Chapter 64 of 74 · Book 6, The Eye of the Bedlam Bride

Chapter 64 — Spunky Jefferson

Book: The Eye of the Bedlam Bride · Part: The Bedlam · Previous: Chapter 63 — The doggie door · Next: Chapter 65 — Graupel · Floor: Floor 8 — The Ghosts of Earth · Series: the series

Opening

<Note added by Crawler Allister, 13th Edition>

Summary

Allister's epigraph describes the Semeru dwarves' single goddess, whom no crawler has ever worshipped: hated by gods and demons alike, 'forever scheming, moving nations like pieces on a chessboard', the Downward Spiral, an earth-and-water goddess who punishes those who abuse her world and its weakest; outside Larracos, the Vinegar Bitch.

Ninety minutes remain. Mordecai identifies Ysalte as the Vinegar Bitch, who kills every crawler near her; gods are not subtle, and he senses they are missing something. Carl asks whether she can be sponsored — she can, by the Nebular team, Ines's sponsors. The Nebulars worship a huge, stable, personality-less AI near the galaxy's centre, older than the Syndicate, and call replicating it blasphemy; they play the Ascendency to win a council seat and shut crawls down, and preach the eradication of every planet that could host one, everyone on it, and every other religion. Mordecai guesses they sponsored the nun to convert her or make an example of her.

Chris, Zhang and the strippers are to demolish the church around its stairwell and trench beneath it, sparing two temples on the grounds; the other stairwell is buried under the Capitol. The plan: Carl, Donut, and Katia's and Li Na's squads go up the FOCSA building to kill Ines, then to the roof to teleport the prince out of the snake in place; Elle and Imani hold the rear. Katia, shaking, is propped up by spells and potions, her last treatment undone. Bautista does not want her to eat the orchid, nor does Carl — 'a death sentence' — but she says it is a death sentence if she does not.

Dong Quixote's lance is too big for the fight, and Carl gives him Spunky Jefferson, the Enchanted Nickel Sock of the Elderly Miser: a sapient, incremental weapon from a Legendary box, a miser's soul cursed into a sock, 238% stronger from kills, with a chance that kills burst into gold. Mordecai warns that sapient weapons talk in the wielder's mind; Nearly every keyholder has gone down.

Prepotente advises reading the world quest's conditions carefully — Indonesia is the antipode and most at risk if the demon is under-buffed — and Carl tells him the warlords still refuse to vote, only suing, while the NPC rebels sabotage them. Prepotente has decided not to kill Carl for letting his mother hurt herself — Carl was too stupid to have done anything about it — and Carl's penance will be to help him take revenge on the true culprits. A block of docile demon-zombies stares up at a hurricane of birds and bats, waiting for a train home. Ines stands unmoving near the top of the FOCSA building; only Amayon is still her minion.

Characters

• Carl — Gives away a talking sock; briefs the assault; hears Prepotente's verdict.
• Katia Grim — Eye-stalks and tremors; a flower she cannot not eat.
• Dong Quixote — A lance, a half-mantaur named Corcunda, a sock named Jefferson.
• Mordecai — Ysalte, the Nebulars and the inner system's AI.
• Prepotente — Antipodes; a penance instead of a murder.
• Chris — Demolition with a conscience.
• Li Jun and Zhang — Borrows the shrink wand.
• Elle McGibbons — 'You got it, boss.'
• Daniel Bautista — At the back with Elle; a relationship damaged.
• Sister Ines — Still, high in the FOCSA building.

Locations

• The FOCSA building — A Y-shaped tower under a demon fountain, ringed by waiting demons.
• Iglesia de Jesús de Miramar — Temples of Ibeji and Kuraokami to spare; a church to bring down.

Motifs

• Ysalte — The Vinegar Bitch, the Downward Spiral, The Inevitable — sponsored by the Nebulars.
• The Nebulars — Worship of the inner system's stable AI; pacifist genocide; a nun as example.
• The Eulogist — 'The only one like it'; blasphemy to replicate.
• Sapient weapons — Jefferson the nickel sock; Florin's shotgun suspected.
• Eileithyia's boons — The orchid as a death sentence either way.
• Mercenaries — Sluggalos as drunk toddlers; strippers as sappers.
• The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook — Allister on the dwarves' goddess.