Book 7, chapters 12 and 13 + Question at the end (Patreon)

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Chapter 12

<Note added by crawler Ikicha, 11th Edition>

If only I could see him again. It would change everything.

I am jealous, those of you with community, with friends, with family. My kind are castrated and cast out. As such, I think my perspective is unique, so much different than the one who came before me, York, who appears to have come from a hive, yet says he always felt alone his entire life. We are so different, but upon reading his words, I feel such kinship. I wonder, did he survive? Those of you reading this, if you are ever free of this place, I pray you seek out the others who came before. It is a dream. Can you imagine? Together, there would be nothing we couldn’t do. Nothing.

~

Time until the ceasefire ends: 52 hours.

Entering The Princess Posse Base Camp.

This is your home territory.

Warning: There is a red alert incursion into your territory. Enter the Flag Room to see the details.

We stepped from the exit into chaos. It was me, Donut, Tipid, and Florin. Imani stayed behind to work in her magic room. Mistress Tiatha was showing her some battlefield enhancement spells with her newly-upgraded room, and Imani wanted to train with it some before returning.

Louis, Katia, and Bautista would soon be here with Party Planner.

The attached saferoom was a small, wooden bait shop with no proprietor. The room itself was barely big enough to fit us all. We stepped out from the small shop onto a grassy plain with a powerful, orange sun beating down on us from directly above. I turned to see the small, wooden shack standing there. The “Bait Shop” sign hung over the door in English. Just past the shop was a small lake.

The skeleton of a new building was in the process of being erected around the shop. Up a small hill, a second, larger building stood. It was a stone structure, but I couldn’t see how big it was. This building was also being encased in metal girders. Multiple workers crawled over both structures. They were boxing the saferoom in, protecting it. It appeared they were expanding the size of the other structure up the hill, connecting the two.

A cool, soft breeze filled the air, though the aroma was that of construction. It was of smoke and ozone and burnt tar. It was a scent I associated with shipyards and welding. Hundreds of people of all shapes and forms stood about, walking, talking, working, and laughing. Far to my left where the ground started to slope away, a group was hard at work, building some type of palisade wall. A fireball flashed through the air and crashed into the metal posts, causing it to glow red. A group of men and women were talking animatedly, pointing at the impact. They’re testing the walls as they build them.

Multiple watch towers were already constructed, and each tower appeared to be manned by three or four people. I could see another tower being built some distance away in the middle of the plains.

Another group were using Build Trench scrolls and appeared to be making a channel up toward the small lake.

I had no idea where they were getting the materials for all this.

Mongo screeched with concern, and Donut patted him on the head as we took it all in. Garret stood on my shoulder, oohing and ahhing as he gnawed on an errant strand of my hair.

“You only get a limited number of officers,” Florin was saying as we walked. “We’re recruiting most of the construction guys and crawlers as sergeants and chiefs which allows them to alter the camp, but there’s probably a limit to that as well. Everyone else is going to get the rank of legionnaire with corporals leading individual teams for now.”

“It says there’s an incursion into the territory,” I said.

“It’s mobs,” Tipid said. “Normally they should be cleared out by now, but they made the world bigger, and now we have some hunting to do. We need to decide who to send. There’s only limited experience to be had right now.”

“If we don’t get them all,” Florin added, “Then the warning system is useless.”

A group of soldiers were struggling to push a wall section up. It fell, and they all jumped away. The giant section of wall reverberated with a loud crash, embedding into the earth so deep, it buried itself in a shower of dirt and grass and dust. Florin moved off to help them.

To my left, someone pointed at us and shouted. Everything stopped, just like that. Hundreds of pairs of eyes all turned in our direction.

A tall, muscular human sergeant stood right there, carrying what looked like a steel H-beam for a building. The metallic beam had to be 20 feet long, and it looked as if it weighed two tons. The monster of a man held it on his shoulder.

His name was Penn, and he was a level 62 Fortification Engineer.

In fact, I realized, several of the people around me had the same class. Fortification Engineer. Everyone who wasn’t an engineer was level 60. The engineers seemed to be the only ones who’d risen in level.

The mountain of a man tossed the massive beam to the ground, turned, and wrapped his arms around me in a crushing hug.

I let out an oof as a swarm of bune dragon people came rushing up to surround Donut, walking and buzzing around her, all touching her and then going to the ground and bowing. Mongo looked back at Donut, who appeared equally bewildered.

The man put me down and kissed me on the cheek. He had tears in his eyes.

Donut: CARL, WHY IS EVERYONE KISSING YOU ALL OF A SUDDEN? THAT’S LIKE THE THIRD PERSON IN AN HOUR. YOU’RE GOING TO GET MONO.

“Hup, hup, hup,” Penn started to rhythmically shout, pumping his fist into the air.

I just looked at the man. I was about to ask, “What the hell are you doing?” when someone else started doing it as well. Soon, everyone was shouting and pumping their appendages into the air. It turned into a war chant of sorts. Hup, hup, hup. People were shouting in rhythm like we were at a concert or a football game.

More and more people approached, also shouting and pumping their arms into the air, and soon, we were surrounded. Thousands of people—humans, skyfowl, crocodilians, bune, yenk, and so many others pumped their fists or wings in the air, chanting. The sound was deafening.

But it was more, too. It was terrifying. The ground shook. I felt a deep well of pride at that sound, that chant. In less than three days, we’d all be waist deep in blood. A lot of us would be dead. But for now, this war cry filled me with hope and power.

Tipid tried saying something to me, but I couldn’t hear him over the noise. He moved to chat.

Tipid: This is for you. This is what you built.

And just like that, they were done. Penn the human clapped me on the back, turned, and picked the massive beam back up, hoisting it over his shoulder and started walking toward the palisade construction. Everyone else also went back to work. I just stood there, watching them for a few moments, still overwhelmed.

Off to the side, I blinked as a giant alligator thing suddenly appeared next to Florin. The crawler said something to the giant creature, which was enormous, like 25 feet long. The creature’s long snout moved into the dirt and easily urged the embedded wall section up into the air as the workers swarmed around it, heaving as they pushed the wall back into place.

The creature was too far away to fully examine, but I could see the symbol of a flag over it. This was Florin’s card from the previous floor. A giant caiman. The card combat system was left behind on the 8th level, thank god, but we could still summon our chosen card once a day. Summoning time was equal to twice their regular countdown. If they died, they still came back the next day.

The giant alligator creature did a happy little hop, reminding me of Mongo.

“Come on, Carl,” Donut finally said. “We need to see this stronghold, and then I have to get back and help Rosetta.”

~

“Your changelings and those flesh golems started building the stronghold on top of the hill over here,” Tipid said as we walked through the camp. Each former crawler we passed grinned at me, waved, and then went back to work. “It’s a good location, but they didn’t understand how important saferooms are, so we have to expand the building and combine the two. We’re going to build the whole stronghold around the wood shack. This will allow your airships to dock directly from the fortress. Have you seen the new saferoom rules? That’s going to be a problem, so we gotta combine the two buildings. We had a few thousand of us choose that Fortification Engineer race so they could build fast. It lets them level with construction, too. We also have several alchemists who’ve have been making the materials since we got here a few days ago, and we have a solid staff who can also enchant the walls. There’s a yenk named Langrim who used to run the enchantment guild here, and they really know what they’re doing. We hadn’t been able to start the actual construction until just now. It wouldn’t let us build until we were officially converted. We have crews here, on both borders, and others building fall-back positions throughout along with multiple watchtower squads.”

I still couldn’t get over how easily Florin fell into this job. How good he was at it.

“Wait, what are the new saferoom rules?” I asked, my head spinning. There was a lot that had changed, I knew, but I hadn’t had time to go over it all yet.

“Lots of small changes and a couple big ones. Once the fighting starts, it’s going back to the blood bar system, so you can’t just hide in the saferoom for the whole floor. This is for everybody. You kill someone or something, you fill your blood bar up. Up to nine or ten hours I think. The bar lowers when you’re inside, so you can’t just camp and hide out. That’s a good and a bad thing. Second rule is no mercenaries inside guildhalls once the truce ends, except for a small staff of up to nine people at a time. That ain’t too big of a deal, but it means we have to build sleeping quarters for all these folks, and we won’t be able to keep a reserve.”

I thought of Mordecai and the changeling children he was fostering.

“Are you considered a mercenary?” I asked. “And do you get the achievements or quests or anything?

“We’re mercenaries all right. That orc adjutant of yours can probably clarify it better, but most of us ain’t getting into your guildhall once fighting starts. This was a big sticking point with some of the other teams because the active crawlers can still use their regular saferooms. To a point, that is, with the blood bar active. As for achievements and all that weird stuff, no, thank the gods. We don’t get that. Just level notifications and messages.”

This Tipid guy was, what? Several thousand years old? Even though he appeared older than Rosetta, he still didn’t seem that old. Nor did he act it. He had a big, sideways grin on his scarred face the whole time he moved on through the camp. In some ways, he reminded me of my friend, Sam. Goofy, but not dumb. Disheveled, but always alert. Someone who would surprise you at the strangest moments. Tipid didn’t have the most entries in the cookbook, but the ones he did have were filled with haunting guilt and anger. He’d had a tragedy near the end of his crawl that had really messed him up, and this version of him was so different, it was jarring. Still, it was there once you knew to look for it. The tension. The anger. I could sense hints of it under the surface, like scars not quite hidden by a newly painted wall.

“What about the other teams?” I asked.

“Pretty much all the officers have saferooms of their own. They’ll have built their strongholds around one. Big exception is the Lemig team, but we can talk about that later. This change will hurt the Operatics and the naga the most, both of whom are known for hiding rather than fighting.”

Florin came jogging back up to join us. He was grumbling something about artillery. His giant caiman had already timed out and poofed away.

“We need to talk about the naga team,” I said. “They need to be our first target.”

“Figured you say that,” Tipid said. “That’s going to be a problem with the enemy massing on the opposite border. Let’s get to the flag room and talk strategy.”

Mongo started making a strange, cheeping noise.

“Mongo, what’re you doing?” Donut asked. “What is it?” Mongo was sniffing up at the air.

We came to a large, metallic door that looked as if it’d been hammered into shape by a blind and drunk metalsmith. The damn thing was huge, like 20 feet high. This was the part of the stronghold that had been built by the changelings and flesh golems. The door was propped open with a rock, but not open wide enough to squeeze through. Tipid reached over and grabbed a ring and started to pull. He grunted with the effort, and I moved to help.

To my surprise, an info box popped up the moment I touched the door.

Oversized, Cumbersome Door. Apprentice Quality. This fortification is at 80% Strength.

You don’t want to be behind this thing once it’s kicked in.

3/3 Enchantments active. Increase quality to increase enchantment capacity.

Current Enchantments:

Battering Resistance.

Force Reflection.

Heat Absorption.

The moment I added my strength, the door started to slowly, slowly ease open, squealing in protest. A rock fell from the doorframe as we pulled. Rend, still on my shoulder, started making grunting noises even though he wasn’t doing anything.

“My goodness,” Donut said. “It certainly is a big door, but it’s not the most enduring construction, is it? Mongo, stop doing that!” Donut jumped to my shoulder. Rend, still on my opposite shoulder dropped my strand of hair and began gnawing on Donut’s tail. Donut didn’t notice. “Carl, why is Mongo making weird noises?”

Tipid grunted as we continued to pull. “Once we get this open, we have to close it right away because...”

The door flew all the way open, and both Tipid and I went flying back. I hit the ground with an oof and slid. Rend went flying and rolled down the hill, giggling the whole time while Donut shrieked.

“She’s out again!” someone cried as the giant allosaurus with a pink tutu stamped out into the clearing in front of the building. She hopped up and down in front of Mongo, waving her little wand, who also started to hop up and down in front of her.

Tina.

Chapter 13

“Pop.. Pa-pa!” Tina grunted at Mongo.

Mongo screeched, waving his arms up at the giant dinosaur as they both continued to hop up and down, dancing in circles. I held my breath. These two didn’t have the best relationship, but that was before Tina had “woken up” during the Butcher’s Masquerade.

We all stumbled as the giant dinosaur continued to bounce. More rocks fell from the building. “Pa-pa! Pa-pa!”

When Tina talked, it was with deep, guttural growls, and it was difficult to understand what she was saying. I could feel the bass of her voice in my chest. I had to remind myself this was a little kid.

“Papa?” Donut asked, scoffing. She returned to my shoulder, shaking with rage. “Mongo is most certainly not your father! And when did you start to talk!”

“Tina, get back inside!” a new voice cried.

We all turned to watch as a female ursine waddled out the front door. The bear woman wore an eyepatch. Old, deep scarring covered her head. She held a spoon in her hand and had an apron stretched taut around her enormous, pregnant belly.

Kiwi.

I exchanged a look with Florin.

Kiwi was born as an Ursine, but she was a female Mongo when we’d met her. She’d been turned into a dinosaur during Scolopendra’s nine-tier attack. She’d been changed back to a bear during the Butcher’s Masquerade. It was how we won the Tina quest. But before she’d turned, she’d had relations with Mongo when they were both dinosaurs.

And now she was pregnant. Very pregnant. About-to-pop pregnant.

Kiwi paused at the sight of her daughter dancing around Mongo, who’d now stopped and was staring at the bear.

“Mongo?” Kiwi asked.

Mongo gave a single, quiet roar. He pushed past Tina and moved, head low to the ground as everybody watched, all of us holding our breath, all of us wondering what was going to happen next. Mongo sniffed at Kiwi and gave an uncertain peep.

The entire camp had gone silent. I felt something on my foot. It was Rend. He wanted to be picked up. I reached down to grab him, not taking my eyes off the dinosaur and bear. He started chewing on Donut’s tail again.

Donut sniffed angrily. “Carl, if this turns into some weird, furry porn thing, I’m going to lose my mind.”

Kiwi stepped forward, wrapped her arms around Mongo’s neck, and she hugged him. Mongo just stood there. They hugged for a few moments, and then Kiwi turned away.

“Come, Tina,” Kiwi said, voice softer this time. “Come help mommy make dinner.” Kiwi looked at me and Donut, just standing there. She nodded, turned back inside, and she disappeared.

“Pa-pa,” Tina said again before turning back inside.

Mongo remained, a confused look upon the dinosaur’s face, like he didn’t know what had just happened. He sniffed again at the air and let out a sad, confused peep.

“Sorry, buddy,” I said to the poor dinosaur. “Sometimes people change, and that’s all there is to it.”

Mongo made a forlorn squeak.

“Papa,” Donut muttered again. “The gall of her.”

“So,” Florin muttered, “how do you reckon that litter is gonna turn out?”

~

Entering the Princess Posse Stronghold.

This Edifice is at 80% Strength.

The stronghold itself was strangely empty of people and workers. A few dots were scattered about, but not many. It was built like a medieval castle with long hallways dotted with murder holes along the sides, all leading to the central chamber, the throne room, which had to be a specific size. The room could have a locking door, and the entrance to it could be trapped, but the room itself wasn’t allowed to have any defensive features or traps within. Though it could be occupied by guards.

The walls of the castle were hastily built and mortared, though they felt solid, despite the shoddy appearance of the exterior door. Most of the interior hallways were regular-sized, but the outer ring was three stories tall, built to house Tina and some of the larger tattoo-turned-flesh golems. The rocks glowed with enchantment. I put my hand upon the rough rock, and an info box popped up.

Yeah, this is a rock. It’s part of an interior rock wall. What did you think it was?

8/12 Enchantments active. Increase quality to increase enchantment capacity.

Enter the Flag room to see the full list of active enchantments.

“Welcome back, warlords,” a new voice said. We stepped to the side as two NPCs rushed by, hauling what looked like bags of mortar. They were in the body of bugbears, but I knew they were some of my changelings. They rushed by without another word. Both were covered in sweat, working hard.

There was another dot ahead. This was an Elite. He had the pink glow around his name, indicating him as a soldier. He was in the next room over, an antechamber that led to the flag room. I hovered over the dot, and the system labeled him:

Elite Herman the Fleet. Ogre Strongman. Level 60.

Legionnaire.

Princess Posse.

Herman was the third of the three ogre strongmen from Grimaldi’s circus. We’d met his brother, Areson during the sixth floor, and he should still be around here somewhere. Apollon, their other brother, had been left behind on the third floor. All three had once been part of a three-headed ogre called a nodling who’d died and split long ago. That same creature, the nodling, had been turned into a tattoo, who’d since been given flesh and should also be around here, too, which was really weird. That strangeness—basically two of the same creature—reminded me of the Alpha Carl card from the previous floor. That had to be confusing for everybody involved. It certainly messed with your held. I was glad we’d left the Alpha Carl card on the previous floor.

The elite was the only other dot I could see. I knew the adjutant was waiting in the flag room, but apparently we couldn’t see inside.

“Where are the rest of the golems and changelings?” I asked.

“They’re all working on defenses at the borders,” Tipid said.

I paused, looking into the room that would be the throne room. It was just a square, empty room, about twenty by twenty feet, reminding me of a stairwell chamber. There was no actual throne. Not yet. I looked at the white, clean stones. I swallowed.

I continued to stand there and pretend like I was examining the room.

Carl: Okay, what about the stuff we can’t talk about out loud? Tell me about the scouting system.

This was something I’d specifically asked Florin and Elle to figure out, and we’d agreed ahead of time all of these discussions would be over chat in case the walls still had ears.

Florin: Elle is off toward the naga side. The beaver guys... the castors or whatever they’re called. They’re with that talking turtle guy and the shark guy, scouting enemy positions and fortifications on the other border. Haven’t heard back either way.

Carl: Have you figured out how the peacetime incursions work?

Florin: Yes. Only those with the Scout endorsement, and only in stealth mode can go over the borders without a pass. If they get discovered, they’re immediately teleported back to base during the ceasefire and can’t go stealth again until the fighting starts. If they hit a trap, it’ll still go off and kill ‘em. We only get 18 Scouts. That’s what those towers are for, by the way. We need full coverage. Build a tower and man it with a group of four or five folks with proper observation and Ping spells, and we can keep the enemy scouts away. Already teleported out a Dream scout and one of those octopus-faced fucks from the Prism.

Donut let out an angry, little hiss at the mention of the Prism kingdom. She was still mad at Empress D’Nadia for trying to get us deleted.

Florin: I’ll bet my left sack we already got an infestation of enemy eyes. That’s why we gotta get them towers up. You know that one crawler with the pet swarm of lady bugs? I sent for him, too. He’s a brilliant hunter. We need to do a full sweep, and do it fast.

Carl: We need to start spamming traps, too.

Florin: Already on it, but the big trap guy, the eagle guy with one wing, has gone subterranean already. He should be done there in a few hours. He wants access to your trap table. Says he can prevent Tripper spells.

We moved to the antechamber in front of the flag room. It was just a big room with an even bigger desk. Behind the desk, leaned over a pile of papers was the ogre, Herman the Fleet. The ogre was completely decked out in magical gear, glowing more than I’d ever seen.

The ogre looked very much like his brother, Areson the Wise, except much thinner, like he’d stopped his weight training, giving him half the bulk of his two brothers. He also wore glasses, which was just bizarre. I wondered if that was the dungeon’s way of telling me he wouldn’t be as stupid as his brothers.

The ogre appeared to be writhing in pain, which stopped all of us. He had both hands on the edge of the desk, and veins bulged from his arms. Despite not being as buff as his brothers, the desk snapped in half. The ogre lifted his head into the air and cried out.

“What’s happening?” Donut asked. “What’s going on?”

“Carl,” the ogre said through gritted teeth. He jumped up, and the chair went flying. “Been waiting. Brother says you good.” He swallowed hard. “Supposed to do it already. Been fighting it. Tell brother... tell sorry.” He cried again.

Dozens of little info boxes all popped up around the ogre all at once.

...And that was when I realized he wasn’t wearing magical gear at all. He was covered in explosive satchels, all hidden underneath his clothes.

A suicide bomber.

Watch out, Carl. Watch out.

Multiple things happened at once.

“Bomb!” I cried as Donut fired a Magic Missile right at the ogre’s face.

To my left, Tipid turned into a puff of smoke, and to my right, Florin hit the ground, a shield forming around him.

At the same moment, the door to the flag room opened, an armored orc stepped out, and she slammed a massive, cruel-looking battle-axe into the head of the struggling ogre. The elite slumped over, dead.

She’d been so casual about it, you’d think she’d just opened the door to grab

We just stared at each other. All of the explosive satchels on the ogre started to move into destabilization.

“Shit,” I muttered, jumping forward. I took the entire ogre into my inventory. I looked up at the orc who continued to stare back down at me without emotion.

Baroness Victory.

Adjutant for The Princess Posse.

This is a “non-combatant” observer.

My eyes focused on the “non-combatant” part of her name, which now had quotes around it. The AI had done that.

“Not that I’m complaining, but...” I finally said, my voice shaking. Holy shit, that had been close. Florin stood back up and Tipid reformed. All of us were rattled. “Were you allowed to do that?”

“That wasn’t a legal attack,” the orc said, sliding her axe back into her waistband. “That was an unlawful assassination attempt by Sensation Entertainment, and I decided to call foul. I will be filing a grievance against the Dream, who now own the entertainment company. They were exerting undue influence on one of their elites to affect Faction Wars. Princess Donut, that was an admirable shot, and it may have saved you all. I will file for you to get credit for the kill.”

The orc paused, looking up at the ceiling. “No,” she suddenly said out loud, angrily pointing at the ceiling. “Absolutely not. That was clearly a foul by the corporate interests who purchased Sensation, and if you don’t like it, you should re-read your own rules. In addition, you are out of line by not warning me he was hoarding explosives.”

She paused again.

“I accept your apology,” she finally said. And without another word, she turned and returned to the flag room, leaving the door open for us to follow.

“Uh, Carl,” Donut asked. “Was she talking to the AI just now?”

“I don’t know if I should be terrified or in love,” Florin added as we walked into the flag room.

~~~~

Hey there everybody!

So, we’re almost done with the top heavy exposition. I’ll probably carve a lot of it out during the first editing pass of the final manuscript as some of it might be unnecessary. It’s always bad when the first real fight is 45K words into the story, but the nature of how this is set up is a unique challenge in pacing. It’s set up like a war movie almost, with the first hour boot camp, and then suddenly it’s on. And when it’s on, it stays on.

Sorry for the slow chapter releases, but I had a crazy few weeks. I’m now back from DragonCon and ProgPower,  both of which were amazing. Thank you all who came out to say hello and hang out with me at the aquarium party. That whole weekend was a crazy whirlwind.

Also, thank you to everybody who bought the audiobook and helped us get that #1 spot IN THE WORLD for an amazing five-ish hours while Meryl Streep languished in a sucks-to-be-you second place.

Also, if you haven’t checked it out yet, Soundbooth Theater is doing an audiodrama of the first book, and the first episode is available for free over at soundbooththeater.com

I only have one “official” event left this year, and that’s a book signing this Saturday at 1 pm at We Be Book’n in Monroe, Washington. I will also be at the 20 Books conference in Vegas, but that’s a writing conference. If there’s a local interest I might have a small get together the Sunday before the Con in Vegas. Nothing fancy, but maybe dinner at a restaurant on the strip.

Question!

So, every year, DragonCon has the Page to Stage contest. It's a cosplay contest where one of the categories is professional cosplayers design and wear costumes from a book. I applied last year, but didn't get in. I talked to the person who runs the contest, and it turns out they want difficult, challenging cosplay. I had submitted "Carl" and that's not good enough. I have been HEAVILY encouraged to submit again. It has to be difficult to cosplay, but not TOO difficult, and it has to be cool. It can be any character. If we get accepted, we will be an option, so it has to be something that will attract a cosplayer, too. What do you link? I'm leaning toward Lucia Mar. Or Imani. What do you think?   

As always, thanks so much for your support. Special edition Kickstarter coming October 10th-ish. Solid details soon.