Chapter 164 (Patreon)

Trophy Count: 38
Remaining Hunters: 914

“Poison is good against the mantids,” one audience member had said. “It affects them almost three times as fast as it does to everyone else.”

“That’s no good,” someone else said. “Those guys load up on antidote stuff. I’m pretty sure Vrah has an antidote ring. So you can poison her, but it’ll get cured almost right away.”

“And it can’t be cloud poison. She’s immune against that now, too, remember?” Someone else said. “You’d have to stab her with poisoned blade. It’d have to be a poison that kills in five seconds or less. Or one that can’t be cured.”

“That’s not going to work,” I said with a sigh. “Any other ideas?”

“The other hunters like to use alarm traps because they’re loud, and loud sounds hurt mantids,” yet another audience member said. This was a little, chunky, dwarf-like girl with what looked like chocolate all over her face. “It keeps the bugs away long enough for them to claim the crawler bounties. They like to swoop in from above and poach other hunters’ kills.”

I glanced over at Drick, who gave a half nod.

“They poach the other hunters?” I asked. “Doesn’t that piss people off?”

The crowd laughed. They’d finally warmed to the uncomfortable subject and were all participating. A few had gotten up and left, but the moment they did, the soother dudes at the door allowed others to enter the small arena, and the seats were all full. When the door opened, I could see a throng of people had gathered outside.

“A few years ago, Vrah got into a fight and killed a fellow hunter,” someone else called. This guy was a fuzzy quokka, the same type of creature as the talk show host, Ripper Wonton. “They said it was legal since it was in the Hunting Grounds. Since then, people just do what the Dark Hive says.”

“But those nebular guys are also waiting to hunt me. Why are they pushing back against the hive?”

“The nebs have never gotten along with the mantids,” the same quokka said. “They fought a war a long time ago. Plus, you know, they’re the nebs. They kinda just do what they do.”

“I don’t normally agree with mantid policy,” Uptown Hal said, “but in that case, the nebulars got what they deserved. They were squatting in a hive system. Not that the Dark Hive had anything to do with that. Those were the Burrowers, but most people don’t know the difference.”

I’d never seen a nebular before. I hadn’t seen any during my raid on Zockau, and from what I gathered, they weren’t ones to attend shows like this.

They weren’t actually a distinct alien race, but a religious cult that mechanically and bio augmented themselves as a sacrament. Their deity was apparently some space oddity at the center of the inner system. They were nomadic, oftentimes settling onto barely-hospitable planets and then bioengineering their own children to adapt. They’d only live on the planet long enough for their children to grow to adults, and then half of them would move on to a new world. They consisted of soothers and humans and elves and dozens of other aliens, though apparently it was sometimes difficult to tell what their lineage was because they were always wearing the same outfit, which apparently covered their whole bodies. I’d have to see it for myself, but I had the impression they looked kinda like the sand people from Star Wars wearing bishop hats.

People viewed them more as a nuisance than a general threat. From what I gathered, they had a healthy income stream, but I had no idea what it was. They didn’t actively recruit, and they only settled on empty worlds and abandoned space stations. They fought if they were attacked but were generally considered pacifistic and kept to themselves.

Except when it came to the crawl.

As I understood it, the Nebular Sin Patrol was one of the few hunting groups who always attended a crawl, but the actual hunters were different every time. They trained for the event, and the team consisted of young males, all studying to be priests. They believed people like me—someone born on a “seeded” planet—were an abomination, and they considered the act of hunting us as a sort of crusade. They spent a lot of money on sending hunters, and they sometimes even paid for a deity sponsorship. They were actively campaigning for the right to run a future crawl.

There weren’t many mentions of them in the cookbook, but it appeared they liked to focus their crawler extermination efforts on cleric and paladin-based players for some reason. I remembered from that list that they’d claimed Prepotente and Miriam Dom as their targets. Someone else mentioned that they’d biffed an attack on Lucia Mar a few days back, despite her being claimed by the Dark Hive.

As I suspected, the truce on who was allowed to hunt whom was already falling apart.

“That’s what always happens, in the end,” Uptown Hal said, when I pointed that out. “Scarcity breeds increased competition. And competition always leads to violence. It’s actually a little ironic, considering that’s a core tenet of the neb’s bizarre religion.”

“It is the one part of their religion I agree with,” Dick added, looking at me. He nodded sagely. “Their doctrine of survival. Competition breeds violence. But it is their next principle which I feel is more important. Violence breeds chaos. From chaos we were born and into chaos we will succumb.”

A sudden, uncomfortable silence filled the room.

“Do these panels always stray this far off the main subject?” Sydnee asked.

“Just the good ones,” Uptown Hal said as the audience laughed.

~

Zev had returned to the green room as I sprinted in.

“Carl, you took too long on your panel,” she said. “I was going to give you fifteen minutes in the training room, but they came and took it away.”

“It’s okay. I need five minutes to get ready.”

“What happened on that panel? The tunnel is going crazy. The Valtay blocked all the attempted live-tunnels, but everyone is talking about it. They said you attacked Circe Took, that you somehow pushed her off the podium. And the Apothecary was there egging you on.”

I laughed as I grabbed the bowl of fruit on the counter. They’d delivered it earlier while I was training. I pulled it all into the inventory, including the bowl.

I tried to pull out an alarm trap, but I received an error.

You may not remove inventory items in this location.

Shit, shit. Okay. I’d have to do it all when I hit the ground. I started moving things around in my hotlist.

“You know, Zev,” I said as I frantically worked. “It’s weirdly comforting that the telephone game still exists out in the wide universe. It reminds me that you guys aren’t that different.”

“I don’t know what that means, Carl.”

I ignored her as I jumped back to the chat.

Carl: Okay, guys. Listen carefully. I’ll be there in four minutes. I’m going to copy and paste the plan. Read it quickly and then tell me when you’re in place. Katia, are you near a guildhall?

Katia: Entering now. We were trying to make it back to where you are, but it was just too far.

Donut: DON’T GO INTO THE SAFEROOM.

Carl: Are all the dots still turned off on the map?

Donut: I THINK SO. I HAVEN’T BEEN OUTSIDE IN A WHILE. SAMANTHA IS STILL OUT THERE, BUT SHE’S MAD AT ME AND ISN’T TALKING.

Samantha: YOU ABANDONED ME. THIS WAS WORSE THAN THE NOTHING. IT WAS WORSE THAN WHEN MY MOTHER HUMILIATED ME IN FRONT OF MY KING. I DON’T KNOW IF I CAN HANDLE ANY MORE INDIGNITY. FIRST THE DISGUSTING, SLOBBERING DOG TREATED ME AS A CHEW TOY, AND THEN YOU DID NOTHING TO HELP ME. AND NOW I AM ATTACHED TO THE BACK OF THIS BUG. I AM SURROUNDED BY DECAPITATED HEADS AND LET ME TELL YOU, THEY ARE POOR COMPANY.

Donut: OH, HONEY. YOU USED TO BE A SEX DOLL. I’M QUITE CERTAIN YOU CAN HANDLE ALL MANNER OF INDIGNITY.

Samantha: DON’T SLUT SHAME ME. I’M GOING TO KILL YOUR MOTHER.

As they bickered back and forth, I activated an alarm trap within my inventory. I actually had an initiated one already on my list, forever playing “Kickstart my Heart” by Motley Crue, but I decided it would be best to have something with a short delay.

Carl: You two fight later. Donut did you read the plan?

Donut: LUCIA AND HER DOG ARE IN THE SAFE ROOM. SHE’S SCREAMING AND SCREECHING, AND THE LAST TIME WE LOOKED, SHE WAS PUNCHING HERSELF IN THE FACE. SHE’S TRASHED THE PLACE WORSE THAN THE TIME MISS BEATRICE WRECKED THE KITCHEN WHEN YOU TOLD HER SHE SHOULD STOP TRYING TO SELL THOSE AWFUL LEGGINGS. CARL, LUCIA IS CRAZY. I KNOW WE SAID THAT BEFORE, BUT SHE’S CRAZIER THAN YOU THINK. SHE’S WAITING FOR ME TO COME OUT. SHE’S FIGURED OUT A WAY TO CHEAT THE SAFETY MEASURES. SHE HAS TRAPS THAT KICK PEOPLE OUT OF THE ROOM. I WENT OUT THERE WHEN I THOUGHT SHE WAS GONE, AND I HIT A TRAP. IT TELEPORTED ME INTO THE MIDDLE OF TOWN. AND THEN WHEN I TRIED TO GET BACK TO THE SAFEROOM, I HIT ANOTHER. THEN SHE CAME OUT OF THE WOODS AND CHASED ME INSIDE JUST AS THE HUNTERS ARRIVED. MORDECAI AND I WANTED THEM TO KILL HER, BUT THEY GOT HERE REALLY FAST, AND WE THINK THEY ALREADY KNEW YOU WERE GOING TO BE HERE. NOW LUCIA IS IN THE SAFEROOM, I’M IN THE GUILDHALL, AND THERE ARE A BUNCH OF HUNTERS OUTSIDE. THERE ARE SIX OR SEVEN BUG GUYS AND LIKE 10 OF THESE GUYS IN WEIRD ROBES WITH TUBES ALL OVER THEM. THEY HAVE MAGNIFICENT HATS THOUGH.

Samantha: THEIR HATS REALLY ARE FASHIONABLE.

Carl: Goddamnit, did you read my instructions or not?

Donut: I AM TRYING TO GIVE YOU IMPORTANT BACKSTORY, CARL. AND YES.

Katia: I won’t be able to make a good facsimile in time, but I have an idea. Daniel has a stuffed animal called a back alley mouser that’ll work. I’m already at a table, shaping a fake crown and sunglasses. Too bad we don’t have Robot Donut anymore.

Carl: Is Lucia in her pretty woman form, or is she the skeleton lady?

Donut: SHE WAS IN THE PRETTY LADY FORM LAST I SAW, BUT THAT WAS A WHILE AGO. SHE ALREADY CHANGED ONCE. ALSO, WHAT IS A MOUSER? I DON’T LIKE THE SOUND OF THAT ONE BIT.

Carl: The hunters haven’t tried coming into the saferoom? Even to just talk?

Donut: NOT THAT I KNOW OF. I THINK THEY KNOW YOU’RE COMING BACK. THEY’RE WAITING FOR YOU JUST LIKE LUCIA IS WAITING FOR ME.

Samantha: THEY KNOW CARL IS COMING. THEY DON’T KNOW EXACTLY WHEN. THEY DIDN’T KNOW WHERE, EITHER.

My heart skipped a beat.

Carl: Samantha.

Samantha: SO... THEY DO KNOW SOME OF IT. THEY TRIED TORTURING ME TO TELL THEM WHERE YOU WOULD APPEAR. I PLAYED ALONG. LIKE THEY COULD ACTUALLY TORTURE ME. HA! I TOLD THEM, BUT I TOLD THEM THE WRONG SPOT. I HAD YOU APPEARING A WHOLE FIVE METERS AWAY FROM THE REAL SPOT. YOU’RE WELCOME. BUT THE DRYAD GUY SNITCHED ME OUT. SO THEY KNOW. BUT THE ROBE GUYS AND THE BUG GUYS ARE FIGHTING OVER WHO GETS TO KILL YOU, AND I THINK THEY ARE GOING TO KILL EACH OTHER FIRST.

I took a deep breath.

Carl: Okay. I’m transferring in a minute. Get ready at the door. Wait for my signal.

“Zev, is it going to let me down an invisibility potion before I teleport back?”

“I... I don’t think so, Carl. Thirty seconds to transfer.”

I clicked on a health potion to test it. I received an error. Great. I would be coming in without any protections.

“Okay, this is it.” I said. A strange calm descended onto me. There was nothing peaceful about the sudden warmth that spread through me. Still, that was the sense I had. Calm. In the back of my mind, that feeling of movement, the hidden river, raged.

This is where you belong, Carl, the river said. Jump into the rapids. Embrace the chaos.

“Zev, if I die and Donut gets out of this, please watch over her.”

“I’ll do my best, Carl,” Zev said as I felt the first tingles of teleportation, like hundreds of hands coming to drag me into the abyss.

~

Entering Alucarda.

I teleported back into the village, my face pressed up against the door to the saferoom tavern. I’d actually been standing inthe doorway when I’d originally been whisked away, and I was lucky I hadn’t just had my nose sliced off. Instead, the effect was like I’d been smacked in the face with a baseball bat. I slammed down on the invisibility potion as I staggered. I dropped a smoke curtain as I jumped to the left, tripping again, this time over the corpse of an NPC. The same druid I’d been talking to when I’d been teleported away. The snitch.

At that same moment, multiple things happened at once.

The heavy form of a mantis landed on the ground right where I’d been standing. The creature—it wasn’t Vrah—slammed her forward, segmented arms against the ground, swinging wildly in an attempt to catch me. She missed by inches.

The entire front of the tavern rocked as magic missiles and lightning bolts and small, fist-sized fireballs slammed in and around the doorway. These all came from a group of nebs huddled about forty feet away. A full-powered magic missile slammed my shoulder just as I activated Wisp Armor.

“Gah,” I cried out as the mantis behind me was also slammed by the attack. She crumpled to the ground. Not dead, but she screamed profanities at the nebular priests.

Despite the magic protection, my health plummeted by almost half. I continued to run, praying my invisibility would protect me.

Carl: Do it now!

Donut: They’re out!

I heard the pop of teleportation behind me, but I didn’t have time to look. I cast Tripper, causing the rest of the traps in the area to all go off at once. Hundreds of little explosions and snares and teleport traps all detonated simultaneously.

I hurled an alarm trap ball as chaos erupted. I lurched toward the next building, turning the corner onto another street. I paused at a strange scene. There was a goddamn inverted crucifix in the middle of the street with an ursine nailed to it upside down. He had the word “Leche” carved into his chest. The words were facing up, so they were carved upside down on the bear’s naked stomach.

The creature was still alive.

What the fuck. I didn’t have time. I moved around him and across the street. I came to a small temple that overlooked the town. It was the tallest building in the area that wasn’t an actual treehouse. I activated Sticky Feet as I executed a drop kick against the wall. I ran along the side of the building, angling upward to get a better view as I pulled the next potion ball. This one was filled with my last potion of Bloodlust, the same berserking potion I’d used to save us against the baby sharktopuses. It made creatures speed up and blindly attack anyone near them. I searched for a target.

Donut: IT WORKED! CLOCKWORK SLEDGIE NUMBER ONE WENT OUTSIDE, AND STUPID LUCIA DID HER TELEPORT THING ON CLOCKWORK SLEDGIE TWO! I CAN’T BELIEVE IT. THAT THING DIDN’T LOOK ANYTHING LIKE ME. SHE’S GONE! SO IS THE DOG!

Relief flooded me. I’d been relying solely on the information from my panel that this would’ve worked. Information I’d publicly dismissed as untrustworthy and too risky to rely upon.

Where the hell was Vrah?

Carl: Have the real Sledge wheel it all the way to the door to the outside. Don’t let Bomo out of the guildhall. Take the invisibility potion in case someone comes in. If they do, pull the whole thing into your inventory before they can steal it and book it back to safety.

The trap ball I’d tossed finally activated.

Peaking at Number Five on October 17th, 1975, it’s “Ballroom Blitz.”

I cast Ping. I received an error message.

Oh shit! It didn’t work! It’s almost like the mapping system is blocked out in this town!

“Damnit,” I growled as the snare and bass drum intro to the song echoed through town. My abs burned from standing at a right angle. I’d heard this tune a million times, but I had no idea who the artist was. I scrambled up the side of the building, curving around the back of the steeple to get a view of the bedlam spreading down below. One of the two clockwork Sledges, who’d teleported right into the midst of the hunters, exploded just as a pair of pissed-off mantis warriors descended on the group of nebular priests.

The bugs screamed and pointed at their injured companion as the nebs shouted back. One of the bugs pushed a robed priest, whose hands started glowing.

A third mantis was attempting to destroy the trap ball. The music had an obvious effect on the bugs. All four of the ones on the ground—the two fighting the nebs, the injured one at the door, and the one slamming the trap ball against a rock—all had a debuff over their head. Unsettled.

They’re all bunched together.

I quickly stowed the potion ball and pulled a full strength hob-lobber. I chucked it into the chaos.

Bam!

Body parts tore through the air. Notifications flew, including a level notification. I waved them away as I desperately searched the air for Vrah. Was she invisible too?

Despite the hob-lobber going off right in their midst, the damage-enhanced explosive had only killed a handful of them. All of them were blown off their feet, some now missing body parts. It appeared I’d killed three of the nebs, but none of the mantis warriors. They had explosive protection. Still, the protection wasn’t absolute. They were all injured and disoriented.

The song continued to play, louder than ever. I took a second invisibility potion. I only had two more after this. My sticky feet would run out soon. I scrambled up the side of the building, going even higher. I grasped onto the tip of the spire, anchoring myself so I wouldn’t fall when my foot buff ended.

Carl: Samantha, where are you and Vrah?

A pair of bugs swooped down onto the scene, coming from the top of a massive tree that appeared to have recently been on fire. They rocketed toward their injured companions. Neither of these were Vrah.

I pulled the berserking potion, aimed, and beamed it directly at the closest of the two flying bugs. It slammed the back of the creature, who howled indignantly.

The mantis turned in the air, searching for me. Her companion also stopped, looking at the bug questioningly. The Enraged buff appeared over the first bug’s head. She reached over, almost casually, and yanked the head off of her own sister. Holy shit. She hissed loudly and then dived like a hawk toward the still-recovering group of nebs and bugs.

The robe on one of the priests had ripped off in the explosion, revealing a young, human male. The priest had almost been zeroed out by the explosion, but he’d healed himself. He fired a magic missile at the screaming and diving mantis, which staggered the bug, who shrieked in rage. At this distance, I couldn’t read the name over the priest’s head, but I saw it started with a Q. I jumped into the menu for the ring of divine suffering, searching for a nebular with a Q name. There was only one. I marked him as the berserking mantis descended, slamming onto the ground, cleaving the human in half.

I then marked the next nebular. And the next. And the next. By this point, they were all fighting, and all of them were injured, and I couldn’t dare mark any more.

All three of the killed nebs had intelligence as their highest stat, giving me a total of six stat points.

I quickly noted that Vrah was on the list, able to be marked. Lucia was not.

All of the dots on my map suddenly populated. Whatever protection spell there was before, it was now gone. The screen was sparsely populated. The X’s of dead NPCs filled the town.

Samantha: WE WERE WAITING ON THE OTHER SIDE OF TOWN. SHE GOT INTO A FIGHT WITH MISS-BOO-HOO-YOU-KILLED-MY-DOGGIE WHEN SHE TELEPORTED HERE BUT THE DOG LADY CAST A SPELL AND DISAPPEARED, AND NOW THE BUG LADY IS REALLY MAD. AT LEAST THAT’S WHAT I THINK HAPPENED. I’M FACING THE WRONG DIRECTION. THE BUG LADY KEEPS HISSING. SHE SOUNDS LIKE A SNAKE WITH A LISP. THEN SHE THREW ME ON THE GROUND AND FLEW AWAY.

Shit, shit. She was coming for me now. She’d found me last time when I was invisible. I still didn’t see her. I had to hurry.

Vrah wasn’t stupid. She knew Samantha was feeding me information, and she’d kept the indestructible head with her just so I’d get a false sense of what was going on. It was clear the hunter was still receiving information from outside the dungeon. She knew that Lucia always set a teleportation escape spot when she entered an area. She also knew, as I now did, that Lucia regularly cast that spell while she was in a saferoom. This teleported everyone in the room away, allowing her to attack them outside the safety of the room. It was insidious, a way to cheat the saferoom protections.

Lucia had been in the saferoom, waiting for Donut to come out so she could teleport all of them to a distant spot where she could strike at the cat and get her revenge. This was an actual spell, and I knew it only worked when Lucia was in her beautiful woman form.

Vrah somehow knew where this pre-set teleportation destination was and was lying in wait, away from the inevitable, messy chaos with her sisters and the nebs. No matter what happened when I bounced back, there was a distinct possibility that at least one of the three high-priority targets were going to show up at that spot. She’d probably been hoping that all three of us would appear: me, Donut, and Lucia.

If I’d precisely followed the panel plan, that’s exactly what would’ve happened.

Instead, Vrah got just Lucia.

We knew there were at least two teleport traps. One right inside the door to the saferoom and one right outside the door to the guildhall. According to some nerd kid at the panel, the system allowed them to be set within saferooms because the real trap module was actually set outside, at the destination. A loophole. One that had been around for years and years.

Despite appearances to the contrary, Lucia was always vigilant when she entered a new area. In addition to using the teleports as an attack, she had more than a dozen different ways to teleport herself and her pets out of a dangerous situation.

We had to use that knowledge to our advantage.

Mordecai and Donut, not knowing if they’d be able to talk to me, had originally come up with a desperate plan. They hoped to summon hunters to us to take care of Lucia before I had the chance to return. Hunters rarely lingered in an area after a kill, and if they didn’t have outside information, they would’ve, in theory, had no idea Donut and I were still in the area, or worse, that I was going to teleport to the area vulnerable.

Bomo was still tuned to Zockau, and they sent the cretin through with a note, telling the hunters of Lucia’s location. But they already knew, and Lucia was refusing to come out of the saferoom, thus setting the stage for the three-way showdown.

The public plan was for me to immediately cast Tripper and jump into the saferoom just as Donut jumped in from the other side. Then, Lucia still in a rage due to the earlier events. Events I didn’t yet know the full details of—would teleport the entire room to the edge of town, where we’d have it out. We’d have to quickly dispatch the other crawler. Then, no longer cornered, we’d be able to face the hunters or flee.

The panel audience all thought this was a grand plan and were quite proud of themselves. It was suicide, but I didn’t tell them that. Instead, I took bits and pieces of their ideas and cobbled together a better one.

Well, maybe not better. But one that wasn’t floating free all around the tunnels.

I took Drick’s advice and created chaos that I could hide within.

Donut had cast Clockwork Triplicate on the Sledge. She had the two automatons rush into the room, one after another. The first triggered the teleport trap and appeared right outside in the midst of the hunters.

The second rushed into the room at Lucia. This was clockwork Sledge number two with Donut on his shoulder. Only it wasn’t Donut, but one of Bautista’s beanie babies. Supposedly a black cat thing wearing a crown and sunglasses.

Lucia would’ve had to cast the spell immediately, lest Donut cast a dispel magic enchantment, yet another non-attack spell that would be allowed within a saferoom.

It all worked as I hoped and feared. I had a sinking suspicion that they’d be ready at the teleport spot, and I was right. I’d assumed Lucia would be dead. But something happened, and the kid escaped. That little shit was crazy, but she was also a brilliant fighter. I still couldn’t believe Donut had survived her encounter with her.

But all that was only the first part of the plan. The rest of this I was making up on the fly.

Down below, anarchy reigned. The nebs ran from the remaining bugs. A total of three mantises were dead and only three of the nebs remained.

I’d killed three of the robed hunters and successfully marked three more before they were killed by the bugs. The berserking bug had managed to kill two of her own people before getting cut down by one of her own. I’d blown the back legs off another bug, the one who’d been trying to disarm the alarm trap. She remained on the ground, crawling away toward the edge of town, leaving a streak of white gore from her ruined back legs. She was so disoriented she hadn’t even attempted to heal herself.

There was no easy way to get down. I jumped from the spire, landing on the roof of the temple.

Crack.

“Uh oh,” I said as the ceiling collapsed under my feet.

Entering Temple of Diwata.

Warning: This Temple has been Desecrated.

I crashed heavily into the building, landing atop a small shrine, shattering it. Water splashed everywhere. A notification popped up, but I waved it away. I healed myself and jumped to my feet. This was a wide, empty room filled with tree branches and vines and potted plants.

And bodies. Lots and lots of dead bodies, all NPCs.

Most were dryads, but there was also a pile of dead funeral bell guards. They’d all been killed by Lucia. I didn’t have time to figure all that out. I rushed for the front door of the temple, thought better of it, and jumped out one of the side windows, which had already been shattered in the earlier explosion.

Carl: Coming in. Samantha, roll into the woods. Head south.

Samantha: IS THAT SUPPOSED TO BE A PUN?

I cursed myself for having wasted my Ping spell when the map was down. It had a five-minute cooldown.

I was still invisible, and I bolted for the unguarded saferoom door. All the nebs were now dead. A single mantis stood over their corpses, all the way at the edge of town. The legless mantis still crawled away while a third leaned over her, attempting to render aid.

The song continued to blast. The ball had rolled up against the side of the saferoom, and it bounced up and down to the beat between me and the door.

Slam!

Vrah hit the ground with the force of a meteor, landing atop the trap ball. It shattered, causing the battlefield to plunge into silence. My ears rang. Smoke from the dying curtain swirled away, catching in the wind, forming twin vortices before fading away.

Oh fuck.

The mantis had been level 70 last time I’d faced her in Zockau. She was now level 74. She was also a lot bigger. The back of the praying mantis alien was covered with heads, dotting her exoskeleton like round pustules, all in various states of decay. I stopped dead, not daring to move. She didn’t move, either, for several moments. She was right there, fifteen feet in front of me.

I recognized the two heads at the top of the pile against her neck. The one on the left was Langley, mouth wide in surprise. The one on the right was a human I’d seen on the recap a few times. Bogdon Ro, one of the top player killers. He’d been in the top 10. The only one so far to be killed by a hunter. Langley and his team had been hunting him when they’d all been set upon by Vrah’s team.

“Mother,” the legless mantis cried as she dragged herself away. “Mother, where am I?”

You have been deshrouded! Invisibility negated!

“Carl,” Vrah said, turning to face me. The movement was smooth, indicating she’d known I was there the whole time. She looked over at the pile of dead insects and nebs and made a chittering noise. “You are a worthy opponent, I will give you that. You and the Lajabless child both. I’ve almost forgotten what it’s like to hurt for a kill. But it ends here.”

She held her crossbow in one hand. It was loaded with a glowing bolt.

“I met your mom a couple hours ago,” I said. “I pushed her off the podium.”

“That’s not...” Vrah paused, and then what might’ve been a smile cracked across her insect face. She made a clicking noise. “Nice try, crawler.”

I, too, smiled. “You can hide it, but it’s clear you’re still speaking with your mother. Is that why you’re so accomplished? Because you’re always cheating.”

“It’s not true, but do you really think it would matter if I was cheating? Would anyone really care? You are nothing but livestock, and livestock exists to be culled. Everyone watching right now doesn’t care how this moment came to be, just that it’s here. There’s not a regulation in the galaxy that will change that fact. When I’m done with this hunt, I will take my place in the birthing hall of Hive Home two, and I will birth a thousand children, all of whom will be born with the memory of this moment, of your slaughter, yet not a single one will care because you will nothing but a faceless blip, one of thousands.”

“So it’s true?” I said. “I heard that earlier today. That this was your last crawl, and you were being sent off to be breeding stock. Your sister Xindy was supposed to take your place as top hunter. Too bad she never got a chance.”

“This won’t be pleasant, crawler,” Vrah said as she raised the crossbow.

“Wait,” I said, holding my hand up. “Langley, I’m sorry I couldn’t help you before. I appreciate your help now.”

Vrah cocked her bug head to the side.

“What?” she asked just as the reanimated corpse head bit down on her neck. On the other side, Bogdon Ro also sunk his teeth in the bug. Then a third head started biting at her. Vrah screamed and fired her crossbow as I hit the deck. The bolt whizzed over my head.

I jumped up, pulled the arrow of Enthusiastic Double Gonorrhea and rammed it into Vrah’s neck just before the shield popped up, which ejected the zombie heads on the bug woman’s back and threw me back. I slid, bumping into Donut, who’d sneaked out while still invisible and cast as many Second Chance spells as she could before her mana ran out.

Vrah writhed as the bottom of her carapace burst into flames. She jumped into the air in an attempt to fly away.

“Go!” I shouted.

The two other mantids had finally noticed and rushed toward us. Donut and I jumped into the saferoom.

It was right there at the door. The wheeled bomb that the system named Just Wait Until Your Daddy Gets Home. The same wheeled bomb I’d wanted to use to level Zockau. The Sledge stood there, peering outside at the two mantises rushing toward us.

“Cover your ears,” I shouted as I kicked the wheeled bomb out the door. It rolled and started to tip as I slammed the saferoom door shut.

“We’ve gone over this before, Carl,” Donut shouted. “I can’t cover my...”

Bam.

~

The world rocked. We all flew into the air and slammed to the ground, despite this being a saferoom. My ears rang. The world rumbled for a very long time. Notifications rolled down my screen.

Samantha: YO, WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK WAS THAT.

I expected the bopca to start shouting, but it seemed we were alone. I wondered if Lucia’s teleport trick also jettisoned the poor bopcas out of the room.

“Do you think we got her?” Donut said after she recovered. “What about that crazy bitch and her dog?”

I pulled up my notifications and started scrolling through. “Oh, shit,” I said. “Goddamnit. I killed that ursine guy. No other NPCs, though I got a bunch of mobs in the woods. Lucia had really cleared out the town. Christ. Lucia got away.”

Vrah had also escaped. That was okay. I was expecting that. She’d cast some special shield at that last minute and was flying away.

This was actually a better outcome. I wasn’t planning on this, but I knew exactly where she was headed. A golden opportunity had just presented itself.

I’d killed the three remaining mantises, despite their protection against explosions. That meant Vrah was the last one left of the warriors. There was only one other mantis hunter left on the whole floor. A male, holed up in Zockau. He was a salesman. The guy who took the looted gear and wheeled and dealed and sold it to the other faction representatives who’d installed themselves in the local saferooms.

They were all stuck here until the floor was done. Nine more days.

But that guy, that sole remaining mantis, suddenly had a very big problem.

I recalled the description of the arrow of Enthusiastic Double Gonorrhea. It had originally been meant for poor Louis because he wouldn’t shut up about how hot the leader of the Dream’s mother was.

Arrow of Enthusiastic Double Gonorrhea.

This is a regular arrow, but the tip is dipped in a poison that will inflict you with Enthusiastic Double Gonorrhea.

Trust me on this. You don’t want Enthusiastic Double Gonorrhea.

It doesn’t kill you, but you’ll want it to. It sets your genitals aflame. Literally. And then it heals that area of your body over and over. The only way to remove the disease is to, uh, geld yourself. Or pass it on to someone else.

Future hive queen Vrah wasn’t about to neuter herself. So she could either suffer the consequences or she could pass it on.

“Come on,” I said, rushing back to the saferoom. Katia was there in our personal space, as was Bautista and Imani and Elle and several others. The second door leading out to the guildhall common area was open, and multiple others were in there, waiting. They shouted as we entered.

“In a hurry,” I yelled. “Bomo, come here.”

I grabbed a pen and paper and wrote:

To the mantis representative holed up in Zockau. We can protect you. But you gotta come now. Bring all the gear you’ve collected, and we’ll keep you safe until the end of the floor. No gear, no deal.

Trust me, buddy. You’ll want this.

“You think that was exciting,” Donut said as I shoved Bomo out the door. “Wait until you see my fight with Lucia on the recap episode in an hour! Zev says they’re gonna show the whole thing!”

~~

Next chapter is actually done, just not put together yet, and I wanted to make sure this got out before the end of the month.  We're also going to get part 3 of CrawlCon, which promises to be interesting. Carl is going to be signing autographs and we'll finally meet the Popov brothers.

Structuring this chapter and the next was pretty challenging for a number of reasons, and I'll likely tweak it a bit. It was actually one of the most difficult things I've done since the fight with the city elves in book 2, which was the most difficult scene I'd ever written for a bunch of under-the-hood reasons. I need to go back and clean up some of the numbers, I know.  

Any questions you've had about WTF was going on with certain things in this chapter will hopefully be answered in the next. We'll also get some additional insight about Miss Lucia and learn a bit about the nature of her mental state.