More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
August 5 - August 27, 2025
Carl: Am I allowed to say, “Go fuck yourself, Zev” still, or will I get in trouble? Zev: No. We’re not saying that anymore. Carl: Okay. I’ll try to think of a nicer way to say it. Donut: CARL, DON’T BE MEAN TO ZEV. SHE JUST GOT HER JOB BACK. ARE YOU OUR REGULAR PR PERSON AGAIN?
“Suck my dick, Pony,” I said, standing up and facing the goat.
The audience just can’t wait for them to get unleashed on you guys!
That weird line in the middle of the description, the one about the other AIs, wasn’t there after I pasted the text. I retyped it from memory while it was still fresh in my mind.
I could actually step outside if I wanted. Now that was interesting.
“Good,” I said. “I don’t want them to ever forget.”
“No, no. Please. You can’t do this. I’m a real person. Not a crawler or an NPC. I’m a real person.”
I took a deep breath. Poor Langley. He and his friends had worked so goddamn hard to get off that last floor. They’d all been immigrants to Finland, working their fingers to the bones their entire lives. They’d had to scramble for everything they’d ever had, and the moment they’d gotten a leg up, they’d turned around and tried to help others. And just like that. Gone. He’d been trying to do something good.
This is a feather. It’s pink. It’s garbage. Fuck off with making me describe this shit. Do you want me to describe the dirt below your feet, too?
“Ask your dad why that other guy is always coming over when he’s not home,” I said. I reached over and clicked the number one on the virtual tablet that hovered in front of me. “Next.”
“Uh, so where’s your entry,” I said, looking at the three, small goats. “Judge us,” the center goat kid said. He bleated. “Judge us.”
“Hopefully Carl will,” Uptown Hal said. He shared a grin with Drick. “I just wish we were allowed to tell this directly to him. We’ll see. Ah, here comes our moderator.”
“Your luck is a dishonor on the hive,” she said finally. “The hive can lick my sack,” I said.
We all know how it started. When the original council nations first accidentally tripped the primal engines and started the chain reaction that overpopulated the galaxy, it was eventually decided that we needed to both collect the primal elements left behind on all the pre-seeded worlds
“I just judged a little kid’s art contest where a bunch of them drew pictures of me dying. Of my friends dying. You treat us like we’re nothing. Like we’re not real. Like we’re below you. It’s like you’re all members of this giant death cult, and all the pain and suffering is just great as long as it’s entertaining and as long as it’s not you. You’re all smart. You’re intelligent, thinking species. You allow yourselves to separate people like myself into a different
“That’ll be me,” I called. “I’ll be the one responsible. And you should have thought of that before you sent them all off to die in my dungeon. It’s too bad you’re not in there, too. I guess you’re too old or too cowardly to face me.”
I was to be transferred back to the dungeon. I took a deep breath. I pulled my bandana and returned it to my face. I pulled the ring of Divine Suffering and slid it onto my finger. “Here we go,” I said, and I entered the green room.
Would anyone truly care? You are nothing but livestock, and livestock exists to be culled. Everyone watching right now doesn’t care how this moment came to be, just that it’s here. There’s
Samantha: YO, WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK WAS THAT.
What does that mean? How does that work in the context of the rest of the universe?
Finding the stars was the worst thing that ever happened to my people. It is a slow, horrific death. Expansion to the point of oblivion. The primals finally understood, but it was too late for them. The kua-tin, I think, know this, too.
Note added by Crawler Volteeg. Seventh Edition> I miss her. I miss her so goddamn much. Is it worth it? To survive this place with her gone? No. No, I don’t think it is. <Note added by Crawler Drakea. 22nd Edition> This is Volteeg’s first, last, and only entry in the cookbook. Fuck everything about this place.
IF WE KILL MIRIAM, PREPOTENTE WILL KILL US. IT’S WHAT I WOULD DO IF ANYBODY HURT YOU. I reached up and rubbed Donut’s head. A sense of helplessness washed over me, but I pushed it away. Goddamn you. You will not break me.
Donut: Carl? Would you do the same thing to save me? Carl: Without hesitation. I will break you all. “My beautiful boy,” Miriam whispered as she turned to dust. “My beautiful boy.”
“Also, have you noticed how the A.I. refers to itself as ‘I’ way more often than it used to? It always did, but something has changed.”
“Why do you think I wouldn’t understand?” Prepotente just nodded.
Donut: CARL. I’VE JUST HAD A TERRIBLE THOUGHT. DO YOU THINK THE PLENTY WANTED MIRIAM TO DIE? Carl: Yes, Donut. I believe they did.
“Hey, at least Prepotente doesn’t blame us for the death of his mother,” Donut said as we set out. I wasn’t so sure about that, either.
“Carl,” Donut said, her voice soft. “Did you see who it was, when the curtain opened?” A deep, foreboding feeling washed over me. “No. What did you see?” “It was Ferdinand. I saw him. It was him. They brought Ferdinand
You should never rely on a single point of failure.” “Noted,” I said.
“Save the toraline.” The toraline was the yam-like vegetable they’d given me the last floor to save Chris. We’d already used more than half of it to create a potion that allowed me to remove Maggie from his brain. “Save it? For what? Why won’t they just spit it out?”
Show them the lie. Show them the seams. Show them the path they’re on is a false one.
“No,” he gasped. “No.”
nations, such as the Valtay, host these games with goals in mind that might run counter to both the spirit and true purpose of the game.”
Samantha, get ready. Wait for my signal this time or you won’t be allowed to go to the party.” “I will kill your mother.” “Just be ready.”
Probably dead. There’s maybe five hunters in the non-saferoom pub near the center of town. Place called Cold Stone Creamery. Louis: I love that place. Donut: OMG NOBODY BLOW UP THE ICE CREAM SHOP.
The hunters were gaining increasingly-better gear despite their levels not going up. Katia was the one who’d figured out what was happening. “I’m pretty sure they’re allowing the hunters to get sponsored.
Twenty-five. This guy had killed 25 crawlers. I seethed. Then I thought of Eva, who’d managed to kill twice as many. Had they given her scalps? I hadn’t even thought about it. Don’t engage, I thought. Don’t do this. It’s just going to make you angry.
“They do that. If you survive long enough in this place, they’ll eventually make you turn on your own party. It happens every time. You’ll regret making it as far as you have, no matter who is helping you. No matter how close you are, we’re all alone in the end. Alone and broken with the choices we’ve had to make.”
I’d never heard the water running through the pipes. Or gone down into the basement to investigate the noise. I’d never found the note followed by my mother a minute later.
