Book 7, Part 2. Chapters 20-21 (Patreon)

Hey everyone. Just spent the last few weeks doing some revamping of the script. Lots and lots of small changes, fixing inconsistencies and tightening up the rules and rearranging some of the chess pieces on the board. I’ll eventually release an epub with the fixes. In the meantime, there’s not much you need to know. Tran was with Britney, but we moved him to be in charge of the Southern front with the Naga.

Also re: the ceasefire timer. I changed several things, adding a few rules that would cause the ceasefire to prematurely end, including one where it would go off early if a team “voluntarily” made an exit. Nobody thought that was possible because the AI was disallowing all exit requests. So the whole thing isn’t so much out of left field. Any other changes should hopefully be obvious.

Part 2 of 4.

The Ramp-Up

Chapter 20

<Note added by Crawler Justice Light, Eighth Edition.>

I think about him all the time. I have killed many NPCs since I arrived in this horror, but I have only killed one out of anger. He did not deserve that, and it haunts me. I keep going over it. It’s the manifestation of how I’ve changed, all boiled down to one, little incident. The old me wouldn’t have done that. Snapped and just killed someone.

The memory is abhorrent to me. I have become what I hate.

At this point, the only thing that calms my nerves is the hope that my trap ideas and plans within this scroll will help someone else. It is all I have.

<Note added by Crawler Drakea, 22nd Edition.>

Justice Light. I do not know if you survived this, and if you did, I doubt you will ever have the chance to see these words. But if you’re out there, I hope you’re watching. Your traps have saved my life more times than I can count. I am working on a big one, based on your seeking flechette design.

Listen to me, brother. We all make mistakes. We sometimes hurt those we haven’t intended to hurt. These are the tides of life, the ebbs and flows, and it is unavoidable. But in this case... it was not your fault. No. They put you here. I remember your passage about how you would hunt and give food to the flightless elders of your world. You were once a good, gentle soul. They turned you into a warrior. They are the engineers of this all.

We both know there’s no going back, so take comfort in the words of our brother Ikicha from the 11th edition. “The burning Yenk needs only to embrace their enemies.”

Don’t shy from what you’ve become. Force them to look upon you. Force them to see what they wrought, what they forged in the fires of their own creation.

Let them know fear.

Time remaining in Phase One: 180 hours.

Current Battle Rules:

·  No Offensive Magic Allowed.

·  No Teleport-based Magic or Skills Allowed.

·  One may only enter enemy territory via a designated Corridor. Free passage once inside. This restriction does not apply to those with the “Scout” endorsement.

9 of 10 Teams Remain:

The Bone Clan in Spot 1

The Operatic Collective in Spot 2

The Princess Posse in Spot 3

The Blood Sultanate in Spot 4

The Prism Kingdom in Spot 5

The Dream in Spot 6

The Madness in Spots 7 and 8

The Reavers in Spot 9

Team Retribution defending Larracos.

Eliminated:

The Lemig Sortion

I stepped from the hospital tent to find the base in chaos. Everyone was running to and fro, like an upset ant colony. A few of the colonels were organizing groups. Most would head north to hold off the largest contingent of enemy forces, gathered on the border with the Operatic Collective. The border was a good ten miles away. A smaller group were headed south to the border with the Naga, an equal distance.

“Hey,” I shouted at a colonel. It was Jurgen, the large barbarian. His battalion had been designated the 105th Scream Warriors. Their logo was a drawing of a screaming girl who looked suspiciously like the mascot for the Wendy’s restaurant chain wearing a Viking helmet with only one horn. “Make sure you leave at least two transports for me.”

“You live!” Jurgen shouted backed, and he flashed a pair of heavy metal-style devil horns before shouting over his shoulder, “Heidi, do you see? Carl lives!” He turned and started shouting more orders, making certain two of the transports were sectioned off for my use.

Dozens of messages poured in through the warlord system. I scanned for one in particular.

Your Throne has been locked in place. The location of all the Throne Rooms are now visible on the map.

Carl: Justice, did you get the throne room prepared before it got locked in place?

Justice Light: It is done.

I breathed in relief. I’d only met with the stoic skyfowl once since they’d gotten here. He was the third, and the last I believed, of the cookbook authors who had come with the mercenaries. He didn’t acknowledge me any more than the others when we first met except for a slight bow, one that lasted a little too long. Long enough that Mordecai had spent a contemplative moment looking back and forth between me and the eagle creature.

Justice Light looked much different than any skyfowl I’d seen before. I knew there were all kinds of these things. He was shorter and stockier than most. His feathers were all black, tinged with gray, and a twin tuft of feathers upon his head gave the impression he had horns, making him look strangely like he was related to Big Tina—who remained in the stronghold for now.

Justice along with several other skyfowl and bune were working together on a special project, something he’d been planning for a long time, and we let him be. Donut had started calling him “Kevin McCallister” when we were talking plans in our chat until Mordecai warned her that his type of SkyFowl didn’t take kindly to nicknames.

His class title was strange. He was an Ungrateful Carny, and I had no idea what the hell that even meant. I knew he wasn’t yet done with his preparations, but at least he got the throne room set. I glanced at the map and zoomed out. Sure enough, all the faction throne rooms were pretty much where Juice Box’s map said they’d be. I focused on the Naga dot, just south of us.

Bam! I ducked as a rock smashed against our shield. For this first part, the projectiles would be ineffective against our defenses. But they were already zeroed in on us. We needed to take out their batteries before the 180 hours were up because when that happened, their rocks would be enchanted with devastating spells.

“Carl, Carl, are you okay?” Donut cried, coming from inside the stronghold, followed closely by three of the cretins—Bomo, Sledge, and Very Sullen—and a smattering of others, including a few of the were-castors, Kamal the shark, a few of the former crawlers, and two strippers. Dong Quixote and Splash Zone. All were members of our new “Personal Guard” and were placed in a platoon, which was similar to a party. That was a setting in the warlord chat, and we got a total of 15 guards just like everyone else, despite there being two warlords. The assigned guards all received a 25% bonus to their constitution as long as they were physically close to one of us. I told Donut that she could choose the platoon herself, which she’d done happily.

Mongo also rushed out with her, jumping up and down and screeching. I had Rend in his pet carrier.

Donut skidded to a stop in front of me. “What did you do? Why did we start early? How did that caterpillar guy die? Goodness, why are you covered in blood?”

“He killed himself,” I said. “The blood isn’t mine. Not most of it. Long story. Where’s Katia?”

Donut hopped and landed heavily on my shoulder. She had her new tiara upon her head, and it glittered brilliantly in the light. She was shaking with excitement.

“She went north already, meeting up with Florin at the front.” She sniffed. “Why do you smell like Ferdinand? Is he here?”

Donut still smelled vaguely like skunk, but I wasn’t about to tell her that. More rocks hit the barrier. Flames burst around the half circle shield that encompassed our base. Thick smoke started to billow. Poison. The projectile hadn’t been magical, but they’d still figured out how to use chemical warfare against us. We’d anticipated this, and several mages stood by, casting spells to dissipate the clouds.

“I found some of his old cat food in the elf castle.”

I still had dozens of messages coming in by the moment. At the southern front, the troopers were in their trenches, waiting for the enemy push. In the north, they’d already started moving in. Florin was there and was directing the defense. I filtered the messages out unless they were specifically targeted at me. I went over them as I pulled out the Royal Chariot. I eyed the two wheeled transports that Jurgen had set aside. They were flatbeds designed to drive quickly over the plains. No weapons or protections at all. If we added too much “stuff” to the vehicles, the warlord system counted them as war machines, or “Armor,” which was really frustrating because we could only build or buy 10 such vehicles. We could have more, but we’d have to steal them from the enemy. As of this moment, we had all ten spots already taken. One from Party Planner, and the rest were Florin’s flame spider tanks, which were wholly defensive machines. We had five on the northern front and four in the south.

Louis: We’re on our way. Uh, Samantha sneaked her way onto the Party Planner, too. She’s not a designated scout. What should I do?

Carl: Goddamnit, Samantha. You were supposed to stay put.

Samantha: I AM DOING MY PART IN THE WAR, CARL. WE’LL BE BACK AS SOON AS WE BLOW SOME STUFF UP, RIGHT GENERAL LOUIS?

Carl: Samantha, we only have a limited amount of scout spaces, and they’re all used up. You can’t be on the airplane. It will literally tear a Samantha-sized hole in the plane when you hit the border. It would hurt Louis and everybody else on board. You’ll crash.

Samantha: THAT’S OKAY. LOUIS AND I WILL CRASH TOGETHER AND HE WILL PARACHUTE DOWN INTO THE WOODS WITH ME WHERE WE CAN BUILD A LOG CABIN, AND HE CAN GROW A BEARD. ONE THAT’S ALL SCRAGGLY AND KINDA ITCHY BUT IT ALSO SMELLS LIKE A CAMPFIRE. I’M SORRY IF THAT MAKES YOU JEALOUS, CARL.

Louis: What?

Carl: Louis, you gotta dump her out the bomb bay. Samantha, you can roll back to base.

Samantha: NO, WAIT. LOUIS CAN JUST COME BACK. IT’S A SUICIDE MISSION, AND I LIKE LOUIS. I LIKE HIM MORE THAN CHARLIE. I DON’T WANT HIM TO DIE YET.

I took a breath. Louis’s mission was dangerous, and Samantha wasn’t as stupid as she was pretending. She’d sneaked aboard on purpose in order to “save” him. That wasn’t good.

Carl: Louis. Out the bomb bay.

Louis: I’m on it.

I moved to the chat with Elle.

Elle: Holy cannoli, guys. These bald elf pricks have all sorts of hardware out here. They have the giant artillery trebuchets, but they also have a ton of smaller ones. Why are they allowed to have so many of these things when we can’t? The soldiers and their mercenaries are all mounted on zebra-looking things, too, like they’re going to retreat or charge at any minute. I think the rocks they’re throwing are cover for something else.

Carl: Tipid. We need the fake Party Planner to take off and then get your man to clear the skies.

Tipid: On it.

Carl: Elle, we’re on our way in your direction. The southern front. Keep your head down and don’t get caught.

Elle: Doing my best.

We didn’t have a good fast travel option to the southern front yet, so we were gonna have to take our vehicles. It was ten miles over gently rolling plains. By the time we’d reach the southern border, the ground would be mostly flat. The Harley Davidson was a road bike and wasn’t great for this, and I decided to use the chariot for now.

Next to me, Kamal rolled up. We hadn’t yet replaced his harness and spider legs. Katia had been planning on doing it after her treatment. The hammerhead shark flopped around with excitement. I sighed and sent a quick message to Mordecai.

Kamal did another excited hop, causing Dong Quixote and Holger the were-castor to jump out of the way. “Oh yes, this excitement level I have is something else. Miss Katia says she will make Kamal’s new hoppers soon. Mayhaps when Kamal gets back from the fighting? I must admit, it is giving me untold levels of energy.” He did yet another barrel roll, sending rocks flying.

“Dong, Holger, ride with me. Donut, ride Mongo. Everyone else, grab a transport. We have about ten miles to go, and we gotta get there fast.” I patted the large, quivering shark on the head. “Kamal. Sorry, buddy. You’re staying here. Katia is busy, but Rosetta and Mordecai will help you get your new harness. We’re going to strap something onto you, but we don’t have it yet. We’re going to the trenches right now, and they’re not really designed for you. Stay here with the rest of the defenders in case the bad guys get through. Listen to Justice Light. He’s in charge of defending the throne.”

“What?” Kamal asked.

“We need you for the last stand,” Donut said. “I’m quite jealous, honestly. I don’t think anyone other than you can do it.”

The shark just looked at the cat. “Kamal feels as if you’re trying to reverse psychologicalize him. It will not work. Kamal is much too quick-witted for such tricks. I was once one of the most feared warriors of all the seas.”

“Well, I tried,” Donut said as she jumped to Mongo’s back.

The three cretins also grumbled unhappily. They were too heavy for the troop transports, which were basically flatbed trucks. We’d been planning on making some for the larger troops, but it was one of several things that hadn’t happened yet.

“You three. You’re gonna have to walk. Or if you want, you can ask Mordecai and he’ll help you build a transport really fast. But I know materials are in short supply, so it might not happen right now.”

“It’s okay, Sledgie,” Donut added. “We’ll make sure you can fight with us later if you miss it. The stupid rules say I can’t use any teleport spells, either, so I can’t even use Puddle Jumper right now.” The cretin grumbled again. The fourth cretin—Clay-Ton—was currently at the northern front with Chris. The cretin and the lava rock crawler had formed a strange friendship since we’d assigned Clay-Ton to be Chris’s bodyguard on the Hunting Grounds. The two would just sit next to each other and occasionally grunt at one another. And now they were with Florin in the northern trenches.

“Wait, wait, we’re coming! We’re coming!” came a small voice. We all turned to see three kids rushing out to greet us. All were wearing metal skull caps and were dragging training spears from inside the guild. It was Randy and Todd, the orphaned ursine bear cubs, and the speaker was a tiny, dwarf-like creature. Clint.

Once upon a time Clint had been a creature called a Chee, living on the dungeon’s sixth floor. According to the story, Scolopendra’s nine-tier attack had turned his entire kindergarten class into a group of shifters called were-castors, which were really just beavers. They spent the next few hundred years growing up, becoming warriors, fighting against the high elves and the Naiad confederacy. Clint, along with their caretaker, Miss Nadine, had died on the sixth floor. Edgar the tortoise had turned them into tattoos upon Signet. But when they’d turned to tattoos, they’d reverted to their forms from before the nine-tier attack. And when Signet died, both Miss Nadine and Clint had become flesh golems. So now Miss Nadine was a young chee woman, and Clint was a little, kindergarten-aged kid. They’d all come down to this floor with the elf castle.

Holger, one of the other were-castors, had also come down with the elf castle, but he remained an adult. The hairy, mulleted dwarf shifter grunted at the child version of his best friend.

“Clint,” Holger said, coming out of the chariot and going to a knee. “You know you have to stay inside where it’s safe. Miss Nadine is probably looking for all of you.”

“But Miss Nadine is being mean to me,” Clint said. “She says we’re not allowed to play with Tina until we learn to not play rough. She says Randy and Todd should stay away from her because she killed their dad, but she’s different now and Tina’s mom says she’s apologized anyway. And Bonnie and the changelings don’t let us play with them, either. I wanna show Miss Nadine and the changelings we’re tough. We can help you fight the bad guys. That’ll show them.”

“We’ve been practicing,” Randy the ursine said.

“We’re going to bathe in apostate blood,” Todd added, waving his dulled spear. He ended up smacking Kamal with it, who yelped in surprise. “Sorry, Kamal.”

I only half listened to this as I quickly scrolled through more messages. Splash Zone took control of one of the transports and drove it over as the others started piling in. I pulled out the six-pack missile launcher and attempted to affix it to the chariot, but I received an error.

You have used up your allotted Armor options. Vehicle upgrade not allowed.

I cursed. As good as this warlord system was for communication and organization, it really limited us in other aspects.

“You gotta grow up a little more,” Holger was saying, chuckling. “All three of you are still just cubs. You’re gonna get hurt. You, Clint, already died once. You’re not going to get another chance after this.”

“Edgar says I might never grow up because I’m a flesh golem now,” Clint said, stamping his little feet. His skull cap fell cockeyed and hit the ground with a thud.

Holger smiled down at the angry child. “There are worse fates, believe me,” he said. He patted him on the head. “No chance of going bald if you stay young. Now, all of you, help Kamal back to the base. And check on the other golems. And make sure Miss Nadine knows you’re safe. You know how worried she gets.”

“Okay,” Clint said, dejected. “Come on, guys. Come on, Kamal.”

“The gods frown upon your blasphemy,” Todd added before the group of them turned back.

Above, a flickering version of Party Planner rose into the sky, rumbling loudly as it turned north. This was an illusion, a spell cast by one of the mercenaries. The real version was already on its way, hopefully having ejected Samantha into the forest below.

We needed the enemy to see the illusion version of the plane, patrolling the skies at the northern front.

“That bear kid freaks me out,” Holger said, sliding next to me in the chariot.

“We all ready?” I asked, looking across the eclectic group.

Behind me, Dong Quixote slipped into the empty gunner’s seat. He had his “flail” across his lap. He held the crusty nickel sock up and laughed quietly, whispering something about long-term investments and short-term gains.

I answered myself with a sigh. “As ready as we’ll ever be.”

Chapter 21

The Dream’s artillery started pounding our defenses at the southern front just as we arrived. We didn’t have any physical barriers over the trenches, but we did have literally thousands of mages scattered along the front, all with specialization in protection spells. A constant, unending rumble of explosions and smoke filled the area as we approached. The normally sunny plains had taken on an apocalyptic feel.

Both sides had constant fog spells and protection spells going. The list of active protections for our side was literally three pages long. So far, other than the artillery and occasional bursts of sniper fire, there hadn’t yet been a raid on our position that would fully test the defenses.

I knew from Florin that the northern front was another story. They were pushing back wave after wave of mercenaries. So far, the enemy was utilizing their meager supply of unenthusiastic dungeon-born NPCs to test our defenses. It had quickly evolved into a stalemate, a war of non-offensive spells and counter spells.

We had a clear advantage of mages and knowledge, but they had the numbers, and for the next week, they had vastly superior firepower.

Still, despite the quick impasse, I had received reports of casualties on both fronts.

On the southern front, there was someone on the enemy side who’d started spamming a Fill Hole spell from afar that suffocated a group of veterans before we’d enacted countermeasures. An invisible scout—someone from Empress D’Nadia’s Prism—had gotten in behind our position and found one of the escape tunnels and had unleashed a powerful Instant River scroll that had caused a ton of havoc. A few soldiers had leaped out of the trench as the water poured in, and they were immediately picked off by snipers from the enemy side, despite the heavy fog.

That scout, along with a total of six others, had all been captured or killed so far thanks to our efforts. The scout from the Prism had not been a mercenary, but a Saccathian prince of some kind, one of D’Nadia’s actual relatives. Pieces of the saboteur littered the battlefield now, after he stepped upon a simple landmine trap when he attempted to flee.

After that, I sent out orders. If we captured an enemy, and we could keep them alive but unconscious, then we would do so. The NPCs and the mercenaries born outside the dungeon were to be separated. There were spells that could turn the NPCs to our side.

The mercenaries had another purpose.

If any gave us trouble, or if it wasn’t feasible or safe to keep them, then my orders were clear. Kill them. Loot them using the safe-looting protocols. Keep the body. Report it to one’s superior officer, who would pass the information back to base where a group of those who preferred to stay out of the direct fighting were keeping track of the big picture for us.

The corpse would be delivered to Rosetta’s burgeoning necromancer squad.

I blinked at the wide, glittering expanse of traps twinkling through the fog of the no-man’s land between our position and the naga fortifications. Most of our traps remained intact and hidden, thanks to Justice Light’s protection spell. It was something he’d figured out a long time ago but had never grown into practice because it was thought it only worked on alarm traps. Justice along with a few of the other veterans had dozens of tricks up their sleeves—or wings—when it came to safeguarding and hiding traps.

All the enemy traps, as far as I could see, were already gone, though I knew that they would, indeed, have multiple alarm traps that were protected and well hidden.

The No Man’s Land between the two positions was only about 250 meters from trench to trench. The enemy corridor into our territory was only about a kilometer wide. Using some of our literal thousands of Build Trench scrolls collected from the previous floor, we’d created a labyrinthian trench system, filled with traps and soldiers, fortified bunkers, hospitals, fall-back positions, and more. We’d managed, in less than a full day, to build defenses to rival anything that had ever been created in this insipid game.

Still, the artillery fire was never-ending. The rocks landed like hail on our positions. The no-man’s land, which had been a flat, grassy plain, now looked like the remnants of a building collapse.

Or at least that’s what Tran said, from his position in the trench. By the time we arrived, we couldn’t see anything through the rolling fog. Both sides were keeping a constant litany of obfuscation spells and illusions going. Counterspells and counter-counter spells caused the no man’s land to sometimes roil like the sea.

A quick check of the warlord menu told me we still had a good ten-fifteen minutes before the rest of the reinforcements would arrive. The entirety of the 106th Bloody Leeches were coming to shore up the existing defenders. The 102nd Bulwark, who’d built this outpost, consisted mainly of defense-oriented mages and fortification-building engineers. They had a healthy smattering of hand-to-hand experts, but not nearly enough. The 106th consisted of warriors, trap mechanics, and thieves.

Mongo coughed as we cautiously approached one of the trench entrances a few hundred meters back from the front line. Donut shouted angrily up at me, but I couldn’t hear. She moved to chat.

Donut: CARL, THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE. HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO FIGHT IN THESE CONDITIONS? THIS REMINDS ME OF THE DUST STORMS FROM THE BUBBLE LEVEL.

She yelped as a ball of flame went up ahead and to our right. The entire ground shook.

Armor Unit number three, “Spider Tank S4” has been destroyed by enemy fire.

Damnit. Something had broken the shield there, and they’d scored a direct hit on one of our spider tanks. I sent out a quick order, but I saw Tran was already on it. We could only deploy ten of these at a time, but we had almost 50 of them ready to go in pieces. Each one took about five minutes of work to replace.

I jumped from the royal chariot, pulled it into my inventory, and I told the platoon to stay close.

Entering the Princess Posse forward position. This position is currently defended by the 102nd Bulwark Battalion. Battalion is currently at 98% strength.

The first step was to find Tran and help him organize the integration with the 106th, which was currently led by a former crawler I didn’t know named Booster. I sent both Tran and Colonel Booster a message, and I told them to meet me at the planning room, a fortified bunker. Both said they were on their way.

I pushed forward, coughing as black smoke billowed. We reached the forward-most trench, about twelve feet deep with scaffolding at the front so soldiers could easily engage the enemy. A group of black, magical screens dotted the positions. These were all the work of a single mage, a fabricator. They were basically magical periscopes. The same mage was now at the northern front, so if the periscopes broke or were damaged, we’d have to peer over the edge of the trenches the old-fashioned way.

A line of red-tinged mud filled the bottom of the trench, and it smelled of smoke and earth and sweat. Jesus, I thought. It’s just started, too. Donut jumped to my shoulder, complaining about how dirty everything was. I freed Rend, who was now as tall as my knee. He giggled menacingly as he and Mongo splashed in the slop.

Mages and soldiers with spears and bows and crossbows were spread evenly along the lines, all of them already sweating and exhausted from constantly holding back the giant rocks and poison and flames getting spewed in our direction. All were hunched over, peering into the magical periscopes.

That does not look comfortable, I thought. I put in a mental note to have the positioning adjusted. These guys would have to stand like this for hours on end.

The soldiers on the other side all had pulse rifles and tech shields that could stop anything non-magical. If they got through our shields and into these trenches, we were screwed. A week. We had to hold them back for a week. It seemed impossible. But we had a plan. One to hopefully even the odds a little on the southern front.

Carl: Louis. Elle. Update.

Louis: I’m in. Tell me when to go, and I can be there in about ten minutes. Had to block Samantha from the chat again. She’s really mad at me right now.

Elle: A bunch of those robot Reaver guys just pulled up in several trucks and are moving to the enemy trenches. It’s getting hard to see through all this damn smoke.

Carl: Okay. Standby. Should be soon. They probably have something planned, too, and we should go before they blow their wad, but we need to wait for the 106th to get everyone in position. Another ten minutes.

Elle: 10-4 boss.

“Guys, what is that?” someone asked as we moved toward the headquarters. Murmuring rose up and down the line. “Is it another illusion?”

“I don’t think so,” someone else said.

I paused and pulled myself up the scaffolding and peered through one of the free periscopes. They looked like little porthole windows, but I knew they were really just screens. Donut removed her sunglasses and lowered her face to also look, her little nose twitching as she examined the display.

“The resolution on this is just amazing,” Donut said. “It’s much better than that awful, stolen television you had in the living room.”

“It wasn’t stolen,” I said, trying to figure out what I was looking at. I didn’t see anything except smoke. “What are you talking about?”

“You got it from a pawn shop. That means it was stolen. Everybody knows everything you buy from a pawn shop is stolen.”

The soldier to my left, a level-59 human Spearman crawler named Atheer looked up. “They stopped their artillery.”

I was about to respond, but a group of orange dots suddenly appeared on my minimap, moving in fast from the enemy side.

Pets. A lot of them. There had to be 1,000 of them.

“Oh, shit,” I said as shouts started to rise up and down the line. They were big, and they were coming in fast.

They just kept coming and coming. Only some of the traps were designed to go off if they hit pets, and these started detonating one after another, the explosions like muffled fireworks in the fog.

“Carl,” Donut called. “They’re big and round! Do you think they’re tummy achers?”

“They’re moving way too fast for that. And too big.” I knew Rend had the ability to roll across the battlefield, but I had the impression that the skill was only good for short distances.

“Hang on,” an elf mage called from my right. This was one of the veterans. He strained as he cast a spell. A portion of the swirling smoke dissipated, revealing a horde of the creatures. One of them zoomed big, like his spell included a spyglass effect for everyone to see, almost like a boss battle notification.

Dumpling. Juiced Rot Sticker Behemoth. Level 40.

Warning: This Pet is Suffering from the Gurgles.

Warning: This Pet is Suffering from Insanity.

Warning: This Pet is Suffering from Not Just Rabies, but Eat-Your-Face-Off-Rabies.

Warning: This Pet has been fed a Truck Stop Boner Pill.

This is a pet of Cybernetician Yeller of the Reavers.

Do you remember the rot stickers? Little ravioli things? These tiny bastards killed a whole bunch of you squishy humans back on the first and second floor. They run up to you, stick themselves to your body, and bam! One or two ain’t too bad, but they travel in swarms. They knock you down and then blow your head off.

We have all sorts of variations of these things in the dungeon because they’re so fun to use. And they’re terrifying, too, which is always an added bonus.

These little monsters, believe it or not, are actual creatures from some distant, probably-horrifying planet. The exploding ones are all male, and when they detonate, what they’re really doing is spreading their seed into one of the goliath, mammal-like creatures of their home world, who’d been previously implanted subcutaneously with the female eggs during the spring. The explosions rarely kill the mammals. They most certainly kill the rot stickers, though, which is why most of these guys are so small. The males tend to live very short lives.

But did you know the boy versions can be pets, too? They’re actually quite loving and faithful if given the opportunity to grow up. If you capture one before it’s big enough to go kaboom, you can give it medicine to make it lose all desire to spread its seed. They get bigger and bigger and even have a small amount of intelligence. When they get older, they have the same attack as the females, an acid spray, which allows them to hunt and fight alongside you without having to worry about them blowing your kneecap off.

What the Reavers do is grab a bunch of babies and dole them out to their warriors. The warriors rub their tummies, play fetch with them, and help them level up until they reach level 40 or so. The rot stickers grow to love and trust their masters. Then the Reavers lock them in cages, inject them with size-altering steroids, inflict them with a bunch of really nasty, contagious debuffs, and unleash them on enemy positions as biological seeking missiles.

There’s an irony there if you look hard enough.

Oh, and they also stop giving them the medicine that keeps them from blowing up. A level 40 Rot Sticker Behemoth packs the same punch as a stick of goblin dynamite.

“Oh my god, Carl,” Donut cried from my shoulder. “Did you read that? And I thought the orcs were terrible people!”

“Shields!” I cried as I prepared my Protective Shell and activated my tech-based shield. There were about five of the things right in front of our position, rolling in like massive bowling balls. Each one was the size of a goddamned Mini Cooper.

“Don’t let any of them get on you when they explode!” Someone else called. “They have the Gurgles!”

More cries for shields rose up and down the lines as the giant, exploding monsters approached. Arrows and bolts and spears shot out at the oncoming line of explosive monsters, all ineffective.

“Head’s up,” I called as I pulled a stick of full-strength hobgoblin dynamite, and I tossed it over the edge of the trench like a grenade. We all ducked, covering our ears.

The explosion went off, rocking the ground. A few experience notifications flew by, including a new achievement. I turned back to the periscope, and they were still coming, but we’d cleared out the ones immediately in front of us. I prepared a second stick of dynamite.

“I’m feeling very useless all of a sudden, Carl,” Donut cried. “None of my spells work! Wait, Love Vampire works!” A moment later, she scoffed. “It doesn’t work on pets!”

Far to my left, a group of mages cast a spell, and a spine of dirt rose in the air, like a physical wall between us the onrushing attackers. The vertical wall rose ten feet into the air, crackling loudly as it built itself, blocking our view of the oncoming pets.

They hit the earthworks a moment later, some of them going up and shooting up into the air like they were launched from a ramp. The rest crashed to a stop against the barrier. I few here and there detonated.

We all looked up at the scattering of giant ravioli things that had launched themselves into the air. Only a few appeared as if they would land on our side.

One of them, far down the line, exploded in mid-air, showering gore over the trench. The rest crashed back down, disappearing back again behind the wall as thorns as thick as my arm sprouted from the dirt, encompassing them.

“I need my tunnelers!” an amplified voice yelled. “Blow the line!” I turned to see Tran skitter down the trench, his voice supernaturally amplified. The same words appeared on my interface, coming across the top of my HUD, which was a notification style I’d never seen before.

A group of gnome-sized crawlers disappeared down a group of holes.

A short moment passed—shorter than I was expecting—and the dwarves and gnomes started popping out from the holes in the ground, reappearing in the trenches.

“Fire in the hole,” someone shouted, and we all hit the deck as the entire line of dirt in front of us exploded. I was physically lifted from the scaffolding, and people cried out all around as we crashed heavily down. Donut cried out in pain as the human next to us landed on her tail. Below, Mongo squawked in fear and Rend started running in panicked circles as the sky went completely black. Showers of dirt fell over us, but stopped at an invisible barrier. Soon we were completely entombed by the dirt and guts. All around, mages cried and cursed as attempted to keep the gore-infected dirt from falling all over us.

Back in place. Back in place. Defend the line. The notification appeared across my interface, blinking. I pulled myself up, but my periscope was cracked and no longer working. Still, it appeared nothing else was coming for the moment. At least, there was nothing on my interface.

A moment later, and the artillery resumed.

“Damn,” Tran said, scurrying up to me, looking worriedly up at the dirt above us. A rock crashed over our head, and a low shield warning appeared before it was shored up. Tran’s metallic helmet disappeared into his inventory. Sections of dirt started to glow as mages cleaned it. “We were hoping to save those buried explosives for later. We just set that up like two hours ago.”

I examined Tran. Katia had finished his two-part “wheelchair,” and it was similar to what she was going to next build for Kamal. She’d taken a recipe from my automaton manual and had repurposed it.

He had a small, mechanical crab body that looked like something out of a nightmare. When he was just walking around like normal, it ended at that, though he could now climb on walls and could run, for short distances, at incredible speed.

But then there was the battle armor version, which he wore now. The small, good-natured man had turned into something akin to Iron Man. A secondary exo-skeleton covered the crab legs, crawling up his body, encasing him in full-plate armor and a helmet, reminiscent of poor Paz from the previous floor. He was so encased in metal that he couldn’t carry any ranged weapons, lest the system label him as “armor.”

I started to say something, but a commotion down the line caused us all to turn.

“Gurglers in the trenches!” someone shouted. They ran up, pursued by a group of about tens veterans, all rushing and screaming toward us, blood spewing from their mouths and eyes. Someone cast a spell, filling that section with dirt. The wall appeared right in front of us. Another with a Tserendolgor-like flame thrower pushed me aside and started baking the filled-in section of dirt. A dozen arms and legs and claws emerged as the infected started pulling themselves free, only to be burned and melted by the powerful weapon.

Fallen soldier notifications blinked across my interface. The woman with the flamethrower sat heavily on the ground and started to sob. The whole thing had happened in a matter of seconds.

“This is bullshit,” someone said. “The Gurgles is a magical attack.”

“They infected their pets before the magic ban, so it’s an exploit,” another answered. “It’s a little iffy, but they’ve allowed it in the past. Your mages need to do a better job at keeping such infections from sneaking in.” I blinked, realizing this was actually Baroness Victory, hands on her hips, examining the still-glowing dirt as moved next to me and Tran. She must have teleported herself into the battle.

“What in the goodness are the Gurgles?” Donut asked. After making sure Mongo was okay, she’d jumped to my shoulder. Rend leaned up against my legs, making a popping noise with his mouth. Despite being scared earlier, he didn’t seem afraid anymore.

“A really nasty, contagious, non-curable debuff,” Victory said. “The factions had agreed many years ago to never use it again because it’s so insidious. It’s what caused the insanity and the rabies debuff. I’m not familiar with that fourth debuff. The truck stop pill. I suspect that it was what made them so big.”

“I think it’s clear for now,” someone on the line said. “Gods, do you think they got more of those things?”

I cracked my neck and looked at Tran. “Let’s not wait to find out. Now it’s our turn.”

~

I hope everyone is having a good December. Thanks again for all your support. Quick, informal poll question. One of the Kickstarter awards was two patches. I’m curious if there’s anything ya’ll want, keeping in mind that these patches are NOT from Carl’s jacket. They have to be relevant to book 1 only. 

A lot of these "Someone saids" are probably going to change to actual names soon.

Also, speaking of patches, since I have make a fuckton thousand of these for the kickstarter, I’m also going to start making ones from Carl’s jacket AND unit insignias from Faction Wars. Thanks again everyone!