Chapters 209 and 210 (Patreon)

Hey guys... First off sorry for the slow posting of this. Lots and lots happening behind the scenes. The audiobook for book 5 just came out, plus I had the Rona (for the third time!) plus jury duty plus a million other things. The next chapter after this is mostly written, but I didn't want to make you wait longer.

Also, before we get to the chapters, I was forced to retcon/fix a few things that were incorrect. I wrongly stated Carl didn't have a fan box when he did.  (He got it when Imogen appeared) . Also, I originally stated Katia's team went to the Philippines, but then I changed it to Iceland. She's in Iceland.

There's a few other minor changes, too. Thanks again for your support! Anyway....

Chapter 209

At the far end of the bar, the bopca started shouting for the man to get out.

We just stared at the newcomer. Mongo growled and bristled.

I held out my arms in alarm. “Donut,” I said. “Keep him steady!” The last thing we needed was Mongo getting teleported away.

“No, Mongo. No!” Donut shouted as the dinosaur whined like a dog.

Despite his marker on the map, the creature did not seem hostile. The combat notification didn’t start. I remembered Mordecai had once told me that mobs could enter saferooms. They only teleported away when they actually attacked. I’d never really thought about how that worked with smart mobs.

The mob was a hair shorter than me, but he had an electric presence that filled the room. I still could not see his face. The well-muscled man looked like someone that had been plucked straight from some sort of tribal ceremony. The only flesh I could see was his arms, legs, and washboard stomach. His skin was bone white, almost translucent, as if it had been drained of all color and life. He wore a straw skirt that went down to his knees, and the headdress completely blocked his features, almost like he was wearing a second grass skirt on his head. Or a lampshade that went halfway down his chest. Little tendrils of fire flecked up off his bare feet and legs. The strange wand thing in his hand was a stick of reeds held together with colorful string and decorated with seashells. The man’s stench filled the room, and it was like that of a rotting corpse.

“Oh my god,” Donut exclaimed. She made a little hacking noise. “Just because you’re undead doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use deodorant. I mean, really.”

I examined the creature.

Asojano – Orisha – Level 130

This is a non-corporeal spirit.

Also known as the Lord of Smallpox, Asojano is one of the most respected and feared of the Orishas, a former god made flesh upon the rise of the Ascendency.

As the worshippers of these gods grew more and more extinct, their temples crumbled, and the power of these former deities waned. Eventually, they faded into nothing, slipping away beyond the veil, becoming nothing more than any other ghommid, only able to visit the physical world on occasion.

One day, not so long ago, Asojano found himself here in this small town, visiting the world he once helped rule. There was no malice to his actions. He came just so he could look upon what he once had and what he had lost.

Still, power lingers, even in the most forgotten of shells.

Asojano is disease incarnate. He kills, and he heals. He is life, and he is death. He also wears a reed hat that makes it difficult to see where he’s going, so he bumps into stuff a lot.

Lord of Smallpox? I thought. Uh-oh.

A health bar appeared over the creature all on its own, and it started to very slowly creep downward. None of us were doing anything.

“Santero,” the monster rumbled, his voice heavy and odd and ancient. I remembered Ifechi’s and Queen Imogen’s voice, and it reminded me of a male version of that. He was talking directly to Paz. “Come out. Assist me. These spirits have been plagued by my presence, and I need your help. I am trapped here, and you can help me free them.”

“Uh,” Paz said.

The door remained open, and a group of ghommids arrived. They all teleported away, one after another as they groaned and shuffled their way into the room. The bopca continued to scream and wave his arms. The gnome guy was wearing a chef’s hat for some reason. I stepped to the side around the orisha and kicked the door, shutting it.

That ended up being a mistake because the moment the door closed, the stench doubled in intensity. We all started to back up as Donut continued to make hacking noises.

His dot remained red, which was unusual.

The orisha had a barely-visible, moss-colored aura that radiated about twelve inches all around him. It had a dark green color. I suspected if any of us moved within the aura, we’d get hit with some sort of nasty disease. I didn’t know how that would work in a saferoom, and I didn’t want to find out.

The man stepped forward toward Paz. The floor sizzled where he stepped, reminding me of Bianca, Prepotente’s goat dragon pet thing. His health continued to lower. It was about ¾’s gone.

“Don’t get closer,” I said to the man as we all took another step back. “Your name is Asojano, right? If you get closer, you’re going to teleport away.” I didn’t know if that was true or not, but it sounded good.  “So, you’re the reason all these ghommid guys have gone crazy?”

Asojano turned to face me. He paused for a long moment before speaking. He was trembling, I realized. With anger? With fear? I couldn’t tell. “You dare? You dare speak my name? We only speak through the priest, or I will have your crops withering and your skin bubbling and your ancestors cursed through eternity.” He waved the wand thing at me. I was expecting it to cast something or for him to teleport away, but neither happened. The man paused and looked down at the wand, as if he, too, was surprised it didn’t work.

“Oh, sweetie,” Donut said. “You think we care if you can kill our crops? Carl does that all on his own.” She looked up to me. “Do you remember the aloe vera plant incident? Miss Beatrice was most displeased with you. She was only gone for two days.”

“That was you!” I said. “You knocked it over and pulled it out!”

“Well, you should have watched me better.”

I kept looking back and forth between this Asojano guy and Paz. Sister Ines looked as if she was about to attack him. Anton had returned from the bar. He downed a drink, put the glass on the table, and he put a hand on Sister Ines’s shoulder, presumably in an attempt to calm her. It was a strange juxtaposition as she was usually the calm one.

Paz remained frozen, his mouth hanging open.

Carl: Paz, you need to say something. Don’t just sit there. Try to find out as much as you can.

“Uh,” Paz said again. “What exactly do you need me to do?”

“Go to the temple in the center of town and fix my shrine. It will allow me to leave this place.”

“That’s a Club Vanquisher,” I said. “Do you guys have access?”

“Yes,” Anton said. “All three of us do, but we don’t like going there unless we have to. Sister Ines refuses to go inside. But does it matter? It ain’t really open yet.”

Quest Update! Pueblo de los Olvidados.

An Orisha is the source of the ghommid infection. He used the last remaining power of his shrine to enter town, and he’s unable to leave. The vile power of his presence has altered the minds of the town’s residents, turning them mad. Remove him to free the town.

You need to go to the temple in the center of the town, find the correct shrine, and “repair” it. That’ll work. Uh, maybe. Or you can kill this guy. He doesn’t look too tough. Or you can just kill everybody. That might be fun.

Asojano shook his wand thing again, like he was trying to get a remote control with a dead battery to work. He slapped it against his hand.

Paz: What do I do?

Anton: His health is going down on its own. Wait until it’s 5%, and I’ll flag him.

Paz: Will that work in here?

Carl: I doubt it. Tell him you’ll help. But stall. See what happens.

Paz looked nervously at us. “So, Mr. Asojano? We can help, but we can’t get to the temple. There’s too many of them. Can you help us get there?”

The creature nodded. “Exit tonight when the sun descends. My power is greater at night. The sickness affects them more, and they’ll be stronger as well, but my ability to hold them back will also be increased. I cannot control them at all now. Once you repair my shrine, I will have the power to leave.”

“In the dark?” Donut asked, dubious. “You want us to go out there and fight them in the dark?”

The monster’s health turned red. Next to me, Anton pulled a flag from his inventory. He had it in his hand. I thought about it for a moment, trying to determine if I wanted to fight them for this guy. He seemed powerful, but if he was a poison-based monster, his abilities probably worked slowly, and these monster totems would only be summoned for a limited amount of time.

“You are a false god,” Sister Ines said suddenly. She spit the words. Her hand/paw things were on her head, and she was making a weird kneading motion. Her voice went up in pitch, and she sounded strangely terrified. Her eyes were clenched shut. “This is too much. Our souls... our souls can’t handle this. Anton, no. No. I can’t take it. Don’t do it. Let Carl’s team take him.”

“He is strong, sister,” Anton said. “We’ve gone over this... It’s all make believe. It’s not...”

“It’s too much,” Sister Ines said, interrupting. “Please. No. No more false gods. Not again.”

Anton and Paz gave each other a nervous glance. Donut gave me a I-told-you-she-was-crazy look.

In the end, it didn’t matter. When the creature’s health was about 10%, he turned and opened the door to the outside. The moment he did, his health stopped descending. A massive horde of monsters remained outside, and they squealed and started throwing themselves at the entrance, zapping away as they did.

He took a step outside, and his health started to rise. “Tonight. Come,” he said without turning back to us.

I moved to close the door, leaving us alone in the room. His scent lingered, heavy in the air.

~

“I know what you’re about to say, and we are not flagging that guy, Carl. His presence makes me want to hurl. The princess posse will not like us having a rotting stink factory in the party. I don’t care how powerful he is. And I told you that Havana browns are unstable. What did I say?”

We were back in our personal space. We had to go on our program in a little bit anyway, which would give us time to get ready. We would all meet again in a few hours after the sun went down. In the meantime, Mordecai was hard at work making us some anti-undead bombs that would help us clear the way out of the saferoom. Our supplies were dwindling, but thankfully Li Jun’s team had found a Desperado Club in their area, and they were getting some supplies for us. They were all marveling at how big the second floor of the Desperado Club was, something we’d only gotten to see a fraction of on the last floor because of the hunters.

“There’s definitely something going on there in her head,” I said. “She’s really into the idea of killing undead creatures, but she’s terrified of the idea of other gods.”

“Well, it reminds me of Miss Beatrice’s mother, and I don’t like that. She’s letting her religion make her act stupid. She’s crazy. You know how I feel about crazy, Carl.”

I reached up to pet the cat. “There’s nothing wrong with being religious or spiritual, Donut. Bautista and Imani are both really religious.” I didn’t add that half the authors of the cookbook were also deeply pious, though their faiths were as varied as the stars in the sky. “But it’s like anything. Some people take it too far. Some people get a little carried away, and they get so caught up in the rules that they end up forgetting what their faith teaches. Sister Ines acts strong, but I think she’s overwhelmed. The idea of ‘worshipping’ deities, even in this environment, upsets her. Either way, it’s a sensitive subject for some people, and it’s not really our business. We don’t know what’s going on in her head. It’s not our place to judge her for it.”

“Oh, I’m judging her. If she’s going to freak out every time some god or half god shows up, then I don’t want to be anywhere near her. It makes her untrustworthy and dangerous.”

I sighed. Donut had a point. It didn’t matter now, anyway. We were stuck with them until we could get out of here. I wasn’t super worried about being trapped in this town now that we knew how to get out. If it came down to it, I could build an undead-killing bomb that’d wipe out the entire population.

“Either way,” I said, “I think we should try to flag one of the regular ghommids before we fix the shrine. I didn’t think they were strong enough at first, but that ice attack of theirs is really powerful. I’m resistant to ice attacks, and it still worked on me.”

“That’s because it’s not a regular ice attack when it’s from an undead creature,” Mordecai said, walking into the room. He had chocolate all over his face. “Now open your boxes and then get ready for your show.”

Donut and I both had fan boxes to open. Mine, a gold fan box, had come from near the end of the previous floor when I’d first met Imogen, but I hadn’t opened the achievement until yesterday. Donut had received hers—a platinum fan box—when she sang during the Butcher’s Masquerade. Both boxes were finally ready.

The main room of our personal space was unusually messy when we entered. The cleaner bot was making angry noises as it swept through, picking up candy wrappers and stains off the counter that looked like ice cream.

Mongo sniffed at a half-empty bag of Doritos. He picked up the bag and started shaking it, spreading Dorito bits everywhere, scattering them like confetti. The cleaner bot let out a shrill tone.

“Mongo, no! Bomo, were you and Mordecai having a party in here?” Donut asked as she jumped to the counter. She lifted up her foot, and it came back sticky. She made a face. “If you’re going to have guests over, you know the rules. I have to be invited.”

Bomo looked back from the television and made a noncommittal grunt. He was playing Portal 2 on the newly put-together Xbox 360 console. I hadn’t yet built a controller adapter for him, but apparently Mordecai had beaten me to it.

Mordecai suddenly had a strange, sheepish look on his dumb face I couldn’t read. Before I could press him on it, Donut opened up the first of her boxes.

She had two boxes. A gold T’Ghee box she’d gotten for using the practice room, and her platinum fan box.

The gold box contained a single card. Our first snare card. A “very rare,” consumable card called Hobbled.

I picked the card up. It featured a pair of legs tied together. The card reduced a totem’s summoning time by 90%. If the totem card timed out and returned to the opponent’s deck, they could resummon the monster once they pulled it again, but the 90% time reduction would persist through combat. That was a pretty big deal. If a monster was normally summoned for a full minute, it would make it so it’d remain for only six seconds. That would make all but the most powerful monsters useless. Too bad the card was consumable.

Donut gasped as the fan box opened.

I exchanged a look with Mordecai.

“Oh my god. Oh my god! Thank you! Thank you!” she cried, bouncing up and down with excitement. “Carl, look! Look what my Princess Posse voted on for me!”

“Don’t you have one of those already?”

“This is a real one! The one I used at the party was a prop!” She gasped again. “Look, there’s a purple jewel on it. Do they know me or what? I’m going to look just like Britney!”

“Oh thank the gods,” Mordecai said after a moment. He looked at me and nodded. “It’s a good one. Sort of. Donut, keep it in your inventory and only equip it when you’re singing. Otherwise.... yeah.”

The item appeared on the table, and I gingerly picked it up as Donut continued to rain enthusiastic praise on her fans.

“It’s not considered a hat?” I asked.

“No,” Mordecai said. It’s a face accessory. Like your bandana.”

The AI’s voice took on a weird, electronic cadence as it read the description.

The Bard’s Golden Throat – Enchanted Headset Microphone.

Nuclear power. The airplane. Transistors. Antibiotics.

Important inventions and discoveries of the twentieth century that changed the world.

But those were nothing, absolutely nothing, compared to the greatest invention of the century.

It happened in September of 1997. That was the day it all changed. That was the day a company called Antares Audio Technologies released into the wild a piece of software that finally cured a horrific disability that’d been plaguing young men and women for a millennia.

The disability? Tone deafness.

The cure? It was called AutoTune.

With the advent of the real-time vocal synthesizer, underprivileged youths such as T-Pain, Kayne, and Ke$ha were finally able to crawl out from underneath their ordinary lives and become the shining stars they were destined to be. At the same time, aging musicians, *cough* like Cher, were able to keep their stars aloft just a little longer, proving once and for all that nothing, not even the lack of natural talent, could stop the upward momentum of technology.

This golden, amethyst-encrusted microphone imbues the following benefits when it is equipped.

The Golden Throat enhancement. Automatically tunes songs within one and a half steps of correct note. Assists in the proper formation of all bard-based songs and spells.

Amplification. While equipped, all spoken words and songs are amplified at twice the normal volume. This can be increased to up to five times of top volume.

Charisma plus 5% when equipped.

“Isn’t it fantastic!” Donut said. She took it back, and it poofed onto her head with little, purple sparkles. The moment she equipped it, her voice modulated and increased in volume. “Oh, I just love it.” She paused. “Wow... Carl, it sounds like I’m talking through a fan. Oh look, I can make my voice even louder!”

Mongo screeched.

I looked up at the ceiling. “Yeah, thanks,” I said. To Donut, I added, “let’s keep that as a secret weapon.”

“Yes, I suppose you’re right,” Donut said. The headset, thankfully, disappeared into her inventory. “I’ll keep it in my hotlist, and I can add it when I need a little extra oomph. Or when you’re not paying attention to me properly. Now open yours, Carl.”

I grunted and pulled out my boxes. I had a couple of adventurer boxes for taking damage from undead. I hadn’t realized my goat patch I’d gotten just before the vampire quest on the previous floor had actually muted some of the damage from the ghommid’s freeze attack. It’d probably saved my arm.

There wasn’t anything good in any of the first boxes. Then came the fan box.

It cracked and whirred with the usual amount of gusto. Sparkles and a puff of smoke appeared.

Pop!

“Uh,” I said, looking at the coupon. I picked it up. It was a small clip of paper that looked as if it had been poorly cut out of a newspaper. It featured a cartoon of a topless orc woman on her stomach atop a table. The word “RELAX!” was written on the top.

I examined it.

Massage coupon!

Has work been getting you down? Feeling stressed? Do you and your girlfriends need a break? This coupon entitles you plus one companion a free, relaxing, one-hour massage at the Penis Palace Back Room Relaxation Spa in the Desperado Club. Includes optional aromatherapy and chemical peel.

“Extras” and tip not included.

“Uh,” I said again.

Donut gasped. “It says you can bring a companion! That’s me! I’m your companion! The Penis Palace! Carl, we can go to the Penis Palace! We haven’t had a chance to go there yet! This is almost as good as my prize!”

The Penis Palace was the male strip club on the second floor of the Desperado Club, as opposed to the seedier Penis Parade on the first floor where Donut usually went.

“Uh,” I said for a third time.

Right at that moment, Katia and Bautista walked into the room.

“Knock, knock,” Katia said, peaking her head in through the door to the guild hall.

“Hi Katia!” Donut said. “No, No. Wait. Let me do that again.”

The headset popped onto her head.

“Hi Katia! Hi Katia’s boyfriend,” she repeated. Her voice boomed electronically. “Look at my prize! And I think the Posse voted on Carl’s prize, too!”

“I can see that,” Katia said, laughing as Mongo danced around them. “What did Carl get?”

“You sound like T-Pain,” a new voice said before Donut could answer. A third crawler came into the room.

“Louis!” Donut cried. She put her headset away and leaped across the room and landed on his shoulder. “Louis, how are you?”

“Uh, I’m okay. I’m doing better,” he said. He reached up and gave her an awkward pat. “We’re in Iceland.”

“I know, I heard,” Donut said. “Is it cold and covered in ice?”

“Yeah, actually it is,” he said. “I always heard they named Iceland and Greenland backward to make people want to go to the wrong place, but we’re in Reykjavik and it’s very snowy and icy. It’s pretty, though.”

“It is Christmastime,” Donut said. “I wanted to go to Ibiza, but Carl insisted on Cuba.”

“I did not!” I said, putting my massage coupon away. “You picked the wrong place.”

“I bet it’s nice outside,” Louis said.

He was acting normal, but I could sense it there, hidden in the back of his voice. There was a hollowness that wasn’t there before, like just a little bit of life had been drained out of him. Firas had been his best friend.

“Oh, it’s okay. There are disgusting street dogs everywhere. But I suppose the weather’s not too bad for December.” She paused. “How’s Britney doing? Is her face still all... you know.”

“Her face hasn’t healed,” Louis said, whispering. “But she’s been going out there on her own. She’s rising in levels really fast all of a sudden. Last floor she didn’t want to fight at all, but now she’s working really hard.”

Katia was looking down at all the wrappers on the floor. The cleaner bot still zipped around, picking them up.

“Well, I hope she feels better soon,” Donut said, “and I hope she’s not on the path to being a super villain. Mongo really likes her.”

Louis nodded. “Yeah, Firas was hard to lose. Langley and all those other car salesmen guys and Gwen and Firas. Almost everyone who was in the bubble with us on the fifth floor, they all died on the sixth.”

Donut nodded sadly. “That reminds me, how’s Tran doing?”

Bautista answered. “He’s much better, too. It’s taken him some time to get used to not having legs, but he’s like the rest of us. Resilient to change.”

Katia’s squad was her, Bautista, Louis, Britney, and Tran. She had a ton of other people in her actual party, but they hadn’t chosen Iceland. Apparently there was one other group in the area, comprising of the last remaining daughters from Hekla’s team. They were all working together.

“Hey,” Louis said. “Are you guys planning on rescuing Samantha any time soon? I made the mistake of putting her in my chat, and I don’t want to be a dick and block her, but she won’t stop messaging me. Earlier, she wrote ‘YOOHOO’ like fifty times straight in all caps until I answered her, and when I did, she asked me what I was wearing.”

I laughed. “Just mute her. We’ll get to it when we can. She’s on the other side of the map.”

Katia shook her head. “I told you to be careful, Louis. She has a crush on you.”

I grunted. “I’m just glad she has her attention on you and not us. No offense. Just don’t let her distract you too much. Too much chatting is dangerous.”

“That’s actually why we came over,” Katia said. “Donut has been talking, but you have been pretty antisocial, only talking business, and we wanted to check up on you.”

“I’m doing okay,” I said. “Living the dream, you know? How are you doing?”

She smiled sadly. “Just taking it one day at a time. Do you needed any utility cards? We have these little trolls everywhere. They’re just called the Lads, but they drop a lot of cards. Louis mass killed about two hundred of them with a cloud attack, and we have more of these things than we know what to do with.”

She plopped a deck onto the counter, unveiling a ton of Time Extend and Buff cards and several others I hadn’t seen yet.

“Oh, wow,” I said, sifting through the pile. “Have you gotten any mystic cards?”

“No,” Katia said. “No mystic, no snares, and only a couple special cards. We have a lot of cards, but our main deck is still pretty thin. We’re going totem hunting in a few hours. Do you know how the mystic cards work? It’s kind of a pain because they have to stay in your hand, taking up a slot. Anyway, here. Take two of these. They’re consumable, so be careful.” She pushed forward a pair of Flee Cards. I grabbed another Stout card and two additional utility cards I hadn’t seen before. One called Blue Stuff, which increased the totem’s supply of mana points, and another called Greased Lightning which increased a mob’s speed by 25%. If we added that to Geraldo, he would be ridiculously fast.

“Thanks!” I said.

Katia gathered her cards back up. “Be careful putting too many of these utility cards in your deck until you get more totems. Li Na has a mystic card that decreases draw time from ten seconds down to five. So we should all be on the lookout for that one. Also, if you have time and have flags left after you collect your squad, I’d love to get one of those kung-fu seals you were telling us about. In exchange I can get you a troll or something better. That one card we were talking about earlier isn’t unique, so we might be able to get two.”

“What?” Donut asked. “What other one?”

Zev: Sorry to interrupt, but you guys are going on in a few minutes. Louis also has a show he needs to prepare for in an hour.

“Oh poo,” Donut said. “We have to go to show, and you just got here.”

“I’m doing a show, too,” Louis said. “It’s just me and Britney, but we’re going on Dungeon Sidekicks. It’s only my second show.”

“Oh, I heard about that one,” Donut said. “We’re going on a documentary or something equally highbrow, but we’ll be talking about television shows!”

“That sounds way better than mine,” Louis said. “Katia went on mine once, and they made her sing karaoke. I’m a terrible singer.”

“I haven’t yet been invited on a program as a musical guest, but I suspect it’s only a matter of time. I wonder if the galaxy has something like Eurovision where people from different planets compete and sing. That would be delightful.” She turned to regard Bomo, who continued to play on the Xbox. “Bomo, be a darling and brush me out. I have a program to go on.”

We said our goodbyes while Bomo brushed her. The cretin did it happily, but he wasn’t nearly as enthusiastic about it as the Sledge had been.

“Carl,” Donut said as we prepared. “What do you think is going to happen this time? Something crazy always happens when we go on shows. The last time, I didn’t even get to go, but you made Vrah’s mother really mad at you.”

“Hopefully nothing too interesting,” I said.

Chapter 210

We, once again, transferred to the space station before being zapped down to the underwater production trailer. The trip into space was especially brief.

The two gnolls were already dropping into the room when we appeared. I had but a moment to gaze out the window. The space station itself rotated, but I realized we were always over the same location on the planet over the Indian ocean. Thick clouds covered most of the area, and I didn’t have time to marvel at the view. The guards did a quick, wordless once over on us and disappeared. I grabbed Donut into my arms and turned myself in the air.

We plopped into a familiar room. This was the same room where I’d met the Popov brothers. The place still smelled like rotisserie chicken. A deck of regular playing cards remained sitting on the counter where the Popovs had left it.

There were two others already here.

Zev sat on the couch, looking both tired and worried.

And standing in the corner on two cloven hooves was a massive, hairy goat creature with a line of red, bug-like eyes down its evil face.

A caprid from the Plenty.

This thing was about twice as tall as Prepotente. He was even taller than the only other full-grown caprid I’d seen, the goat from the presentation of my new sponsor. And that dude had been terrifying. This guy was worse. He went all the way to the ceiling. A creature straight from a nightmare.

Zev had warned us a liaison would be attending the show, and here he was. The tall, shaggy creature turned to face us the moment we arrived. It turned stiffy and glared. A pair of horns curled upon its head. The corner of its top left horn, I realized, pushed up through the ceiling. This guy wasn’t really here. He was a holo.

Donut leaped from my arms and landed on the couch next to Zev. She leaned in and gave the fish woman a quick head bump. I swallowed and tried to appear confident.

“Hello, Mr. Satanic goat guy,” I said. “Are you the same cheat who tried to get Maggie My to kill us? The same one working with the Skull Empire?”

The creature leaned in and paused, not saying anything. He moved oddly, like he couldn’t turn his neck, which was astoundingly unnerving. A full five seconds passed. I was transfixed by his long, back, and wavy hair. Unlike Prepotente, whose wire hair felt very much like that of a regular goat, this guy’s coat appeared to be silky smooth, yet at the same time, it was so black and bottomless that I imagined if I reached into his fur, my hand would come back oily. Or covered with spiders.

The goat suddenly bleated, long and hard, his voice deep and filled with bass. It vibrated the walls.

“Right back atcha, buddy,” I said.

He opened his mouth again, as if he was about to really say something, but he stopped and leaned back. He made an angry grunt. He rigidly turned his whole body to the side and huffed something in a strange language at someone unseen. The words sounded like something a goat straight out of hell would say, like Latin played backward and in slow motion.

A new figure suddenly popped into the small room. This was also a holo, half obscured by a cloud of smoke. He was rapidly pulling a tie on around his neck as he zapped, coughing into place.

Quasar. My attorney.

“Not a word to my client!” Quasar shouted at the goat. He looked at me. “Holy tits. You need to tell me when you’re going to be in the presence of one of these shit tarts. For fuck’s sake. You’re lucky I wasn’t at the Tug-aporium or something.”

“Hi Quasar!” Donut said.

I fought the urge to cough, even though his vape smoke wasn’t really in the room. It suddenly felt very crowded in here. “I didn’t realize this was something you’d want to be involved in. And I figured you knew I’d be here. This program has been on the books for a few days.”

“Do I look like a grixist shaman to you?” he asked. He finished putting on his tie. He normally wore one with an alien hulu girl. This time it looked like it was covered with pickles wearing sunglasses. He took a hit of his vape and then pointed an accusatory finger at Zev. “Your outreach associate is supposed to let me know of any planned meetings with liaisons so I can prepare.”

“It’s not my job to do yours,” Zev said evenly.

“Save it, Fish Sticks. I should’ve been informed ahead of time. You’re lucky our contract allows for me to appear in case of an emergency.”

Zev grumbled and sprayed out water over the couch.

The goat guy turned to Quasar and said something in that same weird, demonic language.

The pickles on Quasar’s tie started spinning in circles on their own. Donut couldn’t keep her eyes off of them.

Quasar lifted up his hands in a what-the-hell-was-that? motion. “Look, you walking shawarma skewer. I don’t speak whatever the fuck it is you’re trying to say, and it ain’t in the translator system, which is fine by me because you ain’t allowed to so much as bleat at my client. You’re only here because... actually, I don’t know why the fuck you’re here.” He turned to Zev. “Why the fuck is he here?”

Zev sighed. “The program they’re attending is owned by the Open Intellect Pacifist Network, and as you should know, Valtay rules state a liaison needs to be present in any instance when a crawler might be alone with a sponsor.”

“Tits,” Quasar said, sounding surprised. “Shadow Boxer is owned by those crazy assholes? Really? I gotta tell you, Fish Sticks. I’m more than a little annoyed at the lack of communication. But why is it this guy?” He turned to the goat. “What’s your name again? Harbinger, right?”

“I have no control over who they send,” Zev said.

“Harbinger?” Donut asked. “The devil goat’s name is Harbinger? Really?”

“Well, considering his history with my client and the princess, I’d say this is improper at best. It’s a three-ring ass casserole at worst. Even if he hadn’t already been sanctioned for trying to straight up murder my client, he’s a caprid, which is another one of Carl’s sponsors. It’s like hiring an incubus as a guard on a chastity yacht during an elven rut.”

I felt a chill wash over me. This was the same guy. The one who’d given Maggie My help in trying to kill me, all with the help of the orcs of the Skull Empire. Orren the other liaison had told me it had been dealt with, but I still didn’t know what that meant. I still didn’t know why any of that had happened.

“Like I said,” Zev said, frustrated, “this is something you’ll have to take up with the liaison office.”

“Oh, I will. As soon as I can find one that isn’t going to accidentally raise my grandmother from the dead when he speaks. Seriously. What is up with your voice? Why aren’t you getting translated properly?”

Harbinger the caprid said something, but it still came out in his demon language. He turned and started grunting at someone we couldn’t see.

“The system has been buggy lately,” Zev said.

The goat turned back and said, “The error has been corrected. We will proceed.” His voice remained deep and terrifying. “Administrator Zev, you may inform the show runner we are prepared.”

“I’m pinging Rosetta right now,” Zev said.

I went very still.

“Rosetta?” Donut asked. “Is that the host? That’s a very pretty name.”

“This is Rosetta’s new show?” Quasar asked, straightening. “Tits, I had no idea. I need to pay better attention to this stuff.” He rubbed a hand along his bald, alien head. “Carl, how’s my hair look?”

“Yes,” Zev said, ignoring Quasar. “Rosetta Thagra. An Odette wannabe. She’s a former crawler and game guide. She’s a Crest.” She looked at me. “Actually, she was more like you, Carl, than Odette. She was a big fan of blowing things up. She’s only recently been released from her indentureship contract. Her new program, Shadow Boxer has become quite popular.”

My heart skipped a beat. No. No way.

I felt the line of red eyes of the liaison bore into me.

“Oh, one of those,” Donut said. A Crest was a human race with no eyebrows. They’d been a common hunter type on the previous floor. Donut turned to Quasar and said, “You need to straighten your tie if you want to make a better impression. I really like the pattern, though.”

Quasar looked down and picked up the end of the pickle tie. “Yeah, this one is pretty great. You know there’s some new ones out there featuring you on the back of your dinosaur. You fire magic missiles. The Donut merch is much better than the Carl merch.”

Donut gasped.

I barely heard this. I had to fight to stop myself from shaking. Could it be? Was it possible?

~

<Note added by Crawler Rosetta. Ninth Edition>

How can they do this? Do they not see us? Are we not real to them? We are the same. By the gods old and new, we are the same. Yet they kill us like we are nothing. Comrades, if I ever get out of this, which seems more and more unlikely by the day, I swear upon the moons I will spend the rest of my days making certain this evil is not only eradicated from the stars, but there will be accountability for their crimes.

I swear it, I swear it, I swear it.

~

“No, no, no,” Donut said, sounding irritated. “Gossip Girl and Gilmore Girls are two completely different shows. Gilmore Girls was entirely fantastic, yes, but Gossip Girl is, quite simply, the pinnacle of television achievement. You can’t just lump the two together. It’s like, I don’t know, serving a Twinkie on the same plate as caviar. Tell me, Miss Thagra, what is considered the greatest program in the universe?”

Rosetta Thagra shifted uncomfortably in her chair. The human-like woman was pale, pretty, and appeared to be in her early twenties, wearing a professional pantsuit. A strange blob of yellow hair sat atop her otherwise bald head at an angle. It looked like a faded, blond toupee for an aging surfer dude.. I couldn’t tell if it was her real hair, an actual wig, or if it was supposed to be some sort of hat.

The moment I saw her, I immediately started to question whether this was the same person as the author of the ninth edition of the cookbook. She had an almost meek appearance. If Zev hadn’t told us she was a former crawler, one just two seasons older than Mordecai, I’d never believe it.

Zev said she liked explosives. Rosetta from the cookbook had provided dozens of explosives recipes. It had to be her.

Only her voice hinted at her true age. Whatever rejuvenation system this universe used to keep people young, it wasn’t perfect. There were still traces of one’s unnatural age here and there.

According to Zev, the first thing Rosetta had done upon exiting the dungeon was make a documentary movie, program, whatever about her home planet. Zev and Quasar both said it was well-received and entertaining, though I strongly suspected they both likely missed the point of it. After the success of this first movie, the mysterious Open Intellect Pacifist Network had funded Shadow Boxer, a weekly show that was now telling the story of Earth through interviews that were designed to look like regular conversations. Like Zev had said earlier, it was similar to Earth Beautiful, the other program we’d once gone on, but this one was much more “raw.”

“Well?” Donut asked Rosetta.

Rosetta planted a fake grin on her face. “I suppose I’d say the best show in the galaxy is Shadow Boxer.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” Donut said. “But what’s the best, most popular fictional program?”

“I don’t get time to watch much anymore,” Rosetta said. “But when I was a game guide, I really liked Little Settler Miss. It was very popular.”

Donut leaned in. “Well, let me tell you, Miss Thagra. Gossip Girl is better. It’s not even a question.”

Rosetta nodded thoughtfully. “I know you didn’t gain your sapience until you entered the dungeon, but looking back, how do you think watching this program...”

“No!” Donut said, interrupting, waving her paw up at the screen, which was showing scenes from the show. “These screencaps are all wrong. That first one is from the horrific Acapulco spinoff, and the second is from the HBO reboot which we won’t even dignify with a response. I mean, really.”

Rosetta took a deep breath. I watched as the former crawler took her right hand and started to rub the side of her thigh. A nervous gesture. Her attention kept darting to Harbinger, who stood in the dark, his eyes glowing. “I apologize, Princess. I’ll tell you what. After the interview, why don’t we hang out for a few minutes, and you can help us choose a few proper screencaps for when this tunnels.”

“Negative,” Harbinger said, talking for the first time since the interview started.

Rosetta’s eyes flashed to me and then back to the caprid. “How about between the interviews? It’ll all be automated anyway. She can just point. I won’t even be in the room.”

Harbinger didn’t answer.

“Uh,” Rosetta said, turning to Donut. “If that would be okay with you? We’ll show you a bunch of the collected screencaps, and we’ll number them, and you can call the best ones out to a producer.”

Donut preened. “That would be most acceptable. Now, what were you asking?”

This went on for a while. We were in a production studio adjoining the green room. It was the same room where the Popovs and I had done our autograph signing. We each sat in a pair of comfortable chairs while Rosetta sat across from us. The room was dark with a hot spotlight shining right into my face. We were ringed by floating screens that were showing pictures and videos of a younger Donut winning cat shows and screencaps of the various television programs and movies she was obsessed with. Everything from Misfits of Science to Downton Abbey to Stranger Things where Donut went on a five-minute rant about some character named Barb to, of course, Gossip Girl.

Rosetta was no Odette. She was obviously nervous, and she wasn’t that great of an interviewer until the conversation started to flow naturally. Only then did she steer the conversation away from the shows themselves to how watching them made Donut feel. How did the shows compare to the real world? Did she feel they had an impact on culture?

It was a bit ridiculous that she was asking these questions to a goddamned cat, but Donut really warmed to the conversation, and Donut’s answers were strangely fascinating. Donut was oddly cold on Rosetta at first, probably because she was a Crest, but by the time the interview started to wind down, Donut was happily chatting away with the woman like they were best friends.

This whole time Zev, Quasar, and Harbinger stood off to the side in the dark, not talking with one another. Tiny Zev held onto a tablet, working on something while she watched. A chair appeared and Quasar parked himself in it about halfway through as he watched Rosetta with puppy dog eyes. A cloud of smoke floated in a square around him, breaking the illusion that he was actually in the room with us.

Harbinger stood behind them both, a mountain compared to the other two, unmoving and unspeaking as he took it all in.

Rosetta didn’t ask me any questions at all during Donut’s portion. She barely acknowledged my presence.

When Donut’s interview finished, the woman stood from her chair and announced, “Thank you princess. I am going to change wardrobe for the next program. While that’s happening, we’ll be scrolling images on the screen with numbers. You can just call out the numbers you think would work for the segment. I’ll be back shortly so we can do Carl’s interview. Okay?”

“Of course, darling,” Donut said.

A disembodied male voice filled the room. “Princess Donut, we’ll be showing you scenes from shows on the roundabout. Just call out the numbers.”

Donut did a little hop in her chair and looked up at the screens. She loved this sort of thing. “Not number one, goodness. I don’t even know what show that is. Where’s the rest of that guy’s shirt?”

“That’s Miami Vice,” I said.

“The show where the guy had a pet Florin on his boat? I only saw a couple of episodes.”

I laughed. “Yes.”

While she watched the screens, Quasar jumped at the opportunity, getting up and leaning in close. “Okay, buddy, listen up,” he said, talking rapidly. “There’s only so much I can say, legally that is, with that scary fucker standing over there. I can’t answer too many questions, so keep your honey hole closed while I get this out. There hasn’t been too much movement on the faction wars front. Your team’s castle landed right in the middle of the Lemig Sortion’s battlefield, and it splattered half their army.”

“No, number six is Golden Girls. I did like that show, but why was all their furniture wicker?” Donut looked over. “Zev, did you ever watch Golden Girls? I think my favorite was the slut one.”

“I loved it,” Zev said after a moment. She’d put away her tablet and was staring up at all the screens intently, a strange look to her face. Harbinger was laser focused on me and Quasar.

“Number seven is good,” Donut continued, “But again, that’s Gilmore Girls. That was the spring break episode. I think number eight is Dexter. Carl liked that show, but I only thought it was okay. Did you know he was married to his sister from the show in real life? Can you imagine how weird that had to be? At least it wasn’t the other way around. I thought these were going to be scenes from Gossip Girl.” She gasped. “Ten is Jane the Virgin! I loved that show!”

Quasar continued. “The resulting ghoul things from the Zerzura spell are still a problem, but most of your army has gotten away and has installed themselves onto your battlefield. The Lemigs are now squatting in that blown-to-shit elf castle and are using it as their stronghold. Those memory golems are all still around. People really like the shark. Tina is still an allosaurus and is causing problems. Her mother is another story. I got ten credits on what that baby is gonna look like. The changelings have started construction on your own stronghold. The cat lost his hat and moved straight to the city. Too bad that giant castle didn’t land in your own territory.”

Harbinger made a growling noise.

“Oh, keep your weird goat dick in the bag,” Quasar said to the liaison. “There ain’t no explicit rules against this. He’s a sponsor.” He turned back to me. “I’m sorry, buddy. There’s so much more happening, and I wish I could tell you all of it. There’s a shit load of action items that need to be hashed out. You two are scheduled for a preproduction meeting in a day or two. I put in a petition to be there, but they denied it.”

The screens all flicked off and were suddenly replaced with photos of myself, including one I’d never seen before. It was me, about seventeen years old, staring at the camera while I carried a baby goat.

“Carl, look, it’s you!” Donut exclaimed. “You’re holding a baby Prepotente!”

“We’ll talk more soon if we can,” Quasar said, backing up.

Rosetta reappeared, wearing a different pantsuit. The hair blob on her head switched sides and was now red. She sat in her chair, settled and gave me a wink.

A photo of my mother and father hung in the air, just above me. It was from their wedding. I remembered the framed photo from the living room. I remembered it had disappeared soon after my mother had died.

It’d been over my fish tank. The memory came suddenly and quickly, like a jab to the stomach. I’d been so preoccupied with who Rosetta was, I’d completely forgotten about what we were supposed to be talking about now.

“So, comrade,” Rosetta said to me. “Let’s talk about your dead mother.”

~~

Lots of things happening at once.

I'm literally posting this inside of a Panera Bread before I gotta go to Olympia to play a gig. If you're in town, I'll be playing tonight (Thursday!) at McCoy's Tavern if you want to go. I'm playing again tomorrow (Friday) at the Plaid Pig in Tacoma.