The Eye of the Bedlam Bride — Chapter no 71

[ 71 ]

WARNING: YOU HAVE BEEN TEMPORARILY COMBINED WITH A TOTEM.

If you are slain while in this state, you will not regenerate.

This combination will time out in 180 seconds or when the battle ends, whichever is sooner.

“How…” I started to say, but I felt my control over my own body slip.

What, what, what is this? So many things on the inside. So many items to root through. What is this storage? So many, many things.

My hands turned to claws as I scratched at my own chest.

“No,” I grunted. I tried to reach up and grab the hands scratching at me, but they were my own hands. What was happening?

How do I get to this?

That voice. It was Shi Maria. She was talking in my own mind.

I was aware of screaming all around me. Of movement. I could hear Donut shouting. Others. It was all in slow motion and sped up at the same time. I felt as if I was falling. Suspended. I was in water. I was in the stars.

My back legs swept, tossing dozens of demons off the wall.

They couldn’t drag me to Sheol even if they wanted. I was one of them.

I was hyper aware of my body, my skin. It was wrong. My body was big.

I had more legs than usual. I had no control over anything. From the waist up, I was the same. Instead of just a head, I’d turned into a torso with a spider body. She controlled it all.

An item appeared in my hand. A scroll of Build Trench. I’d pulled it directly from my own inventory. No, no. I hadn’t pulled it. She’d done it.

She’d taken it directly from my inventory. It dropped to the ground.

Oh, yes. I see. I see how this works. What do we have?

“Carl!” Donut cried. “What are you doing? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I found myself shouting. I was not controlling my own voice.

“Just trying to figure out how to move in this body.”

I tried moving to the chat, to warn her, but it wouldn’t let me. I had truly lost control.

No. No, I thought. Not this. Anything but this.

You have so much in here. This book. This well-worn book. You’re not supposed to have this, are you? And what is this? This bomb is quite powerful, ready to explode. What would happen if I pull it out?

“No,” I gurgled, wresting back control for a mere moment.

I would be fine. I would turn back to the card. Why shouldn’t I bring it out? Why shouldn’t I kill every one of your friends? We had a deal, Carl. You were going to take me to the next floor. I see you. You were planning on betraying me.

I tried to respond, tried to deny it, but I lost the ability to speak again.

So many things. So many possibilities. Kimaris? You have a summoning totem of Kimaris? Does Samantha know this? Hmm. You have a war mage head? So many things. So many possibilities. What to do?

Donut was shouting something at me, but I couldn’t even hear that anymore.

Look at all these potions. You could have enhanced them all. You squandered your chance with Ysalte, and now she’s dead. Look at this. This potion… what did you use to make it? Oh yes, here we go. Oh, yes, yes, you have all the supplies I need. Everything. This will work.

Child. Hold on. Hold on with everything you can. This was another voice.

A male.

Don’t talk, Shi Maria hissed in my mind. She was speaking to the other voice. Don’t you speak. You’re not real. I didn’t put you here.

You did. You killed me, and now I am here.

That is a lie!

An empty beaker appeared. I’d looted it way back on the first floor.

Something else was placed within. It was just a piece, a small piece of the toraline root vegetable I’d gotten from my sponsor. It was just a small sliver of it. Mordecai still had the biggest piece.

I felt myself clutching the beaker to my chest. I watched in horror as I

started to examine Ren’s flamethrower.

No, no. This won’t do.

I pulled up my magic menu.

What do we have here?

“You best step back,” I heard myself say, looking about. I was surrounded by my friends, all looking up at me. “I won’t warn you again.

Step back now.”

I cast Self-Immolation.

My world became fire. All around, the others screamed and fell back. Just touching the fire around me was death. I already knew how awful it was just to be close.

I snapped off the spell within a second. I felt myself falling. It’d been strong enough to burn a hole in the floor underneath me. We weren’t directly above Imani and Tran, but we’d broken into the pocket. The floor under my feet just evaporated, and I plummeted, landing heavily into an apartment directly below. My body, already half outside, also fell. The walls now burned all around me. The building itself was starting to melt.

Donut: CARL, YOU HURT MONGO AND KATIA!

Ahh, yes, this is good. I picked up the burning hot beaker, and it was now filled with a small amount of bubbling, black liquid. Ink.

Li Na: We have to flee. Katia is grievously injured.

Carl: Don’t you fucking dare. I need but a few more moments. If I am unsummoned, Carl will die. If anyone approaches me, they will be slain. This is your only warning.

I unequipped my trollskin shirt, revealing my bare chest. Then another item from my inventory was in my hands. The stick and poke tattoo kit I’d received earlier on the floor.

“Stop,” I found myself crying. I was pushed out of control once again.

A chain appeared in my vision, coming from the floor above. Li Na had shot it. Her brother, Li Jun slid down the chains, like he was skiing. He flipped, landing in front of me.

Above, I could hear Donut screaming. She was screaming for Mongo.

No, no. no. This was all going wrong.

“Carl, what can I do?” It was Li Jun, looking at me worriedly. All around him, the walls continued to burn.

I warned him, Shi Maria said in my mind.

No, I thought. No. He’s my friend.

I took the stick from the tattoo kit, and I jabbed it directly into Li Jun’s eye. He cried and fell back. I pulled the stick to my mouth, and I licked. Oh god, oh god. His eye. His eye was at the end of the stick. I crunched down and ate it. A splash of bitter liquid filled my mouth, reminding me of the

vinegar from earlier. I chewed as Li Jun screamed.

The sound of ratcheting chains filled the room.

You have so much power in your hands, Carl, and you don’t even know what you have. That’s okay. Today, you live. If you won’t bring this card to the next floor, I will have to attach myself to something you can’t discard so easily.

I dipped the end of the stick into the beaker and started to rapidly poke into my own chest.

You will likely be doing more of this soon with the remaining ink. Be sure not to go too deep. This is a dangerous spell. I will show you how to wield it.

I will show you how to become a god.

“What are you doing,” I gasped as my hand became a blur, moving faster and faster, faster than possible.

Li Na was in the room, hovering over her brother, who sat in the corner, hand over his injured eye socket as he continued to scream in pain. The building all around us burned.

I’d eaten his eye. I’d eaten his goddamn eye. It was gone. It wouldn’t come back.

“Do not approach, demon,” I said out loud to Li Na, “or your brother will lose more than an eye, and Carl will lose his own heart. Or you, with the wings. Stay back. Do not attempt to heal him.”

Inside my own inventory, I watched as items moved around. Potions were being combined. Several dropped to the floor. “Give these two potions to the burned. One to the animal, the other to the doppelganger.” A third, gold standard healing potion dropped. “And this to your brother. I am almost done.

When I time out, we can flee.”

As I talked, I continued to rapid-fire the tattoo into myself. It wasn’t a big image. It was right into the center of my chest, just above my sternum.

There. There. Almost done. You may gain some of your friend’s powers, too, with the blood on the needle. Not much. But I am with you now, Carl, until you decide to free me. I will no longer be a card you can abandon, one you can rip away. I am a part of you, and you will have to decide. Keep me with you and gain my power, or set me free. Either way, I win. Yes. It is done.

Now let us flee this place, okay? I will not let you die. If you die now, I will die. And we can’t have that, can we?

I pulled the tattoo kit back into my inventory. I grasped the bottle of ink and pulled it in. The potions I’d dropped on the floor remained. Li Na and Li

Jun remained across the room, staring, unsure of what to do.

Don’t trust her, boy. Get her out of you as soon as you can. Don’t ever trust her.

“Oh god. It hurts,” I said. That was me. That was my own voice. I was back in control.

You have timed out. You have returned to your regular form. Shi Maria has returned to the deck.

A wave of agony flashed over me, and I found myself staring down at my bloody chest. At the eye. At the eye she’d rapidly tattooed into me. As I looked, the eye blinked, and then it closed, completely disappearing against my skin.

I could feel it there, a hole inside of me. A bottomless hole. I hesitantly

reached forward and touched it.

Tattoo. The Eye of the Bedlam Bride.

That’s all it said. It gave no other description.

Li Na scooped up the potions, and she gave one to her brother, whose hand remained clutched over his face. She handed two more potions off to someone else. Imani. I was going to lose consciousness.

“How’s Katia? How’s Mongo?” I asked before I passed out.