The other crawlers all cowered in the corner, not certain what to do.
We’d all been in the room for less than three minutes.
“Yeah, you need games or something,” Juice Box said, walking up. She’d returned to a generic, female human form. She was white skinned and blonde, about eighteen years old. Her jaw worked like she was chewing gum. “They’re calm now, but they’ll be getting antsy soon.”
“Calm?” Mordecai asked. “This is calm?”
One of the changeling humans was suddenly a skyfowl and was attempting to take to the air. Another had turned into a cat, but Donut started hissing, and he switched back to a human.
“Why don’t they ever turn into dromedarians?” I asked.
“Not allowed,” Juice Box said. “Only when they’re at the bars and for entertainment purposes only. That was part of our deal when they took us in. We ain’t allowed to casually take the form of the dromedarians otherwise.”
“Is that so?” I asked. But I was in a hurry, and I needed to get to the crafting room. So I didn’t pursue the obvious lie. Now that I had the formula down, it’d only take me a few minutes to put the missiles together. Since the two-stage missiles weren’t working, and we were out of time to figure out why, I was just going to use the original design and add a few of the seekers. The missiles would have a climbing range of a little more than a mile. The Wasteland would be a good three miles above our position when it dropped its bombs. That meant we had to get creative.
“Did you do the potions?” I asked Mordecai.
“They’re cooling down,” Mordecai said, still seething and distracted by the horde of children. “They’re probably ready by now.” He sighed, looking about the room. “I have a few downloads from the time before the dungeon opened. I think I can stream them to the screens here. Hang on.” The main room screen flickered, and a new image appeared. A movie started to play.
“I didn’t know you could do that,” I said. I glanced over at Donut, who was about five seconds from discovering Mordecai had a magical Bluetooth connection to the screen.
“Yes,” he said. “But you don’t have time to watch movies.”
Around the room, the screeching stopped as dozens of children suddenly turned their attention to the screen.
“Carl, Carl, it’s a movie!” Donut said, bounding across the room to return to my shoulder.
“It’s part of the manager benefit,” Mordecai said, obviously reluctant to tell her this. “In case we ever want to strategize using the screens. But I also have a digital library of most Earth movies that I collected when we were preparing to go live. Plus entertainment from the last world I worked, though they didn’t have anything good unless you like off-key opera.”
“Do you have There’s Something About Mary? I never saw the ending! Carl came home that day and ruined it. He switched it to the watch-Carl-get-fragged-over-and-over Playstation channel, and I never learned what happened! It has been killing me. If I don’t find out what happened I will simply die.” She suddenly gasped. “Do you have the Sex and the City movie?”
“And now you know why I never told you about this,” Mordecai said. On the screen, the movie was the original Toy Story. “Hey, hey, kid! Put that down!” he suddenly yelled, storming off.
“Wonderful,” I said, watching him go. I turned to Juice Box. “You’re doing good with the kids. You’re a natural.”
“Hey,” she said, leaning in closer, her voice a whisper. She’d watched and listened to our conversation about movies with a strange intensity. “What is this place? Is it from the Hunting Grounds?”
“The Hunting Grounds?” I asked, surprised. “No, it’s our base of operations. It follows us wherever we go.”
“Can we use it to get there?” she asked, voice full with so much hope that I had to pause to regard her.
“The Hunting Grounds” was what they called the sixth floor. I had a quick memory, of a goblin shamanka with a face full of piercings and rings telling me forlornly about how everything would be better if they just could get one floor down.
“No, you can’t use this room to travel,” I said. “But we’ll be going there if we can get out of here. Is that some place you’re trying to go?”
I’d been slogging my way through Herot’s essay on the nature of NPCs from the cookbook, and this was something he’d talked about frequently. NPCs had varying degrees of situational awareness about where they were. On the previous level with the trains, they’d all been completely brainwashed, totally unaware that they were in a dungeon. Rory and Lorelai the goblin shamankas from the very first floor had been the opposite. While they’d been invested in the llama/goblin meth war story, they were also fully aware that they were on the first floor of a dungeon. Herot, who advocated for breaking the NPCs out of the fourth wall, warned that those NPCs who knew what was going on from the start were much more dangerous. On the last floor, we’d been able to recruit a few NPCs to our cause because their world was obviously a construct, and the illusion was easily shattered.
“The Hunting Grounds are our ancient home,” Juice Box said. The normally ditzy and goofy NPC was suddenly dead serious. “We have been stuck here for a long time. There was a way to go home, but it is lost to us now that the town hall is gone.”
I reached up and scratched Donut on the head. I sent her a quick message.
“Are you seeking the Gate of the Feral Gods?” Donut asked.
She scoffed. She didn’t seem surprised we mentioned the artifact. “No. Gnomes seek that prize. The same with the mad mage and that bugbear under the sea. All of them came here trying to find it. If the gnomes couldn’t locate it, then nobody can. Or will. Hen…” She paused. “One of our kind says that the gate artifact is a myth. The camels have been here the longest, and they know nothing of it. What we seek is something else.”
She’d almost said “Henrik” but caught herself.
I asked the next question. “So what is it you seek? Something to do with the ghost queen Quetzalcoatlus?”
That surprised her, and not in a good way. She narrowed her eyes and backed off. “I must tend to the children. I’m beginning to suspect this is all your doing. You speak of helping us, but where is the proof, other than taking the children to this place? Prove to me you mean what you say. If you can stop the gnomes from destroying the city, and my people survive, I will tell you. Come speak to me again if we survive the bombardment.”
Katia: Henrik just got the daily message on his pocket watch thing from the gnomes. He showed them the reply, just as you wrote it. We were expecting them to ask questions, but they snapped off communications.
Carl: Do you think they took the bait?
Katia: I don’t know. Have you built the missiles yet?
Carl: Doing it now. We got a little distracted on the way in.
Katia: Cutting it a little close don’t you think?
Donut: WE’RE WATCHING TOY STORY. HAVE YOU SEEN IT?
Katia: What?
Carl: We’ll be ready in a minute.
A new timer suddenly appeared in my vision. It was at one hour and 15 minutes and ticking down.
New Quest. Squeeze out the Juice Box.
That mischievous Changeling prostitute appears to be more important to this story than you first thought. It also appears she’s rather fond of her brothers and sisters, many of whom are currently outside, mixed in with the poor, oblivious Dromedarians, preparing to die in a desperate attempt to destroy all the incoming bombs with flak. If this town is bombed, they will not succeed. They will not even come close to succeeding.
To win this quest, you must save Hump Town from the inevitable bombardment, which will occur when the timer reaches zero.
Reward: You will receive a Platinum Quest Box.
In addition, all crawlers in this quadrant will receive a permanent fifty percent charisma bonus during any future interactions with Changelings.
You’ll also receive my undying respect, because there is no way in hell even y
ou can pull this one off.
11
Once I was alone with Donut in the crafting room, I spent a quick minute to open my new loot boxes. I only had two. The silver boss box I’d gotten for killing Ruckus the chicken hawk contained two items. First was a case of 25 more surefires, which was a relief. I’d already used up ten of the ones I’d received earlier, giving the missiles the “guided” upgrade. I was about to use the rest of the ones I already had, and this gave us some wiggle room. I could now alter the plan.
The second item was a little worrying. It was similar to the boss-damage-enhancing Seize the Day Toothpaste I had, which I was saving for later.
“It’s a lotion bottle, Carl,” Donut said, peering down at the item. She’d also received the same prize plus some healing scrolls in her box. “It’s just like the bottle you used to keep hidden in your drawer by the bed.”
Jellyfish Salve (5 applications)
If you can’t talk someone into peeing on you after you get stung by a Pain Amplifier Jelly, then this will do the trick.
Effect: removes the pain portion of the Kill Me Now It Hurts debuff.
Warning: It does not remove the one-minute healing block effect associated with the Jelly’s sting.
I really hoped that we wouldn’t have to deal with the water quadrant. I’d received the box just before Chris had defeated that level, so maybe it was something we could avoid.
My next item was the silver fan box I’d received at the end of the previous floor. It’d become available just as we set out to fight Ruckus. I braced myself as it popped open.
“Yes,” I said. “Finally.” I looked up at the ceiling. “Thanks, guys.”
It was a thick, enchanted roll of duct tape. I picked it up and examined it.
Enchanted Roll of Never-ending Duct Tape. Fifty meters.
Odds are good you know who Ted Bundy is. Odds are even better you don’t know who Vesta Stoudt is. And while this problem is not exclusive to you hairless monkeys and your pollution-ridden world, those first two statements are part of the reason why you have received this prize.
Will you use it to tie people up? Will you use it to save the lives of those you love? Will you wrap your ankles together and sensuously rub your supple feet up and down a dungeon wall while you run your hands through your hair? Who knows! But you just got yourself a roll of the universe’s greatest duct tape.
This 50-meter-long roll of extra-durable, fabric-based tape regenerates at the rate of one meter an hour until it returns to 50 meters.
“Awesome,” I said, keeping the tape out. I already had a use in mind. I moved to my sapper table and went to work.
With just about 45 minutes remaining, we all left the protection of the safe room and exited out the town’s main gate. I warned Juice Box not to let any of the kids out of the personal space because once they left, they wouldn’t be able to get back in. Mordecai had managed to squeeze out three copies of the potion with his supplies, which was good. It would allow Donut to participate in the raid. I doled the potions out, and we were on our way.
The six archers walked behind us in a V pattern. I attached the back cart to the body of the Chariot. Firas sat in the back cart along with Henrik the town’s leader. Louis sat in the driver’s seat while I walked to the left of the cart, and Donut, sitting astride Mongo, marched to our right.
I caught the eye of Donut as we marched forward. She was nervous. This was a complicated plan with a lot of moving parts, which meant there was a lot of ways for it to go south. I took a deep breath. I was nervous, too.
The struggling form of Wynne the dirigible gnome sat on the raised, back seat of the ATV. I originally planned on having him tied with rope, but duct tape worked much better. The optional missile battery was not attached and was sitting in my inventory along with two more four packs. I clutched the farseer in my hand, and I used it to stare up at the flying fortress. The damn thing was huge. I made sure I focused on several different gnomes long enough that they’d receive a notification that they were being watched. We wanted to make sure they knew we were here.
We gave a wide berth to several of the giant lizards as we made our way across the desert, angling toward that large hill in the center of the bowl. We didn’t quite make it that far. The ponderous Wasteland moved above us, and I feared they’d drop bombs on our unprotected heads. Instead, the massive structure continued south, moving toward the edge of the bowl where it would soon be directly above the village of Hump Town.
Multiple flying vehicles dispatched from the main body and started circling downward, reminding me of the whirlybirds that dropped off of maple trees. As I expected, it was a mishmash of vehicles, no two the same. I quickly counted. A total of thirteen vehicles were dispatched.
A single, traditional-style hot-air balloon remained in the center of the formation. The large, black and gold striped balloon was covered in ribbons and small flags. It looked like it was decorated for a parade or to advertise a circus. It was not outfitted for war, unlike all the other vehicles. A large basket hung underneath, equally doused in ribbons and flags. The basket looked big enough to hold five or six regular humans. Three faces peered over the edge down at us. The basket continued to descend as the other vehicles kept to about 500 feet, circling and hovering. The ominous shape of bombs and large, firecracker-like rockets dotted their undersides.
The decorated balloon continued to descend, slowing rapidly. I caught the shimmer of a shield protecting the balloon. The moment it lowered below 100 feet, the three dots on the balloon became visible. It labeled the three dirigible gnomes as a Level 25 Aerostat Pilot, a Level 44 Negotiator, and a Level 52 Sniper Captain.
I looked up at the three faces as the balloon settled. It crunched heavily into the sand while the pilot spun a wheel on the fire mechanism under the open balloon. I knew real hot air balloons worked better in colder environments, and I could sense the magic coming from the box that radiated heat upward. There were a dozen controls on the thing. It reminded me of the Nightmare, though less complicated. Slightly. I quickly examined the balloon’s properties.
Gnomish Legate Balloon. The Vahana. Contraption.
Of all the vehicles left aboard the dreadnaught Wasteland, the Vahana is perhaps the oldest.
Once, long ago, the gnomes believed they could avoid war.
And while they could not leave this conflict-infested world, they could take to the skies, out of reach of everyone else. They hoped they could set themselves up as neutral peacekeepers. Everyone knew that the black and gold-striped balloons were off limits. The balloons were a symbol of hope. The sight of a Gnomish Legate on the horizon heralded the arrival of ambassadors, and perhaps peace.
But when new visitors came to their world, coming via a mysterious portal, everything changed. These were winged predators who would not have peace, and they would not suffer anybody else sharing their skies. The Legate Balloons were traded for a different sort of vehicle. The sylvan balloons were mostly dismantled and recycled, sewn together to give extra security to the gnomish settlements, which were also repurposed. The peaceful, flying communities changed their name from sky garden to dreadnaught.
Interesting. I turned my attention to the balloon’s occupants.
The sniper gnome was a short, black-bearded creature wearing a dark leather jacket covered in zippers and buckles. These gnomes were shorter even than the Bopcas, and I realized they had to be standing on something in order to peer over the edge of the wicker basket. He was the only one not wearing a red, conical hat. He had an old-school, round and black half-style motorcycle helmet on his head. The kind that didn’t have a face shield and looked almost like a baseball helmet. My dad had worn something similar.
I had a sudden memory, of my father angry. It was soon after mom had left us, a month before he, in turn, left me to fend for myself. He’d ripped off the helmet and smashed my fish tank, spilling my mollies everywhere. I hadn’t cried when my fish died, and I remembered it had bothered me for weeks after. Ev
er since then, I’d think of my father and those fish whenever I saw one of those helmets. I’d think of those fish flopping on the ground as I desperately tried to pick them up, cutting my fingers on the glass. I’d think of the pain and blood and of them not surviving, even after I put them in a cup. Whenever I saw a helmet like that, I would think of that day and of remember how easy it was to grow numb and not even realize it. I’d think, I’m never getting a pet again. All they do is die.
It felt like the wrong lesson, especially now. But that’s what happens, isn’t it? The universe shows us how cruel it can be, and we are worse for it.
I looked across the way at Donut, sitting atop Mongo, doing her best to look menacing. She’s not a pet anymore. Was she better off now? I didn’t know.
Henrik remained motionless, looking down. He kept his hand on the shoulder of Wynne, as if he was concerned about the old gnome’s condition. It didn’t look natural. I prayed they wouldn’t notice.
Then I looked up at the Wasteland. A war machine that had once been a place where the gnomes could live in peace. I knew this was all a construction. But it was so easy to get caught up in the story. So easy to forget who the true enemy was.
But more importantly, the most difficult part of this, was knowing all that and realizing it didn’t matter. Not today. If this went as intended, every gnome on that thing would be dead in ten minutes.
What was it Henrik had said? Sometimes we do things that are not of our nature to protect our own.
The Gate of the Feral Gods Page 16
