Chapter 10 of 35 · Book 4, The Gate of the Feral Gods

Chapter 10 — Squeeze out the Juice Box

Book: The Gate of the Feral Gods · Previous: Chapter 9 — Ruckus · Next: Chapter 11 — The Vahana · Floor: Floor 5 — The Bubbles · Series: the series

Opening

“So Chris is from team Meadow Lark?

Summary

Driving home through Night Frights with a ton of dwarfish aluminium, the field guide and the buzzsaw bar in Katia's inventory, Carl tells her about Chris: Meadow Lark's maintenance man, Brandon's brother, the message in the scratchpad ('now it's too late to tell him I love him'), the Igneous race that changed him, Frank's head crushed at the club counter. Imani: 'Don't kill him. Please. He's changed, but he's still my friend. He's still Brandon's brother.' Meadow Lark cannot get near their oil rig; their personal space now has the marketplace too, which can sell privately but never for less than half value.

At the ruins, Henrik — a 'level 30' whose head, per Donut's goggles, could cook an egg — is directing the dig for a body he will not find; the tomb's wall has slid shut over the basement. Donut's charm ('We don't care which ones of you are real camels') opens him: the collateral is proved by a pocket watch with a mirror, Commandant Kane's hand-sign on the other side, Wynne's answer as a time set on the hands, a code the camels never broke; Wynne cooperated for years until they moved him under the town hall, and since then they have drugged him with a mushroom he was building a tolerance to. The Bactrians' indemnity was the Commandant's daughter's pet pig, sunned once a day for the FarSeerer. The Bactrians would not take the changelings in; the dromedarians did. 'Sometimes we do things that are not of our nature to protect our own.' A gnome ambassador, Leon the Commissar, inspects with a spell that detects changelings, and is due in two days. Carl asks Mordecai for a parachute: no Feather Fall or Bubble Boy materials until the sixth floor, but two of a potion he will not like. Katia is given two jobs, the first 'a little gross'. Morris reports the tomb sealing itself and filling with water since the Akula fell: the castles' order matters.

The Toe holds forty children — dromedarian and six changelings, one of them Ruby, armless with a caved head and a debuff called Compression Sickness that Mordecai has never heard of — with Juice Box handing out Capri Suns. Juice Box and the bartender are both changelings. Carl takes them all into the Royal Palace ('This isn't a goddamned daycare, Carl'), where Mordecai streams Toy Story to the screens from a manager-benefit library of Earth films Donut now knows about. Juice Box, suddenly serious: is this place from the Hunting Grounds? The sixth floor is her people's ancient home, there was a way back, and it is lost with the town hall; the Gate is a myth that gnomes, the mad mage and the bugbear all chased; what her people seek is something else, and Quetzalcoatlus is the wrong question. Save the town and she will tell. Katia has answered the gnomes' watch with Carl's reply, and the gnomes cut the channel. A quest with a seventy-five-minute timer: Squeeze out the Juice Box — save Hump Town from the bombardment; a Platinum box, a permanent charisma bonus with changelings, and 'my undying respect, because there is no way in hell even you can pull this one off.'

Characters

• Carl — Brandon's message re-read; a parachute wanted; forty children into the house.
• Princess Donut — Reads Henrik's and Juice Box's heads; 'I'm allowed to have friends, Carl'; Toy Story.
• Katia Grim — Two jobs, one gross; relays the gnomes' cut-off.
• Mordecai — Two potions Carl will not like; a film library he never mentioned.
• Chris — Took the Akula; Brandon's message waits for him; 'Don't kill him.'
• Imani — Cannot reach the oil rig; asks Carl not to kill Chris.
• Elle McGibbons — An ice spell against fireballs.
• Henrik — A tired old changeling with a pocket watch; 'not of our nature.'
• Juice Box — A wrangler of children; the Hunting Grounds her people's home; a quest named for her.
• Skarn — 'You owe us each a gold coin.'
• Ruby — Armless, caved-in; Compression Sickness.
• The tomb raiders — The package delivered; the tomb flooding.
• Louis and Firas — In the Toe with the archers; Louis and a Capri Sun.
• Langley — Cowering in a corner from children.
• Commandant Kane — The other half of the watch; his daughter's pig was the Bactrians' collateral.
• Leon the Commissar — The gnome ambassador with a changeling-detecting spell.

Locations

• Hump Town — Bars boarded; adults on the walls; the basement sealed by the tomb itself.
• The Royal Palace of Princess Donut — A daycare with Toy Story on the screen.
• The Necropolis of Anser — Exits closed and water rising since the Akula fell.
• The Hunting Grounds — The sixth floor: the changelings' ancient home.

Motifs

• Quests — Squeeze out the Juice Box: seventy-five minutes to save the town.
• The changelings — Henrik's confession; Juice Box's home; a way back lost with the hall.
• The Dirigible Gnomes — The watch, the hand-sign, the time; Leon's inspections.
• The marketplace — Meadow Lark's too; private sales at half value or more.
• The mobs are victims — 'Sometimes we do things that are not of our nature'; Ruby.
• The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook — Herot's essay on NPC awareness; the aware ones are dangerous.
• The Gate of the Feral Gods — 'A myth,' says Juice Box; not what her people want.