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September 17 - September 21, 2024
Katia: She is an amazing fighter. She’s fast, too. Her class trades fighting skills for no magic spells whatsoever. I watched her use that spear to pierce a pazuzu in the back, vault over him, and use the momentum to throw his body at another monster. The problem is she’s a real bitch. She is like Hekla in some ways, though instead of scheming in her head, she just says it out loud the moment she thinks it. And if she doesn’t like you, she will tell you. And then just to make sure you were paying attention, she’ll say it again, but in a different way. At least Hekla pretended to be supportive.
Your failure has caused your name to be removed from the Tome of Scholars. May the gods have mercy on your soul. It was signed by a group of twelve different names.
Ghazi you fucking idiot. I told you this was going to happen. The second I found you with that thing, I knew you were beyond saving. You have ruined everything. I hope it was worth it. Scolopendra will never be defeated now. We needed that artifact, and all you could think about was your cock. I will never forgive you. I was here the whole time, but I guess I wasn’t enough. Fuck you. I hope you die in pain. Do the right thing. - Tish.
But it keeps me entertained. I can only watch for two hours a day except during the red equinox, which is coming up soon. There’s this program called Inuyasha that I plan on finishing… Anyway, the ooze doesn’t allow me to leave the room very often. It’s jealous of the real Lika.”
I had multiple, passive, low-tier stealth movement abilities that never worked for shit because I traveled with a dinosaur and a talking cat, but I hoped it would help cover my passage now.
blood. I needed to avoid bringing attention to myself, and I needed to get the hell out of here as quickly and as quietly as I could. Donut awakened in my arms. Donut freaked the absolute fuck out.
I started paddling toward shore. Donut sat there glowering, completely flattened out and soaked through. She had a piece of seaweed attached to her tiara. While she’d appeared almost majestic and fairy-like underwater, up here she looked like a dead rat that’d been resurrected and then run over by a garbage truck. “That was pretty awesome,” I said once it was clear we were safe from the sharks. “Go fuck yourself, Carl,” Donut said.
Donut nodded. “Yes, I suppose you’re right. Plus part of her was frozen in that doll all this time. That probably wasn’t good for her mental health, either. I’ve watched you abuse yourself more than once, and I know it wasn’t good for mine. I can’t imagine what it would’ve done to me if I’d been forced to actually participate.” She turned to Katia and lowered her voice. “He wiped his hand on me once. You know, afterward.” “That is absolutely not true!” I exclaimed.
his class was something called a Gut Rearranger,
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.
Donut just nodded. Despite her loud insistence that she was never going back into the water, I could tell she was struggling with guilt over this. I patted her on the head. “We need you to keep us safe. Okay?” “Be careful,” she said, rubbing her head against my hand.
Shit. Here we go. System Message: Please Wait. The world unfroze as quickly as it had frozen. System Message: Thank you for your patience. You may now resume normal activities.
Vadim: Oh god, oh god. They’re in the pod with me. Oh god. Carl: What? What? Vadim: The pain amplifier… Warning: This message is from a deceased crawler. “Yikes,” was all I could bring myself to say.
New Achievement! Who Let the Gods Out? You have allowed a feral god to enter your current realm. That is the equivalent of dropping a grenade down your pants and shouting, “Yolo!”
Only in her dream. Louis told her that was because she was an NPC and she was maybe remembering the last time she’d been in the dungeon, and she got a really funny look on her face. The same look you get when you look at that picture of Miss Beatrice on my nightstand.”
This next one was in the AI’s creepy, I’m touching myself voice. I suppressed a shudder.
Donut jumped to my shoulder. “Carl, this Space Jam movie doesn’t make any sense. Why are half of them cartoons?” I reached up and petted her. I suddenly wished I had her ability to just detach from everything. “Next time, pay attention.”
Orthrus. The most loveable hell-hound on this side of Alpha Centauri. The left side is for sniffin’ and the right side is for lickin’ and that pink belly of his? It’s for kissin’.
Oh, except Crawler Maggie My. She once ran over a baby Labrador with her Chevy Tahoe. What a bitch!
Donut: …AND JUST BECAUSE YOU KILLED A DOG DOESN’T MAKE UP FOR WHAT YOU DID TO CHRIS.
Low Thi: It’s chasing me! I have it distracted. Do it! Warning: This message is from a deceased crawler.
“Grab the stick,” I yelled as I clicked the gyroscope and jumped onto the wing. The plane started to shudder. “Grab the stick?” Donut shrieked. “What do you mean, grab the stick! Thumbs, Carl! Thumbs!”
“Orthrus,” the god said, his relief-filled voice flowing into the world, filling the valley with sound. The blood pouring from the god’s eyes turned to rain. “Orthrus. There you are. I’ve been looking for you. I was so very worried.” The god was supposed to hang around for sixty seconds. He didn’t. Even before we hit the ground, Orthrus just blinked away. I twisted, and the god was also gone, leaving a shimmering wake in the sky. The world around us plunged into darkness, lit only by the spotlight from the stairwell location.
“You know what, Carl? I’ve decided something,” Donut said, finally speaking. She released Mongo, who squawked and started investigating this strange, new world. “Yeah, Donut?” “I think they’re right about you. I think you’re crazy. Like, not a little weird crazy. Not guy who eats cereal without milk crazy. But crazy, crazy. Straitjacket crazy.” I took the cat into my lap, and then I pulled her to my chest. She purred heavily into my ear.
disappeared. I only have cans of Jimbo soup. And crackers.”
Ever since that first monkey looked up into the sky and saw something twinkling up there, you meat puppets have tried to force twenty pounds of existential meaning into a ten pound sack of chaos.
I had no response to that. Mordecai emerged from the crafting room to look distastefully at the mess. The kids were now watching The Goonies. The changelings were all emulating portly little humans and dancing with their Hawaiian shirts up, exposing their bellies.
“I was done, mate. I didn’t have anything,” he said, suddenly emotional. “You should have met her. My Ife. She was amazing. A ray of light. She was the bravest, kindest person I’d ever met. She gave me hope. I was done until I went into the club, and I met Elle. She told me a story about this man and his cat who’d stopped everything he was doing to help a group of old people in wheelchairs and how this same man was planning on using this artifact he’d found to save people stuck in their bubbles. And it reminded me that Ife wasn’t the only one. That there is good in this world. There is
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I wanted to argue. I wanted to say, please don’t leave me. But it was clear she’d already made up her mind.
“It’s on! It’s time for me to bring the pain!” Samantha squealed. “Where are you at, you rank whore!”
Carl: Hey, I got my sponsor to purchase that box, didn’t I? I think they got a deity sponsorship, too. That has to be worth something. Mordecai: You can’t fight a war like this and expect to win. Donut: DON’T BE MEAN TO CARL, MORDECAI. HE DIDN’T DO IT ALONE. WE’RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER.
“You guys see this thing? I’ll tell you what. If you want it, it’s yours. It’s right here. Come and get it, motherfuckers. Actually, you know what? I have a better idea. No need to come to me because I’ll be coming to you. That’s my pledge to you and to everyone else watching this. By the time the sixth floor collapses, every single hunter who dares to set foot on the same floor as us will be dead." Donut, Mongo, and I moved into the stairwell. "This I swear on my life. One by one, I will break you. I will break you all.”
