“Take a water scroll,” I said. “Do it now. Put the rest in your hot list. Fast. If your health gets low, don’t take a health potion. Take Mordecai’s Special Brew.”
“Carl, I changed my mind. I would rather be buried alive than…”
I pulled Donut from my shoulder and wrapped myself around her, muffling whatever she was about to say. Above, the ceiling finally splintered, and sand poured over us as a distant, roaring sound filled the chamber, reminding me of the sound of an oncoming train.
The world tumbled. It felt as if I’d been hit not by a train, but by a dozen baseball bats all at once. My health plummeted as I protected the fragile body of Donut. Complete darkness encompassed us. I spun like a ball, bouncing and hitting things both hard and soft and painfully inbetween. I closed my eyes. Let it happen. Let it happen. Be calm. I watched my health, and I clicked a potion just as it reached about 25%. My health moved up, and then I gasped with pain as I felt myself smash through what felt like a barbed-wire fence. Metal pierced my leg. A spear of glass pierced my hand and plummeted into Donut, who’d gone limp. She had not taken the invulnerability potion like I had suggested. Goddamnit, Donut.
I targeted her and slammed on a heal scroll as we continued to spin.
It’s not that bad. He only opened the valve a little bit. It’s like a water slide.
I cast Heal on myself. I became aware that the thing that had pierced my leg was actually a spar of metal coming from that dwarven automaton piece. I cried anew as the metal pulled away. The metal chunk spun away into the murk. The temperature plunged, and I finally realized we were underwater in the water quadrant, and we had been for a bit now. Notifications flew past, and I spun and spun.
I clutched onto Donut with all of my strength. I curled protectively around her the best I could.
My health was, again, in the red. Donut’s health was also again perilously low. She’d gone unconscious. I could taste the blood streaming from her. We were no longer in the direct blast of the water current, and we were now sinking. It’d taken maybe three seconds from the water hitting us to this point, but it’d seemed much longer. Donut’s torch was dutifully following us, barely keeping pace, barely lighting up the cloudy water.
Mordecai: What is happening? Donut’s health keeps bottoming out!
Carl: Not now.
I used a second heal scroll on her, though she would remain unconscious for another thirty seconds. Thankfully she had taken the water breathing scroll, which lasted as long as one’s intelligence stat times three seconds. The scroll would be active for a total of over two and a half minutes for her. For me, it’d only last 54 seconds, and I was already getting close to needing to take another.
I examined Donut as we continued to sink. Debris from both the castle and the interior of the necropolis plunged all around us. I caught sight of multiple dead bodies of creatures, but I couldn’t tell what they were in the dark. They all trailed dark blood, like airplanes smoking as they plummeted from the sky in slow motion.
Donut looked okay. Her long hair flowed all around her, almost making her look like a sea anemone. With that last healing, she’d stopped bleeding. I turned the limp cat around in my hands, looking for injuries. She’d been pierced through the stomach by the shard, but she appeared to be okay now. I didn’t know if her cockroach spell had activated or not. Either way, it’d been much too close. If I hadn’t protected her, she’d been dead for certain.
I became aware that the pressure of the water was getting higher. I panicked for a moment, suddenly not certain which way was up. I pumped my legs, and it didn’t feel as if I was going in the correct direction, which caused me to panic even further. It was dark on the surface, so I had no frame of reference. Calm. Calm. I remembered the little indicator in my vision that gave my position relative to sea level. We were only 150 meters below the surface. That was far. Very far. But it was much less than I anticipated. I was thankful for Donut’s torch spell and that it worked underwater, and I was especially thankful the spell still worked while she was unconscious.
I pumped my legs a few times, and we quickly rose. I started to relax. I couldn’t tell how far we were from the shore, but that was okay. The quadrant wasn’t that wide. Just deep.
I took a breath, and it felt like normal air. I hadn’t grown gills or anything weird. The water seemed to dissolve as it entered my mouth. Goddamn magic.
I tried talking, and it worked. The words sounded odd to my ears, but I could hear myself. Above, I could hear the loud rush of water as it funneled out of the necropolis, across the beach, and back into the ocean. I could also hear something else, not too far away, but getting quieter. It was the trap module, still playing that song, sinking away with the rest of the debris.
I had multiple, increasingly frantic messages from Katia and Mordecai, and I quickly answered them, telling them we were okay.
The castle had washed away, much the same way a real sandcastle would under a garden hose. I’d hoped that since we were in the basement, we would’ve been spared getting plunged into the water quadrant, and the blast would’ve just erased the castle away over our heads, stopping the sand from crushing us. No such luck, but at least we were still alive. I clicked on another water breathing scroll.
Gwen: Hey, bomber guy. This is where I point out that if you’d simply let me open the valve in the first place, we could’ve avoided whatever the hell that was.
Carl: And this is where I tell you to shut the fuck up.
I was about to say something else when I sensed movement under me. Something large shot through the water. It crunched onto a falling body. The dull, box-like sound of munching bones was even more sinister in the darkness, like a large boot stomping through frozen snow. Whatever the thing was, it was big and long and cut through the water with ease. The dot appeared on my map, moving rapidly through the sinking corpses, zig-zagging. Holy shit, time to bounce. I pumped my legs again, pushing toward the surface. It’d probably been attracted to the blood. I needed to avoid bringing attention to myself, and I needed get the hell out of here as quickly and as quietly as I could.
Donut awakened in my arms.
Donut freaked the absolute fuck out.
23
Stage 4 of 4. The Necropolis of Anser
One morning, back when Bea and I first moved in together, I decided to make pancakes. Bea was still asleep, and I thought it’d be a nice thing to do since she’d been doing most of the cooking.
I was still getting used to the idea of sharing a home with a woman and a cat, and there was a lot I didn’t know. Even though I had known Donut since she was a kitten, I’d never actually lived with a cat before, and things like changing the litter box, not leaving the window open, and finding vomit on my pillow were all new.
So I had a bowl of flour, a cup of milk, and a single egg sitting right there on the edge of the counter. I was foraging through the refrigerator, looking for the missing syrup container when suddenly there was a huge crash behind me. Donut had come out of nowhere, knocking the flour, milk, and egg off the counter, splattering everything onto the floor. She then turned to run, touched the very edge of the hot burner on the oven, yowled, rocketed into the air, and then landed on the floor, covering herself with a little bit of everything while she did that Scooby-Doo scramble in the slippery mess, everything flying everywhere while her legs pumped several times before she actually moved.
“Goddamnit, Donut,” I’d cried, chasing after the cat as she squealed, running away into the living room, trailing it all onto the floor. She jumped up into her cat tree and started growling while she furiously licked at herself.
Bea was going to lose her shit when she saw the cat, so I figured I’d mitigate the damage.
I’d mitigate it by giving the cat a bath.
After quickly cleaning up the kitchen, I went into the bathroom, and I turned the water on, filling the tub with several inches of warm, soapy water. And then I went to retrieve the cat.
I picked her up
, holding her with two hands while she squirmed. I went into the bathroom, I closed the door, and while holding her gently but firmly, I placed her in the bathtub.
A few hours later while I sat in the emergency room waiting to get my hand, my arm, and my goddamned ear stitched up, I’d described, to the unimpressed nurse, the noise Donut had made the moment she’d entered the water. “Man, it was like a screeching, amplified baby combined with an outboard motor revving at a high rpm. I’m not even joking when I say it was one of the loudest, most terrifying things I’ve ever heard. Holy shit.”
That memory came to me now in the moment Donut awakened from unconsciousness to find herself fully submerged in the water.
This scream had a lot more power behind it than it did the last time.
AHH AHH AHH RAWR AHHHHHHHHH, Donut squealed, twisting and turning and lashing out with her claws, like she was trapped in a dishwasher. I let her go after she almost caught my arm in her slash, and she started to sink like a rock, still twisting and fighting and going absolutely apeshit.
“Donut,” I cried. “Donut. It’s okay!”
Below, the shadow that was happily munching on the falling corpses paused. It started to lazily circle upward, vectoring itself toward our position, stopping to eat everything along the way.
It’s the quadrant’s janitor mob.
“Donut,” I called again. “Calm the fuck down!”
Carl: Donut. Chill. You’re sinking. There’s a mob coming.
Donut: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Carl: MONGO NEEDS YOU.
Donut quit twisting, her hair fluttering around her. She quickly looked about, still in a panic. Strange lights flashed under the sunglasses that’d become a fixture on her face whenever she left the saferoom. She tried kicking her legs, but the best she could manage with her stubby Persian paws was an inefficient tread. She could not swim. She was about to start flipping her shit again. I swam down and grabbed her, pulling her into the crook of my arm. I started pumping my legs upward as she dug her claws into my chest. Her ears were pinned to the back of her head. She breathed heavily, her head on a swivel, looking about with terror.
“Carl, Mongo is in his carrier. You lied to me! We’re drowning! Help! Help!”
“Calm down. We have company. You need to be quiet. Deep breath.”
“How can I take a deep breath when I’m drowning, Carl?”
“The water scroll, remember? Keep an eye on the countdown. You’ll need to renew it soon.”
A pair of bloated corpses floated past, sinking. These were pink-skinned, naked, human-like creatures, but they were covered in wrinkles, and their heads were like that of a naked mole rat. Their eyes were white and bulbous, like onions. Their mouths hung open in death, revealing large, yellow, and rotting teeth.
Corpse. Tuco. Nude Glaber. Level 30. Killed by drowning.
The Nude Glabers were the NPCs who lived in the settlements within the necropolis. I’d never seen one, but one of the tomb raider guys had described them. All of these corpses must’ve been from one of those settlements after the temple filled with water. They’d been described as “undead,” but I didn’t realize an undead creature could drown. It was probably an inaccurate description. Most of those necropolis guys didn’t know what they were doing.
Donut squirmed in my grip. Her voice sounded distant and hollow even though she was right next to me. “That’s a shark down there. A shark! I can see more coming. They are everywhere. This is not acceptable. I told you I am not to be brought into the water. This is a betrayal worse than when you gave my pet biscuits to that danger dingo.”
“You take a shower every five minutes,” I grunted as I swam. “This is practically the same thing.”
“This is quite obviously not the same thing, Carl. Get me out of here this instant.”
I was furiously pumping my legs, swimming upward. The rushing noise of water streaming from the necropolis was getting louder. I didn’t think we could just swim right into the stream. It’d be like stepping into a tornado. But what could we do? The monster—apparently a shark—was still lazily circling toward us. We were being sandwiched between the current and the mob. The creature crunched on the corpse of Tuco and some other debris. When it opened its mouth, I could hear the distinctive beat of “Jump Around” blast out into the ocean. It’d eaten the goddamned alarm trap.
“Please, Carl. I’m sorry. I don’t like this. Can we go? Please?”
None of my explosives with exposed fuses would work, at least not well, under water. I was pretty sure dynamite would work, but I’d have to use the inherent instability of the explosive and not the wick to set it off. I’d seen enough blast fishing videos in my time to know that you didn’t want to be anywhere near any such explosion. I didn’t trust in our ability to swim away in time. I’d been working on a depth charge design, but that didn’t help me now.
My impact-detonated hob-lobbers would probably be effective against the creature, but there was all sorts of debris flying about down here, and again, I couldn’t guarantee we’d get away in time.
The corpse of yet another creature floated past us. This was a dolphin thing, and it’d been pierced right through the head with a glass shard.
Lootable Corpse. Bubble Beluga. Level 29. Killed by getting her brain pierced by a spear of glass. It hurt a lot, too.
“Are you calm? Donut, listen to me. I’m gonna need you. Are you good?”
“No I am most certainly not good. I am really far from good, Carl.”
“Listen. Hekla,” I said, pointing at the corpse of the beluga. “Send them after the shark. Do it now.”
This was one of Donut’s favorite moves. We’d originally called it “Slime Time,” but it had somehow evolved to “Hekla.” Katia thought it was distasteful and a little fucked-up to call it that, and it was, but it was also pretty damn funny.
Donut, to her credit, didn’t hesitate. She cast Second Chance on the beluga corpse and then immediately cast Clockwork Triplicate, creating three of them. The two copies appeared with glass spikes through their heads, which was a nice touch. Donut sent them after the monster while I swam under the rushing current. I had to slam on yet another water-breathing scroll.
Almost immediately, one of the clockwork belugas exploded underwater. I felt it mostly in my ears, like I’d just blown them out. The mob roared, lion-like as it was injured by exploding shrapnel. Before I could compose myself, the second clockwork exploded behind us.
“Carl, watch out!” Donut cried.
“Holy shit,” I gasped as two more sharks rushed in out of nowhere. They swarmed right past us, skirting the bottom of the fast-moving current. They ignored us and headed straight for the injured shark. Christ that was close. Each was about fifteen feet long and jet black with glowing red eyes. Other than the terrifying color and eyes, they looked much like a typical tiger shark. I caught a glimpse of their description.
Concierge Shark. Level 41.
These psychos are of the bite-first, ask-questions-later school of underwater diplomacy.
Also known as the “Death’s Welcoming Committee” Shark, the Concierge Shark is one of the fastest and most voracious of the ocean’s predators. They’ll eat anything. ANYTHING. Even those circus peanut candy things. It’s really kind of gross.
They are attracted to the scent of blood, making them the most common death dealers of any water-themed dungeon.
The two newcomers barreled into the first shark, who’d been injured in the explosion. They started ripping at each other, causing a cloud of blood to bloom under us.
“There are more coming,” Donut hissed.
“Let me know if any follow.”
Since I couldn’t swim up through the fast-moving current, I swam across and below the water stream, attempting to get to the other side. I kept pumping my legs, swimming with only one arm while Donut clutched to me, whimpering. A school of small fish rushed past, cutting through us like a hailstorm, but they came and went, not doing any harm. Donut sputtered a
s a fish slapped her in the face.
Above, the sense of rushing water eased. I put more distance between us and the shark fight. Donut said more were coming, all headed straight for the plume of blood.
I swam to the surface, poking my head above water. Donut popped up next to me, unnecessarily gasping for breath. Her whole body trembled. I had to keep her from sinking back in.
“Oh wow,” I said, looking off at the blast of water pouring from a hole in the side of the necropolis. It was pitch black outside, but multiple lights, mostly from other crawlers, stood near the castle’s remains, lighting up the area. The castle was just gone. The walls surrounding it were obliterated. All that remained were the lightning rod towers that stood on either side of the entrance, the tops of which glinted in the light like twin obelisks.
We were about a quarter of a mile off shore. I warily looked about for mobs. Far to our right, splashing rose in the night air. It was a feeding frenzy. First there had been one. Then three. Now there were dozens of sharks fighting each other.
I weighed our next move. We needed to get to that submarine. The Akula. We had to turn off the pump. But I knew the sub was located on the opposite side of the ring-shaped water quadrant, and we sure as hell weren’t going to swim there from here. I decided to put Donut out of her misery and take her back to the shore for now.
I had a kayak in my inventory from the floating house’s garage. I pulled it free, popping it out onto the surface, where it bobbed up and down like a cork. I lifted Donut and placed her within. I pulled myself into the kayak and pulled the double-sided paddle. I figured this would be faster than swimming.
My water-breathing scroll ran out, and I suddenly vomited. Dark, brown water rushed from my lungs. I hadn’t even realized it was there. It felt as if I’d been kicked in the stomach while breathing fire. It reminded me of the time Mordecai gave Louis and Firas the anti-alcohol potions. A moment later, Donut also vomited, loud and long, the retches traveling across her body like a sine wave. The amount of water that came out of her seemed to be way too much. When it was finally over, she gave out a little whimper and then vomited again, and this time a little fish fell out of her mouth and started flopping around on the top of the kayak.
The Gate of the Feral Gods Page 34
