The Eye of the Bedlam Bride — Chapter no 55

[ 55 ]

<Note added by Crawler Porthus, Second Edition.> It’s important to note that possession via ghost and an evicted demon inhabiting a shell are two very, very different things. They call it possession, but it is anything but. Think of an elf falling to his death off a cliff, and at the last moment, he grabs onto a root, temporarily saving him. That root is the body he now resides within. Regular possession can be defeated. Evicted demons are something else entirely. Once one of these desperate creatures has taken a shell, be it living, dead, or recently undead, the end result for that shell is always the same. Destruction. They are gone the moment the demon moves in.

Kill it with fire. Destroy the head. Do whatever you can. These beasts will be frantic to get back home, and they will fight with everything they have. Don’t let one grab onto you, as it will pull you into Hades. Be wary of using healing magic on demon-possessed shells. While that works well for undead, it is different when it comes to those from the realm of Sheol. It is unpredictable and can possibly make the creature stronger.

This is important. Do not. Do not, do not, do not. Do not under any circumstances attempt to teleport a shell that’s possessed by an evicted demon away from you. The shell will teleport and dissipate.

The demon will be freed, showing its true form, and its power will be too great.

CURRENT ACTIVE DECK.

Twenty-two Cards.

Totems:

Shi Maria

Jola

Lazarus A-Bang-Bang

Skylar Spinach

Geraldo Raul

Utility Cards:

Stout

Time Extend

Greased Lightning

Heal Totem Temporary Shield

Snare Cards:

Hobble (Consumable)

Hole in the Bag

Damnation

Lamp (Consumable) Cripple (Consumable)

Mystic Cards:

The Thief

Steal Totem (Consumable) Force Discard

Golden Combo

Special Cards:

Sentient Staff Totem Flee (Consumable)

Way back on the previous floor, we received a note from my now- missing sponsor that suggested we use Samantha to help enhance Donut’s Laundry Day spell. I didn’t understand this at the time. We asked Samantha about it, and she pretended like she had no idea what we were talking about.

She didn’t have the ability to strengthen spells in any way. She acted like we were crazy for even suggesting it. We ended up having to use my Pawna’s Tears potion in order to bolster Donut’s spell to level 15.

I’m still not certain if Samantha was outright lying, if she didn’t know, or if we’d worded it wrong when we explained it to her. Either way, as it turned out, Samantha actually did have the power to enhance spells. In fact, she could enhance them quite a bit.

I’m still not exactly clear on the how and why of what happened next.

Was it just Samantha augmenting the power of the return teleportation spell?

Was it because Sister Ines had raised an entire army of charmed minions, and they were attached to her somehow? Was it just the System AI being an asshole and thinking this would be hilarious?

The plan was for Samantha to roll up to Sister Ines and bite onto her. I would drop the xistera and summon them both to our location, and a card

battle would ensue.

That’s not what happened.

Instead, when I dropped the xistera extension, the following things landed all around me and Donut, all crammed into an area of about a quarter of a mile in each direction:

Samantha.

Sister Ines.

The massive snake she was riding upon.

Approximately 1,000 zombie baby seals.

Approximately 5,000 zombie crabs.

Another 500 zombie adult seals.

A metric fuckton of living crabs and seals.

Pretty much every fish in the world, or so it seemed. Living fish.

Zombie fish.

An alarming number of corpses. More on this in a moment.

Zero demons.

All of these creatures, at least all the ones that weren’t dead-dead, including the zombies and the level 125 sea snake city boss, were all under a massive, poetry-themed charm spell that Sister Ines was in the middle of casting. I wasn’t sure what the spell was, but it was goddamned powerful.

She’d been about to unleash an army on Havana, and if it hadn’t been for the Demon Eviction event, everyone in the area would probably have been screwed.

Unfortunately for her, and, frankly, for me and Donut as well, whatever the fuck just happened also broke Sister Ines’s charm spell. The seals shook their heads, looking about in confusion. Their enemies, the crabs, all cried out in surprise. They were all mixed in together. But they weren’t alone.

The zombies groaned, their singular purpose coming back to them, one by one. Baby seal zombies made croaking noises. Fish opened and closed their foaming mouths. Crab and adult Monk Seal zombies stretched their limbs and flippers and claws, the sound echoing across the landscape like thousands of creaking, cracking bones all at once.

The whale-sized sea snake boss was also starting to awaken from its stupor. At any moment it would realize it had the cat girl nun perched upon its head.

But most alarming of all were the corpses. A good number of the bodies had notifications over them. A dead monk seal, with a horrific bite wound on its neck, plopped onto the ground right next to me. The note over it read: Former shell of the Now-Freed demon, Azireth.

The corpse caught on fire and dissipated into dust as what that meant dawned on me. This had originally been a regular Monk Seal, and it had been turned into a zombie. And because it was a weak-minded zombie, its body had been overtaken by a demon just before it was teleported to my location.

Since one couldn’t teleport this type of demon, only the body itself had come.

That meant the full-powered Sheol demon, whose name was Azireth, was now free and roaming about the beach a few miles away. But not just Azireth. There’d been dozens of corpses, all with different demon names over them, meaning there were now dozens of full-power Sheol demons suddenly unleashed into Cuba.

And what was worse, the Demon Eviction event was still ongoing, meaning some of the zombies all around us were slowly, slowly getting turned into demons themselves. A red exclamation mark appeared over a zombie fish—a sea bass—flopping on the ground a few feet away. The red, flaming notification read Jarmagog Comes.

We couldn’t let the demons touch us. We couldn’t let the zombies bite us.

We couldn’t let Sister Ines get away. Or worse, let her get sucked into hell.

Your Book of Voodoo has updated with an entry for Sister Ines Quiteria.

The notice came and went as I looked at all the creatures around us. We were completely surrounded.

Right in front of me, coiled upon the road was the massive snake, about

17-18 feet tall.

It looked pissed.

Madre de Aguas Level 125 City Boss.

For such a small island, there sure are a surplus of legends surrounding the “Mother of Waters.” You’ve actually met one of them already. Rose her from the dead and sent her off to the Celestial Ascendency so she can assist a psychopath win that boring, tedious game.

We’ll revisit that whole mess of a dull storyline later when I decide to spice it up a bit. Well, I’ll revisit it. You’re pretty fucked and most likely won’t get to see it all go down.

Anyway, the snake iteration of the legend usually involves a giant boa that protects the freshwater areas of Cuba and is able to control all the locals to help protect the environment and local flora and fauna.

Sometimes she lives in the rivers. Sometimes she lives in the ocean.

Sometimes she’s nice. Sometimes she’s a batshit murder machine. Guess which iteration this one is?

The Madre was hunted and almost flagged several days earlier by a nun of all things. That crawler was unable to seal the deal. Upon

returning to the area, this nun instead decided to glamor the creature using some newly-acquired skills. Controlling the snake allowed her to in turn control pretty much every creature within shouting distance. It was a brilliant plan until the spell got broken prematurely. Now the recently un-charmed Madre de Aguas is quite upset, and she’s about to ruin the day of every motherfucker on the island.

Oh, and she just got bit a bunch of times by a zombie fish.

Warning: This mob has been inflicted with pre-zombism. That means it’s like that dude from Every. Single. Zombie. Movie who has been bit, but he hasn’t died yet, and now he’s hiding it from everyone because he’s a douche. In other words, this mob is still living flesh, but once it dies, it will rise again with a new set of powers.

Bonus Warning: I could spend some time explaining how dangerous it is to have a boss-level zombie walking around during a Demon Eviction event, but let’s just see how this plays out. Sometimes it’s better to be surprised.

I met eyes with Sister Ines, who remained atop the giant snake. She still had Samantha chomped down on her arm. The cat woman did not look afraid.

She did not look angry. She was laughing, even as the snake under her feet started to realize the cat who’d enslaved her was standing upon her head.

The world froze.

B-b-b-b-b-boss battle!

Survival Royale Special Event!

A window appeared in the sky, and Kevin, the orange-hued, four-eyed lizard guy from the recap episode appeared, holding a microphone. He was accompanied by the orc announcer, just like last time. I remembered the orc’s name was Magnificent Troy. They both wore tuxedoes, but they both looked like they’d been drinking for a day straight. Both wore un-tied bow ties around their necks. The orc swayed slightly, and it appeared he had lipstick on his cheek.

“Carl, what’s going on?” Donut called, looking up into the air. Nobody could move, but we could still talk and turn our necks. She gasped. “Is that a wipe window? Are we getting live announced? Is this what happened with you and Katia and Tran on the submarine?”

She hadn’t been present the last time this happened, and she’d bitched about it for an hour straight.

“Yeah,” I said through gritted teeth. “Get ready.”

“Ladies and Gentlemen, what do we have here?” Kevin called, clearly surprised he’d just been sent to cover this fight. “Would you look at this mess! We are interrupting that one-sided Lucia Mar slaughter in Beijing to bring you whatever this is.” He paused. “Oh, I see. Holy lunacy, look at that playing field. Betting is now open! I am here today with Magnificent Troy, and if you’re just joining us, we’re coming to you live from Earth orbit. We are trapped, and we still have to do our jobs even though everything has gone to shit!”

“That’s right, Kevin,” the orc said, his smile plastered on his exhausted pig face. I could tell he was drunk off his ass. “It’s an Armageddon-level clusterfuck all right. Bidding today is sponsored by Dictum Waystation Controls, Limited, because of course it is. Now would you look at that playing field! Care to explain this one?”

“What other choice do I have, Magnificent Troy?” Kevin said. “Now, the why everyone is sitting there right now in the same place is a long story, and it has to do with the Lika/Samantha storyline we covered extensively a few weeks back. None of that matters right now. We currently have eight separate entities in play for this upcoming fight, so it’s going to take a crutch to unpack. I hope you’re drinking something strong. You’re gonna need it for this one.”

Another window popped up, and a picture of a Monk Seal appeared. “If you haven’t been paying attention to the Royal Court storyline, here’s where we are. This is a Monk Seal. They were fighting against these guys.” A crab appeared underneath it, followed by a spinning image of Sister Ines and the Madre de Aguas snake. “During the battles between the crabs and seals, crawler Sister Ines Quiteria used her level-15 Book of Rhymes bard skill, which she just got from her patron, to enhance her Word Weaver spell to charm this creature, a level-125 city boss. This boss, in turn, has the power to control all creatures from the area.”

“Huh. Charming that boss actually sounds like it was a smart move on the nun’s part,” Troy said.

“It sure was, Troy. But, unfortunately, the sister didn’t move fast enough.

She had two things working against her. The first was this.” The scene changed, showing me punting a zombie turkey off the edge of the Iowa land mass. The camera followed the turkey as it plunged into the ocean, where it promptly chomped onto the tail of some fish as it sunk to the bottom. They zoomed in on the fish’s eyes as it turned bright yellow. The fish went berserk

and started biting all the other fish around it.

Troy chuckled. “Uh-oh. You never put contagious undead in a global ocean. Carl should know that by now. It’s like pissing into a habitat’s food

synthesizer.”

“Indeed you do not, Troy.”

Donut grunted. “I told you not to let the turkeys in the ocean, Carl.”

“See? Even Princess Donut agrees with us!” Troy said.

“Hey! They can hear me!” Donut said. “Hi Magnificent Troy! Hi Kevin!”

“Princess Donut sure is in good spirits. Let’s hope those spirits remain, as I don’t think she realizes the danger she is in,” Kevin said. The screen changed to a map of the Earth, showing a red tide sweeping across the ocean and spreading across the entire globe. “The mass-zombie outbreak along with the AI deciding that crab sperm counts as a mob helped kicked off the earliest demon eviction in the history of the crawl!”

“It sure did,” Troy agreed. “Why not? Fuck all the previously established rules on this sort of thing. Let’s just make it up as we go along.”

Kevin chuckled. “Apparently crab sperm is the physical resurrection of their ancestors, so, according to the AI, it counts as a mob. Who knew?

Anyway, the zombie event had started to disrupt Sister Ines’s charm poem, but since her sponsor and patron, the Nebulars, helped her raise that Word Weaver spell to level 15, she was able to fully control both the boss and the spells the boss could cast, meaning she could control the zombies, too. That spell is so powerful, in fact, even the fish started to pull themselves out of the ocean to get closer.”

“That’s a level of charm Princess Donut could only dream of!” Troy said.

“Hey!” Donut called.

“But,” Kevin continued. He held up a claw, pausing as he sucked down what looked like a beer. He let out a satisfied sigh. “…as powerful as that spell is, Faction Wars fans all know how difficult it is to control an evicted demon.”

The camera view changed once again to show a heavy-metal style, chain- covered red devil demon with horns picking his way across a flaming landscape made of lava rocks. Massive shadows of behemoth creatures moved about in the background. The demon had the name Yuguleth over its head. It looked up in the air, muttered, “oh fuck,” and then he blasted off upward like he was being sucked into an alien spaceship.

The view changed to a zombie Monk Seal, sitting there, drooling on itself

as it looked up at Sister Ines on the beach, reciting her poem. A red exclamation appeared over the Monk Seal, and the name Yuguleth appeared over it as the outline of the large demon was squeezed into the zombie. The monk seal’s yellow eyes turned completely black. The thing snarled, turned, and tackled a non-zombie crab standing nearby. As he grappled with the crab, a flaming hole appeared in the ground, and both of them plunged through the portal.

The view returned to the hellscape, showing the seal and crab plummeting downward. The seal shell burned away, returning the demon to his original form as the crab screamed in terror. They both slammed into the lava rock ground. The demon picked himself up and brushed himself off as hundreds of tiny, flaming centipede things came from the ground and started to devour the now on-fire crab.

The demon, Yuguleth, looked up at the sky and turned in a circle as hundreds of his fellow demons continued to get drawn into the air like it was the rapture. Occasionally, a portal opened high up in the crackling darkness, and two creatures returned, plummeting back downward, signifying the homecoming of a demon who’d managed to grab a soul and jump back through the portal.

“I hate this fucking place,” the demon muttered.

The screen returned to the scene with Sister Ines on the back of the snake, depicting her still on the beach. It was from just a few minutes ago.

The camera followed Samantha as she rolled across the battlefield toward the nun. “You! Zombie! Get out of the way,” she called on the screen. “Get out of my way, or I will kill your mother! I have a mission for Mr. Wishy Washy Carl!” All around her, portals opened in the ground as zombies were turning to demons and started pulling seals and crabs down into hell.

A whole paragraph of text I couldn’t read appeared over Samantha as she suddenly floated into the air and zoomed toward the cat girl, who was still reciting her poem, seemingly oblivious of the chaos starting to unfold all around her. Samantha bit down on the woman, and a moment later was when I dropped the xistera and summoned her to me. The entire beach battlefield whiffed away into smoke.

The camera remained on the beach. Left behind were about 100 demons, all suddenly freed from their zombie shells. They were all about eight feet tall. They were all the same, male, red-skinned devil creatures. They all had different names, but they were all Petty Demon Pleasure Valet, Level 140.

“Carl, those guys look just like the bad guy in that Legend movie,” Donut said. “You know, the one where he makes Ferris Bueller’s girlfriend turn into a goth!”

On screen, one of the demons turned to another and said, “At least the weather is nice here.”

The screen snapped off, leaving just Troy and Kevin.

“So there you have it, folks,” Kevin said. “Samantha’s teleportation of the whole crew broke Sister Ines’s charm spell, but it also busted several of the demons out of their shells. I sure hope no gods have noticed, because things might get even messier. Luckily for our crawlers, the freed demons are a little ways away and aren’t part of this fight. But, demon eviction is still ongoing!

More zombies are turning by the moment! Since the charm spell is ruined, we now have eight different groups of combatants all about to fight at once!”

“That’s a lot,” Troy said. “Can you break those down for me?”

“Certainly. We have the Royal Court, Sister Ines, the mindless zombies, the demon-possessed zombies, the crabs, the seals, and of course, Madre de Aguas herself, no longer under control of anybody!” As he mentioned each group, an image appeared floating in the air. “Betting closes in just a minute folks, so get those wagers in!”

Notice: Battle will commence as soon as all squad leaders finish choosing their allegiances. No mobs have equipped card decks. If crawlers choose to ally with one another, deck usage will be optional.

“Carl, it’s asking if I want to treat Sister Ines as an ally or an enemy!

What should I choose?”

“Do it as an ally. That way a card battle won’t start, and then teleport us the hell out of here!”

“It says if I pick ally and she picks enemy, she gets a ten-second head start!”

“Goddamnit,” I said, looking back and forth. That was insidious. “Pick ally anyway.” Maybe she’ll be reasonable. Maybe she’ll pick ally, too.

“Do you understand now, Carl?” Sister Ines shouted from the top of the still-frozen snake. “Do you understand? None of this is real. It’s never been real. It’s the devil, whispering things in our ears. There are no aliens. It’s demons. It’s always been demons. Hell has opened, and it is taking us all. I told them not to worship false gods. I told them. They didn’t listen to me before, and they didn’t listen to me here! These are the wages of our sin, and there is nothing left for us but to burn!”

“Somebody didn’t get her breakfast this morning,” Kevin said.

“Typical Havana brown,” Donut muttered. “Everything always has to be so dramatic.”

Goddamnit. I raised my voice. “You’re right, Sister. None of this is real.

Not in the way you’re thinking. But they’re not real demons, either. I’m sorry we started this, but you need to listen to me. Don’t let the demons pull you away. Please. We need to talk first. Pick us as an ally, and I promise we won’t attack you. We’ll teleport out of here together.”

“Wait a second, Keith,” Troy said. He was counting on his fat, orc fingers. “You said there are eight combatants?”

Your Book of Voodoo has been updated with an entry for Quan Ch.

“Carl!” Donut started to say. “There’s another…”

All allyships have been chosen. Battle commencing…