The Gate of the Feral Gods

by Matt Dinniman

  It was a trick. And I’d fallen for it. The whole lemonade thing was a deliberately-placed misdirection.

  Denise opened her flower mouth and prepared to fire point blank at me. I clobbered her with the pitcher, causing her to rear back.

  Her health went down. Barely, but I saw it move.

  I finally understood. The description had said she was an “enviromental.” I didn’t think about what that meant at the time. Everything was happening so fast, and I hadn’t realized that was a specific type of buff. Her health had gone down before when I hit her with the mug, and again with the pitcher. She was impervious to my attacks and my weapons. But she was vulnerable to damage from objects that were already in the house. I thought of the bricks lying about the fireplace. Of the broken shards of glass on the ground. It was too late to get to any of it.

  Twenty seconds.

  I leaped for the goose, and grabbed her by the neck. She let out a strangled screech and flapped her wings. I tried to grab her bill, but she dodged. She opened her mouth and fired directly at me.

  I cried as the stinging line of pain marched across my face and neck. It hurt a lot more this time. It was like getting hit with a flaming baseball bat. My health plummeted. I slammed on a health potion. It did not work. I suddenly couldn’t see from my left eye. The goose squirmed in my grip, but I grasped again, this time grabbing her by the face and holding the bill shut. She struggled, but despite being a higher level, I was stronger. I felt woozy. I was going to pass out. I clung onto the goose for dear life.

  What had the kid said about her father? She’d pointed to the sink. What had she meant? I looked again. There was nothing there. What had Kane been trying to do?

  I saw the twin light switches to the right of the basin, and then I knew.

  “Donut,” I cried, my voice a strangled shout as I lurched toward the sink.

  “What! What?”

  Ten seconds.

  I shoved the goose into the sink, face first. She struggled, feet scrambling against me. Everything was suddenly hazy. I had to move my hand back to get Denise’s bill in the drain. She tried to open her mouth to block me. I shoved it in there. Her head was too big. I pushed and pushed. Her bonnet ripped off as her head popped into the hole.

  “The garbage disposal! Hit the switch!”

  Five seconds.

  Donut leaped to the counter and flipped the first switch as I held the goose’s head in the hole. The light switched on. “The other switch!”

  Donut hit it.

  The garbage disposal whined, sounding like it was eating rocks. Denise went rigid in my hands, her body convulsing like I was holding onto a short-circuiting power tool. Blood showered up through the hole, geysering into the kitchen.

  The timer paused at one second.

  The whole house jerked to a stop, and we all flew off our feet. The boss, still head-first in the disposal and no longer being held still by me, started to rapidly spin.

  I cast Heal on myself, and this time it worked. I felt my buffs return. The garbage disposal screamed. Mongo glowed as Donut healed him. She turned back to the switch and turned off the disposal. The goose continued to spin a few times, flap, flap, flap, flap before coming to a rest and flopping over. The now-headless boss slopped out of the sink and into my lap, where the blood continued to squirt out the neck hole.

  Bubble Notification. The Commandant’s quarters of the Wasteland have been successfully occupied. The Air Quadrant has been liberated!

  All give congratulations to the crawlers who successfully took the throne room. All hail crawlers Princess Donut and Carl!

  All crawlers who originated in the Air Quadrant may now freely travel to the other quadrants.

  I looked up at the ceiling. “Wild goose chase? Really? How long have you been waiting to use that one?”

  The house bumped as it gently hit the ground.

  17

  Stage 3 of 4. The Mad Dune Mage

  Time to Level Collapse: 10 Days and 4 Hours

  Views: 17.72 Quintillion

  Followers: 13 Quadrillion

  Favorites: 4.1 Quadrillion

  “I did all that sewing for nothing?” Katia said as we stepped out the front door of the house. She and the others were waiting for us. I came out and shook hands with Landry and the other archers. Louis and Firas were also there, all looking wide-eyed at the suburban house that now sat cockeyed in the sand dune.

  “The parachutes will still come in handy,” I said. “Katia, this is Bonnie.”

  “Hey there,” Katia said, taking a knee in front of the child. “How are you doing, sweetheart?”

  “Do you know where I can get some lemons?” the child asked. “I want to set up a lemonade stand, but I used them all.” She gave me a withering look. “Somebody keeps spilling it.”

  The house had landed along the edge of the bowl about a half of a mile east of Hump Town. We still had a good hour of darkness left before dawn. After the death of Denise, the magical balloon started to slowly refill itself. The whole thing would take off again if we let it. Donut and I rushed out onto the little square and attempted to sever the lines that connected the home to the balloon, but the ropes were like steel cables. We were going to have to abandon the house if we wanted to avoid having to jump out.

  I rushed to the kitchen to grab the kid, but she looked at me like I was crazy when I told her we had to leave.

  “The house is about to take off again, and we can’t have you floating around up there by yourself. It’s not safe,” I said.

  “Well let’s just leave the house down here, then,” she said. She pulled a small object from the inside of her oversized shirt. It was a necklace. It looked like a walnut. She fiddled with it, and I felt the house settle.

  “What is that? What did you do?” I asked.

  She took the necklace from around her neck and handed it to me. “My dad gave it to me when he gave me the potion. He said to give it to an adult. I guess you’ll do.”

  I took the necklace from the girl and examined it. It was a little, purple-hued gem. I recognized what it was immediately.

  Soul Crystal. F-Quality. Used to power the balloon that keeps this house afloat. Nothing too exciting. You probably want to avoid breaking it, though.

  Charge: 89% Kill something to charge it up.

  The crystal was housed in a sliding clamshell-like device. It appeared one could control how much power it fed the balloon based on how much the clamshell was opened. The thing had stopped feeding power to the balloon all together when we were under the anti-magic aura of the feral goose.

  We’d seen plenty of these things before. They controlled the ghoul generators on the last floor. I had, still sitting in my inventory, a broken, about-to-explode soul crystal that would flatten everything within forty-five square kilometers the moment I took it out. That one was “C-quality” though it wasn’t much bigger than this one. I wondered how powerful a B or A quality gem would be.

  “I’m going to keep this, okay?” I said to the kid. I kept the little shell open just a fraction, enough to keep the balloon off the ground, but not enough to lift the house. Hopefully. I’d have to go out there and experiment.

  Bonnie shrugged.

  The house sat at an angle along a sand dune. The interior looked how one might expect a house would after a boss fight with a murderous, indestructible goose. Everything that wasn’t bolted down was on its side or spilled. Now that I knew the house wouldn’t fly away, we had a lot of work to do.

  Donut and I had both gone up a single level. I was now at 44, and Donut was 37. That was it. It felt as if we should’ve gotten more. Mongo had gone up three, hitting level 33. I was pretty sure I’d never understand how these experience points were allocated. It almost seemed random, despite Mordecai’s insistence that it was not.

  “See if you can figure out what’s wrong with the kid,” I said to Donut. “Her dad gave her something. Talk with Mordecai and try to work it out.” Bonnie was on her hands and knees picki
ng up the forks and spoons that had scattered everywhere.

  The kid had barely reacted to anything that had happened. After the gruesome death of Denise, she complained that she didn’t have enough lemons to make another batch of lemonade and then set out to clean the kitchen. Her eyes remained dilated as she went to work, cleaning up like it was nothing. She worked around the corpse of her father. She was acting normal, which was absolutely abnormal in this situation.

  The power to the house remained connected. Same with the water. While Donut talked to the kid, I had three goals. First I was going to check out the stairwell and throne room—aka the master bedroom. Then I would secure all the windows with tarp so this place didn’t get filled with sand. And finally, I was going to loot every damn thing I could pick up. I was going to inspect and remove the electrical panel if I could. Everything.

  Mongo still clutched onto the stuffed pink rabbit he’d gotten from the kid’s room. I patted the durable dinosaur on the head as I went upstairs. The door to the master bedroom opened without any effort. I stepped into an unremarkable room. A king-sized bed with crumpled, blue sheets stood against one wall, and a tall dresser with all the drawers opened sat against the other, still miraculously standing. Spilled men’s and women’s clothing covered the floor. I eyed a uniform shirt for some plumbing company with the name “Dale” sewn on the breast. A framed, University of Arizona Master’s Degree in library sciences for the woman who used to live here had fallen off the wall, but the glass hadn’t broken. Her name had been Jennifer.

  Jennifer and Dale. They’d had three kids. They’d likely all been asleep when it happened.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about what Maggie had said, that they could bring people back. I didn’t want to think about it, about the potential horrors we could face if we lived past this day or the next.

  You’re lucky, I thought. There’s only two people out there they could dredge up. For most, that number had to be a lot higher.

  I noticed something else. On the nightstand, a photo that had fallen over. I picked it up. It wasn’t a photo, but a drawing. It was Kane, a woman gnome, and a baby. He’d removed the existing photo and placed it in the frame. He’d slept in this bed.

  It also appeared he’d been jerking off to Cosmopolitan magazines. A pile of them lay scattered on the floor along with dozens of used tissues. I sighed and turned to the large walk-in closet.

  I could see it on the map, the stairwell. I opened the closet door, and there it was. It was only wide enough for two people to walk down side-by-side. It didn’t make sense, physics wise, since we were on the second floor of a house, but there it was. A blue forcefield prevented me from entering. We still had two more throne rooms to capture before it would open.

  After I secured the windows the best I could, mostly by duct-taping sheets and tarp over them, I went to work looting everything. Books, toys, furniture. The man had been pretty short, unfortunately, so there was nothing that’d fit me. The boys had been teenagers, and the girl had been about twelve or so. I secured everything I could, including two laptops, three televisions, and several gaming consoles.

  Bonnie had been sleeping in the girl’s room. I took the bed and nightstand. The closet was filled with Barbie dolls and tons of little animal action figure things. I took it all.

  I finally hit paydirt in the garage. In addition to two mountain bicycles and a cheap, plastic kayak, they had a full workbench filled with tools that had been meticulously organized. There were boxes and boxes of crap. A bunch of Christmas supplies, including a fake tree, had been recently put away. I took it along with a box of Halloween and fourth of July decorations.

  The electrical panel was also in the garage. I pulled the main house breaker, and the power didn’t go out. It was as if all the lines were just electrified without a source. I carefully snipped a line to test it, and the downline outlet still worked. I removed the outlet from the garage wall, and only then did it stop working. It didn’t make sense. It was some magic or game bullshit. If it was attached to where it was supposed to be, it worked, but not once it was removed.

  I didn’t want to flood the house, so I didn’t try it with the pipes. I did, however, completely disconnect the main house panel. and I took it. I doubted I’d have use for it, but you never knew.

  I did not locate what I was hoping to find. This house came from Texas. They had a doormat that claimed they had guns. If they had any in the house, however, the system didn’t include them when it reconstituted the place. If the couple had a gun safe, it’d probably been in that closet in the master bedroom.

  Oh well, I thought. This was still a great haul.

  I wandered back to the kitchen. This was the last room I needed to clear, and I hadn’t covered the window or back door yet. Donut sat on the counter, chatting away with Bonnie who continued to pick things up.

  “She’s telling me about Sausage, her pig,” Donut said. “She says her mother bought him for her.”

  “Ahh,” I said.

  Donut: SHE SAID HER DAD GAVE HER A POTION TO DRINK AFTER WE BLEW UP THE WASTELAND. SHE’D BEEN CRYING A LOT BUT IT HELPED HER STOP. SHE WAS SLEEPING NEXT TO HER DAD IN THE KITCHEN WHEN WE CAME. MORDECAI SAYS IT’S PROBABLY GOING TO WEAR OFF SOON.

  Carl: Jesus. Poor kid. I’m glad we got to her before it wore off. Katia and the others will be here at first light. They’re going to bring Juice Box, who’ll take care of her.

  “Carl, look!” Donut exclaimed. We were marching back to Hump Town with the others. I turned to see the airplane slowly descending from the sky. It was the Nightmare II. It had dislodged itself from the main balloon during the boss fight, and the emergency balloon had finally lost its juice, sending the plane slowly back to the ground.

  I sent Louis and Firas out to secure it and drag it back to the house. It would probably fit in that large garage. I tasked them with sticking it in there to protect it from the next storm. It’d give them something to do.

  I watched the men scurry off. They both had a new borough boss star after their names. They, along with the archers, had gotten into a fight with the Thorny Devil queen. Langley said they’d held their own during the fight.

  After they killed the queen, the regular thorny devil mobs just disappeared. We still had those small, explosive things that came out at night and the birds, but we’d pretty much cleared out the bowl.

  Bonnie walked next to Juice Box, who’d taken on the form of a dirigible gnome woman. Bonnie clutched onto her hand as they waddled along the hot desert floor. The spell still hadn’t worn off.

  “We’ll take care of her,” Juice Box said. “Orphans will always have a home in Hump Town.”

  Donut: THAT SOUNDS OBSCENE.

  Carl: Not now, Donut.

  As we walked, I reached up and patted Donut on the head.

  “That was too close, Donut,” I said.

  “But we made it, didn’t we?” She was furiously rubbing sand out of her fur. “God, it’s hot. Carl, you need to invent a portable air conditioner. This is not acceptable.”

  “Look,” I said. “We need to talk about that battle. I’m glad you and Mongo have bonded so well. And I know it didn’t really matter this time, but I need you in the fight. Mongo is going to get injured. You can’t get overwhelmed by that. We’ll protect him and each other the best we can, but you were in a full-on panic over his injuries, and it caused you to completely check out.”

  Donut paused in her self-cleaning. “What are you trying to say, Carl?”

  “I’m saying we’re going to die if you’re not paying attention to the fight. I can’t do it all on my own.”

  “You didn’t. Who flipped the switch? I mean, really. I couldn’t cast my magic, and I am a magic class on this floor. What else was I supposed to do? Vomit on the goose? Besides, you had clearly figured it out.”

  “I hadn’t figured it out until the last minute. We got lucky.”

  “That wasn’t luck, Carl. That was you being you. I’m pretty sure we were supposed to
drown the goose in the sink. Or the lemonade pitcher. Not rip her head off in the garbage disposal. You’re a good fighter, Carl. And you think fast. That’s why we’re still alive. You rarely think of the proper answer to a problem, but you usually come up with one that works anyway.”

  I was going to reply, but Katia approached.

  “So what’s next?” she asked. “Are we going into the necropolis?”

  I pulled the letter from the mage and showed her.

  “I’m pretty sure this means we have to take care of the land quadrant before we even try to storm the catacombs. The mage guy says he’d destroy this world before he’d allow the ghost out. I don’t know what’s going on there, but it’s not something we want to mess around with.”

  Katia was visibly relieved. None of us relished the idea of going into a dark tunnel system that was filled with water and traps.

  “We’re all going to fly away in that stupid house, aren’t we?”

  I grinned. “Don’t worry. It’ll be a party. A house party.”

  Zev and Loita messaged us as we entered back through the town gates.

  Loita: Congratulations. Barely surviving battles is great for your numbers. Keep it up. Donut, you have a new box. They insist this version will not explode as you don’t deliberately go into the had cavity. Spend some time with it. If it works as intended, we are going to bring you two up to do the show a day early.

  Donut: I’M NOT OPTIMISTIC, LOITA.

  Loita: I don’t care if you’re optimistic, crawler. Just do as you’re told.

  Donut: WELL YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE A JERK ABOUT IT.

  Loita: Do not talk back to me. You keep forgetting your place.

  Donut: I DON’T LIKE YOU, LOITA. YOU SMELL REALLY BAD.

  Loita: The feeling is mutual. And if you talk back again, I will have Mongo taken from you. We’ll use him to feed a mob on the next floor and we’ll make you watch. I can do that. Don’t test me.