Chapter 2 of 35 · Book 4, The Gate of the Feral Gods

Chapter 2 — The Wasteland through a telescope

Book: The Gate of the Feral Gods · Previous: Chapter 1 — Hump Town · Next: Chapter 3 — A goose from the sky · Floor: Floor 5 — The Bubbles · Series: the series

Opening

The first thing Donut did was bounce over to the mailbox and grab her spellbook-of-the-flo

Summary

Elle and Imani, in chat, are trying to sail a boat with twenty people who have never sailed ('What's a backstay?'); Elle iced the NPC who would have helped. Donut's club spellbook is Astral Paw — a Hole-class utility spell, claws at level five, her own swipe at fifteen; 'you'd finally be able to knock that vase off the high shelf.' The cleaner bot is still sucking Katia's blood out of the couch two days later. The fourth floor's achievements arrive: Let There Be Chaos (a god summoned), Divine Epiphany (a new tab: the option to worship Grull — 'Grull can suck my dick'), Indomitable (attacked by a deity and survived; 'the other deities tend to notice'; a Legendary Deity's Box), Smushed for Daddy (stepped on, in the AI's smoking-a-cigarette voice), Hail Mary! (a hundred casualties a hundred kilometres away) and Extinction Event (every Wall Monitor in the abyss, killed by the train). Water-breathing scrolls and antidote potions in every box are the floor's torch and bandage — 'Cats do not swim' — and Mordecai says his chats are still protected if he is in them. Donut's platinum box: Wall of Fire, 'an escape spell.'

Carl's loot: Surefire, twenty-five bottle-cap crafting items that add Guided to any projectile; the Enchanted Toe Ring of the Leprous Bandit (a unique two-benefit ring: Sticky Feet, walls and ceilings barefoot for dexterity-times-two seconds every six hours, and Super Spreader, pass any debuff to a target once an hour), worn on the left pinky; an Extinction Sigil tattoo of a lizard foot under his left eye, which turns lizards' natural enemies neutral and makes lizards hit harder; and from the deity box a smoking perfume bottle, Pawna's Tears — Pawna is the goddess of peace, Grull's sister and arch-enemy — plus five to any skill of his choosing, the best loot he has received since he entered, to be saved for a natural fifteen after the sixth-floor subclass. Elle's deity box was Graupel, a fifty-mana ice storm; Mordecai calls it a war spell. Eva is alive on Katia's chat. The only crawler who answers Carl's bubble message is Gwendolyn Duet, a level-27 Boring Ol' Fighter with a Club Vanquisher ring in the land quadrant, where the Sandcastle of the Mad Dune Mage has four walls, scorpion-men with nipple rings, and birds with chainsaws; there is a reef and sharks around the island. Mordecai suspects the bubbles average out player levels — Carl's 41 may be the highest in the dungeon.

Alone in the village at dusk, Carl knocks at a house with a telescope and is answered by Skarn, a level-3 changeling juvenile who forms into an eight-year-old boy, in clothes like Carl's for ten seconds before a robe: his village was bombed by the gnomes, the dromedarians took the survivors in, Flint on the patrol raises him and charges a gold coin. The telescope is an Enchanted Gnome FarSeerer salvaged from the dunes, which warns any gnome it is pointed at. Through it: the Wasteland Castle, a ripped-up island three football fields wide under five colossal balloons in a net and a shield, a house on top, corrugated huts and ballistae round the edges, chains and huts dangling underneath, dozens of moored Mad-Max airships, red hats everywhere, and a rowboat-sized quadcopter with a Gnomish Knock-Knock — a barely stable thermobaric fuel-air bomb, 'the failing air force's' last few — slung under it. The gnomes do not bomb Hump Town because of something in city hall their leader wants kept safe; the Bactrians have a deal too. 'I know it eats mushrooms.'

Characters

• Carl — Six achievements, three tattoos, a ring on his pinky; Pawna's Tears; a gold coin for a look.
• Princess Donut — Astral Paw and Wall of Fire; 'Cats do not swim.'
• Katia Grim — Catcher to 11; antidotes; Eva still on her chat.
• Mordecai — Reads the loot as hints; 'the single best item of loot he has received.'
• Elle McGibbons — Graupel from her deity box; froze the water when Imani crashed the boat.
• Imani — Crashed the boat.
• Gwendolyn Duet — A Boring Ol' Fighter with a Vanquisher ring, in the land quadrant.
• Skarn — A changeling orphan who takes a newcomer's form, as Flint taught him; a gnome telescope on his roof.
• Eva Sigrid — Alive on Katia's chat.
• Frank Q and Maggie My — Maggie's max-out potion recalled.

Locations

• The Royal Palace of Princess Donut — Blood on the couch; the store and kitchen upgrades bought.
• Hump Town — Prostitutes changing shape on Hump Street; the changelings' houses.
• The Wasteland — Seen: five balloons, a net, a shield, a house, weapons, a fleet of wrecks.
• The sandcastle — Gwen's castle: four walls built into the tomb's side.

Motifs

• Achievements — Six for the fourth floor's last hour; Extinction Event for the Wall Monitors.
• The gods — A tab to worship Grull; Pawna, goddess of peace, his sister; 'the other deities tend to notice.'
• Loot boxes — Water-breathing scrolls as a hint; a Legendary Deity's Box.
• Pawna's Tears — Plus five to any skill; to be saved.
• Carl's bare feet — Sticky Feet: walls and ceilings, barefoot only.
• The Knock-Knocks — A thermobaric bomb under a quadcopter; the reason for the standoff.
• The Dirigible Gnomes — Bomb-droppers with a failing air force and a mean leader.
• The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook — Nothing new; its line about changelings came in ch. 1.
• The stuffed figures — Kimaris still above the ring in value; Pawna's Tears above Kimaris.