The Eye of the Bedlam Bride — Chapter no 72

[ 72 ]

I AWAKENED TO FIND MYSELF CLUTCHED IN LOUIS’S ARMS AS WE RAN through the city. I blinked, trying to figure out what was happening. Next to me, Donut was riding on Mongo as they weaved through the streets, avoiding the areas that continued to burn. I felt relief that Mongo was still alive. But then I saw the dinosaur’s right wing was gone, and the whole right side of his body was missing scales and feathers. New burns and scars covered the

dinosaur.

Oh no, I thought. I did that.

“Mongo,” I croaked. “I’m sorry.”

“He’s awake!” Donut cried. “Everybody, Carl’s awake! Carl, you’re

always passing out during the climax!”

“I hurt Mongo,” I said.

“One of the potions you upgraded will grow his wing back!” Donut said, “but Mordecai says he has to take it later. He wants to look at the potion first to make sure. A bunch of the potions you dropped next to me before you went to the beach with Raul turned into something really cool. Mordecai is

all excited.”

“And Katia?”

“She’s fine,” Katia said from behind me. I turned my head to look, and she jogged with everybody else. She’d turned into a mantaur-like creature, but with four legs instead of arms. She clutched onto the passed-out, legless form of Tran, who had a whole line of debuffs after him.

“Who did we lose?” I asked.

“Nobody,” Louis said. “Not of the crawlers. We lost a couple of the strippers, and I think all the slug dudes who went outside are gone. Also, that old dude with the weird sock is pretty upset. But all of us are okay. Though Tran lost his wheelchair and Li Jun lost an eye. And you, uh, lost all your

hair. But it’s not as bad.”

He trailed off.

Not as bad as the Butcher’s Masquerade, he almost said.

“Fucking hell. Put me down,” I said, starting to struggle.

“Sorry dude,” Louis said, pausing long enough to gently put me on the ground. I wobbled slightly.

I put my hand against my head. My skin had healed, but my hair was all gone. It had burned off. My eyebrows, too.

Mongo screeched with joy and pushed into me. I leaned my head against his. Donut jumped to my shoulder.

“You look like you’re going as one of those crest guys for Halloween, Carl. I will not have a sidekick with no eyebrows.”

“It’s okay,” I said, rubbing my bald head again. “I have a potion that grows it back. Rev-up hair tonic. The mantaurs dropped them on the fourth floor, but from what I hear, the results are a little… overenthusiastic. I’ll worry about it later.”

“Have you seen your level yet?” Donut asked. “When you blew up the city, you probably killed a whole lot of the remaining zombies and whatnot.

You’re level 73! And I’m 63!”

“How did you guys get out of the building?”

“I had to use my Hole spell, but we got away. The whole building fell down! We had to get a block away before my deck reset!”

I looked over my shoulder, and I could still see him several blocks over.

Amayon stood in place, completely surrounded by the hurricane of demon birds. The entire world had taken on a red hue, reminding me this wasn’t over yet. One last hurdle.

Elle, Dong, Imani, and Samantha were suddenly there.

Samantha hovered up to me and said, “Carl. We need to break up. I’ve been thinking about it, and I’ve decided to go back to my king.”

“Okay,” I said.

She nodded sadly. “I hope we can remain friends.” She looked at Louis and growled at him and then zipped off toward the church.

“I ripped her card,” Donut said after a moment. “Shi Maria. As soon as the battle ended, I ripped it. She’s not going to hurt Mongo ever again.”

I took a breath.

I still felt it there, right on my chest. The tattoo. I had no idea what it really was or what it meant.

“Also, Carl,” Donut said, pulling a card from her inventory. It floated down into my hand. “I have this in our backup slot. Katia let me grab it after the goddess died.”

It was Paz. I felt dirty holding it in my hand.

He’d killed a god. The description on the card had changed.

Paz Lo. The God Predator. Level 101 Former Crawler.

“What should we do with him?” Donut asked.

“We rip it,” Katia said. “That’s what he wanted.”

“I agree,” Imani said. Elle nodded with agreement.

“You’re the one who should’ve gotten credit for killing the god,” I said to Katia, still examining the card. “You had to use your Bolt of Ophiotaurus to do it.”

Katia grinned. “I’m glad I didn’t get credit for the kill. Did you see that message? It said all the gods are angry at him now. Funny thing about magical bolts, though.” She pulled an item from her inventory and showed it to me. “As long as they don’t break, you can reuse them.”

I found myself grinning back at her. She’d gotten the bolt all the way back on the fourth floor in a benefactor box from Princess Formidable of the Skull Empire. She’d wanted Katia to use it on her brother, Prince Maestro in the body of Grull. I was happy to see that possibility was still on the table.

“Did you get to loot the goddess?”

“No,” Katia said sadly. “It gave all her equipment to Paz. It upgraded his armor.”

I again examined the card. The possibilities tingled in the back of my mind.

“We can keep a card when we go down,” Donut said, also looking down at the smiling image of the Paz on the card. “We were going to keep Lazarus or maybe that Golden Combo card, but maybe we should keep this one instead. Maybe there’s a way to set him free.”

“No,” I said after a moment, remembering that look on his face when

Sister Ines had summoned him before.

Please, he’d said. No more.

“We can’t,” I said, handing the card back to Donut, who held it against my shoulder with her paw. “We should never have let the Sister turn him into one in the first place. It was my fault. It’s not right. And we’re not taking that Golden Combo card, either.”

“What did that crazy spider lady do to you, anyway?”

The tattoo on my chest was invisible because the eye was closed. It felt like a bruise against my chest. The only ones who’d seen it were Li Na, Li Jun, and Imani.

“Later,” I said. “It’s not important right now.”

Donut sighed, looking down at the Paz card. “I suppose you’re right. Do you think I’ll get another player killer skull for ripping it?”

“No,” I said. “It calls him a former crawler now. I don’t know what that really means, and I don’t want to find out.”

And then, without any additional fanfare, Donut put one corner of the card in her mouth. She held the other corner down against my shoulder, and she ripped. Just like that. The card disappeared in a puff of smoke. She did

not get a player killer skull.

“Goodbye, Paz,” I said.

The Sheol fire finally started to ease. Everywhere it touched, there was nothing left. Thankfully, I’d never actually gotten too close to the church.

Chris and the others had been hard at work the whole time, making certain there was nothing directly above. Zhang messaged me to say he’d only had to use two zaps on my wand, which left the shrink wand with seven charges. I also had a rare Wand Recharge scroll in my inventory if I ever ran out.

Just as we approached the church, finally, the world paused once again.

A thirty-minute timer appeared in my interface. My heart stuttered at that.

That was much sooner than I anticipated.

Quest Update. The Missing Piece. Part Two. “Falling Up.”

The Vinegar Bitch is no more.

Her sponsor, by the way, is currently reading the fine print on his contract, and let me tell you, he’s pretty mad. Probably not as mad as he’s going to be in a few days, but hey, one step at a time.

Amayon is free, and he is going home to wage war upon his brother. th Hopefully an all-out war in Sheol won’t spill outside the 15floor.

Powered by the flash presence of billions of souls and buffed with the flames of home, Amayon has already cast his spell. Soon, the heavens will open, and Amayon will ascend into the portal.

Thanks to the sheer number of souls consumed just to power up the spell, the area of the casting has moved outward from the point of origin

and encompassed the entire world.

In other words, yes. All you crawlers in Cuba pulled it off. Especially Carl who literally pulled off a guy named Raul to make this happen. And in case you don’t get the metaphor: Carl jerked off a crab.

“What the fuck?” I called up into the air. “That’s not true!”

Everyone was looking at me.

“Dude,” Louis said.

“How does that even work? Don’t crabs have two weens?” Elle asked.

“Were you double fisting it?”

“I absolutely did not do that! He, uh, did it to himself.”

The notification continued.

The timer in your interface indicates when this will happen in your current region. The closer you are to the Cuba region, the less time you have to prepare. When that timer reaches zero, the heavens above you will open, and all living things and items and structures will be sucked upward into the portal. The world will be scoured clean.

In case you haven’t figured this part out yet, if you position yourself directly below an enclosed stairwell chamber with an inaccessible stairwell to the next floor, the walls of the containing chamber will teleport away the moment it hits the hell portal. This will allow you to strike the stairwell as you and the chamber are sucked upward into the sky. This will happen fast, and it won’t be clean. Some of you might not make it. But if you position yourself carefully, you’ll be fine. Probably.

That way, instead of dying on this floor, you can die on the next!

You’re welcome.

“Okay,” I said. “Imani has to stay with us, but everybody else still has time to go back to your home country and use the stairwells manually. No use risking it.”

We walked in silence toward the church. So much had happened on this floor.

I thought of Katia and the Crown of the Sepsis Whore. We had a way out.

Using the flower would require all of us to trust in the word of Huanxin th Jinx. She promised she would take Katia to the 12floor and protect her. We worked so hard to make it happen, and now none of us wanted to use that path. I understood Huanxin’s original motivations—one, to win the Ascendency throne, and two, to get revenge against Odette—but now that we knew Odette was actually going to be playing an immortal goddess herself, it

changed everything.

The call was ultimately Katia’s to make, but there had to be another way.

There had to be.

If I learned anything on this floor, it was that the impossible was never out of reach, especially if it made for good television.

I had one last task to complete before we moved on.

“Okay, Donut,” I said. “We’re out of time. I’m going to do it now.”

We still had four full days left before the ninth floor was going to open.

Four days for the assholes to finish voting on all the unresolved action items for Faction Wars. Some of these action items required a unanimous vote to pass, though most required a simple majority. These guys were absolutely refusing to vote at all. Nobody wanted to play anymore. They just wanted to go home.

I looked one last time at Amayon, the demon lord. He was the same as them, and he was the same as us. He didn’t want to be here. He also just wanted to go home.

But we all had the same problem. Even if we did get home, it wouldn’t be the same. Amayon was going home to fight his brothers. My world was already destroyed.

And these guys? The Faction Wars folks? These leaders of the most influential governments of the Syndicate? They were about to learn they couldn’t go home, either. Not easily. And if they did manage to break themselves away and survive these coming days, it was okay. They’d already lost. They just didn’t know it yet.

I opened up the Faction Wars tab. I pulled up the Warlord interface, and I

typed.

The Princess Posse New proposed Emergency Action Item.

Warning: You are attempting to propose an Emergency Action item.

You may only propose three Emergency Action Items. These will not be subject to vote and will be automatically decided by AI. You have used zero of your three emergency action items. Do you wish to proceed?

>>Yes.

Please proceed. >>Emergency Action Item. Both warlords of the Princess Posse are being forced to enter the stairwell early, and we will be unavailable to vote on any other action items for the remainder of the time before

Faction Wars commences. This is due to factors beyond our control.

This, along with the fact the other Faction Wars teams are being little babies and refusing to vote, has caused us great concern that the fairness and integrity of the game is in danger. We propose that the system AI please take immediate action to keep the game running smoothly. We propose that all remaining pending action item votes should be offered to the viewers to decide, when possible. If not possible, we propose the AI

decide the remaining action items.

Please Wait.

Congratulations. Emergency Action Item has been decided in your favor.

All pending votes involving audience-facing rulesets have been presented to viewers to decide. They have 30 seconds to decide on all pending action items, presented one at a time. Voting starts now.

I blinked at that. That was significantly faster than I was expecting.

“I can’t believe that worked,” Donut said.

“Zev said the AI is a lot friendlier if you ask nicely and if you give it options. Have you read all the previous emergency action items? Everyone was being complete dicks about it. Of course the AI is going to reject it. They still treat it like a computer, and it’s not. They call it an AI, but there’s nothing artificial about it. The sooner everyone realizes that, the more its actions make sense.”

A whole line of the pending, bullshit, behind-the-scenes action items were suddenly decided, mostly involving building materials and cost limits for mercenaries and a bunch of insignificant items regarding splitting of advertising revenue. All things that Donut and I had already voted No on down the line, just to be obstinate.

“We still have two more emergency items,” Donut said. “What should we use them on?”

“Once the game starts, it’s too late to use regular action items, but we can still propose emergency ones while the game is ongoing, so we need to keep ours in reserve in case something crazy happens.”

Pending Action Item, originally proposed by the Madness: Celestial Summoning events be limited to five per team. This item has been rejected by a 37% audience vote. Existing rule of fifteen per team remains.

We had about fifteen minutes left. Imani and Elle hugged. Zhang returned

the shrink wand to me as he and Chris returned to the saferoom. Li Jun and Li Na had already gone back inside. I hadn’t had time yet to apologize for what I’d done to Li Jun’s eye. I hoped he was okay.

“Come on,” I said to Samantha. “We need to get you back inside if you want to go to the next floor.”

“You’re going to bring MaeMae, right? She knows where the guy to get me my body is.”

I exchanged a look with Donut. “Don’t worry about that,” I said. “We know where to go.”

“Okay,” she said after a minute before zooming inside.

I had dozens of achievements and loot boxes to open. I had a fan box I hadn’t yet opened. I had Quan’s cloak, and I still needed to go over it with Mordecai. Donut had a bunch of upgraded potions. There was so much, it was overwhelming. It would have to wait.

Pending Action Item, originally proposed by the Dream: Physics limitations regarding long-range artillery be reassigned to allow for longer-range bombardment. This includes raising the playing field ceiling. This item has been passed by a 72% audience vote. Please see the Warlord tab for specifics.

I entered the saferoom long enough to eyeball the room and say goodbye to Mordecai. I dropped some blood in the Emberus shrine and dumped a ton of coins in when Donut wasn’t looking. Mordecai said the worship countdown didn’t tick between floors, even if we went early, but I wanted to make certain it was fed. I’d need to remain in Emberus’s good graces on the next floor.

Dong Quixote along with a few of the other strippers all moved off toward their barracks. He’d barely spoken since the battle, and I knew he was upset about the death of his friend. I’d have to talk to him.

“Go back to the training room,” I said to Samantha. “I’ll see you on the next floor.”

As she zipped off, my eyes caught the number up on the screen. Mordecai had turned the counter back on. A few weeks earlier, on the day this floor had opened, the number of crawlers who made it to the eighth floor had been 38,532.

Pending Action Item, originally proposed by the Reavers: Pet leveling is accelerated during Faction Wars. This item has been passed by a 83% audience vote. Please see the Warlord tab for specifics.

When Prepotente had skipped the floor, I’d thought that had probably been a mistake. I’d thought that they were going to use this floor to catch up on all the death they had missed on the skipped seventh floor.

After all, that’s what this floor had been designed for, had it not? To kill us all. To turn us against each other. It’d seemed so ominous. So dark. I

looked at the number now.

33,804.

“Holy shit,” I said, my voice full of wonder.

“Carl?” Donut asked.

Almost five thousand people had died, which in any, normal circumstance was a tragedy. A devastating number. I knew this wasn’t over yet. I knew more would die before the floor would collapse. People wouldn’t get the stairwell free in time. People would fail when the portal opened and sucked them up into the air. Still, a sense of pride washed over me. That number of deaths so far was shockingly low.

I was hoping the number of survivors would be over ten thousand.

After all the death, after how horrific everything had been, I realized they’d been counting on this last part to be the real gut punch. They’d made it too easy to flee fights because they wanted these last few days to be the real slaughter. We’d figured a way out of it. And because of that, we were hitting the ninth floor not scattered, not broken, and not afraid.

We were hitting the ninth floor in unprecedented numbers.

Pending Action Item, originally proposed by the Princess Posse: Remove Safety Protections For Faction Sponsors.

This item has been passed by a 98% audience vote. Please see the Warlord tab for specifics.

“You wanted a slaughter?” I yelled up at the ceiling. “Don’t worry. It’s coming. Thirty thousand of us, plus our mercenaries? Do you remember what we did to the hunters? That was nothing. Your people voted for this. Your own citizens said, yes, we’re okay with the crawlers killing you one by one.

Make no mistake. That’s exactly what’s about to happen.”

I angrily jabbed my finger upward.

“You may have destroyed our homes, but guess what? We have just taken any sense of peace you will ever have in your own home. And that’s only if you get there. There will be no prisoners. There will be no quarter. Those of us who remain are battle worn and tested. Every single one of us that is left, to a crawler, is more experienced than any one of you. We are coming. There

is nowhere for you to hide. It is going to be a bloodbath the likes of which has never been seen.”

Pending Action Item, originally proposed by the Princess Posse: A tenth team populated with NPCs, afforded the same protections as the rest.

This item has been passed by a 52% audience vote.

This team will be designated as Home Team with the city of Larracos as their base. Effective immediately, peace rules apply until the game starts. This team’s assigned co-warlords are the NPCs Juice Box and Sir Ferdinand.

An adjutant will be assigned before the battles commence.

Please see the Warlord tab for specifics.

Donut gasped at the mention of Gravy Boat.

We only had a few minutes left before the area here would be sucked up into the sky. Imani waited outside. Donut put Mongo away and together, the three of us moved to the tunnel underneath the stairwell chamber. Chris had painted a big, neon X on the ceiling right where the stairwell was. In theory, we just needed to stand right under the X, and we’d be okay.

Three minutes left.

“Carl, I didn’t get to use my new Hover skill in battle yet,” Donut said.

“That’s okay,” I said. “I’m sure we’ll get to use it on the next floor. We have a whole lot of things to go through.”

“Oh my god, Carl and Imani, did either of you ever open your Christmas

presents from Santa?”

I grunted. “No, I forgot.”

“I was a little distracted,” Imani said.

“You’ll have to open them right away on the next floor.” Donut was nervous, excitedly chatting off the excess energy. “I was really scared when you burned Mongo’s wing off, and you burned Katia bad, too, but I guess both will be okay. Mongo didn’t even seem to notice. Katia’s whole arm was gone, but she grew a new one.”

“Wait, I didn’t know that,” I said, suddenly concerned. I had a memory of Katia after a fight a long time ago, holding onto her hand, crying because she’d lost some of her fingers.

“She just grew it right back,” Donut said. “She said it was nothing.” She paused then gasped. “Carl, I just realized something! We have that quest to bring Shi Maria to that city, but it didn’t go away when I ripped the card!”

I took a breath. “I know, Donut.” I patted my chest. “She’s still with me, in a different way. We’ll figure it out when we get to the next floor.”

“I… I don’t understand,” Donut said. “Wait, are you okay?”

“I’m with you, Donut. That’s all that matters.” She snuggled closer to me.

Imani stood next to us, and she wrapped us in her wings, filling us with warmth.

“No matter what happens, none of us are getting out of this unscathed,”

Imani said. “We gain things, and we lose them. That’s what happens in war.

Thank you, Carl and Donut. Thank you for not giving up on me.”

“We don’t give up on family,” I said. “Otherwise, what’s the point?”

In addition to her wings, Imani wrapped her arms around my waist. She put her head against my shoulder, and she started to quietly sob. The player killer skulls over her head glowed in the darkness, and I could only imagine how heavy each one of those skulls was.

Pending Action Item, originally proposed by the System AI: The playing field for Faction Wars be increased in size to compensate for the increased number of combatants.

This item has been passed by a 68% audience vote.

Please see the Warlord tab for specifics.

“That’s weird,” I said. “Do you think that was because so many of us are making it down there?”

Donut gasped. “Carl, Carl, I just got a benefactor box from the garbage

truck people!”

We had less than a minute left.

“Really? Well they’re gonna have to wait until the next floor before we can open it.”

“It’s a celestial box! My first celestial box, and it’s from the garbage truck company? The posse is going to be scandalized.”

I pulled Donut off my shoulder and held her tightly in my arms. She looked up at me. “Carl, I don’t want Katia to eat that flower. I don’t want her

to go away.”

“We’ll figure something out,” I said.

“What if we don’t make it?” Donut asked.

“Did you see that 98%?” I asked. “Donut, it doesn’t matter what happens from here on out. We’ve already won.”

Just before the timer reached zero, Donut rearranged herself in my arms, but she paused, looking behind me before I pulled her back into a tight grip.

She gasped. “Carl, your jacket is glowing! It’s not an aardvark like I thought.

It’s a giant centipede! The image is of a centipede crawling through all the skulls! It’s disgusting!”

At the same moment, a voice spoke in my mind.

You did not diffuse your soul power from the Scavenger’s Daughter. That was a mistake. You should never allow it to linger within you. I need you alive, Carl. I need you reasonably sane. We have so much work to do.

I felt an ominous chill, both at the words spoken in my mind and at the realization that I had, indeed, forgotten to activate my Daughter’s Kiss.

We gain things, and we lose them. That’s what happens in war.

High above, the heavens opened over Cuba, and the world was stripped clean. Every tangible object was sucked high into the sky, including me, Imani, and Donut, leaving nothing on the surface but thousands of memories of people going about their daily lives, unaware of how few of them would be left in a few, short days.

Don’t worry, I thought as I looked down upon the quickly receding landscape. I knew none of these people, but I was overwhelmed with the urge to make certain they would be proud of me. I thought of Asher, the brother I never knew. I needed to make him proud. I couldn’t disappoint him. I would literally pull myself through hell on my hands and knees if I had to. I wasn’t there for him while he lived, but I would be damned if I allowed his death to

be for nothing.

You will not break me.

You will be avenged.

I swear it.

I swear it to you all.

Quest Complete. Hell Comes to Crawler Town.

Quest Complete. The Missing Piece.

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Welcome, Crawler.

Welcome to Faction Wars.