Chapter 150 (Patreon)

“This is just not acceptable, Carl. I like my butterfly charm. It makes it so fairies like me, and it is pretty. It’s part of my fit. I don’t want to take it off. I don’t see why I just can’t wear two charms at the same time. Stupid Angel the cocker spaniel had like four or five tags on her collar. She jingled like a set of keys wherever she walked.”

Donut had received the little butterfly charm a long time ago, all the way on the first floor. We’d used it to great effect early on. It’d been instrumental in defeating the first Krakaren boss. Plus, it gave plus one to intelligence and plus four to Donut’s Light On Your Feet skill, which helped her jump. Her skill was ten with the charm, and she could still sail through the air like an acrobat without it. Just not as much, which was unfortunate.

“The system only lets you wear a certain amount of magical items at once. Otherwise, Katia could grow a hundred arms on her back and carry around 500 plus one rings of strength,” I said. “This new one is better anyway.”

“It’s ugly. And the gem is turquoise. Turquoise! Do I look like an elderly woman with smoke-stained teeth sitting in a bingo hall?”

“The gem is tiny. You’re gonna have to wear it while you’re in Point Mongo, but you can always switch it back if we come across some fairy class mobs.”

She didn’t have to wear her new collar charm. It wasn’t required to enter the settlement menu and change stuff around, as we quickly learned. I’d already received a notification that she’d changed the name from “Large Ursine Settlement” to “Point Mongo.” The system had also changed her name to “Mayor Donut” but she’d quickly changed it back to Princess. However, Mordecai said if she wanted to order the guards around, she needed to be wearing the charm. The benefits were much better anyway.

I had one of these already, but mine was in the form of a necklace. I examined the small charm now.

Enchanted Collar Charm of the Effete Bourgeoisie

The middle size of the chains of leadership, this pendant signifies you as a member of the elite. Each jewel encrusted upon this charm represents a settlement owned and controlled by the bearer. If one still maintains a settlement’s jewel upon the collapse of the level, the holder of this necklace will permanently receive a tax stipend every ten days from that settlement based on size and population. In addition, each gem will impart additional benefits based on the town.

In order to upgrade this necklace, one must first conquer an Extra-Large-sized Settlement. Upgraded necklaces will also upgrade all existing gems.

One Attached Gem:

Plain Turquoise. Point Mongo (Sixth Floor).

+8 to Dexterity.

+4 to Intelligence.

+Snitch (Level 10)

Taxes received: 3,592 Gold every 10 days.

May you be a kind and just leader.

I picked it up to examine Snitch, which was a skill, not a spell.

Snitch.

Nobody likes a snitch. Nobody except the po-po.

If you are within any settlement, activating this skill will immediately alert all the town’s guards who will start to move to your location at the time of activation. At level five, a single guard will be immediately teleported to you. At level 10, it’ll be five guards. At 15, allof the town’s guards will be summoned to you.

In addition, at level 10, guards may be summoned up to one kilometer outside of the city limits of a settlement you own. At level 15, this will work with any settlement.

Warning: As you’ve probably already deduced, simply summoning the guards to you doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll do what you want, even if you’re the town’s leader. In addition, while there’s no cooldown for this skill, this is not something you want to abuse. These guard guys can get really cranky.

Donut huffed and changed out the charms, mumbling under her breath.

“Okay,” I said. “The guards are mad at us, so you gotta figure out how to turn that off.”

“I’ll walk her through it,” Mordecai said. “It’s not complicated, but it sometimes takes a minute for them to reset. We’ll have to go out there. We should do it now before the hunters can get here.”

“We need to hurry,” I said. “Vrah can fly, and she might head straight here. I’m going to distribute some anti-hunter missiles to the guards once we get control, but I need to build some more missile tubes first. We’ll have to surround the town with traps and instruct the caravans not to deactivate them.”

As if on cue, I received a sudden group of notifications.

A trap you have left has killed a hunter!

You have received a gold Hunter Killer Box!

New Achievement! Insurgent.

You left an explosive device along a well-traveled path, and it detonated and killed an intended target. It was really cool. Too bad you missed it because you’re a trap-leaving bitch!

Reward: You’ve received a Gold Trapmaster Box!

“I can’t believe that worked,” I said after I explained the notification. “But that was a trap I’d placed after the bugbear settlement. They’re moving quickly in this direction. They’ll be here soon, especially if they have vehicles.”

I immediately opened both of the boxes. The gold hunter killer box contained 35,000 gold and a fat, mottled gray hand of a hunter who’d been named JayGee. I held the trophy up to the ceiling.

“Hey,” I said, waving the fat hand. “If any of JayGee’s family or friends are watching this, you can go fuck yourselves. And maybe next time if someone you know wants to go hunting innocent people for fun, you can tell them about how your idiot friend or son or dad once tried it and ended up dying on the first day.”

“You shouldn’t do that,” Mordecai said after a moment. “People out there have long memories.”

“Good,” I said. “I don’t want them to ever forget.”

The Trapmaster box contained a very useful mod. It was a pack of twenty trap add-ons called Fail Safes. They would send me a notification if the trap was ever disabled or set off.

“Come on, Donut,” Mordecai said, leaping sideways toward the door. “We’ll need to reset all of the town’s rules and build new parameters for the guards. I’ll show you how to do it.”

“I’m not a child, Mordecai,” Donut said, strolling toward the door. “I have the menu, and I’ve already removed all of those idiotic rules. I kept the bugbear one, though. They really are stinky.”

“No,” I said. “You gotta erase that one.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because that rule was a trap. You saw what happened when that bear rolled down the hill. He got snagged right into the water. If you make all the bugbears walk down to the edge of the river to wash, the same thing will happen. You’ll be killing them.”

“Oh, all right. I’ll make it so the guards have to soap them up themselves or something.”

“Just hurry and message me once the guards are all fixed.”

~

Katia: Guilds are different than personal spaces. Anybody in the party can initiate one, and they’ll be the guildmaster. You two already said you don’t want the responsibility. Imani doesn’t really want to do it, either, but Elle thinks she will if we ask. We’ll have to pool some money if we want to share the upgrades, and if you want to keep the training room. One of Bautista’s guys already has a stables upgrade that Donut will want the moment she sees it.

“Here,” I said, handing off a missile launcher to a funeral bell guard. The creature smelled like dirt. Donut had named him “Doctor El” for some inexplicable reason. She’d gone through and named the officers and sergeants and would’ve spent the next hour naming all of them if I hadn’t intervened. There were fifty-something mushroom guards scattered around town, but the town management screen had identified six of them as sergeants and three more as commanders. The three commanders remained within the guard headquarters, but all six of the sergeants were out here with us now. For me, the sergeant rank wasn’t indicated anywhere in their appearance or stats, though Donut said they had three chevrons over their head when she looked at them. I also couldn’t tell the difference between the male and female funeral bells, but apparently that was a thing. I still hadn’t heard one talk.

In the distance, a group of Ursine watched as I passed out the weapons to the guards. Mordecai was there amongst them, speaking with a robed cleric bear, who was gesticulating and shouting down at tiny little Mordecai, who was shouting back. Donut sat astride Mongo. She was flanked by two of the funeral bell sergeants, both apparently women. She’d named one Dinallo and the other “Miss Nance.”

Carl: If Imani doesn’t want to do it, ask Li Na. Or Gwen. Or, you know, you can do it.

Katia: I don’t have time. And I’m not going to let Gwen do it, either. We don’t know where Li Na and Li Jun are yet. We’ll start setting it all up tonight. We’ll figure it out then.

Carl: 10-4. Are you doing okay otherwise?

Katia: Yes. There are some big personalities in this group. And they don’t all get along. Florin is doing a good Carl impersonation with how broody he’s being. Gwen constantly wants to murder Louis and Firas. Britney has given up on everything, and I don’t know what to do with her. But we’ll make it work. We’re heading southwest tomorrow. Away from elf territory but deeper into the wild. We’ve been fighting these screaming little tiki warrior guys. They’re fast and scary. We’re going to grind some quests and start collecting the former daughters to us.

Carl: Be careful.

Katia: We’re not the ones who’re setting up a base of operations right on the edge of the hunter zone.

I handed another missile tube off. This time to a mushroom named “Ice Man.”

Carl: The whole floor is the hunter zone now. Talk to you tonight.

“You’ll have to reinstitute the naiad and dinosaur rules immediately,” the ursine was saying as I strolled closer to the group. I placed an alarm trap. It’d play “Give it Away” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I had a different song for each of the town’s six entrances. I’d also receive a notification if someone messed with the trap.

“Why is it necessary?” Mordecai asked. “The guards will keep the town safe regardless. Have there been naiad attacks recently?”

“Recently?” the bear asked. He was a level-45 Light Cleric named Tam. The creature had a gray muzzle, similar to the mayor. In fact, it seemed all the ursine in town were elderly. “We live right on the edge of the river! They are always attacking. Always!” He pointed at Mongo. “But they’re not as bad as the lizards. Those things are the worst. Absolute worst. There are all shapes and sizes, and they’re always trying to get into town to eat us! And now that we’re being led by a pagan monkey with a pet dinosaur. We are not protected by the gods. We have been safe only because we do not sin. If you refuse to re-institute the holy shield of piety and order, then you’ll have to go out there and do something about the dinosaur menace.”

“Ahh, shit,” Mordecai mumbled the moment the cleric guy finished his rant. He turned to look and me and Donut. “Sorry, guys,” he said sheepishly. “That was an accident.”

I was about to ask him what he meant when the notification came.

New Quest! The Recital.

This is a town leader quest!

The mayor of Point Mongo and all of her party members will receive this quest!

Dinosaur attacks are becoming more and more of a problem in the large settlement of Point Mongo. It started small. A chicken here. An Ursine there. People didn’t care so much at first since they were mostly picking off the annoying people. But the attacks are getting worse. The dinosaurs probing the town’s defenses are getting bigger. There’s plenty of easier-to-obtain dino chow out in the jungle, so what is causing all of this attention on Point Mongo? Why are they attacking?

Exterminate the threat. Or, find out what they want, and then give it to them. I’ll leave it up to you.

Reward: You will receive a Gold Quest Box! The town leader will also receive a town upgrade!

“Town upgrade?” I asked. “What is that?”

“I don’t know,” Mordecai said. “Donut’s town menu is much more extensive than it’s ever been. In fact, ever since this floor opened, I’ve noticed a lot of little changes that are unusual. Everything is moved around on my manager menu.”

Katia: Why did I just get a quest to hunt dinosaurs?

“Recital?” Donut asked. “Why is the quest named that? What does that mean?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But maybe you should re-institute the no dinosaur rule and add an exception for Mongo or something. We should look into the quest if it’ll offer some sort of defensive upgrade to the town.”

“I absolutely will not reintroduce a racist policy just because it makes a bunch of overgrown teddy bears feel more comfortable. Really, Carl. The town is named after a dinosaur for goodness sake.” She turned back to the guard. “Now, Miss Nance. Where were we? Oh, yes. They have fuzzy ears that look like wet, dollar-store slippers. And they drool all over the place and are famously incontinent. If you see one…” Donut let out a strangled yelp as Mongo abruptly shrieked and started galloping away with Donut still in the saddle. “No! Mongo! Bad!” she cried as they disappeared down the street.

“Goddamnit,” I growled and started running off after them.

Carl: Donut, jump!

Bears and other creatures scattered out of the way as they rocketed off. A vendor selling flowers had to dive to avoid being run over. I cursed again as I ran. Chasing after Mongo was like trying to run down a motorcycle. They ran past a group of churches and stores, turned a corner, and disappeared. Donut did not jump off. Shit, shit.

The last time Mongo had run off like this was because he’d been enchanted by a spell. It was to lure us into a trap. This was probably the same thing.

Carl: Goddamnit, Donut. Do not leave town. Jump off!

Donut: I AM NOT LEAVING MONGO, CARL.

I rushed around the corner, passing a group of bears with weird symbols over their heads I didn’t have time to suss out. Mongo and Donut were in the far distance racing toward the southernmost exit to town, which was guarded by two mushrooms.

Mongo and Donut rushed out the gate, past the wall and disappeared into the thick jungle as I scrambled after them. Just as they disappeared, I heard Mongo shriek again.

Only it wasn’t Mongo.

A chill washed over me. Several more shrieks filled the air as the foliage shook and trembled.

Holy fuck. Holy fuck. No, no, no.

Carl: Mongo will be okay. You won’t. Get off. Now!

I’d received a total of ten dinosaur repellent potions since the end of the previous floor. The description was vague about what the potion actually did. It lasted a full thirty hours. I’d already taken one earlier. Mongo didn’t seem to care I’d taken it, but Donut refused to drink the potion, afraid it’d make her pet shy away from her. I regretted not making her take it.

As I ran, I loaded up a double-stuffed, Fear-infused smoke curtain into my xistera and tossed it out into the jungle ahead of me. It arced away like an artillery shell, trailing smoke. This enhanced smoke bomb used up four of the regular curtains, but it lasted twice as long and filled the area with much more smoke than the normal.

Donut: CARL, CARL! HELP!

I rushed out through the town gate into the jungle. Oh, fuck, oh fuck, I thought as I saw the red dots. There were about forty of them, arranged in a semi-circle surrounding Donut and Mongo, who were just up ahead. I pushed my way through the foliage into a small clearing.

I stopped dead, taking in the scene. My heart thrashed.

For a terrifying moment, I thought the world had frozen and a boss battle was about to start.

Mongo was stopped in the clearing, head down, growling, about to attack. Forty pairs of eyes glared back through the leaves. All around us large, familiar heads poked out of the foliage. They were all focused completely on Mongo.

I’d overthrown my smoke curtain. The smoke billowed up and away in the distance. Gray wisps curled into the clearing, dancing at the edge of the forty velociraptors, but not enough to obscure us. They were all laser focused on Mongo.

Nobody moved. Any moment now, and it would explode. And when it did, we were fucked.

None of the other dinosaurs made a sound. Only Mongo growled. It was a low, terrifying growl, like a constantly revving engine. I’d never heard anything like it before from him. The only other sound was the distant hissing of the smoke curtain. Even the normally loud bugs and other animals had gone silent.

The viewer counter in the corner of my interface was starting to spike.

My mind raced. I needed options. My Protective Shellspell still had another twenty minutes before it’d reset.

I edged my way toward Donut and Mongo, and I physically pulled Donut off the saddle and then started to slowly back away. Donut was equally transfixed, her entire body trembling. She didn’t resist as I pulled her away. Mongo had gone completely rigid. His entire body was taut, like stone. I put the limp Donut on my shoulder and continued to back away.

“Carl, it’s a bunch of Mongos. They’re all really high level,” Donut whispered, her voice full of fear.

“Stay on me,” I whispered. “Snitch and then Nope.”

Snitch would call five guards to us. With Nope, we’d both hit invisibility potions. I’d drop another smoke curtain as Donut cast Wall of Fire. Then Donut would Puddle Jump us back to town.

“Not without Mongo,” Donut said. “And I can’t see past the clearing.”

“That little shit is the reason we’re here right now,” I said, taking another step backward. I still didn’t know what, specifically, called him out here, but it was probably some sort of dinosaur call or sixth sense or something. A branch snapped under my foot, and one of the closest mongolienses jerked their head toward us. The lizard eyes blinked, and the head bobbed, chicken-like. I’d seen that look a hundred times, just before Mongo tore something apart.

The dinosaur had what appeared to be a purple shawl wrapped around its neck, which was out of place. It was threadbare and splattered with blood. A few others had similar items equipped. None were magical.

“We are screwed, Donut. We need to go. These are Mongo’s people. He’ll be okay. I just need to back up a little more, and you’ll be able to see the town, and then you can cast Puddle Jump.”

Mongo continued to growl. One of the raptors took a tentative step into the clearing, stopping about twenty feet away. This was a particularly large velociraptor. It was battle-scarred and vicious looking. It had a more pink and blue feather appearance than Mongo, giving it a lighter hue. A vicious, jagged scar ran the length of the dinosaur’s face. It was missing its left eye, and its beak was pitted, like someone had slammed it directly in the face with a halberd long ago. Each one of its gleaming claws had to be ten inches long. The claws undulated up and down, almost like the raptor was drumming its fingers on a table.

This was obviously the leader. It also stood rigid, head low to the ground, mirroring Mongo.

I examined the monster.

Kiwi. Mongoliensis Pack Leader – Level 60.

They say an asteroid is what wiped out the dinosaurs on this planet.

I don’t think that’s true. If Kiwi and her pack of voracious, slightly-insane velociraptors are even remotely like what you had roaming around way back in the late Cretaceous period, I’m pretty sure what really happened is that these guys simply ate everyone and everything.

This is Kiwi. The head bitch in charge of the jungle’s fastest, most vicious, most clever predators: the Mongoliensis. Take a gang of women convicts from a 1970’s prison movie. Combine them with a coalition of cheetahs and a shoal of hangry piranhas, and you have a vague notion of just how screwed you are.

This particular pack is comprised of only females. In fact, it appears all the dinosaurs in the area are female. That’s pretty odd. Almost interesting.

And here’s an even more interesting, seemingly random, but probably important fact. Dinosaur-class monsters didn’t exist in the area before Scolopendra’s nine-tier attack. Yet here they are. Where did they come from? If you weren’t about to die screaming, it would be something you might want to look into.

Warning: This is a lizard-class mob. It will inflict 20% more damage against you thanks to your Extinction Sigil.

All of the other Mongos ranged in level from 30 to 45. Mongo was level 33, on the lower end of the range. And he was almost half of Kiwi.

“Donut,” I said, taking another step back. “Do it. Cast Snitch.”

“Mongo,” Donut hissed, ignoring me. “Come away. Come to mommy.” Mongo didn’t respond. “Carl, we need to throw an invisibility potion at him.”

Kiwi suddenly raised her head into the air and made a loud, terrifying barking noise. It was like a seal mixed with a monstrous amount of distortion. Unk, unk, unk. The ground shook with the call.

You have been Deer in the Headlight-ed! You can’t move from your position for fifteen seconds!

Mongo lifted his head and made a similar noise.

Then all of the raptors started barking and howling. Still, none moved toward us. I tried to take another step back. I could move my arms and cast spells, but my legs were firmly bolted in place. Damnit. We were so damn close. The fronds of jungle leaves brushed against the back of my head. I could now see the twin white dots of the town guards. They were only thirty feet away, just standing there.

“Goddamnit,” I cried. “Invisibility potion. Now!” I drank one down.

At that moment, Mongo and Kiwi both leaped at the same time, slamming into one another in midair like a car collision. Donut—who was still visible—pulled back, like she was attempting to jump off my shoulder and into the fray. I pulled the hobgoblin disco ball as Mongo and Kiwi curled around each other like a pair of snakes, hitting the ground and rolling.

All around us the other Mongos howled and screamed, but none moved to attack. In fact, I realized, they were all starting to move back, stepping away back into the jungle. They still screamed, louder than ever. All around us, additional sounds rose. A flock of birds burst into the air. Monkeys I hadn’t even known were there suddenly erupted above us in the canopy, their screeches and cries adding to the cacophony. The trees above us shook and a rain of little pink and red flowers started to fall from the air.

Only five more seconds, and then I was going to drop the disco ball, wrap Donut in my arms, and run. But just as my paralysis ended, I paused. I felt my chin drop.

Holy shit.

“Carl, Carl, what are they doing? What are they doing?”

Mongo and Kiwi were not fighting.

They were doing the opposite of fighting.

“Uh,” I said, taking a step back. My leg felt like it was asleep, but it let me move. I looked warily at the map. All of the other red dots had moved back, but not too far. “I think we need to give them some privacy.”

“Carl, do something!” Donut exclaimed. “Get off of my baby, you whore!”

Kiwi was face down, backside up, tail to side with Mongo mounted behind her. Mongo made a throaty gurgling noise as he slammed into her over and over.

“Oh, she’s getting him off all right,” I said.

“That’s not funny, Carl. He’s too young! We haven’t even had the talk yet! She’s taking advantage of him! Mongo! Mongo!”

“Donut, we gotta get out of here. She’s going to attack us as soon as they’re done. Mongo will be okay.”

“Haven’t you ever watched Animal Planet, Carl? She’s going to murder my baby as soon as she’s done molesting him! She’s going to eat his head! Mongo! Stop that this instant! Stop it now!”

Mongo lifted his head into the air and howled joyfully as he continued to slam into Kiwi like a nitro-powered jackhammer. He lifted his wings and started flapping them up and down like he did when he was a little baby. His tail swished back and forth.

“By god, he looks like that Brad guy with Miss Beatrice. He even sounds like him. This is all your fault, Carl.” She moved as if to jump toward them, and I grabbed onto her. “Mongo! Come back! Come back to mommy!”

“How is this my fault?” I asked, taking another step back.

“You’re a terrible influence! He certainly didn’t get this from me. You and all your constant sex talk has turned him into a pervert.”

Kiwi let out a loud, satisfied hissing noise. She’d lowered her head all the way to the ground and was also flapping her arm wings. She wiggled her butt as Mongo continued to hump away. His grunts were getting faster and faster.

“She’s too old and gross for him, Carl. I’m going to hit her with a magic missile.”

“Look,” I said. “Her dot is still red. She is going to attack us when this is done. And if she does, Mongo will defend you, and she’ll probably hurt him. If we go back to the safety of town, Mongo won’t be forced to fight for us.”

“What if she uses her evil whore sex magic to lure him away forever? Like one of those school teacher ladies?”

“We’ll deal with it if it happens,” I said, pulling us into the fronds. I could still see the other red dots, just on the other side of the clearing. They could easily catch us, but none were moving in our direction. Yet. We had to hurry.

“Mongo, come back to mommy as soon as you’re done,” Donut called, defeated.

I turned and jogged back to the town’s entrance, still clutching onto Donut.

“As soon as he gets back, he’s going into his cage and I’m turning the no dinosaur rule back on immediately,” Donut grumbled.

~

Hey everybody! I hope you're doing well. FYI that was probably the first and one of the last sex scenes I'll ever write. Haha.