The Gate of the Feral Gods (Dungeon Crawler Carl, #4)

by Matt Dinniman

“Gold, drugs, or pleasure.” He looked me up and down. He snorted again, spraying more snot. “Gold or drugs for you.”

It was the dungeon version of the old bumper sticker, “Cash, grass, or ass. Nobody rides for free.” I chuckled.

I laughed. “Hey, Donut. If we were back home, you’d finally be able to knock that vase off the high shelf.” “That thing was a menace, Carl. It was haunted.”

The next achievement came in the AI’s creepy, I’m-touching-myself-and-smoking-a-cigarette voice.

It hadn’t been a thing before, but I now had a new phobia: creepy-ass little kids.

“But do you know what they have hidden in town hall?”

“I don’t know. I’m not allowed to go over there. I know it eats mushrooms.”

Tracked All-Terrain Suicide Machine. The Royal Chariot – Contraption. If a snowmobile got drunk on moonshine and had a sweaty, ill-advised night with a hillbilly’s coon-hunting ATV, this oversized birth defect of a vehicle would be the result.

You will not break me. Fuck you all. I will break you.

“Jesus dude, just drink it,” I said. “We’re all waiting on you.”

Firas downed the potion at the same moment Louis projectile vomited all over the floor.

The cleaner bot let out an a...

I barely registered what Mordecai said. The two crawlers were still on their hands and knees, scream-vomiting on the floor. Neither had stopped for several minutes.

It reminded me of that week of leave we got after boot. Those of us without families spent it in Philadelphia drinking until we blacked out.

When he’d found out Katia was from Iceland, he started calling her “Lazy Town.” I had no idea why.

“Do any of you have Desperado Club access?”

“I do,” the spider guy said.

“Meet me there in a goddamn hour.”

“Why?” the spider asked. His name was Morris Sp. A level 23 Freelance Psychiatrist.

“Because I’m going to kick your goddamn ass. And then I need to transcribe your map to you. That is if this town doesn’t ...

“You keep destroying governmental buildings, Carl,” Donut said. “People are going to start thinking you have a problem with authority.”

Morris turned to Bobby and smiled. “And you said he was going to murder us.”

“The d-d-day isn’t over yet.”

As always, safety came last.

“Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck me, fuckity fuck,”

“Chris,” I said. “Chris is in here with us.”

But that’s what happens, isn’t it? The universe shows us how cruel it can be, and we are worse for it.

Carl, we should start stocking up on squish-sized creatures so you can sacrifice one every morning.

New Achievement! You’re the reason why daddy drinks! You have, for an unspecified reason, raised the ire of the System AI. You have corrected the issue, and everything is back to normal. The acceleration action has been suspended. This time. Good boy. Reward: You’ve received a Gold Makeup Sex is the Best Sex box.

People who die in the collapse aren’t really dead, but they’re put in storage.

You’re a good fighter, Carl. And you think fast. That’s why we’re still alive. You rarely think of the proper answer to a problem, but you usually come up with one that works anyway.”

That was the moment. Right then. I’d been toying around with an idea, but I’d dismissed it as too risky. Too soon.

That was the moment I changed my mind.

“Have you ever felt true cold? It comes soon for us all. It’s always waiting in the shadows.”

But if I do manage that second step, please forgive me. What I do from here on out is solely for me and my people. As long as I am alive, I will do everything I can to make them burn.

They will not fucking break me.

“Are we sure it was actually talking about the ooze?” Donut asked.

I wouldn’t trust a guy who fucked an ooze.

“Man, it was like a screeching, amplified baby combined with an outboard motor revving at a high rpm. I’m not even joking when I say it was one of the loudest, most terrifying things I’ve ever heard. Holy shit.”

When it was finally over, she gave out a little whimper and then vomited again, and this time a little fish fell out of her mouth and started flopping around on the top of the kayak.

“That was pretty awesome,” I said once it was clear we were safe from the sharks.

“Go fuck yourself, Carl,” Donut said.

“I was thinking it’s more like the horcruxes from Harry Potter,” Katia said. “But in this case, her soul was only broken into two pieces.”

“They were books before they were…” Katia stopped. She made the wise decision not to pursue it.

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

If the AI decided it had a thing for me getting swallowed alive, then that was going to be a problem.

“So what do they do when the crawl is over? Take the AI out behind the woodshed and shoot it?”

You will not break me. Fuck you all. I will break you.

Donut was in the main cockpit, screaming with her paws wrapped around the stick. She was all the way on her back against the small seat, and she had a death grip on the yoke.

“You murderous fuck,” I yelled as he scrambled to his feet. “I’m going to rip you to pieces.”