Carl: Blow your ballast. Get out of there. You don’t have time to get to us. Get to the surface.
Katia: The flying green dot just flew back into the temple I think. But the large thing is coming. Carl, there’s music. Music I haven’t heard before.
Carl: GET OUT NOW.
Donut: DON’T ABANDON CARL.
Katia: It’s coming. Oh, god. Oh, god. It’s reaching for the sub, Carl.
26
I clambered toward the door of the bridge as the music started to pulse. It was quiet at first, but it rose in volume, shaking the hull. And soon enough, the music was blasting. Not quite the level of an alarm trap, but loud enough I had to shout at the others.
This was a pure, deep dubstep growl punctuated by high-pitch, ear-piercing glitches that sounded like whale song. It gave the sense of overwhelming, frenetic panic. The grates under my feet clinked up and down.
The whole vessel shuddered, and suddenly the three of us fell to our backs. The sub vibrated as whatever this was physically grabbed the submarine.
I scrambled to my feet and pushed forward. I had to get to the dead bodies in the bridge. When Henrik the changeling principal had disappeared, we’d all just assumed he’d gone directly into the necropolis. When I had pinged him that first time using the watch, and he’d responded, I’d seen that he’d been underwater. I thought he was in a flooded cavern of the crypt. He’d been in the form of a fish creature.
He’d actually been on his way here, to the Akula. I had no idea why they’d come here, but whatever they were trying to do, they’d failed. Six of the seven bodies in the bridge were changeling principals, including Henrik. And if Henrik was here, that also meant the watch was here.
I spun the wheel, ripped open the portal as the submarine jolted again. The portal opened toward me, and I pulled myself inside. I shouted over the pounding music for Tran and Vadim to follow. We were going to loot the bodies, and then the three of us where going to jump to the last of the three escape hatches. We didn’t have a choice. I already knew that whatever this was going to be, it wasn’t a neighborhood or borough boss, which meant we were fucked.
Carl: Katia, did you get out?
The moment I sent the message, I realized, no. She hadn’t gotten free. I saw her dot on the map, moving through the innards of the Akula in our direction. She’d fled into the submarine.
Carl: Goddamnit, Katia.
Katia: It was too late. I wouldn’t have gotten away.
Carl: Okay, get your ass in here. Why is there boss music, but the other stuff hasn’t happened yet?
Katia: I don’t know.
The needle that indicated views was buried all the way to the right.
I yelled for Tran to stay back and to close the door to the airlock so Katia could get in here. The process took almost a full minute to transfer. I prayed she’d make it in time.
The whole sub rolled onto its side. I fell inside the bridge. Behind me, both Vadim and Tran yelled out in surprise as they also fell, plummeting out of sight in the room behind me. We’d been pulled free of the hole in the side of the necropolis. Below, the rushing noise of water changed in pitch.
I spied Henrik’s body near the front of the bridge, and he was in the faceless humanoid form. I watched as he rolled toward the wall, smashing against it. Broken pieces of a robot fell with him. This was the borough boss corpse, which had been a spider carrying the head of Chaindrive the bugbear in a jar. They fell against yet another portal in the room, this one leading to the captain’s stateroom and the level stairwell.
The sub remained at a 45-degree pitch as I stood, one foot on a bulkhead, one on the deck. The hull croaked and groaned, but I felt it more than I heard it, as the music continued to pound. My eyes moved to the altitude chart on my display. We were at 550 meters and falling. We’re out of the hole. We’re being dragged down.
I took a precious moment to gawk at the opulence of the bridge. The Akula’s control center was a combination between the Enterprise bridge from Star Trek and the interior of a Victorian-era-themed restaurant that was so expensive, the prices weren’t on the menu. At least it had been, once upon a time. Both the ravages of time and the recent flooding had ruined the place. A rust-covered chandelier dotted with random sparkles hung from the ceiling, swinging back and forth. The deck was covered with moldy and ripped velvet. The railings were made of polished wood capped with brass and covered with intricate carvings. A mighty, but peeled and faded, mural covered one bulkhead, depicting what appeared to be a bugbear getting knighted by an elf in flowing robes.
The captain’s chair sat high in the middle of the room. It was a heavily-patinaed, brass throne covered with spigots and levers, reminding me of the cockpit of the Nightmare. The seat had once been cushioned with red velvet, but it’d disintegrated with time, revealing rusted springs. Next to the chair sat what appeared to be a mini-fridge and bar. The door to the fridge hung open, revealing it be empty. The bar was equally barren.
But the most impressive sight was the glass porthole giving me a wide view of the underwater world. The window was broad, about twenty-five feet across and ten feet high and framed with riveted brass. I could see a film of muck had grown over the glass, but an area had been recently cleaned off, either by Chris or Henrik’s crew.
The window had revealed nothing but black a moment before, but now I could see movement just on the other side, bubbles and water rushing by. Something tightened on the glass, and I felt my heart clench in my chest. It’s not darkness. Something is covering the port.
I swallowed when I realized what I was looking at. A sucker from a squid or octopus tentacle appeared, squeezing against the view. The oval-shaped suction cup took up half the window.
“Holy crap,” I muttered.
Katia: I’m waiting for the room to drain.
Carl: Okay. I’m in the bridge. One room over. Grab the map if you have time. It’s in the first room.
Donut: WHAT IS HAPPENING.
Carl: Get the depth charges ready. Don’t drop until I say.
I scrambled along the wall to the corpse of Henrik.
Lootable Corpse. Henrik. Level 50 Changeling Principal. Killed by a very pissed-off Quetzalcoatlus.
Mysterious Watch.
Torn Book Page.
I took his entire body into my inventory. The moment I had it, the world froze.
Shit. Here we go.
System Message: Please Wait.
The world unfroze as quickly as it had frozen.
System Message: Thank you for your patience. You may now resume normal activities.
What the hell? That was the second time this had happened. I’d been expecting that to be the boss battle.
Admin Notice: Three items in your inventory have been placed under an administrative lock while an appeal in the Syndicate court determines if these items are…
The message appeared and disappeared in a flash, almost too quickly to read or understand. It never finished fully displaying. And then another message appeared and disappeared just as quickly.
Admin Notice: Court determination: Lack of Standing for all plaintiffs. Administrative lock removed. We apologize for the inconvenience.
The deck rumbled. The chandelier swung back and forth. The music continued to pound.
Donut: CARL, THE WORLD FROZE AGAIN. DID YOU DO THAT?
The submarine hit something solid and settled, righting itself, and I had to scramble to stay on my feet. The chandelier continued to swing wildly. The hull groaned and popped under my feet. We were almost exactly 1,500 meters below sea level. I was pretty sure we’d just settled at the very bottom of the bubble. Outside, the suction cup moved away, squeaking loudly like a squeegee against a windshield.
At a depth of 500 meters, the world had been blue-hued. Down here, a green luminescence permeated the ocean’s floor. I couldn’t see any sign of the monster. I didn’t see any sign of the island upon which the necropolis stood. I realized the sub had turned a full 180 degrees. The music
continued.
Katia: I’m through. I’m coming up.
What was going on? Fuck this, I thought. We had to get to the escape hatch.
Carl: Get in here. Bring the other two guys.
I thought of the weird system message. Someone had sued to keep the pieces of the Gate of the Feral Gods out of my hands. That wasn’t a surprise. Neither was it a surprise that there were multiple plaintiffs in the suit.
But Henrik had something else in his inventory. It was starting to become clear that this was a common thing in this game, that the system would plant important information on corpses. I extracted the Torn Book Page from Henrik’s inventory and examined it.
Torn Book Page.
This piece of paper was mercilessly ripped from a perfectly-innocent book. Anybody who thinks to mutilate books in such a manner is obviously a terrible person. I mean, one minute this book is sitting there, minding its own business, and suddenly… BAM! It’s torn away from its home. And even if it gets returned, you can’t just repair that sort of thing. It’s irreparably harmed. Anybody who would do that is a real jerk. It’s a lot like what we did to you guys.
Anyway, this slip of old paper appears to be an extract of a cleric’s journal. One side is half of a terrible love poem for his aunt. The other is something about ghosts. Fucking clerics. What a bunch of nerds. Am I right?
I quickly read the passage.
…and she formed into a rage elemental.
Another curiosity is the She Who Wails. Or Wailing Shrieker. A rare ghost, it is formed when a grieving widow dies of her despair, in the dark, on hallowed ground, while the corpse of her affection rots nearby. These were often purposely created to guard tombs, oftentimes at the direction of the ailing pharaoh or king himself, who would ply the woman with affection in order to have ready stock upon his burial. Sometimes he would do this with a harem of women, if he was especially paranoid about keeping his treasures safe. The women would not know this was to be their fate.
If a Wailing Shrieker forms, she has the tendency to haunt her lover’s grave, and she will aggressively defend the area. She is defeated with a high-level exorcism spell, the destruction of the corpse of her lover, by varying high-degree banishment spells, or via electric shock. Beware her scream and her touch. She is intelligent and jealous. She is fully non-corporeal, and any flesh-giving spell can be used to neutralize her.
Henrik and his team didn’t want to kill Quetzalcoatlus. They wanted to physically touch her, but they could only do that if she was given flesh. Their original plan was to use Wynne the gnome to do it. I didn’t know why they’d come here. Whatever he’d been planning, it was plan B. Or C. And it hadn’t worked. They’d pissed off the ghost, she’d killed them all, and now we’d been dragged to the bottom of the ocean because of it.
Carl: Gwen. How long until the storm?
Gwen: Two and a half hours. And we don’t know what’s really going to happen.
I gave her a quick set of instructions and told her to hurry.
Katia pulled herself into the room, followed by Tran and Vadim.
“Loot the rest of these corpses,” I said, yelling over the music as I moved to the closest body. I pulled him into my inventory. He only had a few gold coins on him, but Mordecai wanted the brains of these guys, too. I pointed to a set of spiral stairs on the opposite side of the bridge, pushed up against the mural. Both up and down led to additional hatches. “Go up. We don’t need to turn the pump off anymore, but we need to get to the escape hatch room.”
Katia and the other two didn’t respond to my shout. All three of them stood still, staring out the window. That’s when I looked up and saw what they were staring at. A massive, glowing form approached the sub. A shark. A shark the size of a mountain. A shark? That didn’t make sense. Then I saw the tentacles flowing behind it. A sharktopus. A fucking sharktopus. Donut is going to be pissed she missed this one.
“Oh,” I heard myself say. “That’s not good.”
“That’s not the same one that pulled us down here,” Katia shouted so she could be heard over the music.
The monstrosity rocketed toward us, mouth opening wide. It turned to the side, like it was about to eat a goddamn taco.
Holy shit it’s going to swallow us.
And then, finally, did the world freeze.
Admin Notice: This Special Event boss battle is being streamed to all special event subscribers.
Admin Notice: Congratulations. You have been opted into the Beta testing program. We are testing a new format with this battle. You may be asked to complete a survey on the completion of the fight, should you survive. Thank you.
B…B…B…Boss Battle!
Bronze-colored stars and fireworks exploded on the screen, curling in the air.
Special Event twirled, trailing a rainbow of colors before slamming onto an invisible plane and exploding.
A new window appeared. Something that had never happened before. The orange, lizard newscaster guy who hosted the recap episode appeared in the screen, holding a microphone. Next to him stood an orc-like creature I’d never seen before. This was a different race than Maestro. This guy looked more like a traditional, video game orc. He was big and meaty with pig-like eyes. He wore a sportscoat and a tie.
The music lowered in volume and became background noise, something else that had never happened.
“We are live, ladies and gentlemen! And boy do we have something amazing for you tonight!” the lizard guy said. His voice echoed as if we were in a goddamned stadium.
“I can’t wait for this one, Kevin,” the orc said, his voice that of a sports announcer. “My only regret is that Princess Donut isn’t here to round out the team.”
“Something tells me she’s just as disappointed as you are,” the recap guy, whose name was apparently “Kevin” said. He chuckled. “But we all know by now how she feels about getting wet.”
Our mugshots splattered into the air. Katia and I appeared first, teamed up together with Tran and Vadim individually on the other side. The frames around our pictures caught on fire and then exploded.
“Now, Magnificent Troy, tell me something,” Kevin said. “Can you explain to our viewers why we chose this battle for tonight’s special event?”
“What the fuck,” I muttered through gritted teeth. Was the orc’s name really Magnificent Troy? Were these assholes really going to live-comment as we fought? “What the fuck.”
“Oh, certainly. Look what we have tonight. We have Carl and Katia, both top-ten crawlers along with two guys who’ve really been underperforming until recently…”
“Hey,” Tran said, also through clenched teeth.
“And all four of them have to face such a powerful boss. Combine that with the drama regarding this particular bubble and the type of battle we’re about to face, and it’s truly a match for the ages.”
“You got that right, Magnificent Troy. And let’s find out exactly who that boss is, shall we?” Kevin took a dramatic pause. “It’s the one. It’s the only! Taken straight from the depths of the water moon Hayes 17, it’s the queen bitch herself…”
An image appeared, super small. It started spinning toward us, looking like it was coming straight from the real sharktopus’s mouth. It was a full, 3D rendition of the creature.
Carl: Depth charges. Now. Turn the little dial on the sides all the way to the left first. Set them all to maximum depth. Louis and Firas. Once you drop the charges, get out of there, land the house, and get all of your asses to a saferoom. Gwen, once you’re done at the sandcastle, get to a saferoom. Bobby or Morris, if you can hear me, get all the tomb raiders to a saferoom. ASAP. You too, Langley.
Gwen: Why?
Donut: WHAT ABOUT YOU? WON’T THE DEATH CHARGES HIT YOU, TOO?
Carl: I really hope not.
The sharktopus image slammed into the air and then exploded, revealing the real creature, still frozen just outside the sub, mouth wide. Each individual tooth was the size of a surfboard.
“It
’s Lusca!” Kevin shouted.
The system AI voice provided the official description.
Lusca! Octo-Shark Brood Mother Queen!
Level 82 City Boss!
I know, I know. Sharktopus is much cooler sounding than Octo-Shark. Hey, this is a real creature, not something I made up, so don’t blame me. It’s not, I repeat, it’s not named in such a way because of Nadya Suleman, the so-called Octo-mom and her eight babies who took the tabloids by storm all those years ago.
Though it would be appropriate for you to think so.
Being the biggest, baddest, and most voracious creature in the ocean requires a lot of sustenance, especially when you’re a new mother carrying a boatload of hungry babies in your mouth. And since Lusca is a single mother, sometimes she requires a little help. She needs to keep them babies fed.
And who’s the daddy of these precious little babies? Who knows? Lusca is a whore! Every Octo-Shark playa in the neighborhood knows she offers that sweet tentacle booty of hers to any bad boy who’ll drop something juicy onto her plate.
That, by the way, is exactly what you are. Food dropped onto Lusca’s plate in exchange for some one-on-one time. The male Octo-shark who brought you down here already got his and is now long gone. Just like your real daddy!
Lusca herself already ate. But that’s okay!
Like I said, she needs to keep them babies fed.
The world unfroze.
I stumbled forward as the giant creature swallowed us. Crunch.
The sub tumbled. The minimap flashed.
The world froze once again, and the word Uh-Oh! splashed on the screen before turning into bubbles and disappearing.
A cartoon-like diagram of the shark’s mouth appeared on the screen, replacing the two commentators, though I could still hear the two hosts talking.
“Lusca is a mouthbrooder,” Magnificent Troy said. A circle appeared around the mouth, like Troy had a pen and was diagraming out a football play. The diagram zoomed in, and multiple, little happy-faced dots appeared floating in the mouth along with a helpful cartoon graphic depicting half of the submarine with a flashing exclamation mark over it. My eyes moved to the minimap. Sure enough, the giant shark had snapped the Akula in half. We were floating in the goddamn creature’s mouth. “Once she chomps onto something for her babies, she gives them about ten minutes to eat their fill. Anything left over goes to mama!”
The Gate of the Feral Gods Page 39
