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

by Matt Dinniman

Your area is seeded with mobs and bosses and legendary creatures that are exclusive to the folklore of the region in which you inhabit. For example, those of you in Romania will be dealing with vampires and werewolves. Those of you in Ireland will have leprechauns and banshees. Those of you in Japan are just plain fucked.

New Achievement. Apex Predator. Holy shit. They’re dead. All of them. Every. Last. One. Not only did you kill more hunters than everyone else, but you killed the very last one. One could fill a very stinky swimming pool with the blood you spilled on the Hunting Grounds. You have become a very scary dude. Maybe I should be calling you daddy instead of the other way around. Reward: Nothing! ... Just kidding. You have received a Celestial Predator Box.

New Achievement! Collective Bargaining! More than 1,000 crawlers have received the exact same box at the exact same time. Working together, huh? We don’t know if we like that. Better toughen up the rules a little. Better break a few extra kneecaps. Better bury a few more bodies. Reward: You’ve received a Gold Scab Box.

“They say the sincerest form of flattery is when someone copies you.” Donut scoffed. “No, Carl. That’s just something thieves say to make themselves feel better about stealing other people’s stuff. The sincerest form of flattery is when people cry when they meet you.”

“Her name was Baroness Éclair Exquisite, and she got smushed by a tractor because she ran into a field. She never was the brightest cat. Miss Beatrice was most upset when she heard the news, as was I. I never liked the baroness much, but it’s always distressing when royalty dies in farm accidents. It’s embarrassing to the whole family.”

Donut sighed dramatically. “All this walking is very bad for my fur.” She was sitting on my shoulder and had been since we left the saferoom.

“It’s all blasphemous,” Sister Ines said. There was a strange intensity to her voice, and I finally realized she was angry. Very angry. She’d been just a little off all morning. “It is all a mockery of our faiths and legends. They ignore the meanings behind the myths and stories, and they just see the surface, steal it, and use it to make something shiny and pretty and completely devoid of its meaning. And they mix these beloved traditions with modern fictions, things nobody ever believed to be real. It muddies the water of our stories, our histories. They don’t care. These cultures and creatures are holy to people, and they are making jokes of it all.”

New Achievement! Interloper! You invited a red-tagged NPC boss into a saferoom, and he actually managed to get inside! Doesn’t your culture have a whole set of cautionary tales and movies about inviting mysterious strangers into your home? You know, the whole vampire thing? The Hand that Rocks the Cradle? Single White Female 2: The Psycho? It’s probably not in your best interests to keep doing such things. Reward: You’ve received a bronze Stranger Danger box!

After all this time, it’s still shocking to me how quickly everything can change.

Kinda funny how these moments pop up out of nowhere, isn’t it? And you thought this eighth floor was just going to be filler until we go down to the ninth? We don’t do that here.

She scoffed. “I mean, really. We could’ve done this whole thing over chat. Probably would have been fewer decapitations.”

YOUR FIANCÉ HAS GOTTEN VERY SCARY. YOU BETTER NOT EVER UPSET HER. MAKE SURE YOU TELL HER SHE’S PRETTY EVERY DAY. AND DON’T EVER EAT POTATO CHIPS IN BED. CARL USED TO DO THAT, AND IT MADE MISS BEATRICE REALLY MAD.

She even started decorating the personal space with a few hats here and there. It made me happy to see she had a hobby of sorts, even if most of them were basically hunting trophies.

Note added by Crawler Azin. 17th Edition> Spiders. By the gods, why? In our world, they only exist in myth, but apparently they’re a real thing and are common in the universe. What sort of nightmare must the Creators have been having to design such a thing? <Note added by Crawler Tin. 21st Edition> I don’t know. I think they’re cute. <Note added by Crawler Tin. 21st Edition> Never mind. Holy shit, never mind. Fuck spiders.

Rude-Dolph the Blood-Nosed Slay-Deer. Level 100. Eastern United States Legendary Creature. Warning: This is a Puppet-Master. This creature is intangible until all the puppets have been killed. Eight of Eight Puppets still live. Nobody is laughing at him anymore.

“This undeserving cur accepts your gift, great mistress.” “Raul,” I said. “Remember our talk last time? You need to stop acting like that. Her head is big enough as it is. I want you to work on your confidence.” “Yes, daddy Carl. It’s difficult to exude confidence when I am nothing but an undeserving louse burning in her glittering radiance.” “Look. The others are going to keep picking on you if you keep saying weird shit like that. Just do what we say, and you’ll be fine. You don’t need to insult yourself every time she gives you an order. And stop calling me daddy.”

The biggest problem with Raul was that he was a big wuss. He’d fight, and he was damn good at it, but he would always cower and submit to any other summoned totems. The first time we’d summoned him the same time as Shi Maria, she’d picked him up, skewering him right through his shell, and used his body as a cudgel to beat a group of bowl-headed, Japanese monsters called kappas to death. He’d screamed and sniveled and cried as Maria gleefully pounded him down like a toddler with a toy hammer. Then, Shi Maria ended up telling this to Geraldo the next time they were both together, and now Geraldo was calling Raul “the spider lady’s jinetera.”

I remembered Mordecai’s advice when it came to mages. They can’t cast their spells when you’re punching them in the face.

<Note added by Crawler Ikicha. 11th Edition> My people have a saying. “The burning Yenk needs only to embrace their enemies.” It likely translates poorly, but what it means is that some problems aren’t problems at all if you think on it long enough.

That old adage—the enemy of my enemy is my friend—was complete bullshit. But it didn’t mean I wasn’t going to use it to my benefit when I could.

The sea runs red and blue. The corpses pile high upon the beach. The very children both parties were trying to save have suffered, and by this point, the only hope of survival from either side is for them to completely wipe out their enemy. That’s how it is, is it not? When there is war, so often an armistice is nothing more than a delay. A job left undone. An overdue bill for those down the road to eventually pay, and pay with interest. War is Hell. And hell, my child, hell is not just a place. It is a contagion. It is a virus. It spreads. But worst of all, it attracts.

War is Hell... And Hell really wants to come play. Which is unfortunate, considering some dumbass recently dumped a bunch of highly-contagious, fast-spreading zombie farm animals into an ocean that connects everything. Fun fact. Most demons can’t just enter the world. They need a weakened shell to inhabit. Something like a new corpse is difficult for them. But if it’s a zombie... ... You no longer need to choose a side between the Crabs and the Seals because both sides are fucked. They just don’t know it yet. You just need to not die. Get down the stairs without being involuntarily dragged into hell. That’s how you win this quest.

Imani: Carl, what the actual fuck is wrong with you? Carl: Yell at me later. How many are there? Imani: You infected over a dozen mercenaries with a disease that causes them to leak punk rock slugs every few minutes, and you locked them all in a room for almost a day. You locked them in a room where they die and get regenerated. How many do you think there are? There’s hundreds of them, including some slugs that are as high level as the mercenaries themselves. The entire room is filled with blood.

Carl: Goddamnit, everyone. Stop it. Earlier, I was thinking about how hopeless all this is. That they’re whittling us down to nothing. That there’s a death quota they have to meet, and no matter how hard we fight, we’re stuck inside that box. No. Fuck them all. I was wrong. We are not like those who came before us. This is our chance. This is our chance to show them how hard it is to kill us. We will not die on their schedule. Every person who gets through this will be one more the real assholes will have to fight on the next floor. We need each other. I need you. So stop fucking fighting.

She headbutted against my leg. “Don’t be stupid. We can only do our best. If you don’t go down the stairs, I don’t go down the stairs. We are the Princess Posse, and the Princess Posse doesn’t leave anybody behind.” I reached over, and I picked her up and cradled her in my arms. A few streets over, a building collapsed as flames reached high in the sky. Amayon rumbled again. Samantha floated at the end of the alley, oohing and ahhing at all the destruction. “That line was really cheesy,” I said as I pushed my face into her fur. “Yeah, I’m still working on it,” she said. “I stole it from some movie. Now let’s go kill that nun.”

That’s what happens when everything you know is upended, and everything is taken from you. First they vilify you. Then they separate you. Then they blame you for what they’re doing to you. Then they hunt you. It’s the step after that which is important. The one where they start to fear you.

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.”

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