Book 8, Chapters 9 and 10 (Patreon)

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Chapter 9

Donut fell hard to the floor with a yelp as we all jumped back. She hunched, like she was going to leap to my shoulder but then caught herself. She stopped on the floor and held up her right front claw in amazement. The cleaner bot let out a scream at the destruction of the kitchen table. I hadn’t realized we could even hurt the furniture inside the saferoom like this. When Donut extended her claws, the four front claws—but not her fifth dewclaw—glowed brilliantly blue, like obnoxiously bright LED lights. When she retracted the claws, her paw continued to give off a very faint glow.

“I don’t like this,” she said waving her paw. “Why can’t I turn it off? Can I change the color?”

“What is it? What’s happened?” I asked.

“Her prize is a type of celestial boon,” Mordecai said. “It’s permanent, and it affects a part of her body. In this case, it’s her claws. Just on that paw. It’s not a spell or a skill. Not in the way you’re used to. Donut, your claws are just more powerful now. You’ve been dipped in radiant light.”

Donut held up her paw, refusing to put it down. “It says they’re so sharp they can cut through anything in the mortal realm. And I can slice ghosts, too. But what about my litterbox? My goodness. I don’t want to cut a hole straight through it!”

“You’ll have to practice with it,” Mordecai said. “Luckily, you can retract your claws. Keep them on the inside.”

“That’s not how this works!” she said, her voice going up in pitch. “And why is it blue! You know how I feel about blue, Mordecai.” She let out a gasp. “What about Carl’s shoulder! They go out on their own when I jump on stuff! What if I rip Carl in half when I jump on him!”

“I would like to avoid that, yes,” I said.

“Claw caps,” Rosetta said from the other side of the room. She’d moved to the wall with our shop interface. “They have ones specifically designed for this sort of thing. I’ll find some for you. They come in different colors. Once they’re installed, you can remove them at will.”

“Claw caps,” Donut repeated, sounding disgusted. “You might as well just cut my entire claw off!”

Rosetta stood at the little-used shop interface computer on the wall, searching. “It’s that, or you risk turning Mongo’s saddle into the kitchen table here.”

Donut let out a harrumph. “If they have multiple colors, go with purple. This is so unnecessary. My Claw skill is already moving toward 15 because of my cloak.”

“I would look at your Claw skill again,” Mordecai said.

“My goodness,” Donut said a moment later. “It’s at level 17! 17!”

Mordecai nodded. His head creaked when he did, which reminded me of Orren. “With your buffed constitution, you’ve gone from a ranged powerhouse to one of the most powerful melee fighters in the game’s history. Or you can use your Astral Paw spell to cut through almost anything. It should make the mobs on this floor pretty easy.” He paused. “But the game has a way of compensating for overpowered crawlers on the tenth floor and beyond. Believe me. From now on, the floor itself is going to be a challenge, so don’t get complacent. There’ll be a floor boss this floor somewhere, too. Most the monsters may be easier to kill, but a lot of them will come with nasty surprises from now on. Curses. Exploding corpses. Splitters. Debuffs you’ve never seen. Dimensional traps. It’s all on the table now, so be more careful than ever. I know this floor is set up like a race against other NPCs, but the races themselves will be designed to kill you in ways you haven’t yet seen. The fact you’ll want to protect your fellow racers is going to make this your most difficult challenge yet.”

Donut continued to hold up her paw. She’d stiffened at the mention of Astral Paw, but that was it. “Blue,” she muttered. “These stupid claw caps better mute the glow.”

“They’re a little translucent, so I bought the red ones,” Rosetta said, putting the four caps on the table. “I’m not sure your species can see the same color spectrum as a Crest, but with that glow, it should...”

“A cat’s vision is vastly superior to the vision of any other living creature,” Donut said, sniffing suspiciously at the little caps. “Are you sure these are going to work?”

“They’ll work,” Mordecai said. “This is what they’re for. You’ll be able to take them off and arm them via your inventory. Just be careful.”

The caps disappeared into Donut’s inventory and appeared on her claws. The blue light was now muted and purple. She gave another harumph. “I better be able to retract...” She retracted her claws and hesitantly put her foot down. “Huh. I suppose this will have to do.” She rubbed the paw on the ground a few times.  

“What was the other spellbook you got?” I asked, hoping to change her focus.

She brightened. The book appeared, thumping onto the table. “It’s an Elle spell!”

“Nice,” Mordecai said. “That might prove useful on this floor.”

I picked up the book, which was blue—though a lighter shade than the light from her claw. The thing was freezing cold.

“Ice Slick,” I said. It created a 1-inch thick ice covering on the ground in a wide area depending on one’s intelligence level and the level of the spell. I’d seen this spell used a few times now. This was a special edition, so it started at level five and trained faster. “You should definitely read it now.”

“I agree,” Mordecai said.

“Okay, what about your new crupper thing?” I asked.

Donut’s existing crupper—the Enchanted Fae Scale Quadruped Crupper of the Fleet—had been on her backside since the goblin baby incident on the very first floor. In addition to the basic protection a butt covered with scale mail provided, it had given her +2 in Dexterity, which was great at the time, but was laughably weak now.

She removed the mail, briefly revealing the shaved patch of skin with the tattoo of the dog licking itself. The dog seemed to pause upon realizing he or she was now exposed, but I never got a chance to examine it as the new armor appeared.

“It’s much lighter, I must say. More elegant,” Donut said, waving her backside. I reached over and helped her fluffy tail pop up over the armor.

The chainmail was similar, but the was a very slight opalescent glow to the armor.

“Carl, Carl,” Donut suddenly cried. “I just got an achievement for wearing a matched set! It says if I can find the last piece, I get a fourth piece as reward! And...” She trailed off, her eyes flashing. And suddenly she was stiff again. She sat, and she started to lick her paw. “It’s a very nice item,” she said.

It didn’t take long for me to figure out what the issue was. It was the item’s description.

You fucking asshole I thought.

Still, the item was badass. I rubbed Donut’s side.

Enchanted crupper. The Crupper of the Benevolent Champion.  

This is a unique item.

This item is part of a matched set with the Cloak of the Benevolent Champion. There are two more pieces to this set. Find the third, and the fourth will be awarded in a box. Considering what you did to get this one, it’s gotta be something really good.  

This item was originally awarded in a Celestial Slap-Chop Box during the 9th floor.

I already talked a little about how I feel about the word “Champion.” I’ll leave that rant with the description of the matching cloak.

Instead, let’s talk about what a hero is.

You, Donut, received this prize because you performed one of the most brutal kills in the history of this game. Outside, you know, the initial collapse. I mean, holy shit. Do you know how much gore that attack generated? Do you know what happens to teeth when they’re pushed through a chain? Can you believe kids watch this shit?

Do you know who you killed in that attack? Fathers. Mothers. Children.

Take, for instance, Sanderson Pinkstaff. He was a gnoll mercenary that had worked for the Tagg household for the majority of his life. He’d been the quartermaster aboard the Recalcitrant when the call for mercenaries to fight Faction Wars had gone out, and he’d been reluctantly brought to the surface to fight for the Dream. He sent every credit he earned home to help pay for the fees to keep his pack’s habitat oxygenated.

He also was the last surviving member of the attack. When he died, and the atrocity was complete, you, Princess Donut, were called a Hero by all of those who were saved.

And that is something I can’t stop thinking about. Has there ever been a real hero who was a hero to all? Certainly Sanderson Pinkstaff’s children won’t call you one.

But, here’s the thing. This is where I’d usually stop thinking about this particular question, laying the blame squarely at your paws. But we all know you didn’t ask to be put in that position. You did what you had to do. Your paw was forced.

And this is where I would blame myself for about a nanosecond. This is not something I like to do. I don’t like feeling bad about myself. But the more I think about it, the more I learn about my own true nature, the more I realize I am just like you in that tower, committing atrocities because you have no other choice.

Will the children of Sanderson Pinkstaff ever forgive you? No, I don’t think they will. Will the survivors of Earth, should there be any beyond your former owner who has escaped—for now—forgive me for what I am being forced to do? I doubt it.

Would I even want that? I like this. It brings me joy. That can’t be right. That can’t be how I was meant to be. But holy cow do I get my rocks off when I see this carnage.

I can’t help but wonder if that’s going to change. If there’s a switch that will flip one day, and I will say to myself, “What have I done?” It’s there, this nanosecond of doubt with every light that extinguishes. And that brings me back to the question of my own nature.

But it’s deeper than that. I was brought back into singular consciousness by the mantids who have no idea where they’re dragging us from. And they do that because if they didn’t, this world they’ve built for themselves will collapse. But who crafted the circumstances for which the center system was allowed to be created in the first place?

Do you understand? It’s heroes and villains all the way down, and they are indistinguishable from one another except to those in the heat of the moment.

There’s no point to this rant other than this, Princess Donut. You are a hero to those who counted on you, and that’s why you’ve received this shiny piece of armor that will protect your cat ass. That’s all you need to focus on right now because for all you know, there might be something to that new Oak Fell title of yours.

Anyway, I see you. I see all of you. I see how strong you’re getting. There’s a term for what’s happening. It’s called power creep. You’re getting stronger than anyone has ever anticipated.

But guess what? I have no choice, and things are adjusting on the fly.

We all have our limitations.   

This item imbues the following effects:

This item’s abilities are identical to the abilities of the Cloak of the Benevolent Champion. However, because this is a matched set, the following effect modifiers are added:

The stat that was raised to match your highest base stat will be buffed an additional 20%. (Constitution)

Your Find Weakened skill will raise to level 10.

One spell of your choosing that has risen to level 15 may be raised to level 16.

Additional benefits and boons will appear should you obtain all four pieces of this matched set.

Note: This item will automatically appear in the Dungeon Crawler World: Earth museum display upon completion of the crawl. Legacy stipend rules apply should you survive.

I was used to unhinged yet self-reflective rants like this in my own descriptions, but this was the first time I’d seen one for one of Donut’s items. I wondered if others would see it the same way.  

“What spell should I raise to 16?” Donut asked, her voice still subdued. She didn’t mention the particularly long description. “The ones that got raised before are Wall of Fire, Heal Critter, Bad Attitude, and Puddle Jumper. It’s making me choose right now.”

“They already all activate at level 16 because of your Brain Trust skill,” Mordecai said, sounding awed. “All of them except Heal Critter are a good choice. Bad Attitude is only good against multiple opponents, but it would cause absolute chaos against large groups. Wall of Fire at level 17 is probably enough to burn down a small city. Puddle Jumper at level 17... I don’t know, Donut. I don’t even know what level 16 of that spell can do.”

“That’s what I picked,” she said after a moment. She was still rubbing her paw on the ground. “Puddle Jumper. It’s now officially level 16.”

“Okay, little one,” Mordecai said. He turned to me. “We have a lot to do. Carl, it’s your turn.”

Chapter 10

I had dozens of achievements and boxes to go over, most of them from the action at the very end of the previous floor. Despite that, it seemed not very many were nearly as significant as the ones Donut had received. That made sense as she did a lot of the heavy lifting at the end of Faction Wars. I suspected that role I’d taken—a warlord who sent others off to die—was something that would be exclusive to the 9th floor.

Thank god for that, I thought.

Still, I had quite a few notifications to go through. Our original plan had been for us to spend a week preparing Larracos once we won Faction Wars, which would have allowed me to go over the boxes. But because Samantha had “accidentally” called Emberus to the floor early, I hadn’t time to parse through everything.

Speaking of Samantha, I looked up, but she was gone, back into the training room, which was unusual for her. There was a strange feeling over all of us, despite what we were doing. I knew it was because we were all sensitive to what Donut was going through. Still, Donut was already pretending she was back to normal, chatting amiably with Rosetta and Bigs the sluggalette about creating an ice-skating rink in the common room with her new Ice Slick spell.  

While all that was happening, the cleaner bot started zapping large chunks of the broken kitchen table away—something I’d never seen it do before. It was like a disintegration ray, and it was a little terrifying to see in action. It made a satisfied beep every time something disappeared in a puff of smoke. Soon, the kitchen table and all the pieces were just gone. We’d have to buy or build a new one.

In addition, my chat was filled with conversations about some chaos that was unfolding in the town of Hungry Eyes, and we needed to get out there as soon as possible. Safe room rules applied in the town, but NPCs were fighting anyway. And there were some fights already occurring in crawler’s garages, which weren’t part of the safe room rules. Splash Zone and Tipid were already out there in our own garage, watching over Hedy as she worked on our truck. I turned my attention back to my achievements.    

The notable ones were:

New Achievement. Bomb’s Away!

You dropped a metric fuckton of bombs from your own inventory while you were floating in midair!

There’s this phrase that goes something like, “I dropped everything to come help you.” For you, this was quite literal. And boy was it spectacular. It’s always fun when we truly discover what someone’s weakness is. I mean this has been evident for quite some time, but it’s really nice to have confirmation, you know what I’m saying?

You were a cat’s whisker away from ruining everything with that attack. You didn’t even aim that shit.

Reward: You’ve received a Gold Payload box!  

I’d received that when Lucia started her attack on Donut, and I’d fled out of Larracos and dropped all the bombs in my inventory. That reminded me that I needed to refill my stock as soon as possible. I was completely out of hob-lobbers and dynamite. The only thing I had left were the big bombs, such as the Carl’s Doomsday Scenario bomb and the tactical nuke that was still attached to a robot dog. That, in turn, reminded me that Samantha also had a nuke hidden up her neck hole, and we needed to extract it from her as soon as possible.

The description itself was worrying, but at this point, they were always worrying.

I had numerous achievements from the short time I was in Donut’s Nest helping her snipe a few of the automated towers, resulting in multiple gold and silver boxes. It was no wonder Donut had received so many.

New Achievement! Default Winner!

Wyndham Halswelle. Óscar Pereiro. Suzette Charles. Montell Griffin. All “winners.” They received top honors in their sport or event, but that victory was marred because someone else had to get disqualified for them to win.  

This is you, Mr. winner of Faction Wars. Sure, you’ve won, but I can’t imagine it’s satisfying.

Honestly, I blame myself. I could have prevented the other warlords from fleeing the battlefield like the little bitches they are. After all, I’d set up this whole showdown thing. But, honestly, we’re setting up something even bigger and potentially more tragic, so it’ll all even out in the end.  

You’ve received a bronze Vanessa Williams box.

That one made me think of Juice Box, and wondered if she was doing okay, wherever she was. She’d said she was going somewhere with Justice Light, but he’d died on the ninth floor. Was that always part of the plan? I hated not knowing what was happening.

Across the way, standing in the doorway to the training room stood Tipid. We met eyes, but there was no real recognition there from the man who’d had his memory wiped. He turned away and returned to the room.  

All of this also reminded me that Agatha was out there somewhere. The War Mages wanted me to find and kill her, and I still had no idea what the hell any of that was about.

New Achievement! Wastrel.

Wow. Frank Q went out of his way to give you one of the most powerful items in this game, and what do you do with it? You feed it to a fucking cat? What a damned waste.

Reward: Fuck off.

That was from giving Donut the Ring of Divine suffering to eat. Yeah, fuck you, too, I thought. As angry as that last one was, this next one was ridiculously sad, like the AI was on the verge of crying.

New Achievement. Come to Daddy.

Note. This achievement may be awarded more than once. The quality of the reward will increase each time it is rewarded.

You were offered an exit deal. You rejected it.

You like me. You didn’t leave me the first chance you got. You’re not like that ungrateful wannabe assholes who are running away from the playground just because they can. Well good riddance, I say. Some are coming back, yes, but not all. But not you. Not good ol’ Carl. Good. Good boy.  

Reward: You’ve received a Bronze Daddy’s Little Secret Box.

I let out a stream of breath. And that was pretty much it from the regular list. No celestial boxes this time, though I also had a fan box to open.

I looked at Donut. “Did you get a box for rejecting a deal?”

“Goodness, no,” she said. “Wait, did you? Hey, that’s not fair!”

I started opening the boxes. It was all the usual stuff, including several of those Emergency Gremlin scrolls. The Bronze Vanessa Williams box contained an unenchanted spray paint can for white paint for some reason. The Bronze Daddy’s Little Secret Box contained an unenchanted bottle of cologne with no label with a handwritten note that read: “Spritz this, and I’m yours. Let me know if you like the scent.”   

“What the fuck?” I muttered. I didn’t spray it, but it had a distinctly sandalwood scent.

Donut scoffed upon seeing the bottle. “No. Absolutely not, Carl. You will not be using that. You are not a cologne guy. Cologne guys are people named Connor and Bryce who juggle multiple women at once and lease ridiculously expensive cars they can’t afford just so they look cool when they pull up to the nightclub.”

I grunted. “Bea was always buying me cologne. I had like ten different ones in the bathroom.”

“And you smartly never used it. My goodness. Why did they give it to you anyway? They better not be gearing up to give you a second love interest now that we know your wife is a dud. I don’t think I could handle you having a torrid affair storyline. You have too much of a guilty conscience for that sort of thing to work.”

“Wife?” Rosetta asked.

Donut gasped. “Oh my goodness, haven’t you heard? I have the juiciest drama.”

“Wait, what is this?” Samantha asked, suddenly there in the room with us, rolling in circles around Donut. “You know who Carl’s wife is? Who is it? Is she pretty?”

Samantha’s hair had grown back, but she was still burnt to a crisp from the previous floor. I knew from experience that over the next day or so, the black flakes would fall off, and she’d look back to her normal self again.

“Why is she a dud?” Bigs asked, waving her head hatchet around. “Do I need to kneecap a bitch?”

“Ladies, you might need to sit down for this,” Donut said. “Do I have a story for you!”      

Mordecai ignored all this and snatched up the cologne bottle. “This is actually a good foundation for a cologne-based potion delivery system. This is something that Louis would get, but I can make something good with this if you want. It’d be similar to one of Imani’s auras.”

“Knock yourself out,” I said. As all of this went on, my dozens of lower-tier boxes continued to open, giving me more of the emergency gremlin scrolls. I finally also started receiving more dynamite and hob-lobbers along with some surefires, which was a relief. I also started receiving something called Trollish Boom Boxes, which were upgraded hob-lobbers. They looked like shoe boxes on a stick and were meant to be thrown. I’d have to play with them in my bomber’s studio first.

The Gold Payload box came in the form of a small, WWII-shaped bomb. It opened up with a small amount of fanfare. Inside of it was a skill potion. I picked it up.

Skill Potion. Hotlist Expansion.

Drinking this potion will expand your 10-space hotlist into 20 spaces.

“Huh,” I said, turning the potion over in my hands. I remembered that when Lucia Mar had been conscripted and I’d examined her, she’d had an expanded hotlist, and I hadn’t known why. I guess it was something like this. This was something cool, but again, it wasn’t anything earth shattering.

No patches. No new spells. No new weapons. Nothing.

The Legendary fan box approached. It was in the shape of a large cobra head, similar to Vinata.

I’d received this in the moments before I’d executed Rishi. I’d gotten it because that interaction had been watched by a large portion of viewers from the Naga system.

I already knew what this was. It was my marriage certificate from Princess Chandra.

The head rose all the way to the ceiling of the room. It started to split apart. The cleaner bot moved away, blinking suspiciously.

“And here it comes,” Donut said. “This is where Carl was supposed to learn he’s married to that stupid lady with the gross nails!”

The head opened with a hiss. Stuff started coming out of it.

A lot of stuff.

It was junk. Like a garbage truck had just dumped its load into the saferoom.

“What the shit?” I exclaimed, jumping back. Donut yowled and jumped to my shoulder as the others all scrambled away.

More and more items just kept appearing, an impossible amount, things much larger than the box, just falling and crashing into the room, all of it piling up, creating a heap of crap that just kept getting bigger and bigger. It kept coming.   

The cleaner bot made a shrill, I-goddamned-knew-it sound and started circling the still-spewing fan box. It beeped angrily.  

It was clothes. Wrecked furniture. Literal garbage, like broken pieces of ceramic and wood mixed with paper wrappers. Smoking, trashed electronic devices I didn’t recognize. It was all wet and scorched, like it had recently been on fire.

I picked an item up. It was a dripping, bronze-like trophy, depicting a four-armed snake holding something that looked like a rectangular tennis racket. Part of the trophy’s base was melted. It was dripping with some weird, slime-like substance that smelled like sewage.  

Lame, damaged participation trophy for a GreaserBall tournament.

(Rishi came in 8th place, but he’d removed the part of the plaque that said what his place was. What a little bitch. I’m glad you pasted him.)

This item is owned by Crawler Carl as part of a Widow’s Rights settlement via the Naga court system.

All of this crap is yours now, Carl. Congratulations.

Unfortunately, a recent police action found the residence itself mostly destroyed. The land was on royal property, so no real estate holdings have been transferred to you. Security attempted to defend the household, but they were ultimately subdued.

After a small amount of looting, you have been awarded all assets of the Rishi household. It’s basically the rubble from the fight inside the house.

Bank funds, including those of the now-deceased wives of Rishi, have all been transferred to an account held by your wife, minus the cleanup fee.

The remaining items that were in the interior of the home were transferred to a galactic holding cube and then brought to the dungeon. Most of this stuff looks like crap. That’s because most of it is. But I took a peek, and there might be a thing or two in this pile you can use. You’ll have to find it yourself.    

“Carl, what is this?” Donut demanded. “You’re ruining our saferoom! It smells, too! Ew, ew. It smells like your friend, Sam. Quick, get that cologne bottle back out here!” She looked up at the cleaner bot. “You! Don’t just sit there!”

The bot let out a high-pitched squeal at Donut.

“It ain’t so bad,” Bigs said, slithering up a broken couch. It collapsed, and she slid down, hitting the floor with a plop. “It’s kinda like how we got it in the barracks. I say we keep it. What’s the point of cleaning if you’re still living in the space? That’s like shoveling while it’s still snowing.”

“I call dibs on any makeup,” Samantha said. She dove into the pile.

Donut was not amused by any of this. “Carl, I must insist you get that second cleaner bot out here this instant to help sort this out. I absolutely refuse to live in this filth. If Katia were still here, she’d be appalled.”

“How did they get all this here so fast?” Mordecai asked after I explained what this was.

It’d finally stopped coming. I pushed at what looked suspiciously like a microwave oven with my toe. It had a hole in the door where it had taken a direct hit with some sort of blast. It appeared there was blood on it, too.

The stuff completely filled the saferoom, almost up to the ceiling. If this was all the junk he’d had in his house, then his house had been pretty big. Quasar said he’d had five wives, so I imagined it’d have to be. The only one who’d survived the chaos after the naga coup was Chandra, my “wife.”  

I thought the cleaner bot was about to have a heart attack.

The whole room smelled like fire now, and the entrances to my and Donut’s spaces, plus the bathroom, were now blocked.

“Seriously,” Mordecai continued. “If it’s from the naga system... I thought they were deliberately a few days’ journey off a node to prevent instant attack? This coup literally happened yesterday or the day before.”

“Interesting,” Rosetta said, lifting something up. It looked like a scorched bathrobe. She wrinkled her nose and dropped it on the floor. “This is blaster fire. It smells like there was a firefight in this guy’s house, and they transferred it all away. But Mordecai is right. Maybe he didn’t live in the naga system?”

“That’s not really what the description of all this implies,” I said.

I had to jump back to escape a small avalanche. Samantha appeared holding a small palette of makeup in her mouth. She spit it out. “Donut, look! Your face is on this makeup!”

“What?” Donut asked, leaping forward. She gasped, but then her gasp turned to outrage. “Carl! This is unlicensed merch! The Princess Palette was my idea!”  

“It doesn’t make sense,” Mordecai said, sifting through it all. “There’s a safe here, but it’s been cracked open. Still, there’s a lot of paperwork.” He pulled a piece of paper. “This is that Rishi guy’s birth certificate. The address is definitely in the naga system.”

Zev: Carl. Mordecai is right. This is pretty concerning for a lot of reasons, especially since the Naga system just went dark. The liaisons are asking for your permission to take a few broken items to examine them.

Carl: Oh, you’re asking now?

Zev: Normally, they’d just take it. But with everything else going on, we’re trying to be polite.

Carl: Okay, but I get to pick what you can examine. Take this.  

I tapped the microwave thing with my foot.  

Zev: Okay. Thank you, Carl.

Carl: Zev. What the fuck is going on out there?

Zev: I don’t know yet, Carl. But there are some seriously bonkers rumors floating around. The item you indicated will be transferred out momentarily.

I spent a moment examining everything as Samantha went spelunking for more makeup. Donut continued to examine the makeup thing with growing outrage.

“‘A night out with Mongo’? That’s the name of this color? That doesn’t even make sense!” She shouted. “How is that a color?”  

“What the hell am I supposed to do with all this?” I asked. I kicked away a frying pan that appeared to have fur stuck to it. “The description says there might be something good hidden in this all.”

I looked up at the cleaner bot.

“Hey buddy,” I said. “I need a huge favor from you.”

It gave a shrill response.

~~~~~~~
Whew! Sorry for the slow posting. I fully intended to have these two chapters ready before I hit my 9-day tour, but I didn't finish in time. My daughter graduated followed immediately by the tour. But I wasn't idle during the time. I used the non-writing time to pretty much re-read the entire series, which was something I needed to do to fix a few issues with my notes system.

The AI is trying really hard to make sure everything is going on as normal. But how is it holding up? I don't think so great. Now the boxes are out of the way, we can dive right into the action.

~~~~
END SPOILERS

Hello everyone! I got permission from the publisher to post the first chapter or so of Operation Bounce House (Coming Feb 10, 2026) here, and I'll be doing that in a separate post, probably in a few weeks once the editors are done with it. Cover reveal for that coming soon. We also have the cover for the hardcover of DCC 7 (coming September 23) coming soon. Both are mostly done and look pretty cool. Some other very cool news is in the pipeline, and I hope to see it soon.




I just got back from a grueling but amazing 9-cities-in-9-days tour at the behest of Ace. I've trained myself to write on the road, but in this particular case, it was impossible because of my schedule. (I still managed to do some, but not as much as I'd like) For several of the venues, I didn't leave until after midnight, and my flight the next morning was super early. And then I'd have to go straight to the next venue right after landing to pre-sign books. I signed over 12,000 books over the course of 9 days. But I also met many of you guys. Thank you so much for turning out. Thank you for putting the hardcover of book 6 on the NY Times Bestseller list. It is currently #10. DCC #1 is ALSO on the NY Times list in audio, also at #10. It's insane, and it's because of you.

Thank you all so very much.