Chapter 16 of 35 · Book 4, The Gate of the Feral Gods

Chapter 16 — Denise

Book: The Gate of the Feral Gods · Previous: Chapter 15 — The Gate of the Feral Gods · Next: Chapter 17 — Jennifer and Dale's house · Floor: Floor 5 — The Bubbles · Series: the series

Opening

I quickly examined the small girl’s properties.

Summary

Bonnie, level 5, only daughter of Commandant Kane, whose card passes on a rumour that the bombing of the changeling village was ordered to calm her tantrum over her captured pig, Sausage: 'If she's evil, she doesn't know any better. If she's not, it's a tragedy that you're probably gonna have to kill her.' Inside the house — family photographs of human children propped on the floor, a flatscreen on its side — she is opening a lemonade stand ('The Sausage Memorial Fund Lemonade Stand', painted in blood), her eyes dilated, and on the kitchen table lies her father, 'Ripped to shreds by Denise', one of the pets he got her after the gerbils. Carl falls into the corpse and loots 5,030 gold, a Mysterious Watch and a letter from the Glass Wizard: Ghazi has the winding box, has cracked it, does not need the other pieces to 'throw this entire world into the void', and will do so before he lets the ghost leave the temple, unless Kane stops the bombs that are weakening the tomb's walls. The house begins to sink; every buff and the clockwork Mongos die, wounding Mongo; when Carl reaches for the lemonade the glass moves away from his hand — a tripwire. Doors and windows lock; a three-minute timer; the mugshots stamped No Magic and then No Physical Damage.

Denise, the Feral Goose Mother, level 53: a white goose in a bloodied blue bonnet, plucked from the seventh floor when her grandfather, Emperor Anser, brought his people here through a magical gate, and left too long in the in-between, the Nothing, with her mind all but gone; magic cannot harm her; she is an 'environmental'; she must protect children; 'she just wants to kill everybody. Especially bitches.' Her beak opens like a flower and fires its teeth. Mongo, half dead, attacks anyway and loses a chunk; Donut drags him back by the tail; a thrown mug moves her health when banger spheres do not. Upstairs, past a K-pop poster, Donut tears a hole through the floor into the kitchen; Mongo takes a pink rabbit. Carl seizes the pitcher and drinks at thirty-eight seconds: Wild Goose Chase! — 'Magic doesn't work, dumbass. It's lemonade!' The misdirection was the whole point. 'environmental' means the house's own objects hurt her; the mug and the pitcher did. Blinded in one eye by her teeth, healing potions dead, Carl holds her bill shut, remembers Bonnie pointing at the sink, and jams the goose's head into the garbage disposal at ten seconds. 'The other switch!' The timer stops at one. 'All hail crawlers Princess Donut and Carl!' The Air Quadrant is liberated as the house touches down. 'Wild goose chase? Really? How long have you been waiting to use that one?'

Characters

• Carl — Loots a corpse by falling into it; drinks the trap; a goose in a garbage disposal.
• Princess Donut — Talks to Bonnie; hauls Mongo by the tail; a hole through a bedroom floor; the switch.
• Mongo — Attacks a goose he cannot hurt; bleeds; steals a pink rabbit.
• Mordecai — 'The potion's purpose will probably become clear.' It was lemonade.
• Bonnie — Dilated eyes, a bloody jersey, a lemonade stand over her father's body.
• Commandant Kane — Dead on his own table; a watch and a letter in his pockets.
• Denise — Anser's granddaughter, a goose, mad from the Nothing; killed by a kitchen.
• Ghazi — The Glass Wizard: the winding box cracked, a threat to void the world.

Locations

• The Wasteland — A kitchen, a pink bedroom, a locked master bedroom with the stairwell; landed.

Motifs

• The feral geese — The Mother: a bonnet, a flower-mouth, teeth like shot.
• The Gate of the Feral Gods — The second watch; the winding box in a wizard's hands; the Nothing.
• The gods — 'The Nothing' takes a mind.
• Achievements — Wild Goose Chase!
• The System AI — A trap that moves a glass away from a hand; a timed knock-out fight with no damage allowed.
• The mobs are victims — A spoiled child under a spell; a pet that ate its buyer.
• The gerbils — 'They're all mean.'