Chapter 26 of 74 · Book 6, The Eye of the Bedlam Bride

Chapter 26 — MaeMae

Book: The Eye of the Bedlam Bride · Part: Havana · Previous: Chapter 25 — The crab trap · Next: Chapter 27 — Phase two rules · Floor: Floor 8 — The Ghosts of Earth · Series: the series

Opening

<Note added by Crawler Azin.

Summary

Web like exploded cotton candy lines the road, and Magic Missile cuts through it. Samantha talks the spider out: Shi Maria, the Bedlam Bride, a level-140 Reaper Spider Minion city boss and demigod with Permanent Insanity and Permanent Blindness. Reaper Spiders are celestial-blooded fifteenth-floor minions and, elsewhere, travelling merchants of dangerous wares; this one married a god, is said to have killed him, does not remember doing it, and was banished to this swamp to plot revenge on a very long list. Shi Maria has Cockroach at level 15, a full heal, so she must not be killed by accident.

Samantha, filthy, has plans of her own, ending in the celestial realm to kill her mother. Carl lays Princess Lunette, the Incomplete Flesh Golem in the shape of Signet's mother — a tattoo made flesh by Signet's final spell — on the asphalt; the spider says a golem needs supplies from another spider like her, on the ninth floor or deeper. When Samantha threatens to kill her mother, the dot turns white and the city boss bursts into real tears and rocks on her back in the marsh. She knows about the floors and the cards through Elle, who has been asking Samantha about 'the story of the Fourth Season'; Carl files that away. Herot's hypothesis is that self-aware NPCs are contagious. Samantha accuses Carl of coming only to add the spider to his card deck; he would have come anyway, and tells her she is part of the team.

Carl sees the trap: Cascadia said one card can be kept at the end of the floor, and Shi Maria wants a ride down. His bargain is passage to the next floor with no blinding and no insanity, or the card is torn. She stops crying at once, and Carl sees her closed fifth eye and feels it, remembering his mother at the Grand Canyon. Then she speaks in a clear whisper: she must reach Larracos to find her husband and prove her innocence, and a master pulpmancer there can free her from the card and give Samantha her body; Mordecai knows the shop, at the bottom of drowned Larracos and probably dead. Echoing Odette's first advice, she tells Carl that knowing what she wants gives him power over her, and that she knows, from Samantha, of his troubles with certain deities and of what is growing inside him.

New quest, The Bedlam Bride: an escort quest to get her to Larracos. She rolls to show a frosted-glass belly — 'Be a friend to me, and I will be a friend to you.' Carl notes people keep saying that to him, and punches.

Characters

• Carl — Would have come anyway; makes a bargain with a liar and punches her belly.
• Shi Maria — MaeMae: tears on cue, a fifth eye, a whisper, a ride to Larracos; Reaper Spider minions and the fifteenth floor's unnamed thing; a demigod's tears.
• Samantha — Best friends with her captor; a bachelorette plan; Carl's 'You are part of our team.'
• Princess Donut — Cockroach spotted; wants to sing to the spider.
• Elle McGibbons — Now Samantha's friend; asking about the Fourth Season.
• Princess Lunette — The golem body on the asphalt, still empty.
• Mordecai — Wanted Samantha abandoned; knows a dead pulpmancer's address.

Locations

• The swamp of the Bride — Cotton-candy web, a hanging moped, a tree that falls.

Motifs

• Samantha's body — A golem the spider cannot fill; a pulpmancer under the water.
• T'Ghee totems — The trap seen: one card kept at floor's end, a ride down.
• Waking the NPCs — 'She knows everything'; Herot's contagion; Elle's Fourth Season.
• The river in Carl's head — 'A broken window still lets the wind inside'; 'what is growing inside of you.'
• Carl's family — His mother at the Grand Canyon: 'It’s right there […] Do you remember the circus, Carl?'
• Odette and Mordecai — 'That gives you power over me' — her first advice, quoted back.
• Quests — The Bedlam Bride: 'you're the cake.'
• Found family — 'Be a friend to me' — 'People keep saying that to me.'