Donut: YOU ARE A GENIUS. I’M GOING TO TRY IT.
Carl: No, you’re not.
Mordecai: Don’t worry. I’ll take care of the issue.
“Please,” Langley the Finnish archer said to Louis, speaking for the first time. The man had a gruff accent, and I didn’t know what an actual Finnish accent sounded like, but I was pretty sure this wasn’t it. This was more eastern European. “You must be serious. This is very serious. Listen to Carl.”
Louis turned to the archer. “We are taking it seriously. We made it this far haven’t we?”
As we waited for Mordecai to return, I sent a message to Elle and asked her if they also had a bunch of dumbass crawlers in her group. I knew the chat was public now, but I didn’t care. Team Meadow Lark had managed to secure another type of boat, a galley with fish-people rowers. They were probing the defenses of their assigned castle, an orc-run oil rig that shot fireballs at anybody who came close
Elle: We’re the only ones in the water quadrant. We’ve seen the people on the land, but we haven’t talked to any of them. Their castle is similar to ours. It’s an oil refinery. The whole bubble is some stupid story about how we earthlings ruined our own planet. I think the air castle is just a storm cloud that rains acid. You get saddled with a bunch of layabouts?
Carl: You don’t even want to know.
“How did you two make it this far?” Katia asked Louis and Firas.
“He has a spell,” Firas said. “He got it for being the first crawler to drive a van into the dungeon.”
“You drove a van into the dungeon?” I asked. “I thought all the vehicles collapsed.”
“Not the convertibles,” Louis said proudly. “I had the top off when it happened. And I didn’t see the stairwell until I was on top of it. It was right in the middle of I-95. I was so fucked up, I didn’t know what was happening. The road was all jacked all of a sudden. It was a bumpy ride. I saw the glowing entrance. Slammed the brakes, but it didn’t matter. I slid right in. Broke the axle. But it made it down the stairs and hit those doors and crashed right into the dungeon.”
Mordecai returned, holding a pair of potions in a talon. They were not the regular alcohol cure potions. These were white with little frothy bubbles. I was about to examine one of them when the ridiculousness of what Louis said struck me.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “A convertible van? Like a cargo van with the top off?”
“Yeah man, it was sweet. It was my mom’s Chevy Astro. We took the top off. My friend Jojo saw this thing online on how to pimp out vans into convertibles, so we did it. My mom got really mad, but it got like 100,000 likes on Instagram. I called it the Tiddy Twister.”
“Where are you from? Wasn’t it snowing?”
“Nah, man,” Louis said. “We didn’t get much snow in Miami. It was cold as shit, though. It was like five in the morning when it happened, too. I was driving back from Jojo’s. Saved my life.”
“How old are you?” Katia asked Louis, looking at the balding, overweight man up and down.
“I’m 27. How old are you, Punky Brewster?”
“What’s the spell?” I asked. “And what happened to your van? Did you take any of the parts?”
Mordecai handed each of the two men a potion. “Drink it.”
Louis looked at the potion dubiously. But he shrugged and downed it. “Van was wrecked. Why would I take any parts? It’s not like I can build another Chevy Astro in the dungeon. Oh, so the spell is pretty badass. Check it out. It’s called Cloud of Exhaust. We don’t have to fight shit when I cast it. And Firas has his escape spell if we get in trouble. It’s called Puddle Jumper.”
“What level is your Cloud of Exhaust?” Mordecai asked sharply.
“Why’s the description on the potion blank?” Firas asked, holding the white potion up to the light.
“Oh man, my head hurts. Cloud spell is Level 11,” Louis said. “I have to use it a lot. It has a ten-minute cooldown, though. Seriously, I think I’m going to be sick.”
“You’ll be fine in a minute. Cloud of Exhaust’s cooldown is normally an hour,” Mordecai said. “Drink the potion, Firas. It won’t hurt you.”
Louis shrugged. He was starting to look a little green. “Yeah, so my Pest Control class makes it so cloud-based spells or something have faster cooldowns. And are more effective. My guide guy said the only way I could possibly live was to choose that class. He was a dick. Kinda like you.”
“You sound like you had a competent guide who did the best he could,” Mordecai said.
“Yo, man. Something’s weird,” Firas said. “I don’t think we should take these potions.”
“And you just paralyze whole groups of mobs and Puddle Jump out of there?” Mordecai asked. “You don’t kill them when they’re seized up?”
“Nah,” Louis said. “Sometimes we do, but they wake up after you hit them. Some of those higher-level mobs, especially on the last floor, take a lot of hits to kill. We usually just spray and run. The spell was really effective in those tunnels and on the trains.”
“Did you drink yours already?” Firas said.
“He did. And he’s fine,” Mordecai said. “He’s not drunk anymore, are you Louis?”
“Nah, man. That sobered me up real quick. I still feel sick though.”
“You still have alcohol in your system. Don’t worry. It won’t be long.”
“You sure I should take this?” Firas asked. “There’s no description. I’ve never seen that.”
Carl: You’re not poisoning him, are you?
Mordecai: No. Well, sort of. But it’s the good kind of poisoning. Trust me.
“Jesus dude, just drink it,” I said. “We’re all waiting on you.”
Firas downed the potion at the same moment Louis projectile vomited all over the floor.
The cleaner bot let out an angry trill.
Mordecai: Okay, here’s the deal with these assholes. Louis has an enhanced, legendary-tier spell called Cloud of Exhaust. It has a high-probability to knock out mobs for a variable amount of time, depending on the level difference. I don’t remember the specifics, but even high-level mobs will get conked out for a little bit. They’ll wake up the moment they’re touched. But any damage to them is enhanced for an additional thirty seconds after they wake. It’s one of those spells that helps guarantee that you’ll breeze through all the early floors. I’m almost certain it’s the same spell the goat lady Miriam Dom has. But instead of utilizing this like she has, these two idiots have been fleeing every encounter. It worked fine for them at first, but now they’re screwed. That moron doesn’t even realize what he has. He should be level 40 by now, at least.
I barely registered what Mordecai said. The two crawlers were still on their hands and knees, scream-vomiting on the floor. Neither had stopped for several minutes. It reminded me of that week of leave we got after boot. Those of us without families spent it in Philadelphia drinking until we blacked out.
Carl: Mordecai, what the hell did you give them?
Mordecai: They’ll be fine. It’s called Rapid Detox. Clears them of alcohol and any negative effects of most drugs. Not Blitz, unfortunately, but most everything else. Works great. It makes it so certain toxins will no longer affect them. It only lasts for a single floor.
Carl: So they can’t get drunk anymore?
Mordecai: Or high. And if they do drink, they become violently ill. It’s used to treat alcoholism. And to torture prisoners.
Katia: Why couldn’t he read the description?
Mordecai: I added sage beetle ichor. It disguises potions, but it makes it so they go bad after an hour. It’s a good hack. Some places will have protections against the use of certain types of potions. Like battle arenas where you can’t use health pots. But if the potion is treated with the ichor, it makes it usable again.
“Christ, man,” Louis said, standing up on unsteady legs. He was still breathing heavily.
“Can we get on with this now?” I asked.
“I just got a
notification that says I can’t drink anymore,” Louis said. His voice turned to a whisper. “Not cool, man. Not cool. It’s all I got left.”
“That’s not true. You still have your date with Juice Box,” said Donut.
6
When the second, pale sun rose, it moved rapidly across the sky, closing in on the larger, yellow sun. This second sun was much smaller, but it caused the temperature to rise about twenty degrees. Once the two stars met in the sky, the sandstorm would start. I was never a physics guy, and I didn’t know if this sun thing mimicked any sort of real, or possible, orbital pattern. After talking with Imani and Elle, I knew this light/day pattern was exclusive to this bubble, so it was all an illusion anyway, all projected onto the bubble wall.
I shielded my eyes, looking for the Wasteland. I couldn’t see it at all from here, which meant it’d already hit the outer ring. The entire town was talking about the destruction of the other town, though not even Donut could get anything out of the camels or the changelings about why it happened.
The stars might not be real, but the sudden rise in temperature was no joke. It was so hot outside, it was difficult to breathe. The camels did not deploy the city-wide awning. They saved it for the sandstorm, which was unfortunate. All the town’s outside activity ground to a halt. Everyone stayed inside, though the temperature wasn’t much better inside the bars. Outside of town, the thorny devil mobs were replaced with something else. These were Donut-sized, fast-moving things called dune scythes. There were a lot of them outside the town’s walls, their red dots swarming about. I had no real desire to go out and face them, but I knew fighting them would be inevitable.
“We’re going to need to install air conditioning on the Royal Chariot,” I said as I leaned against the back of the adobe building. We stood in the alley between two inns, facing the back of the town hall, which was behind the two buildings across the street. The closer alleyway was mere feet from the back of the Town Hall, and we didn’t want to get that close.
Katia was there in that closer alleyway, leaned up against a metallic mechanism that snaked around the building that backed into the town hall. She was pretending to be a long, attached pipe, which gave her a raised view of the back door. She said the mechanism attached to the building’s side was pumping cold air to the residents within.
“This is unbearable,” Donut said from my shoulder. “My paws are sweating.”
“Cats don’t sweat,” I said.
“If cats don’t sweat, explain this, Carl,” Donut said, rubbing her paw on my neck. I couldn’t tell if it was wet or not since my entire body was drenched. I had a sweating problem. At the gym, I was one of those guys who left a puddle everywhere. I couldn’t help it, and right now my skin was doing a pretty good faucet impersonation.
“Shush,” I said. “Someone’s coming out.”
We’d noticed earlier there were two entrances to the town hall. The main entrance, which nobody seemed to use, and the back entrance we now faced. We watched as a dromedarian opened the door, tied his headscarf tightly around his head, and loped away. I froze as the creature strode right past Katia, but he didn’t pause. As the door closed, I caught sight of two guards standing inside. These were Waster Patrol dromedarians. Level 48 each.
The other camel turned left onto the street and disappeared, rounding the bend toward Weird Shit Alley.
Carl: Did you get a good enough look?
Katia: Yes. The guy who just left is named Henrik. He’s just a regular level 30, but we have a problem. He showed some sort of ID to the guard before he left. In a town full of shapeshifters, it makes sense to have extra security I guess. While the door was open, I could see the interior map for a minute. There are two guards everywhere. There’s at least 12 of them.
Goddamnit.
Carl: We’ll have to go with plan B.
Katia’s plan had been to get a good look at the next dromedarian to leave, emulate his clothes and looks the best she could, and “return” inside just to get a quick peek. But with so many guards wandering about—guards who were likely on high alert—that plan wasn’t going to work.
This was a problem. The whole building was high security, and if we did breach, odds were good we’d only be able to do it once. We had no idea what was hidden inside, nor did we know what we were going to do about it once we learned. If it turned out to be the gnome leader’s child or something, our best move was to leave him be for the moment. If my dual-stage rocket idea worked out, we wouldn’t need to deal with this collateral storyline at all.
Carl: Did you see any guards on the second or third level?
Katia: Just the offices. There’s a camel in half of them. The second floor is less crowded than the third.
We’d learned from the Toe’s barkeeper that the citizens did not rest during the two-hour night. Instead, they mostly slept in the hot hours before the sandstorm started. And with less people out on the streets, now was the best time to infiltrate the building.
I took a deep breath. This is a terrible idea. But short of going in there and just killing all the camel NPCs, I couldn’t see an alternative. Not when we were under such a time crunch. Gwendolyn’s team was building siege engines to breach the walls on the land quadrant, but she was worried they didn’t have enough people to assault the sandcastle of the “Mad Dune Mage.” We hadn’t heard shit from either of the other two quadrants. We had to get this done now.
Carl: Louis. We’re going with the frog plan. You’re up. Firas, you too.
Louis: Fuck, man. Really?
Carl: Come on. Hurry up.
Both Louis and Firas were inside the tavern next door. The two crawlers had been pouting about Mordecai’s potion, but the men were much easier to deal with when they were sober. Firas was much quieter and more introspective. He’d worked as a car detailer and audio installer before this. His Hammersmith class was melee-focused, specializing in hammer-based weapons and abilities. The only weapon he actually had was an intelligence-enhanced mace designed for a cleric. But his Puddle Jumper spell was at level 10, much higher than Donut’s six.
Sober Louis was still an ass. I was pretty sure the guy never had a job in his life. He wouldn’t shut up about cartoons I’d never heard of. When he’d found out Katia was from Iceland, he started calling her “Lazy Town.” I had no idea why. He and Donut found common ground, however. Despite pretending to hate the show, Donut knew quite a bit about the 80’s program Knight Rider, much to Louis’s delight.
I’d much rather have one of Langley’s guys in on this, but that group wasn’t very useful here. I had them all using their car-selling skills. On my word, they’d all ascend to the rooftops and cover our escape if everything went sideways. In the meantime, they went to work, the six of them spreading out to the different bars. The taverns would be mostly empty at this hour, but that was okay. Mordecai was currently doing the same. At this moment, he was sitting inside the Toe, drinking blood wine, telling the second-shift bartender about the group of grulke toad soldiers he’d seen out in the desert.
The second floor of Town Hall was ringed by exterior balconies. Katia said the one facing the alley was attached to an office that appeared to be empty. We decided to keep Katia outside and hidden while Donut, Louis, Firas, and I all puddle jumped to the terrace. Since the cooldown of Puddle Jumper was five hours, we’d use Firas for the casting, and we’d save Donut for our escape.
“Okay, once we’re in there,” I whispered, “keep your mouths shut. If someone sees us, we’re gonna have to kill them. The camels are assholes, but I want to avoid that if possible. So listen to me or Donut and do as you’re told.”
They both nodded. I waited for Katia to give the all-clear, and Firas cast his spell, teleporting us to the balcony. Part of me was shocked it actually worked. All four of us crowded onto the metal railing. We all crouched down, trying to make ourselves look smaller. Above, the twin suns beat down onto us. I saw a single dromedarian from up here, two streets over, but his back was turned. We ne
eded to hurry.
A tall set of double doors led into the interior of the building. I grabbed the handle and tried to turn it, but it was locked. This was a thick, metal-reinforced security door, but thankfully it wasn’t magically locked.
“Door,” I said to Donut. “And wait a few seconds before you withdraw the spell this time.”
We’d practiced this a little bit. The last time we tried it, Donut had almost lopped my hand off. She cast Hole just above the handle. Thanks to her Glass Cannon class, the spell was significantly more powerful on this floor. The hole reached all the way through the thick door. I reached in, found the bolt, and I slowly turned it. The door opened with a click. I retracted my hand, and I peered inside, looking for threats. I saw nothing in the office. Donut snapped off the spell.
“Remember when we cut that guy’s head off?” Donut whispered as we sneaked into the empty room.
“Yeah, I still have that guy’s head in my inventory,” I said. Louis and Firas stumbled in after me. Louis was sweating so profusely, he made me look dry. He had to be losing an ounce of water weight a minute. I pushed the door closed. This office didn’t appear to be in regular use. There was a large, camel-sized desk and chair, a table with nothing on it, and an open and empty chest. The walls were made of wooden pillars. The floors creaked with each step. A complicated system of brass pipes ran along the interior wall. They looked to be either part of a steampunk-style AC, or an old-school pneumatic tube messaging system.
Now that we were inside, my map populated with everything on the floor. There were multiple offices on this level, and only one appeared to be occupied. The three roaming guards moved through the hallways, though they hit the down stairwell and disappeared from my map.
“Be careful before you step,” I said, moving as quietly as I could to the desk. I had a few buffs that disguised my footsteps. Louis and Firas had nothing, and they both stood there with their arms out, like they were surfing. “Let’s wait until the roaming guards return and go upstairs, and then we’ll move. Louis, be ready.” Louis nodded, not saying anything for the first time ever.
The Gate of the Feral Gods Page 9
