The Eye of the Bedlam Bride — Chapter no 52

[ 52 ]

<Note added by Crawler Ikicha. 11th Edition> My people have a saying. “The burning Yenk needs only to embrace their enemies.” It likely translates poorly, but what it means is that some problems aren’t problems at all if you think on it long enough.

SEVERAL DAYS EARLIER

“Wait, before we go, I have a question,” I called after Pater Coal. We’d just stepped from the Temple of the Dying Sun back out into the club. The death of Anton still weighed heavy on me, along with Sister Ines’s stabbing of Paz with her team flag. On top of it all, I couldn’t get the sight of the man sucking on my toe out of my mind.

All that, plus the revelation that Katia had the Crown of the Sepsis Whore

on her head? It was too much.

Entering Club Vanquisher.

The tiny cleric paused, looking uncertainly off toward a mantaur guard, who stood in a corner, admiring himself as he flexed into a large, ornate mirror. “Yes, yes. I am true,” the guard was shouting at his own reflection.

“Fuck the posers! Kill them with power!”

In addition to the guard, there was a desk here, guarding the entrance to the portal we just exited. Behind it and right in front of us was a mote of light

with fairy wings. The white and yellow fairy thing was the size of my fist.

Even though she had no eyes or face, I could feel her glare on us as we

paused in front of the portal.

Yasmine. Level 75 Wisp.

Secretary of the Club Vanquisher Temple Portal.

This is a non-combatant NPC.

This Wisp worships the goddess Áine.

“You can’t block the portal,” the fairy said.

“Come,” Pater Coal said, pulling me off to the side, keeping a wary eye on the mantaur. “We need to get you to the healer. Quickly. If that guard sees you were in the temple, they’ll kick you out until tomorrow.”

“I know,” I said, putting my hand against my stomach and the now- dissipated boil there. “But what if we don’t go to the healer?”

Time until level collapse. 4 Days and 17 Hours.

thIt is December 26

System Message: Stairwell Locations are now open. You must have a key to unlock the exit vestibule. Only squad members will be allowed to pass through the unlocked door. The key will dissipate upon use.

Admin Message: Your squad holds a key for El Capitolio Nacional de Cuba. The location has been marked on your map.

There are five squads within the “Cuba” zone. Two of the five squads

hold keys.

Let the fun begin.

Entering Iglesia San Hilarion.

Donut and I transferred from inside our personal space to the interior of an old, empty Catholic church. The most recent recap episode had just aired, and they told us we’d get transferred, given a few minutes to orient ourselves, and then we’d get the update. There was a saferoom door right there, and we

could walk right back in if we wanted. It was dark outside, just past midnight thon the morning of December 26. Moonlight shone in through the stained glass windows of the church. We’d been dropped almost 50 kilometers from the exit stairwell, off to the southwest in a direction we hadn’t explored.

We had four and a half days to get to the door.

“Welcome back to Cuba,” I said.

I’d come back from my mission to the homeless shelter, expecting a flurry of questions. Instead I found everyone awake and subdued, pacing back and forth while Elle spoke with a bloody, bruised, and sobbing Imani.

The remnants of the Christmas party remained, and the cleaner bot scrubbed our space while the stripper guys quietly went about and cleansed the common area of the guildhall.

Imani’s squad was dead. All four of them. She had four new player killer skulls, and they gave it to her because her own totem had killed her entire squad. I didn’t get the details right then, but the shock of it had sobered everyone right up.

Elle, Donut, and Katia spent time with her while I spent the rest of the day training and building things in my crafting studio.

I also used two of the three Cracker Jack scrolls to unlock a pair of alien shields for both myself and Donut. We had a whole pile of this tech-based stuff that we’d looted from the hunters on the previous floor, but we couldn’t use them until they were unlocked. Mine was a Valtay Perso-Shield, Platinum Edition, which was identical to the one I would’ve gotten from Paulie, and it was simply a round, pinback button that looked a little like the planet Saturn. It didn’t take up an equipment slot, but once it was clipped to me, I could turn it on and off in my interface.

The shield surrounded me with an inch-thick buffer that protected me from physical damage, and it somewhat protected me from any magic attack that cast something corporeal at me, like Magic Missile and Fireball and Lightning. It wasn’t perfect, and it wasn’t nearly as powerful or good as my Protective Shell. I had to turn it on and off myself, and it had enough power to work for about two minutes before it shut off on its own. It took about an hour to charge up once depleted, though I could activate it for short periods before it was fully charged. It didn’t hinder me from picking objects up or tossing things away, which was good. It would protect Donut if she was sitting on my shoulder when I turned it on, but I’d have to time it correctly. If she wasn’t physically touching me when I turned it on, she’d just bounce

right off me.

I knew from the last floor that these things were good enough to stop the first few hits, but after that, they burned right out. It was better than nothing.

Actual body armor worked much better than this personal shield, but it was cumbersome and custom fitted to the person. If I wanted something like that, I’d have to get it from one of my remaining sponsors.

Donut’s shield was also a small, opalescent pin that looked like a longhorn cow, and I attached it directly to her neck collar. Thankfully she liked the design and didn’t complain about it. It was also more powerful, according to Mordecai. The Bull Rush, Bespoke Personal Shield. It was made by a Taurine-owned company called Hereford War Machines, Inc., and they were known to outfit some of the most elite mercenary squads in the galaxy.

We’d taken this one off a Soother mercenary in the last days before the Butcher’s Masquerade. He’d also had an automatic pulse rifle on him that was supposedly worth a lot of money, though the gun still wasn’t as good as most of our spells. This was according to both Mordecai and some of the chatter on Donut’s social media board, which turned out to be a great resource for figuring out all the gear we were collecting. The hunter obviously had a rich family who’d spent a lot of money trying to keep him safe in those final days. That hadn’t worked out for him, and we were going to use that equipment for our own gain.

Donut’s shield worked like mine, but instead of covering her with a Donut-shaped skin, it surrounded her in a bubble that moved with her. It also had a mount option, so it would protect Mongo if she was riding him, or even an entire vehicle, though the protection would be weaker. We never got to see it in action since the moron we’d taken it from never turned it on when we’d ambushed him.

We hadn’t yet had the chance to test them in real battle. After unlocking the gear, I returned to the coast and looted more bodies of crabs and seals, who continued to wash up on the Florida shore. Donut and Katia remained inside, at Imani’s side.

I spent some time in the Mercenary Arcade, the training room where the strippers were spending their time, working out, honing their fighting skills, and practicing with the myriad of weapons we’d collected from the hunters.

The room was significantly larger and could do a lot more than I had anticipated. The AI drill sergeant was the same guy from the regular training

room, and multiple instances of him appeared across the room. The difference was, the AI guy was literally killing them sometimes, only for them to regenerate a minute later, just like it had been with Growler Gary.

They were also practicing fighting each other to the death, which was ridiculously fucked up, but I imagined it was a great way to train yourself up if you ignored the trauma of dying over and over. I wouldn’t be safe in here, the system warned, but I could spar against them if I wanted. That was probably a bad idea, so I just watched them beat the shit out of each other.

There was a magical healer on hand also, but again, the healer wouldn’t work on myself. Just the mercenaries. I watched each of them in turn. They were all pretty efficient with their weapons of choice. Dong Quixote, of course, was walking around with an actual lance, which was ridiculous because he didn’t have a horse. He asked me more than once to get him a mount. I told him I’d try. Author Steve Rowland, the troll guy, insisted on using a club. Gluteus Maxx, who was a short, hairy muscle man thing, insisted on using twin war gauntlets to punch things.

But not all of them were melee fighters. Splash Zone, the weird little otter guy, appeared to be a powerful water mage. Bucket Boy, the crocodilian kid who collected all the thrown tips at the club, was some sort of healer, though he wasn’t as good as the one that came with the mercenary arcade. Doctor Bones, the skeletal creature who hadn’t been a stripper but the club’s announcer and DJ, actually had several crowd control spells. I watched as he practiced against a horde of miniature versions of the AI trainer. He cast a spell, and one by one, they turned into minions. I walked up to the talking skeleton and watched him for a bit. The system listed him as a Level-90 Skin Skellie Bard.

“What’s the difference between a regular skellie and a skin skellie?” I asked.

He shrugged, and it sounded like a bunch of drumsticks being clacked together. “A skin skellie can grow flesh and organs. It all eventually falls off, and it makes me more vulnerable to certain types of damage and diseases, so I don’t do it too often. Mostly when they needed a backup dancer at the club.

Or if I needed to entertain my patron. She was more comfortable when I had flesh.”

His regular talking voice was not what I was expecting, especially after hearing him announce the dancers and chastise the patrons at the strip club.

That was his stage voice, I realized. His real voice was almost that of a soft-

spoken college professor.

“Patron?” I asked.

“I’m a bard. Most bards have a patron. They give us money and supplies in exchange for entertaining them every once in a while.” He took a finger and made an in-and-out sliding motion. His finger bones clacked together.

Donut had been a bard on the previous floor, and she hadn’t had to choose a patron, but I did remember Mordecai talking about that previously.

Some regular bard classes used the patron system. It was a bit like the paladin or cleric/deity system, but a lot less dangerous. You couldn’t get smote by a

pissed-off patron.

“Who is your patron?”

“She was Astrid. Now it’s you.”

“Oh,” I said. That actually gave rise to more questions, but I wasn’t going to pursue it. It was suddenly awkward. “So, anyway, I was watching you practice that mind control thing you were doing.”

“It’s a type of military charm,” he said. “It only works on the weak minded. That is why I am training with it.”

“It’s really impressive. How long does the effect last?” I asked.

“It depends. If they’re weak, it pretty much lasts forever. I am attempting to hone it so it can work against stronger subjects.”

“What is the spell called? Donut has one that’s similar, but she hasn’t tried it yet. It’s called Minion Army.”

“Minion Army is a battlefield sabotage spell, and it’s quite effective, but it has a long casting time, and it is temporary,” Doctor Bones said. “This one is simply called Conscript.”

A sudden sense of revulsion ran through me. I’d read about that spell, more than once. It was used quite a bit against crawlers on the ninth floor. It wouldn’t work if they’d already pledged themselves to a specific army. Most factions spent a lot of resources making sure they had somebody who could cast that spell at level-15. Part of the reason why we bought the Faction Wars team was to negate their ability to basically enslave crawlers to their cause.

“What else do you got?” I asked.

“I have some of the same spells as you, actually, at least according to Princess Donut.” He straightened. “Some are even more powerful than yours.”

“Really?” I asked, intrigued. “Tell me about it.”

Carl: Elle. I’d ask this of Imani, but I don’t want to bother her right now. How many mercenaries can we hold? I know the barracks can hold 20, but is there a way to hold more?

Elle: You should ask her. She could use the distraction. Like you said, the barracks can hold 20. Between your strippers and Mordecai’s day care, we’re pretty full up. Each individual party can hire more, too, and they can get housed in each individual safe space, like you did with the rock monster guys. But they gotta be housed in the communal barracks to be allowed to train and gain levels in the mercenary arcade.

Carl: Tell me about the upgrade to expand the barracks.

Elle: We can up it to 100, but you gotta sell a kidney to get it. It’ll cost almost five million gold, and that’s with Donut’s discount. Between all these upgrades and everyone spending all their money in the card training arena, we’re pretty tapped out. I think it upgrades on its own when we go down a floor.

Carl: Okay. Thanks for the info. Listen. I’m gonna, uh, lock the door to the mercenary arcade with the strippers inside. Don’t let me forget to let them out. We’re gonna release them in a few hours, but in the meantime we need to buy that upgrade before the floor collapses. I’ll try to get the money somehow. Make sure every individual team has as much mercenary space as they can. We’re gonna fill every spot.

Elle: What the hell are you up to?

Carl: It’s a team building exercise. The DJ guy is in on it. Don’t be alarmed if you see him. He had to give himself flesh, so he looks a bit different.

Elle: You know what. I don’t even want to know. I’ll make sure we all have space.

I left the mercenaries and spent the rest of the time after that in my bomber’s studio, preparing items for a ninth floor I wasn’t even sure we’d get to.

When midnight came, we’d be transferred back to Cuba.

The recap episode had been almost all redacted. It appeared this one was a discussion on the quarantine along with a special on all the possible “Showdowns” they were setting up between the haves and have-nots with the

keys.

The only thing we were allowed to watch was a short scene featuring Imani and her squad, and we were all still reeling from it.

Her squad consisted of former Meadowlark residents I didn’t know very well. They all died obtaining the final token for that vending machine. It all happened in a single, horrific moment when one of the totems they faced possessed two of them and forced them to fight one another. One of them was a man named Randall, who’d turned himself into a support-magic-dealing, gnome-like creature called a lutin. He tried to disarm the situation by freezing all four of them with a spell. Then, one of Imani’s own totems—a mossy, disease-dealing lizard thing called an Amhuluk, cast a poison cloud that killed them all in a single attack. They died frozen in place, their skin all melting away. The scene ended with Imani screaming while the Amhuluk finished off the enemy deckmaster and won the battle.

After that, Imani returned to the saferoom. She did not face the final battle, which was in her family home in Detroit. Elle was the only one she was really talking with. Donut said she was just staring into space, not saying anything, shaking. Bautista made her a cup of tea, and she wasn’t even drinking that.

The four player killer skulls was just a slap to the face. It was the same thing they’d done to Florin when Lucia Mar had killed Ifechi. It was the AI being a complete asshole, and it was a terrible reminder that no matter what the AI did to the other guys, no matter how often it occasionally “helped” me, it wasn’t on our side. It was murdering us. It wasn’t our friend. It wasn’t friendly to our cause, and there was no action it could ever take to make up for what it already had done.

That old adage—the enemy of my enemy is my friend—was complete bullshit. But it didn’t mean I wasn’t going to use it to my benefit when I could.

But for right now, for the next few days, all of that was going to have to wait. We had to first get to that door, open it up, and get down the stairs, and until that was done, all this crap with the AI going primal, all the posturing for the next floor, and everything I’d learned from Paulie was going to have to wait. None of it mattered. Not yet.

“Carl, look!” Donut said. “It says there’s two keyholders in the area. Does that mean Sister Ines has a key?”

“It does,” I said, looking at the map. “I don’t know where she is.” I used

my Find Crawler skill, and there was nobody nearby. I hadn’t expected to see anyone. “There are three squads here without keys. We don’t know who they are. At least one of them probably just teleported next to our stairwell.

They’ll be waiting for us, and we’ll have to get past them to leave.”

Your alarm trap has activated.

Your teleport trap has activated.

Your teleport trap has activated.

Your teleport trap has activated.

I took a deep breath. I’d posted those traps on the very first day of the floor by our exit stairwell. It hadn’t even occurred to me at the time to plant something more powerful. We hadn’t been back there since that first day, and I now realized that had been a mistake. Whomever it was that had stepped on the traps, there were at least three of them, and they were now spread out all over the place.

I should’ve used explosives. I should’ve wired the whole capitol building.

I hated myself for thinking that. Still, if I had, it would’ve been done by now.

Elle: Everybody check in. It says there’s one other squad here without a key. They bounced us all the way to Olympia, and we gotta hoof it back to the waterpark to get through the door.

Donut: WE ARE BACK IN CUBA, AND THAT NUN LADY IS HERE TOO SOMEWHERE WITH A KEY. THERE ARE THREE OTHER SQUADS WITHOUT KEYS.

Katia: We’re here, back in Iceland. We’re the only ones with a key, but there’re two other squads here. Some of the former daughters didn’t get their key, and I know they’re in Turkey. I don’t know who else is there. They say they only had two choices. I thought there were supposed to be three?

Li Na: We have 20 teams with keys and 25 without them in my area, but one of the squads rigged the entrance with animal traps, and they’ve already killed several of them. It’s going to get worse from here.

Florin: I’m here alone. I also had claymores set up by the entrance, but thankfully I didn’t have to use them. I don’t have to face anybody. I just gotta walk right to the door. Lucia Mar isn’t here, which means she didn’t get a key. Somebody chime in if they see her.

Prepotente: I am back in the Bahamas along with four squads, which is quite unfortunate for them. If I set it up correctly, they are currently

all asleep and will remain asleep for the remainder of the floor. I am going to finish my training and proceed to the exit when it is time.

Jesus, I thought. Everybody had set traps, but nobody had mentioned it before this. That said something. It felt significant, and not in a good way.

Elle: Imani. Where are you?

Imani: I’m sorry. I’m sorry. They only gave me two choices.

Elle: Where are you?

Imani: I’m in Cuba.

I felt cold. Next to me, Donut stiffened.

Imani: It was Cuba or back to face you, Elle, and I just couldn’t do it.

I’m sorry.

Elle: Well, fuck.

Imani: Yeah.

Elle: You said that crazy nun is still there, right?

Carl: We’re on the same page, Elle. Imani, did any traps go off? Was there an alarm? Are you in the Capitol building or are you in a church?

Imani: It was a church. No traps.

Carl: Okay, good. Sit tight. We are coming to you. That’s Sister Ines’s doorway. Don’t let her through.

Imani: Guys, there’s more. I had to jump into the saferoom. There’s another guy here, and he was about to attack me. He tried to initiate a card battle, but I went through the door first. It’s that Quan Ch guy.

He’s alone.

I exchanged a look with Donut.

Carl: Stay put. We’re on our way.