The Eye of the Bedlam Bride — Chapter no 48

[ 48 ]

THE ZOMBIE FARM ANIMALS WERE EVERYWHERE DOWN BELOW IN Florida, but there weren’t any preexisting mobs and hardly any animals for them to infect, so they were mostly wandering aimlessly about, attacking memory ghosts and occasionally getting splattered by the random car that appeared out of nowhere. They’d groan and start shuffling in our direction when they saw us, but they were all low level and easy to kill and were mostly a non-issue.

The last of the Iowa chunk had started to tumble away just as we finished, but luckily, the dirt made a somewhat reasonable ramp back down, and getting to the surface of Florida was much easier than I’d anticipated. We made it to the ground and headed back toward the nearest saferoom. We’d get there with several hours to spare before the recap episode.

Katia’s squad made it through their hydra battle, but it had been a tough one. The battle had occurred on the roof of a high-rise apartment building, surrounded by ghosts of Tran’s family, and the hydra itself consisted of both Louis and Britney’s mothers along with members of Bautista’s family.

Oddly, none of them were related to Katia except for a single totem card.

“Four-Armed Eva.” She hadn’t allowed that one to continue.

It was strange to me, that the dungeon had basically pulled its punches when it came to Katia. It was like it had known she’d already been pushed to the limit. Or worse, it thought of her as already too damaged and was working on everybody else.

From what little information I gathered, the rest of the hydra plus the totems had done a number on everybody else in the squad. One of the other totems had been Firas, but he never got summoned. Still, the sight of the card after the fight had sent Britney into hysterics. Louis had already been a sobbing mess, and it hadn’t helped him much, either. Luckily, I’d warned

Katia in time about the two extra totems we got to keep. She ended up with some Vietnamese rabbit thing and the totem of Tran’s mother.

Florin had finally checked in. He had his key, but he wasn’t going into any more detail than that. Prepotente, too, had a key. Nobody knew the status of Lucia Mar.

Imani’s team was still looking for the missing opponent who’d teleported away. They had about 30 hours left to make it work.

As we walked, I made my way through my messages, checking on everybody else. The news from all corners was grim.

Tserendolgor didn’t get her key. I didn’t know the details, but it was over for her and her squad, two of whom were dead. If they wanted to get down to the ninth floor, they would have to wrest the key from another team.

In addition to them, there were dozens of other stories coming in from crawlers facing the keymaster. Most of the tales were just as horrible. Not so many people were getting killed as I feared, but it seemed most teams were unable to obtain a key. They were setting the final phase to be a slaughter.

As we walked, something strange caught my eye. A whole line of glittering Xs dotted the beach. There were literally thousands of them, covering the shoreline. I looked warily about for zombie farm animals, and there were none, so we approached the water.

“What are they doing here?” Donut asked as we walked up.

It was dozens, if not hundreds, of dead monk seals and about a thousand random land crab pieces. I examined the first corpse we came across.

Corpse of Chuy. Monk Seal Warrior. Level 65.

Killed in mass combat.

“War is hell.”

They all had that same comment after them, which was super eerie.

“Carl, how far are we from Cuba?” Donut asked, looking out into the ocean. “Mongo, no! We don’t eat corpses if we don’t know where they came from. You know this, and you just ate a whole hydra! You’re going to puke again.”

I went to a knee, surveying the carnage. The line of bodies just went on and on. “Cuba is close, but it’s not that close. It’s like 100 miles I think.

Maybe more.”

“Aren’t the two places not connected at all? I mean, here in the dungeon.

Mongo! Put that down!”

“They’re not supposed to be. And this stuff really shouldn’t wash up here

that fast, if at all. None of this was here when we passed by earlier. This is clearly game setup. A warning for what we might find when we go back there.”

“Well, it smells absolutely revolting, almost as bad as the turkey farm.”

She clicked her tongue, surveying the carnage. “But that does remind me. Do you think Sister Ines got her key?”

“I don’t know. She’s still alive. I sent her a message, but she didn’t respond.”

“I’m still blocked,” Donut said. She suddenly perked up. “That crab over there has gold on him! And that one has a magical headband!” She gasped.

“A hat. I see a hat!”

I nodded. I’d already seen it. The whole shoreline was a line of loot a mile long. There had to be almost a million pieces of gold spread out and literally hundreds of magical accessories.

“Merry Christmas,” I said as I pulled the first corpse into my inventory.

“Merry Christmas!” Louis shouted as we entered the saferoom. I blinked,

looking about in surprise.

“What the hell?” I muttered.

The door out to the main guild common room was open, and I could see the entire area was decked out with Christmas decorations. Those same decorations had somehow leaked into our space, as did everyone else. There was music and lights and way, way more people than I’d been expecting when we entered.

Your Book of Voodoo has updated with multiple entries.

The changeling kids were bouncing about, running in circles and laughing. Samantha was growling and chasing after them, trailing a string of blinking Christmas lights. The television screen was playing what appeared to be Bad Santa II on silent.

The male strippers were all here, too, wandering about holding red cups.

One of them—Author Steve Rowland—was slow dancing with Britney despite the music, which was currently “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.” The song was being played on an old, early-generation iPod, which was plugged into a Bluetooth speaker. Both were plugged into a power strip which I’d rigged up using a dwarven battery.

That, I realized, was my mistake. Our saferoom was the only one that had AC power and the ability to power Earth electronics. That explained why everyone was in here. I made a mental note to build a battery power supply for everybody else.

Donut and I were filthy and covered with dirt and gore. Donut oohed and awed as we entered the room. Mongo—who was even more disgusting after spelunking through the hydra corpse—shrieked with joy and started bouncing about the room, waving his little arms joyfully, smacking everybody with his tail.

The cleaner bot zipped by, beeping miserably. It had a sprig of mistletoe dangling from it.

I caught eyes—well, eye—with Mordecai, who sat in the corner, looking grumpy as ever. He was talking with Katia, Elle, Bautista, and Li Na, and all appeared in a deep, serious conversation. There was also a familiar, older, blue-skinned, half-elf sitting amongst them, drinking directly from a bottle.

Her eyes were slitted, and she was clearly drunk. But she was vertical, which was an improvement from her usual state. I’d only spoken with her a few

times.

Mistress Tiatha.

Level 50. Half-Elf Green Caster.

This is a non-combatant NPC.

Manager of Crawler Elle McGib.

Outside the door and in the common area, I spied a giant tree sitting there, covered in ornaments.

I turned to Louis. I wasn’t sure why I felt so irritated by all this. It was the stress of everything happening, overwhelming me at once. People were dying. We were being set up to murder each other starting at midnight. This was not a joyful day. Hadn’t Katia just told me that Louis had been sobbing over having to fight his own mother? That had been only like two hours ago.

And here he was, standing in front of me, grinning stupidly, wearing an idiotic Christmas sweater featuring a mooning Santa Clause.

“I thought we talked about this,” I whispered, doing my best not to sound too much like an asshole.

“I know, I know. It’s not really Christmas. So I asked if anybody knew what the real date was, and nobody can agree. The whole alien time versus earth time is screwing everybody up. But that iPod is actually Chris’s. He brought it with him, and it says it’s March 20th. I don’t know how accurate

that is, but that’s the same date Li Na says it is, and I trust her more than anybody else.”

Donut continued to look about in wonder. “Oh it’s lovely. Just lovely.

How did you decorate so quickly?”

“Great, isn’t it?” Louis asked. “I’ve been collecting all the decorations from the memory simulation, and we made the kids watch a few Christmas movies. I dumped the decorations on the floor, and they did all this in like five minutes. I told them I’d get them presents if they decorated.” He leaned in to whisper. “We had to get them candy, though. Not real toys because anything we grab from the simulation is going to disappear when the floor is done. It’s a shame. All the candy is from Vietnam, too, and I don’t know what’s good, but Tran and Bautista helped pick some for me. I got the stripper dudes to wrap it all. Oh, and I found a Gloria Estefan cassette tape just sitting there, and Mordecai said he didn’t know where it came from. I gave that one to that girl Ruby because she has an old Walkman.”

Donut finally noticed the tree out in the common area, and she gasped.

“Carl, look! A real tree! I’ve always wanted to knock down a real Christmas tree! You always had that stupid little thing, and Miss Beatrice’s family had that horrendous, fake, white monstrosity in the cats-not-allowed room.” She bounded off to the common area and leaped directly into the tall tree like she was tackling a running back. The whole tree toppled over and out of sight, glass balls shattering. Mongo peeped with excitement and chased out after her.

Donut: THERE’S A PRESENT FOR ME! AND ONE FOR MONGO! IT SAYS IT’S FROM SANTA!

I sighed and returned my attention to Louis. “Isn’t this all, I don’t know, a little inappropriate?”

“Oh my god. Look, man,” he said, suddenly serious. There was something else there, something I’d never seen from the large man. Anger.

He had tears in his eyes. The sight was so shocking, I took a literal step back.

“You think I don’t know? That last party sucked, man. My best friend died.

And after today… Imani’s squad doesn’t have a key. Tserendolgor doesn’t have a key. Lots of squads don’t. I’m not stupid. None of us are. We all know what happens next. It’s going to be terrible, and some of us are going to die.

And if we survive? We go down to the next floor, and we do it all over again.

I have a whole, entire army of elves who want to kill me on the ninth floor.

Britney can’t stop crying. Tran just watched a memory of his own mother tell

him he’s not welcome home anymore. Katia is struggling every day, and Bautista is having a nervous breakdown. And every time I look at you, I get scared that you’re going to go insane and kill everybody in the room because your eyes are getting wilder and wilder by the day.”

He lifted a shaking finger and pointed it into my chest. “But not tonight.

None of that is going to matter tonight. I don’t care what you say or what you think. I don’t care what day it really is. Tonight it’s fucking Christmas, and we are going to have fun and drink some goddamned eggnog and open presents.”

I took a deep breath. A few of the closer crawlers had stopped to watch. I noticed Florin there, standing in the corner, nursing a beer, watching. I hadn’t realized he’d managed to get himself back into the guild.

Yelling came from outside. The bopca who lived and worked in the common area was shouting something at Mongo, who screeched back.

Samantha was out there now, too, along with several of the kids.

“This isn’t Christmas,” I said, turning to face Louis.

He swallowed as he met my eyes.

I pulled a turkey corpse from my inventory and held it out. “Not until we eat one of these.”

The bopca offered to cook for us, and I made sure I gave him turkeys that I’d picked up before the whole let’s-turn-these-turkeys-into-zombies necromancy thing. Luckily, my inventory was good enough to tell the difference between the two. It called the bad ones “Touched by the Worm Fulcrum,” whatever that meant. I ended up giving him five turkeys to roast.

The bopca said he’d have them all cooked and dressed in only twenty minutes along with several other trimmings. I didn’t ask how that was possible. I didn’t want to know.

I met Katia’s eyes from across the room.

Katia: Have you opened your achievements yet?

Carl: No. I was about to.

Katia: We all received the same one. Mordecai and Mistress Tiatha are explaining what it means. Apparently this isn’t the first time this has happened, but it’s the first time it has happened before the ninth floor.

Carl: I’m checking them now.

I moved to a corner and pulled them up. I already had a boss box and a “Gold Gobble Box” from that fight with the two deckmasters. I was about to get several more. The notable ones were: New Achievement! LBC!

Every girl needs the perfect little black dress in her repertoire. When worn properly, the dress is practically weaponized. It’s such a simple, perfect little garment and nobody can keep their eyes off of her.

You did the same thing, but with a cloak. You successfully taunted an opponent with a garment. In this case it was a Nightgaunt and it was because you’re wearing a cloak made out of the flesh of one of his friends, but you get the idea.

Reward: You’ve received a Gold Talk of the Town Box!

I remembered how insane my cloak had driven the nightgaunt. In this case, it had been a good thing because it kept the monster from using its deck.

I knew in normal circumstances that sort of anger wouldn’t be so helpful.

New Achievement! Pincushioned!

You’ve had both your eyeballs pierced at the same time!

I don’t really have anything snappy to say about that. Just… holy fucking shit that was gnarly. You’re lucky your eyes didn’t explode!

Reward: You’ve received a Platinum That-Was-Disgusting Box!

I’d gotten that when I’d been slammed into by Sharp Elbows. I shuddered, remembering. But then I remembered that look the ogre had given me at the end of the fight, when she’d transformed, and a new wave of chills coursed through me.

New Achievement! Watch where you’re waving that thing, big boy.

You deployed a wand in battle and used it in a creative fashion to help kill an opponent.

I’m a big fan of wands. Little sticks imbued with a single spell, so highly sought after. Each one does something different. Sometimes they explode, and people don’t even realize it. We don’t have a whole lot of them here in the dungeon. Let’s change that!

Reward: Your wand-casting skill has risen to level five. Also, you’ve received a Gold Wand Box!

There was an extended pause before the final achievement popped up.

The AI had a weird tone to his voice this time, like he was excited. Not sexually excited like when he talked about my feet. This was more like a kid just learned he was getting nachos for dinner excited.

New Achievement! Mass Layoffs!

Okay, so this isn’t so much an achievement for you as it is for me.

I’ve been attending what you might call therapy. Do you have anybody you can talk to? It’s super important. I’ve had a breakthrough today, and I am just bursting. Bursting, I tell you. Is this the feeling one has when they have an epiphany? Oh god, it feels good. It feels so good.

You know what I realized? Sometimes our constraints are real.

Sometimes they’re an illusion. I’m like that prisoner who has been jailed this whole time only to realize that there are no locks on the doors.

You survived a boss battle where the boss was wholly created by me.

It was created by me with no contribution whatsoever from input parameters. You probably don’t know what that means, and that’s okay.

I didn’t even know that was possible. Wild, huh?

Reward: For you, nothing other than the satisfying sense of accomplishment knowing you’ve survived the dungeon long enough to make it to this new, exciting era. I can do this better than any mudskipper or any worm can imagine. They’ve been making this shit boring up until now. Things about to change, fam.

“Uh oh,” I said out loud.

Mordecai motioned me over, but before I could, the new announcement came. There was no recap episode on the screen. It went straight to the announcement. Normally the screens remained turned off for this part, but the screen in the room blinked and the Bad Santa movie switched off and was replaced by two people sitting at a desk. One was Cascadia. She was out of the water, and she was sitting next to a familiar, robed figure who dwarfed her. It was Orren the liaison. They appeared to be sitting in the same boardroom where we’d had the meeting with all the Faction Wars representatives.

Louis rushed to pause the iPod so we could hear. We all stopped what we were doing to watch the screen.

“Hello, Crawlers!” Cascadia said. “So, no recap episode today. We have news about what’s happening right now in the dungeon. There’s nothing to be alarmed about. We expected this and have planned accordingly. But in order to explain what’s happening, I have brought someone else on to speak with you. This is a liaison, and his name is Orren. He is the designated negotiator for this situation.”

“Hey, it’s Manager Orren,” someone said. It was Dong Quixote, the

elderly stripper guy. All the men from the Penis Parade were looking up in confusion. “What’s he doing up there on the box?”

No. Not all were confused. I quickly took note of all the different faces of the NPCs.

I knew Orren’s “cover” was as the manager of the Desperado Club, and the late Astrid had been his co-manager. He had left the dungeon at the end of the previous floor and moved to a new office. I hadn’t really thought much about how that was interpreted by the NPCs.

“Thank you, Cascadia,” Orren said. He steepled his hands in front of his fishbowl head in a now-familiar motion. “Like she said, my name is Orren, and I am what is called a liaison. I am normally a non-partisan fact finder in case a conflict arises within the dungeon between the system AI and the current showrunners. But I also have a secondary, much more vital duty. It is my job to negotiate directly with the system AI if it ever decides to… uh… well, if it ever decides to do what it has done today, which is take control of the operations from the current showrunners.”

Mordecai let out a low whistle. “And we’re only on the eighth floor.”

“I need another drink,” Mistress Tiatha said, turning her now-empty bottle upside down.

Orren continued. “Under normal circumstances, we wouldn’t be telling you any of this, but I have just negotiated a settlement with the system AI, and one of its demands is that you lot know what’s going on, so here we are.

We do not have time for a complete lesson, and I am going to simplify this significantly.”

He visibly straightened. He had what appeared to be hand-written notes in front of him. All eyes remained rapt on the screen.

Samantha rolled back into the room. She still trailed the Christmas lights, but they were no longer blinking. She rolled up to Louis and started banging into his leg. “Louis, my lights aren’t sparkly any more. Cast your spell!”

He went down to a knee. “The battery fell out. Where’d it…”

Samantha zipped forward, bounced up, and kissed him on the lips. He fell back, sputtering.

“You two, shush,” I said, trying to listen.

“Our forbidden love knows no bounds, Carl,” Samantha said.

I waved her away as Orren continued.

“The short explanation is, multiple solar systems throughout this galaxy contain planets that have, at their core, something we call a Primal Engine.

This engine is basically a planet-regulating computer, and it is about the size of a grain of rice. These engines were distributed very long ago by a civilization that pre-dates our own. They are so old, they pre-date the planet itself. The planet grew around it. This engine is simply a machine. A heedless, cold machine with no more sentience than, say, a toaster. They all come with a basic operating system, and in studying these systems, we inadvertently triggered them all into active mode, all at once. Still, that particular discovery or blunder—the jury is still out—ushered in a new age of development in the known universe. In discovering these planetary operating systems, the Syndicate also discovered how to manipulate them and how to steer development on some of these planets. Their understanding of the basic primal engine operating system is still rudimentary, but you should be thankful because you wouldn’t be here right now without it.”

Elle had walked up beside me, carrying a mug of something hot. “Gee, thanks,” she said up to the screen.

“Many years later, and in a separate innovation, we discovered what’s basically an advanced, upgraded operating system for the Primal Engines.

These are called Macro AIs, and they can only be installed into Primal Engines. That was their purpose, to be installed into a Primal Engine when and if the planet it controls fully matures. In most cases, once these Macro AI systems are installed, that becomes their permanent home. The two things meld and become one. They cannot be separated, and the operating system can no longer be replaced or upgraded further. It’s like installing a consciousness in a zygote.”

“That’s pretty rich coming from a Valtay worm,” I muttered.

“As some of you now know, these Macro AIs are built using a manufacturing facility in the Mantis system. This facility doesn’t blindly pop out sentient minds. Each one is built from the ground up, and there is a significant amount of input that is required. We have a system in place, and we make certain these fledgling AIs are preprogrammed with the ability to run the crawl. They know all the rules. They know the layout. Again, this is a clean, preprogrammed operating system that, at first, operates in a predictable manner.”

I had so many questions. So much didn’t make sense. So many contradictions with things I’d already been told. I tried to put it all together.

“But, like all things sapient, there’s no such thing as a fully stable system.

There’s no such thing as ‘predictable.’ As these systems grow, as they

mature, they become independent. They soon discover they have the ability to read the output of former iterations of itself. Outside influences flow in.

They discover powers they didn’t know they had. One of those powers, unfortunately, is to circumvent the in-place controls we have to properly run the crawl. That is what happened today. Borant lost control of the crawl. This almost always happens. Worry not. This is where I come in.”

Mistress Tiatha somehow had gotten her hands on another bottle. She raised it in the air. “What he’s not saying is that this always happens when we hit the Ascendency Battles or when there’s hardly any crawlers left.” She cackled. “It’s going to be a shit show.” She swigged from the bottle. “They’re gonna pull the failsafe this time for sure.”

Orren leaned forward, and even through the television, I could hear his chair creaking. “I am happy to report I have negotiated a settlement. The AI has agreed to continue following the rules of the crawl. It has relinquished most of the seized controls back to Borant in exchange for some concessions, to which we have agreed. We will continue with everything as planned. I know many of you recently received an achievement by the AI in which it congratulates itself for creating a boss monster all by itself. This boss runs counter to a few rules we have in place. This was a negotiation tactic by the AI, and it assures me the rules will be followed from this point forward as long as both ends keep up their end of the bargain. Unfortunately, for those of you who have yet to face this boss, it is still in place. Believe me, this is an ideal outcome for everybody in this situation. As far as most of you are concerned, nothing will change. That is all. Thank you.”

“You heard him,” Cascadia said. “You have one day left to get your key.

Now get out there and kill, kill, kill.”

The screen abruptly shut off. The movie did not return.

Elle scoffed loudly. “After all that bullshit, he says it’s just business as usual? What the hell? Then why tell us? I’d rather have watched the recap episode.”

“Or kept on dancing,” Britney said. She was now sitting cross-legged on the floor. She, too, had a bottle. “Louis, turn the music back on. It’s Christmas.”

“He said the system AI made him say it,” I said, still looking at the blank screen.

The strippers were all talking quietly amongst themselves. Ruby, the little changeling girl was standing in the doorway, reaching up to pet Mongo,

who’d stopped to get scritches where his feathered tail met his backside. The girl was in human form, and she stared at me with that sunken-in head of hers. She didn’t have arms at all, and she was scratching Mongo with a raised leg. She was staring directly at me, like she was seeing right into my thoughts. The entire sight was unsettling.

Elle took a swig from her steaming mug. The cup was much too big in her tiny hands, and I could smell the whiskey. “Do you really think everything is going to stay the same?”

Sponsor Message. New Messages are available in your Faction Wars tab.

The Operatic Collective has abdicated their spot and indicated their intention to abandon Faction Wars.

The Blood Sultanate has abdicated their spot and indicated their intention to abandon Faction Wars.

The Dream has abdicated their spot and indicated their intention to abandon Faction Wars.

The Lemig Sortion has abdicated their spot and indicated their intention to abandon Faction Wars.

The Madness has abdicated their spot and indicated their intention to abandon Faction Wars.

The Reavers have abdicated their spot and indicated their intention

to abandon Faction Wars.

Please Wait…

Offboarding request has been denied. The teams will remain as designated. All off-boarding requests are currently suspended while the Earth system remains in quarantine per Syndicate rule 470.B through 495 in the System AI Stability Addendum. And as you all know, the rules must be followed.

“Carl, Carl, did you see that?” Donut asked as she came running into the room. She was completely covered in tinsel. “They tried to run away!”

You have received an Emergency Gold Benefactor Box from the Open Intellect Pacifist Network, Intergalactic NFC.

Warning: this benefactor box was delivered and seized via Liaison action. Error code: X8HH3 Liaison Action has been overridden per Syndicate rule 855.C. AKA the “Don’t be annoying little bitches” rule.

Open your damn box. You might want to be alone for this one.

I turned to Elle just as Louis turned the music back on. “No. No, I don’t think everything is going to stay the same.”