Chapter 108 - Epilogue (Patreon)

Loita stood atop the table that normally contained our snacks in the production trailer. She looked very much like Zev, but maybe a little taller and thinner. She did not wear the deep-diver suit but instead had a simple, rebreather-like device around her fish neck. She stood in a puddle of brackish-smelling water. A shiny, blinking pin sat on her breast area. It was the dahlia-like symbol for the Bloom, I knew. I tried to commit it to memory. I was no artist like Katia, but after this, I would do my best on the scratchpad. I’d already drawn out the symbol for the Syndicate and several other symbols I’d come across, like that toy company that made Bautista’s stuffed animals.

Keeping track of that stuff was something the cookbook sorely lacked, and I would make certain that was fixed. Symbology seemed important to the mudskippers, which meant it was important to the crawl and the future floors. The last floor had proven we really needed to pay attention to stuff like that.

“First off, put that thing away,” Loita said, pointing at Mongo, who’d rushed up and sniffed at the admin. She did not flinch at the dinosaur’s attention.

“We can’t use our inventory,” Donut said.

The production trailer was above the surface, meaning we were in the secondary zone. I still didn’t know what that really meant, but I knew certain dungeon-specific items and protections didn’t work here. That was something else I was determined to find out about.

Loita raised her hand. “Your inventory is open for twenty seconds. Put him away. Put that book away, too, Carl. Katia, store the backpack.”

I had pulled one of the horror novels out of my inventory as we descended the stairs. Last time we’d had to sit here for almost an hour, and I wanted to make sure I had something to read. This one was an old, beat-up novel called Stinger.

Katia had been in the habit of keeping a smaller backpack and just a few pieces of mass when she was in her “regular” form as a way to make herself taller. But when she appeared in the trailer, she’d been her human self with the heavy backpack straining on her shoulders. It appeared her doppelganger abilities did not work in this area. That was strange. She put the backpack away.

Donut looked up at me, and I nodded. “Come on, Mongo, cage,” Donut said. Mongo screeched in dismay but turned back toward the cat as she activated the carrier. He sucked away into the ether.

“And the book,” Loita said. “You can’t bring the book onto the set.”

“Fuck off,” I said. “It’s so I can have something to read while we wait.”

Loita looked angry, but only for a moment. She shrugged. “Suit yourself, but you need to keep it in the green room.”

“It’s what I always do,” I said. “Where’s Zev?”

“Zev is taking some much-needed time off. She’s had a… personal tragedy… back home. She’s been sent off to a temporary reeducation retreat so she may reflect upon her life and her personal philosophies. But do not worry. Such things never take long, especially on the weak-minded. When she returns, she will remain as your social media manager, but I will be taking up primary duties as the team’s PR agent.”

“Well if we don’t have Zev, then we’re not…” Donut began. I held up my hand to stop her.

“Will you always be coming with us to these interviews?”

Donut jumped to my shoulder. She was trembling with rage. I reached up and put a calming hand on her.

“Yes,” Loita said. “We are putting tighter controls on the information crawlers are being fed through these interviews in an attempt to make the crawl more equitable toward those who aren’t privileged enough to get a view of the world outside the dungeon.”

That’s just wonderful, I thought. In addition to the cookbook and Mordecai, our once-a-floor, post-interview chat with Odette had done more than anything else to help keep us alive.

“Great,” I said.

“Indeed. Do you have any questions for me?”

“Yeah, I have a question,” Donut said. “Why don’t you take your ugly…”

“Stop,” I said. “We don’t have any more questions.”

“Carl,” Donut said. “You said we only work with Zev.”

“Don’t worry, Donut,” I said, staring directly at the fish. “We can’t do anything about Zev right now. She’s on a short vacation. Isn’t that right, Loita?”

“That’s right,” Loita said, her mouth forming a straight line.

Donut let out a hiss.

I again patted her. “Sometimes things are beyond our control, Donut. We need to pick our battles.”

“Well I don’t like it. We should have a say in who we work with. She’s our PR person.” She glowered at the empty counter. “Zev always made sure there were snacks. Very professional. I don’t like this one bit.”

“We’ve determined that some crawlers were receiving illegal buffs via interview refreshments. As a result, crawlers will no longer be offered food or drink while outside the dungeon.”

Donut gasped with dismay.

Odette’s assistant Lexis entered. She stopped dead sensing the tension in the room.

“Hello all,” she said hesitantly. “We’re on in five.”

“Thank you, Lexis,” I said, not taking my eyes away from the mudskipper. “You don’t need to wait with us anymore. We have our new PR agent now to keep us company.”

“Okay,” she said, backing away.

“You don’t scare me,” Loita said after a few moments of me just staring at her. “I have a job to do, and I will make sure it’s done. I will make sure it’s done right this time.”

“Ditto,” I said.

~

“So, Katia,” Odette said as the audience roared with laughter. “When you changed yourself into Carl back there, you sure did a good job. Almost like you’d done it before. Is there anything you need to tell us?”

Katia’s cheeks burned red. She’d been doing a better job at being “zippy” though she was still shy, not fully comfortable playing to an audience. Donut was doing her best to prop her up.

This time, however, Katia recovered on her own. “I’m getting better at emulating other people. Next time maybe I’ll pretend to be you.”

“Oh you don’t want to do that,” Odette said, laughter in her voice. Her gigantic breasts sloshed on the table. She rose up and down on her crab lower half. “I don’t think anybody wants to see me back in the dungeon. Do they?”

The audience clapped and laughed. I felt myself gritting my teeth. Smile. Keep smiling.

Odette leaned in. “Whose idea was it, anyway? To save Carl like that?”

“It was Katia’s idea,” Donut said. “Mongo and I were ready to just charge in there and start blasting. Once I saw that the god was being played by that silly pig boy, I knew we had a chance. That’s what, the third time now he’s gotten fucked by Carl? I really wanted to get in on the action. It’s been a long time since I’ve gotten laid, Odette.” The audience continued to roar. “I mean, really? What’s a girl gotta do?” She sighed dramatically.

“It sure was something indeed,” Odette said. “Minutes after the Death Challenge ended, a new snick appeared on the net, this time with the entire team in on the action, each one of you taking a turn. Even as we speak, its views are going through the oort cloud. This one is a little more obvious that it’s a snick than the last.” She cocked her head. I couldn’t see her face, but I could sense her devilish smile. “We all know Mongo likely isn’t that well-endowed.” She looked up at her audience. “Does anybody know what this new one is called? I forget.”

Multiple voices shouted their answers.

Odette laughed. “That’s right. That’s right. Carl’s Naughty Little Piggie Goes to Market.”

Donut gasped. “I was in the video?”

The audience’s howling reached a fevered pitch.

“Oh, you were there. You had a device attached to you.”

“Do you have the video? Do you? I want to see! Who wants to see the video?”

The audience shouted their agreement.

I just shook my head.

“Glurp! Glurp!” the audience chanted. “Glurp! Glurp!”

“Unfortunately, the showrunners are saying no to us showing the snick.” Boos filled the room. “I know, I know,” Odette said, laughing. I sensed a hint of sourness to her voice. I was relieved. Either way, I knew Mordecai would be pissed. He didn’t want us dealing with gods or factions, and here we were.

But we had so little, and goddamn if it wasn’t fun to needle at the prick. I wished he’d had stayed dead, but I would settle for humiliating him over and over.

“Speaking of the Death Challenge, Carl, are you aware of the significance of what happened today?”

“Well, I got stepped on by a god and got a close-up view of a building-sized monster get split in half. That was pretty significant.”

The audience chuckled. “A Death Challenge is not a boss battle. It’s a pop-up gambling event where viewers, in systems where gambling is legal, are given the option to bet on a multiple set of outcomes, with each possible outcome being given different odds. There are dozens of possibilities, and people can bet on general or specific outcomes. Like ‘Carl survives’ would be a general outcome. And ‘Carl survives, the Mimic is killed by Grull, and Grull is ejected from the arena via a secondary summoning.’ is a specific outcome. The system AI initially put your general odds of survival at 50 to 1.”

“What? Fifty to one?” Donut exclaimed. “And they knew the Maestro was driving Grull, right?”

Everybody laughed.

“Needless to say, a lot of viewers agreed with Donut and thought that was a good bet. The odds started sliding once the votes poured in, but it didn’t change as much as you’d think. Borant just filed an appeal on the AI’s decision to give you such terrible odds, citing its sluggish response in altering the spread. If the appeal doesn’t go their way, there’s nothing they can do.”

“Wow,” Donut said. “I’m with Borant on this one. Fifty to one? I mean, really. It’s offensive. Haven’t they been paying attention? They had to know we’d come save him. I’d like to think we’d make the odds a little better. Did you see how fast Elle flies? Or Li Na’s chains? Or how Katia dodged that death ray? There were five people who’d been in the top ten in the area.”

“Oh, I agree,” Odette said. “While the body count is much higher than in traditional crawls with a longer timer, some of you guys are also much stronger than usual. Everyone is interested to see what happens next, especially after the sixth floor when the loot floodgates open. Anyway, we don’t know yet how much money Borant lost, but it has to be a significant amount.” Odette leaned back. “And just between you, me, and the galaxy, Carl, you made me a good amount of credits today. Though the way things are going, I’m not confident I’m ever going to collect.”

I fake laughed. Don’t say it.

I said it.

“I hope it covered the amount you lost sponsoring Hekla.”

Odette did not skip a beat. She waggled her finger at me. “Oh, we’re not talking about that, buddy. That was my husband, not me. He’s still sleeping in the skiff for that one. I don’t run the finances for the crab ranch.” The audience laughed. “But I do want to talk a bit about that whole affair with Hekla. That really was something.”

“Hekla?” Donut asked. “That bitch is yesterday’s news. Why would we want to talk about her? Also, I didn’t know you sponsored her. Carl, how did you know that? And why didn’t you say anything?”

“Crab ranch,” I said, pointing at Odette's body. “She told us she had a crab ranch when we first met. I thought it was obvious.”

I still wasn’t certain what Odette’s angle was in all this with Hekla and her team. I mean, her angle was money. It was always money. And Mordecai. But the specifics were beyond me. Maybe she was helping us since she never gave them loot boxes, though I imagined that was an expensive way to do it. Maybe she was hedging her bets in case I died. I didn’t have all the information, but I did, and would always, remember Odette’s first piece of advice.

Don’t trust anybody until you know their motivation.

“What about Eva?” Odette asked. “Her riding the front of the train and almost…”

Odette suddenly went mute.

Loita (Admin): Hang on, guys. We’re informing Odette’s people to end this topic.

A moment passed. Now I could tell Odette was pissed. “Anyway,” she continued once her voice finally got unmuted. “Let’s talk a bit about what we know regarding the next floor. Here’s the preview video Borant released.”

The studio darkened, but the show was still on the air. We weren’t visible to the audience while the video played on the screen. It was blurred, and we couldn’t see it.

“What the fuck was that?” Odette demanded, ripping her bug helmet off. “Get that goddamned, slime-covered fish stick in here right fucking now. Lexis! Lexis, where are you?”

Lexis emerged, shuffling quickly across the studio to the other door toward the green room.

“Back on in forty seconds,” a voice said.

“Delay,” Odette said. “I’m going to need at least sixty more to fry and batter this fucking… Darling! Loita, you’re looking especially moist today!”

“Hello, Odette,” Loita said. She’d entered the room before Lexis even had the chance to get her. The tiny admin sprayed water from her rebreather when she talked. The terrified assistant retreated into the green room.

“We did not agree to this level of censorship,” Odette said, looking down distastefully at the small kua-tin. “It is absolutely ridiculous. You know the Syndicate’s rules regarding a journalist’s right to ask and answer during interviews. And you don’t enter the studio unless you’ve been invited. It’s rude.”

“Well, sweet Odette,” Loita said, “If you read the changes we amended to the contract when we added Crawler Katia to your… Actually, hang on a moment.” She looked at us, waved once, and they once again went mute.

I turned to say something to Donut, but I couldn’t. No words came out.

Well this is fun. We watched as Odette and Loita went back and forth, suddenly screaming at one another. And just as abruptly as the argument started, it ended.

“Talk to you soon. We’ll have a lunch date, just like old times!” Odette said sweetly as Loita returned to the green room. She popped the bug helmet back on.

“On in three, two…”

The lights popped on, and Odette continued. “That looks pretty exciting. I know the audience was split on the last floor’s layout, with so many complaining about how complicated it was. They won’t be able to complain about this floor being complicated, that’s for sure. At least not the layout, though I dare say the possibilities are almost endless. I am going to miss all of you guys banding together like that. It makes for some delicious combinations, like that epic battle with Grull, with Prepotente and Miriam Dom losing out on killing a province boss twice thanks to you guys and then to Quan Ch, and of course, that hilarious but ultimately tragic fight between Lucia Mar, Florian, and Ifechi. Not to mention the Popov brothers butting heads with team Cichociemni. And then we have those rising stars, the min-maxing team Flamengo. So many great stories, so many different ways to play.”

“So you know exactly what the floor is going to be?” I asked. “You didn’t know last time. And we didn’t get to see the video.”

“Oh, we all know what it is,” Odette said. “We don’t know the exact details other than what’s on the preview, but we’re excited to find out. A while back, Borant opened up voting on the fifth floor’s theme. You had to pay, of course, to get a vote in, but I think we’re all pretty excited for what won the poll.”

“So what won?” Donut asked.

Odette sighed dramatically. “Can’t tell you that, I’m afraid. But I can tell you this, my friends. I’m glad you have all those crafting tables.”

~

The show ended, and suddenly Loita was there. Lexis followed, wringing her hands. “I’m sorry, Odette, she just keeps barging in.”

“No giving up secrets,” Loita said to Odette as the host removed her helmet.

“That was a good show,” Odette said, ignoring Loita. “Katia, much better than last time. You still need to learn to relax, but you’re getting there. Donut, hilarious as always. Next time maybe keep Mongo out.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying!” Donut exclaimed.

Odette turned to look at me. “It wasn’t my husband. It was me,” she said matter-of-factly. “I hope one day to explain it further.” She looked pointedly at the angry, little kua-tin. “You were right to call me out. It plays well to your smoldering anger personality. Smart but dangerous. Love it.”

“Odette,” Loita warned.

“Oh, calm down,” Odette said, finally acknowledging the tiny kua-tin. “Your grandmother wasn’t nearly as high-strung as you are. We’re talking as friends. It’s not about the crawl. It’s not like I warned them that Chris…”

Odette went mute.

“That’s it,” Loita said, sounding pissed. “Everybody to the green room. You’re getting transferred back to the dungeon in a few minutes.”

“Chris? What about Chris?” Donut asked as we walked out.

“I don’t know,” I said, looking over my shoulder. They were screaming at one another again, but then they both started laughing. “There’s obviously something going on with him. That’s been clear for a while. We’ll have to be careful until we figure it out.”

“I can’t tell if those two like each other or hate each other,” Katia said.

“I’m worried about Zev,” Donut said once the door irised closed behind us. “What does reeducation mean anyway?”

I exchanged a look with Katia. I sighed. “Nothing good, Donut.”

“Well I hope she comes back,” Donut said. “I know we’re not supposed to like the bad guys, but she was my friend. We were going to write a tv show together.”

~

Loita never returned to the green room. Instead, we got a notification we were being transferred, and that was it. We glowed, and suddenly we were in a large, warehouse-like room. There were no notifications. My UI was still blocked out. I clutched onto the novel, unable to stick it into my inventory.

There were four doors, one on each wall. These were all one-way portals. The Valtay implant worked, but the information was limited. I couldn’t pass any of the doorways. I couldn’t take a screenshot.

In the center of the stark room was a pair of large, round wheels, similar to the wheel of fortune game from the casino. The first of the two wheels featured four equally-sized selections. The second wheel was blank. The three of us approached, and a notification appeared.

Before you enter the fifth floor, you must choose your quadrant. The result will be random. Your team leader will spin.

“That’s me!” Donut said, walking up to the first wheel. The four choices were Land, Sea, Air, and Subterranean.

“That's a bit worrying,” Katia muttered.

Donut stuck her paw on the wheel and swiped. The wheel spun and spun, ticking loudly.

“This is very exciting,” Donut said. “Remember when you almost got sucked away into the Nothing, Carl?”

“Yes, Donut. I remember,” I said.

The wheel slowed, click, click, click. It hovered on Sea, looked like it was going to settle, and it ticked over one more spot, landing on Air.

You will enter the fifth floor in the Air Quadrant.

“I don’t know if that’s good or not, but I’m glad it’s not Sea,” Katia said. “I’m a terrible swimmer.”

“Yeah?” I said. I had an ominous feeling. “How’re your flying skills?”

Donut gasped. “Maybe I can pick a class that flies this floor. Wouldn’t that be great?”

To our left, the door against the wall disappeared, revealing a new room with four more doors.

The second wheel populated with four choices: the Razor Fox Kite City, the Dirigible Gnome Wasteland Fortress, the Nightgaunt Precipice, and the Great Dirt Island of the Wind Sirens.

Choose your opponent.

Donut did a little hop and moved to the next wheel. She put her paw on it and spun. “Oh, I hope we get the fox one,” she said. “It’ll be fun to kill foxes.”

I held my breath, hoping for anything but the Nightgaunt choice. My cloak’s description specifically warned that Nightgaunts would be enraged by the sight of my cloak, and I didn’t want to have to get rid of it. Click, click, click. The wheel stopped right in the middle of the second choice.

Your opponents will be the Dirigible Gnomes. In order to pass this level, you must storm their castle in the sky, known as the Wasteland Fortress.

One of the four, distant doors disappeared, revealing a sand-covered, desert landscape. Sand started to cascade into the room from the open door. A harsh breeze swept in, pelting grains into my face, stinging and hot. I was half excepting the door to open and reveal nothing but air. At least we were on the ground.

“It looks like a giant litterbox out there,” Donut said. “Come on, team. Let’s go gnome hunting.”

~

Floor Five - The Siege Engines coming soon.