The Gate of the Feral Gods

by Matt Dinniman

  I don’t know if this is the cause, but this appears to be Batbilge’s last entry into the Cookbook. I’ve been leaving the cards casually on my bed whenever I use the marketplace. Make sure you don’t have it on you to be safe.

  I knew the cookbook manifested itself in different forms. For Allister, it appeared as a massive deck of playing cards from his home planet. They were for a game called T’Ghee, which seemed to be a mix between chess and go fish from the little information Allister gave. The game was also a part of their meditation-based religion, which made it easy for Allister to spend hours studying the cards.

  I had a little bedside table in my room, though I barely ever went in there. Donut still insisted on us sleeping together. I would try to leave the book in there and then go use the marketplace later.

  But for now, we had work to do.

  The first two crawlers were a pair of humans who’d set themselves up at a brothel bar called Spit and Swallow. The bar’s logo was a bird skewered on a stick. We entered the dark, incense-smelling saferoom. Mongo was in his carrier. Donut stood on my shoulder. Katia stood beside me. A dromedarian barkeep looked up at us. Multiple dromedarians were here, sitting at tables and drinking at the bar. Quiet music wafted through the large, L-shaped room. I saw it was a young, teenaged changeling playing a stringed instrument that was like a square-shaped guitar. The music was subtle, but haunting. It had kind of an Asian vibe. It was completely out-of-place for such a dive.

  The two crawlers were the same guys we saw when we went into the Toe earlier. The first was a thin and tall man with an angular face, about 25 years old. He had olive skin and looked he might be of middle eastern origin. He was a level-22 Hammersmith named Firas M. The second was an overweight, balding guy about the same age. He looked maybe Spanish. He was a level-22 Pest Exterminator named Louis Santiago 2.

  Sitting on Louis’s lap was a prostitute. She was doing a rough approximation of Jessica Rabbit. Louis and Firas were laughing as we came in. “This is much better than the slave Leia,” Louis said.

  The woman pouted. “You said that was good. What about my….” She trailed off, seeing us stop at the table.

  “They’re making her change into different famous people,” Katia said, sounding disgusted. They could hear what she was saying, but she spoke as if they couldn’t.

  “Yup,” I said. Each time they would have to describe the character like they were doing a sketch for a police artist. Their Jessica Rabbit was close, but the woman’s forehead was too small, and the nose was much too big. Plus the dress was all wrong.

  The prostitute, a level 14 “Human” was looking at Katia up and down with a sour expression. She spit on the ground before getting up and moving to the other side of the room.

  “Why I never,” Donut said. “Did you see that? I don’t think she likes you, Katia.”

  “Mordecai warned me,” Katia said, watching the prostitute move away. The woman melded back into the weird, changeling shape before leaning up against the bar. She was the only prostitute in the room. “He said sometimes shapeshifters don’t like each other very much.”

  “She’s probably just jealous,” Donut said. “You can turn into anything you want, and they can only do regular monsters they’ve touched.”

  “Maybe,” Katia said. “They can still change their features, obviously. Plus they gain some of the abilities of the race they choose. Sometimes I think that’s better. I’m never going to be able to fly, not like them.”

  We’d discussed this earlier. Katia, as a doppelganger, could change into a flying creature and possibly get herself off the ground. But even with no mass added, she weighed more than most flying creatures anywhere close to her size, making liftoff a problem. She’d have to go big, like a dragon or something, but that would take a lot of work and time to get right, time we simply didn’t have. A changeling’s mass changed wildly from body to body. I asked Mordecai about it, and he said simply, “Magic.”

  The two crawlers were just looking up at us, wide-eyed the whole time.

  “You’re Carl,” Louis said. He turned to Firas. “I told you that was Carl.”

  “I believed you,” he said.

  “We’re working on a plan to get off this floor,” I said. “I’m collecting everybody in town so we can discuss it. We’re all going to meet up at the Toe after the recap episode.”

  “Toe,” Louis said, cracking up. “Get it?” he said to Firas.

  “Get what?” Firas asked.

  “The joke! The name of the bar is a joke.”

  “The Toe is a joke?”

  “Yes, man. Come on. It’s a camel town. You wouldn’t call a restaurant back home the human finger, would you? You’d just call it the finger.”

  “What?” Firas said. “I don’t get it.”

  I finally realized both of these guys were drunk off their asses. There was no debuff warning over their heads. I still didn’t understand why it was there sometimes and not others. The shitfaced debuff only appeared in specific circumstances, I guessed.

  “Look,” I said, leaning in. “We need to all work together. The recap is in like six hours. Meet us there.”

  “Or what?” Louis said, suddenly sounding inexplicably hostile. “You gonna blow us up?”

  “No,” Donut said, jumping on the table and scattering their glasses. Vodka spilled everywhere. “Carl won’t hurt you. But if you’re not a part of the team, we are going to make sure you are kicked out of town. Have you seen the mobs out there in the desert? I haven’t seen anything lower than level 30. And since you two chuckleheads are level 22, I don’t think that will go so well. Now say, ‘We’ll be there, Carl.’”

  “We’ll be there, Carl,” Louis said, swallowing.

  “Lovely,” Donut said.

  “Chuckleheads?” Katia asked. “Another Elle term?”

  “I got that one from the AI!” she said. “I’ve been waiting to use it.”

  “Those guys aren’t going to help,” I said. “They’ve already given up, and they’re coasting.”

  “I want to know how they got this far,” Katia said.

  It’d only been dark for two hours, and dawn was already starting to crack in the distance as we left the Spit and Swallow.

  “Hey,” I asked a passing dromedarian who walked with a massive bundle of reeds on his back. He stopped to look at us impassively.

  “Is it only dark for two hours here?”

  He looked at me like it was the dumbest question anyone had ever asked. “Taranis strolls across the sky, chased by his red brother, Hellik, who catches him four hours before dark. Taranis dismisses his evil brother with the storm before descending to rest for two hours before it happens again.”

  “How long does Taranis take to move across the sky?” Katia asked. “And how long before Hellik appears?”

  “You are truly new to this world, like they say,” the dromedarian said. “Taranis’s stroll is about twenty-two hours, except in the dark months after his brother finally catches and betrays him. Hellik is only in the sky for eight hours a day. You don’t wish to be out there when both are in the sky, as the heat is unbearable.”

  “So there are two suns it sounds like,” Katia said. “How long until the red sun rises?”

  “You have 12 hours,” he said. “But we approach the time of the switch. In eleven days is the Red Equinox. That is when Taranis will be caught, and he will be gone for but four hours a day. The light of Hellik will wash the world for eight hours, but four of them will be the blowing season. Now leave me be.” He turned and walked off.

  “Did you understand that?” I asked Katia.

  “I think so,” she said. “Days are 24 hours long like on earth. It’s only dark for two hours. The storms come every day at four hours before sunset and last two hours. The second sun is up for eight hours, and it gets really hot during that time. It sounds like our last three days here will be mostly dark, and the storms will last twice as long.”

  “So, he said we have 12 hours un
til it gets super hot?” I asked.

  “That’s right,” she said. “And we have 18 until the next sandstorm. I think.”

  “It’s already super hot,” Donut complained.

  “We better hurry then,” I said. Time was always weird here in the dungeon. The dungeon timers were mostly based on earth’s 24-hour clock, but the recap episode and some of the spell cooldowns worked on the Syndicate Standard day, which was something weird like 30 hours and 17 and a half seconds. It reminded me of having to deal with both metric and imperial measurements, something I’d had to cope with daily before all of this.

  After Louis and Firas, we found another group of six crawlers in another bar. These guys were a party of half-elves and humans. They were all level 21-24, and they all seemed older, mostly in their thirties and forties. They were all Archers. All six of them had the exact same class. Archer. All six were male. It turned out they were a group of automobile salesmen from Helsinki. They worked at neighboring car dealerships and had been at lunch when the collapse happened. On the first floor, they’d been beset by bow-wielding goblins, and their group had been decimated. But after striking back, bow-and-arrow themed weapons had been the only thing they received in their loot boxes. They had swords and knives and clubs, but the only weapon they all excelled at were the bows.

  Them all choosing the exact same class had to be one of the dumbest things I’d seen since entering the dungeon, but knowing how this place worked, it probably wasn’t entirely their fault.

  They’d hooked up with a much larger group the previous two floors, but they kept their own party. The archer thing had worked well on the third floor, but it had severely hindered them on the subway level. The “leader” was a stocky man, about 45-years old with greying blonde hair and ice-blue eyes. His name was Langley, and he was the highest at level-24.

  These guys were more serious about their predicament despite their lower levels. They’d also received the quest to find out what was in the Town Hall and had been discussing what to do about it when we’d arrived. I talked them into holding off for a bit and to start stepping out of town to train themselves up while we walked over to the Bactrian town, which was about three miles away on the other side of the dunes. We’d all meet up later.

  The town’s door was wide open, and there was no guard when we left. Katia added extra mass, rising up and hulking out. She pulled her riot shield and wore it on her left arm.

  “I’m not gonna lie,” I said as we left town. “It still freaks me out when you change.”

  “That’s because you’re used to being the biggest guy in the room,” she said.

  “Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe it’s because it’s fucking weird. How is this our lives now?”

  Nobody had an answer for that.

  The sand dunes spread out in all directions. Here on the ground, it was hard to see how small this world really was. I knew the Bactrian town wasn’t too far, and it was straight ahead. We had to just keep walking, up and down through the dunes. The town’s walls would soon appear.

  The Wasteland floated high above, having moved almost directly over the desert. A handful of other flying machines circled about, brushing the top of the bubble, but none were directly over the “bowl” as we called it. A v-formation of birds flocked away in the distance, heading up and over the lip of the bowl, diving out of sight and toward the land area.

  Donut released Mongo and rode on his back while we attempted to navigate south toward the other town. I was expecting to immediately fall waist-deep into sand, but other than the random dunes, it was mostly hard packed and no more than an inch or two deep. In some spots, bare stone was exposed. We truly were walking atop a massive tomb. I hoped the team working their way through it below our feet didn’t do anything stupid that caused our world to collapse.

  The ground wasn’t flat. I’d been assuming the up and down of the bowl’s surface was caused by the dunes, but the ground itself was stepped in places, creating a low, hilly landscape.

  Rusted-out hunks of crashed flying machines dotted the bowl like forgotten and scattered toys. There didn’t seem to be anything lootable in the old wrecks.

  “There’s a mob coming,” Katia said after about five minutes of walking. “Coming in fast.”

  “It’s big,” Donut added.

  “Okay guys,” I said as the dot appeared on my own map. “Counter.”

  Katia moved to my right while Donut leaped to my shoulder. Mongo moved to my left just as two Clockwork Mongos appeared. The two automatons spread out ahead of us and to the sides as Donut barked orders at them. I prepared my Bang Bro spell, but I wanted to wait to see what we were facing first. Katia widened, and her crossbow clicked into place over her shoulder.

  The monster crested the dune, looked at us, and hissed.

  “Holy shit,” I said as Donut started pelting it with Magic Missiles. A moment later, crossbow bolts commenced hitting the creature’s armored surface, most of them bouncing off and away.

  The monster was a brown and orange, speckled lizard covered with angry, 10-inch spikes. Its long, red tongue darted at us. The thing was the size of a goddamned grizzly bear. It hissed again and moved at us, its body undulating back and forth like a crocodile running across land.

  Male Thorny Devil. Level 34.

  These pokey fuckers are pretty common in desert-themed worlds. They’re big and fast and dumb and angry. Their bodies are covered in defensive spikes, which begs the question, how did something so big develop such a defense mechanism in the first place?

  These guys tend to have a reverse harem thing going on. Odds are good you’ll recognize the queen when you see her. Odds are even better she’ll be the last thing you’ll ever see.

  Warning: This is a lizard-class mob. It will inflict 20% more damage against you thanks to your Extinction Sigil. That’s what you get for killing so many poor, innocent monsters.

  “Outstanding,” I muttered. Katia’s crossbow bolts weren’t doing shit, but Donut’s newly-enhanced Magic Missile blasts were taking large chunks of health away with each bullseye. The creature stopped at the top of the hill, suddenly realizing he might’ve bitten off more than he can chew. He started to back up as I unsummoned my gauntlet and loaded a banger sphere. I twirled and fired, scoring a hit on the monster’s head. It dealt solid damage, almost as much as one of Donut’s missiles.

  Donut held off killing it while we allowed the clockwork Mongos to attack. I wanted to see how they’d do. The mob roared defiantly, continuing to back up while we kept pace, moving up the small hill. The two dinosaurs leaped upon the larger creature, mouths biting at its armored body. It kept moving, thrashing its tail and snapping back at the dinosaurs.

  They did no damage. The thorny devil reached around and caught one of the Mongos and crunched like a kid chomping onto a lollipop. The automaton exploded. The other Mongo screamed and dug at the creature with his claws, scrabbling ferociously while the real Mongo howled in outrage. Donut cried for him to stay back. The remaining automaton managed to open up a tear on the creature’s side, which started gushing blood. The monster whipped around, rolling onto its back and to its feet, moving astonishingly fast. It chomped on the second Mongo, also causing it to blow.

  “Their armor is really thick,” Katia said. She aimed her crossbow at the tear in the creature, finally scoring some damage. Its health was deep red now, almost gone. Donut could kill him with one more shot, but she held off. We needed to experiment with all new mobs, see what worked and what didn’t.

  “Stay back,” I said, judging the distance. I loaded a quarter-strength hob-lobber as the creature desperately tried to flee back over the hill. I tossed the explosive in an arc, sinking it just past the horizon of the hill.

  Bam!

  A red geyser of lizard gore showered, mixed in with a bigger cloud of dust. The ground shook with the small explosion. Debris and lizard bits smacked into us like rain. The red dot turned to an X.

  “Nice shot,” Katia said.

&nb
sp; “I do like explosions, but why does it always have to be so disgusting?” Donut asked from my shoulder. “Sand and blood is a terrible combination.” She returned to Mongo’s back and started cleaning herself.

  I grunted. “Those quarter strengths are still a little too strong for close combat. That guy was what? Thirty feet away? Any closer, and we’d get some shrapnel. I need to make some maybe half that strength.”

  We walked up to investigate the corpse. Mongo whimpered at the sight of the clockwork pieces, which started to whiff away. The monster dropped twenty gold, a thorny devil liver, and several teeth, which appeared to be moderately valuable. It all went into the inventory.

  “Can you see the other town yet?” I asked Katia.

  “Yes,” she said. “Once we left the gates, most of the bowl showed up on my map. We should see the town after we crest the next hill.”

  “Do you hear that?” Donut said, suddenly looking up into the sky. She pointed up with her paw. “Look, there!”

  “I think we attracted some attention with that explosion,” I said, shielding my eyes. “Whoa!” I ducked as the plane rocketed by a hundred feet over our heads.

  The flying machine whined loudly, like a flying buzzsaw. It’d come from nowhere. The thing must’ve dropped from the Wasteland. It looked like a goddamn, open-air, twin-engine biplane, with each engine nestled between the wings. I saw the distinctive red hat of the pilot along with a second gnome passenger, facing backward. The creature pointed down at us and shouted. Two ominous shapes hung under the main fuselage, hanging vertically. Both of the egg-shaped objects were smaller than a knock-knock, but not by much. Each were attached to the bottom of the plane by a small net.

  The plane started to bank back toward us. There was nowhere to hide.

  I tossed three smoke curtains—I only had four left after this—and we doubled back the way we’d come so we’d have a small dune between us and the plane. The smoke started billowing into the air, twirling in eddies and pushing out in all directions.

  The plane lowered as it curved through the air. I could see it well now through the smoke. The nose of the plane had a face painted on the side, some sort of gray, screaming animal. It looked almost like a jacked-up, rabid koala.