Chapters 251, 252, 253 (Patreon)

Just as warning. Every chapter release for now on is likely to end on an industrial-strength cliffhanger. This one is no exception.


Chapter 251

<Note Added by Crawler Priestly. 14th Edition>

Stab, stab, stab. It is all I know.

It is the final days of Faction Wars, and it is clear the orcs will stand victorious. It is clear the army I have been drafted into will fall against these beasts. It is clear tomorrow I will die. The brutality and sadism of the Skull Empire is unparalleled. How is it these monsters are only play-acting? How can their citizens see this and not rise up after learning what lives in their leaders’ hearts? I will soon be facing them on the battlefield. Tomorrow morning the bugbears march. Several of the enslaved, conscript crawlers in my squad will flee in the night and hide in the forest, but I’m afraid they will be run down, just like the others. Stab, stab, stab. I don’t want to go back into the city. That beautiful dream. That song of a place. I am terrified. My mind is slipping. That beautiful city, destroyed? I cannot march with my eyes closed. The orcs have the numbers and the brutality, and the bugbears do nothing but laugh. I overheard one of them wondering out loud if the gods themselves will notice the battle, the bloodbath. That happens here, in this place. The gods notice when the toll is too great. They add themselves to the fray. It is proof to me that in reality we are truly alone. My people are gone. There are only 300 of us left, down from millions. And they, the real gods, have not intervened? No. No. It’s undeniable proof of our solitude.

Stab. Stab. Stab.

I hope there is music, in the end.

<Note added by Crawler Drakea. 22nd Edition>

This is Priestly’s second-to-last entry. Do yourself a favor. Don’t read that last one. He doesn’t make it to the battle once he sees what has happened to Larracos, and that’s all you really need to know.

Fuck them all.

~

Elle: You have to figure this out. She has a martyr complex, and she’s not going to want to fight someone else. She’s a good kid. The best person I ever met, and we need her. Don’t let her give up. Don’t let her sacrifice herself.

Carl: I’m doing my best. Working on a plan, but it’s not going to work if she doesn’t help.

Elle: I’m talking to her.

Carl: You be careful, too. Do you know who you’re facing down yet?

Elle: Not yet.

We bumped over potholes, pushing through the night. Samantha sat in front of me, squealing with delight as we rode. I could hear her happy cries over the roar of the engine. It’d started to rain again, which turned my visibility to shit. We’d hit the coast soon, and then we’d turn east toward the church.

Ahead of me, Donut and Mongo lurched to a stop, and I pulled up. Donut shouted something, and I cut the engine.

“Really, Carl. How are we ever going to sneak up on anybody when you’re riding on that thing? You’re going to attract every monster in the entire country. There are a lot of red dots ahead. And a lot of Xs, too. I’m sure even the dead ones heard us coming.”

“I like it,” Samantha said. “The vibrations make it tingle.” She had some black and red moth thing splattered against her wet face, and I peeled it off of her. She bit the bug out of my hand and started loudly chewing on it.

Donut had a point about the noise of the bike, and I unlashed Samantha from the handlebars, dropping her to the ground. She growled and started circling me, making motorcycle noises as she continued to chew on the bug. The love doll head was absolutely brimming with energy, more than usual. I picked up the bike, pulling it into my inventory.

We were about five miles from Sister Ines’s exit, and there was still no sign of her. She likely didn’t have a vehicle, so it’d probably take her an extra day or two to make it toward her exit. I hoped. At least she was still alive. She was still in my chat, but if she went down the stairwell, I wasn’t sure if there’d be a notification or not.

Quan had dropped a few low-level nail traps and a silent alarm trap near the doorway, and Imani had easily disabled them. She remained in the saferoom, sitting there with the door open to watch the exit. She’d placed the traps I’d prepared, just in case someone sneaked past her. I hoped it would be enough.

“Do you hear that?” Donut asked, cocking her head in the rain. “It sounds like singing. It sounds like it’s a bunch of the monk seals singing. Carl, do you think they won their war against the crabs? Raul is going to be really sad.”

I listened. Sure enough, it was there in the distance, barely audible in the rain. It almost sounded like one of those Gregorian chant albums Bea used to listen to when she did her yoga. “We haven’t gotten an update to the Chowder War Quest, so I don’t know. We should probably figure out what’s going on before we get closer.” I extended my xistera and also pulled the head-thrower extension and attached it with a click. “Samantha. Recon mission.”

“Oh boy,” she said, jumping into the air and floating directly into the scoop. She started wriggling. “Throw me! Throw me, Carl!”

“Okay. Don’t interact. Don’t get into a fight. Just tell us what you see, and I’ll pull you back. And for god’s sake, don’t bring anything back with you.”

“You got it, boss!” she said.

I spun once and tossed, trying to aim her at the coast. Too far, and she’d probably end up in the gullet of a whale, so I had to be careful.

“Carl, look! She’s glowing!” Donut said, looking up at the flying form of Samantha.

“It’s just like the last floor,” I said, watching her arc across the sky. “She’s getting stronger the longer the floor is going. After the Butcher’s Masquerade, she flew off and went back to the safe room on her own. But when this floor started, she could barely roll.”

“She says she’s the goddess of unrequited love,” Donut said. “Maybe she gets stronger every time somebody asks someone out and gets rejected.” She gasped. “Or maybe every time she asks someone out and gets rejected. She’s always hitting on Louis, but he’s scared of her. And she keeps talking about some guy named Charlie she was recently dating, but they broke up.” Donut lowered her voice to a whisper. “Apparently they got to third base.”

“Charlie was a bartender in the Desperado Club. He’s dead now.”

“The badger guy on the middle floor? I liked him! I didn’t know he was dead! He made me a virgin dirty Shirley once! My word. I hoped he washed his hands before he made my drink.”

“That’s just a regular Shirley temple, and yeah. He died during that whole clusterfuck that closed the club. I’m starting to think maybe Samantha gets more powerful every time somebody dies.” I looked north, but she’d already landed on the beach. “If that’s the case, we really need to be careful of her on the next floor. If we let her inhabit the body of Signet’s mom, I’m afraid she’s going to end up stronger than we can handle.”

Samantha: THERE IS A LOT GOING ON AND I HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO DESCRIBE IT.

Carl: Do your best.

Samantha: OKAY BUT IT’S REALLY GROSS AND CREEPY. IT’S LIKE A PARTY AT YARILO’S PLACE BEFORE HE GOT SENT TO THE NOTHING BUT WITH A LOT LESS WEIRD SEX. THAT’S THE BEST DESCRIPTION I GOT.

Carl: That is not a goddamned description. What, exactly, do you see?

Samantha: IT SMELLS WORSE, TOO. AND THERE’S NO CATERING. YARILO NEVER HAD GOOD CATERING. PARTIES LIVE AND DIE BASED ON THE FOOD CHOICES. EVEN IF IT’S AN ORGY, YOU GOTTA HAVE SOME SORT OF PROTEIN AVAILABLE.

Donut: OMG THAT IS SO TRUE. WHEN CARL INVITED HIS FRIENDS OVER TO PLAY VIDEO GAMES HE WOULD ONLY HAVE BEER, PRETZEL STICKS, AND GOLDFISH CRACKERS. IT WAS QUITE APPALLING.

Samantha: THAT’S TERRIBLE. IT’S NO WONDER HE WORSHIPS EMBERUS. HIS PARTIES ALWAYS SUCKED. HELLIK’S WERE MUCH BETTER. HE ALWAYS HAD CANAPÉS.

Donut: THAT SOUNDS LIKE A DELIGHT.

Carl: Samantha. Holy shit. We are in a hurry. What do you see?

Samantha: THERE IS A GIANT SEA CREATURE SNAKE THING THAT HAS WASHED UP ON SHORE. IT’S A FRESHWATER SNAKE, TOO, BUT IT WAS IN THE OCEAN? IT’S REALLY BIG AND IN A GIANT COIL. IT HAS A BUNCH OF BABY SEALS AND CRABS CRAWLING ALL OVER IT AND I’M PRETTY SURE THEY’RE ZOMBIES. THE BABIES ARE ADORABLE. THERE ARE A BUNCH OF OTHER SEALS AND CRABS SURROUNDING IT, AND THEY’RE NOT UNDEAD. THE NON-ZOMBIE SEALS ARE SINGING AND THE CRABS ARE DANCING AROUND THE SNAKE, AND IT’S REALLY WEIRD. MAYBE THEY’RE REHEARSING FOR A MUSICAL DANCE NUMBER? I DON’T KNOW WHAT’S HAPPENING OR WHY. NOBODY IS FIGHTING, BUT IT LOOKS LIKE THEY WERE NOT LONG AGO. THERE ARE A LOT OF DEAD ONES EVERYWHERE. LOTS OF SEAL AND CRAB GUTS SPREAD ALL OVER THE PLACE. THERE ARE FISH, TOO. ZOMBIE FISH FLOPPING AROUND ON THE GROUND. I THINK THE SEAGULLS ARE ALSO ZOMBIES. OH, OH, AND THE OCEAN IS FROTHING AND RED.

“Holy crap,” I muttered.

Carl: Wait, is the giant sea snake undead also?

“Carl, did you understand any of that? So there are more zombies? It sounds like some sort of scene out of a Bollywood movie. Why are they singing and dancing? This is ridiculous!”

“I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m pretty sure the zombies are from the farm animals. One probably fell in the ocean, bit a fish, and it spread from there.”

“That was from a different zone! They can’t cross zones, Carl. They’re cheating!”

Samantha: I’M NOT SURE IF THE GIANT SNAKE IS A ZOMBIE OR NOT. I’M TOO FAR AWAY TO ASK. HANG ON AND LET ME GET CLOSER. MAYBE I’LL ASK THE CAT LADY RIDING ON THE SNAKE’S HEAD.

“Fuck me,” I said. “It’s Sister Ines.”

Carl: Is it a card battle? Does she have cards floating in front of her, or is there anything floating over the snake’s head?

Samantha: NO. NOTHING LIKE THAT. THE CAT LADY LOOKS LIKE SHE’S RECITING POETRY.

Donut: THAT SOUNDS DISGUSTING. I BET HER POETRY IS TERRIBLE.

Samantha: ALL POETRY SUCKS. PEOPLE JUST PRETEND TO LIKE IT BECAUSE IT MAKES THEM SOUND CULTURED AND SMART. UNLESS IT’S PART OF A SONG. IT’S JUST LIKE LOOKING AT YOURSELF IN THE MIRROR AND MASTURBATING.

Donut: I’M NOT SURE WHAT YOU’RE TRYING TO SAY THERE, BUT I AGREE 100%. I DO LIKE BERETS, THOUGH.

There was a pause, and I knew what that meant. I tensed myself. I was expecting an update to the Chowder War quest. What happened instead surprised me.

Quest Failed. The Chowder War.

“Failed?” Donut asked out loud. “What happened? We didn’t do anything! Carl, I told you her poetry was terrible!”

New Quest. Hell Comes to Crawler Town.

War is Hell.

For days now, the battles between the Monk Seals and the Red Maníseros Land Crabs have reached a fevered pitch. The sneak attack of the crabs was stopped in its tracks thanks to crawler Sister Ines Quiteria warning the Seals of the treachery, but that warning has come with a terrible price. Instead of a quick attack and surrender, it has become a war of attrition, with both sides losing devastating numbers in only a matter of days.

The sea runs red and blue. The corpses pile high upon the beach. The very children both parties were trying to save have suffered, and by this point, the only hope of survival from either side is for them to completely wipe out their enemy.

That’s how it is, is it not? When there is war, so often an armistice is nothing more than a delay. A job left undone. An overdue bill for those down the road to eventually pay, and pay with interest.

War is Hell.

And hell, my child, hell is not just a place. It is a contagion. It is a virus. It spreads.

But worst of all, it attracts.

So much death has bombarded the underworld, those who notice such things have taken a special interest in this battle, in this war, in this minor annihilation of two species fighting for their very existence.

This happens from time to time. Gods and demons lifting their heads. Oftentimes, that’s as far as it goes. A notice. An interest piqued.

This, I’m starting to learn, happens out there, too. But that’s for another day.

So much has happened here. Previously-forgotten gods have risen. That alone has caused a great amount of consternation. But there is more. The great prison, the Nothing, has been breached, and not for the first time. This is also concerning, especially amongst those who banished the harem there in the first place. All across the land, gods and demons are being involuntarily summoned from their halls to walk the land. Some of the gods are acting strange. They are acting in ways they should not.

Yes, yes. Both Demons and Gods are paying attention now. Real attention.

This usually happens here in the dungeon, but only upon the battlefields outside Larracos, where the Semeru Dwarves built their castle along the roots of the All Tree, seeking the very gods who disdain them. Or, at the very least, when chaos erupts in the Halls of Ascendency.

It has never happened this early, this soon.

War is Hell...

And Hell really wants to come play.

Which is unfortunate, considering some dumbass recently dumped a bunch of highly-contagious, fast-spreading zombie farm animals into an ocean that connects everything.

Fun fact. Most demons can’t just enter the world. They need a weakened shell to inhabit. Something like a new corpse is difficult for them. But if it’s a zombie...

...

You no longer need to choose a side between the Crabs and the Seals because both sides are fucked. They just don’t know it yet. You just need to not die. Get down the stairs without being involuntarily dragged into hell. That’s how you win this quest.

Reward: You will receive a Legendary Quest Box. That, and a commemorative set of bagpipes.

“Uh,” I said.

Imani: I just got a really weird quest.

“Carl, what does that have to do with the Havana Brown riding on top of a snake? Or the singing seals? I am so confused. And why would we get a kilt? What is going on?”

“A kilt?” I asked. “It told me I’d get bagpipes.”

“We could start a band! But what did it mean when it said...”

She was interrupted by a new message.

System Message:

Warning. Souls rain. Sheol overflows. The powers of hell are gleefully flinging their minions upward. Demons are being involuntarily ejected from the underworld, falling up, clinging onto anything they can.

Due to an excess of death, Demon Eviction is commencing. All recently-fallen and weakened are now subject to random possession. The larger the battles, the more likely a mass demon event will initiate. All evicted demons who wish to return to Sheol may only do so by dragging an additional soul back down with them to prove their worth. You have been warned.

Area Message:

Warning: Cuba is currently experiencing a Demon Eviction event.

I looked at Donut. “This is what happens when you complain about too many undead hordes.”

“By making more undead? How is this my fault? If anyone is responsible for an undead apocalypse, it’s quite obviously going to be the cat girl nun, Carl!”

“Demons aren’t undead,” I said. “The rules are different. You ever see any of the Evil Dead movies? And I was just joking. This isn’t your fault, and it doesn’t have anything to do with the nun, either. Not directly. It’s the AI fucking with everything, making everything more complicated.”

Mordecai: Holy shit. Okay guys, pay attention. This is something that normally happens at the end of the ninth floor. It’ll reset once you go down the stairs, but it’ll pop off earlier and earlier each floor down from now on, especially during big battles. It’s all part of the setup for the Ascendency fight. If it pops too soon on the next floor, it’ll really mess with Faction Wars. It’s meant to first happen when there are only two or three teams left. If you kill something from now on, make sure you chop off the head. Stay away from any weak undead like zombies or skellies. Don’t let them grapple with you. Anything that’s dead-dead can be randomly taken over by a demon, too, but that’s more rare, and it means it’s a powerful demon. You’ll know when it happens either way. They are strong and fast and intelligent, even if the creature they’re possessing was not. They will physically grab onto you, a portal will open, and you’ll be dragged down to Sheol. It’ll be automatic death for both of you, so be careful.

Carl: The nun is here, surrounded by undead. I don’t know what’s going on, but it sounds like she’s fucked.

Mordecai: If you want to save Imani, you’ll have to get to that nun before the demons do. If she’s pulled into hell, she’ll take that key with her.

I jumped into action. “Donut, get ready,” I said as I used my free arm to start tossing traps onto the ground all around us. I found some of the traps I’d looted during the Astrid assassination clusterfuck, and I tossed those, too. “Get ready for a card battle.”

“What?” she asked, a panicked edge to her voice. “Now? Here? How?”

“Hurry. Cast your spells. Clockwork triplicate Mongo. Did you switch the spell on the staff card?”

“Yes! But what’s happening? Who are we fighting?”

Carl: Samantha. You have a very important mission. You need to get onto the snake, roll past all the zombies, and chomp onto the cat lady. Tell me the moment you bite her. Watch out for demons. Don’t let them grab you. Do you think you can do that? Use your flying ability if you can.

Samantha: YOU TOLD ME NOT TO BRING ANYBODY BACK.

Carl: I changed my mind! Hurry!

Samantha: YOU ARE VERY WISHY WASHY.

Carl: Hurry. Tell me the moment you bite her.

I turned to Donut as she dropped a few potions on the ground around her. “Okay, we know she has the Monk Seal card and the Paz card. What else?”

“She probably changed up her cards when she got her key! And what about the giant snake? Is that a card?”

“I don’t think it is. I think maybe she charmed it. I think maybe she’s charming all of them with that song.”

“It’s not a song, Carl. She’s a poet. She’s using poetry! She’s charming them with poetry. This is so unrealistic!”

That reminded me, and I cast Wisp Armor on myself. That would protect me against charm magic and some spells. Donut cast Clockwork Triplicate on Mongo, and the two clockworks screeched as they appeared, spreading off to the side, bouncing up and down with excitement.

Donut, despite her initial panic, seemed to have calmed herself. She popped her sunglasses back on and switched to her sailor hat, which lowered the draw countdown on her cards by two seconds. “We were going to do Second Chance on some corpses, too. Should we still do it with the demon thing?”

I thought about that for a moment, and I decided it wasn’t worth the risk. “We better hold off. Not until we have a better handle on how this demon thing works. Get ready.”

Samantha: I DID THE CHOMP! DO IT. DO IT NOW, CARL! I WILL HELP WITH THE SPELL!

“Here we go!”

I dropped the xistera extension, calling Samantha back to me. I jumped back, trying to give myself enough space. I didn’t want her landing right on top of me.

I didn’t jump back far enough.

Chapter 252

<Note added by Crawler Porthus, Second Edition.>

It’s important to note that possession via ghost and an evicted demon inhabiting a shell are two very, very different things. They call it possession, but it is anything but. Think of an elf falling to his death off a cliff, and at the last moment, he grabs onto a root, temporarily saving him. That root is the body he now resides within. Regular possession can be defeated. Evicted demons are something else entirely. Once one of these desperate creatures has taken a shell, be it living, dead, or recently undead, the end result for that shell is always the same. Destruction. They are gone the moment the demon moves in.

Kill it with fire. Destroy the head. Do whatever you can. These beasts will be frantic to get back home, and they will fight with everything they have. Don’t let one grab onto you, as it will pull you into Hades. Be wary of using healing magic on demon-possessed shells. While that works well for undead, it is different when it comes to those from the realm of Sheol. It is unpredictable and can possibly make the creature stronger.

This is important. Do not. Do not, do not, do not. Do not under any circumstances attempt to teleport a shell that’s possessed by an evicted demon away from you. The shell will teleport and dissipate. The demon will be freed, showing its true form, and its power will be too great.

~

Current Active Deck.

Twenty-two Cards.

Totems:

·  Shi Maria

·  Jola

·  Lazarus A-Bang-Bang

·  Skylar Spinach

·  Geraldo

·  Raul

Utility Cards:

·  Stout

·  Time Extend

·  Greased Lightning

·  Heal Totem

·  Temporary Shield

Snare Cards:

·  Hobble (Consumable)

·  Hole in the Bag

·  Damnation

·  Lamp (Consumable)

·  Cripple (Consumable)

Mystic Cards:

·  The Thief

·  Steal Totem (Consumable)

·  Force Discard

·  Golden Combo

Special Cards:

·  Sentient Staff Totem

·  Flee (Consumable)

~

Way back on the previous floor, we received a note from my now-missing sponsor that suggested we use Samantha to help enhance Donut’s Laundry Day spell. I didn’t understand this at the time. We asked Samantha about it, and she pretended like she had no idea what we were talking about. She didn’t have the ability to strengthen spells in any way. She acted like we were crazy for even suggesting it. We ended up having to use my Pawna’s Tears potion in order to bolster Donut’s spell to level 15.

I’m still not certain if Samantha was outright lying, if she didn’t know, or if we’d worded it wrong when we explained it to her. Either way, as it turns out, Samantha actually did have the power to enhance spells. In fact, she could enhance them quite a bit.

I’m still not exactly clear on the how and why of what happened next. Was it just Samantha augmenting the power of the return teleportation spell? Was it because Sister Ines had raised an entire army of charmed minions, and they were attached to her somehow? Was it just the System AI being an asshole and thinking this would be hilarious?

The plan was for Samantha to roll up to Sister Ines and bite onto her. I would drop the xistera and summon them both to our location, and a card battle would ensue.

That’s not what happened.

Instead, when I dropped the xistera extension, the following things landed all around me and Donut, all crammed into an area of about a quarter of a mile in each direction:

·  Samantha.

·  Sister Ines.

·  The massive snake she was riding upon.

·  Approximately 1,000 zombie baby seals.

·  Approximately 5,000 zombie crabs.

·  Another 500 zombie adult seals.

·  A metric fuckton of living crabs and seals.

·  Pretty much every fish in the world, or so it seemed. Living fish. Zombie fish.

·  An alarming number of corpses. More on this in a moment.

·  Zero demons.

All of these creatures, at least all the ones that weren’t dead-dead, including the zombies and the level 125 sea snake city boss, were all under a massive, poetry-themed charm spell that Sister Ines was in the middle of casting. I wasn’t sure what the spell was, but it was goddamned powerful. She’d been about to unleash an army on Havana, and if it hadn’t been for the Demon Eviction event, everyone in the area would probably have been screwed.

Unfortunately for her, and, frankly, for me and Donut as well, whatever the fuck just happened also broke Sister Ines’s charm spell. The seals shook their heads, looking about in confusion. Their enemies, the crabs, all cried out in surprise. They were all mixed in together. But they weren’t alone.

The zombies groaned, their singular purpose coming back to them, one by one. Baby seal zombies made croaking noises. Fish opened and closed their foaming mouths. Crab and adult Monk Seal zombies stretched their limbs and flippers and claws, the sound echoing across the landscape like thousands of creaking, cracking bones all at once.

The whale-sized sea snake boss was also starting to awaken from its stupor. At any moment it would realize it had the cat girl nun perched upon its head.

But most alarming of all were the corpses. They all had notifications over them. A dead monk seal, with a horrific bite wound on its neck, plopped onto the ground right next to me. The note over it read: Former shell of the Now-Freed demon, Azireth.

The corpse caught on fire and dissipated into dust as what that meant dawned on me. This had originally been a regular Monk Seal, and it had been turned into a zombie. And because it was a weak-minded zombie, its body had been overtaken by a demon just before it was teleported to my location. Since one couldn’t teleport this type of demon, only the body itself had come. That meant the full-powered Sheol demon, whose name was Azireth, was now free and roaming about the beach a few miles away. But not just Azireth. There’d been hundreds of corpses, all with different demon names over them, meaning there were now hundreds of Sheol demons suddenly unleashed into Cuba.

And what was worse, the Demon Eviction event was still ongoing, meaning some of the zombies all around us were slowly, slowly getting turned into demons themselves. A red exclamation mark appeared over a zombie fish—a sea bass—flopping on the ground a few feet away. The red, flaming notification read Jarmagog Comes.

We couldn’t let the demons touch us. We couldn’t let the zombies bite us. We couldn’t let Sister Ines get away. Or worse, let her get sucked into hell.

Your Book of Voodoo has updated with an entry for Sister Ines Quiteria.

The notice came and went as I looked at all the creatures around us. We were completely surrounded.

Right in front of me, coiled upon the road was the massive snake, about 17-18 feet tall.

It looked pissed.

Madre de Aguas

Level 125 City Boss.

For such a small island, there sure are a surplus of legends surrounding the “Mother of Waters.” You’ve actually met one of them already. Rose her from the dead and sent her off to the Celestial Ascendency so she can assist a psychopath win that boring, tedious game. We’ll revisit that whole mess of a dull storyline later when I decide to spice it up a bit. Well, I’ll revisit it. You’re pretty fucked and most likely won’t get to see it all go down.

Anyway, the snake iteration of the legend usually involves a giant boa that protects the freshwater areas of Cuba and is able to control all the locals to help protect the environment and local flora and fauna. Sometimes she lives in the rivers. Sometimes she lives in the ocean. Sometimes she’s nice. Sometimes she’s a batshit murder machine. Guess which iteration this one is?

The Madre was hunted and almost flagged several days earlier by a nun of all things. That crawler was unable to seal the deal. Upon returning to the area, this nun instead decided to glamor the creature using some newly-acquired skills. Controlling the snake allowed her to in turn control pretty much every creature within shouting distance. It was a brilliant plan until the spell got broken prematurely. Now the recently un-charmed Madre de Aguas is quite upset, and she’s about to ruin the day of every motherfucker on the island.

Oh, and she just got bit a bunch of times by a zombie fish.

Warning: This mob has been inflicted with pre-zombism. That means it’s like that dude from Every. Single. Zombie. Movie who has been bit, but he hasn’t died yet, and now he’s hiding it from everyone because he’s a douche. In other words, this mob is still living flesh, but once it dies, it will rise again with a new set of powers.

Bonus Warning: I could spend some time explaining how dangerous it is to have a boss-level zombie walking around during a Demon Eviction event, but let’s just see how this plays out. Sometimes it’s better to be surprised.

I met eyes with Sister Ines, who remained atop the giant snake. She still had Samantha chomped down on her arm. The cat woman did not look afraid. She did not look angry. She was laughing, even as the snake under her feet started to realize the cat who’d enslaved her was standing upon her head.

The world froze.

B-b-b-b-b-boss battle!

Survival Royale Special Event!

A window appeared in the sky, and Kevin, the orange-hued, four-eyed lizard guy from the recap episode appeared, holding a microphone. He was accompanied by the orc announcer, just like last time. I remembered the orc’s name was Magnificent Troy. They both wore tuxedoes, but they both looked like they’d been drinking for a day straight. Both wore un-tied bow ties around their necks. The orc swayed slightly, and it appeared he had lipstick on his cheek.

“Carl, Carl, what’s going on?” Donut called, looking up into the air. Nobody could move, but we could still talk and turn our necks. She gasped. “Is that a wipe window? Are we getting live announced?  Is this what happened with you and Katia and Tran on the submarine?”

She hadn’t been present the last time this happened, and she’d bitched about it for an hour straight.

“Yeah,” I said through gritted teeth. “Get ready.”

“Ladies and Gentlemen, what do we have here?” Kevin called, clearly surprised he’d just been sent to cover this fight. “Would you look at this mess! We are interrupting that one-sided Lucia Mar slaughter in Beijing to bring you whatever this is.” He paused. “Oh, I see. Holy lunacy, look at that playing field. Betting is now open! I am here today with Magnificent Troy, and if you’re just joining us, we’re coming to you live from Earth orbit. We are trapped, and we still have to do our jobs even though everything has gone to shit!”

“That’s right, Kevin,” the orc said, his smile plastered on his exhausted pig face. I could tell he was drunk off his ass. “It’s an Armageddon-level clusterfuck all right. Bidding today is sponsored by Dictum Waystation Controls, Limited, because of course it is. Now would you look at that playing field! Care to explain this one?”

“What other choice do I have, Magnificent Troy?” Kevin said. “Now, the why everyone is sitting there right now in the same place is a long story, and it has to do with the Lika/Samantha storyline we covered extensively a few weeks back. None of that matters right now. We currently have eight separate entities in play for this upcoming fight, so it’s going to take a crutch to unpack. I hope you’re drinking something strong. You’re gonna need it for this one.”

Another window popped up, and a picture of a Monk Seal appeared. “If you haven’t been paying attention to the Royal Court storyline, here’s where we are. This is a Monk Seal. They were fighting against these guys.” A crab appeared underneath it, followed by a spinning image of Sister Ines and the Madres de Agua snake. “During the battles between the crabs and seals, crawler Sister Ines Quiteria used her level-15 Book of Rhymes bard skill to charm this creature, a level-125 city boss. This boss, in turn, has the power to control all creatures from the area.”

“Huh. Charming that boss actually sounds like it was a smart move on the nun’s part,” Troy said.

“It sure was, Troy. But, unfortunately, the sister didn’t move fast enough. She had two things working against her. The first was this.” The scene changed, showing me punting a zombie turkey off the edge of the Iowa land mass. The camera followed the turkey as it plunged into the ocean, where it promptly chomped onto the tail of some fish as it sunk to the bottom. They zoomed in on the fish’s eyes as it turned bright yellow. The fish went berserk and started biting all the other fish around it.

Troy chuckled. “Uh-oh. You never put contagious undead in a global ocean. Carl should know that by now. It’s like pissing into a habitat’s food synthesizer.”

“Indeed you do not, Troy.”

Donut grunted. “I told you not to let the turkeys in the ocean, Carl.”

“See? Even Princess Donut agrees with us!” Troy said.

“Hey! They can hear me!” Donut said. “Hi Magnificent Troy! Hi Kevin!”

“Princess Donut sure is in good spirits. Let’s hope those spirits remain, as I don’t think she realizes the danger she is in,” Kevin said. The screen changed to a map of the Earth, showing a red tide sweeping across the ocean and spreading across the entire globe. “The mass-zombie outbreak along with the AI deciding crab sperm counts as a mob helped kicked off the earliest demon eviction in the history of the crawl!”

“It sure did,” Troy agreed. “Why not? Fuck all the previously established rules on this sort of thing. Let’s just make it up as we go along.”

Kevin chuckled. “So the zombie event had started to disrupt Sister Ines’s charm poem, but since her sponsor, the Nebulars, helped her raise that skill to level 15, she was able to fully control both the boss and the spells the boss could cast, meaning she could control the zombies, too. That spell is so powerful, in fact, even the fish started to pull themselves out of the ocean to get closer.”

“That’s a level of charm Princess Donut could only dream of!” Troy said.

“Hey!” Donut called.

“But,” Kevin continued. He held up a claw, pausing as he sucked down what looked like a beer. He let out a satisfied sigh. “...as powerful as that spell is, Faction Wars fans all know it can’t control an evicted demon.”

The camera view changed once again to show a heavy-metal style, chain-covered red devil demon with horns picking his way across a flaming landscape made of lava rocks. Massive shadows of behemoth creatures moved about in the background. The demon had the name Yuguleth over its head. It looked up in the air, muttered, “oh fuck,” and then he blasted off upward like he was being sucked into an alien spaceship.

The view changed to a zombie Monk Seal, sitting there, drooling on itself as it looked up at Sister Ines on the beach, reciting her poem. A red exclamation appeared over the Monk Seal, and the name Yuguleth appeared over it as the outline of the large demon was squeezed into the zombie. The monk seal’s yellow eyes turned completely black. The thing snarled, turned, and tackled a non-zombie crab standing nearby. As he grappled with the crab, a flaming hole appeared in the ground, and both of them plunged through the portal.

The view returned to the hellscape, showing the seal and crab plummeting downward. The seal shell burned away, returning the demon to his original form as the crab screamed in terror. They both slammed into the lava rock ground. The demon picked himself up and brushed himself off as hundreds of tiny, flaming centipede things came from the ground and started to devour the now on-fire crab.

The demon, Yuguleth, looked up at the sky and turned in a circle as hundreds of his fellow demons continued to get drawn into the air like it was the rapture. Occasionally, a portal opened high up in the crackling darkness, and two creatures returned, plummeting back downward, signifying the homecoming of a demon who’d managed to grab a soul and jump back through the portal.

“I hate this fucking place,” the demon muttered.

The screen returned to the scene with Sister Ines on the back of the snake, depicting her still on the beach. It was from just a few minutes ago.

The camera followed Samantha as she rolled across the battlefield toward the nun. “You! Zombie! Get out of the way,” she called on the screen. “Get out of my way, or I will kill your mother! I have a mission for Mr. Wishy Washy Carl!” All around her, portals opened in the ground as zombies were turning to demons and started pulling seals and crabs down into hell.

A whole paragraph of text I couldn’t read appeared over Samantha as she suddenly floated into the air and zoomed toward the cat girl, who was still reciting her poem, seemingly oblivious of the chaos starting to unfold all around her. Samantha bit down on the woman, and a moment later was when I dropped the xistera and summoned her to me. The entire beach battlefield wiffed away into smoke.

The camera remained on the beach. Left behind were about 100 demons, all suddenly freed from their zombie shells. They were all about eight feet tall. They were all the same, male, red-skinned devil creatures. They all had different names, but they were all Petty Demon Pleasure Valet, Level 140.

“Carl, those guys look just like the bad guy in that Legend movie,” Donut said. “You know, the one where he makes Ferris Bueller’s girlfriend turn into a goth!”

On screen, one of the demons turned to another and said. “At least the weather is nice here.”

The screen snapped off, leaving just Troy and Kevin.

“So there you have it, folks,” Kevin said. “Samantha’s teleportation of the whole crew broke Sister Ines’s charm spell, but it also busted several of the demons out of their shells. I sure hope no gods have noticed, because things might get even messier. Luckily for our crawlers, the freed demons are a little ways away and aren’t part of this fight. But, demon eviction is still ongoing! More zombies are turning by the moment! Since the charm spell is ruined, we now have eight different groups of combatants all about to fight at once!”

“That’s a lot,” Troy said. “Can you break those down for me?”

“Certainly. We have the Royal Court, Sister Ines, the mindless zombies, the demon-possessed zombies, the crabs, the seals, and of course, Madre de Aguas herself, no longer under control of anybody!” As he mentioned each group, an image appeared floating in the air. “Betting closes in just a minute folks, so get those wagers in!”

Notice: Battle will commence as soon as all squad leaders finish choosing their allegiances. No mobs have equipped card decks. If crawlers choose to ally with one another, deck usage will be optional.

“Carl, it’s asking if I want to treat Sister Ines as an ally or an enemy! What should I choose?”

“Do it as an ally. That way a card battle won’t start, and then teleport us the hell out of here!”

“It says if I pick ally and she picks enemy, she gets a ten-second head start!”

“Goddamnit,” I said, looking back and forth. That was insidious. “Pick ally anyway.”  Maybe she’ll be reasonable. Maybe she’ll pick ally, too.

“Do you understand now, Carl?” Sister Ines shouted from the top of the still-frozen snake. “Do you understand? None of this is real. It’s never been real. It’s the devil, whispering things in our ears. There are no aliens. It’s demons. It’s always been demons. Hell has opened, and it is taking us all. I told them not to worship false gods. I told them. They didn’t listen to me before, and they didn’t listen to me here! These are the wages of our sin, and there is nothing left for us but to burn!”

“Somebody didn’t get her breakfast this morning,” Kevin said.

“Typical Havana Brown,” Donut muttered. “Everything always has to be so dramatic.”

Goddamnit. I raised my voice. “You’re right, Sister. None of this is real. Not in the way you’re thinking. But they’re not real demons, either. I’m sorry we started this, but you need to listen to me. Don’t let the demons pull you away. Please. We need to talk first. Pick us as an ally, and I promise we won’t attack you. We’ll teleport out of here together.”

“Wait a second, Keith,” Troy said. He was counting on his fat, orc fingers. “You said there are eight combatants?”

Your Book of Voodoo has been updated with an entry for Quan Ch.

“Carl!” Donut started to say. “There’s another...”

All allyships have been chosen. Battle commencing...

Chapter 253

Several Days Earlier.

“Yo!” the mantaur guard called, banging on the door of the Blessed Sun Enchantments shop within Club Vanquisher. “You’re a poser! You only get one shop visit a day. I saw you! I saw you come out of the temple! You can’t be in here! Unlock this door! I’ve been born with a heart of steel! I’m not afraid to die!”

“Dude, what does that even mean?” I called back through the rattling door.

“It means get out here this instant!”

I had a memory of a similar scene that had played out in the Desperado Club not that long ago. I turned my attention back to the cleric and the jeweler.

“It’s expensive,” Pater Coal said, speaking quickly. “A million gold.”

I shook my head. “I don’t have that much on me.”

“Nobody ever does,” the satyr jeweler said with a chuckle. He turned to the diminutive cleric. “I’m sure the church will be happy to spot you.”

Pater Coal nodded. “We will, but you’ll have to put 10,000 down if you have it.”

“That seems a little pricey,” I said, wishing I had Donut with me.

“We’re here because you wanted this,” Pater Coal said.

The door banged again. This was a bad idea. I was now stuck. I could no longer change my mind and go to the healer.  “How much is the interest?”

“It’s for the church,” Pater Coal said. “We don’t charge interest to our martyrs. But you do have to trade in one of your existing pieces of jewelry for it to work. Something you’ve been wearing a long time. The longer, the better.”

I hesitated. “Okay,” I finally said, pulling my strength ring off and handing it to the jeweler. It was the first ring I’d received in the dungeon. “Let’s do it.”

The jeweler looked at the cleric, who nodded.

You have taken an interest-free* loan of 990,000 gold from the Temple of Emberus. You will no longer be allowed to renounce your religion while you are under debt. You may make payments directly to the Emberus shrine.

“Uh... What the hell does that asterisks part mean?” I asked.

“I don’t understand,” the jeweler said.

New Achievement! Columbia House!

There was a time when you could get twelve albums for a penny. That’s right. A goddamned penny. It was great! The ads were everywhere. Each colorful, full-or-double-page ad appeared in just about every publication in North America from the 1970s until the 2000s. And let’s not forget the catalogs they mailed directly to your home! Each ad or catalog featured stacks and stacks of today’s hottest music, from Hall and Oates to ABBA to my personal favorite, Gloria Estefan. All you had to do was cut out the ad, pick your favorite twelve albums, mail the whole thing in with a shiny penny, and a month later, you’d open your mailbox to find the 8-tracks, or records, or cassettes, or CDs sitting there, ready to be played. It was great!

All they asked in return was that for the next year or so, you purchase another album once a month for full price. And if you forgot each month to make your pick? Then you learned a new term. “Negative Option Billing.”

If we’re being honest here, most people took the 12 albums and ran. They never gave Columbia House another penny. But some people did pay, and that’s all that mattered. Believe it or not, Columbia House and its competitors made bucketloads of money on those few rubes who did manage to stick to the terms of their contract.

And for the folks who never paid? Who cares! Columbia House didn’t have to pay the artists’ royalties for those albums anyway! It was an advertising expense! It’s just like with banks and their overdraft fees. The smart businesses know how to make money off their richest and poorest clients.

Anyway, you have taken on a financial debt. You got the albums. Now you gotta pay. Or don’t. Maybe there won’t be any consequences. Maybe there will. But you got your Beach Boys album, and for now, that’s all that matters.

Reward: You’ve just been trained to lunge for the carrot that has been dangled in front of you, no matter what the cost. If society was still ticking, that’d likely mean you’re about to lead a wage-slave life of ever-increasing debt you can never get out from underneath, culminating in you dying alone in a government-run facility while your meager Social Security checks go straight into the facility’s coffers. That and a cassette copy of Gloria Estefan’s 1989 masterpiece, Cuts Both Ways. My favorite track is song number 8.

“Uh,” I said again, suddenly regretting my decision. “The loan really is interest-free, right?”

“Sure, sure,” Pater Coal said, waving his hand as the door continued to bang. “Best get this done.”

The hairy, goat-legged jeweler also worshipped Emberus, and he had the same twin tattoos on the back of his hands. The creature looked like a combo between Prepotente and a hipster barista guy.

“So you can do this fast?” I asked as a second mantaur started banging on the door, this one shouting something about Valkyries and wolves for some inexplicable reason.

“That’s right, my brother,” the satyr said. “Don’t mind those idiot Grull worshippers out there. They’re too scared to actually come in here.” He gently slipped the ring onto a mandrel-like holder with a handle and then dunked it into what looked like a pot of bubbling lava. The whole bowl glowed. “This isn’t the most powerful base ring, but it will work for your slug condition, and it will help against a few other debuffs as well, but if it gets too overwhelmed, it might not work as intended. Do you have any more rings? I can make other spells for you. I have a whole menu.”

“I’m in enough debt as it is,” I said as he pulled the ring from the lava.

He shrugged and handed the ring back to me. It wasn’t even hot to the touch. It looked identical to before. The label over it still said it was a strength ring. I examined it.

Enchanted Pauper’s Ring of the Steadfast Emberus.

Ah, Emberus. Wholly sane, reasonable Emberus. I’m sure any jewelry that bears his name will be a perfectly fine, normal piece of magical gear.

When working properly, this ring will remove most health-seeping and disease-based debuff effects. Has a variable numbing effect on various other debuff types. This will not remove the debuff itself. Too many active debuffs of any kind may temporarily mute or overheat this ring.

Warning: This ring may only be worn by a worshipper of Emberus. This will turn into a cursed item if worn by a non-worshipper.

Warning: This ring’s true nature may only be seen by a worshipper of Emberus. It is disguised as an enchanted Strength ring.

Warning: This ring has a debt attached to it. You may not sell this ring while this debt is attached. If you lose this ring, the loan payment will be accelerated. If you are expelled from the church while you are wearing this ring, the curse effect will activate.

Warning: This ring carries a curse effect. Non-worshippers who attempt to wear this ring will find themselves infected with every debuff suffered by anyone within 50 meters of this ring. That’s... that’s a bad one.

“This is fine,” I said, slipping it onto my finger.

~

“There are indeed eight combatants,” Kevin shouted. “Coming from above in a sneak attack, ready to get his revenge, it’s Quan Ch!”

Quan appeared, his dot coming into view on my map. He’d been invisible, flying through the air straight toward the fight, his magical cloak/robe thing flapping in the wind behind him. He’d risen to level 70, one above my own. He’d been trailing six levels behind me for a while, which meant he’d been cruising through this current floor.

His left arm was still gone. He had a look of absolute rage on his face.

The little scene window popped up and it showed me holding onto Quan’s arm at the end of the fifth floor as he tried to run away, and me ripping the arm right off his body.

Magnificent Troy laughed. He, too, now had a beer bottle in his hand. “I remember that. That was pretty awesome.”

“Remember how Quan cried like a little bitch afterward?” Kevin asked.

Troy kept laughing. He pulled his own right arm into his tuxedo jacket and started waving the empty sleeve back and forth. “Look! I’m Quan! I’m Quan!” His alien beer splashed out of the bottle.

“Fuck you!” Quan screeched over at the screen.

Kevin continued to howl with laughter. “That’s the wrong arm, Troy, but that is indeed how he looked. Anyway, let’s watch all these dumbasses finally die and then maybe they’ll let us get out of this cursed solar system.”

Your squad has chosen to ally with team Quiteria.

Team Quiteria has chosen no allies.

Team Quan has chosen no allies.

Ten second, “I thought we were friends” penalty imposed.

Combat Started.

Chaos broke out all around us. Every zombie lunged at the nearest non-zombie as the seals and crabs burst into action, kicking, fighting, screaming, punching. Everybody was fighting everybody else.

A zombie baby seal looked and me and groaned, moving itself forward, trailing guts. I moved to punt it, but I realized I couldn’t move my leg. I had, stupidly, assumed the ten-second penalty only applied to Donut’s deck of cards.

Oh fuck, oh fuck.

The baby seals were indeed white and fuzzy, which was not correct because these things weren’t harp seals, but I barely registered this as it got closer. Both Quan and Sister Ines cast cards. Donut didn’t even have her deck yet.

As the zombie seal approached from my left, a demon crab jumped at me from the right.

It stopped in midair, having flown directly over one of the demon snare traps I’d placed. It stopped just inches from me, screeching, its voice like a high-revving engine, nothing like that of a regular crab. Its black eyes swirled like twin hurricanes. The demon’s name was Nizzle.

The baby seal reached for my ankle just as the timer ended. I jumped back and punted it. I ducked just as another demon crab lunged. It sailed over me and tackled a regular crab. A portal opened, and they both disappeared, screaming. All around, demons were grabbing combatants, and pulling them away as more and more zombies made the change. And those that didn’t were turning more crabs and seals into zombies.

I turned to Nizzle the frozen demon and cast Talon Strike just as I kicked it directly in the chest. It fell backward, and I jumped forward, cracking down hard, breaking it into pieces.

Quan remained floating in the air, out of reach. The boss snake started to buck like a wild horse. Samantha, finally able to move, zipped away, floating like one of those skulls from the Doom video game. Sister Ines remained attached to the back of the boss monster’s head, like she had a Sticky Feet skill.

Quan had cast a mystic card and then a totem. The totem appeared with no fanfare. It was a large, but common soft-shelled turtle named Hoan Kiem. It was only level 25. It fell and plopped onto the ground, surrounded by a group of zombie fish who all started to bounce toward it, their mouths opening and closing.

Quan’s mystic card was something I’d seen before, called Reveal Hand. I couldn’t see what Quan saw, but I knew he now could see both Donut’s hand and Sister Ines’s hand.

A clockwork mongo ran by, screeching, covered with biting zombie baby seals. The real Mongo stood by Donut, protecting her. I watched as he jumped through the air, ripping a zombie apart. A demon fish tried to open a portal under Mongo’s feet, but the dinosaur ripped it in half with his talons.

Sister Ines’s card also didn’t have any fanfare. She summoned the totem, followed by a stout card onto him.

It was Paz. She’d summoned Paz.

The armored man looked much like he had the last time I’d seen him, dying on the floor of the Yemaya temple after he’d been smote by his god. He stood right in front of the snake boss, facing the cat woman who remained upon the head of the creature.

“Sister,” Paz called up to the nun. “Please. No more. I can’t take.... gah!”

The giant snake reached down and chomped down on Paz, her giant mouth trying to crush the armor. She picked him up and started to shake him back and forth, like she was attempting to swallow him whole.

Samantha zipped through the air and landed at my feet, bouncing once. She rolled to a stop and looked up at me. “I’m pretty sure this is all your fault, Carl.”

Donut tossed out her first card. Geraldo the Monk Seal appeared just as Sister Ines started to shout instructions at her totem. “Paz,” she called. “Accept your suffering! Use your self-destruct skill the moment this false god...”

She didn’t finish.

Quan cast another mystic card. This one puffed away, indicating it’d been a consumable. He pointed directly at Sister Ines’s hand, and the moment he made the move, I knew exactly what that card was. My heart sank. I’d seen it in the lists, but I’d always assumed it was a dumb card. We’d never found one.

The card was called Force Play. You picked a card in an opponent’s hand, and it played automatically. Since he could see her hand, he knew exactly what the card would be. She’d had a Flee card in her hand.

“Oh!” Both Troy and Kevin shouted at the same time.

“Didn’t see that one coming,” Troy added.

“Sister Ines is out of the fight!”

Team Quiteria has fled the fight.

Team Quiteria has lost their key.

The winner of this fight will gain their key.

Paz, who’d still been in the mouth of the giant snake, dissipated into dust. The snake hissed in outrage and turned its attention on the closest crawler. Me.

Geraldo landed next to me, looking around wildly. “Brothers! Brothers! It is here!” he shouted, his voice full of glee. All around, seals and crabs died and continued to get pulled into portals. “The battle of our lives is here! Oh! Oh! Ready, bitches? Ready for the flip-flap?” He started to make Bruce Lee noises as he somersaulted into the fray toward a pair of crabs.

“Not that way!” Donut shrieked. “Geraldo get back here this instant!”

“Don’t worry about the snake,” Samantha called. “I got it!”

I slammed onto Protective Shell just as the snake lunged.

Every mob. Every demon. Every zombie. The weird, low-level turtle. All the crabs and the seals. They all blasted away under my shell. It was like I’d set off a bomb. All the closest mobs flew into the woods and beyond, leaving us suddenly alone except for Mongo and one more clockwork Mongo.

“That’ll clear a room,” Troy said.

“Hey!” Samantha called. “I was going to do that!”

Lazarus-a-bang-bang appeared. Donut tossed a temporary shield onto him. He pulled his rocket launcher to his shoulder, aimed in the general direction that turtle had flown, and he fired. The missile corkscrewed into the trees, exploding.

“Donut, don’t keep a Flee card in your hand,” I called.

“I already discarded it,” she called. “Where did he go? And why did he summon that turtle? Carl, my hand sucks right now. I can’t discard for several seconds, and it’s all snare cards!”

Geraldo, who’d still been in the shell’s area when it cast, continued to unnecessarily flip as he moved off in a random direction, screaming at the top of his lungs.

I scanned the sky, but I didn’t see him. I could see the snake, who’d actually taken some damage from getting tossed away. It wasn’t attacking anymore. It had its head straight up in the air, and it was moving back and forth, casting a spell.

“Lazarus,” I called, pointing at the snake.

“I see it,” the robed totem said, lifting his launcher to his shoulder, aiming at the snake.

“Samantha,” I said. “Your job is to get that Quan guy. Think you can do that?”

“The one-armed guy with the pretty jacket? Oh, that’s easy. Where’s he at?”

“There!” Donut cried, pointing in the sky. Quan was coming back. He was already throwing a card out.

“No!” Donut suddenly called as her entire hand of three cards blinked and disappeared. They reappeared a moment later. “Carl, Carl, he switched hands with me! Three for three! Carl, it’s all Flee cards!”

I looked up in horror as I saw Quan grinning as he cast another Force Play.

“Now that’s an ass-kicking if I ever saw one,” Troy said.

Your Squad has used a Flee Card.

Your Squad has lost their key!

Teleporting Now.

Combat Complete.

~

Silence followed as Donut, Mongo, Samantha, and I all plopped into dark, swampy woods. I had no idea where we were.

“Does he have to stay in the fight?” Donut cried, all poofed out. “Can we get back there in time?”

“I don’t think we were locked in,” I said as I jumped into my chat. “He ain’t sticking around if he doesn’t have to. He’s heading straight for the exit.”

Carl: Imani. Quan has the keys. He has both keys. He might be coming to you right now. He’s going down the stairs. You’re our only chance to stop him.

Carl: If anyone is out there who hears me and is in the Cuba area. Stay by the exit in the Capitol building. Quan Ch has both sets of keys, and he’s headed to one of the two exits. You have to stop him.

Tserendolgor: It’s us, Carl. I’m sorry I didn’t say anything sooner. It’s us. We’ll be ready.

Imani: I’ll do my best.

Carl: Okay. Both of you. Be careful. He’s really good, but he’s not going to be feeling well. I cast my Super Spreader on him at the last second. He’s going to be leaking slugs. You have to delay him as long as possible. With each passing minute, the slugs will get worse and worse. They’ll fight for him at first, but from what I understand, that changes as they get more powerful.

Red dots surrounded us in the forest. It was more of the duendes. The little, shoe-loving goblin things were everywhere, even in the woods. I looked at the map, trying to figure out where we were. We’d only been teleported a few miles east, well off any known path.

Donut looked up at me, eyes shining. “I failed. I failed, Carl, and now we’re going to die. Imani is going to die, and it’s my fault.”

“No, Donut. Not yet. I want you to rearrange your deck. Do it fast, and then you’re going to initiate a card battle with the duendes over there. Samantha. Come here. I need you.”

~~~~

Howdy Everyone! I am off a con (Norwescon) and cross-country drive, and I am exhausted. But there is no rest for the wicked. I am flying to Atlanta in a few days for JordanCon where I'll be hanging out with Aleron Kong and Jeff Hays and several other cool folks. Here is my schedule:


https://jordancon.sched.com/speaker/dinniman

After that, I have basically a month straight off until Crypticon in May. Between those two dates I plan on finishing this book. Thanks so much for your support! I love you all.