Chapters 232-233 (Patreon)

Warning. Chapter 233 ends on a bit of a cliffhanger.

Chapter 232

<Note Added by Crawler Ossie, 18th Edition>

I know I don’t write often in these scrolls, but I have read them all. I just finished my third re-read of Herot’s overly-wrought essay and ramblings about the Worn Path Method of waking NPCs. These theories are sound, I think, but I believe there is something he has missed. Something monumental. I think they’re lying about the origin of some of these NPCs. Years pass, times change, laws and rules evolve. But this behemoth we find ourselves trapped within still persists. A reused canvas painted over and over again. The fact that this scroll I am writing in even exists suggests that the brush strokes used to paint this world are so piled atop one another, it’s impossible to see every image that once was. Ask a Bopca where they come from, and they’ll all tell you the same thing. That the aliens came to their planet and “offered” them a chance to live in the dungeon. I don’t think they’re the only ones with such a fate, and I’m beginning to believe the Bopca’s station is much higher than that of those who’ve been offered a similar deal.

~

“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” I said, backing toward the door. Minge was dead, but I could still hear them down there. The vorpals, whatever they were. They tore through the lower level of the club. They would supposedly disappear now that they’d bathed in demon blood, but how long would it take? I eyed Damascus Steel nervously. He was a demon class, and his presence was dangerous.

“Wait,” Damascus said, pulling himself to his feet. Steaming tears continued to roll down his face. “You have to take them with you. The dancers from the Penis Parade. All of them.”

“Uh,” I said, exchanging a look with Katia. “Why?”

The ifrit straightened. “The club is going to be closed for remodeling after this. It’s happened before. With my mother dead, they’ll assign a new assistant manager. There’ll be a restructuring. They’ll kick us out.”

“Your mother?”

He looked up nervously at the ceiling.

“It’s a long story. We don’t have time for it. Normally, the dancers here... We shouldn’t be here. Mother pulled strings. We have to leave.” He grabbed my arm and leaned in. His grip was like an iron clamp. “You owe me,” he whispered. “They will not survive this. You have to get them out of here. I convinced them to come, to work in this place. The new management is going to reassign them to the Larracos level. Or worse. If you don’t take them now, you’ll end up fighting against them on the ninth floor.”

I blinked at that. “What about you? You don’t want to come?”

More yellow fluid shot up from the hole in the floor, like the monsters below were splashing about in Minge’s corpse. It stank like rotten eggnog.

“I didn’t know who you were assigned to kill,” he said. “I don’t blame you for what happened. But I do blame him. We were promised freedom. He wanted to make sure she was dead. They’re still married. My mother has—had—so much, and the guild, it’s rarely found by crawlers. He gets it all. He’ll have it all when we get out.”

I didn’t understand any of this. If there was a way I could take them with me, I would in a second. Mordecai would have a coronary, but I would do it.

But what the hell was he talking about?

“I’m sorry,” Katia said, interrupting. “Are you saying you’re former crawlers? That Astrid was a former crawler? And that she was your mother? And...” she waved over at the cubicles in the back of the room toward the Night Wyrm’s lair, “And he’s your father?”

“Yes, they’re my parents. My brother and I were never crawlers,” Damascus said. “Look, Carl. We all still have our memberships to Meat Shields. Donut said you have a coupon. You can hire us. Do it for a two-floor contract, and they’ll be able to leave with you.” He turned, searching the room. His eyes focused on an elderly dwarf woman. She was rubbing Anaconda’s back.

“Rosemarie, come,” Damascus called.

The dwarf woman hobbled over. I recognized her from the last time I’d visited the strip club. She had a black and white, fuzzy mole creature named Bernie perched on her shoulder. The old woman had gotten in trouble from the DJ for pelting one of the dancers in the eye with a gold coin.

“Rosemarie is the manager of the top floor’s Meat Shields location,” Damascus said.

“I didn’t know there was one on this floor,” I said, instinctively pulling up the map. There wasn’t a location listed.

“I work out of my home office,” she said, waving vaguely over where her table use to be. There was just a hole there now. Samantha was there, on the ground, peering down into the smoke. She was laughing hysterically as Minge’s body below was getting eviscerated.

Damascus grabbed the elderly dwarf and shoved her toward me. “She can approve the transaction right now. Isn’t that right, Rosemarie? He wants to hire the entire crew for two floors.”

The old dwarf turned to regard Damascus, surprise on her face.

“Your mother said...”

“My mother is dead,” he snapped.

She took a moment, swallowing. “You really think they’ll shutter the Parade after this?”

While she was turned, that thing on her shoulder continued to stare at me. It made a snuffling noise and growled.

“Not shutter it,” Damascus said. “It’ll be a restructuring, just like last time. My mother will be replaced. They’ll bring back the original dancers, and our whole crew will get thrown to the Larracos level Meat Shields.” He thumbed over his shoulder at a group of male dancers I didn’t recognize. The ones from that other strip club one floor down. I remembered that Donut did not like these guys nearly as much. “The pricks at the Palace won’t have us.”

“If you guys leave, they’ll fill this place up with the dregs again,” Rosemarie said. “I’ll never get no business. Did you ever see those guys before you came on? Ain’t nobody gonna hire an elderly stripper with one leg and halitosis.”

“We don’t have a choice.”

The dwarf grunted. “I gotta calculate the cost. You alone are worth a good chunk, ya know.”

“I’m not going. It’ll be all the others. Doctor Bones, too. And his coupon is for 100,000 gold. That’s how much it’ll cost.”

“Wait, what? You’re going to separate from your brother? What are you going to do?”

“You know what I have to do,” he said.

Rosemarie patted Damascus on the waist. It was about as high as she could reach. Bernie stopped staring at me and jumped up to the ifrit’s shoulder and head-butted him before returning to the dwarf.

“I’m sure gonna miss the cum closet,” she said sadly. Bernie made a sad peep.

Katia: What in the heck are they talking about?

Carl: I... I’m not sure. I have a theory. I’ll tell you in a minute. But if we can actually hire these guys as mercenaries for our faction wars army, I’m going to do it. We’ll have to buy an upgrade for the guild, I think. We gotta house them until the next floor.

Katia: Donut made Imani buy a barracks upgrade earlier. We now have enough room for like 20 of them.

Carl: Really? I didn’t know that.

Out loud, I said to Damascus, “If Astrid was your mother, how can that be that you’re not crawlers?”

There was a distant scream, but I couldn’t tell from where. The vorpals were still in the club.

“We have no time,” Damascus said. “And I’ve already gotten a warning to shut up about this. There’s more of us than you know. Anaconda and I are just two of thousands.”

Anaconda, the dark, quarter-naga looked up at the mention of his name. “Brother, what are you doing?”

Damascus turned and put his hand on the other stripper’s shoulder. The two didn’t look anything alike. They weren’t even remotely the same species. “I’m going to avenge our mother. He won’t win.”

The snake-like dancer looked up at his brother. He had slitted, reptilian eyes. “If you’re going to fight him, I’m going, too.”

“Me, too!” called Dong Quixote.

“No,” Anaconda said without turning his head. “This is family business.”

And then, without another word to us, Damascus held out his arm and pulled his brother to his feet. The two turned and walked toward the back of the club, skirting past Samantha, who remained at the breach in the floor. She made a lewd comment. They ignored her. Together, they entered the back cubicle.

“What is happening?” a woman asked. This was a snaggle-toothed, heavily-pierced goblin prostitute named Tuesday Two-For-One. She was furiously chewing gum. She reminded me of a pair of female goblins Donut and I had met so long ago. “Where are they going? Are they going to get each other off or something?”

Rosemarie looked up at me, waved her hand, and a shop interface window popped up.

She sighed heavily. “It’s the end of an era, you know. I hope you appreciate what you’ve done. Now let’s see that coupon of yours.”

~

Warning: This location has been temporarily closed. You have fifteen minutes to exit, or you will be teleported out to the entrance vestibule.

A timer appeared in my vision.

“Huh,” I whispered. I wasn’t expecting that.

Katia, Samantha, and I cautiously moved toward the exit. We stopped at the end of the hallway overlooking the dance floor and decided to wait here for a few minutes to make certain there was nothing out there. Samantha had reverted to rolling on the ground. As we waited, I thought of Ossie’s note at the end of Herot’s essay. That whole thing about the Worn Path Method was ridiculously long and mind-numbing. I hadn’t even noticed that note by Ossie until recently, when I read it during my cookbook transcription. There was no other mention anywhere about any such theory, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it now.

There was blood all over the dance floor. It hadn’t been there before, which meant at least one of those things had gotten up here. I was pretty sure it was gone, but I still wanted to wait a minute.

The 13 male strippers plus that skeleton DJ guy from the Penis Parade were already in the barracks. They’d transferred outside and to the front door of our personal space the moment we hired them. The women from Bitches and the male and female clubs on the middle floor were left behind. Only the men of the Penis Parade were eligible to be hired as mercenaries.

I’d neglected to tell Donut they were coming, and she was over the moon with their addition to the guild.

Donut: OMG, CARL. THIS IS THE GREATEST THING SINCE YOU HIRED SLEDGIE. YOU EVEN HIRED DOCTOR BONES. HE’S THE BEST DJ SINCE DJ DIESEL. MY BIRTHDAY ISN’T UNTIL NOVEMBER, BUT IT’S LIKE IT STARTED EARLY. MONGO IS REALLY EXCITED, TOO. I’M SAD ANACONDA AND STEELIE AREN’T HERE, THOUGH. DO YOU THINK MAYBE THEY’LL COME LATER?

Carl: Maybe. How’s Mordecai taking it?

Donut: THE GUYS ALL LEFT TO GO HANG OUT WITH ELLE, SO HE DOESN’T REALLY CARE. HE’S MORE MAD THAT YOU BLEW UP THE DESPERADO CLUB. HE SAYS IT’S GONNA BE A PROBLEM GETTING SUPPLIES. WHO WAS YOUR ASSASSINATION TARGET ANYWAY? YOU CAN TALK ABOUT IT NOW, RIGHT?

Carl: I’ll tell you about it when we get back. How’d it go in the practice arena?

Donut: THEY WERE PRETTY MAD. SHI MARIA WAS MAD, TOO. SHE WANTED ME TO USE THAT GLOW-UP CARD ON HER.

We’d debated this for a while, and in the end, I went with Donut’s judgment.

Before we’d gone into the club, Katia had given Donut one of her excess totem cards. A mythic creature from Iceland named Jola. I’d been worried Donut would be pissed, but she’d actually been pretty excited about it once she saw the card. After reading all its abilities, she decided she wanted it in our active deck, which would give us one too many totems.

Instead of getting rid of one of our existing cards, she’d instead used the consumable Combo card to combine two of the problem cards, used up all the utility buffs on them, and then used the consumable Glow-Up card to make the change permanent.

So when it was done, we actually had two new totems. Donut had spent the past several hours practicing with them by herself.

We had considered just getting rid of Shi Maria, or using the combo on her to make a new creature, considering how dangerous she was. But we needed her if we wanted to survive this next part. It was a calculated risk. I hoped we’d have an opportunity to get rid of her once we got our hands on a key to the stairwell.

Carl: How is Jola? Does she do what you say? And what about the, uh, new one?

Donut: JOLA IS GREAT AS LONG AS THERE ARE NO CHILDREN AROUND.

Carl: What the hell does that mean?

Donut: YOU’LL SEE. THE NEW GUY IS STILL A JERK, BUT HE LIKES FIGHTING. ALSO, YOU WERE BUSY SO I DIDN’T BOTHER YOU, BUT WE FINALIZED A BUNCH OF VOTES FOR FACTION WARS RULES. EVERYTHING WENT AS YOU SAID IT WOULD.

Carl: Okay, I’ll see you in a bit. We’re going straight to Odette’s so get ready. We might be there awhile, so make sure you go to the bathroom first.

Donut: I ALREADY DID.

I looked over at Katia. She was leaning against the wall, her eyes closed, listening for monsters. Samantha was on the ground, gnawing at her ankle. The club was empty. I didn’t see any dots. None at all. I once again looked at the dance floor, an uneasy feeling washing over me. It was strange seeing it like this. I thought of Clarabelle, the guard at the door. We wouldn’t see her when we left, not unless we backtracked inside, which we were now barred from doing. I hoped she was okay.

That boot was gone, I realized. The one from the crawler guy I’d fought with earlier.

Katia wasn’t looking good. She’d reverted to her large, blonde, female form, and even though she “sculpted” the way she looked, she had heavy rings under her eyes. She had a tremor in her left hand. We needed to get her to Mordecai and Imani for another treatment soon.

“Are you doing okay?” I asked.

Katia spoke without opening her eyes. “I’m fine. I just need to rest for a minute, and we can go. I’m confused as hell about what was going on back there with the dancers. Tell me your theory.”

I shrugged. “I think the four of them... The Night Wyrm, Astrid, Damascus Steel, and Anaconda are a family, and they’ve been stuck in the dungeon for a really long time. I don’t think they’re generated NPCs, but more like the Bopcas. Like maybe they were indentured servants who somehow signed up for, or were forced, into the dungeon. I don’t know what race they were born, but they’re all different ones in the game.”

Katia’s eyes opened at that. “Holy crap.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Did you see those girls from the Bitches room? They were all, uh, how do I say this?”

“Butt-ass ugly?” Samantha offered from the floor.

“Yeah,” I said. “I think the men in the Penis Parade on this floor are supposed to be like that. Like super, uh, unqualified. But they’re not. Well, some are. When Astrid ended up with the gig as the assistant manager of the club, she made certain her two sons were safe and got them a gig at the Penis Parade where she could watch over them. It sounds like they were all members of Meat Shields, the mercenary market. She brought them to the club, and they brought their friends with them. She probably did some wheeling and dealing and parked that Rosemarie lady in there, so they were technically still mercenaries, but since nobody knew the club was also a Meat Shields location, they were safe.”

“What about the husband? The Guild of Suffering?”

“That, I’m not so clear on. But I think they believed they were going to be done soon, maybe done after this season, with their contract. The dad, who was playing the Night Wyrm, made us kill her. Based on what Damascus said, I think it was over money. Like if she died, he would get her paycheck or something.”

“Holy crap,” Katia said again. “I think you’re right. He had us murder her in the game for real-life money. Do you think the other guys, the rest of the strippers are the same type of NPC? Or are they the generated kind?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Unless they tell us, I don’t think there is a way to know. I’m not even sure they know sometimes. Mordecai said it was illegal to change the memories of natural people. That’s what he called them. ‘Naturals.’ I think that’s what he said.”

Actually, no, I remembered, thinking back on the short conversation we’d had way back when we’d entered the third floor. I was pretty sure he’d added, “Unless they signed away their rights.”

Jesus. I didn’t want to think about that.

“Come on,” Katia said, pulling me toward the exit. “It’s safe. We probably don’t want to get teleported out.”

As we exited the club, I suddenly remembered there were several Faction Wars participants still trapped on the bottom level of the Desperado because the lower part of the city remained flooded.

Despite the horrors of everything we’d just experienced, I felt myself grin as we stepped outside.

Chapter 233

“I must say,” Odette laughed, “In a day filled with surprises, that was a, how do you say? A dessert worthy of a king? I think the phrase in your language is, ‘the cherry on top.’” Her voice echoed unnaturally in the large chamber. On the screen, we’d just watched a submerged viceroy from team Madness get devoured by a shark.

The production trailer we sat in was the same one as the last time we’d gone on Odette’s show, but her set was different. The audience was much bigger, and her desk and chairs were made to appear as if we were on stage in a large auditorium, which caused the echo to her voice. It was implied were actually in the city of Larracos, within some baroque-style theater. Along the virtual walls were water-stained, peeling posters for plays and musicals. My eyes caught one for a play called “Session of Love.” It reminded me of the poster for Gone with the Wind, only it was a camel holding onto a swooning saccathian wearing a yellow wig.

I knew Odette had just arrived in Earth orbit, so the change of scenery was for the benefit of the audience.

“It’s not as fun watching them die when we know they’re going to be brought back at the end of the day,” Donut complained. She looked up at the audience. “Does that poor shark still get to keep all the food in his tummy, or does it teleport away?” The audience laughed. “It’s like when Carl used to complain to his friends that Miss Beatrice was giving him blue balls. Is there a blue balls equivalent for food?”

I grunted. “I never said that.”

“I’m being serious. Are they even feeding those guys? We are on the eighth floor for goodness sake, and that city has been flooded since the end of the fifth, and they still haven’t gotten rid of those sharks? That has got to be some sort of animal abuse. The least they can do is let them eat somebody for real.”

“Oh, they get fed all right,” Odette said. “The Semeru aren’t letting anyone near that part of the city, and they’re keeping the castle submerged. Mercenaries and players alike are getting fed into that pit on the daily. That little stunt at the Desperado Club ended up ejecting several trapped officials and participants from various factions, all of whom were quickly devoured or pulled their fail safes. Only one of the killed was a warlord.”

An image of a hairy alien appeared on the screen, flailing in the water. I’d never seen this guy before, but I recognized him immediately. I had a picture of his mother. He hadn’t been at the meeting. His proxy had been a goblin-like alien named Luke. This guy was a different alien all together. His head was like that of a caterpillar, but I was pretty sure he walked on two legs. He had several arms that waved about in the water. The audience laughed as he was ripped apart, torn into pieces by a pair of concierge sharks.

“Ten pulled their fail safes, and the rest were eaten. Commander Stockade of the Lemig Sortion was the last of the 35 to be devoured,” Odette said. “He ended up pulling his failsafe, but it came too late, so they’re saying it didn’t count. He’ll be regenerated back onto the playing field.”

“Failsafe?” I asked. “What a chickenshit.”

The failsafe rule was new, and it had been voted yes by everyone except our team, the orcs, and the Lemig Sortion, whose people were allowed to vote on these provisions. This new rule was the first part of the concessions to allow Juice Box’s team to officially join. We still hadn’t gotten enough yes votes to allow the NPCs to form their own team, but the cowards were voting several save-our-own-ass-just-in-case rules into place.

If a player pulled the failsafe, they’d be teleported directly into the onboarding facility, which was in orbit. The system had appended a few caveats into the rule. There was a five-second cooldown. They wouldn’t be allowed to return to the dungeon. The game would treat them as if they were dead. Crawlers were exempt from the rule.

I’d had Donut vote against it, of course, but I wasn’t truly opposed to this new rule. As much as I wanted every one of those assholes dead, these pricks were much easier to work with now that they thought they were safe. I could cause a lot of pain in five seconds. As far as I was aware, Juice Box’s terrorist squad hadn’t attacked since the failsafe was implemented.

“Only 35 bad guys got eaten? It’s a good start, but not nearly enough,” Donut said.

Odette chuckled. “Plus ten pulled failsafes, don’t forget, so they’re out of the game permanently. I should add, five teams all filed new complaints. They’re saying that Carl destroying the club and forcing that mass exit should constitute a foul and attack. They’re asking for sanctions.”

I grunted with derision.

“That’s quite the stretch,” Donut agreed. “Samantha somehow accidentally allowed a demon out of the Nothing, and the demon lady ended up destroying the club so bad they had to kick everyone out? One could hardly expect Carl to have predicted that. It was just a happy little accident, as that afro guy says. Carl says we did them a favor, anyway. Isn’t that right, Carl?”

“That’s right.”

“How do you figure that?” asked Odette.

I made eye contact with Quasar, who stood off stage and to the side. He gave me a thumbs up. I tried to ignore Harbinger, who stood behind him in the back corner of the small hold. The massive goat liaison stood in shadow. His virtual avatar was taller than the ceiling of the room, and his head was half cut off, like in a video game. Zev was also here, also attending as a holo, standing on the opposite side of the studio. She was whispering to Lexis, Odette’s assistant, the only person who was really here with us.

I leaned forward on the couch. “Look. Those assholes have been sitting on their asses in the bottom floor of the Desperado since we trapped them there all those weeks ago. They were trapped there because the entrance bar in Larracos was destroyed. The only way out was for them to die and get regenerated. They could’ve killed themselves at any time. None of them did. The rest of their teams have all been working their asses off while these idiots have been getting drunk and gambling away their citizens’ money. Anyone who was still there was nothing more than a huge wuss, including Corporal Caterpillar or whatever his name is. Now they’re all ejected from the club, and they can finally participate in the game. Donut is right. I had no idea any of that was going to happen. They should be thanking me, not whining like a bunch of little bitches.”

The crowd cheered.

“Speaking of Faction Wars,” Odette said. The crab legs on her lower body rearranged themselves, the joints moving up and down like pistons. I was used to them by now, but whenever they moved, it gave me the heebies. “I understand your face-to-face pre-production meetings have been suspended, and now you’re doing all the voting via your interface. Is that correct?”

I tensed. We were on dangerous ground. From the corner, Harbinger leaned forward. Before the interview, he warned us he would stop the whole thing if either Donut or I gave up privileged information about behind-the-scenes stuff, including any information about Juice Box and her rebellion. It was stupid because the galaxy had to already know about all of it. Donut and Louis were constantly talking about Juice Box. Still, if the liaison stopped the interview early, Odette wouldn’t get the chance to ask to be our adjutant. If Odette wasn’t our adjutant, then our deal with Huanxin to save Katia was null and void. Nobody knew this last part except me. I’d told Donut how important it was to get through this interview, but I hadn’t dared to tell her all of it. All she knew was that we needed to see our way through the meeting. That, and she wasn’t allowed to talk once Odette mentioned the word “adjutant.”

Zev had begged us not to pick Odette. She’d have to get over it.

“That’s right,” Donut said cheerfully. “I do like going to the meetings, but they kept getting messed up.”

“In what way?” Odette asked, pouncing on the opening.

Donut waved a paw. “Oh, you know. Politics.” She turned to the crowd and stage-whispered, “I don’t think that orc Prince Stalwart likes us very much. And that weird viceroy guy couldn’t keep his head about him. I do wish they’d allow the meetings to be streamed. That last one was quite entertaining. But...” She made a motion like she was zipping up her mouth.

Odette laughed along with the audience. She waved a hand, and a paragraph of text appeared floating in the air. “We all know that the participants get to vote on rule changes before the game officially starts. Some of these rules can be voted on right until the moment the floor opens up. These are called action items. If an action item is voted down, we, unfortunately, never get to see what it was. But here’s something you guys probably don’t know. If an item gets rejected by the system before anyone can vote, we do get to see it. Our researchers happened to notice a few interesting ones.”

The screen zoomed in on a line of text.

Action item proposed by Co-Warlord Princess Donut of the Princess Posse: Change the name of Crown Prince Stalwart to “Captain Enormous.”

***Item rejected by system.

The crowd roared.

“I would love to hear the story about that one,” Odette asked, laughing.

I eyed Quasar, and he thought for a moment and then shook his head, “No.”

“Sorry,” I said, speaking before Donut could reply. “The lawyers are telling me that’s off-limits.”

“Oh, poo,” Donut said. “That was a good story. But, hypothetically, if someone randomly talked about the size of their own private parts without anyone else bringing it up, Captain Enormous would be a perfectly proper nickname for him. Again, Odette, this is pure supposition on my part.”

I held my breath, but Harbinger didn’t react. He appeared suddenly distracted, which was unusual for the goat liaison. Odette let the laughter die down before she pulled up the next screen. This was a group of three action items I’d never seen before.

Holy shit, I thought, reading them.

Emergency Action item proposed by Warlord Empress D’Nadia of the Prism: delete all existing NPCs on Larracos level to maintain game integrity for Faction Wars.

***Item rejected by system.

Emergency Action item proposed by Warlord Empress D’Nadia of the Prism: Disallow crawlers from participating in Faction Wars in any capacity.

***Item rejected by system.

Emergency Action item proposed by Warlord Empress D’Nadia of the Prism: Remove the Princess Posse from Faction Wars and/or delete Crawlers Carl and Princess Donut.

***Item rejected by system.

“Oh my god,” Donut said, jumping to her paws on the chair. Her tail swished angrily. “That... that bitch! I thought she was my friend! She can’t do that! We didn’t even see these! Carl, do you see this! She’s cheating! First she sells my sponsorship to, to...” She made an angry, strangled noise. “She tried to delete us!”

Before anyone could respond, Donut gasped with new indignation. “Carl, Carl, I just realized something. I’m starting to think maybe she really did vote against Mongo in the pet show! This is an outrage!”

Odette’s bug head nodded in mock sympathy. “My understanding is, if it’s an Emergency Action Item, there is no vote. The system is allowed to decide. If you propose an emergency action, and it’s rejected, it’s counted as a strike. Get three strikes, and you’re blocked from requesting more. All the other teams used up most of their emergency actions when you flooded Larracos or when you purchased your team, or when you splatted that elf castle on the Lemig Sortion’s playing field.”

“What?” Donut asked. “Emergency action items? We didn’t even know that was possible!”

Here it comes, I thought.

“That,” Odette said, “is why you need to pick your adjutant as soon as possible.”

Donut opened her mouth to respond, but then she looked at me. Across the studio, Zev and Lexis had stopped talking and were staring intently.

“Adjutant?” I asked, pretending not to know what that meant.

“Each team gets one. It’s a third-party referee and consultant. Kind of like how a manager worked before they changed the rules, but instead of being a non-corporeal avatar, they’re really there. The adjutant will have access to the expanded rule set and will accompany the warlord into battle. They cannot fight, either directly or indirectly. They can clarify rules and also call fouls. They’re also tasked with giving a daily, on-air recap for fans.”

“They’re physically there on the battlefield with us?” I asked, letting a grin spread across my face. “So if we manage to get the protections turned off, they’d be as vulnerable as the hunters from the sixth floor? In my world, we had a thing called embedded reporters who followed military units around. That was a very dangerous job.”

Odette shook her head. “No matter what happens with that vote, adjutants are protected. But, yes, they’re really there.”

She’d just confirmed what Mordecai had said earlier. That actually made me feel a little better. It was clear Huanxin wanted Odette there so she could do something to her. I still didn’t know the details on why they didn’t like each other, though I knew the three of them—Mordecai, Odette, and Huanxin—were all tangled up together in some ancient beef that ended up with Mordecai’s brother dead and Odette arrested. But if Odette was protected by the dungeon, then that meant it was out of my hands. What they did to each other outside the dungeon was none of my concern.

I shrugged. “Well, we don’t have one yet. I’m open to suggestions.”

Odette nodded. “We can sort that for you.” She waved her hand, and three aliens appeared, floating in windows. I recognized two of them. “Let’s pick one right now. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to do it.”

~

Hey everybody! Happy new year! I hope you all had a great and safe holiday. No super-new or pressing updates. Lots still happening behind the scenes. I am still finalizing my con schedule for 2023, and I will be doing several shows this year. I will post about that soon.

Also, if you're in Seattle, come see my band Heart-Smashers this Saturday (1/7) play at the Kraken. I'll buy you booze if you show up! Just let me know you're coming.