Chapter 1 of 89 · Book 7, This Inevitable Ruin

Chapter 1 — Porthus; Welcome to Faction Wars

Book: This Inevitable Ruin · Part: The Ceasefire · Previous: Prologue — Prologue · Next: Chapter 2 — Hosers and achievements · Floor: Floor 9 — Faction Wars · Series: the series

Opening

The soother attorney yawned.

Summary

The Porthus interlude: in a zero zone at an outreach guild, still covered in blood, a shaking high elf rogue takes a meeting with a soother attorney who eats snacks and never meets his eye. The tenth floor was a world where every made object was sapient and psychotic and grew by eating others; his party of twenty was down to him, Kimu ripped in half on the back of a behemoth, and Menerva — a schoolteacher about to retire, a house half built in the eastern canopy — screaming 'Go. Run' with her foot stuck. He does not know if she made it and cannot check his messages. The offers: low-floor undead for fifteen seasons, city attendant for the Hunting Grounds for thirty, game guide for a hundred at level 50 or half his own. He thinks of the book he found and the pride of adding to it, and takes game guide. 'I will fight. I will fight. I will fight.' A card closes the interlude: Rogue, High Elf born Elf, top level 89, took the deal at the start of the eleventh floor, survived his indentureship, author of the second edition of the Cookbook — 'Current status: Missing. Wanted by Syndicate Security.'

Then the ninth floor. Carl and Donut land in a stinking, freshly drained alley in the lowest ring of Larracos: level collapse in thirty days or ninety hours after a winner, 32,429 crawlers (1,300 fewer than when they left), a six-million bounty, the Gate of the Feral Gods returned by liaison action to a mailbox, items from the memory simulation stripped, a sixty-hour ceasefire after which only Team Retribution and its allies may stay in the city, and the Bedlam Bride quest still open — the spider is 'still sitting on the bus'. Quasar's message: the orbit above the planet is a warzone; Sensation Entertainment, which holds a contract for a third season of the Vengeance of the Daughter storyline, has been bought by a subsidiary of the Dream and is demanding it although Signet is dead — stay away from elites, and listen to Judge Victory. Carl's Emberus ring flashes: Soul Poisoning, from the Scavenger's Daughter's stored souls left uncollected across a floor change; he punches a dead concierge shark to vapour with Daughter's Kiss and gets a sushi-making kit. Donut, mud-caked, picks a card on a thirty-second timer and then her new class — Deathbed Hellcat, a long-range sniper and assassin class with quadrupled spell range, invisibility at will, a hat and a ghillie suit — and accepts Team Retribution's truce before Carl can discuss it, names it The Good Guys, and watches Warlord Ferdinand rename it 'Ferdinand and his Bird'. Warlord notifications: territory three, fifty-eight soldiers, no officers, protections off. Eight teams — the Bone Clan, the Operatic Collective, the Blood Sultanate, the Prism Kingdom, the Dream, the Lemig Sortion, the Madness and the Reavers — form the Bloc and declare war on Team Retribution and the Princess Posse. Cascadia, sounding drunk, reads the rules: capture the castle; the city is inaccessible until four teams remain, then the Peeling of Larracos; the defenders win by holding a week, an attacker by holding the throne room six hours; whoever holds the throne room runs the city defence system; a team dies with its warlords or its own throne room; 293 stairwells that open only when the war is won or thirty hours remain. Baroness Victory, the adjutant, suggests one warlord go to the stronghold's flag room while the other recruits in the city.

Characters

• Menerva — Her foot stuck at the end of Porthus's tenth floor; 'Go. Run.' He never learned whether she made it.
• Porthus — The interlude: a rogue who took game guide and left Menerva behind; wanted by Syndicate Security.
• Carl — Soul poisoning; a shark punched to mist; warlord of territory three with no officers.
• Princess Donut — Deathbed Hellcat; accepts Team Retribution's truce and gets it renamed on her.
• Quasar — Orbit is a warzone; the Dream's subsidiary wants its third season.
• Baroness Victory — The adjutant's first message in the warlord chat.
• Ferdinand — Warlord of Team Retribution, who renames the truce.
• Cascadia — Reads the changed rules of Faction Wars, too chipper by half.
• Elle McGibbons — From Tundra Princess to Hailstorm Queen.
• Mordecai — In chat: no deity-themed classes this floor.
• Imani — Lands elsewhere; alive.

Locations

• Larracos — City of Dreams, funnel-shaped, its lowest ring just drained; saferoom rules for sixty hours.
• The Outreach Guild — A zero zone where deals are taken alone.

Motifs

• Faction Wars — Ten teams, a ceasefire, the Bloc, the Peeling of Larracos, the throne room's six hours.
• The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook — Porthus, author of the second edition, at the moment he took his deal.
• The Scavenger's Daughter — Soul Poisoning; 'don't try unequipping that jacket while your soul power is full'.
• The Eye of the Bedlam Bride — The quest wants the spider let off the bus.
• The Gate of the Feral Gods — Back in a mailbox by liaison action.
• The crawler count — 32,429; 1,300 dead in four days of sky.
• Sponsorship — Sensation Entertainment, bought by the Dream, demands a third season.