiar occurs when a regular, asshole pet is encased in a soul protection spell, yet dies anyway. The soul becomes hellbound and tainted and then shoved back into the resurrected body of the pet, rebirthing the creature. Its regular form is combined with that of a demon. It will physically grow upon each level-up, ceasing to increase in size only when it reaches level 50. It will grow wings. It will be angry and formidable. It will be scary as shit. It will also be one of the most powerful, most badass pets available within Dungeon Crawler World.

“They make her sound mean, but she’s really sweet,” Donut said. “Miriam says when she was a regular goat, she liked being pet on the butt. She loved eating grapes.”

“Yes, I’m sure the demon pet is delightful,” I said. “Hey, what’s that over your head?”

Donut had a new symbol floating after her name. It was a red dagger, similar to the logo for the Desperado Club, but the point was facing upward. The single, red dagger spun, nestled between the player killer skull and all the boss-kill stars. I examined it.

Hunter Killer X 1.

“Hey, you got one.”

“It was nothing, Carl. A magic missile while we were running away. I think your explosion is what really killed him, but they gave me credit anyway.”

I, stupidly, looked up in the air in attempt to see my own daggers. “How many do I have?”

“You should probably look at your notifications, Carl.”

I dove into my menus. I’d rocketed up to level 54. Donut had also gone up a few levels to 41. That was still much too low. We’d spent too much time preparing for shit on the last floor and not enough actually killing stuff. That had to change fast.

I had a whole mess of achievements. I opened up the menu.

New Achievement! I Wanna Go Home!

You teleported to a stairwell station within the first thirty hours of the floor being open. What, you’re running away early? I hope for your sake you don’t actually go down the stairs. You know it doesn’t get easier.

Reward: Your reward is advice. Fatherly advice. Don’t be a little bitch. There’s your reward.

New Achievement! You Crossed a Line You Didn’t Even Know Was There.

You used an artifact of Divine Suffering for the first time. Hopefully there aren’t any unintended and unadvertised side effects of using such a powerful and evil magical item.

Don’t mind that tingle at the back of your mind. It’s probably nothing.

Reward: You’ve received a Gold Junkie’s box.

That was worrying. I didn’t feel any different. I’d received plus one to my dexterity. The next two I killed after marking them with the ring would also increase one of my stats by one. For the next three after that, it would increase by plus two. It wasn’t until the ninth floor when I could mark multiple people at once, but in the meantime, I planned on charging it up as much as possible.

New Achievement! The Hand that Claws the Master (x35)

You have permanently killed a non-crawler biological. They ain’t just dead. They dead dead. Their children are now orphans. Their mothers are gnashing their teeth and cursing your name. And you’re just sitting there all alive and shit, and girlfriend, I am all in.

We all know you should have received this achievement, uh, a little earlier, but I figured it’d be in your best interest not to reward you this one just yet. But you sure deserved it, so I may have slipped an extra one in there. Shhh. Don’t tell the mudskippers.

Reward: You’ve received a Gold Hunter-Killer Box (x34)

Note: This achievement may be awarded more than once, but Hunter-Killer Boxes are only awarded on the sixth floor.

Holy shit. I’d killed 34 of them. I’d actually gotten 35 achievements, but that was just the AI being a dick. I’d gotten 34 boxes. My chest swelled. Fuck yeah. I hadn’t accomplished what I hoped, but that was okay.

I will break you. I will break you all.

New Achievement! Mass Casualty Event.

Okay. Calm your man-tiddies. Did your mother not love you? Is your god promising you unlimited handjobs in heaven or something? You planted and then detonated an improvised explosive device within an urban population center that resulted in more than 250 non-mob casualties. You’ve done this a few times now, but this was a big one. And on purpose.

You really know how to paint the town red.

Reward: You’ve received a Platinum Asshole’s Box.

“Damnit,” I growled. That meant we’d killed more than 200 NPCs. It was a fraction of the number of innocents we’d killed after flooding Larracos, not to mention all the ones who’d been on the gnome Wasteland fortress. And… And it didn’t bother me. Not nearly as much as it should. But I needed to be more efficient. These NPCs were better off dead. I truly believed that. But still, I didn’t want to be so casual about it. I wanted to avoid the loss of innocent life if possible. They didn’t deserve any unnecessary terror or heartache.

This isn’t on me, I thought. They started this. These are their rules. Their game.

Miriam returned, floating over Bianca and returning to the cart. Prepotente disappeared, ranging ahead. Miriam had blood running down her chin, which she wiped off as she landed before me. I examined the woman. She was level 52. Her race had changed from Human to Vampire since the last time I’d seen her all the way back on the fourth floor. Her class hadn’t changed. It was still just Shepherd, which was apparently a type of healer.

The woman had a motherly, gentle sense about her, despite the whole vampire thing. She reminded me of poor Yolanda, who’d fallen to the rage elemental so long ago.

“Are you feeling better? We’ll be in town in a bit,” Miriam asked. “There are traps just everywhere this close to Zockau. Pony is disarming them.”

“Yes. Thank you,” I said. “Look, I really appreciate you saving our asses. What exactly were you guys doing out there? Again, I’m sorry we messed it up.”

“Oh, sweety. Don’t you listen to Pony. He’s just a grumpy little boy. It was not going to work. We suspected they would be getting themselves quite drunk, so Pony was casting a few different debuffs on the area. One to increase the level of inebriation, which had successfully activated and another to cause them to wish to fight one another, but it was being blocked. I was attempting to cloak our presence and increase the debuff’s power, but it didn’t work.”

I remembered those two had somehow managed to kill that giant turkey thing by stacking debuffs. That was their method of killing. Miriam would keep them hidden and would buff Prepotente while the goat stacked debuff after debuff onto the target, doing it in a way they didn’t even realize they were in trouble. His class was something called a Forsaken Aerialist. It least it had been that before the change. I didn’t know what that meant. I had originally assumed it was some sort of acrobat thing, but it was clear it had something to do with magic.

“Yeah, like I said, they’re cheating assholes. It’s not fair if they’re getting fed all the info on what we’re doing. If I was watching this, I’d raise a big stink about it. Especially if betting is involved.”

Before Miriam could answer, we were interrupted.

Zev: Hello, Crawlers.

Donut: HI ZEV!

Zev: Guys, your numbers are just insane right now. Try to stay with Prepotente for at least a little bit. Carl, don’t insult him too much. He is strange, but his numbers are so high because of a certain demographic you two aren’t trending in, and I’m hoping to gain some crossovers.

Carl: Am I allowed to say, “Go fuck yourself, Zev” still, or will I get in trouble?

Zev: No. We’re not saying that anymore.

Carl: Okay. I’ll try to think of a nicer way to say it.

Donut: CARL, DON’T BE MEAN TO ZEV. SHE JUST GOT HER JOB BACK. ARE YOU OUR REGULAR PR PERSON AGAIN?

Zev: Uh, we can talk about that later. Just a head’s up. Assuming you two don’t get yourselves killed, you will be going on Odette’s show late tomorrow after the final sponsorships come in. Katia will not be joining you as I’m coordinating a different show with her for the same time. I’m also looking to book you two on another program seven days after that. We’ll discuss the options later.

Donut: WILL YOU BE THERE?

Zev: Yes, I will. Also, I should warn you there will be additional security protocols put into place before you’re transferred. This was not my doing, and it applies to all crawlers.

Carl: What does that mean?

Zev: I’m not exactly certain yet, but as long as you’re not attempting to assassinate me or a member of Odette’s staff, you shouldn’t have to worry. Also, I am being asked to tell you the Vengeance of the Daughter program is still active, therefore your contract regarding participation in any other programs is still in effect.

Carl: Wonderful. What are we supposed to do if some elite approaches us?

Zev: All the other programs know to avoid you, but as you well know, sometimes elites don’t do what they’re told. If something happens, you are required to extract yourself the best you can. The showrunners of other programs will generally honor the contract you have with Sensation Entertainment, and they will also attempt to intervene on their end. This is something you’d have to discuss with your new attorney, but as long as you make a good-faith effort to extricate yourself, I don’t see it being an issue.

Carl: All right. Thanks for the head’s up.

Zev: That’s it for now. Talk to you soon.

Donut: BYE ZEV!

I was about to ask Miriam if they’d been involved with any Elite quests, but Donut got to her first.

“How often do you go on shows?” Donut asked the moment the chat closed. “We’re going to see Odette in a few days. Have you been on her show yet? She’s just wonderful. She used to be our manager’s manager.”

“We’ve been on the Odette show once,” Miriam said. “We’re on Plenty of Plenty mostly. Pony doesn’t do too well on these programs, but he’s okay when there are other goats around.”

“We haven’t been on that one,” Donut said.

“Pony likes it because they allow his brothers and sisters to come out, and they have new plants for them to try each time, though last time they had no treats. I find the program a bit unsettling, but it helps Pony relax.”

“Brothers and sisters?” I asked.

“Oh, yes,” Miriam said. “I have ten unaltered boers in pet carriers in my inventory. I don’t let them out so much except in the saferooms because it has gotten much too dangerous for them. They are all Pony and Bianca’s siblings. After the unfortunate incident with Angelo, we keep them indoors until we get out of this place.”

I was starting to feel much better. I fully sat up in the cart. I examined my shoulder where the bolt had entered. It’d pierced my flesh, but my magical jacket seemed unharmed. It was weird how that worked.

Prepotente started moving back toward us.

“Oh dear,” Miriam said. “It appears we have an issue.”

The goat-turned-crawler looked much the same as the last time I’d seen him. He was level 55, possibly the highest in the dungeon. His class had changed from Forsaken Aerialist to Profane Vitiate, which made even less sense. I also noticed the faded, but glowing, tattoo on the back of his human-like hand. The symbol was of a very evil-looking, satanic goat. The number three crawler gave me an angry scowl and turned to Miriam.

“There is a line of traps up ahead at the entrance to the town, and I cannot yet disarm them. We will have to go around.”

“Traps, huh?” I asked. “What kind? I can probably take care of them.”

“You can’t even take care of your own basic hygiene, Carl. These are complicated traps designed to decapitate anyone who gets anywhere near them, and it will require someone with a special touch to even approach. As much as I would love to watch your head get separated from your overgrown, swollen…”

I cast Trigger.

All around us, in every direction, a cavalcade of small explosions and lights and noises erupted. Wind blades sailed over the cart, dissipating into the dark as they shot away.

Prepotente screamed.

“Problem solved,” I said. “If any of those traps released monsters, we’ll have to be on the lookout.”

“That was an attack! Negligence most serious! Bianca, prepare yourself for battle!”

Just in front of me, the skin on Bianca rustled, black flames starting to rise off the creature’s body.

“Pony,” Miriam said. “We are not fighting Carl.”

“I have been insulted! This will not stand! Mother. Princess Donut. Both of you, stand back while I defend my honor!”

“Suck my dick, Pony,” I said, standing up and facing the goat.

Prepotente burst into tears. He jumped into the cart and wrapped his hands around Miriam, who took him into a tight hug.

“Now Carl, that wasn’t very nice,” Miriam said, her voice gentle yet scolding. “We did save your life.”

Donut: CARL, I’M STARTING TO THINK THESE PEOPLE MIGHT BE A LITTLE WEIRD.

“He insulted me first!” I said. I regretted saying it the moment it came out of my mouth. It sounded whiny even to my own ears. I suddenly felt like I was back in grade school, and we were being admonished by a teacher.

“Pony shouldn’t have done that, either. Now both of you apologize to each other.”

Behind her, the flames on Bianca’s back continued to bristle up down angrily, almost like a seismograph. The demonic pet was faced away and was attached to the cart with a harness, but I had no doubts it could break away at a moment’s notice and devour us.

“I’m not going to do it,” Prepotente said, his face buried in Miriam’s robes. “He was mean to me, mother. He’s awful. Just awful. He’s worse than those buffoons at Club Vanquisher.”

“Pony,” Miriam said, stroking the goat’s head. “We discussed this. You mustn’t insult everyone.”

“He called me by my special name. Only you can call me by my special name.”

I exchanged a look with Donut. We needed to get the hell away from these nutjobs.

Bianca continued to move forward. She seemed to sense that the danger was starting to wane, and the flames on her back settled. I could now see the edge of town. A pair of the mushroom guards stood just inside the gate, watching us approach. A line of scorch marks marred the entrance to the town. The air smelled of smoke.

“I’m sorry, Carl,” Prepotente said. “I shouldn’t have called you malodorous. Nor should I have questioned your ability to inexpertly set off every trap in the area.”

“Yeah, uh, no worries. Sorry about telling you to suck my dick.”

Miriam beamed. When she did, I could see the twin fangs, and suddenly that motherly feeling she gave off vanished and was replaced by an uneasy revulsion. “See, now that wasn’t so hard. Now both of you hug.”

“Uh,” I said.

Prepotente removed himself from Miriam and approached me, arms wide. Tears glistened in his goat eyes.

“Yes, Carl,” Donut said. “Be a good boy and hug Prepotente.”

Donut: YOU BETTER DO IT OR YOU’LL LOOK LIKE A BIG JERK.

I gritted my teeth and hugged the goat. His weird, fuzzy arms wrapped tightly around me. He smelled like a barn.

He screamed. Right in my goddamned ear.

~

The town was a “Small Bugbear Settlement,” but at night, I only saw the funeral bell mushroom guards out and about. This place had already been through the wringer. Two of the buildings in town were already bombed out and looted. There was a weird graveyard on the outskirts that was likely associated with some quest, but it had already been all dug up.

“We passed through here earlier,” Miriam said, “but we came and went through the south entrance. There weren’t any traps inside of town. The funeral bells deactivate them. However, it seems the aliens already moved through the town like locusts. There’s another town down the road that is the same.”

These towns near the main city of Zockau would all be like this, I suspected. Surrounded by shitty traps and already looted. We were going to watch the recap, reset our buffs, and then move on. No time to dawdle.

I exchanged fist bumps with Miriam and Prepotente, and we promised to keep each other apprised any time we might get in each other’s way. I thanked Miriam again, tried not to make eye contact with Bianca, and said goodbye to Prepotente, who was suddenly acting like we were best friends.

There was still a lot I wanted to get out of them, like some info on Club Vanquisher, but Prepotente was just too unstable to have a regular conversation with. I would attempt to use chat to speak with Miriam later.

“They might be strange, but I think they’re good guys,” Donut said once we finally separated. “They were trying to get those guys to get drunk and kill each other. That was a lot safer way to do it than your plan.”

I pushed through the door of the first restaurant, which was a traditional-style saferoom with a Bopca. It looked like a pub on the outside, but within it was a fast-food restaurant called Whataburger. I stopped to grab a soda from the fountain and filled the orange and white Styrofoam cup while Donut released Mongo. She hadn’t dared release the dinosaur anywhere near Bianca.

“I was a lot more successful than they were,” I said. “With your kill, we got 35 hunters. Their method is effective, but it’s useless without true stealth. Once the hunters are all scattered, it’ll be better.”

“They’re all going to be coming for you, Carl,” Donut said. “Mordecai is already doing that whole ‘We gotta talk’ thing in my chat, and quite frankly, I don’t want to have the conversation. Especially since he looks like a bootleg Monchhichi with a bad haircut and a questionable pedigree.”

“What the hell is a Monchhichi?” I asked as we moved to the personal space.

Mordecai waited for us, arms crossed, sitting on the counter with his little legs dangling off the edge.

Katia had returned along with Very Sullen, and she’d collected Louis and Firas back up with her. Britney, the Ukrainian plastic-surgery-patient was also there, sitting in the corner and looking pissed off as usual. Chris and Clay-ton were not here.

Donut indicated Mordecai with her paw. “Picture that, but with his face shaved and less angry looking. That’s a Monchhichi.”

Louis burst out laughing. “My mom had some of those things. She mostly collected monkeys, but she also had a few of those. That shit gives you nightmares.”

“Holy shit,” Firas said, looking at my drink. “You found a Whataburger? Dude, go back out there and get me some of their fries.”

“Hi Louis and Firas and Firas’s girlfriend!” Donut said.

“I am not his girlfriend,” Britney said.

Katia looked just as irritated at us as Mordecai did, and I knew she was pissed. I had told her we weren't going to do anything stupid today. 

“Mordecai, darling,” Donut said, strolling through the room and toward the litterbox. “We all know what you’re going to say. And while I myself have voiced my frustration with Carl’s seeming disregard for his and my own personal safety, I just want to get this conversation out of the way right here and right now. Yes, what Carl did was idiotic and suicidal. No, I am not going to abandon him. Yes, he’s going to tell me the plan ahead of time from now on. No, we are not going to have some long, drawn-out storyline where we break up and then get back together. We’re already doing that with Katia right now, and I just will not have it with me and Carl. So you’re just going to have to get over and it and not be all, ‘You don’t know what you’re dealing with.’”

Mordecai just opened and closed his mouth.

“Very well,” he said after a moment. “If that’s how you want this to go, then open up your prize boxes and reset your buffs. We’ll watch the recap episode and then you two need to put more space between yourself and that town. You may have blown the city up, but you only killed a handful of them. Unless you’re planning on going back in there, you need to get moving.”

“I didn’t blow the town up,” I said, taking a sip of my soda. “It was one or two square blocks. Those barrel bombs were only like a fourth the strength as I could’ve made it. I have a plan for another one that’s really big. Like huge.” I made an exploding motion  with my free hand. “That’s the best part about this floor. Lots of room for explosions.”

Mordecai sighed. “I suppose you have a plan for that one, too.”

I glanced up at my clock. The hunters were going to release in just over 17 hours.

“Oh, it’s going to be spectacular.”

******

Howdy everyone! I hope you're all doing well! Thanks to all my new patrons. I was hoping to have two chapters, bla bla bla. I always end up saying that, but you know how it goes. Things are going well here. I have multiple graduations and shows are opening back up. I can’t wait for that to happen.