The Eye of the Bedlam Bride — Chapter no 53

[ 53 ]

I RETURNED TO THE SAFEROOM LONG ENOUGH TO GRAB SAMANTHA. WE didn’t wait for the announcement. We had to hurry. If Sister Ines got there before we did, Quan would kill her, take the key, and immediately bounce to the ninth floor. We had to get there first and take out Quan.

Donut freed Mongo and jumped into the saddle while I pulled out the motorcycle.

This was a small town named Guanajay. There wasn’t anybody out as far as I could tell. It was past midnight, after all. Just to the north was a huge pileup of cars, and I could see some red dots. Duendes. They hadn’t noticed us, and I didn’t want to waste time on them.

“Really, Carl,” Donut said, looking the Harley Davidson up and down with distaste. “I didn’t realize you’d actually get that thing to work. Are you planning on growing a mullet as well? Are there any Waffle Houses between here and there? Maybe we can stop and get into a brawl, but only after you bounce a few child support payment checks first.”

“You know, most bikers were just normal people with normal lives. I never rode a motorcycle, and my dad was a dick, but that doesn’t mean all bikers are assholes. You shouldn’t stereotype people.”

“I watched Sons of Anarchy, Carl.”

“That was a TV show, and I watched it, too. There are plenty of normal motorcycle riders.”

“We obviously were watching two very different shows.”

“You liked the goblin copper chopper. I don’t understand what the difference is.”

“The copper chopper was a custom-made, handcrafted vehicle built especially for us by Rory and Lorelai, and it had a sidecar attachment with a personalized, tailor-made seat. This is a metallic penis extension that comes

with a free probation officer and a traumatic brain injury.”

“You tried to get me to pick this exact motorcycle when it was one of the choices on the prize carousel!”

“That’s quite obviously a lie, Carl. I have no recollection of that whatsoever. I tried to get you to pick the chaps.”

“I think it’s sexy,” Samantha said.

I pulled her up and put her on the handlebars, lashing her in front of me.

She started making vroom, vroom noises.

“You’re gonna have to get used to it,” I said. “Katia already looked at it and tuned it up for me.”

Donut continued to look unimpressed. “How do you even know how to ride it?”

I shrugged. “I got a bunch of skill levels in riding these things from the goblin copper chopper. It’s not hard.” I didn’t add I’d gone up to level nine in the skill during my journey back to the saferoom.

“What about gas?”

“I have gas in my inventory.”

She harrumphed. She was about to say something else when we were

interrupted by the announcement.

Hello, Crawlers!

Welcome to the third and final phase of the floor! I am glad to report that everything is back to normal, and we no longer have to worry about our good friend the system AI from doing anything unexpected. We do not anticipate any further interruptions between now and crawler extinction, which is fabulous news for everybody!

As you undoubtably saw from the announcement, the level stairwells are now open! If you don’t have a key, you have been placed in front of a stairwell location where someone else in the region has a key. If there’s more than one of you at the location, that does not mean there’s more than one key to steal, so be careful! You might have to duke it out before the keyholder even gets close. Good luck to everybody!

Since both sides will have decks, these final battles will be card battles. The rules all remain the same with a single exception, and that is the Flee card. Pay careful attention, everybody.

If you do not have a key, the Flee card works as it always had. You can use it to exit a battle that’s not going your way, and you will teleport away from the battle to a random location nearby. That might not be in

your best interests if you’re guarding a door.

From this point forward, however, keyholders who use a Flee card will automatically lose their key to their opponent. If you have multiple keys, you will only lose one, random key. If there are multiple opponents, the key or keys will all go to the ultimate victor. The keys will be transferred automatically and won’t be dropped. Isn’t that great? You still get out of the battle, but now you’re the one without the key!

One last note about the key itself. You may not voluntarily drop a key no matter how many you have. You may not voluntarily transfer a key to another squad no matter how many you have. If you wish to give up one of your keys, then you gotta do it on the battlefield by initiating a battle and utilizing a Flee card, which will teleport you away and transfer a random key to your opponent.

I must say, I am looking forward to these battles. We have some interesting and exciting matchups, and some of the top crawlers are being forced to face off against one another. It’s going to be amazing. I

just cannot wait.

Now get out there and kill, kill, kill.

“Go fuck yourself, Cascadia,” I said out loud as I kicked the engine into life. It roared.

Donut: THIS IS MUCH TOO LOUD, CARL. YOU’RE UPSETTING MONGO.

Carl: It’s a motorcycle. Come on. We have a one-armed crawler to

take care of.

We headed east.

Less than a minute after we hit the road, I received an ominous message.

Warning: Your location has been pinpointed by the Eye in the Sky.

Donut: DID YOU SEE THAT?

That was a new one to me, so I immediately sent a message to Mordecai.

Mordecai: That’s a really powerful spell, and it probably was a scroll.

I’ve only seen them maybe once or twice. Like a mix between Find Crawler and Ping, but it covers the whole area. The scrolls are really rare, and they come in levels five, 10, and 15. That was a level 10. If it was a 15, you wouldn’t have gotten the notification. If it was five, it

would’ve given you info on the caster. Whoever it was, they now know where you are and what your level is, so keep moving.

There was nothing we could do about that now. I suspected and hoped it was someone from that third squad using it to find their fellow, teleported- away teammates. Either way, they now knew who they were facing off against. I rolled the throttle, speeding up.

Quan could fly, so I was keeping a wary eye on the air above us. I asked Imani to be on the lookout, too.

Imani: I peeked my head out, and he’s not in the church anymore.

There’s also something going on outside. Lots of loud noises, like

fighting.

Carl: Out in the street?

Imani: Yes. The walls are shaking. It’s a big battle.

Donut: IT’S THE CRABS AND THE SEALS.

Carl: Yeah. You want to stay away from that if you can.

We spent the next few minutes driving in silence. Donut and I were both on high alert the whole time. Mongo kept easy pace with the motorcycle, weaving in and out and around me as we rushed down the empty road, heading toward the coast. Red dots appeared here and there, and we avoided them all.

Donut: Carl, what are we going to do if Imani doesn’t get a key?

I’d been thinking on this.

Carl: Then I’m going to force her to fight us, and you’re going to use the Flee card, giving her our key. I have my jacket with the mysterious bone key benefit. I can use that to open the door. I’ll lose my jacket, but we’ll both still get out of here.

Donut: You need that jacket. I’m pretty sure you need your bones, too.

Carl: It will only take one. Maybe it won’t be an important one.

Donut: They’re all important, Carl.

Carl: We’ll all still be alive. It’ll be okay.

Donut: What about the other people? I know that cheater Quan and the Havana brown need to go, but what if those other crawlers are people we like? Are we going to fight people we like? I don’t want to do that.

It’s going to get worse before it gets better. We’re going to lose more friends. We’re going to have to do some pretty horrible things just to survive.

Carl: I don’t want to fight them either. But we’ll do what we have to, Donut.