Book 7, Chapter 8. Plus DragonCon party info and map of the Scolopendra levels. (Patreon)

Chapter 8

Arief whisked us out of the main courtyard of the college, out the main gates and past the security guards and out into the city.

Entering Larracos.

“It’ll be more like an elopement than a traditional marriage,” Donut was saying as we walked. “I suppose that’s okay, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make it a big what-to-do. I do like my what-to-dos.” She gasped. “Mongo can be a ring bearer! I already have a top hat and bow tie on me. I was going to sing. It is short notice, but I suppose I can be convinced into an impromptu performance. Hmmm.” She paused, then brightened. “Do you know the song ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’ by Oasis? I can sing that! It’d be perfect as long there’s nobody named Sally there. Also, I promised Carl would wear pants and shoes for the ceremony. Carl, you do have shoes now in your inventory, don’t you?”

Donut paused as I sent her a message.

Carl: I need you to put your sunglasses on and keep them on. Do you remember on the fifth floor how you could keep track of who was a changeling based on their body temperature? Keep an eye out, just in case. I know they’re supposed to be on our team, but we want to be sure.

Donut didn’t say anything, but the sunglasses flashed onto her face as she resumed trying to convince Louis to let her sing at the wedding.

We exited the front, raised entrance of the college and stepped out onto a cobblestone street. The street was just wide enough for a single cart. Across the street stood a simple, metal railing. I took a step toward it and peered over the edge, looking down into the funnel city.

I looked down in awe. This is it, I thought. This is the city. Larracos. City of Dreams.

I took in a breath. Despite having been prepared for this sight, I still had to take a moment.

Each level was a wide ring, with a yawning, open hole in the center, leading down into the pit. The circumference of the jagged gap got smaller and smaller as it went down, until it disappeared into a wall of smoke. A single waterfall fell from across the way, vanishing into the clouds. The fall would hit a lower level, where it would be channeled back over the edge, like it was going down stairs. The vast majority of the buildings were in a stone, gothic style, overwrought with columns and arches and gargoyles. Much of the architecture was of tall buildings with vertical lines culminating in arches and gables with curved rafters. Everything gave the sense of time, of spirit. This did not feel like a set of blocks designed for the singular purpose to be knocked over. No. This was a real, living, breathing place, and the sight of it staggered me.

But what struck me most was how clean everything looked, yet lived-in at the same time. Ancient, but cozy. This part of the city clearly hadn’t been flooded. Havana had felt like that, too, but that feeling had been much more eerie because all the people living there were ghosts. They were already dead. The city was already destroyed. The toll was real.

A small, draconian boy rushed past, carrying what looked like a bundle of twine.

This is real, too. I thought. It’s just as real as Havana.

That thought was not a welcome one, especially in context of what we’d already done to this place, to these people.

Arief pointed down the street toward what looked like an off-ramp on the freeway. It was a ramp that led downward, curving toward the next level down. We moved to the ramp and kept walking.

I was struck by how many people weren’t on the streets. Down lower, there’d seemed to be quite a few. The college itself was teeming with activity, as were the suburbs hidden behind it. But the public areas here seemed bare.

The vast majority of dots were other crawlers. A group of men I didn’t recognize came up just as their names popped into my book of Voodoo. Donut paused her wedding planning to make them all Sergeant First Class, giving them the ability to recruit others.

Already, my interface was beeping with others getting recruited. The numbers were slowly, slowly rising. We had just under three days to get them all.

I returned my attention to the city. I could barely see the walls of the funnel itself, though if I looked up, I could see the top lip of the crevice, maybe 3-400 feet up, peeking through a pair of buildings at the very top. These walls were not the walls of the volcano. Those were much further out, probably inaccessible and out-of-bounds. This funnel was nothing more than a hole in the ground.

I wondered on that. The Over City had a wooden floor that had seemed downright rickety in some places. The Hunting Grounds were jungle and had a solid, physical ground. Hell, there was a deep river running through it. Supposedly, if one spent too much time digging up there, one would break through and fall into this area. It was all fake. All game setup. But still, it was important to know how all this worked.

This area was the same. According to the story, it was once just a flat, verdant land with forests on the outskirts and rocky ground, filled with caves and rich minerals. When the dwarves decided to tunnel down to the gods, they burrowed through solid rock, only stopping when they reached the roots of the All Tree.

The dwarf was talking to me, but I’d missed some of it.

“We say there are 66 levels, but that’s not true. Not all rings completely circle the city,” Arief was saying. We turned toward a long, winding road that led toward another off-ramp. “This is level 49, and it’s mostly homes. The one we just left was 50, and it’s known for the college, which takes up a third of the ring. The rest of 50 is the high cultural district and museums. There are three rings that are called cultural districts, and this one is the uppermost.” He gave me a sidelong glance. “It’s more for the fancy folks, if you know what I mean. I went to a play once up there, and I didn’t understand a damn word what anybody was saying. The biggest theater is down below in ring nine, called The Piccadilly, but it’s still a little wet. My uncle drained it, and it was filled with jellyfish. They’re still cleaning it out.”

“How high did the water get?” I asked.

“Level 39,” he said. “It drained down to 29 pretty fast, but then it got stopped up. We were going to fix it, but then Juice Box started opening everybody’s eyes and had us keep it clogged. We had water up to 15 for a bit, and now it’s only up to level 3, just enough to cover the highest tower of the castle. Anybody who wants to take that castle has gotta learn how to swim.”

We moved to the ramp, but I paused, seeing the traps glowing ominously at the corners.

Arief followed my gaze. “Explosives,” he said. “In case they get in. We have them on every other down ramp.”

I nodded and continued, still gawking at everything. More crawlers came up. I recognized this one. His name was Ajib, and he was level 51. I’d only met him once, briefly, at the beginning of the 6th floor. He was missing a leg when I first met him, but he now had what looked like a mechanical prosthetic. Donut got him and his companions recruited.

“Why don’t they just jump down the center?” I asked, more to myself as we moved down to the next level. This one, 45, was filled with shops, but like Louis said earlier, they appeared to mostly be for clothing. And they were all closed.

“They’ve done it a few times,” Arief said. “There was another season when the orcs marched down the streets while the Reavers jumped in, using invisibility and fall potions, getting to the castle first. They still lost that season. That’s not going to work this time. Not with the city defense system.”

I stopped dead in the street and looked at the dwarf. “Another season?” I asked.

He nodded. “I don’t remember this, but there are some with the memory quickened. I believe I am new, as are most of us. But some have persisted. My uncle remembers dozens of seasons now. Not as many as Juice Box, but he’s one of the Jatismara, and he sits upon her war council.”

There was so much packed into that short statement that I didn’t know where to start. I thought of Herot the cookbook author of the 16th edition, who’d made waking NPCs up his life’s work. I thought of his final, heart-wrenching entry in the cookbook, and I wondered if he’d managed to survive. And if he had, was he watching this right now? Probably not. If he was alive, he’d likely still be working in the dungeon somewhere. He’d wanted to be a game guide. I didn’t know if he’d made it.

It had been what? About a month since Juice Box had made it down to this floor?

“How many of you guys know?” I asked.

“About the previous seasons? About our past lives?” He shrugged. His strange breast plate swung back and forth like a bell. “Most of us know. Some don’t seem to understand, but most know. Juice Box says there are different kinds of us, made with different purposes. Some shopkeepers are different, and some of the patrons of certain establishments are also different, unable to understand. The hands of the outworlders are everywhere when you know what to look for.”

I exchanged a look with the others, who’d stopped talking about Louis’s wedding. Britney was next to me, and she asked, “Does your uncle remember dying?”

“No,” Arief said. “We believe that for most of us, if one dies, they are dead forever. We are not immortal like the outworlders.”

“The ‘outworlders’ won’t be immortal for long,” Britney said.

“That is what Juice Box has told us,” Arief said. He suddenly and abruptly pulled the curved blade from his back, which popped out with a loud shing! All of us jumped away, including Mongo.

When Mongo jumped, Rend tumbled off his back and bounced on the floor, making an “Ouchie”-like noise.

“When the fighting starts,” Arief said, “I will have my revenge against Architect Houston!” He swung his sword back and forth a few times.

“Architect Houston?” Donut asked. She nudged Rend forward with her head, rolling him onto Mongo’s tail. Mongo lifted the tail up, and Rend bowled onto Mongo’s back, giggling. “Who is that?”

“The leader of the Madness,” the dwarf said. “A viceroy outworlder. He caught my brother as he attempted to sabotage their fortifications.” He re-sheathed his blade over his shoulder. “They say my brother was tortured before Juice Box infiltrated and ended his suffering.”

“Is that the guy whom Juice Box decapitated during the pre-production meeting?” Donut asked. She made a scoffing noise. “I don’t like those viceroy guys. I’m glad they wear masks. If I had a face like that, I’d wear a mask, too.”

“That was one of his surgeons,” the dwarf said. “Nobody has managed to get into Houston’s operating theater. That’s what they call his throne room.”

We walked for a little while in silence, ever going lower. As we reached level 35, the buildings started to get rougher in architecture. The scent of the ocean lingered. This area had been flooded, but only briefly. These streets were mostly empty. There were more shops here, but none were occupied. I caught sight of a trap guild. On my map, it said it was actually open. The guild, at least. The attached shop was not.

“How much did you guys manage to sabotage?” I asked. “Of the enemy encampments, I mean.”

“We will discuss it when we get below,” he said, “but we bloodied all of them a little. We managed to get inside the inner circle at least once for all of them except the den, of course. Or, like I said, into the Madness’s operating theater.”

I felt my heart quicken. “The den? Why couldn’t you get in there?”

“The nagas are not very good at mass warfare, and they say they never win this game. It is said theirs is a court of assassins, not warriors. If they are to win, it is with a poisoned blade in the dark, not with the marching of a thousand feet.” He shuddered. “Not that they have feet, the slippery demons. Their poisons can kill you in a million ways. Their acids can melt you in seconds. No changeling or spy has ever been able to infiltrate their inner sanctum. No one has ever seen the Whore, who hides behind her veils and guard. Even Juice Box wouldn’t attempt to sneak in. We just attacked their fortifications in quick raids. We were about to send one of the diggers after them when you made that ceasefire happen.”

I nodded. I knew some of this. More than Arief did. I’d known it for a while. About how difficult it would be to eliminate the naga leadership. He only knew half of it, and despite being an awakened NPC, he still only knew about the in-game version of the Blood Sultanate

Drakea had extensive notes about the naga people, whom he hated. But Mordecai had also spent some time telling us what he knew about them and their government.

In the galaxy, their people were supposedly as wide and as varied as humans. They’d been humiliated and bankrupted during Drakea’s run in the game, but that didn’t make them stupid. Mordecai made a point to drive this home. From what he explained, their government was like a mix between the mantis regime and that of the United Kingdom. A constitutional monarchy. There were individual systems all under a central government. They had a constitution and parliament and a prime minister who ran the day-to-day operations, all under a mostly-for-show sovereign, whose name out in the wide universe was now king. But long, long ago, they’d been known as the Sultanate.

Their people were considered mostly humble and wanting to keep to themselves, but several of their systems were now a tourist destination and vacation spot, especially the home planet. They’d once been known as explorers and ship builders. And conquerors. The grand, in-orbit shipyards still existed, but the factories were now mostly owned by other entities, and the nagas themselves were a source of cheap labor.

Here in faction wars, they were basically LARPing the olden days. Drakea thought it was mostly for fun, but after reading between the lines and talking to Mordecai, I was starting to realize their continued participation in faction wars was actually a PR stunt. A way to keep people interested in naga history, which would drive tourism. They called themselves the Blood Sultanate, a name harkening a darker, bloodier time in their history. The actual participants were of the royal family. During Drakea’s time, their leader was a naga who was now the king. He no longer participated in the games, leaving it to his children and cousins.

The current leader of the in-game Blood Sultanate was the real-life crown princess, whose name in the game was the Sultana. I didn’t know what her real name was. In the old days, her identity would be kept a secret. It was considered punishable by death for someone to even see her. She sat behind veils and was guarded by an honor guard, who were all sentenced to deferred death for looking upon her.

In the old days, the Sultana was the eldest half-sister of the Sultan, and she would be the mother of the future generation of the royal family. She would be bred until she either gave birth to 99 sons or 198 daughters, whichever happened first. If she gave birth to 99 sons, she would be killed. After that, the 99 sons would start their process of competing to be the next sultan. The winner of that battle was neutered, and the other 98 brothers would basically take turns knocking up the oldest sister until she, in turn, had 99 more sons. Drakea’s notes on all this was confusing, and I wasn’t 100% certain how it worked. Apparently the gender of the nagas couldn’t be determined for a while, which muddled everything even further.

If the sultana managed to have 198 daughters before she had 99 sons, it wasn’t clear what would happen, though I gathered she basically became the leader and all her male siblings would be put to the blade. It had only happened once in their history, and the sultana who did it was deemed the Sepsis Whore, who’d supposedly poisoned almost all of her sons.

The nagas were now more “civilized,” and the family worked more like that of a traditional monarchy. The current crown princess was the daughter of the actual king, and she was the highest ranking family member actually here on Earth. In the game, she was play-acting as the Sepsis Whore, and from what I gathered, she took the gig very, very seriously.

But she was also a ghost. Untouchable. Despite the naga team getting their asses kicked every single time, she’d never been killed in the game. Not once. They’d have their throne room taken, usually at great expense to the actual, poor NPCs and mercenaries who got sent into the room, but the sultana and her guard would be gone, only to reappear at the end, safe and laughing in the Desperado Club where they’d drink the final days of the game away in safety.

My plan on dealing with her was currently sitting in my bomber’s studio.

The problem was, these weren’t NPCs who believed in the story built around them. They knew who I was, and they would know how important it would be to me to get them out of the game. And now that the protections were off, I had no idea if they would keep the whole Sultana charade up. I did know this princess had spent some time in the naga military, and she had both real-life experience and in-game experience. So this wasn’t someone to underestimate.

We walked for several more minutes, passing by more crawlers and recruiting them to the army. I briefly met a crawler name Jurgen, a large human with a shock of blonde hair and arms that looked as if they could bend steel. He was a level 65 Harii, which was some sort of barbarian class. The man also worshipped a god named Donar. He pulled me into a tight hug and kissed me on the cheek when we met.

“You saved my life, and you saved the life of my Heidi with that black magic you did at the end of the last floor. For that, you get a kiss!”

We moved on. By the time we reached the ninth floor, it was clear this was the area where we were before. This area had been flooded until very recently. The ground remained wet and slimy, and the Xs of dead sharks littered the map. The floor contained the massive Piccadilly Theater, surrounded by bars, including a few true saferooms. The large theater building sat right underneath the waterfall, and the sculpture-covered roof doubled as the step for the water from above to land and cascade off the edge. One of the statues was that of a giant frog, and it swallowed the entirety of the water before another frog next to it spewed the water out of the edge down below. There was something stuck in this statue’s mouth, and the water was spraying unevenly. As I watched, a group of NPCs were trying to dislodge whatever was stuck in there.

The theater building itself had been ruined by the recent flooding, but even more NPCs: humans, elves, and draconians swarmed over the building, cleaning it up. It was the most active group of NPCs we’d seen since we got here. A Bactrian camel—the first camel I’d seen on this floor—walked on stilts and was putting letters up on the water-stained marquee. It read “One Night Only. Session of Love, the final show before we all die.” In smaller letters under that, it read, “Balcony still closed due to jellyfish infestation.”

“She’ll meet us at the entrance to the Desperado Club,” Arief said as we descended past the 7th floor. These were all closed and destroyed shops. Weapons and magic shops. Mercenary markets. All still flooded out and ruined. The only thing open were the guilds and the occasional saferoom bar.

“Is the Desperado back open?” I asked, surprised.

“It just opened back up earlier today,” Arief said. “Our, uh, other leader has already parked himself inside. Juice Box will meet us in the entrance bar. She’s secured a private room for us.”

The lower we got, the more active it was. A group of dwarves jogged by, singing a military-style running cadence. They carried hammers and sickles over their shoulders as they ran.

Most of these soldiers were only levels 25 to 40. They were trying, but they were not in very good sync. I felt my lips tighten as I watched them.

The Desperado Club stuck out amongst all the other buildings on the fourth floor. The level was relatively small compared to the others above it, and the hole in the center was filled with water as the levels below it remained flooded. The square, concrete building stood on a group of pillars, looking like someone had taken a modernist building built in the 1960’s and dropped it right into the middle of renaissance France. A Las Vegas-style neon sign stood above the large building, but only the red, bottom half of the arrow was lit. The sign did not look anything like the art deco style from the previous floors.

A hand-painted sign hung from a sheet draped across the entrance. It read “Grand Re-Opening. Under New Management.”

We put Mongo and Rend away, and we all went inside.

Entering Desperado Club Entrance Bar. The Headlamp Colonnade.

We didn’t push past the entrance bar like we usually did, but we remained in the main room. It was empty except for a gnoll bartender, who eyed us warily as Arief pulled us past and into the back kitchen. He pressed against a panel in the wall, and it opened, revealing a long tunnel.

Donut: CARL, THE BARTENDER IS A CHANGELING! YOU WERE RIGHT!

Carl: Okay. Keep cool.

I exchanged a nervous look with the others, and we went into the hall. We traversed the long hall, went through another door, and we entered a room with a dark figure sitting at the table.

The figure looked up from the table, which appeared to be covered with paper and notes. It was a gnoll. An old, wizened, male NPC. The name over him read:

Hungid. Level 30. Gnoll.

Manager of the Headlamp Colonnade.

The gnoll jumped on the table, scattering papers. He leapt at Louis, who backed up against the wall. The old, dog man started furiously kissing Louis on the mouth as he sputtered.

~~

Hi everyone! Thanks so much for all your support. I have the next chapter (9) done, but I’ve decided to rework it and didn’t want you guys to have to wait longer. A lot of setup happens in 9, 10, and 11, and it’s a chore to make it readable and interesting. If you look at a graph for the rising and falling action of each book, a lot of them are pretty similar. This book is going to have a much different shape, I suspect, but I still don’t want to front load it TOO heavily, and it’s hard to get it right without boring people in the beginning. Once that timer hits zero, all hell is going to break loose, and it’s not going to let up.

Anyway, I will have news about a special edition hardcover with a new cover soon. That will be funded via Kickstarter.

I will be at Authors and Dragons con next weekend in Portland, Oregon. I will be making Jeff cold read the scene where Donut sees Louis' shirt for the first time. Also, Jeff just finished recording his short, after-credits scene for book 6, and it’s told from the POV of a member of the Donut Holes unofficial fan group.

In addition to the party at Planet Funk Con in Iowa, we are having an official, free-to-attend party at DragonCon that will include many, many litrpg authors. The event is free to attend, does NOT require a dragoncon badge, and it does NOT require an aquarium ticket. The event is 100% free, but you DO need a free ticket to attend because it has AN OPEN BAR. Tickets and details here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/litrpg-under-the-sea-an-officially-unofficial-dragon-con-party-tickets-689224387697?aff=oddtdtcreator&fbclid=IwAR2_Nv_WWgs1bJ5I_OsWNSDPtfySl2mMyZWKaIfoeIGBJRvLLbUfu94L6e0

Also, (a version of) this will likely appear in the book somewhere: