Book 7 Part III: Open Hostilities. Chapter Justice Light. Also, Dungeon Crawler Carl Book 7 Cover Reveal. (Patreon)

Part III. Open Hostilities.  

Justice Light

“Leave,” Justice Light said to Pernicus G, the lead sluggalo. “You have done good work, but it is time for you to join the others above the surface. You don’t want to be down here for this final part.”

The slug had just tied off a manual tripwire with his mouth. He looked up, surprised. All around, the other slugs paused their work.

“Yo, whatchu talkin’ about? We’re a team.”

Justice leaned down in the dark tunnel so he was beak-to-face with the slug. In these past days, he’d grown fond of the strange creatures. He’d held several incorrect assumptions regarding them. He’d told Carl and Tipid that he wanted them to help build the trap system because it was dangerous, and these creatures didn’t appear to care if they died. That was only partially true. It was also only part of the reason he’d insisted on using them as his assistants.

It turned out he was incorrect about his second assumption regarding these creatures as well.   

But that was okay. That was something he’d learned long ago. Wishing for favorable air currents does not manifest them. You ride the currents you have, or you don’t fly. It was as simple as that.

With his lone wing, he patted the fat, painted slug on the side of his squishy neck. “Warlord Carl and Donut are doing such a great job, If you stay down here, you might end up not getting to fight at all. They need as many soldiers as they can, and you and the others will miss out. If the plan succeeds, all of this work won’t be necessary, and you won’t see any action at all. I know you want to fight. Go find General Tipid and tell him you’re trained sappers, and maybe you can join up with the Frothing Tunnel Moles. They’re sure to be busy in the coming hours. Operation Ruin will start the moment the timer ends.”  

“Ugh. That sounds epic, but it’s not here. I want to do the chop-chop in my hood, not some other area code. Know what I’m saying?” 

Justice chuckled. He had to take a moment to decipher the slug’s words. It was one of the things he enjoyed about the small creatures. It was like having a never-ending supply of puzzles to solve. Justice Light loved puzzles. So had his children.

“I’ll tell you what,” he said. “If it goes bad, and you have to retreat, I want the whole squad to come back down here for the final defense. That way you won’t miss it if something happens.”

The slug whooped loudly, and turned. “You heard ‘im, boys. And Lucky, you too. We going to war!”

Without another protest, they all started sliming and shouting their way toward the surface.

“Not that hallway,” Justice called. “You’ll set off the proximity scythe! Remember what happened to Lickity Spit!”

“Oh, fuck. My bad,” Pernicus called as he veered toward the correct hall. 

“Not you,” Justice said to Scary Skeeto, the level 53 slug at the end of the line.

The large slug paused. He seemed to hesitate. 

“Yo, bossman. Whatcha need?” Skeeto asked as the last slug slithered away.

Justice examined the creature. This one had a metallic club—called a “baseball bat” for some reason—dangling from the side of his neck. It dragged wherever he went. His fine touch with his mouth had been instrumental in setting the manual tripwires from the eastern approach. He’d been one of the hardest, most focused workers on the squad.  

“Tell her we need to talk,” Justice said, taking a step back. With his one, good wing, he gently touched the wall, activating the hidden traps in the room. The extra ones he’d planted himself.  

“Yo, what you on?” Skeeto asked.

“Your real boss,” Justice repeated. “Juice Box. Tell her we need to talk.”  

The slug seemed to think on this for a moment. “Damn, man,” the slug finally said, sighing. “I’m supposed to kill you if you figure it out.”

“I assumed as much. At this moment, there are three traps between you and myself that I have secretly placed. You might get to me, no matter what form you take. You might. But you won’t stop the message I have prepared for Carl and the others. I’d like to avoid that, and I suspect your boss would like to avoid that as well.”   

“I actually count six traps,” Scary Skeeto said after a moment. He sighed again. “I’m going to change form so we can talk. Don’t skewer me.”

Justice was impressed. It was actually eight traps, but some of them were very well hidden. Had the changeling actually seen them, or was it a guess?

He’d known from the beginning not to trust the NPC team. He’d brought it up with both Tipid and Rosetta. Tipid, in his enthusiastic naivety, had thought the risk would be negligible. Rosetta was a bit more realistic in her assessment of the threat. Carl didn’t have the proper point of reference and had no idea what he was dealing with. That was the problem with most revolutionaries. They had tunnel vision.

Not that you’re any different, he told himself. Was it still tunnel vision if he was aware of it?

Justice Light had chosen the sluggalos to help him because he’d incorrectly assumed that the procedurally generated NPCs wouldn’t be copy-able by the class A and B NPC changelings.

He’d obviously been wrong.

But, luckily, paranoia had been Justice’s way of life for a very long time now. He kept careful, careful track of everyone around him at all times. He even knew when the change had occurred. When Skeeto—the real Skeeto—had gone down the new tunnel and come back just a few minutes later, Justice had noticed the change immediately. His built-in neural implants had noted the subtle change of body temperature and weight. Also, the lack of hormonal emissions had been a dead giveaway.

The fact that these changelings could mimic the slugs at all was alarming on several levels. His working theory was that these particular changelings had their gating removed because of that quest on the fifth floor with the Quetzalcoatlus ghost. That whole setup never came to pass, but the system would have allowed them to add the demi-god into their library should they have survived an encounter with the ghost. As a result, all the changelings that the crawlers sent down here to the ninth could now mimic just about anything they managed to touch, which was terrifying, especially with them gaining memories of their past iterations.

The slugs were procedurally generated, which made them throwaway one-offs. They were barely a step above the NPCs they used to populate the clubs. Mimicking them didn’t sound like it was a big deal, but it had never been allowed before. The slugs were a different classification in the programing. And if Justice Light knew one thing about this damn game, it was that if one door was unexpectedly unlocked, it was possible—even likely—that other doors would be unlocked as well.

This realization had changed everything for Justice Light. His impossible plan, which was really just an overly complicated suicide plot, was suddenly not so impossible. But first, he had to get the changelings on his side.

Skeeto the slug transformed into a humanoid, blank form, crouching so he wouldn’t trigger the dart needles above him. This was a big changeling, meaning he was likely old and powerful. The head on the creature changed, leaving the rest of the body the same, which was something else only the most powerful changelings could do.

The head became that of Juice Box herself, in human form.

“Well, well, well, aren’t you smart for an outworlder,” she said as she looked up at Justice Light.

Justice felt his feathers around his neck ruffle. “Am I really talking to you?”

His seismic monitor suggested a slight uptick in activity underneath him. He took another step back. “And I take offense to the title. I am of the White Cliffs, and I never asked to be taken from my original home. I am no outworlder. Not by choice. If anything, I am just as much a child of the dungeon as you are. I was reborn here much in the same way you’ve been reborn. How many times has it been? One hundred?”  

“Yes, you are really talking to me,” Juice Box said. “I’m using the chat system to talk to my helper, and he’s helpfully using my image to relay the message. So if your plan is to kill me, I am out of reach.” She paused. “I do apologize for calling you that, though your estimates on my age ain’t even close. I’ve been writing down my memories as they come, and I believe I have lived at least 400 different lives up until this point.”

Justice Light sighed. Four hundred lives? He believed it. NPCs were supposed to be recycled after 20, but the showrunners insisted that expensive, deeper-level audits weren’t necessary since the Class A and Class B NPCs got auto-recycled when they were killed.

His seismic meter continued to warn of movement below. The eagle held out his one, good wing. “Please, call off your digger. I’ll make a deal with you. If you don’t wreck everything I spent the last week building, I promise I won’t tell the others of this conversation, no matter how it goes. I believe you have no desire to be our enemy and all you want is to protect yourselves. I truly believe that, but if you use the digger to get to me, you will hurt your allies and ultimately yourself. All I ask is that you hear me out.”

Juice Box cocked her head to the side. The digger below stopped moving. Justice Light took that as assent.

“Good. Good. Thank you.”

“I am a very busy girl, skyfowl. You wanted to talk? You have five minutes. I’m listening.”

Justice bowed slightly and then without further preamble, he started to speak.

“I killed an NPC once, out of anger. It was a very long time ago. Most people don’t understand why I care so much about this one incident when I would eventually go on to kill thousands of mobs and NPCs alike over the course of my crawl.” He paused, emotion caught in his throat.

“This one. He was one of those lizard creatures. The ones that smell funny and have a strange, talkative way about themselves, always saying what’s on their mind. Can change their gender at will based on their environment? I can’t recall the name of the species at the moment, but one such creature had cheated me earlier, and I was already on edge. And this one insulted me. He didn’t even mean anything by it. It’s just their way. But my people. We are proud...”

Justice Light trailed off, remembering.

“He was the proprietor of the only trap store on the entire level. I snapped, and I killed him. Because of that, dozens of my fellow crawlers were unable to find the supplies they needed to complete the level, and they died.”

Juice Box said nothing.

“I felt horrible about it, about my mistake. But even that wasn’t why it affected me so.” He held out his single wing and examined it. He rerouted some power in his implant and ratcheted up the sensitivity on his seismic sensors. He could now sense the enormous digger, just sitting there, idle but with its dwarven engine still on.  

“When I got out, I made a deal. I asked for the right to run the trap store. I know, it was a bit silly. It added some time to my indentureship, but, you see, I wanted to make sure the best supplies were always available to the crawlers. Still, it didn’t help. It was already too late.”

“What do you mean?” Juice Box asked.    

“I killed that NPC because I allowed the cold to get inside. It is inevitable, yes. How can it not be? But that was the moment I could no longer return to who I once was. In that single, unnecessarily violent act I allowed them to win. Everything after that ceased to matter, or so I thought.”

“This is all very touching, skyfowl. But you forget who I am. I have heard the confessions of a thousand men. If you’re attempting to gain sympathy, I am the wrong audience.”

“I know,” he said. “But, please. I am not finished. Hear me out.”

The blank form crossed its arms. Justice Light continued.

“I’m not sure how much you know about what happens to crawlers after they’re finished with the dungeon, but I became an indentured servant. I spent the next several hundred years working as a merchant. When I first arrived, my next door neighbor was someone named Dante. A crocodilian. I didn’t know it at the time, but he and I had a lot in common. A similar burning distaste for the position we found ourselves in.” Justice let out a soft caw. “One season, they told us we could no longer be merchants, and we were to be NPCs. Castle guards. Our job was to simply stand outside this ice castle and guard it. They told us we weren’t supposed to stop crawlers from entering. Just keep the peace, so Dante and I hoped and prayed it would be a simple assignment.”

“Still not following.”

“You are quite impatient for someone your age. I’m almost there. At the end of the floor, we ended up not seeing a single crawler, and Damien told us we would be able to go back to our regular assignments. But first, we had to do one last thing. The castle was filled with NPC servants. Ice elves, if you’ve ever seen them. More fairy than anything. They are as tall as your human form, but I can fit my entire talon around their waists. They are gentle, simple creatures. Innocent. Not like regular high elves. Over the weeks we spent watching the castle, they became our friends. I knew all their names. They would play in the snow, like children. This was all off camera, and I still don’t understand why they asked us to do it. They loved puzzles.” He paused, remembering what came next. Dreading the telling of it. “All this time later, and I still don’t understand.”

Juice Box suddenly changed form to an ice elf, and Justice Light felt as if he’d been kicked in the chest. He caught the cry in his throat. He physically took a step back, and he had to quickly hit a hidden panel on the wall to stop yet another trap from activating.  

The changeling spoke, but this time it was not Juice Box. This was the changeling who’d been pretending to be Skeeto. “Juice Box does not have these creatures in her library, but I do. I lived amongst them many lifetimes ago. They are indeed simple, gentle creatures.”

All Justice Light could do was nod. After a moment, the Juice Box head returned. Justice took a moment to compose himself.

“My friend, Dante. He refused. He looked up into the air and said he wasn’t going to do it. They ordered us a second time. Again, he refused. There was no third warning. A beam came from the sky, and he was just gone. Just like that. He’d worked so long, so hard, and he was almost free. The light simply erased him, as if he’d never existed.”

Juice Box cocked her head, not saying anything.

“He’d already passed the point of no return, or so I thought. But in the end, I was wrong. He stood his ground, and he died. And by the gods, he died free.” Justice Light filled with pride for his friend, his brother. “Execution by the AI, which is actually quite rare, believe it or not. Usually they send in a mercenary squad for folks like us. Same as those we’re fighting outside right now.”  

“They used to call them hardshells,” Juice Box said.   

Justice Light nodded. “I’ve heard that term before. They’re usually gnolls, but not always. Hired mercenaries to do the dirty work when the cameras are turned away. Can’t have the AI do too much of the clean-up. They like to keep it focused on the crawlers, lest it go primal early.”

And what about you?” Juice Box finally asked. “What happened to you after your friend was killed?” There was a new gentleness there.   

Justice held out the stump of his wing. “I, too, refused. But I only did so once, and unlike Dante, I was given a warning. They ordered me a second time.” He lowered his head. The beam of light that had removed his wing had been so fast, there wasn’t even pain. But what happened next... “I am still not free.”

In the telling of this story, Justice usually ended it right there. But this time, he finally voiced what happened next. He’d never told anyone the specifics. Not even Porthus. But this was important.  

“Sometimes, I have this dream. In this dream, I go into the castle to find the ice elves all dead. They’d overheard what was happening outside with me and Dante, and, in their kindness, they killed themselves to protect me—their friend—from having to do something I didn’t want to do. That is my dream, but that is not what happened. Even that would’ve been the coward’s solution, so why do I yearn for it? And after I have this dream, I always go back to that moment with the clerk at the trap store. The first person I killed out of anger, and I wonder, what difference is there between anger and cowardice?”

Skyfowl were proud, and they did not weep.

But what happened when one lost himself? Justice Light had no pride left, and he did not feel worthy of the title Skyfowl.  

“They didn’t even fight back. They loved puzzles and the snow. I was already done. It was all off camera. I still don’t understand why.” He barely got the words out.

Over the course of this story, Justice felt himself hunching in on himself, shrinking. Now he stood straight. “But Dante taught me that there is no such thing as the point of no return. So I want you to know this, Juice Box, leader of Team Retribution. You are distrustful of us former crawlers. I understand that. You fear we crawlers will sacrifice you to save ourselves, and you have positioned yourselves to protect against that.”

Juice Box sighed. “I’m not sure if this story is as helpful as you think it is.”

“But,” he said, holding up his good wing. “I now understand what you’re really doing, what your real plan is, and I want you to know I can help you. I, too, have a plan, and I believe it is compatible with your own. We can do this together. I have a new dream, and I am no longer afraid. I am still angry, yes, but it is a different type of anger. It is focused, purposeful, and together we can both achieve our mutual goals.”

Juice Box raised an eyebrow. “What we’re really doing? Oh, I can’t wait to hear this.”    

“You have spies in all corners of our base, correct? And not just our base, but all of the bases.”

Juice Box didn’t answer.

“It’s okay,” Justice Light said. “I know who many of them are, at least in our base. But you know what I couldn’t figure out, at least at first? The Blood Sultanate. Their security certainly wasn’t as good as the Madness, yet you managed to infiltrate the Viceroy headquarters over and over before the ceasefire. I believe you decapitated multiple viceroys in the days leading up to the ceasefire. Yet, you claimed you were unable to reach the Sultanate, an obvious lie.”

“What is your point?” Juice Box asked.  

“Someone, and I’m guessing that human, Louis, told you all the way back on the fifth floor the details on what Carl and Donut need to do to defeat the naga, and why it is so important. You’ve been pretending to not be able to get to the Sultanate because at first you were keeping your options open.”

“Why would I do that? I owe Carl. Despite your accusations, we are allies. I understand he had a difficult time with the assassination of the naga whore. If he had died, and we could’ve prevented it, it would’ve destroyed our alliance.”  

“I believe that you’re a good person, Juice Box. I believe you intend on honoring the alliance, but I also believe the alliance is secondary to your true purpose, which will always come first. You could’ve killed the Sultana and her entire court quite easily. Hell, I believe you could end all this right now. I am quite certain of this. You are poised and in position to kill every leader at any moment.”

Below, the engine on the digger ticked off from idle. It still wasn’t moving, but the machine was ready to surge upward.   

Juice Box didn’t appear to show any emotion, but she stood straighter than before. “If that is true, then why wouldn’t we have done that by now?”

Justice Light reached over, hit a few buttons and deactivated all the traps between himself and Juice Box. He stepped forward and leaned in.  

“The gods. It’s all about the gods. It has been about them the whole time. You’re risking it all so you and your kind can physically touch as many of them as possible.”

Juice Box was silent for a long moment. “Tell me something, Mr. Skyfowl. Assuming this little theory of yours is correct, where does that leave us? What was your purpose in calling me here?”

Justice Light suppressed a chuckle. “Well, that’s easy. I told you my backstory because I need you to believe and to understand how committed I am to what I’m about to tell you. But first, let me ask you something. I’m not sure what you did in Club Vanquisher just now to cause all those gods to appear, but I’m guessing it didn’t go well for you guys?”

The changeling frowned. She seemed to come to a decision. “We lost three. We did not cause the gods to appear, but we were in position just in case. One of us managed to touch Bast—the panther god—but she died before she could escape. At this point, only one of us has touched a deity, and that one is... wrong.”

Justice nodded. “What if I could show you how to touch a god and not get killed? And in exchange, you agree to honor all of our previous deals. No more of this subterfuge. You agree to help with Operation Ruin and not sabotage it. You help us win this war as quickly as possible.”

“If Operation Ruin goes off like you want, the gods won’t be an issue. This will be over before any more appear.”

Justice Light finally did chuckle. “Oh, my dear. You are thinking much too small. Let me tell you my plan.” He sat down and started to explain to her what he’d truly been building down here. He showed her the trap he’d started designing the very moment he watched Carl discover the Gate of the Feral Gods.  

Far below, before he even finished relating his plan, the digger engine kicked fully on, but the machine started to move away. He sighed with relief.

You ride the currents you have, or you don’t fly. 

Class: Trap Master

Race: Skyfowl.

Birth Race: Skyfowl.

Top Level: 86

Dungeon Exit: Took deal at the beginning of the 11th floor.

After a tumultuous and ultimately tragic tenure as a merchant selling trap supplies, was released into the wide universe where he spent every waking moment learning about dungeon lore, hidden trap exploits, gods, and the Ascendancy of the 12th floor. Eventually returned to the dungeon to assist the Princess Posse and to implement his great plan.  

Author of the eighth Edition of the Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook.

Current status: Alive.

~~~~~

Hey all! Just got back from the UK where I met several of you guys and had a great time. Chapter 56 isn't quite up to snuff, so I left it out, but I figured I'd get you guys this cryptic-as-fuck Justice Light chapter out of the way. I was kinda hoping to position this later for the popping off of his grand scheme, but I think this works just as well. Also had a Katia and Carl flashback as another leading chapter, but I think I'll keep that for the lead for part IV.

The title for book seven is locked in now as This Inevitable Ruin, and this is the cover by Luciano Fleitas. The typography is NOT final, and there are a few bits and pieces that aren't done. Specifically Carl's patches. Also, there's a bit of a spoiler on the cover that will be revealed in chapter 56. For most of the background characters, I told Luciano to just make fantasy characters, so the dwarf, etc., aren't anyone specific. Please don't share it just yet. But here it is:


EDIT: FIND THE CAT. SHE IS ON THE COVER.