Chapters 170 & 171 (Patreon)

A couple nice, light chapters.

~~~~~~~~~

Chapter 170

<Note added by Crawler Allister. 13th Edition>

Vampires. We have vampires in my culture, but they are not the same as the ones here in the dungeon, though they are similar. My T’Ghee deck contains two vampiric forms. The Plague Bearer and the Blood Hunter. Both represent death. Both represent the end of days. But one is considered deliberate, thirst-based evil, and the other, the Plague Bearer, is a study on how one’s poor actions can ripple through time and become amplified and doom us all. The vampires here on this seventh floor are a combination of the two. It is strange that our traditions are so different yet the same. I have not met any fellow crawlers cursed with vampirism, but I have met my fair share of vampire mobs and NPCs. The monster ones cannot be reasoned with. They are fast. Faster than you think. They are insatiable. They are strong. Yet they are not mindless. In fact, I believe the curse of vampirism greatly increases their intelligence. They cast spells. They wish to surround themselves with protectors. Do not underestimate them. Do not rely solely on your own mythology to defeat them. My best advice is to avoid them, and if they’ve moved into an area you occupy, move away as quickly as you can.

~

Carl: Hey, uh Miriam. We’re still trying to get to you. You didn’t by chance tangle with a giant allosaurus thing at one point? One with a pink, feather boa?

Miriam Dom: Carl, please hurry. And yes. We fought with a giant dinosaur wearing a pink feathered necklace and carrying a wand. I almost killed her, but then something happened, and she escaped.

Carl: Yeah, I think you might have infected her with vampirism.

Miriam Dom: Yes. I know. The dinosaurs in this area all are vampires now. It is spreading through the forest. Spreading quickly. They are weak for the first few days if they survive, but they quickly grow in strength. It was part of the story with the elite. He died before the infestation could be stopped. You must help me, or we will not be able to contain it.

Oh, that was just wonderful.

Carl: We are on our way.

“Okay, Prudence,” I said as I sent a quick note to Mordecai, warning him. “Grab your kids. Go through the door we came out of, okay? You’ll be safe in there. I promise.”

“We can’t go in there,” she said. “I tried, and it wouldn’t let me.”

“You can now,” I said. “I’m giving you and your cubs access.”

Outside, Tina had moved on down the street. The red dot representing the animated bear claw disappeared. The rain became more fierce, thumping louder than ever. It sounded like drums pounding on the ceiling. I knew from the main chat that this newest storm covered the entire map. The river was starting to overflow.

After we made sure Prudence and her two cubs were inside the guildhall, we slowly crept outside. Big Tina was gone, but it was impossible to see outside. It was pitch black, and the rain’s intensity seemed to be ratcheting up by the moment.

“Light,” I whispered as I started to pull the pieces of the royal chariot from my inventory. “Keep it low.”

Donut activated the yellow light and sent it out the door, hovering low like a firefly. Her skill in the spell was 13, and she could do all sorts of cool stuff with it now. The moment the light went outside, my map came alive with red dots. We both stopped, aghast at the scene before us.

“Fuck me,” I whispered.

I hadn’t seen anything like this since the krasue nest on the third floor or the train car filled with ghoul parts on the fourth. But this was worse. Much worse.

Mongo screeched and almost bolted out, but a command from Donut kept him still. I turned to see a pair of small dinosaurs—not raptors, but something similar—bound off into the darkness, their forms getting swallowed by the night.

Before, when we’d entered town, there were dead bodies everywhere. I’d tried to pick some of them up, but they’d shattered into dust the moment I touched them. I hadn’t thought much of it at the time because they were old, but it was clear they were all part of... whatever this was.

The number of body parts had increased. A lot. They scattered in all directions like a lumpy stew.

I’d assumed Big Tina had been parked outside simply because the building across the street was a target-rich environment. But it seemed she’d been sitting there working on her spell. She was calling the two-day-dead body parts to her. But this wasn’t just her dead. It couldn’t be. There was way too much here, and it wasn’t just ursine. There were all manner of forest creatures. Bears, deer, monkeys, wolves, all types of mobs. I remembered our journey from the edge of the river to this town. We’d been grinding all day, but the vast majority of the mobs we’d fought were plant-based creatures. We hadn’t seen hardly any mobile mobs.

It appeared other dinosaurs were gathering all the pieces they could find and bringing them together in one place. Like a massive pile of bloody, mismatched socks. A sorting facility, where the reanimated parts could move about and find a match.

This was just the edge of the nightmare. The main pile was down the street. I could see it now, rising in the darkness like a small hill. A group of fast-moving dinosaurs darted away.

“Turn it up,” I whispered. “Slowly.”

As Donut increased the light, body pieces scattered away like cockroaches, roiling and undulating unnaturally. The streets were a mess of severed arms, legs, tails slithering like snakes, shattered rib cages walking like spiders. Eyeballs bouncing. Organs rolling and splatting away, like fat hedgehogs moving through the bush.

But there was more. Half-formed pieces had found one another. These all had percentages and extra-long names hovering over them. One moved away like a flat tire, spinning and splatting, leaking.

Glamoured Fragment – Ursine Foot (Left), Ursine Leg (Left), Ursine Pelvis (four pieces, reformed), Ursine thigh (Right), Ursine Lower Intestine (two pieces, reformed), Ursine Kidney (Right). Level 5+7+12+6+10+2 = Level 42

21.8% of the whole.

This is a minion of Big Tina.

I swallowed. I understood, then. It came to me all at once what this madness was. They slaughtered people, ripping them into as many pieces as possible, and then they came back two days later and waited for them to reform. Each individual piece had a level, and if they reformed with the original, the levels got added. The pieces added together were going to be ridiculously powerful, way stronger than they were originally.

“Carl,” Donut said, looking over the sea of writhing body parts. “Carl, I don’t like this. Let’s go.”

“Max it out. Shine your light all the way,” I said, trying to keep my gorge down. We pushed outside as I rapidly lashed pieces of the chariot together, facing it away from the center of town.

“Donut,” I said. “Ride ahead of me. We’re gonna have to run.”

I pulled a fully loaded missile launcher and attached it to chariot. I assigned two of the missiles to the center mass of the writhing body parts and then the others along the edges of the pile. All the while, I was starting to send out frantic messages, asking if anyone else had seen anything like this.

We should go back inside.

But this was something we had to contain the best we could. This was a storyline with an elite that had spiraled out of control. Something—for once—that wasn’t started by me or Donut. It sounded as if Miriam and Prepotente had stepped into something that was about to reverberate over the entire floor, just like when we’d unleashed Orthrus the two-headed puppy on the world.

Miriam had implied she could fix this if we got to her in time, and that’s what we were going to do.

I jumped onto the chariot, and we raced away from the nightmare. Donut and Mongo sped forward. Just as we reached the walled edge of town, surrounded by those mostly-dead vines, I lit off all of the missiles. They shot into the pouring darkness, hissing and corkscrewing in the rain. Muffled explosions rocked the night as we turned west toward Miriam’s location. Experience notifications rolled down my vision as an outraged roar filled the night. Thankfully, the massive dinosaur didn’t appear to be following us. Yet.

Donut: DO YOU THINK THAT STOPPED ALL THE GROSS MONSTER PIECES FROM GETTING TOGETHER?

Carl: Probably not, but we hopefully slowed them down.

~

We rocketed down the muddy road toward Miriam and Prepotente’s general location. Twin streams formed on either side of the road, rushing with the rain’s runoff. Donut kept her light spell turned all the way up, and it lit the path with the power of a stadium light. The forest was alive with red dots, and they all scattered away from us like we were a snowplow. I couldn’t tell if the mobs were infected or not while we moved at this pace. Donut and Mongo rushed ahead of me, and I warned her to be careful with Mongo. The last thing we needed was him getting infected.

It only took about two minutes before Donut decided that she hated being out in such a powerful rain storm, and she started to loudly complain about it in my chat.

A few other crawlers started to report back that they were seeing vampire forest animals, too. Mordecai said this wasn’t the first time this sort of thing had happened, but it didn’t usually spread this fast.

Gideon: I just fought a half-genie, half-owl vampire thing. It tried to rip my neck out, but our cleric killed it before it could get me. It was damn close.

Tserendolgor: I think we’re about 200 kilometers from you guys, and it’s the same thing, but it’s not as bad as you say. I haven’t seen any reanimated body parts, but the drillbeaks all disappeared almost overnight, and now they’re vampires. It makes them twice as strong and super fast. You don’t automatically get infected if they touch you. I think it’s only if they injure you severely. If I cast Ultraviolet on my flamethrower, they die quick. But I’m sticking indoors in this rain. Don’t want to take the chance.

Carl: Okay. Good. By the way, are any of you in the top 50? I’m trying to make a list of all the crawlers who might be at that party.

Gideon: I’m not even in the top 1,000, and I like it that way.

Tserendolgor: I’m currently ranked 54. Trying to get it up in time so I get an invite.

Donut: MAYBE IF YOU WEREN’T ALWAYS STEALING OTHER PEOPLE’S EXPERIENCE, YOU’D BE HIGHER.

Tserendolgor: Are you still on that? That was three floors ago. And I didn’t see you at CrawlCon, so I must be doing something right.

Donut: WHAT? WHAT?

Carl: Don’t try too hard to get into the top 50. I think it might be a trap, and we might need some people not at the top to rescue us. Either way, that flamethrower of yours might come in handy.

The first of the two towns was a small dryad settlement, and we reached it much more quickly than I anticipated. A pair of funeral bell guards stood out front. They covered their eyes at our approach, but they didn’t try to stop us from going in. I could see multiple white dots moving about in the streets.

Entering Small Dryad Settlement.

Good, I thought, as I scanned the map for a real saferoom. This town hadn’t been captured yet.

“There!” I shouted over the pouring rain, pointing at a pub near the end of the small town.

Warning: You have been branded as a troublemaker at this settlement. Guards will now attack you on sight.

The warning came out of nowhere. I turned and saw a pair of dryads glaring at me from around the corner. One of them was the mayor, and he obviously also worshipped Diwata.

A few red dots appeared on the map, moving in our direction just as we pulled up outside the saferoom. I quickly pulled the pins on the chariot and took the two pieces into my inventory before we dove inside.

The bar was filled with dryads, which surprised me. Usually these places were mostly empty. This appeared to have once been a beach-side bar with a long, open-air window that faced the water. Now, the bar just faced a wooden wall of bamboo. A sign on the wall read “Y-Not Lounge.” A bopca in a Hawaiian-style shirt sat behind the counter, glaring at us as we rushed in.

“Apostate!” a dryad shouted the moment we entered the saferoom. The monkey in his branches screamed and threw himself at me. He zapped and teleported away.

“Black magic!” another tree screamed as he tried to swing at me before he, too, zapped away. A minute later, we were alone in the saferoom.

“I don’t feel very welcome here, Carl,” Donut said.

“They’re not attacking you. Just me,” I said. Outside, a group of red dots descended on the outside of the tavern. Shit, I thought. Shit, shit, shit.

“You’re gonna have to do it yourself,” I said as we moved to the guildhall door.

“Do what?”

I patted Mongo on the back. “Sorry, buddy. Just a little blood.”

~

Donut: CARL, MONGO IS REALLY MAD AT YOU. AND THE DRYAD MAYOR GUY IS OFFERING ME 5,000 GOLD TO TIE YOU UP AND BRING YOU OUT HERE. I’D FIREBALL HIM, BUT ALL THE GUARDS ARE OUTSIDE, TOO. I’M MAKING ONE OF THE MUSHROOM GUYS STAND OVER ME BECAUSE THEY’RE GOOD UMBRELLAS.

Carl: How long before Mongo wakes back up?

Donut: TWO MINUTES. I DON’T HAVE TIME FOR ANOTHER LITER. MOST OF IT WENT ALL OVER THE PLACE, BUT I GOT A FEW OF THOSE WET MONKEYS TO HELP ME HOLD THE FLASK. THIS IS REALLY HARD WITHOUT THUMBS. HE BETTER NOT REMEMBER ALL OF THIS. WE SHOULD HAVE DONE THIS BEFORE WE GOT INTO TOWN.

Carl: We didn’t have the Mongo sleep potion. You know that. Get back in here as soon as he wakes up, and we’ll be on our way.

“You need to quit pacing. She’s fine,” Mordecai said. “As long as you’re not out there with her, the guards won’t attack her. I hope you have a plan for when you leave.”

“I do. We’re gonna have to do this again with the next town. It’s also a dryad settlement.” Mordecai only had time to make one of the Mongo knock-out potions, and he’d only be able to make one of the tame animal potions. Hopefully that would be enough.

Prudence the bear sat on the couch while her two cubs crawled all over her, acting like nothing had happened. One of the later Land Before Time movies played on the screen, which I thought was a little fucked-up because they’d just watched their dad get eaten by a dinosaur, but apparently they seemed to like it. Little Todd was bitching at Mordecai about the movie’s accuracy issues with the dinosaurs’ appearance. Both Bomo and the Sledge sat on the ground, enraptured by the movie. The cleaner bot followed the bear cubs around, beeping worriedly.

Donut returned to the room a minute later and plopped the large, glass flask onto the table. Blood ran down the side. Mongo, who’d been healed before he’d even woken up, sniffed at the container suspiciously.

“A liter is a lot!” Donut said for the hundredth time. “Why do you need so much? If Mongo was any smaller, he wouldn’t even have that much in him. I had to cut and heal him three times just to fill this.”

Mordecai moved in to examine the large flask. “This looks like it’s more than enough. Good. I’ll have the potion ready for you soon.”

Miriam Dom: Carl. I hate to be a pest. But are you coming?

Carl: We’re on our way.

I had Donut go outside and drop a smoke curtain right outside the door. I downed an invisibility potion and stepped out into the swirling mist. I didn’t have time to rebuild the chariot inside town, so we booked it to the edge of town.

“Can I do it? Can I do it?” Donut asked as we reached the unguarded western gate.

“Be careful. Try not to hit anybody else. Just the mayor. Use a magic missile, not a...”

The fireball shot forth from Donut, moving almost lazily as it glided through the air, sizzling and crackling in the rain. We watched as the beachball-sized glob of flames squeezed between two mushroom guards and slammed into the back of the dryad mayor, who immediately burst into flames like a goddamned sparkler from the Fourth of July. He screamed and started running in circles. The exterior of the pub we’d just left also caught on fire, and in seconds, half the town burned.

“Would you look at that!” Donut exclaimed. “Carl, why’d it catch on fire in the rain?” She gasped. “I did it! It’s my town now!” A flaming monkey ran down the street, squealing.

“Yeah, let’s not do that again,” I said as I rapidly put the chariot together.

The next town was only about twenty minutes away, and it looked almost identical the previous. This one was called Prepotente Number Seven, which meant the guards, hopefully, wouldn’t automatically be hostile toward me, even if the dryads attacked. We quickly moved through, and I rushed inside to grab the now-completed Tame Animal potion. Inside, the cubs and the two rock body guards had somehow gotten ice cream cones and were sitting there, still watching the damn dinosaur movie. Mongo, who hadn’t gotten a chance to notice the movie at the previous location, started screeching and jumping up and down once he noticed the cartoon dinosaurs on the screen. We grabbed the green potion and bounced. None of the guards attacked us as we passed.

Ten minutes later, and we approached the approximate location of Miriam and Prepotente.

“I don’t see them, Carl. We need Katia!”

Carl: Miriam, I think we’re getting close, but I don’t know exactly where you are.

Miriam Dom: Hang on one moment, Carl. Let me know if you can see this. I’m going to shoot a few sparks into the air.

I waited a moment, but there was nothing.

Carl: I don’t see anything.

Miriam Dom: You must not be close enough. Keep moving west.

Carl: Hang on. Do it again in about fifteen seconds.

I downed one of the potions of Levitation, and I hovered off the ground. I pushed the slider up, and I moved into the dark, freezing air. Rain continued to pour, pelting into me like little needles. I passed up through the trees, wind causing my cloak to billow. I could see nothing ahead, though far behind me, the night glowed ominously. I could smell it. A distant fire burned, despite the rain. A big fire, bigger than before we’d left the area. Goddamnit, Donut, I thought. She’d set the whole damn forest aflame.

Carl: Do it now.

A moment later, a few sparks of light dotted the horizon, about two kilometers away and far to the south, further south than I expected. It was far off any path that I could see, which meant we’d have to go on foot.

Carl: I see you!

Donut: CARL, WATCH OUT.

The screeching, frothing form slammed into me from the side, and I bowled away. The levitation spell immediately snapped off. I pinwheeled as I plummeted from the sky.

I froze in midair. Pulsing, EDM music started to play, pounding over the rain.

Oh fuck, oh fuck, what is this?

Mugshots of Donut and myself slammed into place, hovering, pounding right above my head. Digital lightning crept around the images, turning into vines. Monkey screeching sounds and bongos punctuated the electronic squeal of the music. I couldn’t move, but I faced upward, and I gagged as the cold water started to fill my mouth. It tasted of dirt and blood. I sputtered and gurgled as I was waterboarded by the downpour.

B... B... B... Boss Battle!

Special Forest Encounter!

Unable to move, I attempted to move my eyes, trying to see what had hit me. A massive, twin pair of talons hung in the air about fifteen feet away, angled in an attack. The monstrous shadow attached to the monster was a familiar shape. It’s Quetzalcoatlus, I thought. The pterodactyl-like ghost boss from the last floor. But that wasn’t right. It couldn’t be. It was, I realized, the same type of mob.

This one wasn’t a ghost, but it was still undead.

The damn thing was huge, like a mix between a pelican and vulture, but the size of a flying giraffe. It had an unusually-large beak, almost like the head of a jouster’s lance. The beak was as long as me. I’d only briefly seen the glowing, ethereal form of Quetzalcoatlus, and the flesh form of this creature was terrifying.

We hung like that for several moments, the music getting louder and louder.

Versus!

....

An ear-splitting shriek filled the night. Lightning crashed, and in that moment, the blood-red eyes of the monstrosity came into full view.

Sierra - Northropi Vampire

Level 65 Neighborhood Boss!

This is a Bereft Minion of Viscount Fog

The great, now-deceased hunter of vampires and all thing undead, Viscount Fog had trained his trusty mount, Sierra, to never leave his side.

Together, they hunted evil, ridding the world of the dark scourge that took his village and family. They hunted and killed every filthy ghoul they could find. So when Viscount Fog learned of a newcomer to their world, a vicious and powerful, ruthless and deranged bloodsucker by the name of Miriam Dom, he set out to exterminate her.

It went bad.

When Sierra swept down in an ill-fated attempt to save her boss, she was injured by the ruthless, baby-murdering bloodsucker. She stumbled away, abandoning the fight. In less than a day, the bloodlust thirst has ravaged her. Now on the hunt for her first kill, Sierra has become what she and her master hated the most.

Free her from her misery.

The world unfroze, and in less than a second, the twin talons gripped me. One around my legs, and the other around my chest. Leathery wings beat at the dark sky. The claws crushed and pulled at the same time, trying to pull me apart like a hot mozzarella stick. The creature smelled of death and gore. I continued to face upward, looking at the underside of the beast. I screamed as my health flashed red. It’s pulling me apart.

Donut: CARL! CARL!

A magic missile slammed into the monster’s wing as it circled just above the tree line. It screeched angrily.

At the same moment, I cast Heal on myself as I pulled the Holy Gooper potion ball into my free hand. I smashed the sticky, holy water substance against the talon locked onto my chest. The foot sizzled as Sierra screeched yet again, its voice high and piercing. I was hoping it’d drop me, but it just crushed harder.

Carl: Light!

I pulled my second and last potion ball just as the new sun ascended. Donut had scrambled up one of the trees, and she emerged from the canopy like a wizard atop a mountain, tiara glittering in the new light.

I attempted to heave the potion ball up at the dinosaur’s chest, but it reared back at the bright light. The potion ball went flying as the boss continued to tumble backward, but that was okay because the thing’s head burst into flames. What wasn’t okay was that it tossed me straight up into the air like a rag doll.

“Gah,” I cried out. I waved my arms ineffectively as I tumbled upward into the now bright sky. The boss landed on her back atop the canopy of trees, trapped as if she’d been caught by a spider’s web. I spun upward, paused for but a moment, and then I dropped face-first like a sack of doorknobs.

I slammed onto my last half-splat potion as I rocketed toward the flaming form of the still-alive boss, writhing atop the trees. Donut remained nearby, a few trees over, screaming something as a pair of clockwork Mongos negotiated the treetops toward the boss. One attempted to pounce, but the branch under it broke, and the dinosaur plunged down to the forest floor a hundred feet below.

I was going to hit the boss right below the center of the chest. The half-splat potion would keep me from dying, but it would plummet my health down to five percent. Since the dinosaur wasn’t actually on the ground, I had no idea how or if the potion would even work in these circumstances.

I had my right fist clenched, and my gauntlet formed just before I slammed into the still-screaming-despite-its-goddamn-head-was-on-fire vampire dinosaur. I smashed right between the two flailing talons like Superman breaking through a wall.

I tore through the dinosaur like it was made of paper, and I continued to fall, now tumbling, crashing through branches and leaves. Shit, shit, shit. Crash! I felt my ribcage crunch and legs break as I slammed into the muddy ground. I wheezed blood as I hit Heal once again.

To my left, a tree exploded, cracking and snapping and shattering as the body of the massive bird creature fell from the canopy and carved its way through the foliage. It’s going to land on me. The body abruptly stopped its descent, hovering twenty feet over me, wings spread like it was a marionette. The sudden stop did not hinder the downward momentum of the beast’s entrails, which ripped free from the hole I’d carved with my fist. Cold, stinking, eel-like guts smashed into my face. They just kept coming and coming like a ribbon from a magician’s hat, followed by the rest of the creature’s innards. I sputtered and gagged anew as my body healed itself.

I clawed my way out of the gore and looked up at the creature. It remained impaled between two trees, and its head continued to burn as it screamed. Its lower half dripped the remains of its stinking guts.

How are you not dead? It had a health bar, and it was in the red, but it stubbornly refused to sink lower.

Donut’s light orb moved down toward the creature, causing the flames on its head to burn brighter and hotter. The guts around me sizzled like a pile of sausages on a pan. Mongo ran up to me and started squawking as the last clockwork Mongo leaped from above, landing on the thing’s shoulder.

I caught sight of something on the ground. The still-beating heart sat a few feet away, thumping like a soccer-ball-sized engine. I could hear it, the heart beating in time to the music.

I remembered the warning from the cookbook, that our version of a vampire might not be the same as what we faced here. Still, I picked up a thick, broken and jagged branch, slick with blood and rain. I lurched toward the loose heart, and I stabbed it directly into the organ. It felt like I was trying to stab a raw turkey.

The damn monster exploded, showering more gore over all of us.

The neighborhood map dropped at my feet, and the rest of the thing slopped from the trunks of the ruined trees, landing all around me in a cascade of stinking, wet slop.

Winner!

The music stopped abruptly, as it always did. I didn’t move, allowing the rain to half-wash me clean. Another tree fell, but it fell in an opposite direction. Mongo grunted and leaned down to bite at the remains.

“Don’t you dare.”

Vampirism was contagious, and if I hadn’t been protected by my jacket, I’d likely be infected. I’d “die” and then wake up, overcome with hunger. I didn’t know if one ate a vampire corpse it would spread, but the fact that half the dinosaurs in the forest were now infected suggested that was indeed the case.

Donut leaped to a branch as she turned down the intensity of the light.

“You punched that vampire pterodactyl in the dick!” she cried. “You put a hole right in it!”

I groaned as I stepped away from the gore. The rain continued to pound. “Yes, Donut. I was there. But it was female. It didn’t have a dick.”

“Then you punched her in her lady garden! Did you see what my light did? It’s up to level 14 now!” She jumped down, being careful not to land anywhere near the dripping remains of the vampire. “It was hard to kill, but my light set it on fire just like the Fireball spell.” She made a face. “Really, Carl. We need to find a less disgusting way to kill these things.”

“What the hell did you just call it?” I asked. “Lady garden?”

“That’s what Miss Beatrice used to call it. That and ‘kitty’ which I will not even dignify with a response. But I rather like the term ‘lady garden.’ Mongo, no!”

“You better put him away until we can get out of here. We don’t want him infected with any of the lady garden bits.”

“No. No, I suppose that would be quite inconvenient. Mongo, come on.”

Chapter 171

<Note added by Crawler Volteeg. Seventh Edition>

I miss her. I miss her so goddamn much. Is it worth it? To survive this place with her gone? No. No, I don’t think it is.

<Note added by Crawler Drakea. 22nd Edition>

This is Volteeg’s first, last, and only entry into the cookbook. Fuck everything about this place.

~

We found the scene with Miriam Dom and Prepotente with just under an hour to go before dawn. We’d have gotten there even sooner, but we’d had to fight our way there. Hordes of turkey-sized dinosaurs called bambiraptors swarmed through the forest. Most—but not all—of them were vampires. Strangely, the ones infected with vampirism didn’t appear to attack their own kind, which I found interesting. I could kill them easily with a kick and a stomp. Donut’s Light spell was also highly effective against the infected ones. It didn’t outright kill them, but it stunned them at regular strength, and it caught their heads on fire when she maxed it out.

I paused at the clearing to take it all in.

The paralyzed form of Prepotente stood there like a statue, left arm around the waist of Miriam, who leaned against the goat man. His right arm was extended out, hand grasped around something that was no longer there. He had a timer over his head, six hours and counting. He would wake up five hours after sunrise.

There was an asterisk after the timer. I did not know what that meant. I hadn’t seen that before.

I could tell Miriam was exhausted. I knew, as a vampire, she was normally pale. But her skin had taken on a ghoul-like shimmer. She’s sick, I thought. I wonder how long it’s been since she’s eaten.

A circle of corpses surrounded the pair, extending out to the treeline. There was a wide range of creatures, from raccoons to monkeys to large bugs to dozens of the bambiraptors. Further out within the trees, red dots stalked in a circle, but they fled as we approached.

“There’s some bigger monsters out there,” Donut whispered. “I think they might be lady Mongos. They’re moving away.”

“Okay. Keep Mongo locked up for now. Keep an eye out for hunters and other crawlers, too.”

“Thank goodness,” Miriam said as we cautiously entered the clearing. I could hear the pain in her voice. She held up her arms to cover her eyes. “Donut, please. The light.”

“Oh, sorry,” Donut said, adjusting the brightness. “Is that better?”

“Yes, sorry. Please. We must talk before the sun rises.”

“What do you need us to do?” I asked.

“Sunrise is in fifty-three minutes,” she said. A book appeared in her hand. She dropped it to the ground. It was a magical tome. “Miss Donut, if you would be so kind. If you read the spellbook, you will learn the spell you need to wake him up.”

Donut gasped and jumped from my shoulder before I could object. My something-is-wrong sense screamed. The viewer counter was jacked all the way to the right, but it had been since the boss battle with Sierra.

Carl: Wait!

Donut paused, looking uncertainly between me and Miriam.

“Why didn’t you read the book yourself?” I asked.

Miriam sighed. “You two are in no danger from me, Carl. But I understand why you are cautious. I can see the glow on you. You are both protected from vampirism, and I can’t feed on you even if I wanted.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“I already have the spell. Or, I had it. It’s gone now. I have a special ability that allows me to unlearn a spell and turn it into a spellbook. I can only do it once a night, unfortunately.”

“But, why didn’t you use it then?” Donut asked. She cast Second Chance on a raccoon-like monster and told it to go get the book. The zombie raccoon hissed and grabbed the book, dragging it away from Miriam’s feet. It dropped it at Donut’s feet before lurching off into the forest, chattering.

“Don’t read it before I... Goddamnit, Donut.”

Donut glowed as she read the spellbook.

“Relax, Carl,” Donut said. “It was just a spellbook of Get Out of Jail. Wow. It costs forty points. That’s a lot! I’ve seen this spell before. Okay, I’m going to wake Prepotente up.”

“Goddamnit, wait,” I said.

“Donut, please wait,” Miriam agreed, continuing to gasp.

A trio of bambiraptors cautiously entered the clearing from behind Miriam. Before we could react, three bolts of energy shot from the vampire and struck them down. She hadn’t even turned her head. Holy shit.

“Miriam,” I said, taking a step forward. If she wanted to hurt us, she could do it from a distance. My sense of danger didn’t ease, but I was starting to suspect whatever the danger was, it wasn’t from Miriam. “Tell us the story. What’s going on? Why haven’t you released him?”

“Okay,” Miriam said. “I will tell you everything. Just promise me you won’t attempt to wake him just yet. Not until after dawn breaks. I don’t know if it will work if you try before then, and I’m afraid the attempt might harn him. So please wait.”

“Something tells me he’s going to be mad if we wait that long,” I said. “Can he see us in this state?”

“I think so,” Miriam said. “He can’t talk or move or use the chat, and he has the Fragile debuff, so we must be careful. But I believe he sees and hears all of it.”

“Okay,” I said. “Explain.”

“We don’t know each other very well, but I like you, Carl. Pony likes you, too.”

“I don’t think that’s true, Miriam...”

“Shush. Let me tell you a story. Don’t worry, it is short. But it’s about a young woman who had a life and a career and a fiancée. And she gave it all up. Not because she wanted to, but because she had a sense of duty to her parents.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “But...”

She had a quaver to her voice. “My parents were getting old, and I returned to their home outside Parma to take care of them and the animals. Twenty years would pass before my parents were gone, and when they were, I was too rooted. I couldn’t give it up. Even though I hated it as a child, I’d grown to love the farm and the responsibilities and the country. And my children. The goats. I loved them more than anything.”

“Miriam,” I began.

She held up her hand.

“I am telling you this not just because I am a sentimental old fool. It is important I say it because I never have. And I wish to say it to you because it is clear you love your Donut as much as I love all of my babies. Only you can understand. You’re the only one here whom I trust enough to understand.” She turned her head to regard the frozen Prepotente.

“And, one day, I want you to explain it to him. Because I know he will not understand it now.”

“He does love me,” Donut said.

Before I could object again, Miriam continued.

“Even before, Pony was attached to me. He would even follow me inside the house if I let him. My little stubborn shadow. But now. Now it is so much worse. When we are separated, he becomes hysterical. He becomes a danger to himself.”

“Yeah, I heard,” I said. “When you went on that show with Katia, he flipped out.”

She reached up and touched her neck. I didn’t know the details, but Prepotente had run off in a panic when Miriam was away. She’d gone looking for him and somehow ended up a vampire.

“When we got to this floor, we found ourselves hunted by an elite. A vampire hunter named Viscount Fog.”

“Yeah, we heard,” I said. “We just killed his flying mount. Sierra.”

She nodded. “Good. Good. She was dangerous. Fog was part of one of those television programs they run inside of this place. It was called Blood Hunter, and Fog was the star. He started hunting me the moment we landed on this floor. We have the hunters and the clerics, and now this creature... Plus, Pony got that prize box. It is unbearable, Carl. I... I am not strong like you. Or stubborn like Pony.” Her voice broke. “It is too much. And with my condition, it is a toll on my children. All ten of those who survive.”

“Ten?” I asked.

“Pony plus Bianca plus the others. They are all in his inventory.” She paused, momentarily overcome with emotion. “It is no longer safe for them to stay in mine. If I fall into the Ravenous state, it’s... It’s a bad idea for my babies to be on me.”

Fuck it, I thought.

I took another step toward her. I put my hand on her arm, and it was shockingly cold. That, combined with the look of pure agony in her eyes threatened to push me over a precipice I didn’t even know I was standing upon. I still didn’t understand what was going on, but I knew whatever this was, it was devastating to Miriam. She was known for being ridiculously calm in horrific situations, and this loss of control was heartbreaking.

She put her callused hand atop mine. She had a tattoo there, old and faded in the skin between her thumb and forefinger. It was of a musical note.

“Pony and I didn’t know about this vampire hunter until it was almost too late. He attacked us early on, but we escaped. This was several days ago, and the attack occurred while we were fighting that giant dinosaur. Big Tina. That was the start of it.”

I felt myself nod. “Big Tina has gone off the rails. We have a quest to figure out her story. But she’s doing something odd. She’s building some sort of army of undead.”

“Yes,” Miriam said. “Vampirism comes with a host of spells and abilities, and you get different ones when you are infected. Some new vampires are more powerful than others. Some of the infected are more contagious or charismatic. Or more deadly. Some can shapeshift. Tina is a boss monster, and they have given her multiple, powerful abilities. Abilities that allow her to control others. Or to create undead minions from those she slaughters. This was to be the climax of Blood Hunter. The vampirism curse was to infect the forest, and after killing me, Viscount Fog would have saved all the dinosaurs in the area, stopping an apocalypse. There’s a hierarchy, you see. Since I am the progenitor of their infection, if I die, the curse ends. Since none have been infected for a full month, they would all be cured. It’s not too late.”

Donut gasped. “You’re the head vampire!”

“Yes,” Miriam agreed. “Once I went down the floor, I gained a title. Princess of Hell. All crawlers who survive a floor while infected gain such a title, which makes the infection permanent. Carl, please listen. Just in the past few days, over a dozen other crawlers have been infected by forest creatures and dinosaur vampires. And those are only the ones I know of.”

I suddenly felt a chill wash over me, and I finally knew what was happening.

“Miriam, why haven’t you unfrozen Prepotente?”

She sniffed. “When Viscount Fog fell upon us this second time, Pony was ready for him. He read a very powerful scroll. It is called Community Pool. He must be physically touching both parties for the spell to work. He takes the infection of one party, me in this case, and he moves it to another. It would have not only cured me, it would also make it so Fog was now the prime. We could’ve killed him, then, and it would’ve cured the infection. Pony received the scroll in a benefactor box.”

“So, it would’ve turned Viscount Fog into the new head vampire?” Donut asked. “That would’ve been great television!”

“Yes. The scroll said it would cause Pony to be stunned for a minute, but we knew the transformation would’ve overcome Fog, and we would’ve had plenty of time to recover and finish him off.”

I eyed the frozen form of Prepotente. “Something obviously went wrong.”

“When Pony cast the Community Pool spell, Fog activated a counter that threw the spell back at Pony. It burned through his protections.” Miriam took a deep, pained breath. “Because of his wards, Pony was not infected, and the curse did not leave my body. Pony countered the counter. The spell bounced back and forth between the two several times.” She indicated a fat ring on Prepotente’s stubby finger. It looked as if it once housed several jewels. They were all gone. All except one on the very end. It looked like a tiny soul crystal, and it glowed ominously, like it might explode at any moment.

“That is a five-time-use ring called Opposite Day. It activated, and it shot the remains of the spell at Fog, who in turn had a similar ring, which bounced the spell back. It ping-ponged back and forth between the two. Both ended up stunned multiple times, and as you might know, the stun effect compounds each time it is applied. After the third iteration, one becomes Fragile, which means even the slightest amount of damage kills the sufferer, which is why I haven’t been able to break myself free without hurting Pony. The whole thing happened in less than a second, so fast it took me a while to figure out what had happened.”

Donut: CARL, CARL LOOK AT PREPOTENTE’S OTHER HAND. AT THE OTHER RING!

Carl: I see it. Let her get there on her own.

“How did Fog die?” I asked.

“With the both of them stunned and attached to me, I was tempted to kill him myself. It would’ve been easy. But I feared he had one last trick up his sleeve that would take Pony with him, and I didn’t dare. Not when I knew he would perish on his own at sunset, which is what happened.”

“How did you know he’d die at sunset?”

“Spells, when they bounce back and forth so many times, have a tendency to fall, how do you say? Inside out. It is something we learned early on. It is how Pony is so effective at killing slowly. He takes simple, low-power spells, and he finds ways for the spell to compound. That is what happened here. Fog had a new debuff. One titled Cursed Light Walker. I knew what that meant. While I die when exposed to light, his health slowly seeps if he is away from it. It is just as insidious of a curse. It’s not what we intended, but it worked. Because he was frozen and unable to heal, he died and crumpled to dust.”

“He was an opposite vampire!” Donut said. She turned to me. “I wonder how that works. Does he vomit blood on people instead of suck it away?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “So, Pony... Prepotente hasn’t been inflicted with either form of vampirism?”

“No,” she said. “No, thank goodness. His wards have burned away, but they held.” She swallowed. “However, when the spell bounced back and forth, something else happened. Something worse.”

I returned my gaze back to the frozen form of Prepotente and the ring on his other hand. It was difficult to see through his dark robe in the low light, but I saw it there, glowing ever-so-slightly through his clothes. The spiderweb tattoo on his left elbow. He didn’t just have the ring. He’d been using it.

“I didn’t know anybody else had a Ring of Divine Suffering,” I said. Mordecai had told me a few of these would appear in the dungeon, but this was the first I’d heard of one other than my own.

“He just got it,” Miriam said. “I told him not to put it on, that it was a mistake. But he is stubborn. That’s what his name means.” Her voice broke, then. “He was always my stubborn little boy.”

“Wait,” Donut said, finally catching up. “He marked you? He can’t heal? Why not?”

“It happened on its own,” Miriam said. “When spells bounce back and forth like that, it can cause a magical burst. A burst like that causes magic items to behave erratically.”

“Yeah,” I said. “We saw that happen at the end of the third floor.”

“I didn’t see his ring activate. I didn’t feel it happen. He can’t talk to me. But I see the debuff in his status. One can’t mark an NPC or an elite. I was the only eligible target in the area.”

“Left to Fester,” I said quietly.

“Yes. That is the debuff. Such an ugly name.”

“You haven’t woken him up because you can’t. The stunned and fragile debuff might time out, but the spell you gave Donut won’t work on him,” I said.

“I actually don’t know,” she said. “I was hoping you’d come before I was forced to find out. I fear casting it prematurely might damage him. Spells do that sometimes if they don’t work. He has but a single point of life in the fragile state.”

“You didn’t ask me here to protect you. You asked me here to kill you,” I said.

“Yes,” she agreed.

~

Donut: I DON’T UNDERSTAND.

Carl: Miriam wants to die, and I don’t blame her. If she dies, all of the other crawlers who have been infected on this floor with vampirism will be cured. It will stop whatever Big Tina is doing with the body parts. And Pony will be able to heal. I don’t even know if we can wake him up until she’s dead. It’s not clear how it works with debuffs.

Donut: IF WE KILL MIRIAM, PREPOTENTE WILL KILL US. IT’S WHAT I WOULD DO IF ANYBODY HURT YOU.

I reached up and rubbed Donut’s head. A sense of helplessness washed over me, but I pushed it away. Goddamn you. You will not break me.

Carl: The smart thing to do would be to kill them both.

Donut: I DON’T WANT TO KILL EITHER OF THEM.

Carl: Neither do I. Miriam wants us to kill her before Pony wakes up. She hasn’t said this out loud, but she’s probably afraid he’ll kill himself in a misguided attempt to save her. But we have other things to consider. I still don’t know what the hell is going on with the Plenty, but they obviously like Pony because they’re all fellow goats or whatever, and the last thing we need is another intergalactic conglomerate trying to kill us. If one of them has to go, it makes sense that it’s Miriam. Even without the ring thrown into the mix, her vampirism curse is terribly dangerous, and it’s spreading fast.

Donut: THIS IS JUST LIKE WITH CHRIS. IT’S AN IMPOSSIBLE SITUATION.

Carl: No, Donut. It’s not impossible. It’s just hard. Very hard.

I took a deep breath.

“Miriam, I am not going to kill you. But I will stand watch with you. I’ll keep you safe and Prepotente safe until the sun rises.”

The shepherd woman nodded. Tears ran down her cheeks, and they were made of blood. They mixed with the rain before they hit the ground.

~

I knew people would think I was an idiot for not killing her. Her bounty was worth 300,000 gold. And Prepotente was worth 1.2 million. Plus he had the ring and probably a host of other items.

It would be so easy.

But that’s not who I was. She knew that. She could see that in me, and that’s why I was the one who she summoned.

Donut: Carl? Would you do the same thing to save me?

I thought of Drakea’s note after Volteeg’s one and only entry:

Fuck everything about this place.

I thought of Prepotente, watching this and unable to move. I imagined what he must be feeling.

I thought of my mother, who’d ruined everything when she’d gone.

Carl: Without hesitation.

I will break you all.

~

Miriam leaned her head on Prepotente’s frozen shoulder as the sun rose up over the trees. The rain had finally stopped, just long enough for the sun to shine brightly on a clearing in the middle of the forest in this forsaken place.

“My beautiful boy,” she whispered. “My beautiful boy.”

~~~~~


Man, I hope Prepotente takes this well.

I just got back from Vegas where I spent a week at the 20booksto50K writing conference. It was a lot of fun, and I learned a lot. I spent the time hobnobbing with a bunch of authors. I got to briefly hang out with David Weber while sitting with Eric Ugland of the Good Guys fame. That was pretty cool.