Book Seven, Chapter 15 + Kickstarter update (Patreon)

Chapter 15

Time Until the Ceasefire Ends: 33 hours.

“I never thought I’d see one of these again,” I muttered as we hunched over in the woods. A loud, whining noise reverberated through the forest. A group of trees and vines crunched and cracked as they were pushed down and shattered by the distant, rolling ball of wailing mobs. The sound was like that of a screaming bulldozer bullying its way through the forest.

“It’s different,” Chris said. “It’s slower. It’s still fast, but it’s slower.”

“A lot slower,” Donut agreed. “And it smells worse, if such a thing is possible.”

I looked down toward Chris’s voice. I couldn’t actually see the lava rock crawler, who’d blended himself with the ground and was directly below our feet. I felt strange about standing directly atop him, but he insisted it didn’t bother him.

A group of distant birds launched into the sky as the ball rolled by, shrieking their displeasure. Donut was right about the smell. It was an awful, if not familiar, stench.

It was me, Donut, Chris, Kamal the hammerhead shark, and three of the newcomers. The newcomers were two former crawlers and a veteran of Land War, which was a different game entirely that had been inflicted on his home planet. Everyone still called them crawlers. The Land War guy’s name was Bodi, and he was a tall, tan-skinned human. He was a Level 60 Big Game Spear Hunter. He’d said maybe three words since I’d met him, making Chris seem downright chatty.

He did, indeed, carry a spear. Something from the pile. A long, efficient looking metal stick with a no-nonsense point at the end. It had both a piercing and a boomerang enhancement, meaning it’d fly back to the tall warrior’s hand once tossed. I didn’t know anything about him or his history, but based on the way the others looked at him, I knew this guy was someone famous.

The other two crawlers were both male “elves,” but they were a type of elf I’d never seen. Both had white, pigment-free skin and sharp teeth, giving them a nightmarish appearance, more goblin than anything. Like they were Dream elves who’d evolved underground.

They’d exited the dungeon as tenners—those who tapped out at the start of the tenth floor—a season or two before Rosetta’s. They otherwise acted fairly human-like. I was starting to come to the uncomfortable realization this was pretty normal for the people of the Syndicate. That the general citizenry of the galaxy as a whole were all similar to us in so many ways, despite their vastly different anatomies and cultures and environments. I didn’t know what that meant, but the knowledge made me feel strangely unsettled. It was the same feeling I had during the Iron Tangle when I just knew I was missing something, something important.

Anyway, the names of the two elves were Rhys and Theo. Neither looked older than 20 years old, and unlike Chris or Bodi, these two wouldn’t shut the hell up. Rhys was a Level 60 Eviscerator and Theo was a Level 60 Plumbing Specialist, which was a healer class, but you wouldn’t know it based on the large saber he carried. Rhys had a collection of throwing knives. They reminded me a bit of Louis and Firas from when we first met them. But instead of wanting to stay away from the fight, they were both eager to get in on the action.

The two elves had gotten ridiculously obnoxious tattoos on their necks the night before. The tats were of a large, flaming skull that was some sort of human/cat hybrid thing that looked like it was straight from a 1980’s skateboard deck. Surrounding the skull in large letters in Syndicate Standard read the words “Princess Posse or Death.” It had their hastily-formed battalion name—the 103rd Recon Legionnaires—added to the bottom. And below that was the name of their squad, The Tenner Wraiths.

Donut was absolutely scandalized by the gaudy tattoos. Especially when Rhys told her that half the former crawlers were getting ink of their own unit emblems, though most were getting them in less obvious places than their necks.

“The units aren’t finalized yet!” Donut said to the two, grinning and gap-toothed elves as she scrutinized their necks. “And what is that supposed to be? A mouse? You know there aren’t bones in ears, right? Skulls shouldn’t have ears.”

“It’s a cat. And a human. You know, combined,” Rhys said.

Donut scoffed. “You mean like a cat girl? You know how I feel about cat girls, Rhys.”

“No. Not like that. It signifies all of us coming together. Meeps drew it. After he got out, he’s been surviving as a street artist in Alpert.”

“I don’t care if it was drawn by Blake Lively herself. It’s on your necks, and it’s huge. What if you get transferred?”

“We got more skin,” Theo said.

“Fuck yeah we do,” Rhys added. “If you do transfer us, I want to go to the 105th Scream Warriors. Have you seen their logo? As long as I’m tearing apart some of those mechanical Reaver fucks or disemboweling one of them snobby prick elves, I’m happy.” He slapped himself on the bare, right side of his neck. “Right here, warlord. I’ll wear it proudly, no matter where you put me. And if you transfer me a third time, I’ll get a third one in the front.”

Donut looked at me incredulously. “Was this how it was when you first joined the Coast Guard?”

“Uh, sort of,” I said.

I had to remind myself that these two guys were literally thousands of years old. They certainly didn’t act like it. They reminded me of a pair of 18-year-olds who’d just joined the marines.

We were at the very edge of the map, hunting down one of the mob incursions into our territory. There were a few dozen of these groups of mobs, and we’d spread out the hunting responsibilities to different squads. The newcomers needed the experience the most, but the active crawlers needed to grind, too, so all the groups were mixed. All volunteers.

The ball of mobs lurched by again, this time knocking over a tree about 50 feet away. The shriek of animals and monsters within groaned and hissed. It was much more tightly packed than the last one we’d seen. The thing was spinning in wide circles, like a car without a driver, scribbling ovals through the forest. It’d apparently been doing this for some time, as evidenced by the long, circular path of destruction behind it.

We were in the “new” area that got tacked on when the AI made the playing field larger. Based on the reports from the others, the mobs in here could be pretty much anything. There was no rhyme or reason or quests, kind of like the first floor. The AI was recycling mobs from all the previous floors, only changing them up a bit and strengthening them to be level appropriate. Imani’s team had clashed with something called Chilly Goats, which had been mobs from the very first floor. Jurgen was leading a group not too far away, and they just fought danger dingo-riding kobolds, like from the second. This thing we faced now was clearly a riff on the Ball of Swine boss we’d also fought on the first floor, though the name had changed:

Rolling Battle Formation Ball. Level 70.

You don’t want to get in this thing’s way. It would really stink.

I hope you have some hydrogen peroxide, soap, and baking soda ready.

It wasn’t listed as a boss at all, which was strange since the last one, which had been about ¾’s the size of this one, had been a borough boss.

“It’s a lot different,” Donut agreed again. “It’s bigger than the ball of swine. And it’s not filled with creepy, Fifty Shades of Grey orcs. At least I don’t think it is. What are those things? They sound and smell revolting. Are they dead? They smell dead. If they’re undead, we picked the wrong kind of mob to fight. Because, you know.” She gave Rend a pointed glance, who was sitting on Mongo’s head, jumping up and down with excitement.

One of the little meatball’s weaknesses was eating undead flesh.

“I know that smell,” I said. “I’m pretty sure it’s not undead, but you’re right. We need to make certain.”

Donut scrunched up her face. “Either way we need to hurry this up. Katia is starting her rehab treatment in a bit, and I don’t want to miss it.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “Imani’s team found that saferoom entrance buried about a mile and a half from here. While Katia is under, I gotta do a thing, too, so I’ll make sure we’re back in time. Okay, next time it circles by...”

I was interrupted by a thrashing from behind us, followed by a pop and a mechanical whir. The scent of broken machinery and fire filled our hiding spot.

“Oh, goodness,” came the voice from behind. “Oh my goodness. It appears Kamal has made another blunder. Mister Carl, I do fear I require assistance.”

“Goddamnit, Kamal,” I said, turning to see the giant hammerhead shark flopping on the forest floor. He was surrounded by a pile of shattered and steaming automaton parts. “You broke it again?”

“Mr. Carl. I must give you an apology,” the hammerhead shark said. “I just did a little hop, and then the metal pieces did break again. Kamal has so many sorries to give, and Kamal is giving you all of them.”

I moved to start picking up the pieces of broken legs all around the tattoo-turned flesh. That was the third one of these I’d hastily built for the overweight shark. It was similar to the new conveyance Katia had built for Tran, but much bigger. It was basically eight, double-jointed legs and a harness for the 17-foot-long sea creature, who had the anatomy of a regular, if not oversized, hammerhead shark, only he now breathed air. He could no longer breathe water, despite having gills. Up until now, the huge thing was literally flopping around like one of those zombie fish from the last floor. When he was one of Signet’s paper tattoos, he’d been able to fly. Now he just flopped. He was, apparently, pretty good at it, but he couldn’t move fast nor could he be subtle. I’d hastily built him a voice-controlled automaton harness so he could move quickly and quietly. It made him look like some horrifying spider hybrid, but it gave him much more control.

The whole thing was supposed to be a prototype. I could make something that was more rugged, but Katia could do it better. We wanted to first make sure the design worked.

My model required Kamal to call out to the legs and tell them where he wanted to go. When Katia was ready, her version would be able to read Kamal’s thoughts and act accordingly.

Meanwhile, the prototype legs held Kamal’s massive weight just fine. Except when he told the legs to hop, which he kept doing for some inexplicable reason. The magically-enhanced joints could handle jumping him into the air fine, but they just couldn’t handle the landing more than once or twice. Three times now, we built the thing, and it worked great... up until Kamal instructed the legs to jump into the air.

“I told you not to hop at all. Now you’re going to have to wait for Katia. I don’t have any more of the extra-large leg joints, and she’s going to be out of commission for several hours.”

The shark waved his head back and forth in misery. “I have a great amount of shame and regret. Still, Mr. Carl. I don’t see why Kamal shouldn’t be able to hop. It is something Kamal always wished to do.”

“Stop Elmo-ing, Kamal,” Donut snapped. “We’ve talked about this. I have very few pet peeves, but this is one of them. I simply can’t handle someone who refers to themself in third person. It’s upsetting to me, and it confuses Mongo.”

Mongo made a confused peep.

Rhys and Theo both grunted with amusement. Bodi just looked at the shark impassively.

“I have found more apologies, and now they are yours, Miss Donut. It is my yearning that makes me forget myself, you see. I tell you, jumping is what Kamal... I mean it is what I wish to do.”

“Yes, Kamal,” I said. “We are all aware you want to jump.”

“Oh, I do. I very much yearn for it, Mister Carl. Did you know I used to be an apex predator? And after that, I was a terror who could fly? Do you know how many clowns I have consumed? How many lemurs? Now I can’t even do a little hop? It’s a great yearning Kamal has. I have, I mean. I do wish to feel the wind in my gills. I wish to hop across the battlefield. Oh, what a wish. What a wish I have.”

“My wish is for you to be quiet and to be patient,” I said through gritted teeth. “We don’t have time for this. Just stay here. We’re going to break the ball apart and fight the pieces individually. If any come this way, feel free to chomp, but don’t eat all of them. We know you’re a great fighter, but you’re already level 72, and we’re trying to level all the newcomers up a bit.”

Behind us, the rolling ball of screaming death made another pass through the underbrush, this time closer.

“It does smell really bad,” Theo said.

“Like a waystation restroom in a Soother system during the sweet pepper festival,” Rhys added.

“Kamal’s sense of smell was once greatly enhanced, but that sense of smell is not working at all anymore. Not even one little bit. It is quite thoroughly gone. Just like his ability to hop.”

“Kamal,” Donut hissed.

I grabbed Rend and cradled him in my left arm as I pulled the impact hob-lobber and prepared my xistera. The little meatball was quivering with excitement. “Everyone shush. I’m going to nail it the next pass.”

Mordecai and Theo both insisted this would work. These things were basically splitters, and just like the Ball of Swine on the first floor, the individual pieces were immune from all damage while they were in ball form. Once the ball itself sustained enough damage, it would break apart. The individuals inside would be dazed for a few moments, so we had to act quickly.

Ahead, the circling ball of mobs crushed through more trees. The thing was like twenty feet tall.

“Okay, buddy,” I said down to Rend. “Do you remember what I said? I’m going to hold onto you, but when I tell you to bite, you chomp.”

Rend grunted and snapped his mouth a few times. His little teeth clicked loudly.

“Good job.” I circled, and I launched the hob-lobber directly at the rolling ball.

Bam!

The explosive hit the battle formation dead center. The explosion came, echoing loudly in the woods, but the ball didn’t break apart like expected. A health bar appeared, just halfway down, as the stinking, rolling ball turned at a right angle and started barreling directly toward us. The furry, black and white ball sped up. A chorus of high-pitched, angry screams rose in volume.

“Well, that wasn’t supposed to happen,” Theo said.

“Oh, fuck,” I said as I quickly pulled a second hob-lobber and tossed it. “Head’s up!”

Splatch!

This one did the job. We all ducked as the ball exploded outward, causing dozens of small, waist-high mobs to rain through the forest. Most kept their forward momentum and blasted toward us like they’d been shot from a shotgun. They rained around us and over us. They crashed into trees and crunched into the ground, hitting and spinning and screeching.

One slammed into a tree right next to me, crunched loudly, and toppled over, dead. His fuzzy head was bent at a sickening angle. Another whiffed by and slammed into Rhys, who swore loudly as they tumbled away. Another splotched into Kamal, who yelped and started flopping in circles. Mongo screeched and jumped into a tree.

One of the creatures landed directly at my feet, hitting the ground like a meteor. His legs were broken, and his body steamed. He wasn’t dead, but he was dazed and would be for several seconds. He only had a sliver of life left.

I quickly examined him. He wasn’t undead. Like I expected, he was a skunk.

Sort of.

This version was a bipedal creature, about two feet tall, furry and black with the typical long, white stripe down its back. It wore some rudimentary, cobbled-together armor, including a stick with a crude, black spike at the end. This was clearly supposed to be some sort of monster from the first or second floor, but buffed up.

Skank Skunk Warrior. Level 45.

You ever see those Pepé Le Pew cartoons? You know, the ones where they taught kids that rape was funny, especially when it was French people doing it to cats? These guys are like that, but instead of being extra horny, they just want to kill you.

Skank Skunks, if left to their own desires, have a generally peaceful attitude. At least at the individual level. But unfortunately for them, their leadership feels differently and uses a variety of spells and tricks to keep them in line.

These guys have a really gross, aerosol-based attack. You’ve been warned.

Everything that happened next took less than a full minute, but it seemed to take much, much longer.

“Go!” I cried as I retracted my scoop. I moved Rend into my left hand and thrust him toward the dazed creature.

“Chomp, Rend! Chomp!”

Nunghh! Nunghh!

Rend’s little mouth chattered up and down as he gnawed on the furry neck of the dying creature.

It was like I was holding the business end of a food processor in my hand. Blood sprayed from the point of contact as Rend gurgled with glee. He pushed through the neck of the poor skunk.

There were about three dozen of the mobs. Mongo squealed as he pounced from the tree, tearing into them. From my left, a spear shot through the air and skewered two at once. The spear spun back, cutting through a third skunk as it returned to Bodi, who’d somehow also climbed a tree.

Donut screeched and fired a pair of Magic Missiles before casting her newly-enhanced, level-15 Bad Attitude on the group. The effect wouldn’t be immediately obvious with them dazed.

With that first kill, Rend had already grown from meatball sized to softball, and I could barely hold him in one hand. I kicked another dazed skunk, smushed down on its chest with my foot, holding it down as I jabbed Rend at its terrified face.

An unholy gurgling noise rose from the pet as he bit the thing’s nose off like it was made of cake. The giggling pet dropped from my hand and took a few more bites before hopping up on his own and running toward another skunk and launched himself at his leg. The monster toppled over, and Rend—now the size of a bowling ball—was on him, his high-pitched giggles already turning deeper, sounding almost like a clogged drain sucking for air.

To my right, three skunks were pulled into the ground as Chris dragged them under.

But now the remaining skunks were finally waking up, one by one. Donut’s Bad Attitude was taking hold, and instead of fighting back, they all turned to flee, all of them screeching with terror, abandoning their spears.

“Carl,” Donut called, sounding excited, pointing at a still-dazed skunk sitting in the middle of the carnage as his brethren panicked all around him. This mob looked just like all the others, except he was maybe a little smaller. He wore a blue, conical wizard hat with a glittering star and planet pattern on it. Little sparkles tinkled off the top of the hat.

Fancy Boy. Level 55 Skank Skunk Battle Wizard.

This is a special skunk with a very special set of skills. He knows the skills are special because his mom told him so. Don’t you dare tell him otherwise.

Even though he’s a higher level than the average warrior, he’s actually a lot weaker. Still, he has a lot of spells designed to get the warriors to do what he wants, and he controls his fellow warriors with an iron claw.

Funny how that works, isn’t it? In books and movies, the leader of a gang is almost always the physically strongest one, but in reality, oftentimes, it’s the opposite. The leaders tend to be the richest, or they lead simply because of tradition. They tend to keep their power by engineering a situation where things would get temporarily worse if they were gone. It takes a certain amount of desperation before people finally stop caring about their immediate futures and start to look at the long term.

Killing him may cause unpredictable results.

“Nobody touch him! He’s mine!” Donut shouted. She hit the creature with a magic missile, knocking the wizard skunk over onto his back, not quite dead, but certainly unconscious. His little hat went flying.

She moved to cast again, but she never got the chance. She never got the chance because that was when it happened.

And when it happened, it all happened at once.

It was worse than I expected.

Up until this moment, while the skunks all stank like a truckload of rotten fruit left to ferment in a barrel of hot horse piss, none of them, not even the dead ones, had yet activated their most dreaded skill.

Pssst. Pssst. Pssst. It sounded like a few dozen showerheads all turned on at once. Just for a second.

Oh fuck. Oh shit.

The battle wizard skunk guy must have been controlling the others, somehow keeping the attack in reserve. The instant he was knocked out by Donut, all their restrictions against using the attack were suddenly lifted. The panicked, trying-escape skunk creatures all let loose at once.

A green-tinged, aerosol mist filled the air, filling the area like the explosion of a smoke grenade, rising and billowing and growing like the mist itself was a mob.

I had multiple protections against poisons and cloud-based attacks, but I wasn’t certain if any of that would protect me against a skunk’s spray attack.

I didn’t want to find out. A mere blink before the cloud hit me, I activated Gloom Wraith Phase, which caused me to go incorporeal and rush forward.

I launched forward, like I was shot from a ballista, rushing through a group of four skunks, all with their backs to me.

The act of me passing through their bodies unraveled them, turning their flesh and fur into rivulets of blood and guts and skin. Their armor was unaffected, and their weapons and breast plates clanked to the forest floor, literally wrapped in ribbons of flesh and fur. The sensation was like that of running through a sprinkler set to a very fine mist. A handful of new achievement notifications flashed.

I’d seen this sort of attack before. The rage elemental had done this to Yolanda. That quick realization sent a pang of revulsion through me.

I could keep myself noncorporeal only for five seconds. My head spun, but I had to react quickly. I activated Walk on Air and rushed upward, like I was running up a set of stairs, reaching a branch just above the rising cloud. Both skills ended, and I landed upon a branch, which bobbed.

I settled near Bodi, who stood on an even higher branch in the same tree. I didn’t see how he’d gotten up there. He grunted with amusement and tossed his spear again into the mist. It appeared as if all the fleeing skunks were frozen again, but I wasn’t certain why.

Mongo had also leapt into a neighboring tree, but he’d clearly gotten sprayed. He had a Skanked debuff blinking over his head, and he let out a miserable hack and started to loudly vomit down into the mist.

“Carl, help! Help!” Donut squealed from below. I couldn’t see her.

As I prepared to jump down there to grab her, she suddenly appeared near Mongo with a flash. She’d puddle jumped, also into the tree. Right onto the same branch as the still-puking dinosaur. The whole thing wobbled ominously.

“Oh, god,” I said, trying to keep my gorge down. The smell from Donut and Mongo was horrific, almost unbearable, and they were ten feet away.

Chris: I am buried. Tell me when it’s safe to come up. I can smell it even down here.

Rhys, Theo, Kamal, and Rend were all still down there somewhere, and I could hear the sound of the two elves violently vomiting. The trees cracked and shook, and Kamal emerged from the mist, far to my left, rolling on the ground and shaking, like he was having a seizure. He was in the midst of a feeding frenzy. His berserker state. He had the Fancy Boy skunk in his mouth, and he crunched loudly onto him. The shark made a little whoop, did a barrel roll, and then flopped back into the mist, which was starting to dissipate.

“I disabled the mobs,” Bodi said from the branch above me. “There will be suffering from our allies, but they will survive. We wait.”

That was, by far, the most words I’d heard from him.

I could now see the two elves on their hands and knees, vomiting as they tried to crawl away. They both had the Skanked debuff over their heads, but their health wasn’t going down. It appeared the attack made it so they stank and lost control of their stomachs. Not deadly on its own, but awful.

I could also see a beachball-sized Rend, rolling in circles, Samantha style, cackling like a psychopath. He was moving from skunk to skunk, taking a single bite out of each one’s neck before moving on. The skunks all appeared to be paralyzed. Cone-shaped sprays of blood littered the forest floor. As I watched, Rend tentatively approached an already-dead skunk and tried to eat him whole, like a snake eating prey too big for it. He gave up after a moment and just chomped him in half.

“Carl,” Donut called from her branch as she gagged. “This is absolutely not acceptable. I don’t have anything in my inventory that says it gets rid of this debuff for...”

Crack!

She didn’t finish as she and Mongo plummeted back to the forest floor.

“Much suffering from our allies,” Bodi said.

~

“Sometimes Kamal is very much happy he can no longer smell. I suspect it’s quite unpleasant. Quite unpleasant indeed. I have never in my life seen so much vomiting.”

I laughed but immediately regretted it as I took in a deep breath of the terrible stench. I’d already lost my lunch a few times and didn’t want to do it again. Some scents you got used to after a little bit. This wasn’t one of them.

Donut looked as if she was about to throttle the shark as we rushed through the woods. Instead, she turned her ire toward me. “I don’t know what’s so funny. Three hours, Carl! This is ridiculous.” She panted as she talked. She was absolutely miserable, but Mordecai said he had a potion that would help. It wouldn’t stop the reek, but it would blunt her ability to smell and taste.

I tried to move downwind of her and the others. We’d caged Mongo because he kept whimpering. I pushed away the separate chats from Florin, Imani, Elle, and Britney as I was too distracted to pay attention. Only Donut, Rhys, Theo, and Kamal had the debuff, though the shark wasn’t actually affected since he couldn’t smell. For whatever reason, it hadn’t taken hold on Rend at all. Chris had managed to avoid it as well. The debuff had finally gotten Rhys and Theo to shut up, and they marched sullenly behind us, their heads low as Kamal rolled toward them, looking for someone else to talk with.

The Skanked debuff caused them to temporarily stink, lowered their Charisma by 70%, and that was pretty much it. The vomiting was an unfortunate side effect. And worst of all, there was nothing one could do to turn the smell off. It lasted three hours, and that was that.

Donut jumped to my shoulder, oblivious of my discomfort. I gagged, grabbed her, and dropped her to the forest floor. She was so pissed, she barely noticed and continued to rant.

“At least I got that hat, but it just smells something awful. All our other magical gear avoided getting stinky, but the hat is unbearably putrid. We don’t have a laundry machine. Do you think if I run it through my shower, it’ll get the smell out of it? Or maybe I can have the cleaner bot look at it. He likes cleaning that sort of stuff.”

“I doubt it will work,” I said. “If it’s anything like cat pee, it’s pretty permanent, no matter how many times you wash it. We’ll drain it and then toss it. And we should probably give the cleaner bot a break. That thing has been acting really stressed lately.”

“We’re all stressed, Carl, and that’s his job.”

Rend hopped by, cackling as he moved into the bush. He’d gone up to level 8 and remained about the size of a large beachball. Level eight was a decent start because it meant he’d regenerate if he died, but it still wasn’t good enough. We needed to find more mobs for him to train on.

“And why wasn’t that thing affected when my poor Mongo got sick? It’s not fair!”

“He’s pretty resilient,” I said.

“Well, we should have had him collect the sample of the mist for Mordecai. I mean, really. Why do you think he wants some of that stuff anyway?”

“Because he wants us to collect everything.”

Ahead, Bodi appeared on the trail, pointing with his spear, indicating he’d found the path to the safe room. He disappeared again.

“Mongo and I are supposed to be moral support for Katia, and now I can’t do it! You’ll have to be there for her.”

“We need you on the eastern front anyway. With you there, they can get those trenches built much faster. As for Katia, I was already planning on being there,” I said, sighing. I hadn’t told Donut exactly how much of Katia’s rehab I’d be involved in. We were attempting to kill two birds with one stone.

Sure enough, the saferoom entrance appeared on the edge of the map, along with a wide circle of dots. They were workers, who were building a small base around the remote outpost. “Come on. Just don’t get too close to anybody. You don’t want to leave a lasting impression on them.”

Elle: Okay, I’m back in our territory. I’m pretty sure I’ve found all the artillery batteries on both sides, but I can’t be 100 percent. But we got a new problem. They have another nasty surprise ready for us on the naga side. Remember when you said you wanted me to find out why those robot guys wanted pet leveling to be accelerated? Well, I found out.

Carl: Can’t wait. See you soon.

We had to pause for Theo to dry heave some more. The tattoo on his neck pulsated as he gagged.

The two elves didn’t appear nearly as enthusiastic about all this as they had been just an hour earlier.

~~~~

Hey all!

Next chapter is going to be a tough one to get right.

Thanks again for your support. I recently got back from the PowerTrip music fest where I saw Iron Maiden, Guns N Roses, Judas Priest, AC/DC, Tool, and Metallica. It was great fun, but we got home and everyone except me had covid. That, plus poor Toby the pug got sick, and I’ve been playing nurse for the past several days, but thankfully  everyone and everything is on the mend and all will be well.

In a few weeks I will be in Las Vegas for the 20Books conference. The conference is a writers’ conference, but I was thinking of having a small get-together on Sunday, November 5th at a restaurant on the strip if I had enough interest. Anyone here want to hang out with me for a few hours? Post here and I’ll sick Emily on you for your details.

I’m about to send a new batch of patreon rewards for the top tier. That’s a big project that takes several days, and I appreciate your patience.

Finally…. Kickstarter.  Wow. Thank you so very much everyone for your support. As I type this, we’re at 230K. That seems like a lot, and it is, but I deliberately tried to make the books as cheap (for you) as possible while making the books themselves as badass as I can, and as a result, our margins are crazy thin. That said, all these wild stretchgoals are already baked into the budget, and the higher it goes, the larger cushion I have. If something goes awry in fulfillment–and something always goes awry–it’s possible I could take a bath, so the more I have to print, the cheaper everything is so hopefully I get even more backers. The boxer loot box is shaping up to be really, really cool. Plus, it’s cool to see the numbers go brrrrrr.

If you haven’t checked it out yet, the kickstarter is here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dinniman/405340806?ref=5qmotz

Thank you all!