Chapter 118 (Patreon)

Chapter 118

Stage 2 of 4.

Still on the gnomes.

“So Chris is from team Meadow Lark?” Katia asked. “He entered the dungeon with Imani and Elle?”

“Yes,” I said as we drove back to Hump Town. We’d looted everything we could from the wreckage. It was a lot, including almost a ton of dwarfish aluminum, which was a light but strong metal. The giant buzzsaw was powered by the same type of dwarfish battery that ran the Chariot. I pulled the battery, and the whole thing shut off. There was a cable that attached the saw to the chicken hawk, but it appeared the weapon worked if it was attached or not. The thing was lighter than it looked, and Katia managed to pull it all into her inventory.

We’d also obtained the field guide from the borough boss corpse. We could now see the level and description of all the mobs in the area. The guide covered the entire bowl. Right now, in the dark of night, multiple, fist-sized monsters called Night Frights were emerging from the sand dunes. They were everywhere. They were similar to the rot sticker mobs we faced on the first floor. They ran, attached themselves to you, and exploded. Katia and Donut sniped at them as we drove, but we didn’t stop to engage.

“When Elle and the others were still old,” I continued, “there were four people taking care of them. There had been more, but we never met the original crew. They were Imani and Yolanda, who were nurses, and the brothers Chris and Brandon who’d both been maintenance guys at the old folk’s home. Yolanda died protecting us from the rage elemental, and Brandon died protecting the team from shade gremlins.” I swallowed, remembering that last note Brandon had sent. I had it saved in my scratch pad, and I often found myself pulling it up and reading it. He’d written it after he’d gotten into a fight with his brother, and his brother had left the team. I thought of one passage in particular:

He was never much of a talker. Mom said there was something wrong with him, maybe he was slow. But he ain’t slow. And even if he was… I said something stupid, and he got mad. He left, and now it’s too late to tell him I love him. I never said it. I’m about to die, and it’s all I can think about.

I’d promised myself I’d give the message to Chris if I could, but there was obviously something going on with him. He’d taken a race called an Igneous. A rock creature similar to the Sledge and Bomo. He’d stopped all communication with Imani, and Odette had tried to send me a warning about him.

He’d also killed Frank Q soon after Frank had given me the Ring of Divine Suffering. According to the Sledge, Chris had sat next to Frank at the counter of the Desperado Club. They’d talked, and then Chris had reached over and crushed his head. He’d simply gotten up and walked out after. He was now banned from the club.

That was not the crawler I remembered. I remembered him as a quiet man, dedicated to protecting his friends and brother. He’d sobbed after the boss battle with the tuskling knights. There was no way the old Chris would’ve done something like that. Imani said his personality had changed soon after he’d chosen his race.

I sent a message to Imani that we’d located him. And while I couldn’t yet go seek him out, there was a possibility he could come here. I didn’t know how I felt about that. Imani seemed to think he wanted to team up with me, but I feared he was too dangerous. I’d already had more than enough of that bullshit on the last floor with Hekla. We had enough to worry about already. It was just too much.

Imani: Whatever you decide, keep me updated. He still ignores all of my messages. I hope the real Chris is still in there somewhere. He’s the only non-resident left.

Carl: Will do. How’s the boating going?

Imani: Don’t ask. We need a boat with armor. Elle has figured out how to use an ice spell to protect us from the fireballs, but we still can’t get close to the oil rig. There are monsters in the water and pirate orc archers everywhere.

Carl: What about approaching it from underwater? Build a sub.

Imani: You’ve been talking to Elle, haven’t you? Carl, do you know how crazy that is? Build a sub, like that’s an easy thing to do.

Carl: Speaking of Chris, he has a submarine. I can’t imagine he’d be able to get it to you, but maybe he has some knowledge we don’t. Anyway, if you need a torpedo or something, let me know. We can meet up at the Desperado and trade it.

Imani: We can trade using the shop interface in our personal space, too. We just bought it thanks to Donut’s advice. You can list something for private sale, so we don’t have to meet face-to-face to trade. The only problem is that it doesn’t let you just give stuff away. It won’t let you trade it away for less than 50% of its value.

Carl: We’ll figure it out. Be safe.

Imani: You too. And Carl?

Carl: Yeah?

Imani: Don’t kill him. Please. He’s changed, but he’s still my friend. He’s still Brandon’s brother.

~

We stood near the collapsed remains of town hall. The dromedarian named Henrik stood nearby, directing the rescue efforts.

Donut: HE’S A CHANGELING. IT SAYS HE’S LEVEL 30, BUT HIS HEAD GLOWS EVEN HOTTER THAN THE OTHER GUYS. CAN THEY HIDE THEIR LEVELS?

Carl: Yes, especially if they’re really strong.

Donut: YOU CAN COOK AN EGG ON THAT GUY’S HEAD.

Henrik was the one who’d been attempting to “convince” Wynne the gnome into using his spell to resurrect the ghost. I figured he was the leader guy, and we set out to find him. We didn’t have to search hard. The older dromedarian stood over the wreckage, shouting at the others to keep digging in the smoldering remains. The creature looked absolutely exhausted. Even though he was a changeling, the weight of their current situation was etched deep onto his dromedarian face.

They still hadn’t gotten to Wynne’s body. They were desperately trying to find him.

There was a half an hour left until the sun rose. The dull light of the Wasteland was almost back over the bowl, moving toward its spot in the center.

I walked up to the camel and didn’t waste any time.

“How does the collateral work?”

The large camel looked down to regard me. “You should leave town the moment the light hits. It is no longer safe.”

“There’s nowhere to go,” I said.

“Then go to a shelter. Buy a woman. We do not have much time. Now leave us be.”

“Hey, I’m not asking for fun. How does the collateral work? Do you drag the gnome out so the gnomes can see him through one of their fancy telescopes or what?”

He narrowed his eyes. “You are the one who rented the telescope from young Skarn, are you not? Are you also the one who attempted that poor subterfuge with the grulke? If your goal was to kill everyone, congratulations. You win. These poor bastards just don’t know it yet. If you’ve come to gloat in your victory, get it over with. I am too old and too tired to engage.”

“Look, I only have one purpose here, and that’s to stop the gnomes. I’m trying to help.”

A dromedarian stuck his head up from the wreckage. “The entrance to the basement is sealed off,” he called. “It’s not from the fire. Part of the necropolis wall slid closed and sealed off the room. We can get through, but it’ll take some time.”

“We do not have time,” Henrik growled at the other camel.

“Look,” I said. “We can stop the gnomes. But you have to help me help you. I need to know how they know the collateral is still alive.”

Carl: Donut. I need a boost from your charm.

Donut leaped to my shoulder and looked up at the camel. “We will be able to save this town if you tell us.” She lowered her voice to a stage whisper. “We don’t care which ones of you are real camels and which ones are changelings. I don’t know why you’d want to pretend to be something so large and smelly, but that’s not our business.”

He gave only the slightest hint of surprise. But I could feel it. The way she manipulated NPCs sometimes was almost a tangible thing. You could feel the tension slide away. I could see the wheels turning in his head. He seemed to come to a decision. He pulled a little pocket watch out from his robes and then quickly put it away.

“The alarm goes off on the watch, and I open it up. There is a mirror. The gnomish Commandant is on the other side. He makes a symbol with his fingers. I show this to the collateral, and he tells me a time. I then switch the hands on the clock to the correct time. Commandant Kane owns the watch’s twin, and I believe the movement on the clock is mirrored. So when I change the time on Henrik’s watch, the hands also move on the other clock. It is a code we do not understand. Only then do the gnomes know Wynne is alive and we have bought ourselves another day.”

It wasn’t lost on me that he’d just referred to himself in third person.

“A code?” I asked. I remembered that Wynne had pretty much offed himself by tricking those crawlers into killing him. It had been both clever and desperate. “And he cooperated with it?”

“He did for years. It was only when we moved him to the chamber below the town hall did he start to resist. Only when he understood that the dynamic of his situation had changed. So he stopped cooperating. We’ve had to drug him to force compliance. It’s been getting harder. He has grown a tolerance for the mushroom. We have to feed him more every day.”

There was a lot to unpack there. Mordecai said he hadn’t yet figured out what the mushrooms did, but he was doing some alchemy that would help determine all their uses. Apparently just eating them raw helped with getting people to do what you wanted. He’d already said a lot of mushrooms had that effect, but that was more of a secondary purpose, especially when the system labeled it as an alchemy item. He said the mind control effects weren’t very reliable, but apparently they’d worked well enough in this case.

“Where’s the real Henrik?”

He looked at me with impassive eyes. “Do you really wish me to answer that?”

“Did the Bactrians do the same thing?” I asked. “Did they also have a watch?” According to Morris, they’d had some sort of pig collateral.

“No,” Henrik said. “They had a different sort of indemnity with the gnomes. It was a favorite pet swine of the Commandant’s daughter. I do not know the full nature of their deal, but I believe they were required to bring the animal out to sun itself once a day. Once it was observed via farseer, they were saved another day.”

“Can’t you guys turn to pigs? Why didn’t you go over there?” Donut asked. “One of you snorting around each day for a couple of minutes, and everybody is happy. The gnomes would never know.”

For the first time, Henrik cracked a smile. “That was the problem, little one. When our village was destroyed, the Bactrians did not take us in. What you suggested would also be thought of by the gnomes. They would not tolerate our presence for that very reason. The Dromedarians were reluctant, but they are, in their hearts, a good people. They took us in.”

“Much good that did them,” I muttered.

Henrik looked me dead in the eye. “Sometimes we do things that are not of our nature to protect our own.”

I felt a chill, but only for a moment. I remembered what Mordecai had said about these guys, that they were basically doing this so they could resurrect some ancient monster and touch it and add it to their libraries. That wasn’t a very noble cause. Still, something about that story was nagging at me. I had the sense there was more to it than that. Now was not the time to delve into it.

I pointed at the box-shaped anti-aircraft battery atop of the wall. “Those things can’t protect the town?”

“From individual airships? Yes. Not a full bombardment from the dreadnaught.”

We had a few options here. There was a code of some sort. The gnomes gave a hand gesture, and Wynne told the dromedarians what time to put into the clock. That was just the sort of thing Katia and Mordecai could figure out.

But probably not in a half of an hour. They’d have to know what all the former question and answers were, and even as charmed as he was right now, we’d never get this Henrik guy to sit down and give us the information.

Another option was to just let the town get bombed to hell. As long as we stayed in our personal space, we’d be fine. We’d save as many of these assholes as we could, and then we’d figure out what to do next from there. I knew with some more time I could probably build a missile that went high enough. And who knew? Maybe once both of the towns were gone, they’d land the damn ship and give us the opportunity to storm it the old fashioned way.

But it felt wrong. And we’d only be able to keep a handful of the town’s residents safe using the saferoom method.

And even if we did protect most of them by crowding everyone into our space, eventually we’d have to kick them out. And then what?

I looked up and stared at the fabric ceiling of the town.

“Can you talk to that commandant guy using the watch?”

“No sound, but we can exchange written messages. We often speak that way.”

“Have they ever sent a representative? Like an ambassador?” I remembered reading once about hostages and ransoms during the Hundred Years’ War. Oftentimes the whole thing ended up in disaster, but sometimes there were negotiations that resulted in a ransom paid, which required both parties to temporarily trust each other.

“Yes. They do often. There is an ambassador. Leon the Commissar. He comes to inspect. He has a spell he casts to make sure the collateral is not a changeling. I believe they fear we will one day break the code between him and the Commandant.”

My interest was piqued. “Luckily they haven’t cast the spell on you yet.”

“Yes,” Henrik said. “They were scheduled for an inspection in two days, but I fear with these new developments, the situation will be accelerated.”

From there, we spent a few minutes discussing the ambassador and how the inspections worked. This whole inspection thing was clearly put into the game as a way for us to be able to get to the Wasteland, but it was all screwed up now thanks to the death of Wynne. Still, as we talked, an idea started to form.

Carl: Mordecai. If I need a parachute quickly, what are my options?

Mordecai: How are your sewing skills?

Carl: They’re shit.

Mordecai: Then you need one of a few dozen potions, a flight ability, or a fall shield buff. Or you can turn Katia into a hang glider.

Carl: Yeah, I don’t think she’s going to go for that. Do you have the materials for a potion?

Mordecai: I’m looking at the stock right now. I don’t have the Feather Fall materials. Those are common potions later on, but the seed pods I need are scarce until we hit the sixth floor. Same with Bubble Boy. I do have enough to make one type of potion, but you won’t like it. And only enough to make maybe two of them, so whatever death-defying stunt you’re planning, take Katia with you and leave Donut on the ground. It’s an easy enough formula. Five minute brew. I’ll double check the market to see if anything else is available, but I wouldn’t count on it yet.

Carl: Okay. I’m coming your way. I need to make a few rockets really fast. Make me the potions.

“You,” I said to Henrik. “I don’t know if this is going to save the town, but we’re going to give it a try.” I turned to Katia, who’d been strangely silent since we’d returned. Her eyes were flashing, so I knew she was talking to somebody. She did not look happy. “Katia, I have a job for you.”

She blinked and looked at me. “What do you need me to do?”

“Two things. First one is a little gross.”

~

While Katia returned to the Desperado Club, I explained the assault with Donut while we jogged back to the personal space. It occurred to me that we were giving ourselves extra work, skipping past two pubs to get to the Toe. Every single one had a personal space entrance in it. But as we rushed by, I noticed they were all closed and boarded up. The camels all knew what was coming and were already moving their way to the bomb shelters.

“Carl, that is not going to work. They know there are changelings in town. They’ll check.”

“I know.” I explained the next part of the plan.

“I don’t know,” Donut said. “This is a little janky, even for a Carl plan.”

“Janky?” I said. “Where did you get that one? That is not an Elle term.”

“Louis told me,” she said.

“Louis? You’ve been talking to Louis?”

“I’m allowed to have friends, Carl.”

Before I could come up with a suitable response, I received a message from Morris the spider guy:

Morris: Hey, so we did what you asked. Package delivered. But we have a new problem.

Carl: Big or small?

Morris: They’re all big problems. Right after the water quadrant was conquered, some of the walls changed inside. I think all the exits are closed.

I remembered that the dromedarian had said that basement chamber had been sealed off. The walls must have changed about. I looked at my map, and it hadn’t changed as far as I could tell. But it didn’t tell me if entrances were open or closed. The tomb raider guys couldn’t leave anyway, so it wasn’t a big deal.

Carl: Okay. So what’s the problem?

Morris: We didn’t think much of it at first, but now something’s happening below us. We can hear it.

Carl: What do you mean?

Morris: I think the necropolis is filling with water.

Carl: Oh fuck me.

Morris: Yeah, so I don’t know what we’re going to do. We have a lot of those water breathing scrolls, but not nearly enough. And I don’t think our torches work underwater. If it fills up all the way, then we’re hosed.

Carl: Okay, make sure everybody has the water scrolls. If it fills all the way to where you are, go to a safe room. Actually, you and Bobby return to the Desperado and plant yourselves there. If I need to build you something or get more scrolls to you, we can get it to you more easily.

“Damnit,” I growled. When Chris had taken the underwater castle, it had likely caused something to make the water rush into the tomb. The entrances had all closed up, so there was nowhere for the water to go. It hadn’t occurred to me that we might need to consider the order in which we took these castles. There was nothing I could do from here.

I was expecting to find the Toe boarded up, but the bar was open and lit up like a Christmas display. I opened the door and was greeted with a crowd of about forty children, ranging in age from four to twelve. Almost all were dromedarians, but a group of six were in human form. They were obviously changelings. Juice Box was moving amongst the kids, talking to each in turn. She had a bag in her hand and was handing something out to each child.

Carl: Let me know if any of the kids other than the humans are shapeshifters.

Donut: I DON’T SEE ANY OTHERS BUT IT’S HARD WITH THE KIDS. JUICE BOX’S HEAD IS VERY HOT. JUST AS HOT AS THE HENRIK GUY. OH, OH. AND THE BARTENDER GUY IS ONE TOO! NOW THAT’S JUST SNEAKY.

“You owe us each a gold coin,” Skarn said. He was in the human form, standing with the others.

The other crawlers were also here. Louis and Firas stood with Langley and the archers. Louis was sucking on… a goddamn, actual juice box. A kiwi strawberry-flavored Capri Sun. I realized that was what Juice Box was handing out to all the kids.

“All right,” I called. “I won’t be here to let you in later, so everybody follow me.”

“Shouldn’t we take them to one of the actual safe rooms, Carl? Like that one on that strange street?”

“No,” I said. “Mordecai said the saferooms are only safe if there’s a crawler in with them. We can’t spare anybody.” I raised my voice. “Everybody follow me.” I pointed at the bartender and Juice Box. “You guys, too.”

The bartender refused to come, but Juice Box happily followed us. I was glad because we’d need someone to wrangle the children.

“Yeah, what about our money?” Skarn demanded.

I pulled a gold coin into the air and tossed it at him. “Help me get everyone inside, and you’ll get another and so will everyone else. Also, where are their parents?”

“All the grown-ups are on defense duty,” he said. He raised his voice. “Okay, everyone follow Mr. Carl.”

I noticed three of the human/changeling children weren’t fully… complete. One, a girl named Ruby, did not have any arms at all, and her head was sunken in at the top, like a deflated soccer ball that had been kicked. She walked slowly, with a noticeable limp. She was hard to look at. When I examined her, I saw she had an active debuff.

This NPC is suffering from Compression Sickness.

I sent a message to Mordecai asking what that was, but he said he’d never heard of it. He then asked where I was just as I opened the door and gave access to the first of several children.

~

Mordecai, as expected, was not pleased.

“This isn’t a goddamned daycare, Carl. Do you see a jungle gym? Because I don’t see a fucking jungle gym.”

The couch fell over onto its side as three dromedarian kids tried to balance on the back. Another had grabbed the cleaner bot and was hovering a foot off the ground while the robot beeped with a scared-sounding alarm. Juice Box formed into a hairy monster and roared at the camel, who dropped the robot. The cleaner bot zoomed up and out of reach, beeping mournfully as another pair of children stomped onto their almost-empty juice box pouches to launch the straws across the room. A circle formed as the children, dromedarian and changeling alike, started using their newfound riches to establish a gambling ring where they bet on who could launch their juice box straws the furthest. Donut was suddenly in on the action, hopping up and down and betting loudly. I made her keep Mongo in his carrier.

The other crawlers all cowered in the corner, not certain what to do.

We’d all been in the room for less than three minutes.

“Yeah, you need games or something,” Juice Box said, walking up. She’d returned to a generic, female human form. She was white-skinned and blonde, about eighteen years old. Her jaw worked like she was chewing gum. “They’re calm now, but they’ll be getting antsy soon.”

“Calm?” Mordecai said. “This is calm?”

One of the changeling humans was suddenly a skyfowl and was attempting to take to the air. Another had turned into a cat, but Donut started hissing, and he switched back to a human.

“Why don’t they ever turn into dromedarians?” I asked.

“Not allowed,” Juice Box said. “Only when they’re at the bars and for entertainment purposes only. That was part of our deal when they took us in. We ain’t allowed to casually take the form of the dromedarians otherwise.”

“Is that so?” I asked. But I was in a hurry, and I needed to get to the crafting room. So I didn’t pursue the obvious lie. Now that I had the formula down, it’d only take me a few minutes to put the missiles together. Since the two-stage missiles weren’t working, and we were out of time to figure out why, I was just going to use the original design and add a few of the seekers. The missiles would have a climbing range a little more than a mile. The Wasteland would be a good three miles above our position when it dropped its bombs. That meant we had to get creative.

“Did you do the potions?” I asked Mordecai.

“They’re cooling down,” Mordecai said, still seething and distracted by the horde of children. “They’re probably ready by now.” He sighed, looking about the room. “I have a few downloads from the time before the dungeon opened. I think I can stream them to the screens here. Hang on.” The main room screen flickered, and a new image appeared. A movie started to play.

“I didn’t know you could do that!” I said. I glanced over at Donut, who was about five seconds from discovering Mordecai had a magical Bluetooth connection to the screen.

“Yes,” he said. “But you don’t have time to watch movies.”

Around the room, the screeching stopped as dozens of children suddenly turned their attention to the screen.

“Carl, Carl, it’s a movie!” Donut said, bounding across the room to return to my shoulder.

“It’s part of the manager benefit,” Mordecai said, obviously reluctant to tell her this. “In case we ever want to strategize using the screens. But I also have a digital library of most Earth movies that I collected when we were preparing to go live. Plus entertainment from the last world I worked, though they didn’t have anything good unless you like off-key opera.”

“Do you have There’s Something About Mary? I never saw the ending! Carl came home that day and ruined it. He switched it to the watch-Carl-get-fragged-over-and-over Playstation channel, and I never learned what happened! It has been killing me. If I don’t find out what happened I will simply die.” She suddenly gasped. “Do you have the Sex and the Citymovie?”

“And now you know why I never told you about this,” Mordecai said. On the screen, the movie was the original Toy Story. “Hey, hey, kid! Put that down!” he suddenly yelled, storming off.

“Wonderful,” I said, watching him go. I turned to Juice Box. “You’re doing good. I’ll be back in five minutes.”

“Hey,” she said, leaning in closer, her voice a whisper. She’d watched and listened to our conversation about movies with a strange intensity. “What is this place? Is it from the Hunting Grounds?”

“The Hunting Grounds?” I asked, surprised. “No, it’s our base of operations. It follows us wherever we go.”

“Can we use it to get there?” she asked, voice full with so much hope that I had to pause to regard her.

“The Hunting Grounds” was what they called the sixth floor. I had a quick memory, of a goblin shamanka with a face full of piercings and rings telling me forlornly about how everything would be better if they just could get one floor down.

“No, you can’t use this room to travel,” I said. “But we’ll be going there if we can get out of here. Is that some place you’re trying to go?”

I’d been slogging my way through Herot’s essay on the nature of NPCs from the cookbook, and this was something he’d talked about frequently. NPCs had varying degrees of situational awareness about where they were. On the previous level with the trains, they’d all been completely brainwashed, totally unaware that they were in a dungeon. Rory and Lorelai the goblin shamankas from the very first floor had been the opposite. While they’d been invested in the llama/goblin meth war story, they were also fully aware that they were on the first floor of a dungeon. Herot, who advocated for breaking the NPCs out of the fourth wall, warned that those NPCs who knew what was going on from the start were much more dangerous. On the last floor, we’d been able to recruit a few NPCs to our cause because their world was obviously a construct, and the illusion was easily shattered.

“The Hunting Grounds are our ancient home,” Juice Box said. The normally ditzy and goofy NPC was suddenly dead serious. “We have been stuck here for a long time. There was a way to go home, but it is lost to us now that the town hall is gone.”

I reached up and scratched Donut on the head. I sent her a quick message.

“Are you seeking the Gate of the Feral Gods?” Donut asked.

She scoffed. She didn’t seem surprised we mentioned the artifact. “No. Gnomes seek that prize. The same with the mad mage and that bugbear under the sea. All of them came here trying to find it. If the gnomes couldn’t locate it, then nobody can. Or will. Hen…” She paused. “One of our kind says that the gate artifact is a myth. The camels have been here the longest, and they know nothing of it. What we seek is something else.”

She’d almost said “Henrik” but caught herself.

I asked the next question. “So what is it you seek? Something to do with the ghost queen Quetzalcoatlus?”

That surprised her, and not in a good way. She narrowed her eyes and backed off. “I must tend to the children. I’m beginning to suspect this is all your doing. You speak of helping us, but where is the proof, other than taking the children to this place? Prove to me you mean what you say. If you can stop the gnomes from destroying the city, and my people survive, I will tell you. Come speak to me again if we survive the bombardment.”

Katia: Henrik just got the daily message on his pocket watch thing from the gnomes. He showed them the reply, just as you wrote it. We were expecting them to ask questions, but they snapped off communications.

Carl: Do you think they took the bait?

Katia: I don’t know. Have you built the missiles yet?

Carl: Doing it now. We got a little distracted on the way in.

Katia: Cutting it a little close don’t you think?

Donut: WE’RE WATCHING TOY STORY. HAVE YOU SEEN IT?

Katia: What?

Carl: We’ll be ready in a minute.

A new timer suddenly appeared in my vision. It was at one hour and 15 minutes and ticking down.

New Quest. Squeeze out the Juice Box.

That mischievous Changeling prostitute appears to be more important to this story than you first thought. It also appears she’s rather fond of her brothers and sisters, many of whom are currently outside, mixed in with the poor, oblivious Dromedarians, preparing to die in a desperate attempt to destroy all the incoming bombs with flak. If this town is bombed, they will not succeed. They will not even come close to succeeding.

To win this quest, you must save Hump Town from the inevitable bombardment, which will occur when the timer reaches zero.

Reward: You will receive a Platinum Quest Box.

In addition, all crawlers in this quadrant will receive a permanent fifty percent charisma bonus during any future interactions with Changelings.

You’ll also receive my undying respect, because there is no way in hell even you can pull this one off.

***
Was hoping to do a double chapter tonight, but the fireworks of chapter 119 aren't quite ready yet. Also working on something else for you guys that's a little different. More on that soon. Thank you all so much. Sorry for the slow chapters. Nov/Dec is my busiest time of year with the day job stuff.