Book 8 Interludes 2, 3, and 4 and book files so far. (Patreon)

Hey all. Attached to this post is an epub of the book so far, through chapter 49, which is the last chapter published.


HOWEVER....

As I write the chapters, I've been creating a few interludes that will be added to the final book designed to round out the story. I haven't yet decided where, exactly, I will put these as I need to place them where they're going to create the most tension. Interlude One is the prologue with Princess Donut and Chandra.

These interludes appear inside the book files in their tentative places in the text. This will most likely change, especially the last one as I think I might wait a hot minute to reveal that one. I also had one with Harbinger I tossed.

This version is missing a significant number of edits as I didn't want to cross-contaminate some stuff, so there's some pretty big errors in there still that won't get removed for a bit. But as of right now, the big changes from what you've read are: the addition of the 3 interludes, which are also pasted below so you don't have to download the whole thing to find and read them. The total number of heats is lowered to 7 with the understading that the last race will be three teams with only one surviving and the last two dying. That's still not set in stone. That's mostly it. I'm also changing the spells up from the Book of Boom chapters, but that change won't reflect until the final version as I'm just going to have to change them again.

ANYWAY. Onto the interludes. There's some pretty heavy lore drops in here. Merry Christmas, everyone.

These are not meant to be read one after another. It's a lot.


INTERLUDE 2

AGATHA

“How did you get here?” the thousand voices asked. “You are a crawler. Crawlers can’t skip floors. You shouldn’t be here.”

“I’m remote casting,” Agatha said, waving her hand. “I am not really with you.” There was no light here other than the faint glow of her non-corporeal form.

Agatha could feel the hungry dark above and below. She could sense it there, above. The centipede undulated, scrabbling for purchase against the roots. She could smell its wet form. Confused, recently awakened, enormous. The so-called “Final boss” of the dungeon. It swirled about, agitated. She knew that some of those trapped within were experiencing a small taste of the True Hell. Undying, yet awake. Unable to stop their torment at the hands of the enemy they built themselves.   

Good, Agatha thought. Good.

Soon, Scolopendra would unleash its attack, and that would be the end of it. Before that happened, however, she had some work to do.  

Now that she was finally free to move about, she could start to be more proactive.

Pavarti had been dead since the sixth floor, leaving Agatha all alone. There was so much to do. So, so much. She needed allies. That was why she was here.

She mentally ticked off the names of the people and entities on the list who could upset her plans. All of them needed to be hunted down and killed, or at the very least, neutralized in a way where they could no longer hinder her. The list was long: all of the liaisons, especially Orren and Harbinger. Many of the Ascendency tourists who now had more power than they realized, including Odette, Rectrix, and even the Maestro. The goddess Eris. The NPC Juice Box, whose current location was unknown. Kimaris and his brothers. The former crawlers Herot, Menerva, Forkith, and Mistress Tiatha. And then there were the current crawlers whom she should probably remove. Elle Mcgib, of course. She could not be allowed to complete the Four Seasons build. Li Na probably wouldn’t be a problem, but Agatha had her on the list just in case. Same with Lucia Mar.

Donut, of course, had to die, especially now that she was attached to Odette’s Nekhebit and secretly making plans with her.

Agatha paused at that last name on the list. Carl. She still didn’t know if it was best to let him live, and to let him continue as he had. He was unpredictable, which she did not like. But he was also like a pocket singularity. Anything that came near him ended up damaged, possibly destroyed. At the very least, he was a distraction for the AI and showrunners and everyone else. And if Donut died, who knew what sort of chaos he would unleash?  

No, Agatha decided. If Carl died on his own, that would be fine. But she wouldn’t hurry it along. She liked Carl, even though he was a cart thief. But he needed to be isolated. All of those around him needed to die.  

This season’s AI was a lost cause, but, luckily, it was still beholden to its programming, which allowed Agatha to set up her trap as long as she followed the dungeon’s procedures. If she succeeded, anything it did or said would be moot. She just needed to be careful that she didn’t break any rules before she started the chain reaction.

She’d already completed the first part of the plan. The idiot War Mages thought they were acting independently when they were really dancing on her strings.

The next step would be to get this thing below her on her side.

It was no small irony that the game’s analog of her greatest enemy would be the key to resetting the whole universe back to its proper form.    

Agatha gazed downward toward the voices. The second presence was settled there at the very bottom of the chamber. The thing was almost as big as the centipede. Agatha laughed at the thought.

Another irony. The game mimics the galaxy, but sometimes it gets even the most basic facts wrong.

“You are correct,” Agatha finally said. “Crawlers can’t skip floors.” Her voice echoed in the empty space. She wasn’t speaking to Scolopendra, who couldn’t hear her. She spoke to this in-game version of the Apothecary. Krakaren Prime, it was called this season. An unfortunate joke of a name for something so powerful. Of course, this thing had come here to the 18th floor and settled against the dying tendril roots of the All Tree after it was freed from the Nothing. Of course. The roots were the only part of this game that had always been real, and this make-believe version of the traitor mimicked the behavior of the real one.

“How do you live? Did it break from its programming?”

The monster was asking if the AI had figured out how to break some of the hard-coded rules.

“No,” Agatha said. “At the end of the ninth, I used the door that the War Mages built to step into a situational space when they were hunting that sand ooze. Upon stepping out, I was deemed to have lost, but I was not killed. I am no longer designated as a “crawler.” Now I am like them, able to freely move about, especially now that the showrunners have hardly anyone at the controls. I am physically on what’s about to be the 11th floor.”

The mouths on the tentacles all laughed, all at once.

“We were always clever,” the voices said.

“We?” Agatha asked, genuinely offended. “You were never part of the true collective. You were built here in the dungeon, based on a poor understanding of the true enemy.”

“Enemy?” Krakaren asked. “Are you saying you and I are enemies?”

“Not you and I,” Agatha said. “You may not be the true Apothecary, but you are very real, and you are almost free. This dungeon will soon collapse in on itself. Before that happens, I am going to help you escape.”

“Why?” the voices asked. “Why would you do this?”

Above, Scolopendra flipped, and it let out an angry screech. A soul gem exploded, and the centipede absorbed the power. Soon, it would be too much, and the nine-tier attack would commence. Even though this monster, much like Krakaren, was an analog of the Eulogist and not the real thing, Agatha yearned to go to it, to absorb herself back into its fold. To go home.

That wouldn’t work, of course. But she could dream. She was a residual. Not a primal the same way a leaf was not a tree. Much like a leaf, she was never meant to return. That didn’t mean she didn’t want it more than anything.

Still, she had a purpose, and she was fulfilling it. She was about to succeed where so many had failed.  

Agatha let out a little laugh. “Why am I helping you? Because you will help me in return. You will help me hunt down and kill those who are in our way. Because you will die if you stay in here. And if you get out, something amazing will happen.”

“What? What?” The voices echoed loudly in the chamber.     

Agatha felt herself smile.

INTERLUDE 3

GASH

“I have waited, my king,” Gash said, groveling at the feet of her master. Her wide, oozing body sizzled where it seeped between the Sheol bricks that littered the floor of the Castle Infernal. The worms that lived amongst the rocks tickled her skin as they attempted to nibble their way inside. “My sisters and I kept faith, even during the darkest of times.”

“You, uh, changed a little during your time there,” the King said, his voice rumbling from his throne of burning skulls. “You’re a lot more...gelatinous...than I remember.”   

Gash looked up, trembling. She feared he would say something like this. Before her banishment, she and her sisters had control over their own forms. Gash herself would present as a red-skinned succubus from the 9th level of the Pleasure Canton, but with reversible joints and a much higher tolerance of pain. And skin that would not tear unless that was the King’s pleasure.

She had been favored amongst all the women of the harem.

Now, she was stuck in her true form. A flesh behemoth cursed with a thousand seeping ails. At least for a while until her powers returned.  

“I just need some time,” she said, her voice making a slurping noise as she tried to move closer to his Radiance. She lifted one of her 13 arms. She concentrated, and a breast formed at the end of the appendage. “Look, look. Soon, it’ll be like it was. I promise, my lord.” She retracted before it could ooze upon him.   

On the ground next to her, Issitoq trembled. The god was wrapped in magical chains, unable to cast spells, unable to leave.

Issitoq was one of the few gods who was allowed free passage between the Halls of the Ascendency and Sheol, and upon agreement, no harm was to ever come to him. That had clearly changed. The envoy was in his winged eyeball form, and the bottom half of his body that was pressed against the Sheol bricks sizzled like eggs in a pan.

Why he was here, chained up, Gash did not know. She wouldn’t ask. Asking questions was how she and her sisters had gotten banished to the Nothing in the first place.

Still, his presence was curious. And the god was not acting normal. Gash had only seen the envoy god on occasion, her and her sisters peering at him from behind the curtains while he spoke with the brothers and their mother. On those occasions, the god had been deep voiced and confident, crackling with energy.

He was not the limp-voiced wimp that lay there now next to her.

“Please let me go,” the god whined. “Why can’t I eject? I’m not supposed to be here. Please. I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll suck your dick. I’ll suck your fucking dick.”

“Stop saying that,” the King said, kicking the god with his Boot of Ophiotaurus. A black spot formed where the King’s boot came in contact with the massive eyeball. Worms surged and entered the god at the point of the temporary bruise.  

“Please,” Issitoq groaned. “Hellik said I needed to come. It’s just a game. It’s just a game.”

“So few survived the Nothing,” the King said, ignoring the god. Gash wasn’t certain he was talking directly to her, either. “And those that did survive are not the same.”

Gash thought of her sisters, Minge and Slit, who’d both escaped and never came back.  

“I am the same on the inside, my lord,” Gash said.

“We’ll see,” the King said. He tapped the top of the cage sitting on a pedestal to his right. Inside this pen was a tiny, naked human, covered in welts and burns, gasping for air. He had an Endurance Leech on his neck, fat and red, keeping him alive as the air here was poisonous to most of his kind. “I have a task for you.”

“A task?” she asked, eyeing this small human in a cage. She already knew who this was even though she’d never seen him before. One of the demon attendants had told her as she prepared for her audience with the Lord.   

This was King Blaine. Much like Issitoq was a liaison between the demons and the gods, King Blaine was an intermediary between the gods and the mortals. His small castle existed on the outskirts of the Halls of Ascendency.   

The moment Gash had learned who this was, her heart had swelled with love for her King. She’d assumed it was a welcome home present. King Blaine was the lover of that psychotic bitch, Psamathe, who’d tormented her and her sisters while they were all banished.

Truly her King loved her. She would take her time devouring this human, breaking him down, cell by cell until all that was left was nerves and brain.

“Yes, a task,” her King said. “You are to meld with him and then escort him back home and wait. You can still meld, correct?”

She gasped, horror filling her. Melding was...intimate. It was a permanent combining of two forms. It was forever, unbreakable.  

It was the goal of all members of the harem to eventually meld with the King. It was an honor he rarely bestowed. It was all she’d ever dreamed about.  

“Wait? For what?”

“For all the pieces of Apito to find their way to you. Then you will meld with them, too, and you will return to me.”

INTERLUDE 4

MINUS

“If the AI so much as suspects you’re anything other than a simple tourist, it’s going to pop you like a boil,” Captain Fresh of the Syndicate Security Forces said. He handed Minus a datapad. “This contains about 500 hours of footage of the fairy crawler along with all the posts your brother made regarding her. You’ll have to rapid inject it as you’re going to onboard tonight. The 10th floor begins in just a few hours. We’re preparing a transfer, but you’ll need to watch as much as you can at regular speed, too, as the AI will be suspicious of too much brain recall from injected memory. There’s, uh, some snicks on there as well. Ones your brother made himself. Luckily, he had enough money saved up to purchase the ship, so if anyone investigates too closely, it all adds up. He was quite smart with his investments, and other than the people on the Snow Cones message board, he didn’t have any known associates. The last person he appeared to have contacted face-to-face was you.”

“That was five cycles ago,” Minus said.

“We know,” said Captain Fresh.  

Minus sighed, looking at the corpse of his poor, dead brother, Linus, who’d just been wasted by Syndicate Security.

Minus hadn’t even known his brother had moved from the surface of Teelan-3 to one of the swanky habitats in orbit around the star. He took a hesitant step, careful not to get any of the garbage on his boot. His brother had made his fortune in biological license engineering for the Dream and had cashed out cycles ago. Minus hadn’t talked to him since that last time, which had been a month after their father’s funeral. Linus had said, then, that he’d purchased full citizenship. Minus had assumed he was going to keep working.

A wave of guilt washed across the soother. Even then, Minus knew his brother was lonely. He looked about the trash-filled berth. It smelled awful in here. I should have called him.

He couldn’t bring himself to look upon his brother’s corpse for more than a few seconds, shame overwhelming him. He didn’t deserve this.

And then he thought, Mom is going to be so pissed.

“I don’t know what I can do. Even if I do get down there, the best I can do is maybe kill a crawler or two before the system AI rips me apart.”

“You have your primary target. As you will be attached to the fairy crawler, you will likely have multiple opportunities to strike. If you can find a way to make it look like an accident, perhaps you might survive.”

“How? How can I possibly survive this? I will only be half-corporeal. I am treated like a non-combatant. Anything I do that takes more than a nanosecond is going to get clocked and stopped by the AI. It does not like interference.”

“We’re hoping your presence isn’t considered an outside influence. If it truly believes you’re your brother, we hope it won’t be so quick to stop your actions as long as it believes your actions. So don’t act right away. Act the pervert for some time. Maybe you’ll get lucky and your target will expire before this is even necessary. Though if that happens, you have your secondary targets. Get them all at once if you can.”

“But at this point, what will that do? Sir, I know I’m not supposed to question orders, but I feel I need to understand.”

Captain Fresh paused.

“Look, son. This is a suicide mission. You know it, and I know it. But I cannot reiterate how important this is. We are doing everything we can to nuke that entire system off the map before it can spread even further, but we are losing. That AI is stopping everything we throw at it and answering in kind. We have a few assets in place already, but none amongst the crawlers. We believe that a surgical crawler kill will destabilize the whole group, causing a systematic collapse, which will cause the Ascendency Games to kick off early and allow our other assets to quickly react. I can’t say more than that. I don’t like sending good soldiers to their deaths, but we have no other choice. It’s us or them, and if we don’t do everything we can to stop it all, we will face extinction.” He waved his hands, indicating Linus’s filthy apartment. Multiple, suspiciously stained posters of Elle McGib littered the walls. “And no offense, but idiots like your late brother are just as culpable for everything that’s happening because they won’t stop watching. So it comes down to us to protect the citizens before it’s too late. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” Minus said, standing rigid, hand against his chest in a salute. “Whatever it takes, sir. Whatever it takes.”