The Eye of the Bedlam Bride — Chapter no 49

[ 49 ]

I DIDN’T TELL DONUT OR ANYBODY ELSE ABOUT THE BENEFACTOR BOX. I wanted to see what it was first. I excused myself, telling everybody I needed to take a shower before returning to the party.

I had multiple boxes to open. I took a deep breath, pacing back and forth in my room. I didn’t come in here often. It was overwhelmingly bare, and it suddenly bothered me. I pulled a planter from my inventory. Not the big one with the alliums, but a smaller one I’d gotten from inside the trailer. It was some sort of fern thing. I placed it on the table.

I took one of the crayon drawings from my brother. One of an airplane. I carefully stuck it to the wall using small pieces of duct tape. Then I took the Centipede arcade cabinet and placed it one corner. I plugged it in, and it turned on with a flash.

I sat down and proceeded to open my loot boxes.

There were a dozen adventurer boxes, and none of them contained anything interesting except more of those trench-building scrolls and a few invisibility potions. I also got a Size-Up potion, which was good. It was the first time I’d gotten one of those naturally. It meant I’d get more in the future, and I wouldn’t have to trade the stingy Prepotente for them.

The first gold box was the Gold Gobble box, which we’d received after the fight in the turkey barn. The turkey-shaped box contained a turkey deep fryer still in its packaging, multiple jugs of peanut oil, and a massive pile of papers, which was a printout of all the recipes ever posted on some Facebook group. I grunted with amusement. I briefly considered bringing it all back out there to the bopca, but he was probably almost done cooking the turkeys anyway.

The Gold Talk of the Town box was shaped like an opened newspaper on a pedestal, and it opened up, revealing a new patch. The patch was a medium-

sized rectangle with a book on it. The book was on fire.

The wand box was a simple, gnarled wooden wand that clattered to the table and disappeared before I could examine it.

The boss box from the fight with the hydra was mostly a dud. It contained 25,000 gold and a Warrior’s Gold Helmet of Resistance, an armor item I wouldn’t be able to wear. Anything with “Warrior’s” in the title meant the person had to be wielding a sword to work. I’d been seeing more and more of that lately. It would go into our ever-growing pile of magical gear for the next floor. That along with the literally hundreds of mildly-enchanted magical items I’d just looted would be mighty useful, but not quite yet.

The benefactor box opened, revealing a dirty, crumpled flyer. Just a single piece of paper and nothing else. It was a flyer for a homeless shelter in a town called Homestead, Florida. I pushed it aside for the moment to give room for the last box to open, my Platinum That-Was-Disgusting box.

It was a skill potion.

“Huh,” I said, picking it up.

Minor Find Crawler Skill.

Drinking this potion will give you Level Five in the Find Crawler Skill.

Warning: This potion will not work if you already have this skill at or above level five.

I didn’t question it. I immediately drank it down.

I picked up the patch. It was embroidered, not screen printed, and I knew

Donut would like that.

Upgrade Patch. Medium.

This patch depicts a burning book.

I think this might be a metaphor for knowledge being dangerous. Or maybe it’s a metaphor saying you should burn books that suck. I don’t know. Just because I recently took everything over doesn’t mean I know what everything means. Most metaphors are bullshit. They’re not clever.

They’re used by people so they can pretend they’re smarter than other people. There. I said it.

If this upgrade patch is affixed to an eligible garment, it will imbue

the following upgrades:

+15% to Intelligence.

The Book Burner benefit.

Warning: Upgrade patches are fleeting items. You may remove them,

but they will be destroyed in the process.

I pulled up the benefit, which was really an anti-magic skill.

Book Burner.

Once per day, you may cause an opponent your level or lower to forget a spell for a period of 30 hours. For every opponent player level above your own, this spell has a 5% chance not to work. You must know the exact name of the spell or you may choose to target the last spell that was cast.

“Whoa,” I said. That was pretty cool. Too bad it was only once a day.

I grabbed the gnarled wand.

Wand of Nighty-Night. 10 Charges.

Knocks an opponent out onto their ass. Casts a level-10 Sleep on a non-boss, single target for a period of five minutes. Opponent will reawaken if they sustain physical damage. Multiple casts compounds the effect, which is why this wand is so fancy. If you don’t know what that means, ask a math nerd.

I pulled it into my inventory and picked up the paper from my benefactor box. It was a simple, paper flyer, and it featured a clipart image of a Christmas present and a table with a steaming cup of coffee.

The Shepherd’s House. Don’t spend Christmas alone. Come and find comfort. Food, a warm bed, and fellowship. Intake open 24 hours. Christmas Breakfast at 7 AM. All are welcome.

The 7 AM was circled in red marker several times. If I was timing this correctly, that would be in about five hours. Also, at the bottom was a line of text with a bunch of rules, and one of the items was circled.

No pets allowed. Sorry.

There was an address. I pulled up my map of the Florida area, but it wasn’t like Google. I couldn’t just plug an address in.

Carl: Louis, you’re from southern Florida, right? Do you know where the town of Homestead is?

Louis: Hey, where’d you go? Donut opened her present. It was a majorette hat Li Jun found on the last floor. The stripper guys are giving a tour of their training arcade. Have you seen how big that place is?

Carl: Louis. Focus.

Louis: Oh yeah. You’re in the Keys, right? It’s like maybe forty minutes north of you. There’s an airforce base there and a cool racing track. Oh, and you can see alligators.

Carl: Okay. Thanks.

I looked back at the map, and I caught the outline of the military base, just at the very top edge of the area we could get to. Just south of Miami. I could get there from here.

I thought of all the effort they’d taken to convince me and Donut to choose the Miami area for our newest location. I’d thought maybe Rosetta and the Pacifist Network had been trying to protect me from having to deal with either the Bahamas or Iowa, but the more I thought about it, the less sense that made.

They’d gone to a lot of effort to get us here. The cost of having us go on that show, plus this box, risking everything just to protect my feelings? No.

There had to be more to it than that. Whatever this was, it was going down at this homeless shelter at 7 AM. I needed to be there. I had a few hours to make it happen.

Carl: Donut, you have fun tonight. I’m going to step outside for a bit.

I need some air.

Donut: I GOT THE GREATEST HAT YOU’VE EVER SEEN. WE ARE GOING TO PLAY PIN THE TAIL ON THE KRAMPUS.

Carl: Ha. I don’t think that’s a real Christmas game, Donut.

Donut: YES IT IS. IT HAS KRAMPUS. WHERE ARE YOU GOING?

Carl: I’m just getting some air. There are no mobs left except the zombies, and they’re not even over here.

Donut: WHAT ABOUT THE TURKEY. THE BOPCA IS MAKING US PUT THE TABLE TOGETHER. YOU HAVE A PRESENT. IT’S SHAPED LIKE A STUPID BOOK, THOUGH.

Carl: Save me some turkey. I’ll open my present later. Don’t worry about me. I’ll keep you updated.

Donut: OKAY. BE CAREFUL. DON’T BE GONE LONG. WATCH OUT FOR ZOMBIE CHICKENS.

I slipped back out into the main room, but it was now empty except for a pissed-off cleaner bot. Everybody was out in the main guild common room, and I could hear their loud conversation through the door. Someone had dragged the Bluetooth speaker all the way to the open door, and it was blasting an Alvin and the Chipmunks Christmas song. The bopca was out there, shouting something about setting up a table. I moved to the main exit of the saferoom.

Zev: Carl. Wait a second.

Carl: Unless you guys are going to zap me from on high, I’m doing

this, Zev.

Zev: I just… Just be careful. Okay?

Carl: Do you know what it is I’m rolling into?

Zev: No. Nobody knows. I don’t even think the AI knows. I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, either, but your sponsor disappeared after they sent you that box. They actually sent it to you a few days ago, before you even picked Miami. The box got seized, and the entire charity and everyone involved just up and disappeared. Nobody knows where they went or if something happened to them. They’re all gone, even Rosetta.

There’s lots of things happening all at once, and people seem to think it has to do with whatever this is you’re headed to.

I put my hand on the door, but I paused.

Carl: Zev. What’s the failsafe? Cascadia mentioned it once, and someone else just mentioned it.

Zev: I don’t actually know what it does. Pray we don’t find out. They won’t use it. Not with so many people trapped in the solar system. We’re all under temporary quarantine, and the richest and most powerful people in the galaxy are either on planet or in orbit.

You probably shouldn’t have told me that, Zev. I didn’t dare say that out loud. I went outside.

I started to pull the royal chariot from my inventory, but I had a thought. I pulled my father’s motorcycle instead, I stuck the keys in, and I tried to start it. To my utter astonishment, it immediately roared to life. The gas tank was full.

I slipped on the motorcycle, and off I went.