Chapter 155 (Patreon)

A bit of a cliffhanger on this one. Fair warning.

Chapter 155

“She always wanted to be a reality television star,” Donut said. “It’s too bad Odette is keeping her all, what did she say? Sequestered? Oh, well. Do you think I was too hard on her? I needed to say it, but I’m starting to think I was too cruel. By the way, before you ask. Yes, you do snore, Carl. Or at least you used to. You don’t anymore with the new beds.”

Moments after the announcement, Odette requested that we not say anything about the interview until it aired, which would be after the next recap episode. And then she said she’d see us upon the collapse of this floor and disappeared, leaving us alone. Lexis poked her head into the studio and bade for us to return to the green room where we’d be teleported back to the dungeon in a few minutes.

“Donut,” I whispered as we moved to the door. “What the fuck? I don’t know what you’re involved in, or how, but holy shit. What the hell just happened? Actually, don’t tell me. It’s too dangerous to tell me, even here.”

“It’s okay,” Donut said. “It’s done now.”

Odette’s words haunted me. Too bad it’s the Valtay. You poor bastards.

I’d known for some time that Donut and Zev had some secret system of communication. I assumed it was via the social media board, which was dangerous. Because if that was how they were doing it, it meant it was all out there for people to find and decode. And if this intergalactic internet was anything like what we’d had here, someone would figure it out.

We returned to the green room, my head still swimming. Lexis was leaned up against the counter, smoking one of those same vape things Quasar used. The tendrils of smoke curled about the room, catching the light in a rainbow of colors. The smoke smelled like burnt candy. She held her finger in the air. “Wait for it.”

“Wait for what?” I asked.

The lights flickered.

“There it is,” she said, speaking rapidly. “The hand-off. The system is transferring from mudskipper control to the Valtay central control. It’ll take a minute or two. No sniffers will be online, so I gotta speak quickly.”

“Go,” I said.

“Okay, shut up and listen,” Lexis said, continuing to speak hurriedly. She kept her eyes on her tablet as she talked, watching a blinking cursor. “Do not speak of this as it will be construed cheating, more so than anything else we’ve said to you. Queen Imogen of the High Elves is a country boss. She’s a new character this season, and nobody has seen her yet, a sure sign that she’s going to be a repurposed human. They’re saving the big reveal. Obvious choice was Beatrice because of your ties with the Vengeance of the Daughter storyline. Don’t know who it’ll be now. Best guess is the elf won’t appear until the Champion Ball. The top fifty crawlers will all be transferred to the ball whether you like it or not. It’ll be in the high elf ballroom in their castle. There’ll be a party and contests and prizes, and you’ll mingle with the remaining hunters. I don’t know how that will work. The party will end with a big battle. They’re setting it up to zero out the top crawlers.”

“Why?” I asked, alarmed. “If the Valtay are taking over, won’t they want the rest of the season to move like normal?”

“No time to fully explain. The Valtay did not win full control. They gained 51% of the Borant Corporation, but the collection action on the whole system is still in limbo. Think of the worms as the new babysitter. Or better yet, the new stepdad, and he’s just as strict as the last guy, but in a different way. The Borant Corporation is still in control of the game, and they want it to run smoothly. They always did, but they were being controlled by their crazy government. The Valtay isn’t going to be satisfied with this new arrangement. They are control freaks. They’ll want the top 10 to be crawlers of their choosing. Like a new apex predator taking over a pride. The first thing he’ll do is wipe out everything and start fresh.”

“But they already sponsor Carl,” Donut said. “They like him.”

“They sponsored Carl because they knew he was going to be a thorn in the mudskipper’s side. What do you think is going to happen now?” Lexis asked.

“We’ll go down the stairs early, then,” I said. “We’ll go down before this ball thing.”

“That would be Odette’s advice as well,” Lexis said.

I suddenly realized that this was all coming directly from Odette, but she was filtering it through Lexis because of how dangerous this information was. If we got caught, she had plausible deniability.

“But what about everybody else?” Donut asked. “Even if Elle and Katia and all the others go down, they’ll just use the next fifty top crawlers. And those guys will be even less prepared. Plus I’ve already started training Mongo for the beauty pageant.”

“Goddamnit,” I growled. She was right, of course. But a country boss? Nobody would be prepared for that.

“System will reboot in ten seconds,” Lexis said, looking at her tablet. “You’ll be transferred out in fifteen.”

“This is most distressing,” Donut grumbled. “I certainly would never have smuggled all those Valtay secret agent guys to Zev and the Borant Emancipation Front if I’d known this was going to happen.”

I exchanged an incredulous look with Lexis, who stared at the cat, open-mouthed.

“What?” I asked just before we transferred back to the dungeon.

~

“Goddamnit, Donut,” I growled. “Don’t say anything. Don’t say a word. But god fucking damnit.”

Donut released Mongo back in the saferoom, who started bouncing around happily. Donut jumped to my shoulder and butted her head against mine. I reached up to pet her.

Donut: RELAX, CARL. EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY. NO NEED TO GET ALL BROODY AND WORRIED. IT’S NOT LIKE IT’LL BE ANY BETTER OR WORSE THAN BEFORE.

I didn’t know about that.

Mordecai was standing on a dented chair—the same chair he’d once tossed at a guy’s head—playing with the shop interface. “Did you hear the news while you were away?”

“Yes,” I said. “They said your contract is still being honored.”

“We’ll see,” he said. “This sort of thing happens a lot, though usually not mid-season. When it does, we typically get our contracts frozen as we’re transferred and traded to other companies, and it takes cycles to work itself out. But there’s always lawyers and rule changes and all sorts of fuckery involved.” He grunted and reached up, clicking something on the 3D screen of the interface. “I’m still not clear how much has really changed. I’m looking to see if the shop system is still using kua-tin software, or if they changed to the Valtay system. It’ll be a good indicator how much control the new guys have. Hmm. It looks the same as before.”

“Is that good or bad?” I asked.

“It’s both. They’re going to keep the fantasy theme of the dungeon. Hopefully. It doesn’t make sense and won’t go over well with the fans if the next floor is Valtay style, which would be androids and hovercars and laser pistols and mechanical death machines. The Syndicate would never allow it, nor would the AI. It wouldn’t make sense in the context of all your spells and abilities and classes.” He sighed and jumped sideways, landing on the counter. “So for now, it’ll be business as usual. Since the corporation itself is still in charge, you should still be dealing with Zev. How was the interview?”

“Don’t ask,” I said.

“How’s the town?” Donut asked. “Are my mushroom guys keeping everything safe?”

“The Ursine are complaining,” Mordecai said, “but I think I finally got through their thick skulls that they’re in danger from the hunters. We had to beat back an attack from another pair of those pale Dream elves, but they disappeared into the woods. I suspect they’re all going to seek safer prey. Another day, and the town should be self-sufficient, and you can move further south. Those two guys you brought with you from the woods are helping to build picket defenses. They’ve already upgraded the southern wall.”

“Really?” I asked. We’d only been gone for about two hours.

“They work fast,” Mordecai said. “Especially when they’ve turned. Also, Katia wants to talk to you. They talked Imani into being the guildmaster, and they’ve already purchased a space. Katia wants to borrow some money to buy something called a Manager’s headquarters, which will allow me to keep my room when she disengages. Sort of.”

“Okay,” I said. I felt frazzled. Overwhelmed. I needed to sleep. My heart was still thrashing at Donut’s sudden, unexpected confession. I was terrified that whatever she’d done would soon come to light, and there’d be no hiding from the consequences this time.

I reached up and petted her again. I knew that whatever it was that she’d done, it’d been less about helping with some random guerilla group and more about helping her friend. Still, how could I get mad at her? It would be hypocritical beyond belief. Especially after what had just happened with Bea.

As exhausted as I was, I knew her emotional state right now had to be much more fragile.

“Come on, Donut. Let’s get sleep, reset everything, and get back out there.” Donut and Mongo followed without hesitation. I passed the bubbling Emberus shrine on the way to the bedroom, and I paused long enough to add a drop of blood. We entered the room and prepared to sleep for our two hours.

“You know what, Donut?” I asked as I sat down on the bed.

She just looked at me, a strange unreadable, fear in her eyes.

“You snore, too.”

The eyes softened. “I have never snored once in my life, Carl. I am both a princess and a cat. It’s quite literally impossible. Now quit talking nonsense and go to sleep.”

~

We awakened in time to view the recap episode, and upon watching it, I found myself wishing I’d stayed asleep. We watched as Vrah and a unit of four other mantis creatures swooped in from the air and decapitated a group of crawlers as they rode in a heavily-wooded trail on the back of a cart. The formation of five aliens landed and approached the crawlers, looting their bodies. The show zoomed in and showed a rapid-fire list of all the loot they’d gained as Vrah took the head of the two crawlers she’d killed—both human—and she affixed them to her carapace using some unknown method.

The rest of the scenes in the first part of the show portrayed crawlers getting mauled to death by all sorts of jungle animals. We saw a crawler bend over to pick up a mushroom only to get skewered by a spike that popped out of the fungus, piercing him right in the eye. He dropped dead, and his skin started boiling.

“That’s the skewer belle,” Mordecai said. “If you see one, make sure you grab it for me. But always pick it by the stem. Don’t touch the top.”

“Christ, Mordecai,” I said.

After that, we watched a much abridged version of our dinosaur encounter from the night before. The show portrayed a few majestically slow-motion shots of Mongo getting lucky. Donut made frustrated and disgusted noises. The screen went black for a few minutes before the show moved on. We watched Lucia Mar, in her beautiful woman form, fight a borough boss that looked like a stegosaurus. She cast her weird damage reflect spell on the smaller of her two rottweilers, and when the dinosaur crushed the dog, the damage reflected to the boss, killing it and leaving the dog unharmed.

I exchanged a look with Donut. I knew she was thinking the same thing. If Lucia was at this party thing and didn’t actually murder us all before the boss fight, she would be a great asset.

The show portrayed Lucia cackling maniacally as she pulled out the now-dead boss’s eyeball with her bare hand and bit down on it like it was an apple.

“Yeah, that’s normal,” Donut said.

From there, we watched Elle, Katia, Bautista, Florin and others raid a small druid town while Louis and Firas floated above and directed the attack. They were hunting after Eva. They thought she was in the town, but she’d gotten away. Eva appeared to have a special ability to avoid being magically tracked.

We then finally saw snake-headed, four-armed Eva, who’d gathered a small group of women with her. She glamored the town’s NPCs with a charm spell and talked them into attacking Katia’s group when they entered, but when they actually approached, Imani cast a counterspell that removed the glamor. It showed a tree-person NPC tearfully telling Imani what Eva had done. The raid ended without violence.

This was the first time I’d seen Imani since the floor started. She looked much the same, but her ethereal wings had taken on a more solid appearance, and wisps of fire radiated from her. Her face was even more gaunt than it was before, making her look almost mummified. The white skull facepaint glowed.

But the biggest change was that she could now fly. She and Elle moved together with the rest of the team on foot, coming behind Katia, Florin, and Bautista. They all worked together like they’d been doing this for years. I did not see Li Jun or Na or Zhang, but I know they were now working with them, too. I didn’t see Chris, either. Nor the two cretin bodyguards.

I couldn’t help but feel a pang of regret, of loneliness that we’d gone off on our own for this floor. But the path we were traveling was too dangerous. The others were doing important work, and our presence would be nothing but a distraction.

“I do hope they’re being careful,” Donut said. “Maybe later we can all work together.”

“I hope so, too,” I said.

The show ended, and then Katia entered the personal space by herself. She looked haggard and exhausted. “Is she done screaming now?” Katia asked, poking her head into the room. She was talking about Samantha.

“Speak of the devil,” I said. “We were just talking about you.”

“Hi Katia!” Donut said. “Yes, Carl got her to shut up. But now we have to bring her adventuring with us next time we go out.”

“I was watching the show in the guild. I figured it was time to come over and make the exchange and finally leave the party. We need one more purchase so Mordecai doesn’t lose his space. Plus Mistress Tiatha will finally get her own as well. She’s pretty excited about it.”

We were interrupted by the announcement. The speaker was the same lady as always, but she was more annoyingly chipper than ever.

Hello, Crawlers.

What an interesting day! We have a bit of a long message today, so please pay careful attention.

There’s a lot of rumor and speculation about what that last world announcement means for you guys, and the short answer is that it means nothing. For those of you who regularly deal with Borant administrators, some of you might find yourselves with a different representative, but for the vast majority of you, nothing has changed. The Borant Corporation is not the Borant System government, and more importantly, it has been fully severed from silly system politics. The civil war that just erupted in our home system will have no bearing whatsoever on this production, and we look forward to working with the Valtay. This is still a kua-tin organization that is run by the same kua-tin who designed and put this season together. As some of you know, this particular crawl has been my personal life project. I have been working on it for a very, very long time, and I am going nowhere! All future floors will be the same ones they were always going to be. That is all we’re going to say about the subject.

So on to the fun stuff. You’ve all received all three sponsors by now. We had record bidding this time around. But don’t worry, the fun isn’t over yet. If you find yourself with an inactive or stingy sponsor, odds are good they’re holding on to sell your slot. Sponsors will be allowed to sell their sponsorship stakes starting next floor.

The hunt is on! Hunters have already claimed over 500 crawlers. But more interestingly, you guys are showing some serious spunk. We’ve already had a record number of hunters fall this season. Over 50 so far. So many that their families are starting to complain! Now that’s showing some initiative!

Speaking of the hunters, we have good news everybody. Because of public concern and outcry and because of a new court injunction that we fully support, we have implemented a few changes that don’t affect you directly, but they will have a major impact on the hunters. Hunters may no longer communicate directly with those outside of this floor. No sales of gear or trades will be allowed until this floor is complete. Some were concerned that the hunters had an unfair advantage, and we agree! Boy, this really made some of them angry. Maybe that will teach them not to try to sue us so much!

“Excellent,” I said. I held up a fist, and Donut did a paw bump. Quasar had come through. Now the playing field was much more level.

We have a few additional patch notes. The hot springs in the southwest corner of the map were found to be not as hot as they were supposed to be, and they were adjusted upward. Unfortunately, the action accidentally cooked a good number of crawlers who were in the water at the time. Sorry about that! Those of you who moved in to collect the dropped gear, please note that since this was an error on our part, the gear you obtained will be removed from your inventory immediately upon the end of this message.

In a related note, the lava tubes in that area are now also active, so keep that in mind if you want to play in that area.

The allosaurus mobs have been split into two distinct mob types to accommodate a newly-generated quest. In addition, for both mob types, the strength levels have been split further by gender.

We’ve been forced to temporarily disable the Fuck those Trees in Particular spell as it didn’t work as intended on this floor.

Finally, we’d like to announce a new feature. The preparations for the Champion’s Ball are well underway. Several of you have expressed concerned that you don’t know where you stand in the rankings. Upon the end of this message, all crawlers will now be able to see their rankings if they are in the top 1,000. If you have nothing, that means you need to stop being so boring.

That’s it for now. Now get out there and kill, kill, kill!

“It looks like we’re all going to that Champions Ball,” Katia said. “I wonder if it’ll be in a saferoom? How are they going to keep everyone from murdering each other? Or at the very least, keep the hunters from the crawlers?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But hopefully we’ll get the details as soon as possible. How are you doing, Katia? We saw the raid on the recap.”

“Yeah, that just happened like an hour ago. I’m exhausted. But we’ll get her. She’s backed into that area they were talking about with the hot springs and lava tubes. Li Na is able to track her, and they’re moving in. How was Odette’s show?”

“I’ll tell you about it later,” I said. “We promised we’d wait a few hours before we mentioned it out loud.”

Donut: THERE WAS A SPECIAL SURPRISE GUEST! I TOLD HER OFF!

“Okay, tell me when you can. Bautista and I will be going on together in a few days. It’ll be his first appearance. Donut, we managed to pool enough money for the upgrade, but we were hoping you could purchase it because you have the highest charisma of all of us. If we bring the Royal Palace into the guild now, we can go to the Bopca in the common area and purchase it together. Then you can meet everyone you haven’t yet.”

“Let’s do it!” Donut said. “Wait. Let me take a quick shower first. Mongo, you too.” She scampered off.

“Is she okay?” Katia asked. “She seems a little… forced.”

“She’s not, but she will be,” I said. “She had to do something very grown up.”

“Was it because of the dinosaur thing?”

“No,” I said. “I’ll… I’ll tell you in a bit. Hey, does this new system offer a way for us to fast travel?”

“Not yet. Supposedly teleport portals will become available in tier three, but you can’t purchase those until the ninth floor.”

“Okay,” I said, trailing off, suddenly distracted. I’d received a notification. I groaned. “Fan box time.”

“Well, I’m glad I came over now, then,” Katia said. “Should we wait for Donut?”

“No,” I said, pulling it up. I opened the box. A plastic, rectangle badge popped out, dangling from a red lanyard. The red lanyard said Titan Entertainment on it in Syndicate standard. The plastic badge thing was the size of a postcard. The back was covered in scrolling words, all advertisements. The front featured a moving image of a horned demon thing shooting fire from its mouth. The words SPECIAL GUEST exploded over and over again along the edge. At the bottom was a spinning logo that said Carl. Dungeon Crawler World: Earth.

A timer appeared on my interface. It was at 22 hours and counting down.

I read the description.

“What the shit?” I asked. “What the everloving fuck?” Even with the warning from Zev, I was still surprised at the actual reward. I looked up at the ceiling and said. “Yeah, thanks, assholes.”

“What? What is it?” Katia asked. I handed the badge to her, and she barked with laughter as I read the description a second time

Congratulations, Crawler! You’ve received a free fan booth at CrawlCon! With thousands of physical attendees and billions of virtual visitors, Dungeon Crawler World fans from all corners of the galaxy gather once every other season to geek out together over all things Crawl! With special guests, panels, vendors, cosplay, and so much more, CrawlCon is the event of the galaxy!

Thanks to your fans, you’ve been added to the CrawlCon roster! You will attend three events!

Your presence at the con will be virtual. Please see your outreach associate for details on your schedule.

Carl: Zev. Fuck this. I’m not doing this bullshit. Fuck no. Send Donut instead.

Zev: Carl, I am very busy right now. I’m sorry you don’t like the contents of your fan box. But believe me when I say, it’s in your best interests to be cooperative just this once. I’ll try to talk to you more later about it. In the meantime, I’ve already received your schedule, and I’m sending it to you now. The conference is already underway, which is why your scheduled events are so soon. Talk to you later.

Donut would not be going with me to this. She was gonna to be pissed. The new countdown timer started blinking, and I mentally clicked on it.

Your schedule for the upcoming event has been updated. You will be transferred to a production facility for each individual event, which will occur at separate times. Please be prepared.

You have been scheduled for three events. They are as follows:

Art Contest: Judge’s panel. Three very special guests will pick the best drawing in the juvenile quickdraw category. Judging will be live. Judges TBA.

Panel: Crawling Through the Ages. Crawlers both new and old will lead a discussion regarding the current state of the Crawl. Discussion followed by a Q&A. Special guests TBA. Moderated by Circe Took of the Hive.

Autograph and Keepsake Session: Fan-favorite Crawler Carl of the current season will autograph merchandise, spend a few moments chatting, and will pose for a static image with a limited number of fans. Book your session now. Refunds guaranteed* if Carl does not survive long enough to attend.

A special, limited number of duo likeness sessions also available with Carl and the Popov Brothers. Bidding is now open.

I took a deep breath.

“This has to be a joke,” Katia said, handing the badge off to Mordecai, whose eyes got huge when he examined it.

“When has it ever been a joke?” I asked.

“I haven’t seen them use current crawlers for the con in over a century,” Mordecai said. “I was a special guest once, but it was years after my season. Did you get your schedule yet?”

I read off what Zev sent me.

“Three events? Wow, they’re going all in,” Mordecai said. “All I did was the autograph session, but I only ended up signing three items.”

“How is this even a thing?” I asked. “It sounds just like a comic convention from earth.”

Mordecai grunted, which came out more like a squeak in his current form. “Fan conventions have been a thing for a very long time. The first active prep teams landed on this planet in your year 1936. The first sci-fi convention was in Philadelphia in 1938. Do the math.”

“How did you autograph stuff?” Katia asked just as Donut returned to the room, sparkling clean. “How can you sign something if you’re not really there?”

Mongo padded behind Donut, also shining. He squawked happily.

“Autographs?” Donut asked. She eyed the badge thing sitting on the counter and jumped up. “Carl, you opened your fan box without me?”

“I just wanted to see what it was first,” I said.

She examined it. She already knew that it was going to be something like this, but I could see her tail droop as the realization hit her. She looked at Mordecai. “Can I go, too?”

“Sorry, kid. It looks like this one is just Carl.”

Donut: ZEV, I WANT TO GO TOO!

Zev: Sorry, Donut. It’s out of my hands. They’re only allowing four crawlers to do this, and they’ve all already been chosen.

Donut: WHO IS IT?

Carl: Again, I’m more than willing to give this to Donut.

Zev: Not my choice. We’ll talk later.

Donut grumbled something under her breath.

“Come on, Donut,” Katia said. “Let’s do some shopping.”

Donut looked at her suspiciously. “You’re going to finally leave the party for real, aren’t you?”

“I am. We really need to disengage, Donut. Every time you get a quest, I get one too, and soon, I’ll be getting my own quests.”

“Will I still be able to visit you?”

“Of course,” Katia said. “I’ll be right next door. It’ll be like moving into a bigger town.”

“Okay,” Donut said finally.

Katia reached over and scratched Donut’s head. “Okay, hang on. I’m having Imani send you an invite.”

While they worked that out, I moved to the side of the counter and started to prepare a biscuit sandwich from the food box. I parked myself next to the Sledge, who sat there staring off into space. The rock monsters had finally gotten sick of the Frogger machine. I needed to do some work. I had a few things I needed to build for the assault on the naiad castle. And we needed to spend some time working on the local NPCs before we moved south and took over the next big town. And I still needed to visit both the Desperado Club and Club Vanquisher. I was putting off the latter because I knew it would involve a bunch of additional bullshit I didn’t have time for.

The Royal Court of Princess Donut is now a member of the guild, Safehome Yolanda.

The controlling party for this guild is Team Meadowlark.

The guildmaster is crawler Imani C.

This Guild is now level 7.

There are six parties attached to this guild with a total of 63 crawlers.

The name punched me in a gut. Despite their age difference, Yolanda had been one of Imani’s best friends.

To the left of the door to the outside, a new door suddenly appeared. It was labeled Guild Common Area.

You have multiple upgrades available for your personal area.

“Don’t place anything yet until after Katia leaves the party,” Mordecai warned.

“Mongo,” Donut cried. “There’s a pet stable!”

A pair of barn doors appeared to the left of the new exit.

Your beds have been upgraded to the Instacot 60.

“What did I just say?” Mordecai demanded.

“Goddamnit,” I grumbled. The “Instacot” was the second best bed on the market. It refreshed us after sixty seconds of “sleep.” But it also changed our Good Rest bonus to Great Rest, and it imparted a whopping 15% bonus to our stats for the day. Still, I hated the idea of it. I absolutely hated it.

A distant explosion suddenly rattled the personal space.

“What is that?” I asked. “Do you have some weird training area out there?”

“I don’t think that came from the common area,” Katia said.

A bang came at the door. The voice of Clint came through, muffled.

“Ya’ll better get your butts out here. They be attacking!”

~

“I didn’t even get to go shopping,” Donut grumbled as we rushed out the door back into the town of Point Mongo.

I jumped into the hallway. The pub was filled with shouting ursine. “Who?” I called. “Who’s attacking? Is it dinosaurs or…” I stopped, finally seeing Clint standing there by the door, waiting for us.

“Come on, come on,” he said, waving his now-webbed hand.

He’d changed. His height was the same, but the already-stocky man had grown even wider. He was covered with brown, oily-looking fur, including over his formally-bald head.

He’d also turned into a goddamned beaver.

A pair of buck teeth jutted from his rodent mouth, and he now spoke with a noticeable lisp. His clothes were gone. My eyes focused on his long, flat tail. It looked like a wide, black tongue.

“Carl,” Donut whispered. “I didn’t know a castor was actually a beaver. He’s disgusting.”

“I didn’t know, either,” I said.

“You two gonna stare at my ass, or you gonna go help me us kill some elves. The idiots built some sort of magical trebuchet or catapult or something out in the middle of the woods and are using it to lob poison bombs at us.” He shook his beaver head. “Poison bombs against funeral bell guards. It’s like trying to attack a mongoliensis by throwing sausages at it. Idiots.”

Another explosion rocked the town. This one from several streets over.

“How many are there?” I asked.

“Dunno. They’re firing from really far away.”

“Hmm,” I said. I had a sudden idea. A ridiculous idea. “Hang on. I need to go grab something.”

~

Hello all! I recently just finished re-reading the entire series. I know that sounds kinda odd, but it's important to do this every once in a while. I keep extensive notes, but it's good to re-ground yourself to the story. Over at royal road, they're big mad I haven't posted in a hot minute, but I wanted to get that done first. I'm going to dump three chapters on them to catch them up. Thanks to everybody for your patronage. Sorry about the douche ending to this one.