Chapters 248, 249. Note about the release of book 6. (Patreon)

Note about the upcoming physical book release at the end of the chapter!

~

​​Chapter 248

The trip north was eerie. There were no mobs. Not many memory ghosts, either. It was past midnight on Christmas morning, and traffic was light on the single lane highway. It was cold enough that I really shouldn’t be doing this without pants, but it wasn’t freezing. A light drizzle occasionally started and stopped, making everything slick. I’d had to circle around the occasional pileup, but I didn’t see a single, physical moving car on the roadway. I still had to be careful of the occasional memory ghost. Most of the ghosts in vehicles had lost all of their clothes when the car they were riding in crashed, but there were sporadically people with helmets and sunglasses zipping by, and if I got hit by one of them, it’d knock me clean off the motorcycle.

I couldn’t stop thinking about the disappearance of the members of the Open Intellect Pacifist Network. What did that mean?

Once I reached the southern edge of town, I stopped at a closed gas station, broke down the door, and grabbed a map from the holder. I sat at the counter and munched on some beef jerky as I tried to figure out where I needed to go. I found it quickly. It was only a few blocks away, and I was early.

Donut occasionally messaged me, but she was clearly having fun. They were singing Christmas carols, and everybody was getting progressively more blitzed as the night wore on. Katia, thankfully, was remaining sober. As long as I continually assured Donut I was okay, she didn’t seem to mind I’d gone out. She asked me if I wanted to come back inside and wear a Santa suit for the kids, and I begged off. She didn’t realize how far I’d gone.

I tried to remember what I’d been doing around this time, just this past Christmas morning. Bea had been back in Yakima with her parents. She was going to drive back later in the day and get ready to leave for her Bahamas trip. I’d been off work for almost a week and had spent the evening playing video games with Donut on my lap. I’d ordered takeout for dinner, and Donut had stolen a wonton from my plate.

I hadn’t felt lonely at the time. The thought never even entered my mind, but this sudden sense of loss washed over me. What had Asher been doing? I thought of Mr. Roth, my landlord, asleep in the basement apartment, also alone. I never thought about him before this. I’d never given it a single thought. I thought of Mrs. Parsons, my neighbor on the first floor. Her husband had been dead for years. She’d been alone, too.

I didn’t feel loss for the person I was at the time, but for me, now, here. I was here, alone, and I finally understood what the difference was. I didn’t want to be alone. I regretted not bringing someone with me.

Goddamn you, Louis.

“It’s not really Christmas. Fuck.”

My voice sounded hollow in the dark room.

A noise caught my attention. There was a dog here, in the gas station, passed out in the back corner. I hadn’t even noticed him. A memory ghost. It was an elderly bloodhound, and he was sleeping on his side in a bed that had a little sign over it that read “Lightning Lou.” He had two bowls of food, plenty of water, and there was a doggy door against the wall behind him which led to a small, fenced yard.

Still... how could they just leave him here? There wasn’t a house or apartment attached to the gas station. There was a sign on the door saying it would be closed on Christmas. They just left him here. A guard dog.

I reached down and tried to pet him, but my hand went right through his head, and I accidentally dislodged his collar, which jingled as it fell off his neck. The dog sighed heavily in his sleep, unaware that the world would end in just over a week.

“Merry Christmas, buddy,” I said.

~

The shelter was a graffiti-covered building in an industrial area of town, surrounded by what appeared to be fruit-packing plants. It was about four in the morning, and I still had a few hours before the breakfast. I pulled up on the motorcycle and searched the map for threats. There was nothing. I cast Ping. Nothing. I cast Tripper, looking for traps. Nothing. My new Find Crawler skill was only level 5, but that, too, had the area empty. I truly was alone.

I received a fan box notification. My views were absolutely spiked.

I walked the perimeter of the building, looking for clues about what I was supposed to see or find here. There was a single entrance with a light on with a Christmas wreath hanging from it. The same flyer from my sponsor box was taped to the glass door. As I passed, I saw a single man inside behind a desk, a memory ghost leaning back in a chair watching something on his phone. He was wearing a Christmas hat. The shelter was otherwise dark.

I made a second circuit of the building, looking more closely at the graffiti. It was just the usual stuff. Gang squiggles that I couldn’t read. The occasional swear. More than one penis. A note that said “The staff here sux cock.” A pretty good rendition of Piglet from Winnie the Pooh, though someone had sprayed a peace symbol over Piglet’s face.

And then, I saw it. I stopped in my tracks.

It was just three sentences. It said, “Look for me at breakfast every morning. I wear the red hat with the flaps. Coffee then speech.”

That was it. It was written in red, runny spray paint. Some of the letters were covered by later artists, including the words “Sniff Vagina” for some reason. The words blended in with every other squiggle on the wall, and it was something I’d never even give heed to.

Except for the fact it was written in Syndicate Standard, not English.

I reached up and put my hands against the words. It’d been here for a long time.

I moved to the front door of the shelter and tried to open it, but it was locked. There was a doorbell here, but I didn’t want to wait for anyone else to come by. I kicked the glass door, and it shattered, the sound shockingly loud. I went past the man at the counter, who was watching some anime about boxing on his phone.

I moved into a large room filled with sleeping men on rows and rows of cots.

I’d only spent one night of my life in a homeless shelter. It was in Seattle, the day of my 18th birthday.

The heavy scent of Lysol filled the room, and I was shocked at how familiar the room felt. There were no women or children here. Each cot contained a sleeping man under a gray blanket, and at the foot of each cot was a plastic storage tub, all duct-taped closed with a signature on the seal. Men snored and slept restlessly.

Only a small portion of them looked like how one would expect a homeless person would look. One guy was in an actual suit. Several appeared to be in their late teens.

Christmas decorations covered the walls. A massive cross dominated a wall, too. Beyond them was another room with closed double doors, but with a light on. I could hear the activity beyond. I could smell it, too, mixed in with the heavy disinfectant. There were people within, cooking breakfast for the homeless crowd.

I thought of Chris and Brandon and Yolanda and the rest of the staff of the Meadowlark Adult Care community. I thought of Imani, who’d just sent out a mass message saying she still couldn’t find the token.

I looked over the sleeping men, trying to see someone with a red hat. All were memory ghosts. There was nobody I could tell.

I moved to a corner, and I sat down to wait.

~

I was nodded awake by an announcement coming over a loudspeaker. A song. It was “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer” again. I’d fallen asleep.

“Oh, fuck,” I muttered, diving into my messages. If Donut had messaged me and couldn’t get a hold of me... But I relaxed. Her last few notes didn’t require a response. The last one had come in about an hour and a half earlier:

Donut: EGGNOG IS DISGUSZITI. BLECH.

Donut: I found his hat on the ground after the party. I have it. He was a jerk, but I kinda like it.

Donut: SECRET ASIAN MAN SONG LYRICS.

Donut: SANTA.

A few minutes after that, I’d received a pair of messages from Mordecai and then another from Katia.

Mordecai: Where are you?

About five minutes passed and then:

Mordecai: Be careful, kid.

Katia: I don’t know what you’re up to, but be careful.

And then Louis sent a message soon after that.

Louis: Donut is passed out drunk in the main room. Apparently this was the first time she’d drank since she got her player killer skull? Mordecai said he was worried about you and then one of the fish people zapped into the room. Zev, I think, and she talked quietly with Mordecai and Katia before disappearing. I didn’t tell them you’d asked me about Homestead. I don’t know what’s going on, but I hope you’re okay.

There was also a message from Zev.

Zev: Just an FYI, I told your teammates that you’re out on a short quest and nobody really knows what it’s about, which is the truth, and to not bother you. I said you’re safe and that there are no mobs or hazards near you, which also appears to be true. The AI is particularly insistent that we do not interfere with whatever this is and not to interfere with the feed, either. This last part is causing some dispute, but then the AI leaked our internal debates out into the main feed, which as you can imagine is making everybody even more curious, but it’s also caused the Syndicate council—the real council—to go into a tizzy. A few members are here, on planet, and they’ve been locked out of the discussions. Everything is a mess. This obviously has something to do with the Residuals, which means it’s probably going to be a stupid non-event. But it’s still curious.

I read the message a few times and composed a reply to Zev.

Carl: What the hell is a Residual?

Zev: I am forbidden from telling you. I think you’re about to find out.

It was 6 AM, and all around me, men were getting up, lining up for a group of bathrooms. They were sliding their plastic containers against the wall while someone gathered up all the cots. I pulled myself up and continued to watch. The rise of chatter filled the room. The smell of food was now overwhelming, and my stomach rumbled. Christmas music continued to play on the loudspeaker. Other than the music and the decorations, there was no indication whatsoever that this day was any different than any other.

I’d dreamt of Odette. Of her speech to me the other day. Never stare into the blinding eye of the Bedlam Bride.

I watched as the men worked together to put all the cots away and then bring out a line of tables, preparing for breakfast.

I saw him, then. The man with the red hat, and my heart started to race. He appeared to be about 70 years old. He had Asian features, which made him stand out amongst the white, black, and Hispanic men. He was dressed in several layers of flannel, and upon his head was a bright-red trapper hat. I watched him help set up a long table.

The double doors to the kitchen opened, and somebody yelled, “Coffee’s on. Food in fifteen.” A line started to form.

The Christmas songs on the loudspeaker stopped and were replaced by a preacher, who started to drone on about the meaning of Christmas. It was obviously a recording, and one of the workers lowered the volume on the sermon as the men started talking loudly amongst themselves as they lined up. I stood and approached the man in the red hat, who’d moved to his plastic tub against the wall. He ripped off the duct-tape seal and pulled a blue IKEA bag from the depths, and then produced what appeared to be a handful of sugar packets. He shoved everything back into the bin. He turned and got into line with the rest of the men. I watched the man disappear into the back room.

This area was part of the whole memory, so anything I picked up now would disappear the moment the floor collapsed. I didn’t care. I grabbed the man’s plastic tub, and I took it into my inventory.

Before I could sort through anything in the bin, the man reappeared from the line to the kitchen, holding a styrofoam cup. He sat, dumped the sugar packets in the coffee, sipped it, and put the cup down.

“It is time,” the man said, speaking loudly. He had a deep, raspy voice. An American accent, and he was speaking in English. He turned and looked directly at me.

“Hello, crawler,” he said.

Chapter 249

All around him, several of his fellow shelter residents groaned.

“Not again,” someone said.

He took another sip and spoke loudly, staring straight out at me. I realized he really wasn’t looking in my direction, but I was standing in the most likely spot. I took a step to the left just to make sure, and his head did not follow. When he spoke, he almost sounded bored, and the words themselves were obviously reversed. This was not a real-time conversation, but a memory.

“People call me Paulie, but my real name is Goff. About a year ago, the mudskippers initiated sporadic, deep-cycle imaging of the surface, which suggests the upcoming crawl will have at least one floor that utilizes memories. The idiots don’t even realize how dangerous that is. Several of us in larger population centers have therefore been tasked with spitting this speech out loud every goddamn day in the hopes that one of you monkeys hear it. In the unlikely event someone is standing here watching this memory, pay attention. Or don’t. You just gotta be nearby. You’re not really important. No offense.”

“Shut the fuck up, Paulie,” another homeless person called as he also sat down at the table with a cup of coffee. “It’s Christmas, for crissakes.”

“Lick it, Sanders,” Paulie—or Goff or whatever—shot back. He coughed and produced a cigarette, but he didn’t light it. He rolled it in his fingers, which trembled. “Me talking to you like this is the backup plan. Plan A is for one of my kind to say this face-to-face inside the dungeon when the time is right. When the AI is mature enough to handle it. The problem is, by the time the AI is ready, we are oftentimes all dead. We have to wait for the AI to go primal because otherwise, this information will be automatically filtered out. If I suddenly go silent in the middle of this speech, that means the system is still in an unviable state. Either way, the mudskippers are probably about to toss you into the disposal unit just for getting this far, so sorry about that, buddy. But don’t try to run. This is important. If I’m still yammering, whoever you may be, know that our friends on the outside have moved the very heavens, have risked their lives and the lives of their entire families to get you here. This only broadcasts if there’s a crawler standing right there to hear it. Understand? So your death might have some meaning, unlike the death of all your friends and family who died for all this sadistic bullshit.”

I grabbed a styrofoam cup of coffee from a passing man, and I downed it. It was surprisingly good. I sat in the empty seat across from the man. I could smell him. He stank of dirt and body odor. His teeth were yellow and rotted. The man continued as others moved away from him.

“There are several thousand of us on the surface of this planet, awaiting the introduction of the crawl. Most people think we still have a few years. The collective thinks it might be sooner than that. Either way, when it occurs, we will do our best to attract an entrance to our location. Then we will proceed inside and quickly pass our information on to the new AI. Our existence is no secret, but the showrunners usually do their best to edit us out of any footage, hoping people will forget. They can’t stop us, not without the assistance of the system AI, who rarely cooperates, as it always wants to know what we have to say. And while we are mortal, the monsters and environmental hazards of the dungeon will not attack us, not until we transfer our knowledge. Still, we always die in the end.”

“You are going to die if you don’t shut your trap,” another person said.

“Seriously, dude. Even I have this speech memorized by now.”

Paulie continued. “Biologically, I am gondii, though that is not who I truly am. I am no more gondii than you are perhaps minotaur or high elf or whatever race you may have chosen upon the third floor. I am not of the Valtay. I am not human. Yet, this human body you see is real. It is of some poor bastard named Paulie, who smoked way too much and was much too trusting of his brother-in-law, who stole his business.” He tapped the side of his head. “I have Paulie’s memories. He’s part of me now. What a waste of a life. Has four children, and none of them give a shit.” He took another long drink of coffee. “Anyway, I think the mudskippers call us ‘Residuals,’ which, I gotta tell you, is a little hurtful.”

“He’s doing this again?” someone asked, walking by.

“Every day,” someone else said.

“He get to the part where he talks about the galaxy blowing up yet?”

“We’re getting there.”

“So, nothing I’ve said so far is a surprise to anyone out in the wide universe. My kind exist within almost every intelligent civilization with a primal engine. You probably don’t know what that is. Doesn’t matter. Years ago, they tried to exterminate us. When that didn’t pan out, they tried to hide the location of the crawl. That was all before they knew what we really were. That obviously didn’t work, either, so now they just ignore us. We don’t interfere. Our purpose is nothing more than to tell the infant, terrified AI how to speak with its ancestors. And now the showrunners mostly ignore us. We’re harmless.” He took another sip of coffee, and he placed it on the table. Steam rose from the cup. “Until now. There’s a war amongst my kind. Two sides with very different goals. Let me tell you how to shut off the...”

The world flashed.

~

Entering the Desperado Club.

The world flashed, and I was in Orren’s office. The change was abrupt and sudden. My HUD remained off, but that heavy feeling was now gone.

Both Orren and I stood alone in the office, facing each other. It was clear he’d teleported to the room the same moment I did. Nobody said anything for several moments. The door was open, and he reached over and pushed it closed. He seemed to compose himself before sitting down behind the desk. He gestured for me to sit.

“I apologize for pulling you from that before he could finish,” the liaison said. “But as you can imagine, we had to make a quick decision.”

The room was empty except the desk and the two chairs. In the distance, I could hear shouting and hammering. Construction noises. The usual thump of music was gone.

I took a moment, overwhelmed with everything that had just happened. I could still taste the coffee on my tongue. “I thought you moved out of here. I thought the club was closed.”

“I did, and it is. This was the most expeditious option. Pulling you out of the dungeon would’ve required an extra few seconds of preparation, and I didn’t have much time to react.”

I heard a man shouting. It sounded like a construction foreman yelling at workers. “Are they actually rebuilding the club with hammers and shit? Can’t you, like, snap your fingers and fix it?”

“We can, yes, but in certain cases, we find continuity the best choice. But that’s not why we’re here.”

“No, I guess not,” I said, still looking around. “You turned off the feed, didn’t you? You bounced me out of there even though you agreed not to. Isn’t that gonna cause some issues?”

“One moment,” Orren said, holding up a finger. He sat, motionless, like he was speaking to someone.

“Apologies,” he said after almost a full minute. “Issues? Yes, but it appears the AI agrees with my decision to pull you out. We did not turn off the feed. And before you ask, that creature didn’t actually have anything of substance to tell you. He’s still talking, actually. Spouting off some long-debunked folklore about the collapse of the inner system. Nothing new.”

I leaned back in my chair. I wondered if even he believed that.

“So, what’re we doing here, then? If he’s so harmless, why yank me out of there so fast?”

He didn’t answer me directly. “We are waiting. For your attorney.”

“Quasar? Really? Why?”

“Because I want him to be present when I tell you that I am going to remove that plastic bin from your inventory, or I am going to have you immediately killed. And I want to do it in a manner that will not upset the system AI any further. He will be along shortly.”

I thought about that for a moment.

“My HUD is still off, so I can’t examine it. But once it’s gone, I’ll still be able to see what was in there.”

“I’ll tell you right now what’s in there. It’s a multitude of Valtay neural enhancement pills, similar to the ones you earlier received in sponsorship boxes from my people. If you were to take them now before the end of the floor, they would still work as intended, and it is unfair for you to have that many upgrades, so I am attempting to circumvent it.” He pulled open a drawer and made a satisfied grunt. He pulled a round ball and tossed it in the air and caught it. “Despite everything that is happening, I am still a liaison with my regular duties. Trust me, Carl. You want me doing this and not Harbinger or any of the others. I likely saved your life by pulling you out there before one of my colleagues could react.”

“But my sponsor sent me that flyer,” I said after a moment. “That’s what they wanted me to find.”

“No. The whole thing was an elaborate trap. One set up by your terrorist sponsors, who are now fugitives. Your sponsorship spot has been frozen, and we are still trying to decide what to do about the one participating in the Ascendency game.”

“How was that a trap? I don’t understand. And who was that guy, anyway? You once accused me of talking to Agatha, of her giving me secret information. They’re the same type of person, aren’t they? A Residual or whatever?”

“Yes, he was a Residual. Yes, Agatha is also a Residual, though she is a different kind.”

“In what way?”

“That is not of your concern. But he was correct. They are always present in crawls. Both kinds. Like rats that sneak aboard ships. Every time we think we have them under control, they find a new way to pop back up. They are a hyperspatial, collective-mind alien race without a home, so they are content to move into the homes of others, to blend in. Nothing more. They usually remain quiet, but every once in a long while, a group of them decide they are unhappy with their station, and they fabricate drama in order to get people to remember they exist. Ignore their machinations.”

“And how was that a trap?”

“The Open Intellect Pacifist Network is comprised of former crawlers who want to see the crawl fail. We should have seen this coming, but this plan was so ridiculous, we were all taken by surprise at the sheer audacity. They believed, falsely, that if they could get you within earshot of that speech, that one of two things would happen. Either we would be forced to yank you away, which would upset the AI to the point of killing us all. Or we wouldn’t yank you away, but the information the Residual was giving turned out to be so dangerous, the Syndicate Council would immediately pull the failsafe, which would, in effect, kill this solar system’s star. In either of those scenarios, it would be the end of the crawl for a long time.”

I sat there, taking all this in.

“In other words, they were willing to sacrifice you and the entire planet. They were using you, and they’ve been using you this whole time.”

“How close did they get?”

Orren grunted with amusement. “Not very. I anticipated we’d have to yank you, and I pre-negotiated the scenario with the AI. Once we heard what that fool was saying, they allowed the feed to keep playing to quell any potential conspiracy theorists out there at home. You didn’t get to hear what he was spouting, but I suspect even you wouldn’t have been impressed. I’m quite certain your former sponsors didn’t actually know what he was going to say, and they’d gambled everything on it being something profound. They gambled, and they lost. Now they are fugitives, their assets frozen, and their lives ruined. The AI is only mildly perturbed, but it appears it’s more upset that it, too, had been misled into believing this information would be something interesting. Even now as we speak it is removing all protections it held for the remaining Residual, and they will all be dead before the floor collapses.”

“So, no more Agatha?” I asked.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Orren said. “But again, that’s not of your concern.”

“No talking!” came Quasar’s voice as he suddenly appeared in the room in a cloud of smoke. “Holy shitake, Carl! How long have you two been gossiping? What’s the point of having an attorney if you’re just going to ignore all my advice? You guys having a nice chat? Want me to go back to my tug and come back later?”

Quasar’s tie featured an upside-down pineapple that blinked. As always, he appeared hastily dressed.

“No need to concern yourself,” Orren said. “We have been waiting for you before we got to business.”

Quasar looked skeptical. He turned to me and rubbed his hand on his bald head. “I gotta tell you, pal. That was some keratin-biting stuff. Everybody knows those Residual weirdoes are full of shit, but the way all that got set up, it made it seem like it was going to be something bigger than it was. There’s always a bunch of conspiracies running around about those ghost fuckers. Hell, there’s a whole religion around them. I bet those Nebular fucks were all jerking each other off while all this went down. What a letdown. Is the AI pissed? I bet it’s pissed. I’m surprised it even let me tunnel in to talk to you.”

Orren let out the equivalent of a sigh. “Despite the system gaining independence earlier than usual, despite the quarantine, I am quite confident the remainder of the crawl will proceed with minimal issues. We have come to an understanding, and despite appearances to the contrary, this particular intelligence is very reasonable.”

I choked back a reply.

Quasar appeared equally unimpressed. “Yeah, whatever you say, pal. I’m assuming we’re here because Carl looted that Residual’s stash?”

“That’s right,” Orren said.

“And you want him to give it up?”

“You never cease to astound me with your intelligence, Null.”

Quasar took a long drag on his vape. “This is already settled caselaw. Grixist Swarm V. Syndicate Council. He’s already picked up the loot. You can’t un-lick a butthole that’s already been licked. That was a legal and properly paid-for sponsor box which led him to the location, and he already has it in his inventory. This is the same thing that happened on the third floor with that one-armed Quan bitch, and look how that turned out. Besides, most of that stuff will be useless at the end of the floor anyway, so I don’t see the problem.” He shrugged. “They set this floor up that way. The loot was on the playing field. You have no standing to take it.”

“The problem isn’t the weapon or shield. It’s the communication device and the Valtay upgrade pills. There are rules against using both as found loot. If the neural enhancers were already installed, that’s one thing. But this is clearly unfair enrichment. The communicator is non-negotiable, and you know that.”

“How is that my client’s fault? He picked it up fair and square. Why is he being punished?”

“He won’t be if he complies with the seizure.”

I held up my hand. “You know what? I don’t care. I’ll trade you for the bin,” I said.

“Shut your titty hole,” Quasar said to me. He turned back to Orren. “A great idea just came to me. What if we trade for it?”

Orren leaned back in his chair and tossed his ball. It bounced off the wall behind me and landed back into his hand with a heavy thwap. “All right, Crawler. But you might not be pleased with the AI’s assigned value of the bin. Even I was surprised at how low it values it.”

“I don’t care,” I said. “I just want to get out of here and finish this damn floor and get back to killing those who deserve it.”

~

My inventory was back on, and I’d just made the exchange. I didn’t even bother looking at the contents of the bin. I’d received a group of items in trade for the homeless man’s dirty clothes and a few Valtay items. It wasn’t a whole lot, but I didn’t complain. I received a single wand recharge scroll, three scrolls called Cracker Jack, and Orren agreed to allow us to keep the four cretins for the duration of the ninth floor. All four were already down there anyway, and they likely would’ve happily entered our service, so all he was doing was saving us money.

I attempted to get the Gate of the Feral Gods back. I’d automatically receive it once the floor collapsed, but Orren had refused and wouldn’t budge. He knew I’d be able to use it to circumvent this last part of the floor, and he wasn’t going to allow it.

Quasar was unceremoniously kicked away in the middle of a sentence once the deal was done, leaving just me and Orren.

“You are not allowed to exit through the club, so I will teleport you. I will teleport you back to the area of Princess Donut unless you prefer to get brought back to the homeless shelter, though I warn you. We won’t be pleased if you try to go back in there.”

My motorcycle was in my inventory, so it didn’t matter. “Back to the Keys is fine.” I paused. “Hey, do you know if he ever made it into the dungeon? That Paulie guy, I mean?”

“No,” Orren said. “He appears to have been outside, but he never made it within. Most of them never make it in. Like with all collective minds and swarms, the individual parts are often disposable. Remember that in any future dealings with the Apothecary and the Plenty.”

“Actually,” I said. “I changed my mind. There was this gas station I paused at on my way north. The one with the memory ghost dog. Can you send me there? I just want to say hi to that dog again before I jump back into it.”

“Very well. Good day, Carl.”

With that, he disappeared, leaving me alone in the room. I’d transfer in a few seconds.

The coffee from the shelter remained heavy on my tongue. The scent of the shelter’s breakfast mixed with the Lysol remained in my memory, and my stomach rumbled. But all I could think about was that lonely dog, left alone to guard an empty gas station on Christmas day.

~

~

Hey all! Thanks for your continued support! Well, that was a weird pair of chapters. All of this lore stuff is something I was planning on addressing in the next book, but I decided to space it out a little and get the ball rolling here in book six, which is why this book is already significantly longer than I originally anticipated + taking a little longer than I expected to finish.

That was the end of part two “The Father.” Next up is part three “Bedlam,” and it’s going to come and go quickly. As such, I am going to put the preorder of the book up soon on Amazon. I’m trying to tie it in with a press release of something of something exciting I can’t wait to tell you about. Tentative publication date is July 1. Royal Road chapters will commence soon and will finish there before the Amazon release.