Book 8, chapters 52 and 53 (Patreon)

Hey all!

If you're looking for a copy of the physical book, Amazon still had the hardcover for ridiculously cheap. The paperback version of book 1 releases on Tuesday, also. Yes, the paperback includes the Pineapple Cabaret chapters.

Nothing too new to report since my last update. I am anticipating finishing this book in about a month from now. I have gotten to the point where I am significantly ahead of where this chapter drop is, which is pretty weird for me as I'm usually only a chapter or two ahead.

Thank you all for your continued support. I hope you all have a happy and safe New Years. This will likely be my last post of 2025.

Onward!

Chapter 52

“You have two golden upgrades to pick,” Hedy said, looking at her tablet. Despite winning, she could read the room and was acting unusually subdued. “You got a key, too, meaning you can go into any of the old houses in the cul-de-sac. If you’re thinking you might want to trade vehicles, maybe you should be considering doing that first before you pick.”

“We’re going into the house of One Fine Pig,” I said. “If it’s there, it’ll be that armored vehicle, and by this point, I think ours is the better choice. They spent too many of their upgrades on weapons.”

Hedy nodded. “You could try to get that Onikuma. It’s a good mount.” She gave a nervous look at Donut. “Or, you know, Old Shuck...”

“No,” Donut said.

I let out a humorless laugh. “I thought you didn’t like mounts?”

Hedy shrugged. “Always good to have options. I think vehicles is better, especially when my life is on the line. But it might be nice to have a beasty in here, too. We’ll maybe get another gremlin if you pick one up. But it ain’t no matter to me. It’s not like I’m lonely or anything.” She returned her attention back to her tablet.

Imani: Zhang and Tran are with us at the Lollipop. Come when you can.

Donut: IS ZHANG OKAY?

Imani: Not really. We’re working on a plan right now. Elle went over to their guild to try to talk Li Na into coming out. She says Na is just sitting there meditating. Her health is in the yellow. She’s been poisoned, like you said.  

Carl: Going to finish our upgrades, use the key, pick up some things from Mordecai, and we’ll be out there.

Imani: Louis just used his key to add a gecko to his garage. He followed your advice about the hidden room, and he found an engineer in there. But there were mobs in the house, so be careful.

Behind us, the truck swarmed with the generated gremlins, who still continued to shriek and flip me off whenever I made the mistake of looking directly at one. Jamal was there on the ground with Mongo, watching them work. Bigs and Samantha had both wandered out here the moment the race was over and both were riding atop Jamal’s head, heckling the workers.    

I could still taste Lucienne, and no matter how much water I drank, I couldn’t get the terrible tang out of my mouth. We hadn’t stayed to see Dwight cross the finish line, but Jasha and Radoslav had found the unicorn sitting there, spinning in a circle just outside the exit. They’d dragged him in.

I still didn’t know if that was a mistake, but it was done.

I didn’t know and didn’t want to know who had come in last place of all the heats. It wasn’t someone from our heat or Florin’s.

Of the 5,500 people who’d made it to this floor, we now had less than 3,000 left. I knew these last few races were going to be brutal.

“It says we need vertical climb, inverted racing, and we need to cover gaps of more than 100 meters,” I said.

Hedy nodded, flipping through her table. “I’m thinking we do one golden upgrade and three regulars. That way we can use that regular option to upgrade your Bubble Buddy shield to the golden version, pick two more regular upgrades, and then pick a good golden one. We definitely need the shield upgrade. Your containment will protect you, but containments is gonna be breaking left and right. It’s gonna be a crowded race. The full Bubble Buddy will protect against molten steel and whatnots. But not for the whole race, so you gotta be careful.”

“The regular version is a good shield. It held except when we were getting hit by all the gingers.”

“Yup,” Hedy said. “It’s great for smaller critters. But it don’t float. If we upgrade it all the way, it’ll be much better. Here’s my suggestions for the regular upgrades. The Bubble Buddy, the Animal Style upgrade for your legs, and either a good gun or a GPS upgrade.”

Samantha was suddenly on the ground next to us. She was sniffing me up and down like a goddamned dog.

“What does Animal Style do?” I asked Hedy, ignoring Samantha.  

“You already can climb on walls with the spider legs, but as you’ve found out, they can be a little breaky. This will make ‘em a little chunkier and will protect them from overheating. They’ll be a lot faster and it makes it so they can be used for the whole race. You’ll need them for inverted racing.”

“How fast?” I asked.

“Not as fast as tires, but fast enough. I hope.”

I shook my head. “We’re going to need to be as nimble as we can. I want to be able to scramble over the other cars. And we gotta be quick about it. If we’re passing folks on the track, it needs to take less than five seconds.”

Hedy nodded. “Okay. Let’s skip the spider leg upgrade and revisit that extra upgrade in a second.” She swiped to the side. “For the golden upgrade, let’s do this.” She turned the tablet toward me. “Roller Limbo. Keeps you attached to the track, and as long as there’s a gap of at least ten centimeters off the ground, you can slip under any obstacle, including other vehicles. It’s a dimensional upgrade. You’ll have to use your spider legs to get from a regular ground to a vertical climb, or upside down, but once you’re there, you can turn this on and be off. Not as gooey as the Slither upgrade I showed you before, but this is much better for vertical climb and inverted racing. With this you could’ve done that loop-de-loop last race no problem. And it’ll work with your all-terrain tires.”

“Hmm,” I said, thinking. “We’ll need to be able to cover gaps of at least 100 meters, too. And what does that mean, anyway? ‘At least’ 100 meters? So it could be the size of the Grand Canyon?”

“The next step up is 300 meters, so it’ll be more than 100 but less than 300. Upgraded Bubble Buddy will float, though it’ll be slow. If you combo Bubble Buddy with Roller Limbo, you’re good for most environments. But let’s also add rocket boost. That Team Sparkles has the golden version, but the regular version is good, too. Just limited to 30 second bursts with one minute cooldown. The bubble plus the rocket you’ll be able to jump gaps half a kilometer wide, and if you miss, you’ll float nice and gentle to the ground. Rocket has enough lift to give you good jumps too. Will probably have to jump race after next.”

“Okay,” I said. “So Bubble Buddy upgrade, Roller Limbo, the rocket upgrade, and one more regular upgrade?”

Hedy shrugged. “About time you upgraded your GPS. You’s complaining you don’t know where everybody is. It’s not a full upgrade, but it’s a level two. It’ll help. Or a good gun. Or an engine upgrade to make you faster.”

“What about protection in addition to the shield?”

Hedy scratched her head. “We can getchu a good heat sink to deal with the environment. Like I said, you’ll have the best shield, but it ain’t foolproof. But then again, you might only need it for one race.”

“How would a regular heat sink do against Donut’s Wall of Fire,” I asked. “Or a Fireball spell?”

“Eat ‘em like it’s breakfast. The regular Hot Sauce upgrade will make the heat a non-issue. But, again, you might not need it again, so it’s not so much forward thinkin.’”

“No,” I said. “That doesn’t matter. With that, we don’t need another weapon.” I reached up and gave Donut a pat. “Not when we have Donut. Let’s go with that. Sounds like a solid plan. The Limbo golden upgrade and three regulars. The Bubble Buddy, the rocket propellers, and the hot sauce.”

“You got it boss,” Hedy said, giving me a salute. She walked toward the truck and started shouting orders.

Samantha was suddenly floating there, sniffing at my crotch.

“Hey, stop that,” I said, pushing her away.

She growled and then floated up so we were eye to eye. I noted that just a few hours earlier she hadn’t been able to do this. But like with every floor so far, she got more and more powerful the longer the floor went on.

“Why do you smell like Chachi?” she demanded. “Little Carl doesn’t smell like it, but the rest of you does. What have you been getting up to? You know most ladies aren’t into frottage, right? How boring. If you’re going to commit to intercourse, you have to be aggressive about it. You should kill something together and bathe in the blood first before you both howl in climax. If you want, I can give you growling lessons. Women like it when their man growls with passion.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You know, Chachi? Chalchiuhtlicue?” she said. “Wears a green skirt? Talks kinda funny? Cries a lot? Oh, Carl. Are you hiding her from me because you think I’ll be jealous? That’s so adorable.”

“Uh,” I said. That was the name of the creature Lucia had mentioned.

Samantha took a deep breath. “Okay, normally after I break up with someone, I don’t like to give out relationship advice. I really think you need to make your own mistakes. It helps you realize what you lost when you screwed up with me, but I’ll make an exception in this case. Chachi is pretty, I’ll give you that. But she’s a little cuckoo. Not all that emotionally stable. Likes to talk a lot about how she’s all into saving the lives of babies, but then she just kills them all. Like everywhere she goes, it’s dead babies left and right and up and down. I gotta tell you, Carl. Donut was correct. You need to stop dry humping crazy. You think I’m a psycho ex-girlfriend? Hooboy. She’s the type of chick who’ll set all your chonies on fire. Even the pair you’re wearing. And if you’re triple-dipping with her and Eris and your new wife? That’s a lot of work, and you don’t even have a mustache. What do you think is going to happen when Chachi finds out? You really should follow Louis’s example. He’s a one-woman type of guy. That’s why Juice Box couldn’t handle him.”

 “Wait, this...Chachi. She kills children?”

“Oh, yes. She’s always so high and mighty, always talking about how she’s protecting them, but the second something bad or inconvenient happens, she’s like, ‘we need to sacrifice a seven-year-old to make things right.’ She even did it once at a Yarilo party because the meatballs had cilantro in them. She sent out an emergency prayer request and had her worshippers kill a whole village daycare in hopes the next waiter would bring her something that didn’t taste like soap. She probably could’ve just asked the server guy, but I will say this. It worked. The next tray they brought out were these amazing little hotdog things wrapped in orc bacon. Delicious. Even Otis Ray liked them, and he’s normally a vegetarian.”

A deep sense of alarm started to fill me. I replayed my conversation with Lucia Mar and that girl, Azra. That goddess appeared to be one of the ones who’d escaped the dungeon. And she was in there, with the kids, stuck inside of Lucia Mars’ head.

“Holy fucking shit,” I said.

Samantha shook her head sadly. “Yeah. I hope you got a coat for Little Carl.”  

Chapter 53

We walked out the garage door and headed to the closest of the abandoned houses. The cul-de-sac used to have nine houses in the circle, but it now had ten thanks to us losing two teams during the third heat. This made me wonder just how big the roundabouts were for teams like Li Na. The empty, abandoned houses stood in the order in which the team had lost, meaning the closest one was the now-empty home of team One Fine Pig.

Osvaldo and Felipe were standing outside their garage with the giant, painted three, chatting with Radoslav and Jasha in garage four, who had their door open and were in their regular place in the lawn chairs.

“You using your key?” Osvaldo asked.

“I am,” I said.

“When I moved to this heat, I lost the chance to get into the garages of the ones from my original heat,” Osvaldo said. He took a sip of Busch Light and made a face. “I would murder for a Brahma.”

“Yeah,” Jasha said. “But it grows on you. I like it.”

“Wait,” I said. “When you moved here, were you the only one left in your heat?”

“Nah,” he said. “We had three teams left. They broke us up and moved us around.”

“Wait, really?” I asked. I gave a sidelong glance at the bugbears, a thought striking me.

I was interrupted by Rosetta writing me back. I’d sent a message to her, Mordecai, Tipid, and Prepotente all at the same time asking them if they knew anything about this Chalchiuhtlicue goddess.

Rosetta: Chachi, as Samantha calls her, isn’t a well-known one. She’s not ever sponsored as far as I can remember. Not like Eileithyia, who is a similar deity. I don’t know if she’s as crazy as Samantha is implying, but she’s not nearly as warm. They’re both goddesses of childbirth and women. But Chachi is also a water and fire goddess. She’s associated with harvests. That sort of thing. Those catch-all gods and goddesses sound good on the manifest, but they never do well in the Ascendency games because their powers are comparatively weak.  

Carl: Why would my Scavenger’s Daughter patch try to activate when I’m talking to Lucia like that? It’s really weird. If this Chach... however you spell it, can get from wherever those kids really are to here, do you think maybe we can do it the other way around?

Mordecai: Kid, like I told you before. We have no idea what’s happening. This is all new.

Donut: WE’RE JUST GOING TO CALL HER CHACHI. I ONLY HAVE SO MUCH ROOM ON MY CUT AND PASTE, AND I’M NOT FILLING IT WITH SUCH A LONG NAME. IT’S WORSE THAN TSRENDOLGAR. THOUGH IT’S NOT AS LONG AS THAT HAWAIIAN GUY CRAWLER. WHAT WAS HIS NAME? KAMAKANAMAKAMAEMAIKALANI JR. 2 I THINK?

Prepotente: Ah, yes. He is still with us, and he is a pleasant fellow. Anyway, the anagram of Chalchiuhtlicue, or Chachi, in Earth culture is the Aztec goddess with the same name. She was considered benevolent, but the Aztecs also practiced human sacrifice. She is the originator of an Aztec flood myth because she cried for many days. It’s somewhat interesting how all these gods and goddesses are quite similar to ones from various Earth pantheons.

Donut: HI PREPOTENTE! ARE YOU COMING TO MY CONCERT IN A FEW MINUTES?

Prepotente: I wouldn’t miss it for the world! I, too, would like to access this guild, so I will attempt to sing as well. But, as a side note, I must warn you both, Donut and Carl. I made the mistake of mentioning your strange encounter with my inept companion, Jurgen, and I fear the thought of a psychotic goddess watching over those children is driving him quite mad. He has left to seek out Florin and Lucia.

Carl: As far as we are aware, it’s only a subset of children that are “caught” in Lucia’s mind. I think there are more there in that facility on the surface that aren’t in the same condition. And I don’t think any of the pregnant women are like that. But we don’t know enough. Every time I try to ask Zev, she gives me the runaround.    

Prepotente: I have already tried to explain that to him, but it falls on his big, dumb, deaf ears.

Mordecai: I’m asking Mistress Tiatha what she knows. She had a few run-ins with Chal... Chachi... I believe. She’s on a bit of a bender right now, so it might be a few minutes before we get an answer.

Prepotente: Shameful for a manager to be so inefficient.

Mordecai: Give her some slack. She’s had it rough.     

Prepotente: Out of respect for your above-average potion making skills, I will refrain from dismantling your argument and throwing it back at you. Donut and Carl, I will see you soon at the Lollipop. I will be performing “In the Air Tonight” by Phil Collins. What will you be performing?

Donut: IT’S A SURPRISE! AND IT’LL BE A DUET WITH CARL! HE HAS TO TAKE A BUNCH OF POTIONS AND SCROLLS THOUGH SO HE DOESN’T MESS IT UP.

Prepotente: That does sound like a delight.

We arrived at the garage of the house just to the left of Team Sparkle’s garage, which remained closed. I wondered briefly what Dwight was going through. And thinking of that reminded me of the rodent hair I was still picking from my teeth.

“Okay,” I said, putting my hand on the garage door.

You have two keys that may access this door. Do you wish to use one to unlock it?

That gave me pause for a moment before I realized the other key was from my mysterious bone key benefit, which I wasn’t going to use. I scrolled and picked the key we’d just received in the dungeon mailbox after the race. There was an audible click, and the garage door started to open.

And sure enough, there she was, standing there on the floor of the garage next to the parked APV with the cracked windshield. Penelope the pig. She was currently licking up the remains of Lipstick the gremlin, which had oozed to the floor after they’d activated their shield.

You have discovered an unattended, un-owned vehicle. Do you wish to transfer this to your garage? This will double your garage space.

I didn’t see a downside to adding the TIGR APV to our garage, so I clicked Yes. The vehicle blinked and disappeared. Across the way, I could hear the surprised shout of Jamal as our garage suddenly expanded.

We didn’t have time to fully search the house. There were a few hidden rooms, and based on all the reports from the others, only a few contained engineers or weapons upgrades. But the houses were also filled with the canoodle janitor mobs. They weren’t a real threat, but more of a nuisance. But they were a convenient source of mob if anyone needed to refill their blood bar, so I didn’t want to kill them all right away. We would give the hidden rooms a cursory search, but the real prize, possibly the key to surviving not just this floor, but the whole damn dungeon was sitting there right in front of us, greedily slurping up the remains of the dead gremlin.

I reexamined the pig. She was just a regular, white-tagged animal. She wasn’t considered a racer, which was why she’d survived. The only difference between her and any other farm animal was that if anyone hurt her, they would be marked for death by Taranis. That, and if any NPC looked upon her, they would immediately fall in love.

Penelope looked up at us and snorted.

“Hi, Penny,” I said, going to a knee. “Come on now. You’re going to go live with us for a little while.”

The pig, who now looked as if she was wearing lipstick after licking up all the gremlin goo, snorted happily and followed us outside.