Book 7 Chapters 50, 51, 52

So, I give cliffhanger warnings all the time. It's pretty much assumed at this point that all these remaining chapters will have cliffhangers.

This one is especially brutal.

A couple random edits to be aware of. I went back and added a little bit about auras, and I added several sentences here and there throughout the manuscript about Li Na. Namely, I added how she got added to the army in the first place since people can't touch her, which introduced the idea of aura protection in an earlier chapter. I may have added a line or two about her (Li Na) spending time with Mistress Tiatha as well.

 

Chapter 50

Warlord Message: A member of your army is occupying the throne room of the Blood Sultanate stronghold! If they can hold for three hours, you will capture this castle, and the Blood Sultanate will be defeated!

Elle: It looks like all the guards are gone. The whole place is empty. A couple NPC guards are still alive, but we have them tied up. It smells just awful in here. Like a goddamned neglected hamster cage. Louis, go ahead and gas the exterior.

Louis: On it.

We needed to get to the temple of Khepri, which was inside Club Vanquisher. But, as per tradition, the entrance to Club Vanquisher was located inside of a random temple. Here on the ninth floor, there were always only two Club Vanquisher entrances on the entire floor. The one in Larracos would almost always get trashed. The one outside the city limits was usually left alone, and this was where we were currently set up. This particular season, the entrance temple was for a relatively common god called Dagda or the Dagda. He was a weather and “masculinity” god, and there was a whole class of fighter clerics who worshipped him. I’d seen more than one crawler who had him as a god. Apparently the only requirement to follow him was to grow a beard.  

The Dagda was usually sponsored by some rich celebrity from the inner system. Some sort of self-help guru guy. Tipid said he couldn’t remember if the sponsorship had happened this season or not.  

I was glad the god summonings weren’t yet allowed on the floor because we were about to really piss this god off, sponsored or not. There was no helping it.

When we moved, it had to be quick. Get through the temple of Dagda, break into Club Vanquisher, and then break into the Temple of Khepri. Security was strict and powerful, and the most difficult part of this was going to be getting from the entrance of Club Vanquisher to the entrance of the Khepri temple. Plus, the moment we broke inside, Vinata and her crew would likely know we were coming for them. This was also why we had to time this correctly. According to Rosetta, those under the Prospect spell wouldn’t be allowed to leave the temple for at least an hour. It was the dungeon equivalent of going to a timeshare pitch.

Once that hour was up, they could tell the resident cleric at the Khepri temple to let them out. Once they were no longer boxed up, they could run. And if they ran, there was the possibility one of them would get away. We couldn’t run that risk. This was our best chance. 

“Carl, why isn’t Donut with us?” Prepotente asked as we approached the Dagba temple. It was a small, plain-looking building nestled amongst shacks within Shanty Town. The only indication that it was a temple was the notification on my map that it was a Club Vanquisher location. That, plus the smell of cooking from the interior. My stomach rumbled. It actually smelled pretty good.

I thought of Donut, currently in Party Planner, circling the naga stronghold. Right now Louis was using one of his spells to fill the area with a lethal cloud of poison to dissuade anyone else from coming or going.

“There’s a very real possibility that they anticipated this, and they’re going to throw a curve ball,” I said. Rend banged into my leg. I pulled out his pet carrier and pulled him in. Pony had already stored Bianca. We had to keep them both stored for this as Mordecai’s aura potion didn’t work on pets. “We have a contingency in place if all three of the family members aren’t in here. That is Donut’s job. Once we’re inside, she’ll join Elle and Imani in the naga stronghold in case one of the three family members is left behind or somehow gets sent back.”

Pony made a noise that sounded like a disapproving bleat. He pulled a potion with no explanation and drank it down. The bottle did not disappear like usual, and instead he just pulled the empty container back into his own inventory. “My concern is not this line of succession business but the entirety of the naga empire.” He was walking too close to me, like literally brushing against my side. I kept trying to move away, and he’d just step back next to me. “I will not rest until they are all dead.”

I didn’t say anything. Katia, Bautista, and Samantha held back. Katia clutched onto the wriggling Samantha with two hands. Behind them, Li Jun and Zhang approached, both trailing wire. They’d all advance in a minute.

Every time I looked at Li Jun and saw the eyepatch, I thought of that moment. The taste of his eye filled my mouth. Focus. Focus.

The goat turned to look up at the clocktower and then back over his shoulder at the group of waiting crawlers. “I suppose it is a good idea to have a backup plan as there are indeed secret ways out of the club. I have a map of the entire place you know.”

I stopped dead, my hand on the door to the temple. I turned to look at Prepotente, incredulous. “You have an interior map of Club Vanquisher?”

“Oh, yes. My mother, Bianca, and I made friends with a delightful guildmaster inside the club, and she gave us the map. We used a secret exit, and we came out of a bathroom stall inside of the entrance temple.”

I took a deep breath. That would’ve been really useful. I was once again reminded of Donut’s advice long ago that I should’ve tried harder to speak with him. She had been right.

“Keep it handy,” was all I said. “We might need it before it’s done.”

He tapped the side of his head. “It’s all right here. Perfect recall, Carl.”

“Good,” I said. “Let us know if we take a wrong turn.”

“Don’t worry. I have our path already mapped out.” He pulled and drank another red potion and downed it. 

“What are you drinking?”

“It’s soda pop. This one is called Big Red, and it’s from Texas. That’s where cowboys live. Would you like one? I always drink one before battle. There’s another one I quite enjoy called sarsaparilla. And my mother was partial to something called Diet 7 Up. Regular 7 Up is from Saint Louis, Missouri. I don’t know where the diet variety comes from, but I have several if you’d like one. I can only drink up to five soda pops a day. It’s a hard rule my mother gave me. She says... she said if I drink too many, I get hyper.”

“Uh, no thanks. But we need to take the aura potion now.” I pulled one of the yellow, bubbling potions and handed it to Prepotente. He examined it suspiciously.

“This appears to be of very high quality. Did that manager of yours Donut is always talking about make this?”

“He did. He said it’ll last for an hour.”

“An hour? That is good quality,” Prepotente said. “The ones I had before only lasted for two minutes. Hardly worth the effort.” He popped the cork and drank it down manually. His smacked his mouth with disapproval. “Hmmm. Similar to a Crodino.”  

I drank mine using the menu.

A small, one-hour timer appeared in my interface. 

You have been Closed Off! You are no longer susceptible to aura effects, both Blessings and Dreads. This will not cancel existing effects nor will it negate your own auras.

The aura mechanic wasn’t normally something I needed to worry about. We only had two crawlers in the guild who used it. One was Imani, who had a wide variety of aura effects imparted by touching her wings. Some were persistent, and she couldn’t turn them off. The other aura effects, like some of her more specialized healing and protection spells, were called Blessings, and they could be turned on at will. Blessings drained her mana while they were active.

The other crawler who used auras was Li Na.

Hers were very, very different.

The ones she could activate at will were called Dreads.

I looked off at the clocktower where Li Na was now stationed, waiting for us. The Shanty Town menu allowed us to build several types of automatic defensive towers, but we could only build a handful of manned towers, actually called synergy towers.  

This particular tower was something called Extend Aura, and it could only be manned by a crawler or NPC who had “synergy” with the tower’s attack. In this case, the synergy was someone who used the aura mechanic. This was one of the few synergy towers that could be used during the offensive magic ban.

Dozens of wires now dangled from the arms on the clocks of the synergy tower.

The wires were not part of the original design. They were an exploit, and it was actually Elle’s manager, Mistress Tiatha, who’d come up with the idea.

If this was successful, immediately afterwards, Li Na’s builder squad led by Toyotomi would get to work on a very tall, very powerful, very specialized, very expensive synergy tower. It was shaped like a obelisk and would be placed right at the edge of the hole leading down into Larracos. In the menu, this particular tower had a very simple name. This one would only work during the next phase. It was called The Nest.    

Warlord Carl: Everyone in the area, take your aura potions. We’re going inside. Donut, if you guys don’t see anyone approaching the Naga temple, might as well go join Elle and Imani.

Warlord Donut: OKAY. BE CAREFUL! EVERYONE BE CAREFUL!

I switched to a private chat between me and Donut.

Carl: You be very careful. They cleaned that place of traps, but they designed that temple to be deadly to both you and me specifically. So don’t go anywhere that hasn’t already been swept by Imani and Elle. 

Donut: I’M NOT THE ONE ABOUT TO UPSET LIKE 100 GODS, CARL.

She wasn’t wrong. I pushed the door open.

Entering the Temple of The Dagda.

Faint, distant, but upbeat harp music filled the temple. Tall, stained-glass windows dotted the walls, each depicting a large, bearded man wielding what looked like a massive soup ladle. A red-haired, human cleric NPC sat in the back of the temple, praying over the altar. The cleric was especially buff. In the middle of the temple was a giant, black cauldron that bubbled merrily. It smelled like some sort of rich stew. Just past the cleric was the door entrance to Club Vanquisher.

The NPC looked over his shoulder at us, but the smile froze when he saw we weren’t worshippers of the Dagda.

“The stew is only for brothers of Dagda, so please move along,” he said with a thick, almost intelligible Welsh accent.  

“Just passing through,” I said, pointing at the door in the back corner of the small temple. “Heading to Club Vanquisher.”

The cleric grunted and returned to his prayers.

Prepotente moved to the giant pot of stew and sniffed at it. He made a face. We moved toward the back door.

Behind me, the entrance to the temple opened back up. Bautista, Li Jun, and Zhang walked in. Bautista strode through the room, ignoring us and heading straight for the cleric. Li Jun and Zhang moved to the sides of the temple, pretending to examine the stained-glass windows. Li Jun dropped a rock on the ground, keeping the door from closing all the way.

Bautista moved up to the cleric and started to rapidly talk. He started telling the suspicious cleric he wanted to possibly join up with the Dagda.

Again, Prepotente walked so close to me I was afraid I would trip. He looked up at me. “So, I know your normal plan of attack is to just blow things up. It is refreshing to know you have a rudimentary plan. But I do wish you’d had time to tell me all the details. I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but I am banned from entering the club.”

“I’m well aware,” I said.

“Yes, but what do you need me to do?”

“You have your instructions. You duck when I tell you. And once we’re inside, I need you to kill mantaurs and those sheep guys. Don’t let any doors close, and let me do the rest.”

“Rams,” Prepotente muttered. “Filthy, snobbish creatures. The guards are the worst. But this club is rather well defended and is quite large. They will close that portal eventually. And I’m still not clear on how we’re getting inside in the first place.”

I had a plan, but a new, better idea occurred to me as we stood in front of the door to the entrance vestibule. Behind me, Li Jun and Zhang were trailing wire from the tower. So far, the cleric hadn’t noticed. If he did, Bautista would kill him, but we were hoping to avoid it. I thought for a moment, and I grinned. I handed Prepotente a simple smoke grenade. “You’re right. You probably should be ready for this next part. How are your acting skills?”

~

Entering Club Vanquisher. Members Only.

Heathens will find no solace here.

The ram guy guarding the stained-glass door entrance to Club Vanquisher was a different one than the last time I’d tried to enter the club. I’d just been inflicted with slugpox that last time, and he hadn’t wanted to let me into the club. This time, the ram ignored me and glared at Prepotente the moment we stepped into the vestibule. I examined the sputtering ram.

Mork. Ares Warrior Cleric Middle Priest. Level 40.

Warning: This NPC Worships Hellik. He will be automatically hostile toward you because you worship Emberus.

The ram lifted a shaking hand and jabbed a finger at Prepotente. This one’s lisp was somehow worse than his brother’s. “There ith a Holy Crusade Bounty on you, and you dare try to enter thith club? The audacity! I with summonth the guards!”

“Please do,” I said, holding up my hand in a gesture of peace. I pointed to Prepotente’s wrists, which were shackled with fuzzy, not-locked handcuffs. “As you can see, I have captured him. I am here to collect the bounty. Summon as many as you can as he is very strong.”

Prepotente threw himself on the ground with such an exaggerated flourish, I knew roping him into this was a bad idea before he even hit the floor. The handcuffs jingled ominously, and I was afraid they’d go flying off his wrists. “I have been caught! My goose has been cooked! Oh woe! Oh woe!” He pulled himself into a ball and started to fake sob. “And to think I have been captured by such an inferior opponent. A hygiene-deficient one at that. And now, he’s going to hand me off to a sheep with a speech impediment? When will these indignities end?”    

Mork the ram looked down with utter disgust upon Prepotente. He then turned his ire on me. “You want to collecth the bounty? You’re on probathion. I’m not even sure you can collecth the bounty. We’ll have to tell them we caught him together.”

I sighed. Pony continued to fake sob.

“How much is the bounty anyway?” I asked.

“This ith a Holy Crusade,” Mork said. “The bounty ith split between yourself and your temple. It’s 500,000 gold, and you get half. But we will give half to Hellik as he ith a superior god to your filthy Emberus, and we will split the rest ourselves. If you don’t do it thith way, they won’t give you a bounty at all.” 

The notification came in the angry voice of Emberus. 

New Quest. Kill the Blasphemer.

This worshipper of Hellik has insulted me. Kill him.

Reward: You will receive an additional Emberus Boon. The more entertained I am by this, the better the boon.  

I looked up into the air. “One step ahead of you, buddy.”

“What ith that?” Mork asked.

“Nothing,” I said. “We have a deal. Go get the guards.”.

Mork nodded and pushed the stained door open a crack. “Guards! Guards!”

Carl: Katia, you’re up. Come on in. 

Chapter 51

From within Club Vanquisher, four mantaurs burst into the room. The guards looked much the same as the last time I’d seen these guys. Furry shorts. No shirts. No hats covering their balding heads. Blue paint splattered all over the place, indicating them as Grull worshipers. They all wore stripper-style bow ties around their thick necks. These guys were all higher level than usual, ranged from 75 to 80, which was a little worrying as I was only level 75.

“Hail!” the level-80 called, glaring down at Prepotente. This one’s name was Joey. He stood to his full height and crossed both sets of arms. “Today is the day where blood and steel meet bone!” He raised his top pair of arms and extended his Wolverine claws with a loud shiinnng, but they embedded in the ceiling.

“Ah, fuck!” he growled. He tried to retract his blades and free himself, but only his left hand came loose. Little rocks and pebbles showered down over Prepotente, who started to sputter. The mantaur grabbed his right wrist with his left and started to rapidly yank, to no avail.

“Hail!” the other mantaurs started to shout as they moved to help their compatriot.  

“You idiots!” Mork yelled. “Joey, youth been told a thousanth times not to shing in here.” He waved at the window on the stained glass door. The window that depicted Taranis and Apito—though the rams for some reason thought depicted their god, Hellik. “The glass ith too precious for shenanigans!”

Joey ignored this as he started to panic. His bottom arms flailed helplessly. “Brothers, I have been entrapped! Help me!”

I watched this, open-mouthed. My original plan was to cause a ruckus and force the ram to call the guards on me, but this was much better.

Prepotente: Now?

Carl: Wait for it....

From behind, Katia burst into the room. She remained in the form of another mantaur. She was soaked in “gore.” She hadn’t wanted to use real blood and guts, so I’d asked my food box to make cherry cobbler. Since the damn thing was still broken, it had spit out a giant bowl of chowder soup-style cherries mixed with a sausage breakfast sandwich. I’d fed Rend the biscuit pieces, and I gave the rest to Katia. The lumpy, red remains looked sickeningly accurate.  

“Brothers!” Katia shouted. “Hail! It is the end of days! Demons attack the temple behind me. We must initiate temple defense protocols!”

Everyone stopped what they were doing. Joey, whose upper right claw was still stuck to the ceiling, asked. “Temple defense protocols?”

Katia paused. According to Tipid, that was the name of the emergency procedures. But things did change from season to season. And sometimes they went away. Or it was possible this mantaur was just an idiot. 

Katia recovered quickly. “Fight to the death!” she shouted. “Kill all the heathens! The demons come! Uh, steel and heavy metal!”

“Hail!” the other mantaurs shouted, all extending their Wolverine claws. Another got his arm stuck, this time in the wall.

“Brother, what manner of demon is it?” Joey demanded as he continued to struggle.

From over both of Katia’s shoulders flew a pair of ridiculously cute stuffed animals. They were stuffed versions of a demon mob called Eclipse Pyxies. They looked like fat, fur-covered guinea pigs, but with bat wings and jagged teeth. Bautista had a dozen of these things. The stuffed animals switched in midair from toys to actual monsters.

The real versions were about the same size and were just as cute. 

One of the flying guinea pigs hissed and attached itself to the face of Joey the mantaur, who started to squeal like a little girl. The little monster enthusiastically chomped on his face. Blood sprayed in the room. It smelled strangely like cheap beer.      

“That kind,” Katia said.

In the back of the room, Mork the ram bolted for the door.

Carl: Now!

Prepotente slammed his smoke grenade. At the same moment, I pulled one of the black potions from my inventory—a potion of Inflict Black Nimbus—and I hurled it through the small vestibule so it slammed against the back of the head of Mork the ram just as he opened the door.

Shouting filled the room as Joey’s panicked squeals went up in pitch. The smoke billowed, blinding all of us. The second demon pyxie buzzed through the air, sounding like a screaming chainsaw. It found a target, and a second mantaur started to cry out. I burst forward, pushing past the sweaty bodies of the bewildered guards. Prepotente jumped to his feet and rushed with me. We reached the open entrance into the club, smoke swelling inside.

Mork lay there on the ground, crying with the black halo around his head, half in and out of the main room.

“Ith says I’m trespassing,” he gasped. “How? How can I trespass in my own home? What did youth do to me?” 

Normally this spell was something someone had to cast, but like many “abjuration” style spells, the effects of Black Nimbus could also be distilled into potion form. And thanks to Mordecai’s abilities, he could now mass-create these things.

Behind us, more shouting rose as the door from the temple of the Dagda opened all the way. Li Jun, Zhang, and Bautista strolled in. There was grunting and a splatter as they, along with Katia, quickly dispatched the four guards. The smoke continued to billow, following us into the club. The smoke was sucked up into the ceiling of the much-larger room. Several NPCs mostly, elves and fairies, jumped up and fled. After a moment, there was nobody left in this front room. Distant shouting filled the club. There would be dozens of more guards soon. 

Zhang: I have the vestibule door secured open.

Li Na: I am ready.

Carl: Wait for my signal.

“What did youth do to me?” Mork repeated, reaching up to us. The halo around his head crackled with black light.  

The ram was temporarily removed from the grace of his god. For a cleric, this was an especially effective attack. Those under the Black Nimbus couldn’t cast or use any spells given to them by their god. They couldn’t enter any temples or churches. And while the common areas of Club Vanquisher itself weren’t considered a temple, someone who didn’t have a religion would be immediately targeted by the guards.

I had a quick memory of the only other time I’d ever cast this spell. I’d tried to save prison guard Anton from the god Ogun on the last floor by casting it. It hadn’t worked. 

Prepotente and I stepped over the whimpering ram as we entered the club.

Warning: You are trespassing.

I held tightly onto the door, keeping it open. At this point, all three doors were now open: the door from Shanty Town to the temple of the Dagda, the door from the temple into the entrance vestibule, and the door from the vestibule into the club. Of those three doors, only the second two were actual portals. We needed to keep both of these doors open at all costs now. The moment the club went into lockdown—which would be at any moment—these portals would cease to work. But only once they closed.

...And as long as we kept an unbroken line of the capacitor wire—which was really just an antenna—from the clocktower to the interior of Club Vanquisher, the tower-enhanced effects of Li Na’s aura would work inside the club.

I looked about the now-abandoned room. It was the same as last time. Wood slat walls. Big, leather couches. Stairs leading both up and down in several directions. A stone fireplace the size of a garage with a bonfire-sized fire crackling within, filling the wide area with warmth. Rugs were everywhere, including bear rugs and what looked like a massive, snow-white yeti rug that still had the head of a humanoid yeti attached to it. The whole place smelled like incense and grandpas.

And upon the walls remained the hundreds of taxidermied monster heads of all sizes. The most striking was the black dragon head over the fireplace. Its red eyes glinted in the firelight. The smoke from the small bomb was mostly dissipated already, but it gave the room a sinister, hazy appearance, especially now that everyone was gone.

The faint church music that usually played in here was now turned off, which added to the menacing effect.      

Li Jun, trailing three separate lengths of wire, rushed up to me. He quickly handed me the third length, which was thin and light as fishing line. I looped it around my wrist. He gave a quick look at the ram on the floor and then rushed into the club. He moved to the fireplace and started to climb the bricks. He would find a place to attach each of the two remaining wires on either side of the room. When that was done, his job was to guard this door and keep it open. 

He was followed shortly by Katia. The gore all over her was no longer fake.

At our feet, Mork the ram struggled to get up. I kicked him down and put my foot on his chest. I should’ve killed him already, but the note at the end of the Emberus quest had given me pause.

“What... what are you doing?” Mork cried. “Help me. Please help me. Hellik, please. Please come back to me. I don’t want to be alone.”

From multiple hallways and stairwells, more mantaurs—and a few rams—appeared, all running toward the entrance common room.

When we’d first discussed this next part of the plan, Li Na stated she had several dreads that would be effective if they were allowed to fill Club Vanquisher.

We settled on one called Dark Purpose.

Normally, this was a fairly small-area aura, and it would only affect someone if they were physically touching Li Na. Now, with the tower mixed with Tiatha’s wire hack, anyone within about 20 meters of the wires would get hit with the effect.

Mordecai said he’d never even heard of this particular dread. According to Li Na, it was basically the same thing as Donut’s Why Are You Hitting Yourself? The feeling normally only lasted a moment, but it accelerated the longer one was touching Li Na. But because we were using the wires to amplify the signal, it would be almost impossible to escape.

Best of all, dreads didn’t count as offensive magic.

It would, in theory, cause pure chaos, and it would give us the opportunity to keep the halls clear while we made our way to the Temple of Khepri. I really hoped it would work. 

Carl: Li Na. Do it. 

Li Na: The dread is now activated.

The knot around my wrist tingled, like I was suddenly touching a low voltage wire. That was it. All around us, the incoming guards stopped dead and looked about in confusion. They seemed more confused than anything. After a moment, the closest ones eyed Li Jun, who was still hanging impossibly off the wall and was tying one of the wires around the neck of the huge dragon head over the fireplace.

The guards roared and advanced.

Shit, shit, shit, I thought. It’s not working.

“I do believe your wire plan is ineffective,” Prepotente said.

“Not helpful.” I jumped into my inventory and pulled the alarm trap ball into my hand. This was the backup plan. Get the mantaurs to berserk.   

At my feet, Mork continued to whimper.

But then, I hesitated. Something had changed.  

The light in the room was starting to dim even further. Across the way, the mantaurs and rams all paused again, looking about. A strange, electric sense filled the room. The smoke that had settled against the high ceiling seemed to change its mind and settle back down into the main part of the room, adding a more hazy appearance to everything. The massive fireplace continued to crackle, but it was sputtering like it was dying, causing the lights to jump and dance off the walls and the hundreds of stuffed monster heads.  

A distant scream rang out, high-pitched and filled with fear before it was cut off short. It sounded like maybe it was an elf.

“He doesn’t see me anymore,” Mork whispered.

And then the ram reached up and pulled his own two eyes out with his own fingers. They came out easily and wetly, muscles stretching and then ripping away, curls of gore landing on his face. He shoved the eyes back into the sockets, but backward. Blood geysered from around the wounds.   

“Get it off, get it off!” a mantaur shouted from the curved stairwell rising up toward the temples. He extended his blades, and he stabbed himself in the throat before tumbling to the floor, gurgling. He hit the ground hard, and blood splattered across the room, landing over the white yeti rug. Another mantaur turned and ran away. Yet another just started to scream.

“Oh shit,” Li Jun cried, leaping off the wall, flipping, and landing deftly on a couch. The stuffed dragon head above the fireplace had come to life. It groaned. All around, all the hundreds of trophy heads had come alive.

One by one, they all started to scream. Only they didn’t have lungs, so all they did was open their mouths and thrash. One, the head of a goblin attached to a shield-shaped wooden plaque, fell to the ground. Its marble eyes opened wide, and the marbles rolled away. It gummed at the floor.

The rugs, too, were all suddenly alive.    

“What the hell?” I muttered, looking about. Katia had also paused, stepping away from an enormous bearskin rug. Even Li Jun appeared shocked.

“I take it back,” Prepotente said. “This spell seems especially powerful.” 

This was not the same thing as Why Are You Hitting Yourself? This wasn’t even close.  

“My heart. I gave you my heart. Pleasth. Pleasth take it back,” the blinded Mork groaned as he dug into his own chest, ripping away his robes, then hair, then flesh. He grasped, and with a sickening crack, he ripped one of his own ribs away. It snapped like a tree branch. But before he could get to his own heart, he ran out of strength.

“I’m so cold,” he whispered. “He promised me I’d never be cold again.”    

Quest Complete. Kill the Blasphemer.

This was followed by a good ten seconds of uncontrolled, absolutely unhinged, shrieking laughter in Emberus’s voice.

Reward: You have received a Celestial Boon!

The tattoos on the back of my hands started to burn.

You have been blessed by your deity, Emberus. You have received a Celestial Boon!

Level 15 Heathen Scald Received.

For the remainder of this floor, any punch attack will add the Heathen Scald skill damage.

I didn’t have time to look that one up. All around, new things were happening.

At my feet, Mork remained dead, but his body started to vibrate. But no, I realized, it wasn’t his body. A ghost had formed, and it was the ghost of himself that was quivering.

What the hell?

And that’s when the chains appeared. Ethereal, white chains rose up all around the prone form of the dead NPC.

“No,” the ghost of Mork cried, surprising me. “No, please. I’ve already died! Isn’t that enou...”

His words changed to screams as the chains jumped like snakes, wrapped around him, and pulled him into the floor of the club. A puff of smoke appeared where he’d been, and I felt a wave of ice-cold air on my legs.  

“Fascinating,” Prepotente said. “Did you notice his lisp was gone when he’d turned into a ghost?”

Across the way, the chains were doing the same thing to the ghost form of the fallen mantaurs, all of whom panicked and screamed as they were pulled away.

Strangely, ghosts had formed around all of the stuffed monster heads as well. The chains came for them, too. Frost started to form on the walls. The massive fireplace suddenly whiffed out, plunging the room into further darkness.   

Warning: This area of Club Vanquisher has been defiled.

“What the hell does that mean?” I asked out loud.

Prepotente was on his knees next to me. He reached down, touched a bit of frost that had formed on the floor, and brought it to his tongue. “Hmm. Interesting,” he said.

A klaxon alert sounded, and a deep, female voice I’d never heard before intoned over the hidden loudspeaker. She sounded like an orc or ogre:

Shelter in place! Shelter in place! Demonic activity has been detected within the club! Security to the lobby! All hands! All hands! Implement Aura protections before you venture out!  

The alert sounded two more times before getting cut off.

I exchanged a look with Katia, who was still staring, horrified, as chains dragged a shrieking mantaur ghost away and down. He screamed for his mother before he disappeared. His corpse remained on the floor with his own claws buried up through his chin, eyes open with surprise.    

Carl: Hey, uh, Li Na. That spell isn’t exactly what I was expecting.

Li Na: Did it work?

Carl: Jesus. Did you know that was going to happen? What the hell was that? Are they, like, trapped somewhere? Holy shit.  

Li Na: I ask again, Carl. Did it work?

Carl: What level was that aura? I’ve never even heard of something like that.  

Li Na: Dark Purpose was level 4 when I cast. It is not meant to be used like this, and it leveled even more rapidly than we anticipated. It hit level 15, and I moved to a different dread. I am cycling my dreads and rapidly leveling them all. Right now I am using Defile Soul. Next I will train Bleeding Horror.   

Holy shit. I didn’t have time to parse that. She was using this as an opportunity to power level. It sounded like she’d known this would happen. In the distance, more screams filled the club. A translucent, on-fire ghost of a fairy flew into the room and was skewered by a chain before it was dragged, sobbing into the ground. 

Samantha rolled into the room, chewing something. She looked like she had stew all over her face. In mere seconds, the lobby had turned into a massacre scene. The last of the chains faded away.

Samantha looked about and frowned. “Wow. And I didn’t even do anything yet.”

Chapter 52

I felt sick, but I didn’t remove the wire from my wrist. I couldn’t stop thinking of Mordecai’s warning  not to do too much damage. This was already just as bad as what had happened to the Desperado Club.

A sudden panic hit me. At the Desperado, when things got too bad, they’d magically kicked everyone out. I shook my head, clearing it. We had to move.   

I pointed to the blood-slicked stairs leading upward. “Go!” I scooped up Samantha, and we ran. It was me, Prepotente, Katia—who was still pretending to be a mantaur, and Samantha. With Bautista guarding the door out to Shanty Town, Zhang at the first vestibule door, and Li Jun guarding the door into the club, we could guarantee to keep the auras going for at least a little bit longer. I stored the trap ball back into my inventory, but I kept it in a ready spot. The third spool of wire trailed behind me as I rushed up the carpet-covered stairs, my bare feet splashing gore with each step.

The blood on the floor of the stairs started to bubble, like water boiling in a pot.

I sent a frantic message to Li Na as I ran.

Carl: What does this blood dread do?

We ran to the top of the stairs, turned down a hall filled with shops, and then we took another turn past some guilds. There were bodies everywhere. I heard the distant shouting of mantaurs.

Li Na: I’ve never gotten it to work before, but if someone with bloody hands gets near me, and I have the dread active, it’s supposed to turn their blood against them. And then the blood would turn on my enemies. I’ve never gotten it past level two because they’re usually dead within moments of coming near me. It takes a lot of mana. My brother is watching and will let me know if I need to switch to something else.  

Carl: There are new guards coming. The blood thing isn’t going to help if they’re not bloody. But I have blood all over me. Turn the first one back on!

Donut: LI NA WHAT ARE YOU DOING? DO WHAT CARL SAYS! 

Li Na: I will if I have to, Carl. I need to train, and I can’t give up this opportunity. When mantaurs extend their claws, they bleed. That should be enough when the dread trains high enough. It is already level 5 and rising. You are marked as an ally. The blood won’t hurt you, but if the new guards have aura protection, this will be better because the blood already under my control will still attack them.   

That was actually some sound logic. Li Na continued:

Li Na: I suggest you use the berserker plan. After Bleeding Horror, I have one more to train if I have time.      

Her simple, matter-of-fact, almost emotionless delivery was chilling. Christ, I thought. It was like she was a sociopath. She was always so calm. How was it I’d never noticed this before? I tried to remember her ever showing any real emotion. She always kind of blended in with her brother and Zhang, both of whom wore their hearts on their sleeves. I thought of the Iron Tangle, when she’d come to my aid. She’d kept a mantaur alive by cutting him down to just a torso. I thought of the stories from the Battle of Beijing, only rumors, of the things she’d done with her chains.

Ahead, on the floor, a ram screamed. He’d tried to rip his own throat open, but he was still alive. His own blood swirled around him like liquid mercury. It flowed over his face as he gurgled, entering through his mouth and nostrils. I stomped his head as I passed, firmly pushing between his horns. His head caved in easily. I wanted to avoid personally killing these guys, but this one was already almost dead. And every kill of a Hellik worshiper kept me in Emberus’s good graces.

We turned one last corner, and there it was. A desk with a large doorway portal behind it. The large, glowing, wooden door held the now-familiar image of an upside-down tree. This single doorway led to all the temples.   

“Katia!” I called, pointing at the strange device on the desk. The portal dial. Yasmine, the wisp fairy who ran the portal to the temples, wasn’t here, which was good. I hoped she wasn’t dead, but that didn’t matter for the moment.  

A figure crackled into existence next to the desk, and I almost crapped myself the moment she appeared. Victory. She stood nearby, observing. She had an aghast look on her face as she looked over my shoulder at all the death.

“Don’t start,” I said to Victory as I rushed past the desk and to the door. “I didn’t know it was going to be that horrific.” A pair of screams filled a distant hallway. What appeared to be a sentient pool of blood rushed across the wall, leaving a long smear. It slurped its way around a corner. A new group of voices—fairies and elves—started to scream. There was a splash followed by what sounded like hundreds of twigs being snapped at once.

“Oh, I want to see!” Samantha said and wriggled from my hands.

“Stay here!” I called. “We’ll need you in a minute.”

Rosetta: Are you at the portal yet?

Carl: Coming up now. Victory is here. Katia is at the desk. Prepotente is...

I looked up, and he wasn’t with us. But then he appeared, coming from around the corner, holding a potion bottle. He’d stashed some of the sentient blood in a jar. He pulled a pet carrier and zapped the jar into it. He stopped and started to examine the portal dial.    

Rosetta: In the codex, Khepri is number 453. All gods have at least one temple, but some have two. Khepri only has one thank the gods, but his address should be 453 or 453.A. Once you get inside, move fast. Don’t let them run. His temple is an infinite table.  

From behind me, Katia made a frustrated noise.

Katia: How do I tune this thing? It’s just lights!

Rosetta: You’ll have to figure it out on your own. I don’t know how it works.  

“This mechanism is quite simple,” Prepotente said out loud. “Look. First we turn off automatic mode or Carl will end up at the Emberus temple and you’ll be at Eileithyia. See? Integers here. But we need to know the address to dial in.”

I called out the numbers Rosetta gave me as I examined the large door.

Ultima Corp DungeonWerx Municipal, Multi-Destination Doorway-based Subspace Portal. 

Analyze? Yes/No.

I clicked Yes, and pages of information filled my screen.

“Dial 453!” I called. 

The display blinked, and the information changed.

Type: Two-way portal.

Gated by faith.

Can you pass this portal? Yes.*

Warning: This is a doorway portal. While you may pass this portal, entrance sequence is gated to adherents of the Khepri faith or other entities based on existing dungeon ruleset.

Environment on other side of portal: Compatible.

Visual Analysis? Yes/No.

“That’s the right one!” I called. I held my breath, and I clicked Yes.

A screenshot appeared.

I suppressed a sob. I hadn’t realized I was holding it all in until this moment.

She was there. She was right there.

It was a group of multiple nagas, all huddled together, talking while a bug-headed guy in robes stood near them. Actually, no. The cleric guy didn’t have a bug head. His head was a bug. He appeared to have two legs, two arms, more soother-like than human, but still humanoid. But where a person’s head would be was an entire bug. It was a six-legged beetle thing, complete with wings and a tiny head of its own.

“Fucking weird,” I murmured.

The room was just as had been described. It was a long, long table that stretched off into darkness. The entire table appeared to be covered with a moving blanket.

It wasn’t a blanket.

Katia and Prepotente came to stand on either side of me.

I reached forward and tried to pull the door open. It wouldn’t budge.

You are not allowed to open this door, heathen.

I grunted. We were expecting this.

There were literally hundreds of types of doorways, but the portals into Club Vanquisher’s temples all used a relatively common type, similar to the front door to the entire club. Basically, the door could only get cracked open by someone who was allowed to open it. But once the door was open, anyone could slip through as long as it remained cracked.

This, believe it or not, was not the first time a crawler was forced to break into a temple here. It was a common quest item for 10th and 11th floors. The problem was, the portal itself was difficult to crack open.

The sound of multiple, shouting mantaurs came from down the hallway. There was something else there, too. Something bigger, beefier. We needed to hurry.

The door could only be opened by adherents of Khepri. Or, it could be opened by those considered “damned.” It was a long-standing tradition of the game. It didn’t make much sense to me, but this was a cultural thing that was common throughout the universe. In order for churches in the universe to maintain their “church” status, they were required to give shelter to everybody and anybody who requested it as long as they weren’t known adherents of a different faith. Tipid said this law was widely ignored with no consequences, but the tradition made its way into the game. If a person or NPC was “damned,” they could enter any church and receive shelter and food. 

In the game, Damned was a status that was difficult to obtain. Li Na had it, and if this didn’t work, she’d have to run her ass in here and open the door for us. But Mordecai, Tipid, and Rosetta were all certain this trick would succeed. 

Damned status also applied to anyone, crawler or NPC, who had ever entered the Nothing and survived.

“Samantha, get over here. And don’t you dare touch that.” The doll head was sitting by the dial, examining it. She made a curse and rolled toward me. I did a quick screenshot to make sure she hadn’t messed with it. She hadn’t it. She hopped into my hands.

Carl: Na, I’m about to cast your tattoo spell. When Imani did it to me, it hurt a little bit, so be ready for it.

Li Na: I am ready. My Blood Horror is now level 15. I am turning on the last of my dreads, and I do not know how it will react. It is called Succulent Decay.     

Carl: Jesus. Okay.

“Ready?” I asked Prepotente and Katia.

Katia nodded.

Prepotente pulled two potion bottles. He jumped from one foot to another. He started to mutter to himself under his breath. It was a litany of names. I recognized Miriam and Bianca, plus several others. He ended on “Ragazzaccia,” which was a name or word I didn’t recognize.

He looked to me. “I am ready for battle, Carl.” 

This was it. Winning this fight was not optional.  

I clutched Samantha in my hands like a football. She was gnawing on my wrist, and I turned her to face me. “Okay. Open the door. You’ll have to use your mouth.”

I was expecting her to make a lewd comment, but she just said, “Okay, Carl.”

I glanced over my shoulder to see Victory there, looking sadly upon us. A sudden, terribly ominous feeling overwhelmed me.

There’s no turning back. Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter. It’s this, or it is death.

I held Samantha to the door, and she chomped down on the vertical handle.

A quick pull, and the door opened. Samantha let go, and I caught it before it could fully close. The doll head dropped to the ground and rolled away from the door, headed back to the desk. I didn’t have time to call for her.

I opened the door all the way, and all three of us rushed inside.  

~

Everything froze.

Entering the Temple of Khepri.

You have been denied a table at the feast.

Warning: You are trespassing in a temple.

Warning: You have been marked for death by Khepri.

The first thing I realized before the rest of the notifications appeared was that the screenshots from my portal analysis tool didn’t show notifications above anyone’s head.

Vinata was here along with several other nagas. They all had a long line of protection blessings over them.

Distressingly, Vinata held the yellow Immortal tag over her head.  

But, probably more important, was that the bug dude whom I assumed was a cleric wasn’t actually a cleric at all.

He was, in fact, Khepri himself.

New Achievement! Charge of the Light Brigade.

Okay, so there are traps.

There are TRAPS.

And then there’s what you just walked into.

Oh man, oh man. It’s gonna be glorious, one for the ages, but those of you watching at home, you might want to get your crying hankies out. This is about to get really messy. 

Reward: Fuck. Even I’m not a big enough prick to give you a reward for this one. I’ll give you a good one if you live, but let’s be realistic here.

My fingers tingled with a strange, familiar rushing feeling. A yellow glow covered me. 

You are in the presence of a deity. The Scavenger’s Daughter has opened her eyes. She fills with power.

Temporary Effect from Khepri:

Uh, please wait while I look something up...

Nope. This is legit. Okay, so, people are going to think this is some sort of bullshit where I saved your ass from this elaborate trap you just walked into, but this is genuinely the temporary effect one receives from being in the presence of this deity. This might save your life if you run fast enough, but it’s certainly not going to do anything for these other two silly billies who didn’t realize that gods can always appear in their own temples no matter what. But, hey. You assholes are always surprising me. Let’s see what happens next.

Oh, yeah.

Temporary Effect from Khepri:

You are immortal for the next 90 seconds. 

~~~~

So, it's pretty much chaos from here on out. Hopefully everyone survives the next 90 seconds. I've already written several versions of the next part, and I think I've settled on one in particular.

Thanks to everyone who came and said hello to me at ConCarolinas last weekend. My next travel spot is London in a couple weeks. That's a writer's conference, so the con itself isn't too exciting but we will be having a small get together. Details are in the discord somewhere if you're from there.

Next update will likely have a book 7 cover reveal. We'll have a handful of friends who haven't yet gotten the cover treatment on there. The cover includes something I haven't actually written yet, but I hinted at in this release. Thanks for all your support.