The Gate of the Feral Gods

by Matt Dinniman

  “Bonnie, who is Denise?” Donut asked.

  That little needle I’d just installed into my UI to indicate current streams was starting to spike.

  “When Sausage got taken, my father kept getting me new pets to make me stop missing Sausage.”

  Sausage, I assumed, was the now-dead pig from the Bactrian settlement. I now knew if we’d gotten there first, we’d have been able to use the thing to get up here.

  “He tried the gerbils, but I didn’t like any. Plus they’re all mean. Then we tried other stuff, including ol’ Denise. She’s okay, I guess. But she’s no Sausage. Don’t tell her that, though. She gets jealous.”

  “Why did Denise kill your father?” Donut asked.

  “He, you know…” She pointed to the kitchen sink. There was nothing there. It was just a typical sink.

  “He what?” Donut asked. “Bonnie, we do not understand.”

  She ignored the question and pushed the glass closer to the edge of the counter. “My father gave me the recipe. It’s good. Try some.”

  I swallowed and examined the drink.

  Unknown Potion

  The kid says this is “Lemonade.”

  “Uh,” I said, taking a step toward the corpse. I needed to get close enough to loot him without it being too obvious. At the same time, I sent a note to Mordecai. “You don’t seem to be too upset your dad is dead.”

  An eclectic line of shotglasses sat on the counter. The kid poured some of the yellow potion into one that read “Remember the Alamo” and drank it down. There wasn’t any obvious effect. “It’s so good. Did I tell you I’m setting up a lemonade stand?” She lowered her head. “Sausage died. They promised they’d take care of him, but they didn’t. So we bombed them all. My dad said it’d make me feel better, but it didn’t.”

  The walls shook. The ground lurched. The pitcher of lemonade sloshed, and the other shotglasses fell to the floor. I stumbled at the sudden movement, and I fell toward the corpse. I accidentally stuck my hand right into the dead body of Commandant Kane. It felt as if I’d reached into a lukewarm bowl of pot roast. The loot menu popped up.

  5,030 gold pieces.

  Letter from the Glass Wizard.

  Mysterious Watch.

  I took all the items. Before I did anything else, I immediately examined the letter. It was short.

  Kane,

  Cease your hostilities immediately. Your bombs do not harm me, but they are ruining the structure of the temple, weakening its wall. Surely you do not want the whole thing to collapse? Even in your floating city, you must know the danger we all face if such a thing were to happen.

  I propose a truce.

  You stop the bombing, and I won’t end this world.

  I have the winding box. I know you have at least one of the watches. Perhaps both. It doesn’t matter anymore. I have cracked the box’s secret. I know how to open a portal, and I do not need the other two pieces to throw this entire world into the void. I will do that before I allow that ghost to leave the temple.

  You do not need to answer. Just stop. I know how much you love your people and your child. Think of them. Of her. Stop.

  Ghazi.

  As I finished reading, I finally noticed that our altitude was starting to dip. The lights in the house flickered.

  “Oh great,” I said. Something had happened to the balloon. Our decline was slow, thankfully, but that couldn’t be good. I wiped my gore-covered hand on my shirt.

  “That’s Denise,” Bonnie said, looking up. “When she gets mad, magic stuff doesn’t work. The balloon starts to sink. She usually gets over it pretty soon. She’s probably on the roof.”

  Somewhere in the house, there was a crash followed by a distinctive pop. That was the sound of the clockwork Mongos exploding, even though they still had plenty of time left. Mongo let out a terrified screech.

  I suddenly felt heavier and more tired. I’d lost most of my buffs, including the 14 strength from my toe ring and my two regular rings. All of my important stats had just taken a hit.

  “Mongo?” Donut called, concerned. “Mongo, come to mommy!”

  Mordecai: Sounds like a boss battle is about to start. The potion’s purpose will probably become clear. Don’t drink it, but try to secure it.

  Carl: The monster blocks magic!

  Mordecai: Shit, okay. This can manifest in a lot of different ways. But it likely means no spells. No scrolls. Your gauntlet won’t form. Only inherent potions will work. Maybe. But if they do, they might not work as well.

  Carl: Goddamnit, in English!

  Mordecai: Healing potions will work but only on yourself if they work at all. That new splat potion you just got won’t work. You’ve likely lost the protections of your gear. Your active buffs are probably gone too. Be careful.

  Mongo rushed into the kitchen, screaming, blood rushing from dozens of places on his body. He made a pitiful, bleating noise. He hadn’t been attacked, I realized. The other two clockwork Mongos had exploded and injured him. The little clockwork pieces usually didn’t hurt him.

  Donut gasped in panic. “Carl, Carl, my heal spell stopped working! I can’t fix Mongo!”

  She rushed to the dinosaur, whose health was about halfway down. She glowed as she attempted to use a Heal Critter scroll. The spell fizzled out.

  “Look, his health is going back up on its own. He’ll be okay,” I said. “Stop wasting scrolls. They won’t work. We need to…”

  “Do you want some lemonade?” Bonnie asked again, more insistent this time.

  I remembered what Mordecai had said. “Yeah, thanks kid,” I said, reaching for the glass.

  The walls shook again, followed by a mighty, distinctive honk! The whole house lurched sideways. The pitcher of lemonade went flying. Little Bonnie screeched and tumbled off the edge of the kitchen counter, throwing the glass aside. Plates and cups flew from the cupboards. The kitchen drawers opened, spilling cutlery everywhere.

  I jumped for the flying glass of the yellow potion, but I missed. I would’ve caught it, but the glass physically moved in midair away from my hand.

  Sonofabitch, I thought. That was on purpose. They were never going to let me grab it. Me trying to grab the glass of lemonade was a trigger. It was like I’d just tripped a trap, or stepped on a landmine.

  The cup hit the ground, bounced once, then spun away, spilling the potion. The house swung a few times and righted itself. Music started to play. The open window over the kitchen sink slammed shut on its own.

  “Oh, poo,” Bonnie said. “I spilled the drink everywhere. I’m going to have to make more.”

  We were locked in the house. It was just like a boss battle from the first floor.

  The music was different than usual. It was slow and haunting, but with a distant, steady beat. A chink, chink, chink, almost like a hammer slowly beating onto an anvil.

  A giant timer appeared in the air, floating in the middle of the kitchen. It was at three minutes.

  “Uh-oh. That’s new,” Donut said.

  I turned to face the hallway. The front door to the house was still open, I started to point, but the world froze.

  Fuck. Here it comes.

  B-B-B-Boss Battle!

  It’s a timed knock-out fight!

  You have discovered the lair of a Borough Boss!

  Ladies and Gentlemen, the stakes are getting higher, the battles are getting harder, and tonight we have the day’s main event!

  I want you to put your hands together.

  Here are the rules, Contestants!

  The house is falling. It will shatter against the ground in exactly three minutes after the end of this message. In order to escape, you must defeat the boss!

  Easy, right?

  Wrong, bitches!

  Our mugshots appeared floating in the air. But this time the words No Magic stamped on each of our faces.

  You can’t use offensive or defensive magic for this fight!

  I couldn’t move my head, but I could still speak. “Stay behind
me, Donut. You’re too fragile. I’ll do the punching. Keep Mongo back until he’s fully healed.”

  “Carl, I don’t like this. I don’t have anything without magic!”

  A second stamp crashed onto our names. No Physical Damage!

  Oh yes, that’s right! Your own physical attacks won’t do shit, either!

  “What the hell?” I shouted. “How is that fair?”

  This should be a hoot! A hoot, I say! Actually, not a hoot. A…

  “Honk!”

  The world unfroze for a moment as the white goose walked through the front door of the house. She waddled into the hallway and angrily honked again as the door slammed behind her.

  The thing wore a frilly, baby blue bonnet along with a blue shawl around her neck. The shawl was torn and stained with blood. Other than the blood, she looked like a regular white goose, plucked straight from the cover of a children’s book.

  It’s…

  Denise! The Feral Goose Mother!

  Level 53 Borough Boss!

  Like most of the creatures in this godsforsaken bubble, Denise shouldn’t be here. She was plucked directly from the seventh floor when her grandfather, emperor Anser, decided to use a magical gate to bring his people to this world. But like many of those who were unwilling in their journey to this place, she lingered too long in the inbetween. The Nothing.

  She paid dearly for it. Her mind is all but gone.

  The gnomes captured her long ago, but they do not know who she really is. Denise doesn’t know, either. She has a few special abilities. Abilities that only recently started to manifest themselves. She can prevent magic from harming her. She is an environmental. She has an overwhelming need to protect children.

  But most of all, she just wants to kill everybody. Especially bitches.

  And guess what you are?

  Tick Tock, motherfuckers.

  Aaaand here. We. Gooooo!

  The world unfroze, the timer started to move, and the goose screamed in outrage and charged.

  Mongo and I both scrambled out of the way as the shrieking goose slid into the kitchen, waving her wings furiously as she slammed into the refrigerator, causing magnets to scatter. The door dented.

  “Hi, Denise!” Bonnie said as she continued to stack lemons onto the chair, as if this was the most normal thing in the world.

  “Come on!” I yelled. “To the top of the stairs!”

  “Mongo, no! Come!” Donut shrieked.

  It was too late. The still-injured Mongo screeched and leaped across the room, feet first. He raked his claws across the recovering goose. He chomped onto the neck of the boss and started shaking it like a dog. The goose honked angrily and flapped her wings as Mongo threw the creature down. The boss bounced once and hopped back up. She jumped atop the kitchen table with the gnome corpse and stood upon the dead body and flapped her wings again, honking and growling at Mongo.

  “You’re so silly, Denise,” Bonnie said.

  The boss opened her bill to reveal multiple lines of shining, razor teeth. A health bar had not appeared. Then the mouth opened further, from the sideways this time, causing the whole mouth to open like a flower. A purple tongue dripped from the beak. It honked, but this time it came out twice as loud and deep, a terrifying, guttural cry straight from hell.

  Its teeth shot out of its mouth, blasting at us like a shotgun. A line of fire cut across my arm and face. Donut cried out in pain.

  It hadn’t done much damage, but it hurt.

  Mongo cried out in rage and pain and moved to attack again.

  “Mongo, no!” Donut cried as I lobbed a banger sphere at the goose’s head. The goose honked in surprise as the metal ball ricocheted off her bill. It staggered her, but again, no health bar appeared. We weren’t damaging the goose at all.

  Donut chomped firmly onto the dinosaur’s tail and yanked, pulling the indignant and screeching Mongo back just as the goose lunged. The boss barely nipped him, but she dislodged a chunk of flesh and blue and pink feathers. Blood sprayed.

  Donut, mouth still full of dinosaur tail, let out a strangled cry. Mongo’s health was now even deeper in the red. I grasped the dinosaur on both sides and heaved, tossing him back, throwing him and Donut toward the kitchen door.

  “Go!” I yelled as I slipped backward on the bloody floor. As I scrambled to my feet, my hand found a ceramic mug that had fallen from the cabinet. I picked it up and flung it at the goose’s head like I was pitching a fastball. The mug shattered, and the goose crashed back, flying off the table, upsetting it and launching Commandant Kane’s corpse straight into the air. The dead gnome splatted into the ceiling then sploshed wetly onto the kitchen floor.

  “Mongo, follow me!” Donut cried as she let go of his tail.

  Mongo, having decided this was probably a good idea, shrieked again but complied.

  “Up the stairs,” I cried as I stumbled toward the door. The house was falling faster and faster, and I could now feel our downward momentum. “We need to get out of the kitchen! Bonnie, make your lemonade. Hurry up!”

  We needed to get the goose away from the kid. Whatever was in that damn potion, it had to be the secret to killing the monster. It was the only thing that made sense.

  We rushed down the hallway. I tossed a side table over as the goose cried furiously. I was about to drop a smoke curtain, but I thought better of it. Even though her dot was still white on the map, I didn’t want to distract Bonnie the gnome even more.

  Two minutes.

  How in the hell were we going to defeat it? Mordecai said there would always be clues. But what were they? The stairs ended in a T with a hallway reaching in each direction. There were several doors here, all ajar except one. Two of the open doors led to small bedrooms, one a bathroom, one a linen closet. The door furthest to the right was closed, and that was the “throne room” where the stairwell to the sixth floor was located. It was actually just the master bedroom to the house. The door glowed, and I knew it would remain locked until this fight was over.

  The area was scorched and burned from the clockwork Mongos getting themselves dispelled prematurely.

  Donut continued to be preoccupied with Mongo and not the fight. The dinosaur was bleeding and injured, but he no longer appeared to be in pain. He let out a frustrated shriek as Donut clucked over him.

  “Carl, Mongo won’t stop bleeding! My pet carrier doesn’t work! His health is still going down!”

  There was a broken side table in the hallway. I picked it up and tossed it onto the stairs. “Try using one of those bandages!” We each had hundreds of the damn things. It wouldn’t heal him, but it would hopefully stop the bleeding.

  Downstairs, angry honking filled the hall as the goose left the kitchen and went looking for us.

  “We’re up here, ya overgrown duck!” I called.

  “It worked!” Donut cried. “It’s okay. We’ll get you healed in a minute! Carl, what are we…”

  “Go into that room there,” I said, pointing to a bedroom with pink walls and posters for some Korean boy band. “It’s directly over the kitchen. Break through the floor and make the hole big enough for all of us to drop through. Hurry!”

  The beat to the boss music was getting louder and faster as the timer moved downward.

  Donut scrambled into the room just as the goose appeared at the bottom of the stairs. It opened up its weird flower-mouth and honked. I ducked as she fired her mouth teeth again. The little darts peppered their way across the wall around me. Two of the barbs caught me in the face.

  “Gah,” I cried, pulling a sharp tooth out of my cheek.

  She wasn’t the most powerful mob we fought, but that didn’t matter. She was practically indestructible, and all she needed to do was hold out for just a little longer.

  It was only then did I notice the boss now had a health bar. Her health had barely gone down, but something had injured her. But what? The goose charged up the stairs, hopping up one step at a time, bobbing her head back and forth and hissing. Her blue bonne
t flapped as she growled. I threw a banger, catching her in the chest. She flew back in rage, opening her mouth to fire again. I managed to dive out of the way this time. I risked dropping a smoke bomb, and then I popped up and knocked her back again.

  One minute.

  “We did it!” Donut cried from the next room.

  I jumped up and ran to the room, slamming the door behind me. I looked down through the jagged hole. Donut had easily ripped up the carpet and the wooden panels. Bonnie looked up at us through the hole. The kitchen was a bloody mess. The corpse of Kane lay on the ground, face down. Bonnie had a spoon in the pitcher and was mixing it.

  “Is it done?” I called down to the kid.

  “It’s better cold,” she said. “Why did you break the ceiling?”

  The door to the room slammed as the goose blindly crashed into it. “Come on!” I jumped down through the hole, followed by Donut and Mongo. Mongo now had some stuffed animal in his mouth. A pink rabbit thing he’d gotten from the room.

  The description on the newly-mixed pitcher of yellow liquid hadn’t changed. I still didn’t know if I should drink the potion or give it to the monster. It wasn’t hurting the kid. She was under some weird spell, but it seemed to protect her from the bird’s wrath. Plus, what did she say? Her father had given her the recipe.

  Fuck it, I thought. I grabbed the pitcher from the tiny girl.

  “Hey!” she cried. “Let me pour you a glass! You can’t just take all of it!”

  “I’ll buy the whole pitcher,” I said just as the goose appeared in the hole over our heads. It opened its mouth and hissed. It jumped down toward us as I pulled the pitcher to my mouth.

  The world froze once again, the goose hovering in mid-air. The timer froze, stuck on thirty-eight seconds. I felt a swell of hope.

  New Achievement! Wild Goose Chase!

  Oh, I’m sorry. Did you think this was an important potion?

  Magic doesn’t work, dumbass. It’s lemonade!

  Reward: It really is delicious. Too bad you’re about to splatter against the roof of the catacombs.

  And just like that, the world unfroze.

  “Shit,” I cried, scrambling out of the way as the goose slammed onto the kitchen counter.