The Eye of the Bedlam Bride — Chapter no 34

[ 34 ]

th <Note Added by Crawler Ossie, 18Edition> I know I don’t write often in these scrolls, but I have read them all. I just finished my third re-read of Herot’s overly-wrought essay and ramblings about the Worn Path Method of waking NPCs. These theories are sound, I think, but I believe there is something he has missed. Something monumental. I think they’re lying about the origin of some of these NPCs. Years pass, times change, laws and rules evolve. But this behemoth we find ourselves trapped within still persists. A reused canvas painted over and over again. The fact that this scroll I am writing in even exists suggests that the brush strokes used to paint this world are so piled atop one another, it’s impossible to see every image that once was. Ask a bopca where they come from, and they’ll all tell you the same thing. That the aliens came to their planet and “offered” them a chance to live in the dungeon. I don’t think they’re the only ones with such a fate, and I’m beginning to believe the bopca’s station is much higher than that of those who’ve been offered a similar deal.

“LET’S GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE,” I SAID, BACKING TOWARD THE door. Minge was dead, but I could still hear them down there. The vorpals, whatever they were. They tore through the lower level of the club. They would supposedly disappear now that they’d bathed in demon blood, but how

long would it take? I eyed Damascus Steel nervously. He was a demon class, and his presence was dangerous.

“Wait,” Damascus said, pulling himself to his feet. Steaming tears continued to roll down his face. “You have to take them with you. The dancers from the Penis Parade. All of them.”

“Uh,” I said, exchanging a look with Katia. “Why?”

The ifrit straightened. “The club is going to be closed for remodeling after this. It’s happened before. With my mother dead, they’ll assign a new assistant manager. There’ll be a restructuring. They’ll kick us out.”

“Your mother?”

He looked up nervously at the ceiling.

“It’s a long story. We don’t have time for it. Normally, the dancers here…

We shouldn’t be here. Mother pulled strings. We have to leave.” He grabbed my arm and leaned in. His grip was like an iron clamp. “You owe me,” he whispered. “They will not survive this. You have to get them out of here. I convinced them to come, to work in this place. The new management is going to reassign them to the Larracos level. Or worse. If you don’t take them now, you’ll end up fighting against them on the ninth floor.”

I blinked at that. “What about you? You don’t want to come?”

More yellow fluid shot up from the hole in the floor, like the monsters below were splashing about in Minge’s corpse. It stank like rotten eggnog.

“I didn’t know who you were assigned to kill,” he said. “I don’t blame you for what happened. But I do blame him. We were promised freedom. He wanted to make sure she was dead. They’re still married. My mother has— had—so much, and the guild, it’s rarely found by crawlers. He gets it all.

He’ll have it all when we get out.”

I didn’t understand any of this. If there was a way I could take them with me, I would in a second. Mordecai would have a coronary, but I would do it.

But what the hell was he talking about?

“I’m sorry,” Katia said, interrupting. “Are you saying you’re former crawlers? That Astrid was a former crawler? And that she was your mother?

And…” she waved over at the cubicles in the back of the room toward the Night Wyrm’s lair, “And he’s your what? Your father?”

“Yes, they’re my parents. My brother and I were never crawlers,”

Damascus said. “Look, Carl. We all still have our memberships to Meat Shields. Donut said you have a coupon. You can hire us. Do it for a two-floor contract, and they’ll be able to leave with you.” He turned, searching the

room. His eyes focused on an elderly dwarf woman. She was rubbing

Anaconda’s back.

“Rosemarie, come,” Damascus called.

The dwarf woman hobbled over. I recognized her from the last time I’d visited the strip club. She had a black and white, fuzzy mole creature named Bernie perched on her shoulder. The old woman had gotten in trouble from the DJ for pelting one of the dancers in the eye with a gold coin.

“Rosemarie is the manager of the top floor’s Meat Shields location,”

Damascus said.

“I didn’t know there was one on this floor,” I said, instinctively pulling up the map. There wasn’t a location listed.

“I work out of my home office,” she said, waving vaguely over where her table use to be. There was just a hole there now. Samantha was there, on the ground, peering down into the smoke. She was laughing hysterically as Minge’s body below was getting eviscerated.

Damascus grabbed the elderly dwarf and shoved her toward me. “She can approve the transaction right now. Isn’t that right, Rosemarie? He wants to hire the entire crew for two floors.”

The old dwarf turned to regard Damascus, surprise on her face.

“Your mother said…”

“My mother is dead,” he snapped.

She took a moment, swallowing. “You really think they’ll shutter the Parade after this?”

While she was turned, that thing on her shoulder continued to stare at me.

It made a snuffling noise and growled.

“Not shutter it,” Damascus said. “It’ll be a restructuring, just like last time. My mother will be replaced. They’ll bring back the original dancers, and our whole crew will get thrown to the Larracos level Meat Shields.” He thumbed over his shoulder at a group of male dancers I didn’t recognize. The ones from that other strip club one floor down. I remembered that Donut did not like these guys nearly as much. “The pricks at the Palace won’t have us.”

“If you guys leave, they’ll fill this place up with the dregs again,”

Rosemarie said. “I’ll never get no business. Did you ever see those guys before you came on? Ain’t nobody gonna hire an elderly stripper with one leg

and halitosis.”

“We don’t have a choice.”

The dwarf grunted. “I gotta calculate the cost. You alone are worth a

good chunk, ya know.”

“I’m not going. It’ll be all the others. Bucket Boy and Doctor Bones, too.

And his coupon is for 100,000 gold. That’s how much it’ll cost.”

“Wait, what? You’re going to separate from your brother? What are you

going to do?”

“You know what I have to do,” he said.

Rosemarie patted Damascus on the waist. It was about as high as she could reach. Bernie stopped staring at me and jumped up to the ifrit’s shoulder and head-butted him before returning to the dwarf.

“I’m sure gonna miss the cum closet,” she said sadly. Bernie made a sad peep.

Katia: What in the heck are they talking about?

Carl: I… I’m not sure. I have a theory. I’ll tell you in a minute. But if we can actually hire these guys as mercenaries for our Faction Wars army, I’m going to do it. We’ll have to buy an upgrade for the guild, I think. We gotta house them until the next floor.

Katia: Donut made Imani buy a barracks upgrade earlier. We now have enough room for like 20 of them. We can get a bigger upgrade, but it’s really expensive. We bought the training arena for them, too. It’s

called the Mercenary Arcade.

Carl: Really? I didn’t know that.

Out loud, I said to Damascus, “If Astrid was your mother, how can that be that you’re not crawlers?”

There was a distant scream, but I couldn’t tell from where. The vorpals were still in the club.

“We have no time,” Damascus said. “And I’ve already gotten a warning to shut up about this. There’s more of us than you know. Anaconda and I are just two of thousands.”

Anaconda, the dark, quarter-naga looked up at the mention of his name.

“Brother, what are you doing?”

Damascus turned and put his hand on the other stripper’s shoulder. The two didn’t look anything alike. They weren’t even remotely the same species.

“I’m going to avenge our mother. He won’t win.”

The snake-like dancer looked up at his brother. He had slitted, reptilian eyes. “If you’re going to fight him, I’m going, too.”

“Me, too!” called Dong Quixote.

“No,” Anaconda said without turning his head. “This is family business.”

And then, without another word to us, Damascus held out his arm and pulled his brother to his feet. The two turned and walked toward the back of the club, skirting past Samantha, who remained at the breach in the floor. She made a lewd comment. They ignored her. Together, they entered the back cubicle.

“What is happening?” a woman asked. This was a snaggle-toothed, heavily-pierced goblin prostitute named Tuesday Two-For-One. She was furiously chewing gum. She reminded me of a pair of female goblins Donut and I had met so long ago. “Where are they going? Are they going to get each other off or something?”

Rosemarie looked up at me, waved her hand, and a shop interface window popped up.

She sighed heavily. “It’s the end of an era, you know. I hope you appreciate what you’ve done. Now let’s see that coupon of yours.”

Warning: The Desperado Club has been temporarily closed. You have fifteen minutes to exit, or you will be teleported out to the entrance

vestibule.

A timer appeared in my vision.

“Huh,” I whispered. I wasn’t expecting that.

Katia, Samantha, and I cautiously moved toward the exit. We stopped at the end of the hallway overlooking the dance floor and decided to wait here for a few minutes to make certain there was nothing out there. Samantha had reverted to rolling on the ground. As we waited, I thought of Ossie’s note at the end of Herot’s essay. That whole thing about the Worn Path Method was ridiculously long and mind-numbing. I hadn’t even noticed that note by Ossie until recently, when I read it during my cookbook transcription. There was no other mention anywhere about any such theory, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it now.

There was blood all over the dance floor. It hadn’t been there before, which meant at least one of those things had gotten up here. I was pretty sure it was gone, but I still wanted to wait a minute.

The 13 male strippers plus that skeleton DJ guy and the crocodilian Bucket Boy kid from the Penis Parade were already in the barracks. They’d transferred outside and to the front door of our personal space the moment we

hired them. The women from Bitches and the male and female clubs on the middle floor were left behind. Only the men of the Penis Parade were eligible to be hired as mercenaries.

I’d neglected to tell Donut they were coming, and she was over the moon with their addition to the guild.

Donut: OMG, CARL. THIS IS THE GREATEST THING SINCE YOU HIRED SLEDGIE. YOU EVEN HIRED DOCTOR BONES. HE’S THE BEST DJ SINCE DJ DIESEL. MY BIRTHDAY ISN’T UNTIL NOVEMBER, BUT IT’S LIKE IT STARTED EARLY. MONGO IS REALLY EXCITED, TOO. I’M SAD ANACONDA AND STEELIE AREN’T HERE, THOUGH. DO YOU THINK MAYBE THEY’LL

COME LATER?

Carl: Maybe. How’s Mordecai taking it?

Donut: THE GUYS ALL LEFT TO GO AND SEE THE MERCENARY TRAINING ARCADE, SO HE DOESN’T REALLY CARE. HE’S MORE MAD THAT YOU BLEW UP THE DESPERADO CLUB. HE SAYS IT’S GONNA BE A PROBLEM GETTING SUPPLIES. WHO WAS YOUR ASSASSINATION TARGET ANYWAY? YOU CAN TALK ABOUT IT NOW, RIGHT?

Carl: I’ll tell you about it when we get back. How’d it go in the practice arena?

Donut: THEY WERE PRETTY MAD. SHI MARIA WAS MAD, TOO. SHE WANTED ME TO USE THAT GLOW-UP CARD ON HER.

We’d debated this for a while, and in the end, I went with Donut’s judgment.

Before we’d gone into the club, Katia gave Donut one of her excess totem cards. A mythic creature from Iceland named Jola. I’d been worried Donut would be pissed, but she’d actually been pretty excited about it once she saw the card. After reading all its abilities, she decided she wanted it in our active deck, which would give us one too many totems.

Instead of getting rid of one of our existing cards, she’d instead used the consumable Combo card to combine two of the problem cards, used up all the utility buffs on them, and then used the consumable Glow-Up card to make the change permanent.

So when it was done, we actually had two new totems. Donut had spent the past several hours practicing with them by herself.

We had considered just getting rid of Shi Maria, or using the combo on

her to make a new creature, considering how dangerous she was. But we needed her if we wanted to survive this next part. It was a calculated risk. I hoped we’d have an opportunity to get rid of her once we got our hands on a key to the stairwell.

Carl: How is Jola? Does he do what you say? And what about the, uh, new one?

Donut: JOLA IS GREAT AS LONG AS THERE ARE NO

CHILDREN AROUND.

Carl: What the hell does that mean?

Donut: YOU’LL SEE. THE NEW COMBO GUY IS STILL A JERK, BUT HE LIKES FIGHTING. ALSO, YOU WERE BUSY SO I DIDN’T BOTHER YOU, BUT WE FINALIZED A BUNCH OF VOTES FOR THE FACTION WARS RULES THOUGH A BUNCH ARE STILL UP IN THE AIR.

Carl: Okay, I’ll see you in a bit. We’re going straight to Odette’s. Get ready. We might be there awhile, so make sure you go to the bathroom

first.

Donut: I ALREADY DID.

I looked over at Katia. She was leaning against the wall, her eyes closed, listening for monsters. Samantha was on the ground, gnawing at her ankle.

The club was empty. I didn’t see any dots. None at all. I once again looked at the dance floor, an uneasy feeling washing over me. It was strange seeing it like this. I thought of Clarabelle, the guard at the door. We wouldn’t see her when we left, not unless we backtracked inside, which we were now barred from doing. I hoped she was okay.

That boot was gone, I realized. The one from the crawler guy I’d fought with earlier.

Katia wasn’t looking good. She’d reverted to her large, blonde, female form, and even though she “sculpted” the way she looked, she had heavy rings under her eyes. She had a tremor in her left hand. We needed to get her to Mordecai and Imani for another treatment soon.

I thought, once again, of that terrifying look on her frozen face from

earlier.

“Are you doing okay?” I asked.

Katia spoke without opening her eyes. “I’m fine. I just need to rest for a minute, and we can go. I’m confused as hell about what was going on back there with the dancers. Tell me your theory.”

I shrugged. “I think the four of them… The Night Wyrm, Astrid, Damascus Steel, and Anaconda are a family, and they’ve been stuck in the dungeon for a really long time. I don’t think they’re generated NPCs, but more like the bopcas. Like maybe they were indentured servants who somehow signed up for, or were forced, into the dungeon. I don’t know what race they were born, but they’re all different ones in the game.”

Katia’s eyes opened at that. “Holy crap.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Did you see those girls from the Bitches room? They were all, uh, how do I say this?”

“Butt-ass ugly?” Samantha offered from the floor.

“Yeah,” I said. “I think the men in the Penis Parade on this floor are supposed to be like that. Like super, uh, unqualified. But they’re not. Well, some are. When Astrid ended up with the job as the assistant manager of the club, she made certain her two sons were safe and got them a gig at the Penis Parade where she could watch over them. It sounds like they were all members of Meat Shields, the mercenary market. She brought them to the club, and they brought their friends with them. She probably did some wheeling and dealing and parked that Rosemarie lady in there, so they were technically still mercenaries, but since nobody knew the club was also a Meat Shields location, they were safe.”

“What about the husband? The Guild of Suffering?”

“That, I’m not so clear on. But I think they believed they were going to be done soon, maybe done after this season, with their contract. The dad, who was playing the Night Wyrm, made us kill her. Based on what Damascus said, I think it was over money. Like if she died, he would get her paycheck or something.”

“Holy crap,” Katia said again. “So you think he had us murder her in the game for real-life money? That’s diabolical. Do you think the other guys, the rest of the strippers are the same type of NPC? Or are they the generated kind?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Unless they tell us, I don’t think there is a way to know. I’m not even sure they know sometimes. Mordecai said it was illegal to change the memories of natural people. That’s what he called them. ‘Naturals.’ I think that’s what he said.”

Actually, no, I remembered, thinking back on the short conversation we’d had way back when we’d entered the third floor. I was pretty sure he’d added, “Unless they signed away their rights.”

Jesus. I didn’t want to think about that.

“Come on,” Katia said, pulling me toward the exit. “It’s safe. We probably don’t want to get teleported out.”

As we exited the club, I suddenly remembered there were several Faction Wars participants still trapped on the bottom level of the Desperado because the lower part of the city remained flooded.

Despite the horrors of everything we’d just experienced, I felt myself grin as we stepped outside.