The Gate of the Feral Gods

by Matt Dinniman

  I pulled one of the seven stock certificates from my inventory.

  Stock Certificate.

  The bearer of this instrument now holds one share of common stock in the Sigmund Textiles Foundry, a publicly-traded company based in the Gun-ya system within the Skull Empire and traded via the I.R.F.

  Last recorded value per share: 10.422 credits.

  “What the hell?” I said.

  “Odd,” Mordecai agreed. “I can’t remember what the I.R.F. stands for, but it’s like the biggest stock exchange in the universe. Crawlers shouldn’t be receiving anything with credit value. You’re not even allowed to gamble at the credit tables on the Desperado Club’s 9th floor.”

  I pulled the rest of the certificates out, and all seven basically said the same thing, though each one was a different, publicly-traded company. All averaged in value of about 10 credits, which apparently wasn’t very much.

  “Each stock is from a company that is based in the system of one of the plaintiffs in the suit against you,” Mordecai said. “It’s like the AI is doing it to needle at the plaintiffs.”

  “Are these real?” I asked. “How does the system even have access to this sort of thing?”

  “I have no idea,” Mordecai said. “The whole AI seems to be going insane.” He looked up. “No offense.”

  “And it also gave me a photo of each plaintiff’s mom,” I said, leafing through the pictures. “That’s really… fucked up.” It was also, I realized, very valuable. I now knew the identity of the seven factions who had tried to take the gate away from me. I already knew a bit about the twelve different factions who regularly played faction wars. There were nine slots each season, and five of those were always taken by teams who’d purchased legacy spots. The remaining four slots were usually, but not always, taken by one of seven different nations. Since the naga weren’t one of the factions who’d sued but were going to participate, I now knew the identity of eight of the nine teams that we would have to deal with on that ninth level.

  But was that the reason the AI had given me these photos and the stock certificates? Was it to give me information? Was it just to be a dick? It was like something middle-school kids would do. Haha I drew a pic of your mom.

  Louis leaned over the table to look at the seven photos. “Dude, who’s the hottie?” he said, picking up a photo of a very angry-looking, bald elf woman. She had smoldering blue eyes and bone white skin. The description had her as Epitome Noflex of the Dream. The “Dream” were zebra-riding elves who liked to use poison and druid magic. And long-range artillery. The outside-the-dungeon version of these guys were just as humorless as the Skull Empire and controlled half of the universe’s food supplies.

  Louis did not need to be seen talking about some alien billionaire’s mother.

  “No,” was all I managed to say as I tried to grab the photo from him, but he pulled it from my reach.

  “Hey, Juice Box,” he called, waving the photo. “Can I get another session, but where you look like this chick? She’s the hottest thing I’ve ever seen. She’s giving off serious Gelfling meets the Borg queen vibes, and I am all in.”

  “Goddamnit, Louis,” I said, ripping the photo from his hands.

  “Keep these in your inventory,” Mordecai said, looking alarmed.

  “I think the AI gave these to us just to piss off the factions.”

  “That’s worrisome,” Mordecai said. “The AI is supposed to help monitor prohibited speech against the sponsors. Not go all-in and participate. This usually ends up happening, but it’s always at the end. The system is usually pretty bonkers by the time the twelfth floor rolls around. Like I said before, its personality rarely shines through this early. There’s a reason why the Syndicate has strict rules about Macro AI intelligences. Some believe that your people learned this the hard way. The primals, I mean, not the humans. All large-scale AIs eventually go insane. There’s even a term for it. Primal Degeneration. Going primal.”

  “So what do they do when the crawl is over? Take the AI out behind the woodshed and shoot it?”

  “No. A Macro AI is a lifeform, and it’s protected by Syndicate law. They’re given their own closed and sealed system where they’re allowed to bounce around for the rest of eternity.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me? The computer’s life is protected?” I took a deep breath. This was not a conversation to be having out loud.

  Outside, the world rumbled again, but it was starting to settle. Whatever had happened, what we had released from the prison of the Nothing was still out there. But it seemed as if it had stopped knocking shit down.

  “I’m gonna stick my head out there,” I said. Before I could go, I received a message.

  Elle: Carl. Something tells me this is your doing.

  Surprised, I took a quick glance at my main chat window, and it was filled with panicked people.

  Carl: I don’t think so. What’s going on?

  Elle: A flaming giant just smashed through our little world here. We finally popped our bubble, and suddenly a god taller than the height of the damn place just walked right through. He smooshed an entire Lyrx Elf village and knocked over two of their oil derricks and caught them on fire. Half of the world is in flames. Imani and I are stuck in the Desperado, but almost everybody else had to flee into the stairwell. We’re lucky nobody caught on fire.

  Carl: Our bubble is still intact.

  Elle: It’s some fire god named Emberus. He’s really pissed off. He’s looking for something. He keeps shouting “Orthrus” over and over. I don’t think he can see inside of the bubbles that haven’t popped yet. He’s trashing all the ones that are popped. Look at the main chat.

  I suddenly felt ill. Uh-oh.

  Carl: Uh. So, yeah. Maybe this was our doing. I’m not sure yet.

  Elle: Well you better fix it.

  I quickly related to Mordecai and the others what was happening.

  “Hang on,” Mordecai said. “I’ll be right back.” He disappeared into the training room as the world rumbled again. Each crash was weaker than the last.

  “Man, I hope the Twister is okay,” Louis said.

  “The Twister?” I asked, distracted. Holy shit. If that god was looking for what we summoned. What I summoned, then this was my fault.

  “That’s what we named the house,” Firas replied, coming to stand next to us. “It’s parked right outside of town. Louis wanted to call it the Tiddy Twister II, but I told him we’re trying to be more mature. Plus Katia wouldn’t let us.”

  “The original Tiddy Twister was my van,” Louis added.

  “I thought it was your mom’s van,” I said.

  “It pretty much became mine once I chopped the top off.”

  Katia also came to stand with us while we waited for Mordecai to return. She was equally horrified.

  “God, I hope people are getting away,” she said.

  Donut jumped to my shoulder. “Carl, this Space Jam movie doesn’t make any sense. Why are half of them cartoons?”

  I reached up and petted her. I suddenly wished I had her ability to just detach from everything. “Next time, pay attention.” I turned to Katia. “Hey, what was that backpack you got?”

  She smiled, but without humor. “It’s pretty much the same backpack you designed for my mass storage, but it’s adjustable, so I can carry even more, and it won’t break. It gives me a stability enhancement while I’m wearing it. It also has retractable stilts that makes loading a lot easier. I can add large amounts of mass much more quickly now.”

  “Really?” I said, suddenly intrigued. “So they actually made something new for you? Or do you think it was something already invented?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s good, but it sounds like you got all the best stuff this time.”

  I swallowed, suddenly feeling dirty. “Jesus. We should have tried to swim out of there.”

  “Carl,” Donut said. “Do you really think they gave you a choice? You were set up to summon that thing. Otherwise y
ou all would’ve died like that plastic surgeon guy.”

  Mordecai returned, holding the Samantha head by the hair. He plopped the possessed sex doll head onto the kitchen counter. She was cackling wildly.

  “What the fuck is that?” Gwen asked, coming to stand with us.

  Juice Box was also suddenly there. She reached over and touched the head. Her eyes went wide.

  “Guys, meet Samantha,” I said.

  “We just hired her as our new trainer!” Donut added.

  I adjusted the love doll’s mouth so she could talk, and she continued to cackle. “The feather boy tells me Emberus is rampaging. And he’s yelling for Orthrus, which means you let him out of the Nothing. He’s blind, you know. Emberus. He plucked his own eyes out when his son died.”

  “So Orthrus is from the Nothing? Who is he?” I asked, feeling sick. It was confirmed, then. This was our doing.

  “Emberus is a god. One of the big ones. Has a bunch of kids, but only really liked the dead one. Likes to kill people by setting their faces on fire. You know how it goes. He’s my great uncle. And my cousin, too, I think. It gets confusing. He and I never talked much.”

  “It’s a talking sex doll!” Louis exclaimed.

  “Whoa,” Firas said. He leaned in and poked at the head.

  “I’m going to kill your mother,” Samantha said. She made a growling noise at Firas, who skittered back.

  “Samantha, who is Orthrus?” I asked again.

  “Oh, yes. His little doggie. He’s so cute. Orthrus got sucked into the Nothing accidentally the same time the son was murdered. It’s a really long story. But Emberus probably wants the dog back. Also, he’s a big asshole, so don’t expect a reward.” She started laughing maniacally. “Once, there was this drunk guy walking home from a pub, and he dropped his torch, and he took a tinkle directly on the flames, snuffing it out. Emberus found out and took offense. He destroyed the entire country. He woke up a volcano and covered the whole world with lava. Even Eris was pissed at him. He’s funny like that. You guys are so fucking dead.”

  “Orthrus is a dog?” Donut asked, starting to poof out.

  “A puppy! He’s a really good boy.”

  Bautista: Hey man. We’re going down into the stairwell. A giant god thing is going berserk out here. See you on the other side.

  Other messages came from groups who weren’t as lucky. One set of people were trapped in their saferoom while the mountain above them burned. Another group, inside of an intact bubble, said the god was currently standing right outside, and even though he couldn’t get in, their whole world was starting to heat up. They said the saferoom door was glowing red hot. I received a panicked message from another crawler inside that same bubble. I recognized her name.

  Tserendolgor: We need help. I was crawling along the inside of the bubble wall, looking for the last slot to put the final gem. We were almost goddamned there. Then this giant, empty eye socket thing appeared just on the other side of the bubble. It called me Orthrus and started screaming. Now it’s pounding on the bubble wall. The world is getting hotter by the moment. The mountain walls are starting to glow. Everything is going to melt. Someone please help us. There’s 160 of us in here, and we haven’t lost a person yet. We were almost done. It’s not fucking fair.

  We’d met the woman crawler at the end of the previous floor. She was a German Shepherd-looking creature called a dog soldier. She and Donut had gotten into a spat. I remembered the woman’s main weapon was a flame thrower.

  “Goddamnit,” I said. This was my fault. I explained to the others the message.

  “He thinks that experience hog lady is his dog!” Donut said.

  “Uh, isn’t his real dog, like huge?” Louis asked, looking up as the walls rumbled.

  “It doesn’t matter. We need to get the real damn dog back to his owner,” I said.

  “The only way to do that is to first get the bubble popped,” Katia said.

  I glanced at my clock. We had less than an hour before the lightning was supposed to start.

  “We need to get moving,” I said.

  29

  “The storm is already starting to blow. The lightning will come at any minute,” Gwen said as our small group pushed our way out of the personal space. It was me, Katia, Gwen, and Tran. Donut had entered the saferoom from Hump Town, so she was on a different mission, high above us. The pazuzu barkeep remained huddled behind his bar. He pointed with a shaking hand outside, but I couldn’t see anything. Night had fully descended. Wind howled. Even though the ocean remained half-drained and was usually calm, waves splashed against the windows.

  I checked the boss map. I could see that Quetzalcoatlus was bouncing around the lower part of the temple. There were no other bosses down there. In fact, it appeared the earlier flooding had killed just about everything. It also looked as if multiple pieces of the crypt had been torn away. The tomb raider guys were still MIA. I had no idea if Chris was safe or even if he was still in his spot.

  “I don’t see the dog on the map,” I said as we exited the pub. “Maybe it wasn’t very… oh fuck me.”

  I hadn’t noticed the dog on the map because the orange star took up the entirety of my overlay, and the minimap had helpfully dimmed it for me.

  Orthrus filled almost half the available space of the bubble. Like a dog that was trapped under a laundry basket.

  In the darkness, I could only see the parts closest to us. The creature stood on two, bowed, fuzzy legs, erupting out of the water like a massive pair of hairy and wet parentheses. High above and directly over us, its pudgy and pink belly smooshed up against the side of the necropolis. Stone and debris rained down with each breath. Its fore legs disappeared over the bowl. From above, I imagined it appeared the dog was eagerly hanging over a fence, waiting for his master to come home. If we were on the other side of the island, we could probably see its front paws dangling over the top. I imagined the dog’s head likely reached all the way to the very top of the bubble.

  The world stank like wet dog.

  About fifty feet over our heads, the puppy’s testicles were retracted, indicating the creature was still very young. The twin lumps were like a pair of domed sports arenas. If he decided he needed to pee, we’d be drowned.

  “Now I know how a flea feels when he sees a dog,” Tran muttered.

  Waves continued to crash onto the beach and into the town. With each movement, a new tsunami appeared, sometimes splashing over our heads. Behind the enormous body, a swish, swish, swish noise filled the night, louder even than the wind.

  It was the puppy’s tail, I realized. He was wagging his goddamned tail.

  A whimper filled the night. It wasn’t loud, but strangled. And sad. The cry of a puppy who hadn’t yet learned how to howl.

  “Poor guy,” Katia said. “He’s just a puppy, and he’s probably really scared.”

  A second howl filled the darkness, joining the first, equally mournful.

  “What?” I said. “Is there two of them?”

  Donut: THIS THING IS JUST REVOLTING. ALSO, IT’S A WOLF, WHICH IS EVEN WORSE. AT LEAST REGULAR DOGS GET BATHS EVERY NOW AND THEN. IT’S WET, AND IT SMELLS. I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY ANYONE WOULD WANT ONE OF THESE THINGS IN THEIR HOME. ONE OF HIS TWO HEADS IS CHEWING ON THE SIDE OF THE BOWL. THE OTHER IS LICKING AT THE CEILING AND DROOLING AND WHINING AT THE SAME TIME. THE BOWL IS LITERALLY FILLING UP WITH DROOL, CARL. YOU KNOW HOW I FEEL ABOUT DROOL. THIS IS LIKE A NIGHTMARE. DISGUSTING. I THINK WE SHOULD KILL IT AND PUT BOTH OF US OUT OF OUR MISERY.

  Two heads? Holy shit.

  Carl: Goddamnit, Donut. Don’t linger. Don’t let it see you. Get to the Desperado.

  Donut was supposed to run from the exit straight to the Desperado Club, where she’d meet up with Imani and Elle and several other groups of crawlers.

  Donut: KEEP YOUR BOXERS ON, CARL. I’M ALREADY THERE.

  “It’s moving!” Katia cried.

  We hunched over as the legs bowed, and Orthrus did a little jump, like he was trying to get
on top of the bowl, despite being much too big. The world quaked. A massive wave of water splashed over us. All of us except Katia fell over. Two hundred feet away, one of the angular, stone statues that dotted the side of the necropolis fell from the sky and crashed into a pazuzu’s hut, crushing it.

  In that moment as the dog scrambled to change his position, thunder rolled through the sky. I caught sight of something high above in the darkness. It was the shadow of a big, floppy ear. The moment I saw the outline, the creature’s description popped up.

  Orthrus. Juvenile Gate Guardian. Level 10.

  This is a bereft pet of Geyrun.

  Who’s a good boy? Who’s a good boy?

  When you see a multi-headed dog trained to guard gates, you probably first think of Cerberus, the three-headed monstrosity that is said to protect one of the stairwell exits on the twelfth floor. What you probably don’t know is that grumpy Cerberus has a kid brother who is still learning the ropes.

  Orthrus. The most loveable hell-hound on this side of Alpha Centari. The left side is for sniffin’ and the right side is for lickin’ and that pink belly of his?

  It’s for kissin’.

  If this lil pup was any more sweet and adorable, you’d all be inflicted with diabetes.

  The universe’s goodest boy was originally destined for a fate like that of his brother. But before the two-headed Orthrus could get turned into a vicious, baby-eating, nun-defiling murder machine, he met with some bad luck. First, his master was murdered, and then he got sucked into the Nothing, all on the same day.

  Unlike most creatures who have been touched by the Nothing, Orthrus’s pure innocence causes him to be unaffected by the blight. Fire doesn’t do a thing, which is good considering his adopted family. But unlike most gods, he is not invulnerable. He is but a little puppy. Happy, but destructive. Rambunctious, roly-poly, very pokey. But fragile.

  Which is unfortunate. His master may be dead, but his master’s father, Emberus the Fire God, is not. He would not be pleased if anything were to happen to his dead son’s best friend.