Chapter 159 (Patreon)

Chapter 159

“Do you think that was her real name? Future Hunter?” Donut asked as we watched the team slowly approach the castle. The castle’s alarm was a constant, pounding ah-luga, ah-luga. Apparently that particular pattern meant attackers at the main gate. All defenders converge at the front.

“Maybe,” I said. “I think all the orcs of the Skull Empire have weird names.”

“It’s just weirdly specific,” Donut said. “I mean, she was a hunter. Not a future one. A terrible one, sure. She ended up dying almost immediately, but she could’ve dropped the ‘future’ part from her name. It’s confusing. When her parents talk about her at her funeral, what are they going to say? ‘Future Hunter the hunter was formally a hunter before she got punched to death by a human with no pants?’ Also, what if she wanted to be an Instagram influencer or something? You’re not exactly giving your child a whole lot of choices when you name them something like that. It’s like naming your daughter Candy. Of course she’s going to become a stripper. She has no other choice. When I’m ruler of the galaxy, I’m going to institute name rules. Like they have in Iceland. Katia was telling me…”

We were, thankfully, interrupted by Samantha.

Samantha: THEY CAME OUT TO GET ME BUT I SHOWED THEM. I WENT RIGHT PAST AND INTO THEIR CASTLE. THEY HAVE REALLY LET THIS PLACE GO. THE TAPESTRY OF MY GRANDFATHER IS GONE. THEY’RE ALL CHASING ME BUT I GOT SUCKED INTO THE FILTER VENT. THE SONG TRAP FELL OFF AND WENT DEEP DOWN THERE. NOW THEY’LL NEVER TURN IT OFF.

Carl: Did you get a chance to talk to them?

Samantha: DO YOU KNOW HOW LOUD THIS THING IS? BESIDES, THERE’S NO TALKING IN WAR. ONLY TEETH AND BLOOD AND THE WAILING OF WOMEN WHO BLEED OUT AS I SEDUCE THEIR MEN AND MAKE LOVE IN THE GORE. OH GOODIE. THE SONG JUST STARTS OVER WHEN IT FINISHES. IT’S LOUDER NOW BECAUSE IT’S IN THE VENT SYSTEM.

I sighed.

“Hah!” Donut said. “She forgot her line. You owe me a gold coin!” A moment later, Donut gasped. “Carl, Carl. I can hear it! The song! It’s coming from the castle! I can hear it over the alarm! Tell them to shut off the castle alarm. It’s ruining it!”

“Weird song,” Areson said. “No like.” Miss Nadine agreed with a chittering noise.

“You should hear it at full volume,” I said.

“Well, I feel it’s one of the greatest songs ever written,” Donut said with a harumph. “Plus Samantha likes it, and that strongly speaks to her character thank you very much. Perhaps only refined individuals such as myself can appreciate the pure musical bliss and nuance that Oasis has to offer.”

“Song bad,” Areson repeated.

“You know,” I said, “it occurs to me that we’ve never learned what Samantha is supposed to be a god of. I guess since she’s a minor goddess, maybe she didn’t get a thing. Whatever they call it.”

“She’s the goddess of unrequited love,” Donut said, bopping her head. She stood atop Mongo who was sniffing suspiciously at the air.

“Really? How do you know?”

“I asked her, Carl.”

“Huh,” I said. “Interesting.”

“Well, she said it was unrequited love. But I must say. I kind of get the impression it’s more like the goddess of crazy ex-girlfriends. Everything she does is because she wants to get back with some weird king guy. She also seems to think her sand ooze child, you know the one that was married to the mage guy on the last floor, is still alive and is on the ninth floor. I don’t know how she knows that. But she wants to pick up the kid and then get herself down to some other floor where the king is. The first part of her plan is to get a body, though.”

I shook my head. I figured the odds of them letting her move from her current form to a regular body were pretty slim.

Samantha’s part in the castle assault was to be nothing more than a distraction, and she’d already done her job. She was to enter the water, splat in front of the castle, and when the castle alarm went off, she was to roll/float toward the guards. The castle had an alarm system, but it was old and inefficient according to Signet. Once triggered, it took a long time to reset.

They had guards, but not enough to cover all the entrances and exits. Once the alarm went off, signifying an invasion at the front door, all the poorly-trained guards would move in that direction, leaving the rear, air area of the castle undefended while Signet’s amphibious assault team moved in. Even if noticed, there wouldn’t be enough time for the alarm to be reset and tell the defenders where the real threat was coming from. The team would move to the throne room where the leaders of the confederacy would conveniently be hiding.

It was simple. Child’s play. The whole defensive system of Fort Freedom was a joke. This was just an extra plot point in the Signet story and not meant to be a true obstacle.

We’d given Samantha a line to say because she’d been bitching that we were underutilizing her “talents.” The instructions weren’t important, but she’d insisted on having something to do if she got captured and the alarm trap deactivated, so I’d made her memorize a line. One designed to toss the guards into further confusion:

I am Psamathe, long-lost daughter of the confederacy! I am here to parlay with the leaders of Fort Freedom. Take me to them immediately so I may discuss the conditions of my army’s surrender to your glorious cause! The cause of freedom from tyranny!

Donut insisted the line was too long and she’d never remember or say it. I figured Donut was probably right. If by some miracle they did transport Samantha to the leader chamber, she could relay important information back to us. They couldn’t hurt her, and I could teleport the sex doll head back to me at a moment’s notice, so it was a pretty harmless plan.

I was glad to be otherwise sitting this one out. I figured we’d have to fight something, as they weren’t going to just let me and Donut sit here with our thumbs up our asses, but if there was a big what-to-do, it’d be between Signet and whomever she found down there. The showrunners were trying to walk a very fine line with this. They wanted me present, but they certainly wanted to protect to the integrity of their main character.

Ahead, the paper soldiers along with the others moved into the water. The flying ones circled above while the others floated atop the slow current of the river. One of the battle squad, a long eel, laid itself across the river like a boat, allowing the elves to scramble aboard. It bobbed up and down a few times and was now moving quickly across the river toward the castle. Signet traveled with this group. Some of the others, like Edgar the tortoise and the beavers disappeared into the water, sinking below the surface. Mongo let out a forlorn peeping noise when they disappeared.

Next to me, Miss Nadine the giant caterpillar hissed worriedly. Areson the ogre patted the hairy thing. “It’ll be okay,” he said. The caterpillar hissed again. She smelled like wet moss. Behind us, a few bush elves remained, guarding the trees in case something attacked from behind.

Signet and the elves reached the castle and stepped inside, moving directly onto a walkway aligned with the height of the river. Wherever the half-naiad walked, water shied away from her, like a magnet pushing iron shavings away.

“How is she going to go down there?” I asked Areson. “It seems like the curse might make it difficult.”

“She floats like an apple,” the ogre said. “It’s a bad curse. But she can go down. You watch.”

One of the summoned paper monsters—a hammerhead shark, but with a buff, human-like body—wrapped Signet into a hug. Together they disappeared inside. I didn’t actually see what was happening there.

“Once she deep enough, she doesn’t pop up no more. She needs air though. Has spell. But if she go too deep she get the squish. Good thing river not deep enough.”

“How did she get the curse?” Donut asked.

Areson grunted. “High elf cast it the night mom was deaded.”

“Wait,” I said. “There was a high elf working with these naiad guys?”

“Yah,” Areson said. “The dissenters killed the tsar and his family. They only did it because they had help from the sneaky high elves. It stopped fighting between elves and naiad, but the naiad are almost slaves now. Especially after nine-tier attack. Most of the fishy people died, but there’s a good number left. They still at the teat of pointy-ears. They gotta ask them for permission to do anything. Now the naiad regular folks are going wild like old days because the castle people don’t do no ruling or nothing.”

I remembered what Signet had said, that her mother was planning on a peaceful transition of power. All of this happened before the Scolopendra attack, so years and years ago. I wondered how different it would’ve been had there been an efficient government in place when the disaster happened.

A few of the paper monsters draped themselves over the top of the castle, but several others lowered themselves slowly into the dark water. It looked almost as if they were being erased. Or fed into a paper shredder.

A few minutes passed with nothing happening, and then the castle alarm abruptly stopped. This had the unfortunate side effect of allowing the looping alarm trap to be heard much more clearly. It sounded distant and hollow. Thankfully.

Samantha: I CAN HEAR FIGHTING. I’M TRYING TO WIGGLE MY WAY OUT TO GET IN ON THE ACTION.

Carl: Don’t get in the way. I’m going to recall you.

Samantha: PLEASE NOT YET.

Carl: Okay, but stay out of the way. And keep me updated on what’s going on.

I had no idea how the massive, paper monsters were going to fight in such close quarters. But I figured it was equally glorious and terrifying to behold.

Samantha: THERE’S A LOT OF BLOOD IN THE WATER. AND THE GREEN ALGAE STUFF THAT WAS COVERING ALL THE NAIADS IS FLOATING ALL OVER THE PLACE.

Donut: THAT SOUNDS DISGUSTING.

Samantha: IT REALLY IS. I CAN TASTE IT IN THE WATER. IT MAKES THE BLOOD TASTE EARTHY. LIKE I’M EATING A SALTY, FISH-FLAVORED SALAD.

Donut: EW.

The river surrounding the castle started to bubble. A lightning bolt shot in the sky, coming directly out of the water. It shot into the sky, briefly turning night into day. At that moment, I caught glimpse of the defense team on the south shore, multiple ursine standing there looking back at us.

The ground shook. I exchanged an uneasy glance with Areson. Mongo abruptly howled and started pawing at the ground. He jumped up and down excitedly, causing Donut to yelp and yell at him to calm down.

“Look,” Donut said, pointing after Mongo calmed. A body floated in the water, face down. A naiad. It disappeared as it floated away into the darkness. Another naiad appeared, popping up like a cork. Then another, this one missing a head. But then two more bodies appeared, both of them the paper cutouts of Signet’s battle squad. They appeared and then dissolved. Yet another body popped up, this one too mangled to properly examine in the dark. I was pretty sure it was a bush elf. It’d been ripped in half.

“This not good,” Areson said as Miss Nadine started bouncing up and down worriedly.

Samantha: UH-OH.

Carl: What’s happening?

Samantha: I THINK IT WAS A TRAP. DON’T WORRY. I GOT THIS. I JUST WRIGGLED FREE.

“Goddamnit,” I growled. “Donut, you stay here. I’m gonna have to go in there.” I pulled the water-breathing ring from my inventory and slipped it on my finger. I felt the gills form on my neck.

You’ve been hit with the ugly stick!

“Oh my god, Carl. Take that ring off this instant. I can’t believe it only lowered your charisma by one point! You’re all slimy. And Signet told us to wait here. I don’t think going in there is a good idea.”

A new explosion rocked the river. Bloody, red water showered up, this time from within the castle, coming out the broken, stained glass window. More bodies appeared, but I couldn’t tell what they were, but one of them was distinctly short and hairy.

Miss Nadine started to lose her shit, bouncing and hissing. She broke for the hill leading down to the water.

“You no swim!” Areson called. She did not respond.

“No time to argue,” I said. The xistera extension remained on my arm. I had to remove it before I dove in there.

Carl: Samantha, I gotta teleport you back.

Samantha: NO, NO! I ALMOST HAVE HIM.

I pulled the extension into my inventory.

~

I have never claimed to be a smart person.

We all do stupid things. A lot of times, people do stupid shit not because they are stupid, but because in the heat of the moment, they make rash decisions. It’s a different sort of thing. That’s my excuse here.

Heat of the moment. At least that’s what I tell myself.

When Samantha said, “I almost have him,” I should have waited a moment and asked who she was talking about. She would have answered with, “The lightning-shooting river monster that has taken over the throne room of Fort Freedom.” And then I would have followed up that question with, “And are you biting down on this creature right now?”

I was expecting Samantha to teleport to my feet like she usually did. Instead, the enormous, truck-sized frog thing appeared right next to me. It appeared so close, we all went flying, the sensation oddly akin to bouncing off a wet trampoline. Donut and Mongo rocketed away, disappearing into the trees. Areson fell over and disappeared with a howl. I flew backward and started to slide down the slope to the river. I stopped, pressing against the surprisingly-soft body of Miss Nadine the giant caterpillar who’d paused her descent to gawk at the sudden appearance of the monster.

The large creature was about eight feet tall and maybe fifteen feet long, green and lizard-like. The thing had no neck, and short, stubby legs that looked ridiculously too short. It had a stub where its tail should be, like it had recently been ripped off. It was like half frog, have squished alligator. It had a distinctly prehistoric appearance. It opened its mouth and croak/growled in surprise at its sudden teleportation.

When it croaked, both Samantha and beaver-form Holger vomited out of its mouth, both of them unceremoniously splatting onto the dirt like a pair of quivering hairballs.

Slime-covered Holger lifted his head and tried to yell something, but he plopped over, unconscious. Samantha was screaming something incomprehensible about the frog thing’s mother.

The world did not freeze nor did new music start, but I knew this creature was a boss even before I read the description. I started to scramble back up the slope as the description popped up. I ducked as a multi-branch lightning bolt ripped through the night, coming from the monster’s eyes. The bolt sizzled above my head and slammed into castle walls far behind me. Shit, shit, shit.

Claude Sludgington the Fourth. Eryops Gigantis.

Level 65 Borough Boss!

Oh boy are you in for a treat. These bottom-dwelling, lightning-tossing water pigs will ruin just about anyone’s day. It’s pretty much what they live for.

Also known as the River Squatter or the Mud Kato, one of the cardinal rules of living under the water in a river is that you never, ever invite an Eryops into your home. Why? Because they never goddamn leave. That’s why. Sure they’re cute when they’re young. They tell jokes. Great dancers. They mix a mean pisco sour. But when the party’s over, they’ll plop themselves down into the middle of the room and announce that this is where they now live.

That’s what happened with Claude here.

A few years back, the few remaining members of the confederate government thought to host a fundraiser to gather gold to fix up their aging castle. Their aversion to all taxes whatsoever led to a rather unfortunate and unforseen shortage in the kingdom’s treasury, especially since they were still required to pay tithes to the high elves.

So, taking a page from those same elves, the confederates thought to host a grand ball, and any underwater dweller from near and far was welcome. Welcome, that is, if they were willing to pay the 50 gold entrance fee.

The party was a disaster from the start. Nobody showed up, first off. This was mostly because the regular citizens of the naiad kingdom had been starving for a while now and would eat pretty much anyone and anything that came close to the water. Secondly, because everyone knew the confederates were shit at throwing parties.

Claude Sludgington the Fourth, however, decided to make an appearance at the last possible minute. The guards allowed him into the castle despite his reputation. The rest is history.

Eryops receive a 10 X constitution bonus if they are rooted in place. Oh, and they shoot lightning out of their eyes if you irritate them. They are notoriously difficult to kill. Or even move. I heard a rumor that they really dislike belly rubs.

Claude is an amphibian. You know what that means.

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

Claude roared again indignantly and shot yet another bolt of lightning. He already had a health bar over his head, but it had hardly gone down at all. Next to me, Miss Nadine hissed in rage and started moving back up the slope, pushing past me. The bristles rushed past my face, like I was being pulled through a car wash. Areson was suddenly on top of the boss, screaming. Claude just looked around, bewildered at his new surroundings, still disoriented. He shot a tongue out and captured a bush elf, who screamed as he was pulled to the mouth. He swallowed the elf whole.

I started to scramble up the riverbank.

Carl: Donut, we gotta flip it over. Then we can get at its stomach.

Donut: THAT THING IS DISGUSTING. HE SMELLS LIKE ALGAE AND CHEETOS.

Carl: He’s going to flip in your direction. Be ready. Don’t attack yet. Take Mongo back deeper into the woods. Watch out for his lightning attack, but when he’s on his back, we gotta go for the stomach.

Donut: WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?

Far behind me, a new sound filled the night. Fighting. This was coming from the far shore. A pair of roars filled the night. Distinctively dinosaur roars. Not velociraptors, but something bigger. Goddamnit. There was nothing we could do about that right now.

“Areson!” I yelled. “Get off of it!”

Claude let out a mighty noise. Not quite a croak. More like a reverse belch. He slurped up the unconscious form of Holger and Samantha once again. Miss Nadine launched herself at the side of the monster, her mandible things thrashing. The neckless head of the creature struggled to turn toward the giant caterpillar, still oblivious of the ogre on its head. The twin, beady eyes focused on Miss Nadine, who also happened to be directly in front of me.

The eyes glowed.

Oh shit.

I dove to the right just as the twin lightning bolts blasted forward. They hit the long, fuzzy form of Miss Nadine. Her body inflated. She momentarily glowed, like she’d been transformed into a neon tube. And then the former-kindergarten-teacher-turned-guardian just exploded, green gore and black, fuzzy quills going everywhere at once. I was hit in the side of the head with one of the saddles, sizzling hot, pushing me even further off course. Areson screamed in outrage as I continued to roll.

My foot hit a non-disarmed summoning trap as I scrambled up the hill. A pair of dead naiad guards suddenly appeared, splatting onto the hill in front of me. They rolled down the hill toward me, and I had to hurdle one as I continue to scramble back toward Claude the rampaging frog lizard thing, who continued to look about with bewilderment.

“Areson,” I yelled a second time. “Get the hell off of it. We can only attack its stomach.”

The ogre was attempting to… I don’t know. Dig into the thing’s head with his bare hands or something. Whatever he was doing, the monster didn’t even know he was there. If the ogre wasn’t going to listen to me, that was his own problem. I had mere seconds before the lizard would finally notice me.

Samantha: IT SWALLOWED ME AGAIN. DO NOT WORRY. I’LL JUST KILL HIM FROM WITHIN.

I slid to a stop just to the side of the thing, trying to keep out of its direct line of view. Claude croak-belched again. He vomited something out. I was pretty sure it was Holger again, who remained unconscious. Samantha and the other elf were still in there. God, I hope this works.

“Hang on, Areson,” I yelled. “He’s gonna flip. Jump off.”

I cast Protective Shell.

I was expecting the larger monster to bowl over to the side, like a semi-truck rolling over, which would hopefully expose his stomach. The hint in the description was pretty obvious that was how to kill this thing.

That’s not what happened.

I was too close. The diameter of my protective shell grew with my intelligence, and I probably should have cast it while I was lower on the hill so the angle of the sphere would’ve pushed him to the side and not launched him straight into the air.

Whoops, I thought as I watched the massive lizard thing blast off straight up into the sky. I didn’t see Areson, but I assumed the ogre was still attached, riding the thing like a bucking bronco. The boss’s stubby legs scrambled as the fat thing flew straight up into the night, faster and higher than should be physically possible for something that big.

I should get out of the way, I thought idly.

Donut galloped into the shell astride Mongo, looking up. “That wasn’t too the side, Carl!”

“Shoot it! Quick!” The monster reached its apex and started falling back down toward us.

“Fireball!” she cried as the beachball-sized ball of fire burst forth. The level-10 fireball rose slowly into the air, almost reluctant as it blasted directly into the pink stomach of the flailing beast. The creature exploded in flames, his entire body catching alight as he landed atop the barely-visible shield with a vicious splat. The howling monster sizzled and scrabbled as it started to slide off the dome, falling in the direction of the forest, leaving a smear of flaming gore atop the shield that started to rain down on us a few moments after it detached from the boss’s body.

The line of trees stopped the monster’s descent. It roared indignantly as it came to a rest, face down like it was doing a hand stand. Its legs scrambled against the sparking shield. It was stuck. It would either tumble backward into the woods, or it would fall back toward us if the shield ran out first. Behind it, the massive trees started to bow and bend under its weight.

From this angle we could not see its health bar.

“Wow, look at that, Carl!” Donut cried. “Fireball is awesome!”

Donut had punched a hole directly into its belly and somehow caught the contents on fire, but the job wasn’t done. The boss, his large face pressed against the ground, fired multiple lightning bolts in every which direction as it screamed in pain, showering gore. The lightning did nothing but slam into the ground, and random trees all around us started to explode.

“Where the hell am I?” Holger groaned from the ground. I hadn’t even realized he was here at my feet. “That thing ate me right up.”

It still hadn’t fallen over. The four legs waved. Claude squealed in pain and fear. We had seconds before the shell would fizzle out.

“Missiles,” I cried as I loaded my least powerful hob-lobber. We were too close for any real explosives. I tossed it directly into the thing’s stomach just as Donut started lobbing magic missiles into the open wound.

“Why isn’t it dead? Every time it breathes, gore comes out. I mean, really,” Donut shouted. “No, no! Mongo! No!”

Mongo—with Donut still on his back—roared and dove for the open wound just as the spell fizzled out. Donut backflipped off the dinosaur, landing perfectly on my shoulder, shooting one last magic missile just before the dinosaur dove head-first into the open wound.

“It’s going to fall onto its back,” I cried as the trees behind it continued to bend.

The spell snapped off, and the trees acted like spring hinges, launching the lizard directly at my position.

“Oh fuck,” I cried. I scrabbled to jump out of the way. Too late. Too late. Donut was already gone, launching off my shoulder with supernatural speed. I watched in slow motion as the corpulent lizard felt toward me, Mongo’s long tail sticking from the hole in its stomach.

“Gah,” I felt myself cry as I fell directly into the wound. It was no longer on fire, but I suddenly couldn’t see or breathe. A searing pain ripped through me. I felt my neck getting rent open by a claw as I was compressed further. I couldn’t scream or see. It felt as if a building had landed atop me. My health flashed a warning. I slammed my healing spell, but the pain kept coming.

It was Mongo’s back claw pushing off me as the goddamned dinosaur gleefully ate his way up and out the back of the monster. My shoulder shattered as he pushed away from me. I caught glimpse of light, and I took a deep breath as Mongo broke free, coming out the back of the monster. I drank a healing potion, crying out in pain, taking a lungful of Claude gore. I sputtered, and I realized I had lizard gore in my goddamned gills. I was still wearing the ring. I used a finger to clear them out. The sensation was like I was trying to scoop yogurt from the back of my throat.

Holy shit, that just happened.

The whole fight had lasted maybe thirty seconds.

As always, once the boss died, the supernatural glue that held its body together disappeared. The body exploded. It literally exploded in gore, and I felt myself fall a few feet as Claude guts rained all around me. I had Holger to my left, sputtering, Mongo to my right, grunting has he devoured up the guts. The bush elf was dead, his body in pieces. Areson sat nearby, rubbing his head. I had no idea what had happened with him, but he looked pissed.

Donut leaped into a branch overlooking the scene, looking down at the mess and clicking her tongue with disgust. Quills of Miss Nadine littered the area.

Sitting right on my lap was Samantha, completely soaked in gore.

“Hi Carl,” the sex doll head said. “I told you I’d kill it.”
~

Hi guys. I'm literally traveling right now. I just got back from Hawaii after installing my child in school, and I'm posting this from the airport because I'm making an unexpected trip to LA to pick up my other child's abandoned car. Talk soon.