Chapters 161, 162, 163 (Patreon)

Good news, it's three chapters. 13K words. Bad news, we don't yet resolve the cliffhanger from chapter 160. And there's a new cliffhanger. All gets resolved in 164.

Chapter 161

Entering Security Checkpoint.

I, once again, transferred to a space station. No. No, no, no. Donut and Samantha remained down there. Alone with that psychopath. The door to the saferoom was open. Had Donut gone in? Of course she had. Donut wasn’t stupid.

But I couldn’t be certain. Why did I have to ask that dryad who the mayor was? Zev had tried to warn us the best she could. Goddamnit. I had to get down there.

I twisted in the near-zero gravity, surprised at my environment despite this being the second time. I tried to pull up my chat, but my interface was blacked out. “No,” I said again.

Several torturous minutes passed. Below, something burned on the surface of India near the southern point of the country. I didn’t know the geography well enough to know what city that was. Or what city it had been. The fire was big enough to see from up here. “Hey,” I called up at the invisible trap door. “Hey!”

With every minute that passed, my panic rose. The thought of something happening to Donut and me not being able to do anything about it filled me with an overwhelming sense of helplessness.

“Goddamnit.” I kicked at the window floor showing the planet below, which was a mistake. I went flying off at an angle and crunched heavily against the corner bulkhead.

To my left, the trapdoor in the ceiling finally opened, just as I started to sink back down toward the floor. A single gnoll came through the chute, all business. This was not one of the same ones as before. This one was less kitted out with not as much crap attached to his uniform. He was also older, with gray around his snout. He had a quarter moon insignia on his shoulders, which was different than what the last guys had.

“I need to go back. Now. Right now.”

“You need to shut up is what you need to do,” the gnoll said. He hit the ground with a clank and took a few steps toward me where I helplessly floated downward. He grabbed me by the ankle and effortlessly pulled me down the rest of the way. I had to struggle to keep from fully collapsing to the translucent floor. He waved a scanner over me. “Do you have any explosives on your person?”

I had an overwhelming urge to grab this guy by the neck and start choking him, but I knew that’d just end up delaying everything. Zev said she’d meet me in the production trailer. She’d tell me what was happening. I hoped.

“I don’t have anything,” I said. “Now get it over with.”

The gnoll leaned in. His breath was hot and smelled strangely sweet, like mandarin oranges. “My grandpup’s name is Lix. I would consider it a personal favor if you looked approvingly on her and her entry. I can’t back-scratch you directly, but I am in charge of security in the production vessel you’re about to be transferred down to. You’re known to steal from production trailers. I can overlook any such future transgressions if you do this for me.”

I pulled my head back to regard the older gnoll. “What in the flying fuck are you talking about?”

He didn’t answer. He grabbed my jacket and bodily turned me sideways, like he was turning the arms on a clock. My feet left the ground as I twisted in midair. I was so surprised at the motion, I didn’t resist. I started to slowly float down. He said, “Clear” into his shoulder and then jumped toward the ceiling. Before I could react, I flashed.

~

Entering Production Facility.

Last time, I landed hard on my side. This time I landed on my feet. My bare feet echoed as they hit a thin, cool metal. My interface snapped back on for a moment before snapping off again. In that brief second, a page of messages appeared, mostly from Donut and Mordecai. And Samantha. One popped up from Donut right at that moment, saying something to Katia, so I knew she was okay for now. I didn’t get to read the messages, but I relaxed. Slightly.

“Whoa,” I said, looking about. I could tell right away that this production trailer was much bigger than usual. We were underwater, but I could sense this vessel was huge. I could feel movement and sound all around me. I thought of the Akula, the massive submarine from the last floor. This was the same sort of thing. The room was ridiculously humid, and I felt my ears pop.

My room looked similar to the last underwater trailer, minus the large window. There were no portholes here. A single, slightly-too-small exit sat against the far wall, and a red-blinking light was affixed to the metal above it. An alien symbol was etched above the light. It looked like a capital Q with two extra little lines in it. I committed it to memory. Everything else was the same as usual. There was a bare counter. A small bathroom. A couch, though it was made of metal, like the bench at a bus stop. Donut would hate this, I thought. Below my feet, I heard what sounded like the crackle of a spell being cast, followed by cheers and laughter. There was a slight vibration in the floor with the sound of the cheering crowd. “What the hell?” I muttered.

“Hello, Carl,” Zev said from the bench. I jumped in surprise. She was directly behind me, and I hadn’t noticed her there at all. She sat quietly, leaned up against the arm. She wasn’t wearing her suit. Only the rebreather, and she looked small and tired. The diminutive fish woman smiled up at me.

“Zev,” I said. “I need to get back down there.”

“Yeah,” she said. “That was quite the fight, but Donut is okay. She is safely ensconced in the guildhall. There’s no need to hurry. This is the first of three events, and this one will not take too long. However, I was discussing your schedule with my team, and…”

“Fight?” I exclaimed, interrupting. Any relief I felt fled. “She fought Lucia Mar? By herself?”

Zev looked nervously up at the ceiling. “Look, Carl. Things have changed with the, uh, new management. We are not in a regular production trailer. Most of the rental trailers were owned by a company called Senegal Production Systems, Unlimited, but they’ve been kicked off system by the Valtay because it’s difficult for them to keep… track of crawlers when they’re outside the dungeon. There was an incident. An escape attempt. That along with what happened with Loita last floor, yeah, they’ve decided to be a little more strict.” She leaned in. “We are under constant surveillance. Not just by the AI, but by the actual security detail of the vessel. I can’t tell you exactly what happened. But Donut is okay.”

I remembered what that guy up in orbit had said. “Strict?” I asked, looked about. With us? I didn’t add. After what we helped you do?

Zev continued. “This is an actual Valtay landing vessel, and it is parked in the planet’s primary zone. So we’re sitting at the bottom of the ocean. Not far from the headquarters, actually. The ship is normally sectioned off into different environments, but it’s been cleared and pressurized to Earth standard, and most of the interviews will occur here from now on.”

Below my feet, I heard more muffled laughter. There’s a show being recorded down there right now.

I took a deep breath. “All right. Let’s get this bullshit over with so I can get back down there.”

“Actually, what I was saying earlier, Carl, was that I was discussing your schedule with my team. You have your first event coming up in a few minutes followed by the second, a panel discussion, in a few hours. We’ve decided to keep you here the whole time. Your autograph session is already booked for tomorrow, so you’ll have to leave and come back for that one, but your “Crawling Through the Ages” panel is scheduled for about six hours from now. So after your first event, you’ll return here, and we’ll provide you with a bed and food. We can also provide you with access to a training room as compensation for the loss of dungeon time.”

“Is this a joke?” I said. “Screw that. I want to go back down there immediately. If Donut managed to get herself into the guildhall, that means she can only exit through that same door, and if she didn’t kill that psycho kid, that means she and her dogs might still be there. Donut is trapped, and I need to get down there as soon as possible.”

Zev lowered her voice and spoke slowly and deliberately. “Your involvement in CrawlCon is highly anticipated. Not only is the universe looking forward to meeting you today, but it might be in your best interest to… linger as much as you can. Do you understand?”

“No,” I said.

“Then you will have to trust me. When we are done, you will be transferred back to the exact place you were transferred from. Any other crawlers and their pet or anyone else who may be aware of your participation may very well be waiting for you. So you need your rest. It will do you good. That is all I can say.”

There was so much loaded into that statement, it made my head spin.

“I thought you guys plugged up the communication…”

“Stop talking,” Zev said, raising her webbed hand. Water splashed from her neck and dripped off the bench. “I’m going to open up your inventory for a moment. Pull out that CrawlCon badge you got from the fan box and put it around your neck. Do not remove anything else. Lose the bandana, too. You’ll be able to put it back on before you return. You need to get out there.”

I sighed and pulled the badge with the red lanyard. The red demon on the front of the badge roared silently, shooting fire from his mouth. On the back was a scrolling ad for some real estate venture on what looked like a swamp planet. I put the badge around my neck.

A new tab is available in your interface. CrawlCon schedule.

I tried to open the tab, but I couldn’t get to it.

“I can’t get to the schedule,” I said.

“Sorry, Carl,” Zev replied. “Unlike the regular trailers, this vessel has its own containment zone. You have crawler wetware, so you’re blocked out.”

I instinctively formed a fist to see if my gauntlet worked. It did, just like when I was above sea level. I quickly dismissed it before I summoned security. Weird. What did that mean? I really wanted to ask Zev why, but my instincts told me to leave it be. For now.

“What was this first event again? I forgot what the prize box said it was.”

“You’re judging a kids’ art contest.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Try not to swear for this one, Carl. They’re children.”

~

“My daddy says you’re the cat’s bitch,” the little boy said. He was human, and his badge said his name was “Keith H.” The boy was about six or seven years old, and he had a weird-ass haircut. It looked like a skunk had curled up on top of his head and died. Most non-earth humans were generally thinner and more big-eyed. This kid was stout and squat, practically a dwarf, with eyes like pinpricks. He looked at me expectantly with his piggy stare.

I examined the kid’s submission to the art contest. It was a shitty drawing, even by seven-year-old standards. It was a flat piece of paper with a stick figure with a bunch of red scribbles over it. There was maybe a yellow bird or something floating over the mess. It looked like he’d spilled chocolate milk on it, too.

“What is this supposed to be?” I asked.

“It’s you getting eaten by a brindle grub,” the boy, Keith, said. “My dad says if you weren’t the AI’s toy, that’s probably how you would’ve really died. He says you’re a cheater and you whore yourself to the macro AI and to the mudskippers. He says now that the brain worms have taken over, you’re going to die any day now.”

“Ask your dad why that other guy is always coming over when he’s not home,” I said. I reached over and clicked the number one on the virtual tablet that hovered in front of me. “Next.”

To my left, Hurk suppressed laughter. The Gleener gave one glance to the kid’s artwork and made his vote, shooing the kid away.

This had been going on for over an hour now. Apparently this CrawlCon was happening at an actual, physical location somewhere in the inner system, whatever that meant. While the adults were walking around buying random shit and visiting booths and panels, they had a daycare where they could drop off their kids. For an extra fee, the kids could participate in an art contest. Each day of the three-day con had a different panel of so-called celebrity judges. The kids were given all sorts of art supplies, from digital tablets to “nano self-learning sculpting clay” to the alien equivalent of paper and crayons. Then the kids marched, one by one in front of three judges where we looked at the art, and we judged it on a scale of one to 30.

I was given no direction on what to do or how harshly I should be judging this stuff. Most of this crap looked like how one would expect. But there was also a smattering of art pieces that looked like they were drawn by master artisans, including 3D, moving paintings that were so realistic that they looked like photographs. The kid before Keith was a green bubble alien named Guru-san, and his art piece was a sculpture that looked and moved like a real-life, lava-spitting llama. The alien kid had no arms or features at all, and I had no idea how he’d even made the thing. I’d given him a 25.

Usually I had some sort of robot or producer telling me what to do, but this time there was nothing. I’d gone through the small door on the side of my green room, and I sat down at a desk, and suddenly I had a panel floating in front of me. I was sandwiched between two aliens. To my left was a fish-like gleener, who appeared to be floating in a virtual tank of water or some other alien liquid. Everyone who wore that badge had their name floating over their heads, and the name floating over him said simply, Hurk. He waved at me jovially. These gleener guys looked a lot like the kua-tin, but they were human sized and had more of a blue tinge to their skin.

To my surprise, the alien to my right was a dour, long-faced Bactrian camel alien. I hadn’t realized these camel guys were a real thing and not something made up for the dungeon. I wondered what they thought when they saw earth camels. I wondered if that was like a human seeing a monkey or a neanderthal.

This guy was dressed in a long, silk-like robe. His label said G’valt. Session of Love. I had no idea what that meant. He looked at me and snorted, snot flying from his nose and disappearing once it hit the virtual edge of the screen.

All three of us were attending the con virtually, but all the kids were really there.

In front of us was a wide room filled with screeching children. It didn’t appear as if they could see us yet. Multiple, frisbee-shaped, Mexx-style robots floated about the room, humming and hawing over the chaos. The kids were an eclectic mix, ranging in age from what appeared to be two years old to about ten. There were soothers, sacs, humans, elves, orcs, and dozens of other what-the-fuck-is-thats mixed about the room. They were all air-breathers, I noted. There were no gleener or kua-tin children.

About a third of the children were hard at work creating their masterpieces. The rest were pinging off the walls and running around, doing typical kid stuff. I was struck with how normal the scene was. If it weren’t for the actual aliens and robot attendants, it could easily be a scene from a regular, earth daycare.

“I have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing,” I announced.

“Don’t worry, my child,” Hurk the gleener said. Despite being in a tank of liquid, I could hear the creature like he really was sitting next to me. He had an oddly formal, British accent. Like a Shakespearean character. “This isn’t quite quantum mapping. You look at the art, and then you press a button between one and 30. The better the art, the higher the score. Simple. At the end, the little poop dumpling with the highest average wins.”

To my right, the camel guy snorted with derision. He pulled what looked like a tumbler filled with smoke and pulled it to his large nose. The camel sniffed long and hard.

“Really, old friend? Children too much for you?” Hurk called over at the camel. “You’ll be out of your mind before we’re finished.”

“Eat my ass, Hurk,” the camel said. Then, raising his voice, the camel called, “Let’s get this over with.”

This would be the first and last time I would hear the camel speak.

“Don’t mind G’valt,” Hurk said to me, whispering conspiratorially. “He’s mad they added his drama to his name.”

“I don’t know what that means,” I said.

Hurk pointed upward. “My nametag says ‘Hurk.’ That’s because, ostensibly, everybody knows who I am. I’m Hurk. Designer of the Desperado Club along with several different sets. Perennial flower of the CrawlCon panel. Likewise, your tag simply says ‘Carl.’ Everybody knows who you are, even if you weren’t prancing around in your underwear. This year, G’valt’s name tag has a qualifier. Once upon a time, he wrote multiple stage dramas, including a minor masterwork called Session of Love. It is only performed by NPCs on the ninth floor of the crawl. At least only legally. Back in the olden days, everybody knew who he was. Now he needs a little bit of a boost to jog everyone’s memories.” The fish man sighed dramatically. “It matters not when it comes to these diaper-encrusted balls of talentless youth. The only one of us who they’ll possibly recognize is you, dear Carl. Judging the art contest is both the first and last stop of the panel circuit. A mix of rising stars and those they’re about to toss into the rubbish portal.”

I was starting to realize that despite his jab at the camel, this gleener guy was also blitzed out of his mind.

“Hey,” I said. “Do you know what just happened? In the dungeon, I mean. With Donut and Lucia Mar? They won’t tell me.”

Hurk shook his head. “I apologize, my boy. I only watch the highlights nowadays. But if your companion tangled with that psychotic crawler, you have my condolences for your friend.”

Damnit, I thought. I looked over at the camel, but he just shook his head at me.

One of the mexx robots suddenly beeped and pointed in our direction. “Children. It is time to be judged. Now line up one by one.”

~

“It’s my mom,” the little elf girl said. Her name was Buttercup Divinity, and she’d drawn a strikingly-good, anime-style rendition of a female elf, smiling up at the viewer. The picture blinked at me and blew a kiss.

“That’s really good,” I said. I gave her a 24.

“Thanks. She’s dead,” the girl said before turning away.

“Jesus,” I muttered.

“Oh, gods. These guys,” Hurk whispered as a trio of goat things walked up, side-by-side. They were small, jet-black, long-haired goats with red eyes. They looked like miniature Prepotentes all lined up. The names over their heads were what looked like scientific equations. Completely unpronounceable.

“Uh, so where’s your entry,” I said, looking at the three, small goats.

“Judge us,” the center goat kid said. He bleated. “Judge us.”

To my right, G’valt had passed out, and a hand reached over his shoulder and picked a score. That’d been going on for a while now. He’d been silently voting, but since he’d fallen asleep, someone else in the room with him was doing the voting.

“I’m not sure what I should be…”

“Just pick a number,” Hurk whispered as he voted. “Get them the hells out of here.”

“Judge. We wish for judgment,” the center goat said. The other two let out a long, prolonged bleat that sounded like it was being played back in slow motion.

I reached down and picked five, which was the lowest I was giving everyone except that little asshole Keith.

The three goats sighed as one, and all three did a little spin and just walked off.

“Judgment received,” the middle one said. “Juddddgggement.”

“What the hell was that?” I asked Hurk as the next kid walked up. A soother holding what looked like a play-doh flower.

“The Plenty,” Hurk said, watching them walk off. I could hear the shiver in the fish man’s voice. “They’re all like that. Your fellow contestant, that caprid guy, goes on a program with them every few days where they just sit in a circle around him while he screams, and they scream back. It’s the strangest thing. Nobody knows what’s going on in their heads. It is bizarre, even to me, and my boy, I have seen things you wouldn’t believe.”

“Weird,” I agreed. An uneasy feeling washed over me, like we were all suddenly in danger. Those guys, the Plenty, were the ones who invented the tunneling system, the ones who were supposedly working with our new sponsor, the Apothecary.

I turned my attention back to the new kid, and then I noticed the next kid after him waiting patiently for his turn. I saw the name glowing over this other child’s head. I leaned over to Hurk.

“Hey, do me a favor. Give this next kid a high score.”

Hurk turned all the way in his tank to regard me. “The gnoll child? Why would I do that? I’ve been giving all of these little snot buckets ones and twos all morning.”

“If you give him a good score, I’ll say I really like the design of the Desperado Club during my next panel.”

“Sold!” Hurk said. He looked up at the soother kid holding the flower sculpture. “You’re still here? It’s middling at best. Make way for a real artist.”

The tall alien kid nodded solemnly and walked off.

The next kid looked like a walking puppy, barely resembling the hyena creature he would grow up into. He was named Lix, and he had ridiculously large, innocent eyes. The head of security guy wanted me to vote for him, apparently his grandkid, and in exchange, he’d let me loot my green room. As far as I was aware, there wasn’t anything that great in the room, but the last thing I wanted was some security officer guy pissed at me on top of everything else.

“What have you got there?” I asked.

If I had to guess, the boy was the equivalent of about four years old. He’d made a 3D stick drawing of an older gnoll with a truncheon. The gnoll on paper appeared to be beating something. Maybe an orc. He’d only used one color. Black.

“It’s my pup-pop,” the kid said. “He’s helping rid the universe of tax-avoiding scum.”

Hurk laughed. “This is a thirty out of thirty if I’ve ever seen one.” He voted with an over-enthusiastic flourish.

I sighed and also voted 30 for the kid’s drawing.

~

“We don’t get to see the winner’s ceremony,” Hurk said after the last kid was done. “But we do get to see who the winner is. That way you’ll know I didn’t cheat you. Don’t forget your part of the bargain.”

The whole process had taken almost two hours. After we finished voting, the scores populated on our screen. Lix the shade gnoll had won with a perfect 90. To my right, the Bactrian continued to snore. Whomever was voting for him was picking 30 for every entry. The kids who’d entered while the camel was still awake had all received ones. That little punk Keith placed dead last with a final score of four.

“Most of the time, I am okay with that,” Hurk continued, “With missing the ceremony. But I am rather interested in watching today’s service. The Eyber faction will be quite ruffled. They’ll be squirting anger slime all over the place. Gonna stink up the whole convention center.”

“Who’s that?” I asked.

“The kid who drew the portrait of your cat companion. They usually win this thing. The kid won yesterday. They love blowing bubbles up the posterior of the judges, but when they don’t get their way, watch out.”

I remembered the portrait. It was a perfect likeness of Donut, and she would’ve absolutely loved it. I’d given the kid—some sort of slug thing—a 26. Oh well, I thought. I was glad we were skipping the awards ceremony. Apparently they went through all the winning portraits, which would take goddamn forever. It’d be painfully obvious there was some sort of fix. I didn’t care.

It was time to go. The door above the entrance to my green room started blinking, which apparently meant I had to leave. “Well, Hurk, until next time,” I said, standing. I raised my voice. “You, too, camel guy.”

“Good luck to you, Carl,” Hurk said. He paused a beat. “You know, it’s been a while since there’s been a crawler like you. One that people pay attention to. One that they actually see. Be careful.”

“Careful?” I asked.

He laughed derisively. “Yeah, I suppose that’s silly advice. Nevertheless, I will be watching your panel that’s to occur later. I must admit, I may be an old hand at this, but I am quite excited about the upcoming nova display. I hear the line to attend the panel was filled this morning the moment the con opened.”

“Nova display?” I asked. “What do you mean?”

“My boy,” Hurk said. “Didn’t they tell you?”

I sighed. “Lay it on me.”

“You’re going on a panel that is being moderated by the mother of one of the hunters you killed. And she is quite vocal about how much she dislikes you. The entire fandom is just dripping wet over about what’s going to happen. Everyone will be watching.”

Next to me, the camel guy snored, blowing snot everywhere.

“Oh, I can’t wait,” I said.

Chapter 162

“Zev,” I said as I returned to the green room. The kua-tin remained sitting on the metal bench. She was intently watching a screen, but she snapped it off the moment I entered. “Who is on the panel I’m attending later today?”

“Why did you guys vote for that gnoll kid to win?” Zev asked. “All three of you gave it a perfect score. I’ve been staring at this thing for several minutes now, and I don’t see it. Is it supposed to be a joke?”

“The panel?” I asked.

“Oh, yes,” Zev said. “About that. It starts in approximately four hours. You’ll be brought to a different room to participate. They need to use the studio attached to this one for something else. The scheduling is a nightmare. I’m glad I’m not in charge of that stuff.”

“Who is this moderator?”

“Her name is Circe Took. She’s a minor hive queen. A mantis. Not part of their military. She’s more of a businesswoman, but she started off as a hunter and became quite famous for a while. She owns an amusement park.”

“Apparently I killed her child.”

“Yes. Xindy. Vrah’s little sister. It was her first hunt. The mantis people are overly dramatic about everything. The woman is a hive queen, which means she probably has ten thousand children. Try to avoid talking about her government, and there won’t be any problems.”

I sighed. I guess there wasn’t anything I could do to make it worse. It’s not like I could make Vrah want to kill me more. Or less. But it also explained Zev’s warning. At least somewhat. If this mantis had somehow figured out how to speak with her daughter, that meant Vrah would know exactly where and when I would be returned to the dungeon.

“Why can’t you return me now?” I asked. “I’ll just jump right into the saferoom.”

“I’ll be returning to base in a few minutes,” Zev said, ignoring the question. “They will come and fetch you in a little over four hours. After I leave, security will have a bed and a training module attached to the room. I’d get some rest and some training in. Do your panel, and then come back here, and I’ll give you a quick debriefing. And then you’ll go back to the dungeon. Understand?”

“Okay,” I said, settling into the metal chair next to Zev. “What is this panel about, anyway? I’ve never done anything like it.”

She waved a small hand. “It’s called ‘Crawling through the Ages.’ I looked at the panelist list, and it won’t be anyone you know. You’re the only current crawler. Usually the crawl and the con aren’t run concurrently, but it happens sometimes. They’ve only let four active crawlers attend this one, and they’re spread thin. Five crawlers actually, since the Popov brothers are really two. You’re lucky you’re only doing three events. That’s because you got here because of a fan box. The Popovs are doing something like 10 events.”

“Who are the other two?”

“A guy named Chirag Ali and your old friend, Tserendolgor. You won’t see either of them, but you’re scheduled to be sharing an autograph table with the brothers tomorrow.”

I’d seen the name Chirag Ali, but I didn’t know who that was. He or she had sometimes popped up on the top-10 list. Tserendolgor was a dog soldier woman who looked like a German Shepherd. We’d fought with her at the end of the third floor, and we’d saved her entire bubble at the end of the fifth. Donut did not like her, and she was going to be pissed if she found out this dog soldier lady got to go to this con.

“I wish Lucia was involved. Then she’d be up here and not down there.”

Zev grunted. “Lucia hasn’t done an interview or event for a while now. She’s too… unpredictable.” Zev paused, seeing the concern on my face. “Donut is okay for now, Carl. Really. She’s not the one in danger.”

I knew what that meant. I was going to be sent back to the surface and into the jaws of some trap. The details of which were unclear.

“Are you… are you doing okay, Zev? Donut seems to be pretty worried about you.”

The fish woman smiled sadly. “I’m doing about the best anyone can expect. We don’t know what’s going on back home since the entire system has gone dark. When this is all over, those of us who stayed on after the change don’t know if we’ll be welcomed home or executed as traitors. Plus, you know, my entire family was slaughtered because I refused to wear a pin. But I got a job to do. I gotta go, Carl. See you in a few hours.”

She blinked and disappeared before I could say goodbye.

~

A pair of gnoll guards entered the room a minute later. Their names were Frito and Moxo. I stood back while Frito installed a “bed” in the corner. This was nothing more than a blue, glowing panel that I could walk over, and it would fully refresh and buff me for 30 hours. This was a tier-three bed, something I wouldn’t be able to purchase until the ninth floor. They also added a door against a wall that led to something labeled Ultimate Training Room.

“Is this thing gonna work?” I asked, eying the training room. “I can’t pull up any of my systems.”

“It’ll work,” Frito said. He paused and leaned in, whispering. “The captain sends his regards. That’s a tier-four training room, so you best use it while you can. You’ll won’t be able to nick the room or bed when you leave. But a smart guy like yourself can be creative. We’ll likely turn your inventory back on about two minutes before you return to the dungeon, just so you know.”

The two mercenaries nodded and walked out.

I strolled over the bed thing, and I instantly felt refreshed. My skin prickled for a moment, like I was walking through a sprinkler. If there were notifications or achievements associated with it, they were suppressed. I turned to the training room.

Interestingly, my Valtay portal skill worked on this door. I still couldn’t enter or use any of my menus, nor could I pull up the subspace portal description, but the tell-tale glow of a portal surrounded the training room door.

I shrugged and stepped inside.

The room looked identical to the training room back at the base. The training menu popped up, just like normal. It allowed me to scroll through and pick something to train, but if that training required something that was in my inventory to use, like a weapon, I wouldn’t be able to use it. Still, I could select multiple items, like Powerful Strike or Bare Knuckles.

It took me a bit of scrolling to figure out why this room was superior to the other one.

Firstly, it appeared I could train for up to six hours a day in up to six different skills, as opposed to one hour a day in a single skill. Also, I was now given a visualization regarding how far along in the training I was to level up. Plus it seemed I received an additional bonus to training.

Secondly, there were additional types of training listed. This room combined several types of training rooms into one. It wasn’t just skills and weapons. The room was actually a combination of the regular training room, the magic workshop, the explosives studio, and multiple other similar rooms, all combined into one. My regular spells were listed as trainable along with spells associated with equipment, like my Protective Shell. Apparently, if I upgraded the spell in the training room, the associated armor—my boxer shorts in the case of Protective Shell—the equipment itself would actually be what got upgraded. Interesting.

But I could also train on how to use workshop tables, like my sapper’s table and the explosives workshop. This was easily the most valuable feature of the room. I didn’t need to have my tables with me. I just had to have them installed in my crafting studio.

I found Sapper’s Table on the list and clicked it to see what would happen.

A familiar, level-five table popped up out of the ground. The table was identical to my own, though less scorched. I ran my hand across it, and it didn’t come away sticky, either. I remembered the time I’d “accidentally” set off the hobgoblin disco ball. It’d left residue everywhere. The tables were the one place in the entire base that the poor, overworked cleaning bot didn’t dare touch.

Instead of the multi-armed trainer guy who usually appeared, a badger creature with an eyepatch and a hook for a hand faded into reality in front of me.

“Oi,” the badger said. The name over his head simply said, Trainer. “I hear you wanna learn how to blow things up and disarm traps and maybe brew a poison or two using this table. Well, you come to the right place, mate,” the virtual badger said. “Let’s see here.” He paused, his eyes flashing. “Oi, mate. It looks like you already know your stuff. You’re practically ready to teach me a thing or two. What can I do for you?”

“There’s a specific type of bomb I want to learn how to make,” I said. “I guess it’s more of a trap. I think I have most of the components, but I’m still missing the last part.” I told him.

He smiled and thought for a moment. “No, that’s not a trap. Or a bomb. It’s a weapon. The explosive itself is no problem, but what you’re asking requires a different type of table. I see you have a bomber’s studio and an engineering table, both of which can inch you there. But not quite, mate. You need either a hypnotists’ bench or necromancer’s altar. Or maybe a spider nursery room. I see you recently added a pet stables to your personal space. You need something that’ll allow for multiple minions. And not temporary ones, either. That or a bunch o’ suicidal friends. Hmm. It doesn’t look like something you can pull off. At least not any time soon. I got a recipe for a trap that’ll infect an entire party with stink-finger leprosy. Takes three hours to learn. Four hours if you want to add the extra-credit fungus module. Want me to teach you?”

Holy cow, I thought. We need this room. This trainer guy was an actual AI, not the mindless NPC in our other room. And I had access to multiple versions of this guy. If I pulled up the alchemy table, it’d probably be someone else. Someone Mordecai could talk to. Unfortunately, this was also a tier-four room, which meant normally one wouldn’t have access to it until the 12th floor. I wondered if anyone ever had one of these rooms before, considering so few ever made it down that low.

I had less than four hours to exploit this the best I could.

“Let’s talk about the first part of my idea. I’ve been working on sticky bombs for a while, but the ones I’ve been making aren’t very adhesive. I can’t go into my inventory right now to show you, but I was hoping you could help.”

“Hmm,” he said, eyes flashing again. “I think I know what the problem is. Let’s put this table away and pull up the advanced bomber’s studio workshop. Then we’ll have to move over to the alchemy table for a minute, which means you’ll be talking to my associate for a bit. But the whole module will only take two hours. Is that acceptable?”

“Let’s do it.”

Training Module Started.

~

Frito and Moxo the guards came to me while I was working on my Powerful Strike. After the sticky bomb and then a few other odds and ends, the only thing I could do in a 15-minute increment was this skill. They actually waited for me to finish the module, and by the time I was done, it’d moved from nine to ten. It’d been stuck on nine for over a week, and getting it up just a single notch had been a long road.

The training guy for the skill was the same as in my regular training room, but he talked now, throwing insults at me while I pounded at the wooden dummies. I had a visualization of how efficient each strike was, which allowed me to hit items better and more effectively.

With all my equipment buffs along with the extra benefits of my primal race, the skill should have gone up to sixteen, but according to the display in the training room, it remained at fifteen. Mordecai had warned me that would probably happen. My primal race allowed me to train past 15 in skills and spells, but armor and weapons-based enhancements lost effectiveness past 15, which meant certain benefits, such as the +1 to Powerful Strike from my gauntlet were greatly diminished.

That didn’t meant the enhancements actually stopped at 15. There was complicated math involved I didn’t understand. It was similar to how our personal space worked with multiple rooms attached. The bottom line was that the +1 to Powerful Strike from my gauntlet and the additional +5 from my toe ring would still enhance me past 15, but I’d probably need to get to 12 or so on my own before it did. And each level beyond that came with diminishing returns. If I wanted to hit 20, I’d probably have to train to 17 or 18 on my own, which likely wouldn’t happen.

“Come on. Panel starts in a bit,” Frito eventually said. “We’ll all get our hides stripped if we’re late.”

We walked through the studio I’d used for the art contest, and it had completely transformed to a much-larger room. There was a virtual audience filling the arena. They didn’t see me. On the stage was a soother and a pair of dwarves, along with what looked like a quarter-sized version of one of the dwarven automatons from the fourth floor.

One of the dwarfs stood at a workbench, preparing some items on it. He looked up, startled as we walked through.

“Oh, hello there,” he said as we passed. He was an older man. He had CrawlCon badge around his neck, and the name over him said Dr. Ratchet.

“You can see me?” I asked.

“I think we’re actually in the same room,” Dr. Ratchet said. “It’s hard to tell sometimes. But I’m visiting the planet and had to borrow this room for my upcoming panel. This floor of the ship has access to the dungeon AI protocols, and it was the only available room.” He patted his table. “I need the juice for my demonstration, so unfortunately you’ll have to go upstairs. Sorry about that.”

“Come on, no dawdling,” Moxo the guard said, nudging at my back.

“Hey,” Dr. Ratchet called over at me as I exited the far door. “Uh, good luck. At both the panel and when you return. Keep your head down.”

I left the room, an ominous feeling coming over me. I suddenly felt like I’d wasted my time in the training room. Like I was supposed to have learned something that I didn’t.

We moved into a tight hallway that looked more like an electrical conduit access panel. All three of us had to duck as we pushed our way through, passing doors and moving straight for what seemed like five minutes. The temperature in the halls was sweltering, and I felt sweat start to bead on my head. The two gnolls looked absolutely miserable.

We came to a ladder. It was like a ladder for a child, with the rungs too close to one another. “Up,” the guard said. I complied, squeezing my way through a ceiling porthole, coming into a hallway identical to the one I’d just left.

There was no subspace portal warning, but something changed when I went up the ladder. My interface remained off, but I suddenly felt weaker, almost like the gravity had shifted.

“Breathe for a second,” Frito said. “You’re in a zero zone. No enhancements at all. You’ll adjust in a second.”

“Gods, I hate that transition,” Moxo said, shifting.

I still didn’t understand what all these different zones meant. There seemed to be multiple types. I made a fist, and for the very first time, my gauntlet didn’t automatically form. What did that mean?

“Don’t worry,” Frito said. “We’re going to studio three, which has a class two.”

The other guard grunted. “Okay, enough rest. Move along.”

We walked for another few minutes and stopped at a round portal with words over the door.

The words, I realized, said Studio Three. Something, something, only. I recognized the text as syndicate standard. I could read it. Sort of. Like I knew it, but I didn’t know it very well. Like an old language I hadn’t spoken in a long time.

What the hell?

We entered the room, and I felt my energy return. The words on the door were back to the regular syndicate standard that I could read just fine along with a few sentences in another alien script I didn’t know.

“We’re gonna wait in here,” Frito said, pointing to a corner.

Moxo pulled out a vape pen similar to the one Quasar my lawyer used and started sucking on it. “Yeah,” he agreed. “We got the best seats in the house for this.”

“Hello, Carl,” a robot voice said. This was a mexx-style frisbee robot, but thinner and much more sleek looking. “I am a Valtay Corporation Porter Bot, identification number 6.ff. I will be your assistant during the upcoming panel. You may call me Biff.” It spun, and the room formed around me. A massive, completely full chamber with stadium seating appeared. It was packed with literally dozens of alien types, including several I’d never seen before, from bugs to slimes to three-headed bird things. They did not see me.

Ahead of me was a long, straight table with four chairs, facing the audience. It was raised up on a podium. The three chairs at the end of the row were already occupied. These guys did not see me, either. Or if they did, they didn’t acknowledge my presence. The sound of crowd chatter filled the room.

Biff floated over to the final chair and hovered over it.

“This is where you’ll be sitting, Carl.”

I noted the long, empty space to the left of the chair.

That’s where she’ll be parked. They put me right next to her.

“Am I alone in the room?” I asked, moving to the chair. I was suddenly worried they were going to pull something ridiculous, like really put me alone in a room with this woman.

“That is correct,” Biff said. “Except for myself and the two flea-infested mercenaries who are smoking illicit, mind-altering materials while on duty.”

“Watch it,” Moxo called from the corner.

“Oh, I am terrified,” the frisbee robot replied. “My servos are quaking.” To me, it added, “The panel will commence in approximately three minutes. You will be the only panelist attending virtually. Upon the conclusion of the event, remain in your seat, and your security, assuming they’re both still conscious, will collect you to escort you back to your chamber.”

“All righty,” I said, apprehension rising as the robot vanished into the ceiling. I could smell whatever the two gnolls were smoking. It wasn’t the distinct, tangy smell of a blitz stick. It was actually closer to the skunky scent of weed, but not quite. It filled the room.

“We got the best seat in the house,” Frito said. “People were paying big bucks for a chance to be at the panel. They’re not going to tunnel it until later.”

Moxo took a drag of his hit. “Being a mercenary has its perks.”

Chapter 163

<Note added by Crawler Rosetta. Ninth Edition>

Never trust mercenaries.

~

I examined the three creatures all sitting to my right. I didn’t recognize any of them or their names.

Next to me was a ridiculously-thin, flat-faced, orange-hued alien with wide-set eyes. The dude looked like a human-sized stick of gum with eyes and arms. He didn’t wear any clothes at all, and his badge was magically affixed to his pale, orange body. His eyes were the size of softballs and made a squishing noise when they moved. He had a floating window in front of him, and he was reading notes, not talking to the other two who were chatting. The name over this guy read Uptown Hal.

The next was a female, tentacle-faced saccathian. She reminded me of Princess D’Nadia, but about half the size. She wore a simple, blue sheet of fabric that made her look like she was wearing a bed sheet toga. It looked dirty, too. Her name was indicated as Sydnee Iglacia – Crawl Historian.

The third was an older, heavily-scarred, albino, bald elf that I immediately recognized as one of those Dream assholes. A moon elf. His name was Drick. Despite his advanced age, I could see the muscles bulging under his silk shirt. This guy is a former crawler.

He was listening to the saccathian woman talk animatedly about something I couldn’t quite understand. Something about audience numbers from a previous season. The guy stared back at her blankly.

It was clear they didn’t know I was here.

“Hey,” I called over to the gnoll guards sitting in the corner. “Who are these three guys?”

Frito grunted. Neither of them stood. They both sat in a cloud of smoke.

“The first guy. The slate. He’s an ex-game guide. From back before they used former crawlers. Now he has a popular show called Uptown Hal Talks Tactics. I don’t know who the slime-face bitch is. It says she’s a historian. That last guy is Drick. Was a crawler a long time ago. Tapped out at the end of the 11th. This was on a Valtay season, and he used a plasma saw as his main weapon.”

“Yeah, he’s a psycho,” Moxo added. “But he’s a funny psycho, so they use him a lot for panels. I think he’s a worm head now. Can’t remember.”

“Don’t say that in here,” Frito growled to his companion. “And he is. He died a few years back in a fight at a waystation, but he had a Valtay contract, and they got to him in time.”

“They always do,” Moxo said. “Keeping the best of you alive,” he added in a sing-song voice, like it was a jingle.

“Godsdamnit, Moxo,” Frito hissed. “Don’t fuck around.”

“Panel starts in two minutes and six seconds,” a disembodied, female voice announced.

“So, you think Carl is gonna survive?” Sydnee was saying to the elf. “If he does die, this panel will be his last appearance. It’ll be great for my book sales.”

“You know,” Drick said, his voice full of disdain, “He’s probably sitting in that chair right now, listening to everything you say.”

“They don’t let the crawlers listen in on this stuff,” Sydnee said. “The Valtay are much more intelligent about security than the mudskippers ever were.”

Drick grunted. “The Valtay aren’t running the crawl. The Borant Corporation still is. It’s a big difference. It’s all mudskipper infrastructure with mercenary support.” He turned and looked directly at me.

“Anyway, he’ll probably survive,” he said. “It’s gonna be chaos, and that’s Carl’s preferred environment. He’s gonna need to go straight to the offensive. Both the nebs and the mantids will be there, and they won’t know the exact time or spot he’s going to appear.”

“I don’t understand why they told them he’d be there,” Sydnee said. “It seems like a betrayal.”

“No,” Uptown Hal said, speaking for the first time. He still had his face buried in his screen. His accent was strange. Like he was from Africa. “Drick is right. Summoning the hunters was the best choice after Lucia cast the web spell and set up camp. He wouldn’t have a chance against her one on one. So this is still a desperate ploy. But unless they know the exact moment and spot he will appear, he’s better off against the hunters than the Lajabless. Especially with her so angry.”

“I don’t understand any of this,” Sydnee said.

“Hopefully Carl will,” Uptown Hal said. He shared a grin with Drick. “I just wish we were allowed to tell this directly to Carl. We’ll see. Ah, here comes our moderator.”

“I can’t believe she’s late,” Sydnee said. “I’d read she’s never late.”

“Someone leaked her path to the panel room, and it is packed with fans,” Drick said. “Carl and Donut fans. She’s going to be grumpier than usual.”

In the back of the large room, a circular door twisted open, like the mouth of some beast. For a moment, I had a glance of a large crowd beyond, with blinking lights and things zipping through the air. Voices rose, a combination of  both cheers and jeers. The view was quickly obscured by the large insect entering the room. The doors irised shut, cutting off the sounds from the hall beyond.

The crowd within the arena went silent as the bug woman stormed down the center aisle. The way the large bug skittered reminded me of a bad-guy wrestler on their way to the mat, minus the music and crowd noises.

I examined the bug woman. I’d seen Vrah in action and again on the recap, but I wasn’t quite prepared for how terrifying this thing was in such a mundane setting. My heart quickened as this woman bug, presumably her mother, came directly for me. My head spun, and I felt a little light-headed.

Circe Took was the size of a mantaur. Her head resembled Odette’s bug helmet, but it wasn’t quite exact. Antennae things hung from her skull like dreadlocks, reminding me of the creatures from the Predator movies. Her top, folded arms were like segmented, meter-long blades designed to pierce and disembowel enemies. A pair of secondary arms with three fingers on each side hung under the natural weapons. Her long, insectoid body was held up by three additional pairs of segmented and spiked legs. These, too, looked deadly.

There was no question that this creature was built for one thing. Hunting and killing prey.

A pair of translucent wings were folded on her back, covering a thick, armored abdomen. Her six legs made clicking noises as she descended the stairs, crossed the space, and then came to stand next to me behind the table. She turned her large head to regard me. Her mirrored, compound eyes examined me, and only then did I realize that she could actually see me.

I shivered. I had the urge to cough, and I suppressed it.

“Your luck is a dishonor on the hive,” she said finally.

“The hive can lick my sack,” I said.

Thwap.

The attack came so fast, I didn’t have time to react. Not that it mattered.

Circe’s top, right arm blade came down and cut straight through the table, cleaving a huge chunk out of it. Little pieces flew everywhere. A few people in the crowd shrieked in surprise.

If I’d really been sitting there next to her, she would’ve just cut me in half.

“By the gods,” Uptown Hal shrieked, his voice going up an octave. The flat, strange alien jumped from his chair. He fell onto his back. He had two, short legs, and they wriggled helplessly in the air for a minute like he was an upset turtle.

I’d like to say my lack of reaction was because I was cool and collected. But it was really because it’d happened too fast. Still, I seized the moment and looked up at the bug, smiling.

“I wonder how many times your daughter practiced that move. Too bad she never got the chance to use it.”

A deep, chittering noise rose from the throat area of the mantis. She bobbed up and down a few times like she was composing herself.

“Get up,” Circe said to Hal, who remained on the ground, staring up at the bug woman with terror. I realized that since he couldn’t see me, it had looked as if she’d just almost attacked him. He’d probably just shit himself.

And without any further fanfare, Circe Took turned her attention to the crowd.

“We are here today to discuss the history of the crawl. That and nothing else. I am the moderator, therefore I am in charge of this discussion. I will be asking questions of the four panelists in the unlikely event I deem the discussion requires their input. I will be doing the introductions.”

She started at the end of the line, pointing at Drick. She pointed with the same arms she’d just used to slice the table, and she pierced the arm directly through my head. I was still invisible to the crowd.

“Drick is the famed iguanoid-turned-moon elf crawler from approximately 400 seasons hence. He has an impressive body count for a crawler. Was stabbed in the back after a bar fight at a waystation after he bragged too much about his fighting prowess and is now under the control of a Valtay worm.” A smattering of applause filled the room.

“Next we have a saccathian. I don’t know who she is.”

“My name is Sydnee, and I’m the author of…” the woman began.

Circe talked over her. “The idiot still on the floor is Uptown Hal. He is a former game guide and occasional manager who spent over 200 seasons in the dungeon before retiring and starting his own program. He was never a warrior.”

“And finally,” Circe began. The crowd erupted into cheers, and I knew I was now visible. I sat stiffly, the cleaved-in-two section of table right in front of me. I had my hand on it, and I could feel the real table of the studio was perfectly intact. “We have the top crawler in the current season. He will not survive much longer.”

I waved, planting a smile on my face.

Circe leaned forward. She delivered the words in an almost deadpan voice, like a bored college professor. “We are here to discuss the history of the crawl and how it has changed over the cycles. We all know how it started. When the original council nations first accidentally tripped the primal engines and started the chain reaction that overpopulated the galaxy, it was eventually decided that we needed to both collect the primal elements left behind on all the pre-seeded worlds and to beat back the new biological overgrowth. In addition, superior species such as the Hive—who have been at the forefront of decoding and reverse-engineering primal technology—approached the council and demanded the ability to field test macro-AI-controlled enhancement zones. This, unfortunately, led to the formation of a Syndicate subcommittee that put the request under advisement….”

She went on like this for almost ten minutes straight, not allowing anyone else on the panel to speak. The story was actually kind of interesting, though Sydnee the historian woman scoffed loudly multiple times during the mantis’s lecture, suggesting she disagreed with what the bug lady was saying.

I kept thinking, if Donut was here, she’d have stopped this by now. I could tell the crowd was already bored out of their minds. They’d mostly come to this panel not because they wanted to get a mind-numbing history lesson, but because they knew Circe and I would be in the same room together, and they wanted to see what was going to happen.

After a few more minutes of the bug woman discussing how the formation of the Indigenous Species Protection Act was endangering the very existence of all life in the universe, I leaned forward and banged my head loudly on the table. I placed my head firmly on the illusionary broken spot. It banged louder than I expected, echoing through the room like a gunshot.

Circe paused her droning and didn’t speak for several moments. The other members of the panel didn’t speak, either.

“Carl,” Circe eventually said. “What are you doing?”

“You did it,” I said, not moving my head from the table. “You killed me. I am literally dead right now. Your kid couldn’t do it, but you pulled it off. You’ve succeeded in boring me to death.”

The crowd erupted in laughter. To my right, Uptown Hal said nothing, and neither did Sydnee. But Drick guffawed.

“Carl, I will be forced to mute you from the panel if you’re going to insist on being an imbecile.”

“Mute?” I said. “You’re not letting anyone talk.” I finally looked up, addressing the crowd. “Does anybody give a shit about this subject?”

“No,” half the crowd said.

“I do,” Sydnee said, sounding crestfallen.

“Great,” I said. “Sydnee or whatever your name is. What’s the name of your book?”

She straightened. “It’s called A Petite Chronicle of the Crawl. One Lady’s Journey into Enlightenment Through Knowledge and Scholarship and Three-Beat Poetry.”

“Sounds like a great time. If you guys really want to learn about this stuff, read that book. I guarantee it can’t possibly be less interesting than this bullshit.”

“Thank you, Carl,” Sydnee said. “Can I put your endorsement on the cover?”

“Absolutely,” I said.

The dreadlock hair things on Circe’s head all went rigid. She started to say something, but I cut her off.

“I heard a rumor that a lot of you guys waited in line a long time to see this panel, is that correct?”

“That’s right,” a person called. I looked up at him. It was a half-human, half-robot guy, sitting near the back. He was wearing a t-shirt with what looked like a pinup version of Elle on it and was eating what looked suspiciously like sparkling cotton candy on a stick.

“I’m guessing what you guys really want is to hear is what this roach lady has to say about me killing her coward bitch of a child. And then you probably want to hear me respond by saying I’m going to kill her other kid, too. Then she’s going to get all hissy, and I’ll say something else that’ll piss her off further. Isn’t that right?”

Now, the crowd was starting to really get worked up. To my left, Circe Took was bouncing up and down, angrily chittering. Her weird hair things were all rigid, making her look like a praying mantis with an afro. Uptown Hal was starting to back away, as if afraid the mantis would literally explode. Sydnee just seemed happy she got a chance to mention her book. She’d pulled the book out and was holding it against her chest. Drick was watching me intently. He, too, was tense, as if afraid I’d somehow sneaked a bomb halfway across the galaxy.

“Here’s the thing,” I said. I leaned back and put my bare feet up on the table. “I was originally going to say, ‘ya’ll can go fuck yourselves’ and storm out of the room. But I have a problem, and I’d like to enlist your help. You guys want to help me crowdsource a solution?”

“This is why we should never use active crawlers for this,” Circe hissed as the room went berserk. She looked up at some wide-eyed soother guy standing in the back of the room. “Cut him off.”

“Don’t,” a voice called. It was a woman. A human or maybe elf woman, sitting in the back corner, wearing a simple, brown cloak with a distinctive pattern on it. The pattern was somewhat familiar, but I couldn’t place it. It was circles and lines. Her voice was unnaturally amplified, like she too had an invisible microphone. She sounded much older than she looked. She pointed at the same soother and called, “Don’t.” The creature froze, eyes wide. Several audience members, noticing this woman, all started to point and whisper. Several people gasped.

The audience members closest to her all got up and scattered back, as if afraid of her.

Who the hell is that?

“I am the moderator of this panel,” Circe hissed, speaking to the newcomer. She slammed her two lower arms on the table, and it broke off at the point where she’d chopped earlier, causing her to stumble forward and almost tumble off the platform. All three of the other panelists jumped back while the audience tittered. Everyone was looking back and forth wildly, between me, Circe, and this new woman.

“Was this the plan? Was it a setup? To mock the death of my child?” Circe hissed. “To humiliate me? Well it won’t work. I am not the Maestro, and I won’t be trapped so easily.”

I looked over at Uptown Hal. He still stood, turned sideways, facing me and Circe. His eyes were intent on the mantis woman. Sydnee had scattered back, and she was now standing behind Drick, who was whispering something in her ear. Drick’s attention moved quickly between me, Circe, and the robed woman in the back of the room. I could tell that he was also talking to someone using his interface.

They all were, I realized. Everyone’s eyes were glossy and flashing. It was the intergalactic equivalent of everyone having their phones out, recording whatever this was.

I remained on my chair, my feet up on the table. I knew to this crowd, it now looked as if my feet were floating in the air.

“Can someone tell me who the lady in the robe is?” I finally asked. Then, I felt myself add, “She’s kinda hot.”

It was then, at that moment, that I finally realized how stupid and reckless I was being. I looked sharply over at the two guards, Frito and Moxo. They were gone. Moxo’s vape pen thing remained on the floor, smoke lazily drifting out. The heavy scent of the drug remained in the room. You idiot. This was the same thing as the drugs hidden in the pet treats on Odette’s show. This was a setup. I’d been drugged with something that lowered my inhibitions.

I still felt as if I had all my faculties. But something had definitely changed. My inhibitions were gone.

And I didn’t care. I guess that was the point. The Valtay had set this up. But was it to get me in trouble or was it something else? I was in over my head. Again. I was being used by forces much bigger than myself. Again.

I didn’t goddamn care. I looked over the audience and thought, this is my chance.

The woman in the robe spoke.

“Carl, I am not allowed to address you directly because I am one of your sponsors and it will be a violation of the sponsorship contract. So I will be taking my leave. But I am also one of the sponsors of CrawlCon, and I have directed them to allow you to speak. That’s all I can say.”

The woman strode from the room. People scattered out of her way as she marched toward the round door and disappeared.

Sponsor? I thought. The Apothecary? Or was she from the Open Intellect Pacifist Network?

“Bitch. Goddamned bitch. I will kill her,” Circe growled, watching the woman leave. “I am not staying for this.” Without another look at me, the large mantis started to move toward the exit. She had to move the broken table piece out of the way. She picked it up and threw it against the wall. It crashed loudly, shattering into pieces before she started to flee.

“So,” I said, loudly. “Can someone tell me the best way to kill Vrah?”

Circe froze, stopping dead in the space between the raised platform and the audience. She stood rigid, not turning. To my right, Sydnee let out a gasp. The audience was suddenly dead silent.

“I mean, that’s what you talk about at these things, isn’t it? That’s why we’re here, no? That’s what this whole convention is, is it not? To celebrate killing. We talk about monsters. NPCs. We glory in the casting of spells that melt the faces off people like myself. Vrah decapitates her kills and wears their heads on her back.”

I allowed the uncomfortable silence to hang for a few seconds before continuing.

“I just judged a little kid’s art contest where a bunch of them drew pictures of me dying. Of my friends dying. You treat us like we’re nothing. Like we’re not real. Like we’re below you. It’s like you’re all members of this giant death cult, and all the pain and suffering is just great as long as it’s entertaining and as long as it’s not you. You’re all smart. You’re intelligent, thinking species. You allow yourselves to separate people like myself into a different class. It’s okay. It’s just crawlers. But deep down, you know. You have to know what you’re doing. I don’t get it, and I don’t think I ever will. I have to get over that and accept it for what it is. So ya’ll like it when other people die. Great. Let’s go all in.”

I pointed down at Circe, who seemed frozen in place.

“I’m not asking to cheat. I’m just asking to have the same information as those who I’ll be fighting. The moment I’m done with this panel, I’m going back out there, and I’m pretty sure I’ll be facing down not Lucia Mar, but Circe’s daughter in battle. And not just her. Aren’t there several mantises?”

I already knew the answer to this because I’d seen it on the recap episode. Still, I looked over at Drick, who I knew would be the first. The man nodded.

Just little seeds here and there, and soon enough you have a forest.

“Are they all children of Circe? How many are there?”

Someone else, an orc from the audience, called out the answer. “There’s eight left, though one stays in Zockau to exchange with the other trade representatives. It’s seven warriors including Vrah. And Zeed, too.”

“They’re all her children,” someone else added. “They’re all Dark Hive.”

“But the Nebulars are camping out, also. They’re claiming they have the right to hunt you now, too,” yet another person called. “You’re in their territory.”

I motioned to the three panelists who remained standing there uncertainly. “Good, good. Let’s talk about this. Sit back down, guys. We have a discussion on our hands.”

This whole time, Circe remained rigid, not moving.

“Circe, you’re free to come back up. I don’t know how much time we have left, but I want to brainstorm with all of you. If you were in my position, tell me what you’d do. Feel free to raise your hands. Or, uh, tentacles. Whatever you got. Uptown, Drick, feel free to let me know if you think someone’s suggestion has merit.”

“If anything happens to my other daughters, I will personally hunt down and kill the person responsible,” Circe suddenly hissed before becoming unglued and heading toward the door.

“That’ll be me,” I called. “I’ll be the one responsible. And you should have thought of that before you sent them all off to die in my dungeon. It’s too bad you’re not in there, too.”

The mantis stormed from the conference room.

“You know you’re fucked, right?” Uptown Hal said the moment she left. The rectangular alien looked down at me sadly. “She is correct when she says she is not the Maestro. The mantids are not just excellent hunters. They are tacticians. I am constantly in awe of them. If you survive this, you best make sure you kill them all.”

I sighed and returned my attention to the crowd. “Uptown says I’m fucked. So how do I unfuck myself? What’s the best way to kill a mantis?”

Multiple hands and tentacles and wings raised into the air.

~

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” I said when the soother guy indicated our time was almost up. The two mercenaries had returned, and the vape pen thing had disappeared. “I’ll be signing autographs at my own table and taking photographs and answering questions. If your plan works, I’ll be sure to bring the heads of Circe’s daughters to decorate my table.”

The crowd laughed and cheered.

Oh shit, I thought, remembering something. “By the way,” I called out. “Have you guys ever noticed how awesomely-designed the Desperado Club is? It’s just amazing.”

Several audience members looked at each other, bewildered. I laughed, still feeling the effects of the drug.

“So who was that lady,” I asked Uptown as we all stood.

“A representative of the collective. Their spokeswoman,” he said.

I nodded. I was correct. The Apothecary.

“They are not someone you want to attach yourself…”

The room blinked and suddenly the crowd and my fellow panelists all disappeared, cutting Uptown Hal off in midsentence.

“Come on,” Moxo said, grabbing me by the arm. “Time to go home.”

“Yeah, you forgot your vape when you stepped out,” I said.

The two guards were much less talkative and more serious as we made the trek back to my green room. I didn’t bother trying to talk to them.

We stopped in front of the door to the studio that in turn led to my green room.

“You can figure out the rest of the way,” Frito said. He leaned in. “There are two types of transactions. Personal and business. We have transacted both types today. The matter with the drug was business. The matter with the commander is personal. Two separate things. Do you understand?”

“No,” I said.

He patted me on the shoulder, and pushed my back as I entered the now-empty studio. All that remained was a single table sitting there. As I looked at the table, my UI suddenly returned. A page of messages appeared. I only read the most-recent one.

Donut: IF YOU SEE THIS DON’T GO TOWARD THE SAFE ROOM. IT’S A TRAP. LUCIA IS IN THERE AND CAN HURT YOU EVEN IF YOU GO IN. I KILLED HER STUPID DOG AND SHE’S REALLY MAD ABOUT IT. SHE’S WAITING FOR YOU. BUT THE BUG LADIES ARE OUTSIDE TOO OUT IN THE TOWN. THEM AND THESE OTHER GUYS WHO LOOK LIKE BAD STAR TREK ALIENS.

I already knew all this thanks to the panel. I took a deep breath. I’d already written out instructions for Donut in my scratchpad and prepared to send it to her when I paused, finally noticing the table that was sitting there in the middle of the empty studio.

Automaton Table. Level 5.

Sitting on the table was a book. It was a regular, paperback featuring a familiar, smiling dwarf riding on the back of a mechanical horse thing.

Dr. Ratchet’s Guide to Building Automatons for Fun and Profit. I picked it up and opened to the first page. It was autographed.

I took both into my inventory and cracked my neck. Once I entered the green room, I’d have about five minutes before I was to be transferred back to the dungeon. I took a deep breath. I pulled my bandana and returned it to my face. I pulled the ring of Divine Suffering and pulled it onto my finger.

“Here we go,” I said, and I entered the green room.

~

Woohoo! I didn't want to cliffhanger you guys again, but I didnt want for you to wait much longer. I will try to get the next chapter out ASAP. It's a logistical problem presenting an epic fight when the POV character isn't present.

I just returned from a few weeks of cons where I sat on several panels. That panel scene and the scene judging the kids' art contest are two of the most accurate things I've ever written. Ha.

I owe several people several things. I am working on catch-up right now. Thanks everyone for your continued support.