Chapters 207 and 208 (Patreon)

Chapter 207

December 12.

Assault begins December 24.

Totems in deck: One of Six.

Total Cards in current deck: Five.

Entering the Mock Battle Arena.

Warning: You do not have a full deck.

Warning: You have a consumable card in your deck. This card will be lost if used in this arena.

Warning: While generated mobs cannot harm you in this location, the environment still can. Or you can still harm yourself. Try not to die in here because that would be really dumb and anticlimactic.

Choose your difficulty.

“Carl, what should I pick?” Donut asked. “Hey! It’s 1,000 gold if we want to fight an easy opponent, 2,000 for one equal to our deck, and 5,000 if we want a ‘challenge.’ This is an outrage! Wait, it says more options appear if we beat it at challenge difficulty. Let’s do that!”

“No,” I said. “Do the easy one first to see what that really means. Plus we don’t know if this seal guy is going to follow our instructions. He was pretty pissed when I stuck him with that flag before.”

We met Sister Ines’s squad just outside, and we went into the mock battle arena together, which was just another door in the situationally-generated hall. We all entered at the same time, but when the door closed, it was just me, Donut, and Mongo standing in the cavernous room.

Mongo screeched, and his voice echoed. The place was huge. The room was like a giant airplane hangar, similar to the room where we’d picked our subclasses at the beginning of the sixth floor. It was featureless with gray, corrugated metal walls and lit with dingy, blue light that didn’t seem to come from anywhere. The floor was made of solid concrete. A cool breeze swept through.

Donut suddenly gasped. “I can choose the environment! There’s lots of options!”

“Be careful,” I said. “Did you read the warning? Don’t choose a place that sounds dangerous.”

The room flashed, I felt a quick bout of nausea, and suddenly the concrete floor turned to dirt. Mongo screeched in surprise. A cheer rose up all around us. My ears popped. I turned in a full circle, looking about with awe. We were in a massive, packed arena, bigger than before. The roof was gone, and a yellow, almost cartoonish sun beat down on us. The shimmer of a bubble spread above it all, like we were under a dome.

The gravity here felt like it was only ¾’s of normal. I did a quick hop, and I jumped much higher than usual.

“Hang on, Carl, I’m going to make it so we weigh normal,” Donut said. She moved her paw like she was adjusting a slider. I felt myself get slightly heavier. “There we go. This is quite customizable.”

A knee-high field of purple flowers suddenly sprouted from the dirt. Mongo sneezed, and Donut swept her paw, taking the flowers away, leaving a field of green grass. She grumbled some more, and a few trees sprouted around the arena.

Each time she changed something, the arena’s crowd cheered enthusiastically. All were the same creatures. Thousands and thousands of robe-clad people wearing large hats. I recognized them. We’d faced similarly-dressed hunters on the previous floor. It was a nomadic, religious cult called the Nebulars.

“What the hell did you pick?” I asked.

Battle Begins in Ten Seconds. Deck is locked in place.

“It was called Munera Arena or something like that. The picture was a colosseum thing with a bunch of cheering fans. I didn’t realize it was going to be these guys,” Donut said. “It doesn’t let me change the people, which is quite unfortunate, but I can choose how much they like us. I put it all the way to the top.” Mongo screeched again, this time fearfully.

“Can you choose what the opponent is?” I asked.

“Sadly, no. It’s just says we’re on easy mode.”

Combat Started.

I looked around. I didn’t see anything.

“Uh, do you see the monster?” I asked. Donut didn’t answer. I looked down at her

She stood stiffly on the ground next to me. Four cards floated in midair, spaced equally in front of her face like a car windshield. Each card had grown to be about the size of a magazine, and they were completely blocking her view of the arena. It was the two Time Extend cards, the Combo card, and the Monk Seal totem card.

“Carl, Carl, what do I do? Help! I can’t see!” She had to shout to be heard over the crowd noise. Everywhere she turned her head, the four cards followed. She jumped to my shoulder, and the cards moved with her. Now they were blocking my view, too.

The crowd started booing and hissing, but I wasn’t sure if they were booing us or the monster. Next to me, Mongo squawked angrily, his voice piercing through the arena.

“Go into the card menu and see if you can adjust the card’s position,” I shouted. “And try discarding the Combo card. We don’t want to use it.”

“Doesn’t that throw it away? I thought we wanted to keep it for later!”

“We do want to keep it. You’re just discarding it for this battle. You can discard one card every thirty seconds. A new card will pop up ten seconds after you discard or use one.”

Donut was in her menu, waving her paws around frantically. “How do you know all this, Carl?”

Mongo howled and rushed off.

“I was paying attention, and I read the rules. But I don’t have all the information you do, Donut.”

The cards suddenly got bigger, overlapping each other. The first one, the Time Extend utility card, moved right through my face. The thing wasn’t really there.

“No, no, that’s not it,” Donut said. She still had to shout. “Here we go.”

The cards shrank to the size of playing cards, moved together, and then lowered, giving us a clear view of the playing field.

...Just in time to see Mongo fly through the air and land a top the purple, squealing monster. It fell onto its back, its little legs waving as Mongo savagely ripped through it. Blood geysered in the air followed by a pop and puff of smoke, like the creature had been part clockwork or robot. A trail of intestines rocketed up in the air, like a line of sausages ascending into heaven. They disappeared into dust. Mongo tried to bite again, but the monster was gone, having dissipated. The raptor screeched in outrage as the crowd roared its approval, shaking the arena.

The only thing that was left was a little, red, blood-spattered purse that also disappeared a moment later.

Combat Complete. Deck has been reset.

Do you wish to go again?

“Well, that was a waste of money,” I said.

“Carl, did you see that!” Donut exclaimed. “I think that was a Teletubby!”

~

We tried again, again on easy difficulty, but this time we put Mongo away. I made Donut change the environment to “Abandoned arena” which was the same place, but without the screaming crowd. The dome over the arena now had a crack in it, and the yellow sun had turned blue. She grumbled but complied.

“I don’t understand how you don’t know what the Teletubbies are, Carl,” Donut was saying as we prepared to go again. “Miss Beatrice used to watch it all the time. She had it recorded on the DVR.”

“A little kid’s show?” I asked. “And she’d watch it? I don’t remember that. That’s really weird.”

“She would watch it and cry sometimes,” Donut said. “Come to think of it, it was quite strange. What kid shows did you watch?”

“I watched all sorts,” I said. “But I watched them mostly when I was kid.”

“Now, that’s not true, and you know it. You watched cartoons all the time. And played kid video games.”

“That’s different, Donut. Most of those were shows made for adults. Plus, I didn’t watch them and cry. That’s really bizarre.”

“Made for adults? Dragon Ball Z is made for adults? Though I suppose that was quite odd of Miss Beatrice. Wherever she is, I hope she still has access to her DVR. She would feed me extra sometimes after she watched it. Anyway, I’m glad Mongo ate Tinky Winky. He was always my least favorite. I’ve been team Dipsy since day one. He had the most wonderful hat. I wonder if this next monster is going to be another Teletubby.”

“Let’s find out,” I said.

Combat started, and the cards appeared. Donut remained on my shoulder so I could get a look at the hand. We only had five cards in the deck, and the totem wasn’t one of the four she pulled. It was the two Time Extends, the Combo card, and the Stout card.

“If you pull a deck without a totem, you’re immediately vulnerable, so make sure you either discard or use a card right away,” I said. “We don’t have any snare or mystic cards yet, so discard the Combo card.”

She flicked her paw downward, and the combo card disappeared into a puff of smoke. The empty space remained in her hand, and a 10-second timer appeared in the spot, counting down.

“If I use two cards, do they both have a timer, or is it one at a time?” Donut asked.

“I’m pretty sure it’s one at a time, so if you play two at the same time, it’ll take twenty seconds to get back to a full deck. We won’t be able to test it until we get more cards. Once that one fills, we’ll be out. Do you see the monster?”

“I see the dot. He’s behind that tree over there, but he’s moving slow. It’s not Tinky Winky again. It’s something smaller.”

Ding. The totem card appeared in the empty slot.

Your Deck has been exhausted.

“Okay, summon the totem. If he doesn’t attack us, try to use all three of the utility cards on him.”

Donut reached toward the Monk Seal totem, but paused. She looked back at me.

“You know, I wonder if it’ll be something from another kids’ show. I’d really like the chance to eviscerate someone from Blue’s Clues. The only cast member of that show worth anything was Periwinkle, and they never gave him enough screen time. Plus Mrs. Pepper was obviously pulling a Miss Beatrice on Mr. Salt. How do you get paprika and sage from that combination?”

“Again, Donut,” I said. “I haven’t watched the show, so all this babbling is completely pointless. I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. That’s the problem with all these references. You’re going to lose people. Now summon the damn seal.”

She grumbled something and reached forward to touch the seal card.

Geraldo. Level 70. Monk Seal Picket Sentry is ready for battle!

The card disappeared in a puff of smoke, and Geraldo appeared, flipping through the air. The monk seal landed in the grass in front of us, squealing with kung fu noises. A boss-battle like explosion appeared in the air as he entered the arena.

“Highhh-ya!” Geraldo shouted. He flipped again and slammed onto the ground, shaking it, then reared up, looking about. He had a 60-second timer over his head along with a health bar even though it was full. Above that was a little symbol that might’ve been a little totem pole, and planted into the pole was a miniature version of our team flag.

The seal sported a headband, just like in the cartoon image on the card, but it was white with red hearts on it, also mirroring our flag. He hadn’t been wearing it when we captured him.

“Oi!” he said, turning toward us. “Where the crabs at?” He waved his flippers, and I realized his body was making noises each time he moved. Wsshh, Wsshh, Wap. Kung Fu movie noises. That’s what it was. They’d added cheesy, Kung Fu noises to all of his movements.

“What the hell, man,” I muttered.

“I like it,” Donut said, waving her paws. “I wish they did that for me. Or for you when you punched something. It’s a lot better than things simply blowing up and getting all disgusting when you punch them.”

I called out to the seal. “Hang out there for a second. The enemy is on its way.”

Geraldo the seal grunted and turned back toward the tree.

“At least he’s not attacking us,” Donut said.

“Try to use the utility cards on him.”

Donut put her paw on the Stout card and flipped it upward. It spun through the air, spinning like a ninja star, and it slammed into Geraldo with a loud, trumpet fanfare, causing the seal to glow. His health bar grew longer. The word Buffed appeared over the seal for a moment in a comic-book-like explosion.

“This is quite festive,” Donut said. “Why can’t all the fights be like this?”

She activated the first Time Extend card, and it landed on the seal with another comic book explosion. Another sixty seconds added to the seal’s timer. We only had one card left, which was the second Time Extend. Little Xs appeared in the spaces where the other cards once were, indicating the deck was empty.

She tried to flip the last card, but it wouldn’t go.

“Carl, it says uncommon totems can only hold two utility cards!”

“Huh,” I said. “Good to know.” I knew there were seven levels of rarity for the totem cards: Common, Uncommon, Rare, Very Rare, Legendary, Mythic, and Unique. I wondered if that meant common ones could only hold one utility card, and Unique ones—like the spider that ate Samantha—could hold a whopping seven buffs.

Plus, what did that mean for the snare debuff cards? We needed the ability to spar against card-wielding opponents.

“Hey,” Geraldo said. “That ain’t no crab.”

“No,” Donut said, disappointed. “I guess it isn’t. It’s not that Magenta bitch, either.”

“What the hell is that?” I asked, turning my attention on the blob thing that had appeared from behind the tree. It started shuffling in our direction.

“Oh my god, Carl,” Donut said. “It’s disgusting! And I think it’s crying! Just like Miss Beatrice!”

The creature snuffled forward. It was a bat-faced, pig thing, but with a lot of extra skin, like one of those wrinkly, Shar-Pei dogs. It stood upon thin, quivering legs. It was about as tall as my knee. The naked, pink skin was bumpy and covered with infected-looking welts and moles. It moved slowly, its skin sloshing up and down.

Squonk – Level 35.

Eastern United States Region Legendary Creature.

The Squonk. The poor, pitiful Squonk.

This damn thing is so ugly, so miserable that it is in a constant state of depression. It can’t stop crying. It doesn’t fight. It has no attacks. It smells and looks like the distended testicle of an Olympic weightlifter with an untreated hernia. Do everyone a favor and get it out of here.

“Yo, man. I ain’t touching that thing,” Geraldo said.

As we watched, the creature rolled over onto its side, let out a large fart, and started bawling even more forcefully. Then, with a pop, it turned to water and dissipated on its own.

Combat Complete. Deck has been reset.

Do you wish to go again?

“I’m starting to think we’d be better off at medium difficulty,” I said.

Chapter 208

“We did it three times,” Paz said as we walked toward the nearby park, which turned out to actually be a cemetery. “The first time, it was this thing called a Carbunclo. Like a little fox with a gem in its head. It pissed itself and teleported away. The second time, we never even saw it. It died on its own or something. So we went to medium difficulty, and it was some chimpanzee monster called a Qa. It was level 65. It said it was from China. Yago beat its ass. That seal really can fight.”

“We never did medium difficulty,” Donut said. “Carl thinks we should get more cards first.”

“It is pretty expensive,” Sister Ines said.

Paz laughed. “I was talking to Osvaldo. He says they went into the room, and their first opponent was the Pillsbury Dough Boy. You know that little thing from the commercials? They have some lizard that breathes fire, and it literally cooked it.”

Donut swished her tail. “My friend Katia said her first opponent was an actual teddy bear. And then they moved it to challenge, and they got overwhelmed by a bunch of flying piranhas. Another friend, her name is Elle, and she has a bigfoot totem, and they fought a snake with the head of a horse! She said it came from South Africa.”

“The monsters aren’t like I thought they would be,” Paz said. His armor continued to clank loudly as we walked. “It’s like it can be anything from TV or videogames. Not just, you know, real mythology like they said.”

“Yeah, wait until you hear what this one guy named Florin is hunting,” I said.

“What?” Donut asked. “I didn’t hear about it.”

I gave a sidelong glance to Sister Ines and grunted. “We’ll see if he actually catches him before I say anything. It’s a little... blasphemous.”

“It’s all blasphemous,” Sister Ines said. There was a strange intensity to her voice, and I finally realized she was angry. Very angry. She’d been just a little off all morning. “It is all a mockery of our faiths and legends. They ignore the meanings behind the myths and stories, and they just see the surface, steal it, and use it to make something shiny and pretty and completely devoid of its meaning. And they mix these beloved traditions with modern fictions, things nobody ever believed to be real. It muddies the water of our stories, our histories. They don’t care. These cultures and creatures are holy to people, and they are making jokes of it all.”

I gave her a moment to compose herself.

“It’s what they do,” I finally said. Even the cards themselves—T’ghee cards—were considered sacred to the aliens they stole the idea from. They were never meant to be used like this.

I thought of Florin and our quick conversation before we headed out. He didn’t yet have any totems, but he had a quest to track and kill or capture a powerful Unique that was terrorizing his region in Ecuador. I shook my head, thinking of it. Li Jun and Li Na were hunting an honest-to-goodness dragon, straight from Chinese myth. Katia was seeking some type of Christmas cat, but she asked me not to tell Donut yet. We already knew from Sister Ines she could be oddly sensitive about that sort of thing.

~

We approached the large cemetery. The cars around here had all stopped coming, all getting congested somewhere else in the city, though the traffic in this area was normally pretty bad indicated by the literal hundreds of naked, ethereal ghosts floating along the roadway, stopped in traffic, all texting on their non-existent phones or bopping to music I couldn’t hear.

Mongo snapped at a guy pedaling a no-longer-there bike, and the dino managed to pull a gold chain off the man’s neck. We all turned our attention to the large, gothic entrance to the cemetery.

The elaborate, concrete archway guarded the place, which was surrounded by a towering, black and spiked fence that we couldn’t see through. The entrance itself showed a thin road that led into ominous, yeah-this-place-is-haunted-as-fuck fog. Smoke drifted up from the fence line. The whole cemetery was several blocks wide. I watched a floating bus full of people enter under the arch, but they disappeared the moment they passed through. It appeared the entire area was like our starting location. Off limits to the memory ghosts.

“This is not right. Not at all. It’s the Colón Cemetery,” Paz said, looking up at the entrance. “This is one of the largest cemeteries in Latin America. There are streets all through it. The entrance arch is the same, but this fence is not supposed to be here. You can drive through, and you can see it from the street. It’s like a park filled with monuments. It needed a lot of renovation, but it was very full of life all the time.”

We all continued to stare with awe up at the carved, arched entrance.

“Full of life?” Donut asked. “I’m pretty sure it’s full of zombies now.”

“My Tito is buried here,” Anton said after a moment.

“Based on the number of red dots moving about, I don’t think he’s buried anymore,” Donut said. “The whole area gives me the willies.”

“Yikes,” I agreed. Inside, peeking over the fence line and out of the fog were several buildings. It was like a small city within the city. “This has boss chamber written all over it. So you think the mobs are zombies?”

“I’m not sure. There are lots of human-sized ones all over the place,” Donut said. “They’re moving slow like zombies, thank goodness. I don’t think I could handle Train to Busan zombies. Night of the Living Dead ones aren’t so bad as long as you don’t get caught in a swarm. But there are bigger and smaller dots, too. There lots of different kinds. There’s a church in the center that doesn’t have anything around it. I think there might be a spell keeping me from seeing inside.”

“They are all definitely undead,” Sister Ines said. She started striding toward the entrance.

“Hey!” I called. “We need to walk around the edge and see if there are more clues about what’s inside before we go in! That’s a giant boss chamber. We don’t know how strong it’ll be!”

“We can handle it if you’re afraid,” Sister Ines called. She didn’t stop.

“Uh,” Paz said, looking between Sister Ines and me. “Maybe we should listen to Carl. What if we get locked in?”

“Of course we’re going to get locked in,” Donut said. “That’s the whole purpose of the giant gate and fence. You know what this reminds me of? We once had to fight a boss that was a giant ball of pigs all rolled up. Only this place is a lot bigger.”

“Come on. Don’t be such a woman,” Anton said. He moved to follow the nun. Paz sighed and rushed to follow, clanking like a some malfunctioning android.

“That’s quite offensive, Anton,” Donut called.

“Those idiots are going to get themselves killed,” I said.

She looked at me. “So, are we going to get ourselves locked into the death cemetery? If we don’t go now, we’re going to lose our chance.”

“Not if they die,” I said. “The gate will open again when they’re dead.”

We watched as they reached the entrance. Sister Ines peeked inside through the gate, but paused. Paz was talking animatedly, gesturing at us. They didn’t enter. After a moment, they turned to us and waved us forward.

I sighed and approached.

“We do it your way,” Sister Ines said. “We circle the outside and then we go in.”

~

“Take that Skedaddle sheet music and make sure you have it handy,” I said. “Puddle Jumper, too.”

“I already did, Carl. But it’s not going to let me leave if we’re locked in.”

“This place is big. We can still use both inside to get away from a swarm. With Skedaddle, we can jump twice. As long as you sing it in key.”

“What is that supposed to mean? You said my performance at the masquerade was flawless.”

I reached up and gave her a pat. “Also, we stay near the other guys. Paz is a paladin, and Sister Ines is a cleric. Both will be good against the undead.”

I went into my own inventory and readied several of my spider automatons. I also took a few of Mordecai’s holy gooper grenades and moved them to the ready position. I only had six of the healing potion and Emberus blessed holy grenades. I had fifteen spider automatons, but ten of those were already “armed” with regular explosives, which meant they’d be useless if the mobs were non-corporeal. The other spiders I could arm with a holy grenade or just a straight up healing potion. I also had several healing potion-infused smoke curtains, which I hadn’t yet tested but would supposedly mass-kill undead. I looked at my holy curtain supply worriedly. We really needed to get to a Desperado Club for a shopping trip.

“Let’s do this,” I said, cracking my neck. “Keep Mongo back until we know what we’re facing.”

We’d circled the entire park a few times, having to deal with more of those Duende mobs on one side. There were no additional clues as to what was inside. It was a large, rectangular park several blocks wide, and it was absolutely filled with red dots. There was a chapel in the center, and nobody could get a read on anything there. Sister Ines had an ability that let her know if a mob was undead or not, and she said all of them were.

I used one of my dwindling supply of levitate potions to get a better view from above. The entire area was filled with roiling fog, and I couldn’t see a damn thing. But I could see the wide expanse of dots from this height.

The mobs appeared to move aimlessly, leading credence to Donut’s zombie theory. I was reminded of the trainyards from the fourth floor. Those hadn’t been zombies, but ghouls.

I was starting to suspect that the entire area wasn’t exactly what we thought it was. The temple in the center of the square was a familiar spire. A Club Vanquisher. And I noticed a bathroom in the area, too. I’d never seen a bathroom in a boss room before.

I tossed a potion ball filled with a fine healing potion into the midst toward a dense of patch of red, and I managed to kill three of the mobs, whatever they were. They died easily and soundlessly, but the amount of experience I received was pretty low, indicating they weren’t powerful. Relieved, I lowered myself back down and said we were good to go.

~

The moment we stepped through the gate, I saw my theory was correct. That didn’t mean this wasn’t dangerous. In fact, I knew from the cookbook this could be a real pain in the ass.

Entering Medium Ghommid Settlement.

Warning! This town has been corrupted. You may not claim or repopulate the town until the rot has been eradicated.

“It’s a town!” Donut said. “A town inside a town! I see a saferoom! It’s way over there.”

“Is this like a corrupted temple?” Paz asked worriedly, looking about.

“Uh-oh,” Anton said.

“It is,” I said. A corrupted temple meant there were mobs inside. That was obviously the case with this town as well. I’d read a few depictions of places like this. Both corrupted temples and towns worked the same way.

An unholy screech filled the area, coming from all corners. Howls, trills, and screams filled the massive, fog-filled cemetery.

“Not again,” Paz muttered.

“What?” I asked.

Warning: The presence of a Santero has aggravated the already-unsettled dead.

“Some types of undead creatures don’t like my class,” he said. He banged on his breastplate. “That’s why I got this stuff. Holy armor. I draw their aggro, and they will only attack me and nobody else. They’ll follow me wherever I go, even if we run.”

“Wait,” Donut said. “You knew this was going to happen? We really need to work on our communication skills, Paz. Maybe you should’ve waited outside.”

“No,” Sister Ines said. A white ball of flame appeared in her hand. “He also gets a temporary strength boost each time an unsettled is killed. I do, too.”

Before I could respond, the gate behind us slammed closed. No music started, but a magical glow emanated from the gate, meaning it was magically locked. Over our heads, a half-translucent glow filled the area, indicating we couldn’t fly out of here, either.

“Shocking,” I said.

Another notification came.

New Quest! Pueblo de los Olvidados.

This is a little obvious since you’re locked in here, but this is a compulsory quest. You can take your time with this one, but you ain’t getting out until it’s done.

Isn’t this a cute little town? It’s just so quaint! Too bad the entire populace was attacked and reformed into a gaggle of horrific undead monsters who now want to devour your delicious souls.

This place used to be populated with a race of creature called a Ghommid.

Have you ever looked through a microscope at a drop of sea water? It’s really disturbing. There’s all sorts of weird shit in there. Honestly, it gives me nightmares.

Anyway, that’s kinda what you get when you look at a Ghommid village. A “Ghommid” is a sort of catch-all term for just your regular, run-of-the-mill other-realm creature. Visitors to this world from the land of the dead. There are all sorts, and many of them are one-of-a-kind. And like all those weird bugs and microbes in that drop of water, they do different things. Most are harmless. Some are cute. Some are angry. Some will give you explosive diarrhea just for fun. They often settle in areas where the veil is thin. Like cemeteries.

The problem with spirit creatures is that there really are all kinds. A settlement like this is bound to eventually implode. This was inevitable.

In this case, a spirit showed up, and for whatever reason turned everyone in the village into a ravenous, unsettled, I-want-to-turn-your-flesh-inside-out-and-party-with-your-intestines monster.

You must find and eradicate the source of the sickness. Removing it from the area will likely cure the populace. Or, who knows? Maybe they’ll all go berserk and try to kill you even harder. I don’t really know. I’m not nearly omnipotent as those sadistic assholes think. Quarantine? They already know it doesn’t work. Not when they want to keep their precious enhancement zones humming. They’re in for a big surprise one of these days.

Reward: Well, you can leave the town. That’s a good reward. Plus the town will revert to a working settlement, and all the shops and structures will become activated again, assuming any of the workers are still alive. And why not? We’ll also throw in a Silver Quest Box.

“Carl,” Donut said. “I barely understood half of that. What does it mean by quarantine and enhancement zones?”

“What do you mean?” Paz asked, sounding confused.

I copied and pasted the quest text into my notes like I always did, and sure enough those lines where the AI was talking about itself were gone. It wasn’t the first time that had happened.

I rewrote the strange note from memory.

“So, it’s going to be like any other town,” I said after a moment. “But the NPCs are all monsters, and we need to find and kill the head bad guy. The bad seed. I don’t think the monsters are going to be traditional zombies. They’re spirit creatures who’ve gone crazy.”

“Undead is undead,” Sister Ines said. She sounded angry. Strangely angry.

“Traps,” Anton suddenly said. He held his monkey crossbow at the ready.

I went to a knee. “I see ‘em. Nobody go forward.” Even through the fog, dozens of lights flashed, indicating the area was littered with a bunch of strange traps I didn’t recognize. It seemed they were all the same kind. There was a pair of them straight ahead side-by-side. We had red dots around, all drifting slowly toward us thanks to Paz. They’d become visible in seconds. I quickly examined the closest trap.

Spirit Box

Set Trap

Effect: Roots target in place. Lowers spirit resistance, and a random non-corporeal entity from the area is summoned to the location and will attempt to possess you. Or eat you. Or just melt your face off and put the goo on a spirit corndog or something.

Target: Corporeal dumbasses who step on it. That means you.

Duration: You will be rooted in place for sixty seconds. If you end up possessed, that’s pretty damn permanent.

“Damn,” I said as I quickly disarmed the trap and took it into my inventory. I didn’t have time to disarm the second one as three monsters shuffled out of the fog and moved toward us. Mongo screeched as Donut released him from his carrier. She jumped upon his back.

Combat started.

All three creatures were different. All were bipedal and human sized, and all three were level 30, but the similarities ended there. The first was a thin, naked and flesh-colored creature covered with mouths and nothing else. It was just a person made of dozens of mouths. All the teeth were black and rotten. They moaned, zombie-like. I swallowed, transfixed by the horrendous creature.

The second looked like a regular, long-haired high elf, but he had a ridiculously long chin. The tip of it lowered down to his belly button area. The guy wore a green robe that seemed to be sprouting hair.

The third was an anorexic-thin humanoid wearing a loincloth with a distended, roiling belly. The bald, hairless creature wore a headband covering its eyes. Blood seeped from under the headband. It had one long arm, and one short and withered arm, clutched against its own chest.

All three moved slowly, shuffling forward. All three groaned like zombies. They moved straight for Paz, who stood right next to me.

Sister Ines tossed a white bolt, which she threw like a baseball, and the elf-like creature exploded into mist. At the same moment, Anton fired his crossbow at the one covered with mouths. The magical bolt stuck into the creature’s chest, but it kept coming.

“Ew, ew, Carl, I don’t like this!” Donut cried as she fired a Magic Missile at the third creature. It staggered. “These are like the monsters from The Nightmare Before Christmas! But way grosser!”

I examined the thin ghommid just as she fired another missile.

Kipper – Unsettled Ghommid – Level 30

This is a non-corporeal monster.

This guy is normally the dishwasher at the Squeaky Snitch. He really liked that job, too. Now he just wants to eat you.

Kipper the ghommid fell and dissipated into sparkly dust. Paz cast something and killed the one Anton had shot with the crossbow. Dozens and dozens more of these things emerged. I saw all shapes and sizes, from toddler-sized minotaurs to a naked, massively obese man with Dumbo-sized ears walking on his hands. His ears dragged on the ground and were on fire for some reason.

I grumbled. Paz’s presence had summoned all of them. All of them. This was going to suck. We were going to have to run and fight.

“We need to get to the saferoom and formulate a better plane,” I called. I cast Tripper, causing all the Spirit Box traps to go off. I wanted to farm more of them, but it was too risky to run with these all over the place. Mongo would likely set one off at any moment.

Thousands of horrific wails rose into the night sky. Several of the ghommids disappeared, having been summoned to random traps throughout town. But more and more were coming by the moment. A literal horde of zombie spirits.

A monster that looked like a human-sized owl popped into existence right in front of me, right above the second trap. It faced away. I instinctively punched it in the back of the head, but I hadn’t summoned my gauntlet yet, and my fist passed right through the monster.

A blue sheet of ice covered my arm, all the way up to my shoulder, and I suddenly couldn’t move it. It felt as if it had suddenly been placed into a clamp.

You’ve been frozen!

Warning: Your arm will shatter into itty little bits if it sustains too much damage before you thaw.

“Gah,” I cried.

The monster turned its head 180 degrees to face me. The owl had swirling, black eyes, as big as chicken eggs. My arm was suddenly in its mouth. The creature opened its sharp beak and chomped down. Flecks of ice shot away. A health bar appeared over my own goddamn arm, and it was already in the red. The flecks turned to blood.

You are being drained!

Mongo reached over and chomped the owl across the midsection, and the creature exploded and disappeared with a puff of electricity. My arm remained frozen. A twenty second debuff timer appeared, but the debuff disappeared and the ice melted away as Sister Ines cast something on me.

“Thanks. Both of you!” I still felt exhausted. Christ, that had been close.

“There’s too many!” Anton cried. His crossbow made little monkey noises each time he fired it. Sister Ines lobbed her white balls, one after another. Donut cast Wall of Fire, and a pair of clockwork Mongos appeared. They tore through the mobs. I tossed two of my infused smoke curtains. The mobs groaned and died and moved away from the smoke.

“The saferoom is that way!” Donut cried, pointing toward a mass of creatures. I pulled a holy gooper and tossed it, clearing the way. I tossed another curtain to keep the path open, but the saferoom was too far away.

Both Paz and Sister Ines glowed with yellow light as they marched forward toward the pub. Tombstones rose on either side of the wide street as we followed them. I looked for ghommids that were higher than level 30, but I didn’t see anything. None of these guys were worth flagging.

None of the ghommids cast any spells, but they were relentless. The moment the smoke dissipated, they were there, filling the gaps. Their slowness didn’t matter when there were so many of them. I formed a fist, and thankfully my gauntlet worked. A single punch killed them, but I knew if I touched them at all with my flesh, I’d get frozen again. I suspected my bare foot would also work, especially after I activated Talon Strike, but I didn’t dare try it. We waded the half block toward the room before we got too bogged down.

They just kept coming and coming. Suddenly we were surrounded, and I was out of my smoke curtains.

“Donut,” I yelled.

“We’re going to teleport!” she shouted. “Everybody stay close.”

She cast Puddle Jump, and we reappeared just outside the saferoom. It wasn’t a real building, but a crumbling, concrete, gothic-style crypt with a little neon sign hanging on it that read “The Yellow Zone.” I had no doubts this hadn’t really been there in the real version. The three others moved into the room as I turned to face the crowd. They all slowly turned and shuffled toward us.

But then, I saw him. I paused, my hand on the door as Donut and Mongo rushed inside.

He emerged from the fog, walking casually, not shuffling like the others. The barefoot man walked toward me. He wore some sort of straw headdress that completely obscured his face. It went all the way down to his waist.

The ground around him crackled with odd, black tendrils everywhere he walked. He had some weird stick thing in his hand, like a fat wand, and he pointed it at me. I didn’t wait to see what that was about before I dove into the saferoom and slammed the door.

~

Combat Ended. Your deck has been reset.

“Did you see that guy,” I asked, breathless.

“No,” Paz said, also breathing heavily. Sister Ines paced back and forth, like she wanted to go back out there right away. Anton was at the counter, which was, thankfully, manned by a bopca. He was ordering a drink. The room was much bigger on the inside than the crypt had appeared. It was a regular, medieval-style pub. Donut was clucking over Mongo who was covered with dust.

“I’m pretty sure that was the boss. I didn’t get a chance to read his description, but he was level 135!”

“He’s probably still out there,” Sister Ines said. “Open the door. He can’t hurt us in here.”

I remembered the rage elemental we’d had to face on the second floor. She was right. I hesitantly reached forward and pulled the door open.

“Christ,” I said, jumping back.

“No,” the monster said. “Not quite.” He stood right there, blocking the door, as if he’d been about to knock on it. His dot remained red on the map.

He stepped right into the room.

~~~

Hey everyone! Sorry for the slow updates. I have not been idle. I just got back from Hawaii, where I was moving my child from her dorm, and we had to secure her apartment for next semester and deal with storage.

We will (Hopefully) have fully-illustrated cards for all the major cards on this floor.  Still working on the design, but they will look something like: