The Eye of the Bedlam Bride — Chapter no 62

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th <Note added by crawler Herot, 16Edition> I’m starting to believe I have the ability to manifest my own destiny, after a certain fashion. The more unstable the AI running this system becomes, the less predictable it is. Yet at the same time, it’s even more predictable in certain ways. I made a quip about being hungry, and I suddenly received a random achievement notification about my hunger level. I discussed with my friend how I wished we could kill more ghasts, because they often drop knowledge scrolls, and not one hour later, I received a quest to hunt down a certain number of the very same monsters. Beware, however. That same quest killed my friend. The AI is always listening, thinking, plotting, changing the game to suit its desires. At the higher levels, it is not nearly as rigid as it once was. That pliability can be an asset or an extreme danger.

“OKAY,” I SAID. “COME ON. TO THE CHURCH!”

Donut gazed up at the massive demon. “Finally! We could’ve been running this whole time, Carl! Where’s Sister Ines?”

“I’m not sure. Hang on!”

I stopped again as Donut let out an exasperated sound. She shot two more zombie birds.

I consulted my Find Crawler skill, and sure enough, I could now see the

nun. I wasn’t expecting that. She was in the FOSCA building, directly underneath the snake, maybe three or four floors below it. Not riding it like last time. Okay. That was good.

I dove back into my chat. I prepared a message with Elle, Katia, Donut, Li Na, and Mordecai. I left Imani out, who was still corralling the sluggalos. I resumed jogging as I messaged everyone.

Carl: Guys. I know a way to get into the stairwell chambers without a key. Pony and I came up with the idea together. I need you to start spreading the word. We need to stop fighting each other. Do everything you can to convince people. Everybody who has lost keys needs to start clearing the stairwell chamber of debris. I know most of these rooms have a whole lot of infrastructure around them, but we gotta get them to isolate these chambers as fast as possible. If you can, you want nothing on it or above it or even around it. Don’t be gentle. Blow that shit up, and do it fast. Find one of those Build Trench scrolls, and use it to tunnel underneath the chamber. You need to be able to fit everyone in your party underneath the room. Mordecai, go into my bomber’s studio and take the pile of satchel bombs and stick them on the market. That’ll help people with the demolition. I’ve been making them in preparation for the next floor, so they’re safe for regular crawlers to handle.

Katia: Carl, what are you talking about?

Carl: Do whatever you can to make people understand. Those with keys need to get out as soon as possible and clear the way for the people left behind. Tell them not to waste their time fighting. There’s no point.

We can get out. All of us.

Elle: What the hell, Carl? Are you blowing smoke up our ass? Is this a sure thing, or are you working off a Carl theory?

Carl: It’s a theory. It’s a Carl and Pony theory, though, if that means anything. What choice do we have? People are fighting and making it so one team is dead and the other can’t get out anyway. It’s not a sure thing. It never is. But I think I’m right, and Prepotente thinks it’ll work, too.

Katia: I wish you’d come up with this earlier. Louis just got his first player killer skulls, and he’s not happy about it. He got five, all from one attack.

Elle: Yeah, no shit. The squad in our area was just one dude, and we already took care of it. That’s the whole message? Don’t fight? Isolate

the stairwells? You’re gonna have to give us more than that, cowboy.

People are terrified. They’re gonna need a solid reason. Also, Imani just told me why you wanted to upgrade the barracks. Of all the fucked up shit you’ve done to NPCs, I’m pretty sure this is the worst. Worse than

what you did to that gnoll guy.

Donut: WHAT DID HE DO?

Elle: Oh, so Donut doesn’t know about the sluggalos?

Donut: THE WHAT? IS THAT A PUN? YOU KNOW HOW I FEEL

ABOUT PUN-BASED NAMES, CARL.

Carl: Okay, here’s the plan.

“Carl!” Amayon boomed a few minutes later as we started to approach the neighborhood with the church. The voice knocked me out of chat, and I tumbled to the ground. The distant demon growled with anger. We scrambled back up as the ground shook. “Let me go you fucking bitch. Ahh! Ysalte, I will flay you again. I will get free of this shell and…” He growled. “Carl, come now!”

Li Jun: Guys, you will not believe what just happened here at the stairwell.

I barely registered Li Jun’s message. Ysalte? Where had I heard that name before?

“Ysalte is here? Where? Where?” Samantha asked. “I don’t feel her here.

Believe me, you’ll feel it when she’s here.”

“Is that a god?” I asked. “There are no other gods here. Just Amayon.”

Imani: Okay, Carl. Sending them out now. Gluteus Maxx is tossing the small ones out toward the demons. It’s already working. The first two slugs attacked a demon, and he portaled them away. There’s another one. That guy needed three. I don’t know why. Holy cow. It’s working!

And the damn slug things are all excited about it, too. Christ, they’re aggressive.

Carl: Let me know when the demons are all gone by your area, and we’ll come to you and get you our key. We need to do this before Sister Ines figures it out and sends backup.

I took a deep breath. We still didn’t have a perfect messaging system. I watched as Elle, Katia, and others started spreading the word of the plan. It wasn’t taking. People were telling them they were full of shit. People weren’t willing to risk it, and I understood that. It was asking a lot.

We paused in an alleyway, waiting for Imani to finish with her sluggalo

assault.

“Damnit,” I muttered, after seeing someone tell Katia to go fuck herself. I was going to have to convince them myself.

We still mostly relied on a relay system to send out mass messages. I pulled up the largest chat group I had, and prepared the note.

Here we go.

Carl: Everybody. Please be quiet and listen. We are all getting out of here. This will work. So if you have a key, you gotta get out of the way and go now. Everyone else. Don’t fight people with keys. Just let them

go. We’re all getting out of here.

I reiterated the plan the best I could.

Rezan: There’s no way that’s gonna work.

Jurgen: It sounds like you just pulled all of that out of your ass.

Carl: Prepotente. Tell them what you told me.

Prepotente: Everyone. As much as it pains me to say this, I believe Carl is correct. We have seen gated stairwell encasements break before. I once watched Lucia Mar attempt to teleport a stairwell to another location, and I witnessed what happened to both the stairwell itself and the surrounding structure. This portal is of a particular type, and I believe Carl’s theory is sound. I’m certainly not going to risk it myself. I am going to make my way down the stairwell using my key in just a moment, but I am reasonably certain there’s at least a fifty percent chance this will work. Maybe forty percent. And that’s only assuming the demon really does cast his spell over the entire world and not just a portion of it.

Next to me, Donut muttered, “He’s not the best motivational speaker, is

he?”

Goddamnit, Pony. Way to be helpful.

Carl: Look, everyone. Here’s the thing. You’re right. I’m not positive this is going to work. It’s a long shot. But for lots of us, this is literally our only chance. Those of you who are fighting each other, what’s the point? If there’s not enough of us alive on the next floor, we won’t have a chance to make it to the tenth, where we can start earning our freedom.

The more of us who set foot on the ninth, the stronger we are. I will take a 50 percent chance to survive with all of you over a 100 percent chance to survive alone any day.

Prepotente: Remember, I amended it to 40 percent, Carl. But during

Katia’s fumbled explanation of the plan, she did bring up a good point about the potential for spin while you’re being sucked upward. So maybe I should have said 35 percent.

I had the urge to reach through the messaging system and strangle the goat.

Mandla: I am going to hyperventilate. This is insane.

Donut: PREPOTENTE DON’T BE MEAN TO KATIA.

Rezan: Why does that cat always type in all caps?

Donut: WHY DIDN’T YOUR MOTHER DRIBBLE YOU BACK OUT ONTO THE TRUCK STOP BATHROOM FLOOR, REZAN?

Carl: Look. Everyone is stressed. I get that. We need to breathe and chill. Follow the instructions, and it’ll be okay.

Yvonne Vu: Our stairwell is in a subway station! There’s like a

hundred meters of rock above us!

Louis: Oh god, another subway?

Carl: I will delay as long as I can. Do your best. In theory, it should work even if the room is buried, but it’s not ideal.

Yvonne Vu: So when is this going to happen? Will we have a warning?

Carl: I’m working on it. I’m not sure. You need to get moving, but make sure everybody with keys is out first. No sense in risking them, too.

Jurgen: No, man. I’m breaking the door now. If we gotta clear this shit away, we’re gonna need help.

Osvaldo: So help me god, Jurgen. If you break that door before we get through, I will end you.

Jurgen: Whoopsies. Too late. I guess you’re stuck down here with the

rest of us. Now come help us dig.

I took a breath.

Carl: Goddamnit, everyone. Stop it. Earlier, I was thinking about how hopeless all this is. That they’re whittling us down to nothing. That there’s a death quota they have to meet, and no matter how hard we fight, we’re stuck inside that box. No. Fuck them all. I was wrong. We are not like those who came before us. This is our chance. This is our chance to show them how hard it is to kill us. We will not die on their schedule. Every person who gets through this will be one more the real assholes will have to fight on the next floor. We need each other. I need you. So stop fucking fighting.

There was a long pause.

Katia: I’m with you, Carl.

Katia had a key already. She didn’t need to say that, but I appreciated it.

Elle: We are, too.

Li Na: We as well.

A multitude of chats came in, all of people agreeing to help. Relief washed over me.

And then, finally, what I’d been hoping for happened. Confirmation.

A timer appeared in my interface. It was at two hours and started

counting down.

New Quest. Where the Sidewalk Ends.

This is a regional quest. All crawlers within the area of Cuba have been added to this quest.

Your squad has been designated as host of this quest.

Oh, all right. For fuck’s sake. I’ve been debating on whether or not to allow this, but now that so many of you are hell bent on dying in such a spectacular manner, we might as well make it official.

Amayon, one of the four princes of Sheol has been betrayed by one of his brothers. After being unceremoniously expelled from the kingdom of Sheol, the demon prince has managed to just barely hold on long enough to pull himself onto the equivalent of a very, very small ledge. The level 250 demon lord now inhabits the body of a lesser deity, a once-worshiped sea serpent who went by the name of the Madre de Aguas.

In order to return home, Amayon simply must cast a spell. But nobody, not even a prince, rides the river for free. A tithe of souls is required to pass back downward. And for a demon of his power, even as weak as he is right now, that tithe is pretty steep.

So he has cast his spell, a wide-area portal that will inhale all the souls within the Cuba area. This will be enough, barely, to send him home.

Unfortunately for Amayon, his expulsion has not gone unnoticed.

Other entities have noted that he is far from home, and they are doing what they can to keep him from returning. He is being thwarted. But even in his weakened state, he is still strong. He is still pushing the spell

through.

Here are your options.

Option 1. Do nothing.

Reward: In two hours, the portal will cast, and all of the Cuba region will be sucked upward into the Sheol portal. This may or may not be a good thing depending on where you’re standing when this happens. This portal will remain open for the remainder of this floor. Translation. Get the fuck out when you can.

Option 2. Free Amayon from his shell.

Reward: This will cause Amayon to take his true form. The timer will reset, and this quest will reset into a World quest. We’ve never had a full-powered, untethered hell prince unleashed on a lower floor before.

I’m sure it’ll be fine.

Option 3. Kill Amayon.

Yeah, good luck with that, especially since he is invulnerable on this floor.

Reward: You will receive a Celestial Hell Boon.

I took a deep breath. It was on.

Carl: Pony, holy shit you were right. We got the quest, just like you said we would.

Prepotente: How many times must I tell you not to call me by that name?

Donut remained unmoving in the alley. She was staring up at me.

“Carl, if we do this, it might ruin our own chance to go down the stairs.”

“I know, Donut,” I said, taking a knee next to her. “If you want to go down now, I can make sure that happens. But I started this, and people are counting on it, so now I have to stay.”

“But, how do you know the demon spell will cover the whole planet?”

“I don’t know, Donut. It’s only a hunch, but I think I’m right. The way the quest is worded seems to confirm it. The stronger the demon is, the bigger

the spell needs to be in order to get himself home. I’m gonna make him as strong as possible. I’m not positive it’ll cover the whole world, but we’re

gonna do our best to make it close.”

“But how?”

I dodged the question because she was not going to like the answer. “You were right earlier, Donut. We should have killed Sister Ines when we had the chance. We don’t have a choice now. First I take her out, then I free the boss of his shell, and then I buff him as much as I can.” I swallowed. “And then I get my ass underneath the stairwell chamber.”

“But if you do all that, you won’t have time to dig out the room. One is inside a big church and the other is buried under that entire capitol building.

You said it yourself. People need to free the building around the chamber if they can.”

I took in a breath. This was the part of the plan I was stumbling on, too. “I can only do my best. But the demon is here, in our area. I’m the only one who can buff it up. Donut, I don’t want to be in this position.” I waved my hand. “But all of this has been manufactured to force this on us, to force me into this. I’m the only one who can do it. If I don’t, we’re going to be in real trouble on the next floor. This is our chance to get as many of our people as possible down.”

She headbutted against my leg. “Don’t be stupid. We can only do our best. If you don’t go down the stairs, I don’t go down the stairs. We are the Princess Posse, and the Princess Posse doesn’t leave anybody behind.”

I reached over, and I picked her up and cradled her in my arms. A few streets over, a building collapsed as flames reached high in the sky. Amayon rumbled again. Samantha floated at the end of the alley, oohing and ahhing at all the destruction.

“That line was really cheesy,” I said as I pushed my face into her fur.

“Yeah, I’m still working on it,” she said. “I stole it from some movie.

Now let’s go kill that nun.”