The Eye of the Bedlam Bride — Chapter no 32

[ 32 ]

AFTER SECURING THE SECOND WALL, I CREPT BACK DOWN THE PASSAGE, stopping at the third door on my right. There were several doors here, leading to the back of the shops. The first was the jeweler, the second was a burglar’s emporium, and this third back door supposedly led to an empty, closet-sized room.

This tiny room actually had a hole in the ceiling and another in the ground. That hole upward led to a secret panel in the employee-only hallway on the top floor. This passageway was how Astrid the fairy quickly moved from the top floor to the middle one. It was also the path Astrid would take today when she came to deal with a very drunk sex doll head who refused to leave the bar.

Samantha didn’t know the full plan. All she needed to do was make a ruckus when I asked her to and then refuse to leave the bar area. All the guards on this second floor were crocodilian, and they’d be unable to catch her if she didn’t want to be caught. They’d be forced to summon Astrid. The fairy would emerge from the closet, enter this hallway, and then move toward the main merchant hall and toward the bar. It was the fastest path, and according to the Night Wyrm, it was the path she always took when she entered this middle floor.

The moment she left this closet, she’d be dead. And if she wasn’t, Katia would be here with her deck, waiting to finish her off and collect her body before escaping.

According to the map, Astrid’s office was located on the top floor, behind a small vent at the end of the employees-only hall, which explained why I’d never noticed it. This was the same back area where Orren the liaison’s now- empty office stood. The entrance to Astrid’s space was small and up against the ceiling. Supposedly, this passage to her office led to a hollowed-out hole

in the interior of a tree, where she worked and slept and did whatever blood fairies did.

The tree part was interesting. It wasn’t anything I needed to worry about today, but it made me think of the All Tree. Signet had told me a little about the massive tree, about how it grew through all the worlds at once, connecting everything. Her circus ringmaster husband, Grimaldi, who’d been turned into a vine by Scolopendra, was now connected with the tree.

I planted a motion detecting smoke trap at the top of the doorway, and then I planted the motion-detecting, anti-NPC claymores against the wall opposite the door. The blast was directional, facing the closet. The moment Astrid appeared, boom.

In theory, these explosives alone were more than enough to do the job.

The bombs were packed with orcish iron BBs, which were supposedly deadly to fairies. But I took Rosetta’s warning in the cookbook to heart. These fuckers were lucky, and we would leave nothing to chance, hence the teleport traps and Katia.

I thought of Paz as I worked. He’d had a self-destruct spell that he could aim magically at a single target. While my claymore was directional, it was aimed manually, and there would be a lot of wasted energy in the explosion.

One day I hoped to master the ability to magically aim blasts. If I could do that, even a small blast could be enough to kill something otherwise resistant to explosions. An aimed blast with a narrow target had the power to kill anything.

I backed all the way out of the secret hallway.

Carl: I’m set up in here. Moving upstairs now. I’ll take the main stairs by the casino.

Katia: Okay. I’m in the women’s room on the middle floor. As soon as you clear out, I’ll move to the hallway.

Carl: Be careful of the claymores. Stay all the way at the back. And don’t forget the invisibility potion.

Carl: Samantha be ready. It’ll be a few minutes.

Samantha: DIRTY SHIRLIES ARE THE GREATEST DRINKS EVER.

I moved back into the utility closet and then the hallway. I rushed down the empty, public corridor, emerging back into the bar. I moved past, pausing long enough to hear Samantha chatting away with Charles the bartender, telling him that he’d have to fight Louis for her affection. I moved quickly,

skirting the restaurant and to the main stairs that stood near the entrance to the middle floor casino, called “The Hunting Grounds Casino.” I hadn’t actually gone into this casino before, but I knew it had a lot of the same games as the one upstairs. I spied a wheel of fortune game similar to the one I’d played before. I made my way to the top floor. I moved past the main dance floor, eyeing the crowd, trying to single out all the crawlers. There were four of them, all dancing together. I didn’t know any of them.

I moved to the bathrooms, went into the men’s room, and I found the secret catch for the utility closet. I opened the door and tossed in all of the teleport trap beacons.

All the guards who set off the teleport traps below would get sent to this room. There was no door handle on the other side. I tossed in a smoke trap for good measure. The guards would probably get out fairly quickly, but it’d take them time to figure out what the hell was going on and where they’d teleported from.

I then moved toward the dance floor, moving past a generated, elf NPC asking me to dance.

Carl: Okay. I’m almost in place. I just gotta talk to these crawlers.

Katia: I’m ready.

I clicked over to my second chat.

Carl: Okay, Samantha. Start being mean to the bartender.

Samantha: I’LL HAVE YOU KNOW YOU’RE FORCING ME TO RUIN A PERFECTLY GOOD POTENTIAL BACKUP RELATIONSHIP. CHARLES COULD BE MY SOULMATE. HIS LAST NAME IS ELLIS, AND SAMANTHA ELLIS HAS A NICE RING TO IT, BUT YOU’RE MAKING ME RUIN IT.

Carl: Don’t actually hurt him or anything. Keep me updated.

Samantha: DON’T HURT HIM? I THOUGHT WE WERE DOING AN ASSASSINATION?

Carl: We are, but not of him. I can’t tell you who we’re trying to kill.

It’ll ruin the quest. I told you this already.

Samantha: IT’S NOT ME IS IT?

Carl: Of course not.

Samantha: AND YOU’RE SURE IT’S NOT CHARLES?

Carl: No, it’s not the bartender.

Samantha: UH-OH.

Carl: Uh-oh, what?

Samantha: UH, DON’T WORRY ABOUT IT. THE GUARDS ARE PROBABLY ALREADY ON THEIR WAY.

“Shit,” I mumbled, and I moved to the dance floor.

I knew the crocodilians were loath to call Astrid, but they would eventually cave, which meant we had a few minutes still. I knew from experience they’d actually send a crocodilian up the stairs and into the employee hallway to summon her. I would post up by the bar on this floor and watch for the guard and send an early warning to Katia. I returned my attention to the dancers.

The four crawlers were in a circle, laughing and dancing together. It was three women and one man. Two of the women were human, and the third was an elf. The man looked human at first, but he had a blue tinge to his skin. One of the humans noticed me, and a look of shock registered on her face. She elbowed her closest companion as I drew the privacy bubble over my head and asked for her to do the same.

This woman was a level-52 Boring Ol’ Mage named Zeynep. I figured she was from somewhere in the middle east. The woman was older, if I had to guess. In her late fifties.

“Carl?” the woman asked. She looked around. “Where’s your cat friend?”

“Hey guys,” I said. “Look, I gotta ask a favor of you. Please don’t ask why, but you guys should leave. Like right now.”

“Why?” the man asked. His race was a Zebani, and he was a level 55 Ghazi named Emir Akbas. I had no idea what either a Ghazi or Zebani was, but the tall guy had huge arms and a curved sword over his shoulder. He also had the second-bushiest monobrow I’d ever seen in my life, the thickest belonging to my friend, Sam. The man also appeared older, also in his 50’s. I suspected maybe he was married to the other woman. All four of them had similar crawler numbers, implying they’d been together this whole time. The other two women—the elf and the other human—were younger, maybe early 20’s. The man looked me up and down angrily. “Why should we do what you say? We’ve collected our squad. We’re relaxing before we move on to phase two.”

“Look,” I said. “Something is about to go down in here, and I don’t want

anyone getting hurt.”

“What’s going down?” Emir demanded.

“Do you need help?” Zeynep asked, almost at the same moment.

“No,” I said firmly. “Look, I don’t have time.” I held out my fist. “Get in

my chat, and I promise I’ll explain it all in like 15 minutes. Odds are good nothing will happen up here on this floor, but I really want you guys out of here before it all goes down just in case.”

Zeynep shrugged and punched fists with me. She was the only one.

The three women started to move toward the exit, but Emir didn’t budge.

He was being an obstinate dick. They all stopped and were talking angrily amongst themselves using the chat. It was clear he didn’t want to leave.

I realized belatedly that this Emir guy was drunk off his ass. I kicked myself for not noticing it right away. Great.

Katia: There’s a lot of commotion going on out there. I can hear Samantha yelling from here, and somebody is screaming. I think it’s the bartender badger guy. There was just a loud crash.

Carl: Shit. I’m still dealing with these crawlers. Samantha is working faster than I anticipated.

Samantha: HOW LONG DO I HAVE TO KEEP DOING THIS?

EVERYONE IS VERY UPSET, AND CHARLES IS VERY HEAVY.

DID YOU KNOW THERE’S A CASINO IN HERE? YOU DIDN’T TELL ME ABOUT THE CASINO! IT SOUNDS SO JINGLY JANGLY AND PRETTY.

Carl: What? Are you carrying him? And don’t go in the casino! Stay in the bar area! It’ll just be a minute.

“You think you’re such a big, bad man,” Emir was saying. I could hear the slur in his voice. “I could beat your ass.”

I didn’t have time for this guy’s bullshit. Some of the cretin bodyguards were looking in our direction.

Carl: Zeynep, can you keep your friend under control? I gotta go. If you aren’t going to leave, just stay here on the dance floor and don’t get involved in anything. But try to get out of here.

Zeynep: I will try. I am sorry. He is quite jealous of you, and he is very drunk.

I nodded and turned my back, moving toward the bar.

“Don’t turn your back on me,” Emir growled.

I ignored him and kept walking.

The door to the employee exit opened, and Astrid flew out. There was no warning. If a guard had summoned her, I missed it. She ignored me as she zipped past. She went straight for the regular stairs. She hadn’t used the secret stairwell at all.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

The plan was already hosed.

Carl: Katia. Astrid is on her way down. She’s using the main stairs!

Carl: Samantha. You’re done. Get out of the club now.

Katia: Shit. What do I do?

I thought for a moment.

Carl: Get into the hallway and into the gnome jeweler’s shop. Wait for her. Maybe she’ll use the secret passageway on her way back. If she passes, follow her after the blast. She’ll still get hit by the IED.

The moment I finished sending that message, an alarm went off. Not a trap alarm, but an actual one. Loud and jarring, like a fire alarm. This was not planned, and I had no idea what this was. A red light pulsed. The music abruptly stopped. All the generated NPCs stopped dancing and looked around at one another.

A disembodied voice came over a loudspeaker.

“There has been a containment breach on the middle level. Everyone must evacuate or shelter in place. All security personnel to the Hunting Grounds Level Casino. This is not a drill. I repeat, this is not a drill.”

All of the pre-generated NPCs blinked and disappeared, and the room was suddenly empty except for me, the four other crawlers, the cretin bodyguards, this floor’s badger bartender, and a few others, who were all scattering toward exits or doorways deeper into the club. The guards were all breaking for the stairwell down to the club’s middle floor.

Katia: Carl, what’s happening? Did the monsters break out of that

back room?

Carl: I don’t know.

The alarm stopped, but the red light kept flashing. I felt a rumble in the floor, as if something had exploded down below. I moved to my trap menu to check my claymores and my other traps to see if they’d gone off prematurely.

It didn’t appear as if anything in that hallway had been disturbed at all. Huh.

And then what the announcement had said finally registered.

The casino.

“Carl, watch out!” It was Zeynep.

Combat Started.

A fist slammed into the side of my head. I felt myself drop and hit the floor. It was Emir. He grunted with pain from the damage reflect.

It had hurt, and he’d knocked me down, but I was so surprised that I just

looked up at the man, incredulous.

“Dude, what the hell, man?” I asked as Zeynep and the others yelled at him to stop. My hand came away bloody. I was bleeding. The guy had a powerful punch.

“You assholes keeping it all for yourselves,” he said.

I had no idea what that meant. The guy wasn’t making sense. I was still on the floor. He reared back with his metal boot and moved to punt me in the ribs. He swung with an exaggerated kick, and I caught his foot. I rolled, pulling him off balance. He slammed onto his back as I jumped to my feet, hands still wrapped around his foot.

Donut: CARL, WHAT’S HAPPENING! I GOT A NEW COMBAT STARTED NOTIFICATION AND AN ERROR THAT SAYS I’M TOO FAR AWAY FOR DECK COMBAT. I’M IN THE PRACTICE ARENA! ARE YOU OKAY?

I yanked, and the man’s metallic boot ripped off his foot. I tossed it away.

He scrambled, trying to get up. He raised his hand, but Zeynep cast something. Not against me, but against her own teammate. Mute. The notification appeared over his head. She’d stopped him from attacking me with a spell.

“Are you done?” I demanded as I sent a calming message to Donut.

Below, there was another crash. “You’re drunk, and I don’t know why you’re mad. Get the hell out of here.”

Katia: Carl, something weird’s going on. I’m going to go look.

“My Burcu is going to kill you,” the man growled, scrambling up as the others pulled him away.

“She’s going to have to wait until tomorrow. Get the fuck out.”

Burcu was a crawler floating around number 10 on the top list. I’d never really talked to her, but I did have her in my chat, having briefly met her during the Butcher’s Masquerade. Like the bartenders, she was also a porsuk.

A badger. Her class was swashbuckler, the same as Bautista and Tran. She’d been one of the three people who’d fought over the memorial crystal at the end of that whole boss fight. I knew nothing else about her other than she was very serious, reminding me of Hekla. And that she was Turkish. I realized all of these guys were maybe in the same family.

Zeynep muttered an apology as she pulled him toward the exit. They left

the man’s boot on the floor.

My head still swam from the punch.

Samantha: OKAY, DON’T GET MAD.

Carl: What the hell does that mean? You have to leave now!

Samantha: DON’T WORRY. CHARLES AND I WILL KICK HER ASS!

A loud, booming voice echoed through the entire club. The wooden dancefloor buckled in a few places as it shook with the deep bass of the cry.

“PSAMATHE! I CAN SMELL YOU! WHERE ARE YOU, YOU LITTLE SLUT?”

And then, it clicked. This had nothing to do with the monsters in the secret doorway. Samantha had gone into the casino. The casino contained entrances to the Nothing. One of those things had gotten out. A minor feral demon. There was a whole group of them trapped in the Nothing, all sisters.

They were part of some harem, and they hated Samantha because she’d insulted their king. Or something equally stupid.

The last time one had gotten out, she’d been kaiju-sized. She’d been killed by a god, Samantha’s mother, who’d ripped her in half. That one’s

name had been Slit.

She’d also been level 200.

At the end of the Butcher’s Masquerade, when the dying Signet had been pulled into the Nothing, there’d been another. It’d just been a voice, but it had called out of the Nothing, calling for Samantha. The entrances to the Nothing were one-way, except in rare circumstances, like when I used the Gate of the Feral Gods. Did Samantha’s presence change that?

Astrid had that Cosmic Sense skill. She’d known what was coming. She’d gone down the main stairs instead of the secret passageway because that was

a faster path to the casino.

Shit.

We had to get the hell out of here. The ground buckled again. The sounds of fighting rose up from the main stairwell down to the middle level.

Carl: Katia. Abort! Go into the bathroom passageway and up the stairs, and we’ll use the exit up here.

Carl: Samantha, get the hell out of there!

Samantha: I HAVE THAT BITCH RIGHT WHERE I WANT HER.

Katia: Carl, no. I have to do this. That thing is going to destroy the club. I have to get to Astrid now and then get her body into the guild. If I don’t finish this now, we won’t get a chance. The fight will be our distraction.

Carl: Are you fucking kidding me?

Katia: Carl, this is all my fault. I have to fix it. You get out of here, but I’m going to stay. I can still get to her.

Carl: No, Katia. That thing is level 200. We can’t fight it.

Katia: I’m not fighting the demon, just Astrid. But she is going to kill Astrid if I don’t, and we’ll lose the quest. Remember what you said?

That you’re not going to give up on me? Well, I’m not going to give up on you and Donut, either. This is it.

“Goddamnit,” I muttered. I rushed toward the women’s room. I kicked open the stall with the secret stairwell—the first secret passage we’d discovered in this place—and I opened the hidden door and jumped inside.

The walls continued to shake. I burst out into the women’s room of the middle floor. More screams echoed. The regular lights had gone out, and the flashing red of the emergency lights gave a distinctive pulse. It’d gone ominously silent down here. I rushed out of the bathroom and stopped at the last corner before the restaurant.

To my left just around the corner was the restaurant. If I wanted to get to Katia, I’d have to cross this space. I’d have about ten feet where I’d be exposed to the monster. To my right was a large pair of double doors leading into the back kitchens.

I pressed myself against the corner and listened. There was a wet splotching followed by a deep grunting noise. It sounded like someone with no teeth chewing. The sound came from the main restaurant, not the casino.

Someone was sobbing, begging for their life, their voice weak and barely audible. It was a crocodilian. There was a crack and a splash.

“PSAMATHE, GET BACK HERE!” the voice suddenly cried, painfully loud.

“Hah!” came Samantha’s retort. She was farther away. “I killed your stupid sister, and Charles and I will kill you even more! It’s not my fault your ugly king can’t stand to attention at the sight of you. Everyone thinks you’re gross and ugly. Right, Chuckie?”

“Oh god, somebody please help me,” came the weak cry of Charles the bartender.

“YOU DIDN’T KILL SLIT. YOUR MOTHER DID. YOU CAN’T EVEN FIGHT YOUR OWN BATTLES, YOU STUPID POTATO!”

“What? What? I will fuck you up!” Samantha shrieked.

“THEN QUIT HIDING BEHIND THE PORTAL AND GET OUT

HERE, WHORE!”

I examined the map, looking for a safer path to Katia. The map was a chaos of dots and Xs. There were the white dots of about twenty NPCs, all gathered in the kitchen area to my right, likely massing for an attack. If Astrid was in there, I couldn’t tell. Katia’s blue dot was in the merchant hall, just past the badger bar.

I could see Samantha zipping through the back of the casino area with the white dot of another NPC traveling with her. The rest of the casino was littered with the Xs of dead NPCs.

The red, misshapen dot of the demon filled about a quarter of the restaurant. It was surrounded by Xs and multiple white dots, indicating several of the NPCs in the restaurant were still alive.

There was a crash followed by a scream. I hazarded a peek around the

corner.

Holy fuck.

The demon was different than Slit. She was straight from a nightmare.

The pink, fleshy terror occupied the center of the room. Slit had been 100 feet tall. This one was smaller, sized to fit the club. Sort of.

The naked, corpulent creature was crammed into the room, and her round, bald head was pushed to the side against the tall ceiling. Her sore-covered body looked like she’d been oozed into the room from an ice-cream machine and was just now starting to melt.

I didn’t see any legs, but the grotesque monster was covered with slender, multi-jointed arms with massive, kite-sized claws at the end. The arms were no wider than twigs, giving the impression I could snap them in half, but they were long, too long, some snaking across the entire room. She had at least twenty of the appendages, making her look like some sort of eldritch snow man. A few of the claws were pressed against the ceiling, a few more against the floor and walls, and the rest were all occupied, holding tightly around the necks of struggling NPCs, including a few cretins, suggesting the limbs were stronger than they looked.

The large, giant face of the demon was covered in thick, clown-like makeup, just like her sister. Her mouth was wide enough that I could drive the royal chariot right into it. The demon’s red lipstick was smeared all over her face. A scattering of black hairs, about as thick and long as my thumb covered the very top of the pink mass.

She stank of diseased skin, even from here. The scent reminded me of a

guy I’d once known who’d almost had to have his toes amputated because of athlete’s foot that had gotten so bad it’d developed into gangrene.

Minge. Level 225 Minor Feral Demon.

This one was a higher level than Slit had been, despite not being a kaiju.

She was only 25 levels shy of most gods.

I peeked again, long enough to watch the demon pull a crying crocodilian to her mouth and crunch down onto his chest, taking a literal bite out of him.

The way she bit down was almost dainty, like she was trying just a sliver of a cookie because she was unsure of the taste. The guard gasped in pain. Blood and gore cascaded out of the horrific wound like he was a jelly donut. She made a sort of jiggling shrug and then ate him whole. She belched loudly.

“PSAMATHE!” she cried again, gore pouring from the side of her mouth.

Katia: Carl, get out of here!

Carl: If you’re staying, I’m staying. Where’s Astrid?

Katia: She’s in the kitchen.

Carl: Okay. Stay there. I’m setting up a distraction then coming to you.

I prepared an invisibility potion and pulled out an alarm ball. But before I could move, the double doors leading to the kitchen swung open, and a whole stampede of bipedal, rhinoceros samurai dudes dashed from the room, screaming as they rushed the demon in the restaurant. They were decked out like steampunk samurais, complete with swords and blades at the end of sticks. Each stood about seven feet tall and were huge. The ground shook as they charged. I caught sight of one, at the end of the stampede.

Walter – Sai. Level 101.

Guard of the Larracos level of the Desperado Club.

The Sai are quite serious about their guard duties, mostly because it’s the only gig they can really get. They used to be firefighters, but firefighting in a war zone is a good way to make yourself almost extinct.

So, they migrated into the Desperado Club and now are known as the ever-present guards of the bottom* floor of the Desperado. Focusing on their duties distracts them from all those urban legends about their armor being too itchy. These creatures aren’t really known for their intelligence, but they’re generally good guys, loyal until the end. That’s what makes them good guards. They don’t care about rules or laws or morals. They just do what they’re told.

If they charge, get the hell out of the way.

I suddenly thought of Ferdinand the cat. He had a rhinoceros mount, though that thing was more like the real deal than these guys, who walked on two feet. I couldn’t remember what the mount’s name was, but I was pretty sure it had been inside the elf castle when it transferred down to the ninth floor.

The rhino guards were quickly followed by a group of cretins, who also rumbled past me and into the room. I pressed myself against the wall as they crashed into the demon, who started screaming and laughing at the same time. A splash of red blew into the hall from the restaurant. Fuck me.

Katia: Carl, a bunch of croc guards just rushed into the hallway.

They didn’t even look at me. They were moving toward that back hallway where we were going to ambush her. I don’t know why.

Carl: I bet they’re headed toward the mercenary market. That Meat Shields location is back there. They’re getting backup.

Katia: No, I think they’re going into the secret passage!

Carl: Hold tight. I’m coming.

I took a breath and downed the invisibility potion. I took the alarm ball and chucked it as hard as I could, aiming it toward the front of the club. It sailed through the room, missing the arms and slammed against the front, main entrance to the club. I waited a few seconds. I had no idea what the song would be. Donut had begged me to let her pick a few of the songs for the distraction balls, and I’d let her do it to give her practice using my sapper’s table. rdTopping at number two on March 23, 1985, it’s “Material Girl!”

Just as the Madonna song started to blast, I bolted across the open space in front of the demon. But the very moment I stepped out, I was slammed by the body of a sai who’d just been tossed away by the large demon as she turned toward the music. Both the sai—who was dead—and I crashed through the double doors and slid into the back kitchens. I skidded through the room, slamming into a tall spice rack, which tumbled over. I groaned and pushed the monster off of me. I was still invisible.

The room was like any other kitchen from a large-scale restaurant. A row of food preparation stations stood on one side, then ovens, and shelves filled with supplies. What looked like a line of honest-to-goodness microwave ovens stood against the opposite wall. They weren’t microwaves, I realized, but a type of food box I hadn’t seen before. A group of elf and gnome NPCs huddled in the far back. There was a line of doors here, offices by the look of

them.

Astrid floated near the row of food boxes, flanked by two crocodilian guards. She was shouting orders at them, and they rushed off, out a second door, this one leading toward the badger bar, presumably also headed toward that back, secret passage.

Shit, shit. I didn’t want Astrid to see me. Surely she didn’t know what Katia and I were attempting, but if she knew Samantha was responsible for

this demon, who knew what she would do?

Your teleport trap has been activated!

Your teleport trap has been activated!

No, I’m not stuttering. Your teleport trap has activated!

This was followed by about ten more of the same notifications.

Those guards had, indeed, gone into the secret hallway. But why? The only thing back there was the fairy-sized passage up to the top floor. That, and the room with the monsters. They’d hit the teleport traps, which had probably saved their lives. If they passed the claymore, they’d get turned to mulch. There were now two more guards headed in that direction. They, too, would hit teleport traps. I hoped.

I had to get out of here before Astrid saw me. I gingerly stood, moving away from the heavy, unmoving body of the sai. Jesus, I thought, looking at the large corpse. The demon had literally ripped its head off.

“Gah!” I cried as half of another sai rhino guard was flung into the kitchen, spewing blood, splattering over me. I had to jump to keep from getting bowled over by the torso, and when I landed, I slipped in the blood. I grasped a pot in an unsuccessful attempt to keep from falling on my ass, and half the counter crashed down on me, including what smelled and tasted like split pea soup. In the back of the room, the elves cried out in horror.

“Crawler,” Astrid shouted, looking at me. I could barely hear her. I cringed, expecting her to attack. I was still invisible for a few more seconds, but my outline was now observable, thanks to the gore and soup. Astrid sounded panicked, which surprised me, despite the circumstances. “Carl, is that you? You need to get out of here. It is not safe.”

“Yeah, no shit,” I said, standing to my full height. My invisibility faded. I could taste the soup in my mouth.

I tried drawing a sound bubble over my head to see if it would work against the alarm trap. To my surprise, it did. The moment I drew it, I could hear shouting. Outside, Samantha was listing off a litany of venereal diseases

Minge most likely had while the demon continued to make short work of the

attacking guards.

Katia: Two more just rushed by.

Carl: I’m in here with Astrid. It’s just her and several of the kitchen workers cowering in the back. I think most of the club’s guards are dead already.

“I had to pull the trigger,” Astrid said. She, too, had a bubble over her head now. “There’s been a breach of the Nothing in the casino. We can’t kill

her. I had to unleash the vorpals.”

“Uh,” I said. “The what?”

“It doesn’t matter, crawler. You must flee! They will kill everything.

Leave the club, or get into one of the shops and hide.”

Your teleport trap has been activated!

There was a pause. Uh-oh, I thought.

I felt the distant explosion rumble the floor the same moment the

notification appeared.

Bam! Your IED has been activated.

Ewww. Gross. That worked really well. Like, really well.

“Damn, what is taking them so long?” Astrid said, looking toward the exit. More rhino gore spewed into the kitchen. Astrid paused and then looked at me.

“Carl, we have to stop this before it gets upstairs. If they ask what happened to me, tell them it was a vorpal.” She buzzed back and forth uncertainly, rubbing her tiny hands. “Maybe… maybe if you loan me one of those invisibility potions they won’t kill me.” She shook her head. She was babbling. “No, that won’t work. Damnit, I was so close. So close. If you see my husband, tell him I did it to keep them safe. Him and my children.”

“Your husband?” I asked. “Your children?”

She indicated the tattoo on my elbow. “You’re in the Guild of Suffering.

My husband is named Hamed, but he’s known as the Night Wyrm. Don’t tell him I told you his real name. His lair is hidden up there on the top floor. The vorpals won’t go up there. They’ll stay on this floor.” She didn’t sound so sure of that last part.

“Wait,” I said, but I didn’t finish the thought. The Night Wyrm was her husband? That didn’t make any damn sense. He’d hired Katia and me to kill her. The one time I’d been in there, I’d only heard the thing’s voice. I’d assumed he was like a naga. Not a fairy. That was a weird combination.

Outside, Samantha was screaming again, this time something incomprehensible. The whole club shook as Minge continued to smash things. The song ended and started over again.

“TURN THAT TERRIBLE NOISE OFF,” Minge shouted.

“I will not! You have horrific taste in music!” Samantha shouted back.

“You really did it this time,” Astrid said to me. She shook her tiny head.

“I should have followed Orren’s advice and permanently banned you. They told me not to. Gods, I hope it’s worth it.”

“I… what?”

The door toward the badger bar opened, and a giant, hooded, elderly, female troll creature burst into the room. She looked at us and roared.

What the… But then I realized what this was. Katia had activated her deck, and this troll was one of her totems. It’d been strength buffed.

This was the first time I’d seen Katia’s squad flag, which floated over the creature’s head. I blinked. I’d been assuming this whole time it would be the Crown of the Sepsis Whore. I was hard to see when it was so small, but I was pretty sure it depicted Hekla and Eva’s faces, side-by-side with Xs over their eyes. The player-killer skull mark sat in the middle of the blood-red flag.

Astrid appeared shocked at the sudden, unexpected entrance of the troll.

This thing was clearly a woman, eight feet tall, with a long, hooked nose. She held onto what appeared to be a giant spoon. Green, wet moss covered her robe and fell off in clumps. Astrid buzzed in front of the monster, as if she was protecting me.

“Bein þín mun ég sjóða,” the troll cackled, laughing. It didn’t translate, whatever she said.

Astrid didn’t hesitate. She cast a spell, and the troll thing dropped to her knees as all the blood in her body boiled. Her round, bulbous eyes exploded just as a second creature flew the room. This was also a totem. It was a crow with the skull of a child for a head. It cawed as Astrid cast another spell at the bird. The spell appeared ineffective.

Something metallic brushed against my leg, pushing me to the side. The moment it touched me, the blue dot appeared on my map. It was Katia, invisible. She’d entered the room during the distraction, coming up behind us. She couldn’t cast spells or use her inventory while she had cards active, but she could still drink potions if they were available, and that’s what she’d done.

She could still shapeshift, apparently, too.

Katia faded into existence, her form that of a metallic, spiked-covered, human-faced, canine monstrosity with a pair of arms on her shoulders. It was like something out of The Thing. One of the hands on her shoulders grasped the fairy, crushing. A spike formed in the other hand as it plunged toward the fairy’s head.

But then, Katia gasped, freezing in place, the spike mere millimeters from the back of Astrid’s head.

And for a moment, just a moment, I froze, too. Not because I’d been hit by a spell, but because of the look on Katia’s face.

There are certain instants and images throughout this horror that are burned indelibly in my mind. The moment when I saw Jack pissing on the wall. Those last seconds, just before the Carl’s Doomsday Scenario bomb didn’t go off. When Hekla died. The sound of little Bonnie the gnome’s tears after we crashed the Wasteland. The sound of Prepotente’s screams after Miriam Dom sacrificed herself to save him.

Donut’s sobs at the end of The Butcher’s Masquerade.

That moment, that sliver of a second as Katia remained there, hovering, frozen, her human mouth open in screaming rage. It did something to me.

The look on her face was so foreign, so inhuman yet so goddamned familiar that something inside me shifted. It was equal parts terror, equal parts rage.

Exhaustion. Yet, somehow alone. They were the eyes of someone who’d just slipped off a cliff and knew they were falling to their death, both resigned and yet filled with absolute rejection of her fate at the same time. It was like she was saying, after all this? After all we did, to get this close? No. No, I won’t believe it.

The moment was fleeting. I blinked, allowed myself to realize I hadn’t been frozen, and I moved. Astrid was right there, hovering in front of me, still clutched in Katia’s hand. I reached forward, grasped onto her wings, and I ripped. They pulled off of her easily. Small tendrils of sagging flesh remained connected to her body, like I was pulling apart melted cheese. I took a few steps back, and the tendrils snapped away.

The spell stopped, and Katia gasped. The fairy dropped from her grip and plummeted to the ground, crying out in surprise. Astrid landed with a small splash on the ground.

I looked in surprise at the fairy wings in my hand. Long strings of gore bobbed from the ends. I pulled them into my inventory, feeling sick.

Astrid rolled over, looking up at the human-faced wolf, shock and agony

evident in her small face. I was pretty sure she didn’t know I was the one who’d ripped her wings out. The skull-faced crow swept down, and with a shocking precision, disgorged both of Astrid’s eyes with a quick swipe of its talons. Sparkling blood trailed down the tiny fairy’s face.

It’d happened so fast, yet, yet, I let out of breath, suddenly exhausted.

Jesus, I thought.

Katia only had one card still, floating in front of her. The card was tiny, the size of a postage stamp.

Outside, the music abruptly stopped. Minge shouted in triumph.

“No, please!” Astrid said. “Save my children. I was almost done. I would be free soon. Tell them…”

A spike shot from the wolf’s neck and skewered the disabled and blind fairy through the head, killing her. Katia kept the body of the fairy impaled on the metallic barb as the bird with the skull head settled on the wolf’s shoulder. With a flick of a talon, the crow tossed one of the eyes up in the air, and the infant skull chattered, catching it and biting down like it was a tiny snack.

Behind us, the elf NPCs continued to cry and scream in terror. At this angle, they likely hadn’t seen exactly what had happened. Just that Astrid was dead, attacked by some creature. Out in the hall, the sounds of battle continued unabated. Samantha and Minge screamed back and forth.

Katia: Follow me back into the bar. We don’t want them knowing a crawler did this. Gotta convince them I’m a monster.

Katia’s human face changed, taking on an ogre-like appearance. She growled at the elf NPCs and bound back out through the door. I ran to follow, shouting, pretending like I was trying to attack the creature.

Astrid’s final words haunted me. I was almost done.