The Eye of the Bedlam Bride — Chapter no 24

[ 24 ]

KATIA: SO, HOW WAS IT?

Carl: It was just a dark room with that weird, naga voice. I never saw him. He asked me if I wanted a job to help the “family,” and I said no, I’m helping you. He then asked if I planned on killing you for the prize, and I said no. I just wanted to know if he had a map of the Desperado Club’s secret passageways. He said he did. A bunch of spiders swarmed up my arm, and I almost crapped myself. But then it added a ton of stuff to my map. There are multiple secret passages and tunnels, including some with monsters in them. Did you know there’s a secret potion market on the middle floor? Mordecai didn’t, and he’s losing his mind over it. There’s a bunch of “drug dens,” too.

Katia: Drug dens? What does that mean? Where are they? Damn, I didn’t even think to ask that thing for help.

Carl: I’m not sure. They sell the blitz sticks out in the open through the pharmacist guys, so I don’t know. They’re mostly behind secret panels in the hallways. I had no idea the place was so extensive. You know, I met the guy who designed the Desperado Club when I went to CrawlCon. I judged an art contest with him. I need to give him more credit.

Katia: You’ll have to send some of those details over. Maybe there’ll be something there we can use. Anyway, do we have an idea on where we’re going to act against our target?

Carl: I think we do. We’ll strike when I get back from rescuing Samantha. I’m writing out a list of the secret passageways, and I’ll send it to you. I’ll lay out my plan for secluding the target. Let me know what you think.

I was surprised there were no mentions in the cookbook about any secret

passageways in the Desperado Club. It made me wonder if all of this was new.

Katia: Does Donut know you met Damascus yet? I went to get some supplies, and when I got back, everyone was gone.

Carl: Yeah, I came out, and she was already there in the strip club.

Apparently she went to the Penis Palace on the middle floor, but it was “boring,” so she went up a floor to where I was. She was dancing with some weird, hairy thing called Gluteus Maxx. Li Na was there, too, watching her. She told me that you tasked her with watching Donut, so thank you for that.

Katia: I’ve met Gluteus. He’s a bit of a jerk, but he is a good dancer, and I think he’s a little in love with Donut.

Carl: Donut was literally dancing on stage with him. On his shoulder.

She was showering gold coins into his thong. For someone who’s so careful with gold, I was surprised she was being so generous.

Katia: Yeah, she does that. She always looks like she’s spending a lot, but she has a strict budget when she goes in there. How did she react

when you came out of the cum closet?

Carl: The what?

Katia: The cubicle things in the back.

Carl: Oh, yeah. So, to Donut’s credit, she didn’t question why I was in there. She and Li Na both know not to ask questions about what we’re doing. That Damascus guy told me I had to limp when I walked out, or he’d take out my knee. You know, to make it look like we’d been messing around. I didn’t want to argue with him, so I did it, but I regret it now because that Rosemarie dwarf lady insisted on high-fiving me. And she gave me a little pinback button that says “Certified pole dancer.”

Katia: He just made me muss up my hair a little. I got the button, too. Anyway, be safe with the Samantha thing. Donut is telling me now about the jewel she got for her tiara. She’s pretty excited about it.

I glanced over at Donut, who was currently hovering two feet off the ground as we walked back to the royal chariot. She was literally walking on air, tail swishing. She was quite proud of herself after our most recent battle with a bunch of bat mobs that hadn’t dropped anything useful.

“Donut, don’t waste your hovers. You only get five a day.”

“I’m practicing, Carl. If I don’t practice, how will I know how to use it?”

“Yeah, but now you only have one left for today.”

We’d ended up keeping her tiara of Mana Genita—which might end up useful one day—and we purchased a blank tiara from the gnome jeweler at the Desperado Club. It had taken Donut twenty minutes to pick one. It wasn’t until I threatened to leave that she finally chose a simple, silver-colored one.

Then we paid 25,000 gold to have the citrine jewel installed into the item.

Donut’s dislike of the color ended the moment we read the description of what the tiara actually did: Enchanted Tiara of the Inebriated Dragonfly.

There’s a children’s story out there about a dragonfly who gets so drunk that his wife won’t let him come home, so he hovers in the air above their nest, waiting for her to go to sleep, so he can get to bed. The thing is, the wife knows he’s out there, and she ain’t moving. So the dragonfly either hovers all night or moves to the highest point, sitting on a leaf, overlooking his home, waiting for his wife to turn the light back on to signify he’s out of the doghouse.

This tiara has been made to honor that poor Dragonfly with the angry wife.

This citrine-encrusted tiara, when equipped, imbues the following

effects:

50% Reduction to potion cooldown.

Plus 10 to intelligence.

Protection from poisoning (already obtained.) Negates the dexterity debuff when inebriated.

A level 10 Hover Skill.

The Hover skill had a five-minute cooldown, and it was limited to five uses a day. It was like a dollar store version of what Elle had. Donut could basically hover about two to three feet off the ground for about 90 seconds.

She could move, and unlike the Levitate spell, it didn’t get negated if she took damage. If activated while falling, it would gently bring her to the ground, which was a great addition to the benefit. Now we both had fall protection.

While I was really happy about the cooldown reduction and mana point increase, Donut was all about that Hover skill. She thought it was the greatest thing in the world.

“I can fly now. Carl, I can fly! I’m like Wonder Woman!” She rose into the air the moment she equipped it the first time and started zooming in circles a foot off the ground. She was literally galloping on air.

“Wonder Woman can’t fly,” I said.

“She has an invisible jet, Carl. Don’t ruin this for me.”

“Just don’t waste them. Save it for when we need it. You can use it to walk over water, but it won’t let you traverse canyons or anything. You have to be no more than three feet off the ground.”

“I’m flying! I’m flying!” Donut announced, all poofed out.

Now, as we returned from our battle with the bats, Donut was hovering again, and there was no reason for it. This was the fourth time she’d cast it.

We were getting close to the southern coast of the island, which had to be near the edge of our total space.

“Just don’t do it again unless you need it.”

Donut grumbled, but I knew she’d comply.

About an hour later, we came across a massive car pile-up. It just went on and on, curving around a bend in the poorly-maintained road. The land in this area had been mostly flat for a while, but we were now back to trees and wetlands. We curved eastward as the ocean loomed to the south, entering some sort of nature preserve. Donut still couldn’t see Samantha on the map, but we should be able to see her soon.

Donut: THERE ARE MOBS COMING UP, PROBABLY JUST PAST THE CRASHED CARS. LOTS AND LOTS OF THEM.

HUNDREDS. MAYBE THOUSANDS. I DON’T THINK IT’S MORE BATS. THEY’RE BIGGER AND THEY’RE ON THE GROUND, CROSSING THE ROAD.

I slowed the chariot and moved off the road, stopping near the line of wrecked cars. The marshlands crept up on both sides of the road here. If we stepped off the street, we’d immediately get wet and bogged down. We wouldn’t be able to go around.

“Okay,” I said as Donut and Mongo pulled up next to me. “Let’s approach cautiously and see what we’re dealing with. Get your escape spells ready in case we gotta run.”

The moment we stopped, I could hear them. It was crackling and crunching and skittering and what sounded like the murmuring of a thousand voices all at once. The tops of the trees around the bend shook.

“I think I know what this is going to be,” I said as we moved forward.

“Let’s go stealth.” That meant Take an invisibility potion and put Mongo away.

A moment later, we turned the bend, and I saw I was correct.

Far ahead, there was a modest hill of crashed cars, and beyond that, there were hundreds of the mobs, crossing from the left side of the road to the right. They were headed toward the ocean about a half of a mile away.

Crabs. They just kept coming and coming.

Paz had said the real versions were small, maybe about the size of a person’s hand. These guys were bigger than that. Each of the red and black, armored creatures was about the size of a large pig, with long, segmented legs and claws big enough to wrap around my waist and snap me in half.

They were smaller than the crabs Odette used for her lower body, but they were still goddamned huge. They moved quickly into the forest, splashing into the marsh, crawling over one another with little regard for the safety of their fellow crab. One appeared to have the severed arm of another in its claw, and it was munching on it like a turkey leg as it migrated south.

Another stumbled, and was soon trampled over by the others. The murmuring noise rose in volume, like we were approaching a busy café. They were all talking to one another.

“Stop,” I hissed, lowering behind a car, despite the invisibility. I spied a single crab sitting alone atop a crashed box truck, only about twenty feet away. It wasn’t moving, and I hadn’t noticed its dot mixed in with all the noise. The crab was talking to himself, and he looked like he was in the middle of casting a spell. A faint, yellow glow surrounded his body. I examined it.

Raul. Red Maníseros Land Crab. Sun-Kissed Cloud Rank Warrior.

Level 70.

The land crabs, masters of the Juego de maní fighting style, have trained their whole lives for this moment. After years of humiliating defeats, they are ready to seize their destiny. Their sworn enemies, the Monk Seals with their wretched Caribbean Kung Fu, won’t know what’s about to hit them. The crabs have massed on the southern borders of the island, where they will swoop into the waves. From there, they will circle the island and release their grand emissions, finally choking out their sworn enemies and birthing an army to tremble the heavens.

Having cultivated for many years, Raul is on the verge of a breakthrough. Through meditation, perseverance, and maybe a little divine intervention, he will enrich his chi to the breaking point, where he will combine it with his inner core and break through to the next level of his development into a master.

But the timing couldn’t be worse. The conflict is here. It is now. He is ready to bathe himself in the crucible of war, no matter his station, but he prays for the chance to descend upon his sworn enemies with the power of the heavenly rank.

Will he break through before the battle begins?

Probably not if his meditations keep getting interrupted.

“Carl, I don’t understand that description at all. It sounds like something from one of your nerd cartoons.”

Before I could answer, we got another notification.

Quest Update. The Chowder War.

The migration has begun, and it’s a sneak attack! The crabs have pulled a fast one. Instead of spreading their incursions evenly upon the coast, they have massed in the south where the monk seals have the lowest concentration. United, they are scrambling toward the water, ready to release their seed. Once in the waves, they will trek around the coast, trailing destruction until the wretched monk seals are defeated once and for all and forever banished from these sacred lands.

It’s time to choose a side. If you do nothing, odds are good this bloody conflict will soon spiral out of control. But if you choose to help the crabs, surely they will sweep to victory, choking the baby seals to death with their emissions. If you side with the seals, perhaps the kung fu masters will crush the advance of the crustaceans, ensuring a peaceful

existence for generations to come.

What will you do?

I sighed. We didn’t have time for this, though I did want to flag one of these crabs. It was probably a terrible idea to have both a seal and crab in our deck at the same time, but then we could decide which one was better.

“I’m going to get a flag ready,” I whispered as we continued to watch the lone crab.

The mob appeared to be just sitting there atop the pile of crashed cars. It was sitting in a crab’s version of the lotus position with its two claws stretched out, facing away from us. It apparently was meditating, but it was also talking loudly. The golden glow around it pulsated.

“Okay, Raul. You got this. You got this. You will not kowtow to the weak! You will never kowtow! You will ascend past cloud rank and move to the golden heavenly throne.”

“Carl, is he talking to himself?” Donut whispered.

“I’m pretty sure he is.”

“What is he talking about? What’s a cow towel?”

“He’s saying kowtow. It means to submit or be subservient.”

“He’s talking crazy.”

The crab continued to chant to himself, like he was repeating lines off a self-help tape. “My chi is powerful. It is strong. It is clean and free of corruption. It will move to the next level soon. I can feel it. It is pure. I will be a worthy opponent. I will not be left behind. I will never kowtow! When I spread my seed, it will be strong, blessed with my heavenly power.”

The crab was about 100 meters from the main exodus. We needed to find a way to flag him without catching the attention of the rest of the crabs. If these guys were all level 70-something or above, we’d be screwed if they

decided to swarm.

I eyed the box truck Raul stood upon.

“Come on, Donut,” I whispered. “We’re making a crab trap.”