Chapter 31 of 74 · Book 6, The Eye of the Bedlam Bride

Chapter 31 — The corridor behind the shops

Book: The Eye of the Bedlam Bride · Part: Havana · Previous: Chapter 30 — Four drugs · Next: Chapter 32 — Minge · Floor: Floor 8 — The Ghosts of Earth · Series: the series

Opening

<Note added by Crawler Rosetta, 9th Edition>

Summary

'They say luck is not a real stat in this place, but I think it is […] pull their wings off. That's where they store their magic.' (Rosetta, 9th Edition) — Samantha at the door with a fresh tattoo pass on her neck, telling Clarabelle about a crocodile-headed fish goddess in the Nothing ('Maki. Maraka. Makara? Something like that') who sells sushi rolled from her own regrowing innards ('It tastes terrible'), and 'I am going to kill your mother.' Carl clamps her jaw: a quest kill, a promised drink, a coin. 'Keep her away from the guards, or they'll kick you all out. For good.' 'What's a girl gotta do to get a shirty dirly?' Charles the Porsuk badger bartender; extra cherries fed off his claws; 'a coin pouch in my nussy'. Katia in place, 'a blip', drugged with Imani's buffs for a few days. Crawlers dancing on the top floor to be cleared. The side hall past the Badger Bar: the gnome jeweller, Meat Shields (mercenaries; coupons saved), a utility closet with a hidden door onto a torchlit corridor behind the shops — Astrid's route from the top floor whenever trouble breaks on this side. Reconnaissance: Katia's cherry bomb in the men's room drew Astrid only an hour later, but long enough for a Size-Up — Intelligence 150; blood boiled, deoxygenated, acidified; a spell that animates your heart as a mob with veins for limbs; psionics for rock and lizard guards and the Armored Sai (samurai rhinoceroses of Larracos); Cosmic Sense for gods and demons; Summon Guard, five a day, one to three each, instant — fifteen guards at a snap. So: immediate, a surprise, and Carl's IED; contingency from Lucia Mar's playbook — teleport traps carpeting the hall that flash any summoned NPC into a locked closet upstairs (fairies named in case). At the corridor's end, a padlocked door to fifteen red dots, the abandoned practice arena of the defunct Demon Tamer's Guild: 'Extreme, You're-Going-To-Die-In-A-Lot-Of-Pain Danger […] Posted by Management' — every party that went in died, nobody knows what they are, obviously a quest not to take. Fifty traps disarmed (five demon snares pocketed), a blast wall ratcheted across the door, sandbags, a second wall to come; ninety minutes to Odette. Katia: 'Do you feel guilty about this?' A little — but she is an NPC, thousands already, 'We were doing them a favor'; the thought of Mordecai's foster kids, hypocrisy unresolved. 'Sometimes, I think about the futility of it all. I never want anyone to get hurt. The only time I ever did, it was Eva.' 'Don't let them break you […] And don't you dare tell me you're already broken.' 'God, you are the master of cheeseball motivational speeches.' Beyond the wall, a low growl like a sleeping dog.

Characters

• Carl — Builds an ambush, disarms fifty traps, walls off a door; a speech for Katia.
• Katia Grim — In position, buffed, asking about guilt.
• Samantha — A tattoo pass, a dirty Shirley, a badger to seduce.
• Clarabelle — 'For good this time.'
• Astrid — Sized up: cardiovascular magic, Cosmic Sense, Summon Guard.
• Charles — A Porsuk bartender, unimpressed.
• The Night Wyrm — Source of the map and the warning.

Locations

• The Desperado Club — The hidden corridor behind the middle-floor shops; the Demon Tamer's Guild door.

Motifs

• The Guild of Suffering — The ambush plan: bait, IED, teleport traps, a walled door.
• Explosives — Lucia Mar's teleport idea borrowed; demon snares kept.
• Waking the NPCs — 'We were doing them a favor' against Ruby and the children.
• The Nothing — Makara's sushi stand: Samantha's memories of home.
• Found family — 'I'm not going to give up on you.'
• The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook — Rosetta on fairies' luck and wings.