Chapter 34 of 35 · Book 4, The Gate of the Feral Gods

Chapter 34 — Seeding the pond

Book: The Gate of the Feral Gods · Previous: Chapter 33 — Phase three · Next: Epilogue — Epilogue: the Walk-On List · Floor: Floor 5 — The Bubbles · Series: the series

Opening

<Note added by Crawler Porthus, 2nd Edition>

Summary

Five and a half hours; Porthus's 2nd-edition note tells of accepting 'the deal'. Carl buries the winding box near the stairwell. The plan he has explained loudly: a watch through the portal in the box and one left behind put a feral god on both sides, and dialled to the King's Point castle it would flatten the Skull Empire's army. Juice Box agreed to carry the box for Carl's promise to try to bring her people down every floor. A last-minute Skull Empire injunction failed when the Valtay sent a lawyer to help Borant, and Borant's new politburo warns: 'Game-breaking antics that directly affect sponsors will not be tolerated in the future.'

Slit, a level-200 feral minor demon from a harem in the Nothing, comes screaming for Samantha, believing she slept with her king; as Slit approaches, the pacifists send an Emergency Platinum Benefactor Box: an Enchanted Xistera Extension Slot, made to fit decapitated love doll heads, which throws a spirit far and returns it. Samantha, thrown far out, draws Slit away; a many-armed god appears, tears Slit in two and vanishes — Samantha's mother. Carl guesses the extension was made for the next floor and spent early to save them.

With an hour left, Carl calls Maggie out of the sand where Chris's camouflage has hidden them, and talks loudly about the yam. Maggie says 'They have my other daughter', and that a caprid cleric told her to stop him — and is silenced mid-sentence. Chris erupts and hurls the box and watches away; Carl, phased, pulls a worm from his rock head that burrows up his arm, blasts it out with a double-healing potion, and Mongo chews it to mulch, ending Frank Q and Maggie My; Donut heals Chris, who joins the party for the descent. The box was Katia's facsimile and the watches Carl's old fakes, swapped for the real pieces in the hug. Carl is keeping the Gate: 'This isn’t going to be a one-time thing, not by a long shot.' He sends Juice Box, as a bird, through the real gate to Larracos to tell the survivors what they really are; she tells him she and Louis are to be married.

The real gate opened underwater, pouring twenty minutes of ocean into the faction market at the bottom of Larracos — by Katia's math enough to submerge more than half the city, its NPCs ones the rules do not allow to be replaced. Carl realises Zev's outrage is an act and that she is relaying intelligence: half the armies were hidden in the city, and tens of thousands are dead. Carl reasons they were NPCs, not former crawlers, in a war; 'A distant part of me was alarmed at this attitude.' Mordecai begs him to throw away the ring; the extension bears Dr. P. Hu's design approval. Carl, first on the board, holds the ring up: 'By the time the sixth floor collapses, every single hunter who dares to set foot on the same floor as us will be dead.' With the markets wrecked, he expects the factions to send their own people down to the sixth floor: 'seeding the pond'.

Characters

• Carl — Throws a head fifty kilometres; pulls a worm from a friend's brain; floods a city; number one; the pledge.
• Princess Donut — 'GIRL FIGHT!'; loots Maggie's hats; 'the whole world has gone insane.'
• Katia Grim — Made the facsimile box; opens the real gate underwater and goes down the tomb's stairs.
• Mongo — Chews the worm; vomits and re-eats her.
• Chris — Freed of Maggie; 'Brandon.'; joins the party for the stairs.
• Frank Q and Maggie My — Maggie's last words: a daughter held hostage, a caprid liaison; dead in a dinosaur's mouth.
• Juice Box — Carries a fake box; sent to Larracos as a messenger; engaged to Louis.
• Samantha — Thrown at Slit; saved by her own mother; 'That was my kill!'
• Slit — A feral minor demon of the Nothing's harem, torn in two by a god.
• Zev — Two legal updates, a politburo's warning, and an act of outrage.
• Mordecai — 'You can't fight a war like this and expect to win.'
• Langley — Level 32; off to hunt player-killers.
• Gideon — A gorilla god and a Woody Harrelson snake.
• Louis and Firas — Louis, engaged to a changeling.
• Imani — Carl, in chat: 'He’s safe. It worked.'
• Prince Stalwart — His castle the announced target; his empire the sole plaintiff.
• Eva Sigrid — Ninth on the board.
• Quan Ch — Tenth, one-armed.
• Porthus — The 2nd edition's author, and his hundred seasons.

Locations

• Hump Town — Rebuilt by camels for the last hours; the box in a dune by the stairs.
• Larracos — Its faction market drowned with sharks; half the city underwater; the Desperado's door likely closed for a while.
• The Lacuna — Gods fighting on the horizon; a demon crossing it.

Motifs

• The Gate of the Feral Gods — A decoy in the sand, the real one in the sea; Larracos flooded.
• The count — Tens of thousands of NPCs; 'seeding the pond'; the pledge to the hunters.
• The Infiltrator — Pulled out by hand; killed by Mongo.
• Sponsorship — An emergency platinum box; 'Dr. P. Hu'.
• The Valtay Corporation — A lawyer for Borant against the orcs.
• Borant — A politburo now; approval with a warning.
• The Syndicate — Liaisons who are caprid clerics; a rule that NPCs cannot be replaced.
• The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook — Porthus's deal; the first edition's despair.
• The leaderboard — Carl first; Lucia second; Eva and Quan on the list.
• 'You're not going to break me' — 'I will break you all,' sworn on his life.
• The collapse dead — Maggie's other daughter, held over her.
• The mobs are victims — A town rebuilt for nothing; a city drowned as a favour.