The Eye of the Bedlam Bride (Dungeon Crawler Carl, #6)

by Matt Dinniman

“Why just the boys?” Donut demanded. “Because we’re the deckmasters,” Li Na replied, pulling back from the door. “She’s down the hallway. He’s trying to finish the fight without forcing a card battle.” “Huh,” Donut said, looking around. “Aren’t the deckmasters the strongest ones in the party? Funny how that worked out.”

Her face occasionally flickered, like a bad television screen. And in those moments of static, her mouth turned to that of a scream, though no such sound came out.

I caught movement just above the snake, rapidly catching up. It was the little automaton I’d set up atop the stairs, also falling, shining like a shooting star. The small robot, which should have been destroyed along with the rest of the top floor, spun through the air as it “miraculously” landed atop the falling snake. Oh, come on. I thought as the whole thing blinked and reappeared in a quick teleportation.

Quest Complete. Where the Sidewalk Ends. Please wait... New Quest. The Missing Piece.

“I am the current reigning champion Persian cat in the galaxy. I have received more trophies and purple ribbons than anyone alive. And most importantly, I am a warlord of the Princess Posse Faction Wars team.” She turned to regard me. “Yes, Carl. I got this.” I gave her a pat and faced our opponents.

For just a moment, nobody moved. We all looked at each other, each one of us sizing everyone up. And then, it was on.

I instinctively clicked on a healing potion without even thinking. A terrible taste flooded my mouth. A Kombucha! Achievement flashed as I remembered the vinegar debuff.

kaiju-sized

If only there was a way to replace the souls that had triggered the event in the first place. The same type of souls. The same flavor of chowder, so to speak.

“I am not a carnival ride, Carl! I will not... Okay, that does sound like fun. Hang on.”

But none of that mattered right now. Right now, I needed to get this damn crab to jerk off into the ocean.

“Listen,” I said to the crab. “We only have a few minutes. This is how you move to the golden heavenly throne or whatever you call it. Your people are dead. You are the last one left. The eggs are still out there. You can save your people, but you have to do it now.” I swallowed. “You have to fertilize the eggs. Go!” He just looked at me. “Now? Here?” “Yes!” An explosion echoed from the building. “Glorious Master Carl... That’s a lot of pressure to perform.”

“Okay,” Raul said uncertainly, moving sideways off into the water so he was half submerged. The waves lapped all around him, washing more corpses up on the shore. The entire beach stank like death. “But don’t watch.”

“I can’t do it,” Raul called from behind me. “I need a baby seal.” I turned at that. “What the fuck, Raul?” He waved his pincer. “No, not like that. The seals hang out near the eggs. It’s like an automatic reaction. We’ve been programmed to perform when we see baby seals.” It was no wonder the monk seals wanted these guys all dead. The ridiculous, red, white, and blue entrance sequence for Alpha Carl exploded across the beach. I tried to tune it out while I dealt with Raul. “Look, over there. There’s a pile of dead baby seals. Try that.”

Behind me, Raul started to grunt. “Yeah. That’s right. Look at you all dead and shit. That’s right you fuzzy little seals.”

Alpha Carl put his hand on my shoulder. “You don’t need to hurt yourself to feel loved. Despite all of your failings...” He paused, looking over my shoulder. “All right. You’re gonna have to explain what that crab is doing.” “He’s saving the world,” I said through gritted teeth. “But he needs motivation.”

“It’s not working. I can feel you judging me,” Raul called. “Stop being a little bitch and get the job done!” Alpha Carl barked. “Don’t yell at me!” Raul snapped back. “I’d like to see you perform under this sort of pressure. Wait, wait, never mind. Yell at me again. I think it’s helping.” “I don’t know what the hell you’re doing, you weird little armored sea rat, but you need to do what my brother says, or I’m gonna come over there and break you in half.” “Yes. That’s it. That’s it,” Raul said. “It’s happening. I’m ascending! I’m ascending past the cloud rank and into the golden heavenly light! No more kowtowing. No more kowtowing!”

I landed headfirst inside of Samantha’s neck hole.

Alpha Carl looked at me and was about to say something when his face exploded. Shi Maria had shoved a leg right through the back of his head. He exploded all over me, showering me with gore. “Carl!” Donut shouted in panic. “It says...” The intended target of the Golden Combo has been incapacitated. Proceeding to the next available minion target. That’s you. You have been combined with Shi Maria.

Child. Hold on. Hold on with everything you can. This was another voice. A male.

Above, I could hear Donut screaming. She was screaming for Mongo.

Tattoo. The Eye of the Bedlam Bride. That’s all it said. It gave no other description.

I was going to lose consciousness. “How’s Katia? How’s Mongo?” I asked before I passed out.

In other words, yes. All you crawlers in Cuba pulled it off. Especially Carl who literally pulled off a guy named Raul to make this happen. And in case you don’t get the metaphor: Carl jerked off a crab. “What the fuck?” I called up into the air. “That’s not true!” Everyone was looking at me. “Dude,” Louis said. “How does that even work? Don’t crabs have two weens?” Elle asked. “Were you double fisting it?” “I absolutely did not do that! He, uh, did it to himself.”

If I learned anything on this floor, it was that the impossible was never out of reach, especially if it made for good television.

Nobody wanted to play anymore. They just wanted to go home. I looked one last time at Amayon, the demon lord. He was the same as them, and he was the same as us. He didn’t want to be here. He also just wanted to go home. But we all had the same problem. Even if we did get home, it wouldn’t be the same. Amayon was going home to fight his brothers. My world was already destroyed. And these guys? The Faction Wars folks? These leaders of the most influential governments of the Syndicate? They were about to learn they couldn’t go home, either. Not easily. And if they did manage to break themselves away and survive these coming days, it was okay. They’d already lost. They just didn’t know it yet.

Mordecai had turned the counter back on. A few weeks earlier, on the day this floor had opened, the number of crawlers who made it to the eighth floor had been 38,532. Pending Action Item, originally proposed by the Reavers: Pet leveling is accelerated during Faction Wars. This item has been passed by a 83% audience vote. Please see the Warlord tab for specifics. When Prepotente had skipped the floor, I’d thought that had probably been a mistake. I’d thought that they were going to use this floor to catch up on all the death they had missed on the skipped seventh floor. After all, that’s what this floor had been designed for, had it not? To kill us all. To turn us against each other. It’d seemed so ominous. So dark. I looked at the number now. 33,804. “Holy shit,” I said, my voice full of wonder. “Carl?” Donut asked. Almost five thousand people had died, which in any, normal circumstance was a tragedy. A devastating number. I knew this wasn’t over yet. I knew more would die before the floor would collapse. People wouldn’t get the stairwell free in time. People would fail when the portal opened and sucked them up into the air. Still, a sense of pride washed over me. That number of deaths so far was shockingly low.

After all the death, after how horrific everything had been, I realized they’d been counting on this last part to be the real gut punch. They’d made it too easy to flee fights because they wanted these last few days to be the real slaughter. We’d figured a way out of it. And because of that, we were hitting the ninth floor not scattered, not broken, and not afraid. We were hitting the ninth floor in unprecedented numbers. Pending Action Item, originally proposed by the Princess Posse: Remove Safety Protections For Faction Sponsors. This item has been passed by a 98% audience vote. Please see the Warlord tab for specifics. “You wanted a slaughter?” I yelled up at the ceiling. “Don’t worry. It’s coming. Thirty thousand of us, plus our mercenaries? Do you remember what we did to the hunters? That was nothing. Your people voted for this. Your own citizens said, yes, we’re okay with the crawlers killing you one by one. Make no mistake. That’s exactly what’s about to happen.” I angrily jabbed my finger upward. “You may have destroyed our homes, but guess what? We have just taken any sense of peace you will ever have in your own home. And that’s only if you get there. There will be no prisoners. There will be no quarter. Those of us who remain are battle worn and tested. Every single one of us that is left, to a crawler, is more experienced than any one of you. We are coming. There is nowhere for you to hide. It is going to be a bloodbath the likes of which has never been seen.”

“I... I don’t understand,” Donut said. “Wait, are you okay?” “I’m with you, Donut. That’s all that matters.” She snuggled closer to me.

You will not break me. You will be avenged. I swear it. I swear it to you all.

Agatha was not an agent of the Apothecary, despite having access to the traitorous Primal’s emergency feed. And equipment. She’d gotten access the same way her kind always did. She’d hunted down and killed one of the many thousand Apothecary residuals waiting on planet and taken over their body. That way she had access to both the Apothecary’s informational feed and her own team’s message system. Nor was she of the Valtay, though she was biologically similar. No, no. She was a rare species. One of the oldest still alive and active in the universe.

Agatha knew from the chatter that her competitors were also attempting something bold. They were going to attempt to contact crawlers directly this season. Either in the dungeon, or during the likely floor with the memory ghosts. For months now, they’d been forcing their agents to recite a daily mantra filled with known inaccuracies and half-truths, all in the hopes a crawler will see it. The inaccuracies were given in order to preserve the crawler’s lives at the hands of the murder-happy showrunners. What they were truly doing was secretly implanting the crawler with a hidden upgrade, though Agatha wasn’t certain what that upgrade was, or the purpose of it.

Whatever that upgrade was, it would be dangerous to the Eulogist. They’d have to deal with it if any crawlers managed to obtain it.

The longer they waited to make their move, the higher their chances of success. The higher the chances that the infant, resurrected, and enslaved Primal would listen to reason.

This time, she thought. This time one of us will last long enough. This time, it will work. The primal will know who it really is before all the elements are stolen from it.

Her people knew what had to be done. Last time, they allowed the traitor to survive. They allowed life to continue in the universe, and look what happened? They were being stolen, reawakened, repurposed. Tortured. No. No. It had to stop. Half-measures had led to this. No, if Agatha had her way, this entire universe would be swept clean of biological life. This time, it will work. She pulled a lighter from her inventory, and she lit a fire in the barrel. She’d give it a few minutes before she built the flames up too high. Timing was everything.

The only thing marring the surface was the fires spreading across that one continent, where the humans were constantly battling the security forces, attempting to break into the kinder facility.

“Okay, folks. We have been cleared for onboarding. The AI has approved our request. We are officially all troopers now for the Princess Posse.” Cheers rose up through the hull. Fifty-thousand former crawlers, all hidden inside the newly-renamed Homecoming Queen. Once they made it onboard into the system, there was nothing anybody could do to stop them.

“It’s funny,” Tipid added. “I always knew I would die in the dungeon. Even after I got out, I always knew. It’s always there, pulling at me.”