The Gate of the Feral Gods

by Matt Dinniman

  The sniper’s name was Crixus. The pilot was Hicks. They went to work as Leon barked orders. I kept one eye on the pilot, trying to commit the controls to memory.

  “It is good timing,” Leon said as I eased Wynne/Katia to the floor. “We will have a spectacular view of the death of the final settlement of Anser.” He seemed almost giddy.

  Donut leaped from my shoulder and landed on the edge of the basket, looking down, eyes wide. “Carl, look! We’re rising into the air.”

  I felt my stomach lurch as the hot blast of air from above hit me. I grabbed a line with my hand. I twisted my arm around a few times to secure myself. “Christ, Donut. Be careful.”

  Below me, the form of Wynne was curled up to hide her extra height. Adding mass was easy, but making her smaller, especially when we wanted to keep her battle ready, wasn’t so simple. We rose into the air quickly. The timing was important here. We needed to be high enough where we could take our shot, but we also needed to take all the escort planes out of commission.

  The countdown timer for the bombing was at seven minutes. We rose quickly into the air. We passed the escorts, who were covering our retreat. Good, good.

  “He’s looking better already,” Leon said, leaning down to look upon Wynne.

  Katia grunted. I’d warned her against talking. She’d done her best with Henrik’s voice, but it’d been barely passable. I didn’t want to risk it up close.

  “What do you mean by ‘the final settlement of Anser?’” I asked, changing the subject. “Isn’t that the guy buried in the tomb?”

  It was Crixus the sniper who answered. “The bactrians and the dromedarians were the slaves who built the tomb. Anser came and subjugated them along with the glabers and forced them to their knees.” He spit over the edge. “The camels, alleged great fighters, were the first to fall. They were complicit in the horror Anser and his people brought to this world. They are filth and deserve to be destroyed. Once they are gone, this world will be better for it. That will leave us with only one last task before we can leave these lands and have peace.”

  “What’s that?” I asked. We continued to rise rapidly into the air. Closer, closer. The gnomish pilot turned a wheel, and the balloon started angling north, on a vector to intercept with the Wasteland.

  “The mad mage,” Crixus said. “He’s the most dangerous of them all. He doesn’t just wish to steal the gate. He wishes to understand it. To replicate it. He has grown mad in his pursuit, and we fear the damage he might do if he is not stopped.”

  “Wait,” I asked. “Does this mage guy have the artifact?”

  Crixus and Leon exchanged a look. A small grin played across Crixus’s face.

  “He only has a third of it.”

  I wanted to ask more, but we were running out of time. I peered over the edge of the basket. I kept my eye on the altitude indicator in my vision. We’d risen almost 300 meters, which I mentally converted to almost a thousand feet off the tomb. The escorts were now well below us, but rising slowly with the ship. I guessed the highest of them to be about 800 feet up, which was already pushing the limit.

  Carl: Ready, Donut and Katia?

  The cat remained on the edge of the basket, claws dug deep into the wicker.

  Donut: I AM READY.

  Katia: Ready. Donut, make sure I’m secure before you do it. It’s a long drop.

  Carl: Langley. Weapons free.

  Langley: Firing now.

  A moment later, eight rockets corkscrewed up into the air from the surface. These were all single-stage rockets, hastily built, but with Mordecai’s new and improved accelerant. All six archers plus Louis and Firas had a single launcher tube in their inventory. Each had two missiles. While Leon and the balloon were on the ground, Langley had doled out targets to everyone, and they’d used the surefire aiming system to lock the missiles onto each of the circling escort planes and balloons. Even before the first salvo hit, four more missiles blasted in the air, targeting the remaining planes.

  Crixus reacted quickly. He shouted, and suddenly all of their dots were red. I was expecting him to swing his large gun like a club. Instead, he dropped it and grasped at one of the grenade balls at his chest. At the same moment, I clutched tightly onto the rope of the balloon as I dropped a smoke curtain. Two Katia spikes burst forth from the duct-taped bundle, each piercing the wicker basket. They grew taut, anchoring her in place just as Donut cast Hole on the bottom of the basket, right underneath all of us.

  Donut had been practicing with the spell and could now widen the area of effect to a diameter of a meter and a half. It lowered the thickness of the hole, but that wasn’t an issue here, especially with her magic enhanced. The large hole wasn’t quite big enough to cover the entire basket, but it was close enough.

  The three gnomes dropped away just as Crixus attempted to toss the grenade ball at me. All three gnomes had a look of astonishment on their faces as they plummeted, falling along with the smoke bomb. The grenade ball—whatever it was—flew wide, rushing over my shoulder as I pulled my feet up, resting it on the bench.

  At the last moment, Leon grasped onto the edge of the hole. He started to pull himself up. I prepared to intercept him just as an ethereal, magical cat paw appeared and pushed against his head, knocking him off the edge. He screamed as he disappeared.

  The hole remained open just long enough for us to have a bird’s eye view of the first plane to explode.

  The basket pitched with more explosions as rockets found their targets. I held on for dear life as I looked for still-alive planes. I locked my xistera into place while Katia pulled the crossbow.

  “Wow,” Donut said, peering over the edge. “They’re still falling. Nope, not anymore.” She did a little jump on the edge of the basket that almost gave me a heart attack. “Level 34! Carl, I got a lot of experience for that!”

  “Jesus, Donut. Get off the goddamned edge.”

  “Really, Carl. I’m a cat. A master of balance. Whoa!”

  She slipped, but thankfully she fell inward. I didn’t have time to scold her. All the planes had gone down, but three balloons remained, moving up toward us. They rose rapidly. I couldn’t see the drivers from this angle, but these were smaller balloons. All three were different. One was blimp-shaped, one was a perfectly-round balloon painted jet black, and the third was three balloons tied together. This one also had a square-rigged sail, like on an old-school brigantine boat.

  Katia fired a few bolts at the closest airship, the one with the oblong, dirigible shape. The bolts had no effect on the balloons. I tossed a banger sphere. It bounced right off the balloon. I switched to hob lobbers, using my xistera to drive the round balls deep into the balloons. The balloon dimpled and detonated, but it did not tear. The net around the balloon caught on fire.

  Langley: I think they’re out of range, but do you want us to try our last missiles on those balloons?

  Carl: No. Good job, guys. Get out of there.

  We had five minutes before the bombs would fall. We were out of time.

  I yanked a can of gasoline from my inventory. I’d gotten this long, long ago, way back on the first floor from the goblins. I unscrewed the top and tossed it over the edge, aiming for the balloon with the flaming net. The balloon burst into flames and started spinning away, trailing black smoke.

  Crack. Something flew through the air at us from that third balloon, the one with the sail. I spied the sniper on the deck, leaning over the edge and aiming his wide-bore rifle directly up at us. This guy was similar to Crixus, though he wore the red hat. I watched as he pulled one of the round grenade things off his chest and loaded it into the rifle. What the hell are those things? He aimed to fire again, but he fell back as Katia bullseyed him with a bolt.

  “Critical hit!” Katia said.

  The sniper was dead, but the balloon kept rising. “Keep them back,” I called as I moved to the Vahana’s controls. I yanked on the pull for the fire source, and we jerked upward. Heat washed over my face, unbearably hot. I suddenly
thought of Fire Brandy, the demon who’d killed herself on the last floor.

  I checked our altitude. We were pushing 500 meters, still angling north. The Wasteland was directly ahead of us. It had lowered itself to about two and a half kilometers off the tomb’s surface. We were now at the very edge of the missiles’ range. I wanted to get closer, but we simply didn’t have time.

  I intended to yank my farseer out of the inventory, but I spied one already attached to the side of the fire control mechanism. I grasped it and turned it upward.

  The bottom of the Wasteland was crawling with bungee-corded and harnessed gnomes preparing for the bombardment. They didn’t drop the bombs from bomb bays, but simply cut the chains and let gravity do the rest. While they only had a few of the fuel-air, city-killing Knock-Knocks left on the airship’s underbelly, there were dozens of round, smaller-yield bombs hanging there like water droplets. These had to be manually armed by the gnomes before they were dropped, and that was what they were doing now.

  I had eight guided missiles and four more unguided ones in my inventory. All twelve of them were pre-loaded into four-pack launchers. Of the eight guided missiles, I’d already assigned four of them to the few Knock-Knocks I’d spied on the underside right after sunrise.

  Our quick ascent suddenly stalled.

  “Let’s see how you like this!” Donut cried. I looked over in time to see two clockwork Mongos jump off the edge of the basket, screeching. She’d been forced to release the real Mongo in order to create the clockwork versions. Mongo was crying in fear at our height. We bobbed up and down with the changing weight on the basket.

  “Whoa,” Katia said. “Holy cow, Donut. That worked better than I thought it would.”

  Donut continued to peer over the edge at the last balloon.

  “Level 35!” she suddenly cried.

  The round balloon rushed past us, continuing its upward trajectory. The balloon remained intact, but the basket was a bloody mess, hanging by a single line. The interior of the basket dripped with gore. A single clockwork Mongo screeched in greeting from the bloody basket as it passed.

  She looked back at Mongo. “Your brothers are getting really good at this.” Mongo screeched worriedly as our own basket rocked.

  “Watch out,” Katia yelled, pointing upward. “Donut, get Mongo into his carrier. Fast. Carl, you better fire.”

  Someone aboard the Wasteland had finally noticed that the Vahana had been hijacked. One of the structures on the edge of the massive airship rotated, revealing itself to be a battery of cannons. It looked remarkably like a bundle of about 100 of the sniper rifles. It was aiming right at us. I could see the tip of a little red hat atop the battery as it moved in our direction

  “Hold on guys,” I yelled as I pulled the multi-launcher from my inventory. I rested the heavy, already-loaded mechanism on the edge of the basket. “Fire in the hole!”

  “Wait, wait!” Donut cried. “Mongo, get in your carrier!” The dinosaur refused, backing away, crying.

  Three minutes until the bombs dropped. It’d take ten to twenty seconds for the missiles to reach their destination.

  Jesus, we’re already too late. The town is fucked if that thing falls on it, with or without bombs.

  “Mongo, get in the fucking box!” I yelled.

  The dinosaur screeched and complied, zapping away just as the battery on the Wasteland fired at us. We lurched upward with the loss of Mongo’s weight. The Wasteland defensive battery belched with the staccato sound of a thousand rifles going off at once. A plume of smoke rose into the air as I fired off the first four missiles. I spun the sidewheel, and the balloon skirted to the side.

  The outgoing missiles and the hundred incoming projectiles passed each other in the air. I winced as all four of my missiles detonated prematurely. Experience notifications flew. I slammed down on Protective Shell just as the round balls smashed at us. My timing was perfect. The static shield quickly flew away as we continued to rise. Blood misted in the air under us. They’re shooting living creatures. Fucking hell.

  “Get ready to jump,” I cried, tossing the used launcher over the edge. I pulled the second four-missile launcher. These weren’t assigned. I targeted the battery and three bombs on the underside. I aimed downward so the missiles wouldn’t cross paths with the projectiles again, and I launched just as the airship’s gun battery fired a second time.

  “Jump,” I cried.

  All three of us leaped from the edge of the wicker basket just as the dozens of round balls smashed into it. I heard an enraged, screeching noise from above just before the entire world to the north exploded in a ball of white, hot fire.

  Wind rushed past. It was all I could hear. I tumbled and flipped through the air, desperately searching the sky for a point of reference. I was no physics guy, but I knew we had less time than we thought. The ground would come fast. I forced myself to ignore the spinning world outside and focused on the altitude and speed indicators in my vision.

  Donut: CARL, CARL, HELP I DON’T REMEMBER WHEN TO DRINK IT.

  Carl: Now!

  The potion was called Dolores Doesn’t Splat.

  When Mordecai had said, “You’re not going to like it,” he was not kidding.

  He said it had been devised by a crocodilian crawler alchemist a long time ago while she was falling. As the legend went, this was a much-deeper pit that took almost ten minutes for her to reach the bottom. This happened during an early crawl. Something even before Odette’s time. The event had become infamous and had resulted in multiple rule changes regarding the creation and brewing of potions. It was actually two potions combined. The first was something involving the breeding of rock buffalos. The second was a potion that closely mimicked Katia’s Crowd Blast ability. It was designed to add extra power to an Earthquake-style attack. The only caveat was that you had to be falling at a speed greater than 200 kilometers an hour when you drank it.

  When Katia cast her Crowd Blast, she was temporarily invulnerable for that fraction of a moment. She still felt pain. Things in her body still crunched and hurt. But the damage wasn’t permanent or lasting.

  When each of us drank the Dolores Doesn’t Splat potion, it had the following effects:

  First, we actually sped up. Our five seconds to impact turned to two seconds. And when each of us hit the ground, our bodies temporarily softened the surface we were hitting, allowing us to penetrate deeper than normal. This had the effect of vaporizing the sand dunes we were hitting, and in Donut’s case, utterly demolishing the thorny devil mob she rocketed into.

  In order to impregnate an in-heat rock buffalo, it was required for the male buffalo to penetrate his lady love five times in rapid succession. I could have gone my entire life without knowing that random fact. Unfortunately for me, Katia, and Donut, this little quirk of rock monster husbandry was now something I would never, ever forget.

  We each slammed the ground with the force of a meteor, rose up fifteen feet into the air, and slammed it again. And again. Rock shattered under our bodies. We did this five times. By the time we were done, I rolled onto my back, gasping. It felt as if I’d been stepped on by Grull all over again. The air had all been knocked out of me. No wonder Katia hates that ability so much.

  I felt a strange, flowing sensation around me. I’m still falling. But no, that wasn’t right. It was sand, I realized, rushing past me and into the necropolis below. I pulled myself to my feet, my entire body protesting. I didn’t need a health potion, but I felt as if I did. I stared dumbly downward at my feet. I was literally walking on air.

  I’d hit the top of the temple, and I’d broken through, demolishing a section of the necropolis roof. Because I wasn’t yet allowed out of the quadrant, the quadrant border was keeping me from falling further. I was standing atop the barrier. The sand all around me had no such restrictions, and it continued to fall into the dark hole.

  Katia: Are you guys okay?

  To my left, I could hear Donut bitching as she pulled herself out of her hole.
Not too far away, a loud explosion rocked the world.

  Only then did I look to the smoke-filled sky. But before I could see, a notification appeared.

  The notification sounded oddly disappointed. I wasn’t certain why.

  Quest Complete. Squeeze out the Juice Box.

  So, if we’re being technical here, you “won” the quest. You “saved” Hump Town from the bombardment. Congratulations. If I was allowed to upgrade your prize, I would. Maybe. I dunno. Actually, you know what? No. No I wouldn’t. Fuck you.

  Reward: You’ve received a Platinum Quest Box!

  I pulled myself out of the hole just as another portion of the airship crashed. The massive chunk of metal exploded off the edge of the bowl, half of it cascading down the side of the ridge, the other half falling away and toward the land quadrant. The sky was just a black cloud, and I could not see how much of it we’d gotten. Black, flaming fireflies of debris fell like rain.

  Gwen: Holy hell, what is going on up there? First the ocean half drains all away, and now the sky is on fire.

  I turned my attention to Hump Town, which was only a quarter of a mile away. To my relief, the town was mostly intact. Mostly. A huge chunk of something had landed onto the west end of town, close to where the Toe was located. Part of the wall had collapsed. The sail that covered the town was torn in multiple places. The smoke from a hundred fires rose into the air. As I watched, the anti-aircraft guns in one of the towers fired at an airplane that had managed to separate from the dreadnaught. The airplane banked away and disappeared into the smoke.

  Katia and Donut approached. Donut rode the back of Mongo who was snapping at the flying embers.

  We wordlessly looked up at the sky, waiting for the smoke to clear. The sound of at least a dozen airplanes continued to rip through the air, so we knew something was still up there. A huge hunk of debris, trailed by an enormous, half-deflated balloon, crashed far to the south. The ground rocked.

  “That was one of the main balloons,” Katia said.

  I pulled the farseer and tried to see through the clouds. Finally, the smoke dissipated long enough for me to get a good view.