The Gate of the Feral Gods

by Matt Dinniman

  “That’s way smaller than I thought,” Katia said.

  “The city is huge, but it has a narrow diameter. It’s shaped like an inverted cone. It’s dug deep into the ground. Built by dwarves. Different levels have different things. The castle is at the bottom.” He continued to make small corrections, moving back to the flower petals. “This whole area is mostly rolling hills and pre-dug trenches. There’s a forest that surrounds the whole thing. The deeper you get into the forest, the more difficult the monsters are, but they’re usually hunted to extinction by the time you get there.”

  “So how does it work?” I asked.

  “Back when the third floor opened up, each of the nine factions arrived at their designated area. Each spot is randomly picked with one exception. The previous winner is allowed to choose where they start. From there, they start building their army and their defenses and their fortifications. Once the sixth floor opens, they have access to the market, and they can start buying armor and magical supplies from the crawlers. They can only bring one large chest of supplies, so it’s not enough to outfit their army. Everything else has to be purchased or looted. They aren’t allowed to fight each other until the crawlers arrive. But before that happens, they make the officers fight and grind in the forests, leveling themselves up. Plus they all bring several cheat potions to buff themselves.”

  “Where do the armies come from?”

  “They all start with fifteen thousand troops, and there’s a pool of mercenaries and specialists they can hire. The additional mercenaries are all collected via games and gambling and trades up until when the ninth floor opens.” He tapped the small circled he’d made, indicating the city. “The mercenary market is near the castle. Deep in the city. Same with the markets.”

  “But they can’t really die?” Katia asked.

  “The tourists? No. Not on that floor. It’s like a game for them. The system holds some of their health in reserve and teleports them away before they can die. They feel real pain, though. The troops are mostly NPCs, but the richer of the factions can pay for their own people to fill the ranks. They are equally protected. The real people can respawn too, up until the time you guys arrive. The NPC troops don’t respawn. Dead is dead for those poor bastards.”

  I felt my heart quicken. “How many of the fifteen thousand are outside people usually?”

  He shrugged. “A rich faction will bring maybe two hundred. It’s not very many because it’s expensive. A poor faction, like the Blood Sultanate will only bring about twenty. It’s a little like the dance floor for the Desperado Club. For every person they bring in, one of the NPCs is removed, so there’s no major tactical advantage to bring too many people in unless they’re well-trained already. And these guys usually aren’t.”

  “So they have to build all of their fortifications from the ground up?”

  “That’s right,” Mordecai said. He pointed to one of the petals at the top of the flower. “This petal comes with a pre-built, fortified castle. The King’s Point. It’s a more narrow area, but with steeper hills. Most previous winners choose this so they don’t have to waste time and resources building, and it’s naturally defensible.”

  I nodded. “Okay. So with the sixth floor, how does that work in conjunction with the ninth?”

  “The Hunting Grounds are a different sort of thing. The factions can, and sometimes do, send people to the sixth floor to collect gear. But it’s dangerous because they are not protected. It’s the only place in the game where they can really die. And like I said before, they do die. Most of these guys are rich assholes who treat the whole thing like a weekend excursion playing paintball. A lot of bets are made regarding the outcome of the faction wars, but most of the ones who are here are so rich they don’t care. If there’s an upset, a lot of credits can change hands. Plus there is a cash prize to the winner. It’s more about the bragging rights than the cash, though.”

  “But,” I said, “The people who do decide to hunt on the sixth floor, they can bring gear back to the factions?”

  “Yes,” Mordecai said. “That’s pretty much the point for some of them. Someone on the ninth right now can go down to the sixth. But more often, the hunters are people who aren’t a part of any faction. They come to win gear. Things like that ring you still need to ditch. Then they sell it to the factions.”

  “Okay,” I said, thinking hard. “One last question. When can someone decide to participate in all of this? Say I’m a random guy floating around in a spaceship, and I decide tomorrow I want to get in on the action. Can I?”

  “Yeah, if you have the credits and can get here in time. Hunters can sign up until the opening of the sixth floor. It’s not too late for the ninth floor guys, or any of the tourists and party-goers on the 18th for that matter, to wander down to the sixth if they dare. But most of the hunters are already there. It would be dumb to wait until the last minute.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because all hunters start out as level thirty. They can start arriving when you hit the third. There are appropriate mob areas for them to train, so they can be pretty strong by the time you arrive. Especially since the lethality doesn’t get turned on until you get there. The hunters tend to be around fifty, though with the shortened timers, it might not be that high. In fact, I’m willing to bet my tailfeathers they won’t be that high.”

  “Thanks, Mordecai,” I said.

  “Carl,” Katia said as Mordecai returned to his work. “Why do I get the feeling you’re about to do something really stupid?”

  I grinned. “Let’s get the bubble popped first. Then we’ll worry about how stupid or not I am.”

  25

  I opened the pocket watch and set off the alarm in hopes that Henrik would respond. I had my ink quill ready to write him a note, but he didn’t answer. He hadn’t replied since that first time. I relayed this to Juice Box via Langley. He said she was concerned about her brother, so much so that she was about to go in there herself. I told him to try and talk her out of it.

  Meanwhile, the tomb raider guys had finally started moving toward the water line, which was about halfway down the necropolis. The water had done a fine job of killing almost every non-ghost mob in the quadrant, but it’d only triggered about half of the traps. Bobby, the trap-finding spy, was on the verge of a literal breakdown and kept stopping to compose himself.

  Chris and Maggie My remained in their tomb. I still didn’t know what we were going to do about them. Mordecai was having little luck finding the supplies he needed to kill the parasite. I had Langley’s crew physically drag the decapitated top floor of the house containing the stairwell to just outside of Hump Town. That way, Donut could open up the chamber, and Katia could use her remaining rock-monster-paralyzing bolts to knock them out. We could then easily toss the paralyzed creature through the portal if we had to when the time came.

  I did not want to do that. Chris clearly didn’t want us to do that. Since we probably wouldn’t teleport to the same place, it would just unleash Maggie onto the sixth floor, and all of this bullshit would start over again. Imani was insistent we do everything to save him. It felt like the wrong move, but what could we do?

  None of this would matter if we didn’t take the final castle. The Necropolis of Anser.

  The first step: draining the rest of the water. In order to do that, we had to turn off the pump inside of that submarine.

  The town of Pandinus was smaller than Hump Town, but it still featured several inns and taverns. There was no Desperado Club here, but there was a Club Vanquisher. Of all of us, the only one who could get in was Gwen. She said there was a big fight in there recently, which was unusual for the club. Apparently Miriam Dom had her membership revoked once she’d turned into a vampire, which caused Prepotente to lose his absolute shit. He unleashed their third companion—that scary-ass hellspawn familiar goat—into the main lounge, and it had devoured a bunch of clerics before they fled. There was now a “Holy Crusade Bounty” on the trio, whatever that m
eant. But in the meantime, the club was closed so it could be cleansed.

  We met up at a tavern called “The Death Stalker” that was nothing more than a few tables and a bar. And, inexplicably, a gelato cart. The scorpion guy behind the counter had about twenty flavors of the stuff, and you could get it in a waffle cone or in a bowl. The moment I saw the cones, I was reminded of another cone of ice cream I’d eaten earlier in the dungeon, one made of worms, and I suddenly felt ill. Both Katia and Gwen got themselves cones. Donut happily bought a bowl of raspberry while we all sat down. She’d talked the pazuzu down from two gold to one for the bowl.

  It was me, Donut, Katia, Gwen, Tran the human swashbuckler guy, and two newcomers, both crawlers from the Ukraine.

  I examined the two strangers. One was a human named Britney Proskurina, and she was a level-27 Pit Fighter. The dark-haired woman was outfitted in a fur bikini and carried a spike-covered stick over her shoulder. She was really leaning into the barbarian theme that the dungeon had chosen for her.

  The other crawler was a level-28, spotted gecko-like creature called a Kuhli, which I thought was weird because I knew that was a type of fish, not lizard. His name was Vadim Zbar, and his class was something called a Gut Rearranger, which was apparently a healer/rogue combo. He was covered head to toe in little sheaths filled with daggers of all types.

  These were the two other survivors of the water quadrant. It turned out Vadim was a cosmetic surgeon in the real world, and Britney had been at his office for a consultation when it all went down, and they were the last two survivors of their original party. It was just by sheer luck that they’d stepped outside to take some “before” photos for her surgery when the collapse happened.

  “I’m not going back down there,” Britney said the moment we sat down at the table. “I’ll tell you what you need to know, but I’d rather die than go back in that water.”

  “Oh, I just love your furs,” Donut said, after coming up for air between bites of her raspberry gelato. “And I feel you. I’m not going back in there, either.”

  She just looked at Donut.

  “What about you?” I asked Vadim, the gecko man.

  “I’ll go,” he said.

  “No, you will not,” Britney said. “You will die. Everybody who goes down there dies. We were lucky to get out the first time.”

  “I’ll go,” he repeated. “I think I know where the pump controls are.”

  I nodded, pointing to Katia and Tran the swashbuckler. “The four of us are going into the water, we are getting to the submarine, and we’re going to turn off the pump. Once it’s off, we’re going to get the hell out of there. I hope to be in and out in an hour, tops.”

  Tran turned to Vadim. “Do you own a red shirt? I feel as if I should put one on.”

  “What does that mean?” Vadim asked.

  The gnomish Drop Bear, the Nightmare II, remained in the large garage of the house. The garage was the only part of the uprooted, flying home that still had a roof over it. Louis and Firas did an admirable job of lashing the small biplane down. I inspected it as the entire garage and the rest of the house rose into the air, the ground swaying under us.

  Donut was in a foul mood. Apparently the AI had showed her a message from the intergalactic internet that had pissed her off, and she’d been grumbling about it for an hour straight.

  “‘No redeeming qualities whatsoever,’” Donut muttered. “He said that, Carl. Can you believe it? He also said I ruined the viewing experience and almost made him stop watching the whole show! Stupid Shuruga36. What kind of name is that anyway? Shuruga. It sounds like the noise one makes as he’s getting whooped by a group of angry toddlers.”

  I peered into the rear-facing backseat of the airplane. The tail gun was still loaded with a semi-circle-shaped magazine, but I couldn’t tell how many rounds were left. “You spend too much time reading that stuff. Don’t pay attention to it. It’s just people talking. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  She ignored me. “Plus, he insulted Mongo. He said, and I quote, ‘Donut and her stupid dino-chicken irritate me to no end.’ Mongo is just a child. If he could read, he’d be appalled. I can take criticism, but picking on a child? That’s just uncalled for. I bet he sucks his thumb and thinks of his grandmother when he touches himself.”

  “You can take criticism?” I asked.

  “I’m serious, Carl.”

  Katia entered the garage.

  “I still can’t believe you guys flew that thing,” she said.

  “We didn’t really fly it. We just kinda went up into the air using it as a balloon.”

  “Well, the chum bombs are ready.”

  “Okay. Go ahead and start dropping them. Donut has the detonator in her inventory.”

  The chum bombs were nothing more than triple-ply garbage bags filled with various dead bodies along with fused, 1/8th-strength hob-lobbers, each with a piece of hobgoblin pus attached to them. They were all timed to the same detonator, so when Donut hit the button, they’d all blow at the same time, sending a mighty plume of gore out into the ocean.

  We were dropping them near the edge of the current from the draining necropolis. The bags would probably start leaking before we got into position, but that was okay. All I really wanted was a distraction for the first layer of underwater security, the concierge sharks. We needed them as far away from our position as possible.

  We had not dived deep enough to meet any of the other denizens of the ocean. Vadim spoke of several, including jellyfish and squids and hammerhead sharks. The man was very matter-of-fact and emotionless, unlike his companion, Britney, who seemed to be on the edge of hysterics the whole time.

  “Did Langley tell you about that Vadim guy?” Katia asked as I finished inspecting the airplane.

  I paused. “No. What about him? How do they know each other?” They’d never even met as far as I was aware.

  “I guess Doctor Vadim is, or was, pretty famous in the Ukraine. He had television commercials and billboards and stuff everywhere, advertising his cosmetic surgery clinics. He was always getting sued for botched surgeries. Langley says he has like 50 children. He’s known for impregnating many of his clients.”

  “Oh my,” Donut said. “I just love gossip like that when it’s extra delicious. I wonder why he turned himself into a lizard, then? I once knew a red Persian like that. Someone who pollinated his seed everywhere. His name was Santana’s Famous Solo. He once got out of his cage at a CFA event and impregnated a Sphynx. Can you imagine? It’s the equivalent of royalty impregnating an uncooked chicken. It was quite the scandal. Do you think Vadim has knocked-up Britney? She looks like the type who’d get knocked up by a plastic surgeon.”

  “How does Langley know about some Ukrainian guy?” I asked.

  “That’s where he’s from,” Katia said.

  “I thought he was Finnish.”

  Donut made an exasperated noise. “He is from Finland. Really, Carl. Sometimes I feel you don’t pay proper attention. Langley is originally from the Ukraine, but he immigrated to Finland not that long ago. Almost all of those guys in his group are from other countries.”

  I didn’t actually care where anybody was from as long as they were from Earth, though the story about Vadim did worry me somewhat. If it was true, and who knew with this sort of thing, then it made him sound like a weasel. Not the sort of person you wanted to go with into dangerous situations. Especially when you had a large bounty on your head.

  “Britney is not pregnant,” Katia said. “If she was when she went in, she’d probably be showing by now. Women can’t get pregnant in the dungeon. Our periods stop, and we get a notification informing us we are no longer able to conceive until after we fulfill our crawl.”

  “Wait, really?” I asked. “I never received anything like that.” I realized how stupid that sounded the moment I said it out loud. I, did, however remember an oddity from the cookbook. Rickard, the guy who’d written the most recent version of the book, didn’t add too much content, but
he did mention that he’d entered the dungeon with his pregnant wife, but the moment he went through the gate, she’d disappeared, and he never saw her again. I thought it was just one of those things. I knew dudes still had the ability to knock creatures up. The whole reason Brandon had died was because another guy in their party, one of the formerly-ancient residents, had banged a succubus in an alleyway on the third floor, and she’d given birth to hundreds of baby monsters with the guy’s face.

  “Has anybody seen any pregnant women in the dungeon?” I asked.

  Katia shrugged. “I don’t think so. Except Fire Brandy on the last floor.”

  “And Eunice the dwarf on the third floor!” Donut added.

  “Those were both NPCs. I wonder if they do something special with pregnant crawlers,” I said.

  “Probably something awful,” Katia said. “But I can’t imagine someone who was pregnant would come in here voluntarily.”

  Firas popped his head into the garage. “We’re in position to drop your chum bombs,” he said. “The barrel launchers for the depth charges are all installed, too. They’re ready for you to load them. We have five hours before it gets dark and six before the first of the equinox sand storms hits, so let’s get a move on.”

  “All right,” I said. “Let’s get to work.”

  After we dropped the chum bombs, we quickly flew around the side of the necropolis and directly over the position of the sub. Louis and Firas had some system where they could adjust the elevation of the house, and it’d hit an air current that would blow the balloon in the direction they wanted it to go. They were very good at it, and Louis said they’d received a half dozen achievements for flying the magical balloon.

  “Hit it,” I said to Donut as we sank toward sea level.