Chapter 12 of 35 · Book 4, The Gate of the Feral Gods

Chapter 12 — Dolores Doesn't Splat

Book: The Gate of the Feral Gods · Previous: Chapter 11 — The Vahana · Next: Chapter 13 — Gerbils · Floor: Floor 5 — The Bubbles · Series: the series

Opening

This is the message I had Henrik show to Commandant Kane:

Summary

The trick in full: Katia was the back seat, Wynne's body, and Henrik's body at once, joined by a draped arm, with a bag of ghoul blood for a throat; when Firas cut it she pulled the mass and the robes fell onto Svern's corpse. Rising in the Vahana with Crixus the sniper and Hicks the pilot, Leon giddy about 'the death of the final settlement of Anser': the camels were Anser's slaves who built the tomb and turned complicit in his horror; once they are gone only the mad mage remains, who wants not to steal the Gate but to understand and replicate it — and 'He only has a third of it.' At a thousand feet Carl calls 'Weapons free': the archers, Louis and Firas fire twelve Surefire-locked rockets from the ground and every escort plane falls; Donut Holes the floor of the basket and the three gnomes drop, Crixus's grenade flying wide, Leon's fingers pushed off the rim by an Astral Paw. Three balloons climb after them; a can of first-floor goblin gasoline sets one alight; Katia's critical bolt kills a red-hatted sniper; two clockwork Mongos jumped into the last basket leave it dripping. Donut reaches level 35 on the way up.

At five hundred metres, the Wasteland at two and a half kilometres and lowering, gnomes on bungees are hand-arming dozens of bombs under it. A battery of a hundred rifles rotates toward the Vahana; Carl's first four missiles detonate against its incoming shot ('They're shooting living creatures'), Protective Shell takes the volley, the second launcher's four go at the battery and three bombs, and the three of them jump as the basket is shredded and the north sky turns white. Falling: Dolores Doesn't Splat, Mordecai's potion Carl was not going to like — devised by a crocodilian alchemist during a ten-minute fall in a crawl before Odette's time, a Crowd Blast brew crossed with a rock-buffalo breeding potion — which speeds the fall, softens the ground, and slams each of them into it five times, fifteen feet up and down, like a meteor and a rutting buffalo. Carl punches through the tomb's roof and stands on the quadrant barrier while the sand pours past him into the dark. Squeeze out the Juice Box completes, grudgingly ('Fuck you'): a Platinum Quest Box. Hump Town is mostly intact under a torn sail and a fallen chunk of dreadnaught; Gwen reports the ocean half drained and the sky on fire. When the smoke clears the Wasteland is gone but for a house on a single balloon, pinned to the bubble's ceiling like Pixar's Up, with a ten-year-old gnome girl at the door holding a FarSeerer, and behind her the Commandant. Katia would shoot it down; Carl wants to take it the old-fashioned way, because three pocket watches — Henrik's, Kane's, the mage's — are the Gate of the Feral Gods, a celestial-equivalent artifact 'They don’t put this stuff in here to be ignored' Carl 43, Donut 36. Zev returns, as 'just your social media manager', unable to be messaged: Carl is being 'extra angry' with other crawlers; people want more Mongo; 'kill, kill, kill!'

Characters

• Carl — Weapons free; eight missiles; a meteor five times; wants the artifact.
• Princess Donut — Holes the basket floor; an Astral Paw to Leon's head; clockwork Mongos overboard; level 36.
• Katia Grim — Three bodies at once; a critical on a sniper; still covered in duct tape.
• Mongo — Cries at the height; refuses the carrier until Carl shouts.
• Mordecai — The potion's history: a crocodilian, a ten-minute fall, rule changes.
• Langley — Twelve rockets from the ground; every escort down.
• Louis and Firas — Fire their pairs.
• Leon the Commissar — 'The death of the final settlement'; pushed off the rim by a paw.
• Crixus — A grenade thrown wide as he falls.
• Commandant Kane — Seen in a doorway; his daughter with a FarSeerer.
• Gwendolyn Duet — 'The sky is on fire.'
• Zev — Back, demoted to social media; cannot be messaged.
• Odette — A crawl before her time recalled.

Locations

• The Wasteland — The Wasteland's armour blown off; a house on one balloon at the ceiling.
• Hump Town — Saved, mostly; a chunk on the west end; the sail torn.
• The bowl — Three craters; a hole in the tomb's roof.

Motifs

• The Gate of the Feral Gods — Three watches; the mage has a third; Carl wants it.
• Quests — Squeeze out the Juice Box won, and the AI hates it.
• The Dirigible Gnomes — The camels, Anser's slaves, 'filth' to Crixus; a hundred-rifle battery; hand-armed bombs.
• Explosives — Missiles versus rifle balls; the Wasteland's underbelly.
• The Royal Chariot — Its seat was Katia.
• The show — Zev's notes from the audience: less anger, more Mongo, use the new loot.
• The leaderboard — Two levels for Carl: 43.