I sent a message to Imani that we’d located him. And while I couldn’t yet go seek him out, there was a possibility he could come here. I didn’t know how I felt about that. Imani seemed to think he wanted to team up with me, but I feared he was too dangerous. I’d already had more than enough of that bullshit on the last floor with Hekla. We had enough to worry about already. It was just too much.
Imani: Whatever you decide, keep me updated. He still ignores all of my messages. I hope the real Chris is still in there somewhere. He’s the only non-resident left.
Carl: Will do. How’s the boating going?
Imani: Don’t ask. We need a boat with armor. Elle has figured out how to use an ice spell to protect us from the fireballs, but we still can’t get close to the oil rig. There are monsters in the water and pirate orc archers everywhere.
Carl: What about approaching it from underwater? Build a sub.
Imani: You’ve been talking to Elle, haven’t you? Carl, do you know how crazy that is? Build a sub, like that’s an easy thing to do.
Carl: Speaking of Chris, he has a submarine. I can’t imagine he’d be able to get it to you, but maybe he has some knowledge we don’t. Anyway, if you need a torpedo or something, let me know. We can meet up at the Desperado and trade it.
Imani: We can trade using the shop interface in our personal space, too. We just bought it thanks to Donut’s advice. You can list something for private sale, so we don’t have to meet face-to-face to trade. The only problem is that it doesn’t let you just give stuff away. It won’t let you trade it away for less than 50% of its value.
Carl: We’ll figure it out. Be safe.
Imani: You too. And Carl?
Carl: Yeah?
Imani: Don’t kill him. Please. He’s changed, but he’s still my friend. He’s still Brandon’s brother.
We stood near the collapsed remains of town hall. The dromedarian named Henrik stood nearby, directing the rescue efforts.
Donut: HE’S A CHANGELING. IT SAYS HE’S LEVEL 30, BUT HIS HEAD GLOWS EVEN HOTTER THAN THE OTHER GUYS. CAN THEY HIDE THEIR LEVELS?
Carl: Yes, especially if they’re really strong.
Donut: YOU CAN COOK AN EGG ON THAT GUY’S HEAD.
Henrik was the one who’d been attempting to “convince” Wynne the gnome into using his spell to resurrect the ghost. I figured he was the leader guy, and we set out to find him. We didn’t have to search hard. The older dromedarian stood over the wreckage, shouting at the others to keep digging in the smoldering remains. The creature looked absolutely exhausted. Even though he was a changeling, the weight of their current situation was etched deep onto his dromedarian face.
They still hadn’t gotten to Wynne’s body. They were desperately trying to find him.
There was a half an hour left until the sun rose. The dull light of the Wasteland was almost back over the bowl, moving toward its spot in the center.
I walked up to the camel and didn’t waste any time.
“How does the collateral work?”
The large camel looked down to regard me. “You should leave town the moment the light hits. It is no longer safe.”
“There’s nowhere to go,” I said.
“Then go to a shelter. Buy a woman. We do not have much time. Now leave us be.”
“Hey, I’m not asking for fun. How does the collateral work? Do you drag the gnome out so the gnomes can see him through one of their fancy telescopes or what?”
He narrowed his eyes. “You are the one who rented the telescope from young Skarn, are you not? Are you also the one who attempted that poor subterfuge with the grulke? If your goal was to kill everyone, congratulations. You win. These poor bastards just don’t know it yet. If you’ve come to gloat in your victory, get it over with. I am too old and too tired to engage.”
“Look, I only have one purpose here, and that’s to stop the gnomes. I’m trying to help.”
A dromedarian stuck his head up from the wreckage. “The entrance to the basement is sealed off,” he called. “It’s not from the fire. Part of the necropolis wall slid closed and sealed off the room. We can get through, but it’ll take some time.”
“We do not have time,” Henrik growled at the other camel.
“Look,” I said. “We can stop the gnomes. But you have to help me help you. I need to know how they know the collateral is still alive.”
Carl: Donut. I need a boost from your charm.
Donut leaped to my shoulder and looked up at the camel. “We will be able to save this town if you tell us.” She lowered her voice to a stage whisper. “We don’t care which ones of you are real camels and which ones are changelings. I don’t know why you’d want to pretend to be something so large and smelly, but that’s not our business.”
He gave only the slightest hint of surprise. But I could feel it. The way she manipulated NPCs sometimes was almost a tangible thing. You could feel the tension slide away. I could see the wheels turning in his head. He seemed to come to a decision. He pulled a little pocket watch out from his robes and then quickly put it away.
“The alarm goes off on the watch, and I open it up. There is a mirror. The gnomish Commandant is on the other side. He makes a symbol with his fingers. I show this to the collateral, and he tells me a time. I then switch the hands on the clock to the correct time. Commandant Kane owns the watch’s twin, and I believe the movement on the clock is mirrored. So when I change the time on Henrik’s watch, the hands also move on the other clock. It is a code we do not understand. Only then do the gnomes know Wynne is alive and we have bought ourselves another day.”
It wasn’t lost on me that he’d just referred to himself in third person.
“A code?” I asked. I remembered that Wynne had pretty much offed himself by tricking those crawlers into killing him. It had been both clever and desperate. “And he cooperated with it?”
“He did for years. It was only when we moved him to the chamber below the town hall did he start to resist. Only when he understood that the dynamic of his situation had changed. So he stopped cooperating. We’ve had to drug him to force compliance. It’s been getting harder. He has grown a tolerance for the mushroom. We have to feed him more every day.”
There was a lot to unpack there. Mordecai said he hadn’t yet figured out what the mushrooms did, but he was doing some alchemy that would help determine all their uses. Apparently just eating them raw helped with getting people to do what you wanted. He’d already said a lot of mushrooms had that effect, but that was more of a secondary purpose, especially when the system labeled it as an alchemy item. He said the mind control effects weren’t very reliable, but apparently they’d worked well enough in this case.
“Where’s the real Henrik?”
He looked at me with impassive eyes. “Do you really wish me to answer that?”
“Did the Bactrians do the same thing?” I asked. “Did they also have a watch?” According to Morris, they’d had some sort of pig collateral.
“No,” Henrik said. “They had a different sort of indemnity with the gnomes. It was a favorite pet swine of the Commandant’s daughter. I do not know the full nature of their deal, but I believe they were required to bring the animal out to sun itself once a day. Once it was observed via farseer, they were saved another day.”
“Can’t you guys turn to pigs? Why didn’t you go over there?” Donut asked. “One of you snorting around each day for a couple of minutes, and everybody is happy. The gnomes would never know.”
For the first time, Henrik cracked a smile. “That was the problem, little one. When our village was destroyed, the bactrians did not take us in. What you suggested would also be thought of by the gnomes. They would not tolerate our presence for that very reason. The dromedarians were reluctant, but they are, in their hearts, good people. They took us in.”
“Much good that did them,” I muttered.
Henrik looked me dead in the eye. “Sometimes we do things that are not of our nature to protect our own.”
>
I felt a chill, but only for a moment. I remembered what Mordecai had said about these guys, that they were basically doing this so they could resurrect some ancient monster and touch it and add it to their libraries. That wasn’t a very noble cause. Still, something about that story was nagging at me. I had the sense there was more to it than that. Now was not the time to delve into it.
I pointed at the box-shaped anti-aircraft battery atop of the wall. “Those things can’t protect the town?”
“From individual airships? Yes. Not a full bombardment from the dreadnaught.”
We had a few options here. There was a code of some sort. The gnomes gave a hand gesture, and Wynne told the dromedarians what time to put into the clock. That was just the sort of thing Katia and Mordecai could figure out.
But probably not in the time we had left. They’d have to know what all the former question and answers were, and even as charmed as he was right now, we’d never get this Henrik guy to sit down and give us the information.
Another option was to just let the town get bombed to hell. As long as we stayed in our personal space, we’d be fine. We’d save as many of these assholes as we could, and then we’d figure out what to do next from there. I knew with some more time I could probably build a missile that went high enough. And who knew? Maybe once both of the towns were gone, they’d land the damn ship and give us the opportunity to storm it the old fashioned way.
But it felt wrong. And we’d only be able to keep a handful of the town’s residents sheltered using the saferoom method.
And even if we did protect most of them by crowding everyone into our space, eventually we’d have to kick them out. And then what?
I looked up and stared at the fabric ceiling of the town.
“Can you talk to that commandant guy using the watch?”
“No sound, but we can exchange written messages. We often speak that way.”
“Have they ever sent a representative? Like an emissary?” I remembered reading once about hostages and ransoms during the Hundred Years’ War. Oftentimes the whole thing ended up in disaster, but sometimes there were negotiations that resulted in a ransom paid, which required both parties to temporarily trust each other.
“Yes. They do often. There is an ambassador. Leon the Commissar. He comes to inspect. He has a spell he casts to make sure the collateral is not a changeling. I believe they fear we will one day break the code between him and the Commandant.”
My interest was piqued. “Luckily they haven’t cast the spell on you yet.”
“Yes,” Henrik said. “They were scheduled for an inspection in two days, but I fear with these new developments, the situation will be accelerated.”
From there, we spent a few minutes discussing the ambassador and how the inspections worked. This whole inspection thing was clearly put into the storyline as a way for us to be able to get to the Wasteland, but it was all screwed up now thanks to the death of Wynne. Still, as we talked, an idea started to form.
Carl: Mordecai. If I need a parachute quickly, what are my options?
Mordecai: How are your sewing skills?
Carl: They’re shit.
Mordecai: Then you need one of a few dozen potions, a flight ability, or a fall shield buff. Or you can turn Katia into a hang glider.
Carl: Yeah, I don’t think she’s going to go for that. Do you have the materials for a potion?
Mordecai: I’m looking at the stock right now. I don’t have the Feather Fall materials. Those are common potions later on, but the seed pods I need are scarce until we hit the sixth floor. Same with Bubble Boy. I do have enough to make one type of potion, but you won’t like it. And only enough to make maybe two of them, so whatever death-defying stunt you’re planning, take Katia with you and leave Donut on the ground. It’s an easy enough formula. Five minute brew. I’ll double check the market to see if anything else is available, but I wouldn’t count on it.
Carl: I’m coming your way. I need to make a few rockets really fast. Make me the potions.
“Okay,” I said to Henrik. “I don’t know if this will save the town, but we’re going to give it a try.” I turned to Katia, who’d been strangely silent since we’d returned. Her eyes were flashing, so I knew she was talking to somebody. She did not look happy. “Katia, I have a job for you.”
She blinked and looked at me. “What do you need me to do?”
“Two things. First one is a little gross.”
While Katia returned to the Desperado Club, I explained the assault with Donut while we jogged back to the personal space. It occurred to me that we were giving ourselves extra work, skipping past two pubs to get to the Toe. Every single one had a personal space entrance in it. But as we rushed by, I noticed they were all closed and boarded up. The camels all knew what was coming and were already moving their way to the bomb shelters.
“Carl, that is not going to work. They know there are changelings in town. They’ll check.”
“I know.” I explained the next part of the plan.
Donut did not look impressed. “This is a little janky, even for a Carl plan.”
“Janky?” I said. “Where did you get that one? That is not an Elle term.”
“Louis told me,” she said.
“Louis? You’ve been talking to Louis?”
“I’m allowed to have friends, Carl.”
Before I could come up with a suitable response, I received a message from Morris the spider guy:
Morris: Hey, so we did what you asked. Package delivered. But we have a new problem.
Carl: Big or small?
Morris: They’re all big problems. Right after the water quadrant was conquered, some of the walls changed inside. I think all the exits are closed.
I remembered that the dromedarian had said that basement chamber had been sealed off. The walls must have changed about. I looked at my map, and it hadn’t changed as far as I could tell. But it didn’t tell me if entrances were open or closed. The tomb raider guys couldn’t leave anyway, so it wasn’t a big deal.
Carl: Okay. So what’s the problem?
Morris: We didn’t think much of it at first, but now something’s happening below us. We can hear it.
Carl: What do you mean?
Morris: I think the necropolis is filling with water.
Carl: Oh fuck me.
Morris: Yeah, so I don’t know what we’re going to do. We have a lot of those water breathing scrolls, but not nearly enough. And I don’t think our torches work underwater. If it fills up all the way, then we’re hosed.
Carl: Okay, make sure everybody has the water scrolls. If it fills all the way to where you are, go to a safe room. Actually, you and Bobby return to the Desperado and plant yourselves there. If I need to build you something or get more scrolls to you, we can get it to you more easily.
“Damnit,” I growled. When Chris had taken the underwater castle, it had likely caused something to make the water rush into the tomb. The entrances had all closed up, so there was nowhere for the water to go. It hadn’t occurred to me that we might need to consider the order in which we took these castles. There was nothing I could do from here.
I was expecting to find the Toe boarded up, but the bar was open and lit up like a Christmas display. I opened the door and was greeted with a crowd of about forty children, ranging in age from four to twelve. Almost all were dromedarians, but a group of six were in human form. They were obviously changelings. Juice Box was moving amongst the kids, talking to each in turn. She had a bag in her hand and was handing something out to each child.
Carl: Let me know if any of the kids other than the humans are shapeshifters.
Donut: I DON’T SEE ANY OTHERS BUT IT’S HARD WITH THE KIDS. JUICE BOX’S HEAD IS VERY HOT. JUST AS HOT AS THE HENRIK GUY. OH, OH. AND THE BARTENDER GUY IS ONE TOO! NOW THAT’S JUST SNEAKY.
“You owe us each a gold coin,” Skarn said. He was in human form, standing with the others.
The other crawlers were also here. L
ouis and Firas stood with Langley and the archers. Louis was sucking on… a goddamn, actual juice box. A kiwi strawberry-flavored Capri Sun. I realized that was what Juice Box was handing out to all the kids.
“All right,” I called. “I won’t be here to let you in later, so everybody follow me.”
Donut scoffed. “Shouldn’t we take them to one of the actual safe rooms, Carl? Like that one on that strange street?”
“No,” I said. “Mordecai said the saferooms are only safe if there’s a crawler in with them. We can’t spare anybody.” I raised my voice. “Everybody follow me.” I pointed at the bartender and Juice Box. “You guys, too.”
The bartender refused to come, but Juice Box happily followed us. I was glad because we’d need someone to wrangle the children.
“Yeah, what about our money?” Skarn demanded.
I pulled a gold coin into the air and tossed it at him. “Help me get everyone inside, and you’ll get another and so will everyone else. Where are their parents?”
“All the grown-ups are on defense duty,” he said. He raised his voice. “Okay, everyone follow Mr. Carl.”
I noticed three of the human/changeling children weren’t fully… complete. One, a girl named Ruby, did not have any arms at all, and her head was sunken in at the top, like a deflated soccer ball that had been kicked. She walked slowly, with a noticeable limp. She was hard to look at. When I examined her, I saw she had an active debuff.
This NPC is suffering from Compression Sickness.
I sent a message to Mordecai asking what that was, but he said he’d never heard of it. He then asked where I was just as I opened the door and gave access to the first of several children.
Mordecai, as expected, was not pleased.
“This isn’t a goddamned daycare, Carl. Do you see a jungle gym? Because I don’t see a fucking jungle gym.”
The couch fell over onto its side as three dromedarian kids tried to balance on the back. Another had grabbed the cleaner bot and was hovering a foot off the ground while the robot beeped with a scared-sounding alarm. Juice Box formed into a hairy monster and roared at the camel, who dropped the robot. The cleaner bot zoomed up and out of reach, beeping mournfully as another pair of children stomped onto their almost-empty juice box pouches to launch the straws across the room. A circle formed as the children, dromedarian and changeling alike, started using their newfound riches to establish a gambling ring where they bet on who could launch their juice box straws the furthest. Donut was suddenly in on the action, hopping up and down and betting loudly.
The Gate of the Feral Gods Page 15