Chapters 211 and 212 (Patreon)

Warning: Asshole tier cliffhanger alert.

Chapter 211

<Note added by Crawler Milk. 6th Edition>

I used to make a stew for my whole family. The recipe in itself wasn’t anything special. Rance meat, bone broth, a wild grass that would grow on the leeward side of our island. We’d pray over the cauldron while it simmered. The stew, when prepared properly, would not only be delicious. It would awaken the old knowledge within the minds of the young. We’re all imprinted with the route of the yearly migration, but something in the traditional meal quickens that knowledge. In sharing this meal with our young, we’re not only bonding with one another. We’re ensuring their survival should we fall.

I can’t stop thinking about it. These aliens took us before I could make this year’s stew. The youngest amongst us are not here. How are they faring out there, all alone? How can they possibly survive without our guidance? Who will show them the way?

~

“Take us back to that day,” Rosetta said. “Your fifteenth birthday. Your mother poisoned your father and left him for dead, and then she went into the basement of your home and hanged herself from the pipes. According to the incident report from the police, you were the one to discover her. Your father had only ingested a portion of the poison and was barely injured. Your mother had left a note, but the contents of which are a mystery. Apparently it was a letter to you.”

I felt as if I’d been slapped. It was like she’d stood up, walked across the space between us, and backhanded me as hard as she could. I reeled.

“We’re not talking about this,” I said as I recovered, my surprise getting replaced by anger. “That’s not what we agreed to. We’re supposed to be talking about the Anacortes Boys’ Ranch.”

“We are,” Rosetta said. “But we gotta get there first. Your history is well known, but we need to establish the timeline. I’m sorry if it’s uncomfortable.”

“Your mother killed herself?” Donut asked. “Your own mother? I didn’t know that. You always said she left you. I assumed she ran off with her personal trainer or something.” She paused. “You know what, I don’t remember you ever talking about her other than that. Saying she left you. Or your father for that matter. Miss Beatrice would never shut up about her mother and father.”

Every instinct told me to stand up, turn around and walk out. That was precisely what I would’ve done if it’d been anyone else asking this of me. I took a breath, gritted my teeth, and I said. “Yes, my mother hanged herself. A few months later, my father disappeared and left me all alone. A few months after that, I was taken into custody by the state of Washington. I was placed in a home where I broke the nose of some other kid. Then I was shipped off to a place called the Anacortes Boys’ Ranch, where I lived until my 18th birthday. I was handed a high school equivalency certificate even though I hadn’t been in a real school for two years. I moved back down to Seattle, and I crashed on a couch for about a month while I looked for a job. I couldn’t find one, so I went to a recruitment center. I got there during lunch, and the only one at his desk was the Coast Guard guy. So now you know the history. Let’s move on.”

Donut sat there, her eyes shining up at me.

“Let’s back up a bit,” Rosetta said. “You said your father left you.” I tensed. “But the state didn’t take you into custody for a few months after that. How did that come to be?”

You’re a bully. You’re a bully, and nobody likes you. It’s why mom left.

I don’t need you to like me. But you will respect me.

The fishtank that he’d shattered with his motorcycle helmet remained there on its pedestal, still broken a month later. A monument to the last living thing in my life that I cared about. The photo on the wall above it remained. My mom and dad, smiling at the camera. A lie. A goddamned lie.

Never, I’d said. She’d almost gotten you. Just wait until I’m big enough to finish what she started.

He’d turned around and walked out the door. He walked out the door, and I never saw him again.

The studio had gone silent. The only sound was Zev’s rebreather.

“Carl?” Rosetta finally prodded.

“My dad couldn’t handle being a single dad, and he disappeared. My sophomore year of high school started a week later, and I went to school as if nothing had happened. I ate the rest of the food we had in the house, and when that ran out, my friend Sam would bring me food. It wasn’t until the power went out did someone finally notice I was living by myself.”

Rosetta nodded. “In fact, didn’t they suspect you of actually killing your father?”

I grunted with amusement, remembering. “Yeah.”

The images on the roundabout changed.

It was a grainy video of a police interrogation room. Me and that asshole detective guy. What was his name? I couldn’t remember.

I sat there, my arms crossed, wearing a hoodie. Fifteen years old. I looked so small, so defiant. I could still smell that room. Like Lysol and coffee. I was there all night, I remembered. He’d offered me a cigarette, trying to be my friend, to gain my trust. I’d taken it. My first. He brought me an entire pack. Cigarettes. I was fifteen years old.

“When was the last time you saw your father?” the detective asked.

On the screen, I shrugged.

“Carl, did you do something to him?”

“What if I did?” I asked.

“Did you?”

I shrugged again. I took a drag of cigarette, trying to look cool. I coughed. I remembered that moment like it’d just happened. I could still taste it.

About an hour after this, they’d discovered my father was alive and well somewhere in Wisconsin where he’d gotten himself arrested a few times for public drunkenness. The detective’s attitude toward me completely changed once they learned my dad was alive. They were being kind and respectful to me because they wanted me to admit to a crime. It was a false respect, a false kindness, but it was the first I’d gotten from an adult in such a long time, and despite my outward hostility, I’d been just drinking it up.

I had wanted them to think I’d done something to my father. It was stupid, I knew now. But I’d desperately wanted them to see me, to understand me, to know me. I was here, goddamnit. I was real.

But once they realized there was nothing of interest to them, everything changed. I was just another sad, abandoned kid. A victim. I was not their problem. I was nothing. They left me alone in that cold room with the smell of cigarettes and Lysol and coffee, waiting for the social worker. They’d taken the pack away, admonishing me about smoking. I was left there for hours, forgotten, in that tiny room.

I’d never felt so helpless, so impotent in my life than when that social worker came and told me it was time to go. In so many ways, it was worse than the moment of my mother’s death. Her departure had been like a slow-motion car crash that had taken years to get to the violent, abrupt impact. My father’s disappearance after that was nothing but an aftershock. And everything up until that moment was me just spinning, rolling away, injured and in shock from the trauma with the broken glass of my life raining all around me.

But that moment. The moment the woman came and opened the door to the interrogation room and said, “Come on now.” That was the moment I’d finally stopped reeling and could see exactly where I was.

“The police claimed they were going to arrest your father for child abandonment,” Rosetta said when the video stopped playing. “An arrest warrant was issued, but it appears he was never taken into custody. He was stopped in a traffic incident seven years later in Georgia, which is another state of the country, but they let him go. It’s not clear if the officers were aware of the warrant or if it was still active. That was the last time he was in the system.”

That last part was news to me. I did my best not to show a reaction.

Donut, I realized, was on my lap. I couldn’t remember when she’d jumped there.

“This is ancient history,” I finally said. “Nobody cares about any of this stuff.”

“That’s not even a little bit true, Carl,” Rosetta said. “But you’re correct on one point. None of this is new. Odette’s special on your life, which recently tunneled, touched on all of these points.”

“Her what?” I asked.

“What I’m really interested in is how your society dealt with children who are all alone. We have seen the specials about what happened to children left in India for obvious reasons, but your country, the United States of America, was on the other side of the planet.”

I had no idea what was obvious about India. I only knew of a few crawlers from India. But the last thing I wanted was to get her to talk more about this.

She continued. “You ended up at a home for teenaged boys. We have photos of your sleeping quarters, but only a precious few records about you during that time. All we have is a three-page report. And the record from your graduation. All good marks.”

That photo of me holding the young goat reappeared. Another photo of the dorm, probably taken from the ranch’s website, popped up on the screen. The photo was wrong. Too clean. There was light shining into the room. I remembered how dark it had been all the time. That place, too, had smelled like Lysol.

Most of my time there was a blur. I was there for two years. It seemed like it was just for a week. Yet... yet, it also felt like it was for a decade, all blurred together.

“It was called a ranch, but there were no animals there. I worked nearby at a real ranch during the summer, shoveling goat crap. But most of my time there was spent at the home cleaning or rewiring the lights or replacing all the power outlets. That’s what they did. They gave you something to do. They kept you busy doing something inconsequential, something you could use once you aged out.” I paused, remembering.

“Did you feel as if you were abandoned by society?” Rosetta asked.

That’s exactly how I felt at the time, but I wasn’t going to contribute to any anti-Earth bullshit.

“I was an angry and scared kid, but here’s the thing. On the surface, everything about my life sucked. My mother was dead. My dad was gone. I was shoved in the corner until I wasn’t anyone’s problem anymore. My situation seemed bleak. But I was healthy, I had medical care, food, and a place to stay until I was considered an adult. Compared to some other kids, I had it great.” I paused, wondering why I was saying this. Wondering if it was true. “It wasn’t ideal, but looking at where I landed, I think sometimes my mother was right. That it was the best possible outcome.”

Rosetta appeared surprised. “Wait, right in what? Right in killing herself?”

I didn’t answer directly.

“I joined the Coast Guard right after I turned 18, and everything worked out okay until aliens decided to come along and destroy...”

I paused, my eyes catching a photo on the roundabout. It was me in the kitchen at the boy’s home, and it appeared I was making dinner. There were a bunch of ingredients lined up on the counter, and I had a big knife in my hand while I chopped up a potato. Sitting next to me was a big jug with the word “Milk” on it.

The photo was wrong. It was fake. They’d never let me anywhere near the kitchen except to clean it, and the milk jug was strange. It was shaped like a two-liter bottle of soda. Not correct. Plus the angle of the photo was wrong. It was impossible. If I was chopping potatoes at the counter, then the person holding the camera was standing where there was a wall. I was about to say something, but I thought better of it. Was it a message? Were they trying to tell me something? If so, what the hell was it?

“We know you oftentimes worked in the kitchen, preparing a stew for your fellow students. That single report from the Ranch stated you didn’t talk much to anyone, but with your cooking skills, along with some help from the home’s manager, you could really make a statement. Everyone would gather together at the end of the week for stew night. The report said your special ingredients were simple. Milk and potatoes and whatever else you could find. That was it.”

“Cooking?” Donut asked, incredulous. “Carl could cook? Carl once almost burned the apartment down making a breakfast sandwich. And don’t get me started on the pancake incident. He covered me with batter and then tried to give me a bath! In the bathtub!”

“That was your fault,” I said, my mind working as quickly as I could. “You knocked the bowl off the counter.”

“If I knocked something off the counter, then it was placed too close to the edge. All the best cooks know not to place things next to the edge when there are cats in the home. That’s like cooking class 101, Carl.”

I turned back to Rosetta, who was looking directly at me.

“Apparently Carl needs a proper recipe to do his best work,” Rosetta said.

I looked up at the screen. “The stew was easy. Milk and potatoes. I remember that. Sometimes they didn’t give us much else to work with, and I had to improvise.”

“That sounds like mashed potatoes, not stew,” Donut said.

“Potatoes are very versatile,” I said.

“Very,” Rosetta agreed. “Most...”

The whole world blinked. Rosetta disappeared. The other three in the room remained. The lights snapped on.

“Hey,” Donut said. “What happened!”

“What do you think you’re doing?” Zev shouted at the same time. She was shouting at the massive goat.

“I have ended the interview,” Harbinger said. “I am also recalling your attorney.”

“Wait just one second, you hairy glob of what-the-fuck,” Quasar began before he also disappeared.

“Liaison, you do not have the authority to do that,” Zev said, sounding pissed. It was the angriest I’d ever heard her. “We’re going to have to refund them! And you can’t just dismiss an attorney like that!”

“She and Carl were obviously talking in code,” Harbinger said. “I have full authority to intervene when I believe cheating is involved. My job is to protect the integrity of the crawl. That’s why I am here. I have banned Rosetta from participating in any future crawler interviews.”

“They’re going to sue, and they’re going to win,” Zev said.

“No such lawsuits are proceeding at this time,” Harbinger said. “This interview is over. Carl and Donut, you may return to the dungeon now.” He paused. “You should know, Carl, that I strongly believe you need to be removed from the crawl. I am actively working to have both you and the caprid disposed, and I will eventually succeed.”

With that, he blinked and disappeared.

“That’s nice,” I said.

“Damn him,” Zev said. “Those idiots are always messing everything up. Always overreacting. Sorry guys. I doubt she got enough for Carl’s portion of the interview.”

“I liked her,” Donut said. “Rosetta. I didn’t at first because she’s one of those Crest people. But she genuinely seemed interested in the subject, even if her producers get all of their television shows mixed up. I didn’t even know what that last show was, though it had the Evil Dead guy in it. And now she’s not going to be able to do her show any more because she was talking about mashed potatoes!”

“That’s okay,” I said after a moment, my mind racing. She’d risked everything to get that message to me.

I’d read through Milk’s notes in the cookbook twice now. I needed to go back over it. She’d mostly been about portals and mapmaking, I remembered. And special types of ink. She had a few recipes for the stuff. I needed to take another look.

I remembered one of Milk’s passages in particular. It wasn’t a recipe or important information. Just a rant, like we all did in the cookbook from time to time. Someone had responded, agreeing. I was pretty sure the responder was Rosetta.

Potatoes are very versatile, I’d said.

Very, she’d replied. Just like...

...Just like all root vegetables.

Potatoes and milk.

I still wasn’t certain, exactly, what they wanted me to do with the yam thing. The toraline root vegetable. But now I had an important clue. And now that I had definitive proof that my sponsors, the Open Intellect Pacifist Network, employed at least one, likely two, possibly three former cookbook owners, then whatever it was they were attempting to get me to do was of crucial importance.

~

“Carl, are you okay?” Donut asked as we returned to the green room. She jumped to the room’s counter and sat, facing me. “That wasn’t very nice of her to bring all that up about your mother. And your father sounds like a huge jerk. I’m surprised you turned out so well adjusted, though it does explain a few things. Why didn’t you ever tell Miss Beatrice any of this stuff?”

I gave a non-committal grunt. I wasn’t okay. I was pretty damn far from okay. But what could I do? It was done, and it had been done for a very long time. Every time I started to feel sorry for myself, I would think about everyone else in the world. So many people had it so much worse. Especially now. I almost felt like I didn’t have the right to feel upset about something that had happened so long ago.

Only Zev remained with us, and she was furiously typing onto her tablet and grumbling. She was pissed about the liaison. I’d never seen her so irritated.

“It’s in the past,” I finally said. “I don’t want to be defined by things I have no control over.”

Donut just looked at me for a long moment, a concerned look to her face, like she was debating whether or not to pursue it.

I felt it, then. The water. It had been gone for a while, since that horrific night we’d plunged into the basement of the elf castle.

Patches, when applied improperly, never hold for long.

I gave Donut a small, uncertain smile, and I shook my head.

No. Don’t. Please.

Donut blinked slowly, and then she jumped to my shoulder and leaned against the side of my head, allowing me to give her a pat. I thought she was going to continue to the line of questioning, but then at the last minute, she seemed to change her mind. She straightened. “Well, it’s quite tragic. But did you hear what she said? Odette had a special about you! Isn’t that great? I wonder what sort of audience share you pulled. Do you think there was one about me?”

“There is one,” Zev said, not looking up from her tablet. “It’s airing tonight, actually. There was one about Li Na last night. Tomorrow is Katia. After that, I can’t remember. Maybe Florin. Odette had them made to air while she travels to Earth orbit.”

“Really?” Donut asked, suddenly bouncing up and down on my shoulder. “My own special. A special, about me!” She gasped. “Do you think they have the video of the judging from Cleveland? If you watch the video, there’s a close-up of Spice Mountain of Cinnamon’s owner right when she realized she lost, and it’s just... chef’s kiss.” She made a smacking noise. “Miss Beatrice had the screencap as the wallpaper on her phone for like a month.”

“Zev,” I asked. “Did you deliberately not tell my attorney that Harbinger guy was going to be here?”

“No, Carl,” Zev said. She sounded harried. “I’m sorry. I am so busy. I have so much going on right now that I shouldn’t even be here. We lost dozens of staff during the Valtay changeover, plus we weren’t prepared for this level, plus the Valtay don’t allow certain types of micro AI systems to assist, and now I’m doing the work of five. It didn’t even occur to me he should be informed. I’ll make a note of it for the future. I didn’t know it was going to be that guy, either.”

“So, he’s the one who got bribed by the Skull Empire?” I asked. “How does he still have a job?”

“We’re not having that conversation,” Zev said. “You’re transferring back in ten seconds. You’ll be back here in two days for the preproduction meeting.”

Donut stretched and sharpened her claws on the edge of my cloak. “If Rosetta really is banned, I do hope she gets to show her last episode, even if their producers have a weird obsession with shows that...” She trailed off. “Shows that aren’t as good as Gossip Girl.”

“Carl, my tummy hurts,” she added a moment later.

That was our new code for I gotta tell you something, but I have to put it on the wall in the bathroom.

I reached up and gave her another pat before we transferred away.

~

<Note added by Crawler Milk. 6th Edition>

I am writing the sixth edition of this book. I am putting as much information as I can in here. One day you will find these words, and I pray that they feed you, like the stew I used to serve to our little ones. But is it enough to give this information to just one person? There’s honor in giving someone a meal. But I wish to cook a feast for the whole galaxy. I wish for them all to choke on our pain.

<Note added by Crawler Rosetta. 9th Edition>

Comrade, I agree. One day, we will make certain they all know. Our words will not be lost. I swear it.

Chapter 212

“Here’s the plan,” I said to Paz, Anton, and Sister Ines as they stared, open-mouthed up at the armored form of Bomo. “We open the door and step outside. Before the ghommids can get to us, I’ll roll the stun bomb.”

“What about Asojano?” Paz asked, still looking up at the giant cretin, who was now wearing twice as much armor as he was. “If you hit the orisha guy, it’ll mess everything up.”

I nodded. “We can see him out there.” I pointed left. “He’s already built a path for us to the temple. Sort of. All of the ghosts are pushed to the east and to the sides. The moment we exit, they’ll surge. They made this like a game quest. A gauntlet run. I’m going to toss the bomb away from him and toward the mass of ghommids, which’ll hopefully give us some breathing room. It’ll mass stun them. Then we run to the temple, get inside, and we’ll guard you while you figure out how to fix his shrine. Also, if we’re lucky, I can flag one of the ghommids. You guys should consider it, too.”

“Are those missile launchers on his shoulders?” Anton asked, walking in circles around Bomo.

“Yes,” I said. “Two six packs. Six group stun and six individuals.” I patted the round, beachball-sized bomb in my hand, which caused them all to step back. “I made them with the leftovers. The blasts will only hurt the undead, so it’s okay if they go off at short range. Just be careful of the flames coming out the back when they’re launched.”

“This armor looks heavy as shit,” Anton said after a moment, still eyeing the bomb nervously. “And more complicated than Paz’s armor. Are those daggers? How much metal is he wearing?”

“A lot,” I said.

“With the missile launchers on his shoulder, he looks like one of those robots from Battletech,” Paz said.

“I know, right?” I said, grinning. “He’s been playing some game called Armored Core, so he’s really into it. He’s just pissed he doesn’t have a giant gun in addition to the missiles.”

Bomo made a sad grunt.

“The metal isn’t enchanted,” Anton continued. “It won’t protect him against the undead.”

“I’m aware,” I said.

“I don’t like this,” Sister Ines said, looking toward the door. “If we fix the orisha’s shrine, it says he’ll be more powerful. What if he doesn’t go away? What if he uses the power to attack us?”

I nodded. “Our manager thinks the same thing. That’s why we have a contingency.”

~

Thanks to Li Na’s team making a run to the Desperado Club, we gathered all the supplies we needed. It had been pricey, and we’d needed to give some of our fortune over to them just so they could pay for it. Donut wouldn’t stop grumbling about how much all of this cost.

Mordecai helped me build the first bomb. It was a modified stun grenade designed to paralyze non-corporeal monsters. I wanted to keep as many alive as possible for when the town turned back. The market on the Desperado Club’s second (or lower) floor had a booth that sold something called a Troll Smoke Mantle, which was a step up from the smoke curtains that Pustule the hobgoblin sold on the first floor. They were outrageously expensive. Thirty thousand gold for a pack of twelve, and they only had one case. I had them buy it for us. When I combined four of the smoke mantles with a stun grenade, the effect of the stun had a much wider range, and they lasted up to thirty seconds.

Then, I made smaller, lower-power versions with the rest of my supplies and attached them to seeker missiles, which I built into Bomo’s new armor. I only had enough supplies for six smoke missiles, which would have a small area effect. Then I added six anti-undead missiles that would take out just one or two ghommids at a time.

The massive suit of armor for Bomo was something I’d been toying with for a few days now. I didn’t have the ability to enchant the armor, which was unfortunate. But I could make it heavy and so it would break into dozens of pieces. I made it as big as I could without impeding his ability to move too much. The rock dude was crazy strong and could hold a lot. Paz was right. He looked like a one of those bipedal mechs.

I leaned up against the door to the outside. Thankfully, Asojano had cleared the doorway of the monsters. I readied the round stun bomb.

Donut: IF THE BOMO ARMOR PLAN WORKS, THEN MAYBE WE CAN TALK KATIA INTO COMING BACK INTO OUR PARTY. WE CAN USE HER FOR THIS INSTEAD OF BOMO. WE JUST NEED TO COME UP WITH A COOL NAME FOR THE MOVE.

“Okay, here we go,” I said.

~

Combat Started.

“Dios mio,” Anton said. Sister Ines smacked him on the arm with an admonishment, but she couldn’t look away, either.

The ghommids emanated an ethereal, blue glow that they didn’t possess during the day. They lit up the fog-covered graveyard, giving everything an eerie, cerulean tinge.

If I didn’t know they were so deadly, the look would be cartoonish.

The moment we stepped outside, a choir of shrieks and keens pierced across the graveyard. They didn’t moan and groan like before. They wailed. Loud and terrifying and high-pitched, like thousands of injured animals calling out at once.

They surged. They still moved slowly, but they were much faster at night than during the day.

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” Paz said as I rolled the stun grenade at the mass right behind us. The mobs were all looking directly at him.

The armored warrior suddenly had a debuff over him. Terrified. He glowed, and it went away as Sister Ines cast something, only for it to return a moment later. She repeated the healing, and the debuff returned a third time. The man stopped, rooted in place as he looked about, wringing his gloved hands.

He couldn’t move while he had the debuff.

Bam! The stun bomb went off with a muffled explosion. Billowing, red smoke filled the world behind us, swirling with the fog. All the ghommids in that area were now temporarily frozen. The ones closest to the blast were likely dead.

We still had thousands ahead of us to the left and right, moving to cut us off. I closed my fist and formed my gauntlet.

“Santero!” Asojano yelled. He stood at the halfway point between us and the temple at the center of the graveyard, which was about a full city block away. All I could see was the point of the building, like a dagger in the night. Asojano stood, shrouded knee-deep in fog. “To me!”

“Run!” I called. “Bomo, keep our way clear!... And pick up Paz!”

I didn’t know why he was the only one affected by the terrified debuff, but I was grateful for it.

“He heavy!” Bomo groaned as he attempted to carry the armored man, who continued to just say, “Shit, shit, shit!” over and over again.

“Paz,” I said. “Take off your breastplate. Stick it in your inventory! You’re too heavy for Bomo with all your armor.”

I knew his breastplate was actually light as a feather when it wasn’t equipped, and he didn’t feel the weight while he wore it, but it made him outrageously heavy to anyone else who tried to pick him up.

“Donut,” I started to say, but the breastplate blinked and disappeared as Paz unequipped it.

It revealed a surprisingly skinny, shirtless man. A giant cross tattoo was etched onto his back with a terrible rendition of Jesus in smudged ink. He still wore the leg armor, and the diameter of the waistline was wide enough that three more people could probably fit in there. The armored pants appeared to stay up magically. Bomo heaved and pulled the man up in a bear hug, holding him against his chest.

We moved toward the temple.

I knew under all that fog, a paved street cut right through the graveyard, leading straight to the church. It had been clear of monsters when we stepped outside. Now, ghommids swelled forward, moving in on both sides as we rushed toward Asojano, who stood like a damn statue in the middle of the street, arms spread wide, like he was Moses parting the Red Sea.

The former god radiated. He burned with a sickly green light that crackled like heat around him.

I eyed the glow warily as we ran. “Don’t get too close to him!”

“What’re we going to do about Paz?” Anton shouted.

“We’ll heal him when we get inside!”

Whoosh! Whoosh! On Bomo’s shoulders, two of the six stun missiles streaked away, exploding about thirty feet in front of us to the left and right. A group of surging undead dropped into the fog, frozen.

“Make sure you don’t get it near Asojano!” I yelled.

Up ahead, Asojano turned and started jogging toward the temple. The ghommids didn’t come near him, but I knew if we got too close, we’d get hit with whatever disease he emanated.

A six-legged, fox-like ghommid hissed, coming up out of the fog, apparently unaffected by the stun fog. It tried to jump over me and Donut to get to Paz. I decked it with my gauntlet, and it went flying. Donut magic-missiled another one, this one round and fish-like.

The Scavenger’s Daughter has been fed. Unleash her wrath.

I’d killed enough to fill my back patch again. This time, the essence was almost all these ghommid things, giving the bar a black appearance. I didn’t have time to ask Donut what sort of image my back patch had formed.

I held off on activating the Daughter’s Kiss. I figured we’d need it pretty soon.

“I’ll protect you. I’ll protect you, my pretties,” Donut suddenly sang from my shoulder, her voice electronic with autotune. “With my voice of an angel and my expertly sung ditties!”

You have been limbered! Your party’s dexterity is increased by 50%!

“Holy shit, that worked,” I said as we increased in speed.

“Of course it worked, Carl,” Donut said as she bounced on my shoulder, her voice still amplified and autotuned. “Now be quiet. I need to sing another verse to stack it.”

“Run little ones, run through the cities. Uhhh.” She whimpered uncertainly. “Carl loves a lady with really nice titties!”

Your party’s dexterity boost has been canceled because your bard can’t hold a tune.

“Hey!” Donut cried. She pulled the headset away.

Bomo fired two more smoke missiles ahead of us. Then, he fired two more from the other tube. These were the single-target ones. The hissing missiles arced up in the air, did a loop, and hit a pair of wailing targets moving up behind us.

The temple materialized, coming into view in the glowing darkness, emerging like some dilapidated beast. The octagonal, yellow building appeared ridiculously sinister in the dark. A single doorway stood open under an archway. The rotted door hung loosely by a single hinge. Asojano rushed to the door, paused, and shouted for us to follow. He then disappeared inside, leaving the door swinging.

Ahead, Anton faceplanted as he hit a hidden curb. He disappeared into the fog. The road ended before the temple, but we couldn’t see the ground. Only twenty feet away. Sister Ines bent down to pick him up, firing bolts as the ghommids surged. Bomo fired his last two smoke missiles, one right in front of us, clearing the way.

A tall ghommid with the head of a donkey appeared, coming out of the darkness, surprising me with its speed. I instinctively clicked on Daughter’s Kiss, which drained my essence bar. I clobbered the creature with my fist. I was expecting it to explode like the last time I’d used the spell. Instead, its damn head broke off with the sound of breaking pottery. The donkey head hit the ground and bounced.

But I hadn’t killed it. Both pieces—the body and the head—rumbled to life and attacked. Tentacles sprouted from the hole in the main body as the headless thing surged back at us. At the same moment, a long, striped snake body emerged from the neck of the decapitated donkey head, whipping back and forth as it wormed out of the creature. The snake body was huge, at least ten feet long, as big as a boa constrictor. The massive body had come out of nowhere. I wasted a few precious seconds, watching, open-mouthed while Anton, who was still getting to his feet, started shouting “What the fuck? What the fuck?”

The donkey snake hissed at me and slithered forward as Donut lobbed a missile at the other half, the tentacled body. It blasted back into the fog and broke into two more pieces before they disappeared into the smoke. I focused on the donkey snake. I cast Talon Strike, prayed my foot wouldn’t get frozen, and I attempted to stomp the damn thing.

It bobbed out of the way, lightning quick, and I whiffed my punt. This one wasn’t like the others. It was fast. I almost Charlie Brown flipped onto my back. The donkey head emanated a shriek as it was hit by a bolt from Sister Ines.

It’d been about to strike. She’d likely just saved my life.

“Go!” I cried, pointing at the door as I scrambled to get away. The ground had turned from paved road to slick, wet grass. We clambered toward the entrance. Most of the creatures had been knocked out by the smoke, but a handful of them were either immune or resisted the stun effect.

“Come on!” Anton shouted.

We pushed toward the hanging door and the temple. I shoved Bomo ahead of me, yelling at him to get Paz to Sister Ines so she could cure him. The others all entered, one by one. Donut leaped from my shoulder into the temple, yowling as she started to slide on the interior floor tiles. I turned to face the remaining monsters.

The damn donkey snake was still coming, obviously immune to the smoke. I finally noticed this one’s level was much higher than the others. Sister Ines had almost killed it. Its health was blinking, almost gone. It continued to shriek, this time focusing on me.

The AI took on a sneering, mocking tone.

Whoa. Why are you being such a little bitch? Oohhh did the widdle baby just piss itself? You’ve been rendered Terrified! You can’t move your legs for fifteen seconds or until the scary monster is dead!

I had not peed myself. In fact, I didn’t actually feel scared, just irritated that this whole shitshow was harder and more dangerous than it should’ve been. I thought that was interesting, but I didn’t have time to dwell on it. I pulled a flag from my inventory, turned it point-first like a dagger just as the ghost donkey snake lunged. I let the beast impale itself.

The force of the strike blew me backward into the temple. I hit the tiled ground and slid, card in my hand as the debuff disappeared. I slid to a stop against some rubble as Donut howled and jumped out of my way.

Entering La Iglesia de los Olvidados

Combat Complete. Deck has been reset.

I groaned, looking up. I felt a strange heaviness. Moonlight shone in from a hole in the roof. Despite the broken door, the ghommids weren’t coming in. In fact, they sounded like they were retreating.

There once was an entrance vestibule right here, but it looked as if the interior wall had crumbled away, making the whole area one giant room. Behind me, coughing filled the chamber, which echoed slightly. It smelled of dirt and wet rot in here. The muddy tile floor was covered with moss. Donut cast Torch, and the room filled with a yellow glow, revealing a rotting, wood ceiling covered in mold.

“I have cast a spell. They can’t enter for a little while,” Asojano called. “I am stronger in here.” I turned to look, and he was in the back of the temple, standing over a pile of rocks that glowed green with his presence. “Here is my shrine. Give me a moment to prepare myself, then you must come and repair it, Santero.”

I returned my attention to the red card in my hand. Donut came to look at it.

“Carl, why’d you flag that one! That one is ugly! And what kind of name is that?”

“It was tough as shit,” I said. “It’s a rare monster, too. It was different than most of the others. We got lucky.”

“It’s weird,” she said. “And that’s a really stupid name. We should be able to rename them.”

T’Ghee Card. Rare.

Totem Card.

Skylar Spinach. Two-Thirds of an Enraged Ghommid Splitter.

“Screeech!”

Level: 66.

Origin: Cuba

Summoning duration: 60 seconds.

Constitution: 90*.

*This is a splitter. It will break into two pieces upon a fatal blow, one of which will be the primary. It will continue to split until the primary is killed a total of two times. Each iteration of the primary will have increased Constitution.

This is a non-corporeal mob.

This is an affliction-dealing mob.

Notable attacks:

Iced.

Dodge

Terrifier.

Splitter.

+5 additional skills and spells.

Examine in the squad details tab of your interface for full stats and skills and spells.

Warning: You have empty slots in your squad. Collecting this card will automatically activate and place this totem into your squad. You may not remove or trade squad members until your squad is full. If you wish to remove a card before your squad is full, you will have to tear the card.

I handed the card off to Donut. This was a type of splitter I’d read about in the cookbook. I was surprised it said it was level 66. The first iteration of this thing had been level 50, but then I remembered how these things worked. We’d seen similar monsters during the Iron Tangle. You had to kill the brain piece three times to properly kill the whole thing. Since I’d “killed” it once, the card version was only at 2/3s strength. Despite that, this really was a lucky find. Unlike traditional splitters, this one actually got more powerful with each iteration. If we ever got out of this, we needed to get back to the sparring room to see what the final form looked like. It was four levels lower than Geraldo the monk seal, but this thing was obviously stronger.

“What kind of name is Skylar Spinach? Does that mean it’s a boy or a girl?” Donut demanded.

“I don’t know,” I said. “We can ask it next time we summon it.”

“Do you think it’s going to always be shrieking? You know how I feel about shrieking, Carl.”

“Why didn’t you use ‘kitty?’” Paz asked, sitting up. The terrified debuff was gone. The man looked dazed. He remained there on the floor, rubbing his head. Outside, the ghommids continued to wail, but we couldn’t see them, obscured by the smoke and the hanging door. They sounded like they’d moved all the way back to the street.

“What?” Donut asked.

“Your song,” Paz said. His massive breastplate appeared in his hands, and he slipped it over his head like he was putting on a t-shirt. His head popped out the top. He’d also removed his vambraces, and he put them on now. They were designed like arm sleeves, and he was able to get them on easily. “You rhymed ‘pretties’ with ‘ditties.’ And then you used ‘cities,’ and your song got messed up because you paused. You used ‘titties.’ I’m just wondering why you didn’t go with the obvious choice. You’re a cat. Kitties.”

“I know what I am, Paz,” Donut snapped, sounding irritated. “You trying to sing under pressure like that. It’s not as easy as it looks.”

“No, I liked it,” he said. “I’m not trying to be a jerk. You’re a good singer.”

Donut’s attitude changed instantly. She swished her tail. “You really think so?”

“Yeah, you’re great.” The man still seemed dazed, but he was slowly coming out of it.

She puffed her chest. “You should’ve seen me at the Butcher’s Masquerade. I was about to win the talent contest, but it got ruined.”

I looked about as they continued to chat. Sister Ines and Anton stood, facing Asojano. The cat woman glared as the orisha stood over the pile of rocks. The former god was doing a little dance around the rubble, shaking his weird, fat wand.

The ruined shrine stood in an alcove against one of the walls in the octagon-shaped room. His was not the only broken monument here. One of the walls was used for the entrance, and there were a total of seven shrines, one against each wall in the large room. There was enough space in here for maybe fifty people to stand about comfortably.

A shining ball of light suddenly appeared in the middle of the room, its red-yellow light overwhelming Donut’s torch. It just popped into existence out of nowhere. It was about the size of a softball, and for a terrifying moment, I thought it was a massive soul crystal. It crackled like a miniature fireball frozen in place. I could feel the heat coming off it.

“The spell is forming,” Asojano called as he danced. “Nobody but the Santero must touch the Sun of Reawakening!”

Donut and Paz had stopped talking, and we all focused our attention on the ball. I searched my memory for any mention on such a thing. I sent a quick note to Mordecai, but he said he’d never heard of it. I took another step and tried to examine the thing. The description was less than helpful, and more than a little ominous:

This magical scoop of light is pretty special. It will only last a short time in this world. If you have a stick and some hotdogs, you can probably get a quick snack in. You’ll need your strength for what comes next.

“Prepare yourself, Santero!” Asojano called. “It will be soon!”

“I still have no idea what I’m supposed to do,” Paz said.

As Asojano returned to his ceremonial prayer, humming as he danced around his pile of rocks, I approached the first shrine immediately to my left. It was nothing but a pile of mossy rocks and some dead, desiccated plants. Like it had once been a statue of something covered with vines that had gotten smashed.

But no, I realized as I got closer. These were actual chunks of metal, not rocks. It looked as if it had been shattered by something.

Before I could even read the info box that popped up, the metallic pieces of the broken shrine glowed, as if they were red hot.

Both Anton and Paz let out a gasp.

“Fuck me,” Anton said a moment later.

I looked about, but I couldn’t see what had caused their reaction. From across the room, Asojano slowed his dance. The little ball of light, the “Sun of Reawakening,” lost some of its heat, and I realized it was, indeed, a gem. Not a soul gem. It was like a flaming ruby cut into the shape of a small skull.

“What’s happening?” I asked.

“We just got a quest from our god, Ogun,” Paz said. “It says we can only fix one shrine. He wants us to fix a different one than Asojano’s.”

“Oh man,” Anton said, worry evident in his voice. “Yeah. It’s that one you’re looking at. It’s a blacksmith’s anvil. If we don’t do it, we’ll get a smite. We gotta put it together, pray over it, and then we put the gem on it.”

“What happens then?” I asked.

“I told you!” Sister Ines hissed. “I told you not to worship a false god. Now what’re we going to do?”

“We can’t let them get smited. Or smote or whatever,” I said, looking worriedly over at Asojano, who’d stopped dancing and now stood over his rubble, rhythmically shaking his wand. “We’ll have to kill him.”

“If we do that, will the ghommids get better? If not, they’ll swarm the building,” Sister Ines said.

“I’m pretty sure they’re supposed to get better,” I said uncertainly. “The quest update said we could kill this guy.”

“Maybe Ogun will help us,” Paz said.

“Wait, is it his shrine?” I asked. “Is that going to summon him?

“Yes, it’s his shrine,” Paz said. “I doubt it’ll summon him. It’s a long story. Apparently he was originally one of these Orishas, but he ascended while the rest of them fell into obscurity.”

“Okay,” I said. “Donut, Bomo, the sister and I will take care of this guy while you two try to fix the shrine. Ready?”

“I’m still not sure how to ‘fix’ the shrine,” Paz said.

“I think it’s like a jigsaw puzzle,” Anton said. “Look, the pieces aren’t as hot anymore. He bent down to pick one up.”

And that’s when the music started.

~

Hello everyone! Next chapter is well underway, but I want to tinker more. It’s probably (hopefully)  not going to go how you think, even if you’ve figured out the whole armor thing with Bomo.

This whole book has kinda of a long ramp, but ultimately I’m anticipating it to be the second shortest of the books and that the last half is going to be action-oriented. It’ll come quickly. I can’t wait until we get to this second half of the level with the card battles because it’s going to be absolutely bonkers. Thanks again everyone for your support. Happy (late) Father’s Day to all the dads out there..

Also, everyone welcome Skylar Spinach to the team.