Chapter 71 of 74 · Book 6, The Eye of the Bedlam Bride

Chapter 71 — The Eye of the Bedlam Bride

Book: The Eye of the Bedlam Bride · Part: The Bedlam · Previous: Chapter 70 — Golden Combo · Next: Chapter 72 — Falling Up · Floor: Floor 8 — The Ghosts of Earth · Series: the series

Opening

» Warning: You have been temporarily combined with a totem.

Summary

Carl is combined with his totem Shi Maria for 180 seconds; if slain in this state he will not regenerate. Then the slip: his claws scratch his own chest and her voice is inside him, rooting through his inventory. She says Sheol could not drag her down — she was one of them. She finds the well-worn book he is not supposed to have, the bomb, a summoning totem of Kimaris, a war mage head, and accuses him: they had a deal, and he was planning to betray her. He squandered his chance with Ysalte, she says, and has all the supplies she needs.

A second, male voice tells Carl to hold on with everything he can; Shi Maria insists the voice is not real, and it answers that she killed him and now he is here.

She takes out a first-floor beaker and a sliver of the toraline root, and uses Self-Immolation, burning a hole through the floor; Donut cries that Carl hurt Mongo and Katia. The beaker bubbles black into ink. Shi Maria threatens that if she is unsummoned Carl will die, and anyone who approaches will be slain. Li Jun lands in front of Carl asking how to help; Carl's own hand drives the stick into Li Jun's eye, and she eats it while he screams.

'You have so much power in your hands, Carl, and you don't even know what you have […] If you won't bring this card to the next floor, I will have to attach myself to something you can't discard so easily.' With the stick-and-poke kit she tattoos him above the sternum, promising to show him how to become a god. She drops combined potions for the animal, the doppelganger and the brother. He may gain some of Li Jun's powers from the blood on the needle; she is part of him now, and whether he keeps her or frees her, she wins — and she will not let him die, since his death is hers. The other voice warns him not to trust her and to get her out as soon as he can.

The combination times out and Shi Maria goes back to the deck. On his chest an eye blinks, closes and vanishes into the skin, a bottomless hole under his fingertip: Tattoo. The Eye of the Bedlam Bride. Carl asks after Katia and Mongo, and passes out.

Characters

• Carl — Possessed; eats his friend's eye with his own hand; tattooed with a demigod.
• Shi Maria — Roots through his inventory and his secrets; makes herself un-discardable; her husband's voice, 'not real'; 'I will show you how to become a god.'
• Li Jun and Zhang — Loses an eye to Carl's hand.
• Li Na — Fires a chain; called 'demon'; told not to heal.
• Katia Grim — Grievously burned by Self-Immolation.
• Mongo — Burned.
• Princess Donut — Screaming for Mongo.
• Shi Maria's husband — A dead god's voice inside her: 'You killed me, and now I am here.'
• Imani — Takes the potions.

Locations

• The FOCSA building — A melting apartment; a hole into the pocket.

Motifs

• The Eye of the Bedlam Bride — A tattoo above the sternum that blinks and hides; 'Either way, I win.'
• Secrets — The well-worn book, the bomb, Kimaris, the war mage head — all seen.
• The Open Intellect Pacifist Action Network — A sliver of root becomes black ink.
• The gods — Self-Immolation used against friends; a god's fire on a building.
• Found family — 'He's my friend.' 'I warned him.'