Chapter 12 of 89 · Book 7, This Inevitable Ruin

Chapter 12 — The base camp; Tina

Book: This Inevitable Ruin · Part: The Ceasefire · Previous: Chapter 11 — Tipid; fifty thousand · Next: Chapter 13 — The FUPA; a suicide bomber · Floor: Floor 9 — Faction Wars · Series: the series

Opening

<Note added by crawler Ikicha, 11th Edition>

Summary

Ikicha's Cookbook note, eleventh edition: 'My kind are castrated and cast out'; York, the author before him, came from a hive and always felt alone; seek out the others who came before: 'Together, there would be nothing we couldn’t do.' Fifty-two hours of ceasefire. The Princess Posse base camp is a grassy plain under an orange sun with a lake, a wooden bait shop for a saferoom — the sign in English — being boxed in girders and joined to the stone stronghold the changelings and flesh golems started on the hill; hundreds at work, palisade sections tested with fireballs as they go up, watchtowers manned and rising across the plain, trench scrolls cutting a channel to the lake, and a red-alert incursion of mobs seeded when the world was enlarged that must be hunted or the warning system is useless. Florin explains ranks: limited officers, construction crews as sergeants and chiefs who may alter the camp, corporals over teams of legionnaires. Penn, a level-62 Fortification Engineer carrying a twenty-foot H-beam, drops it to crush Carl in a hug and kiss him, then starts 'Hup, hup, hup' — and thousands of humans, skyfowl, crocodilians, bune and yenk take it up until the ground shakes. 'This is for you. This is what you built.' Florin's once-a-day card, a twenty-five-foot caiman, lifts a buried wall section with its snout and does a happy hop. Tipid on the plan: a few thousand chose Fortification Engineer, which levels by building; alchemists have been making materials for days; Langrim, a yenk who ran the enchantment guild, enchants the walls; nothing could be built until they were officially converted. The new saferoom rules: the blood bar returns once fighting starts, up to nine or ten hours per kill, draining only while inside; no mercenaries in guildhalls during the last two phases except a staff of nine, so barracks must be built and there can be no hidden reserve; the former crawlers get level notifications and nothing else. Every other team has built round a saferoom too, except the Lemig; the change hurts the Operatics and the nagas most, who hide rather than fight. Tipid, several thousand years old by Carl's guess and grinning like Carl's friend Sam, still carries the anger his Cookbook entries had. Carl wants the nagas first; Tipid says the enemy is massing on the opposite border. The stronghold's twenty-foot door, 'Apprentice Quality', 80% strength, three enchantments, is propped with a rock; Carl and Tipid heave it open and are thrown flat as a pink-tutued allosaurus with a wand bounds out to hop with Mongo. 'She's out again!' someone cries: Tina.

Characters

• Carl — Hugged, kissed, chanted at; This is what you built
• Tipid — A level-60 Crest Liquid Dervish who walks Carl through the camp and the stronghold plans; anger under a painted wall.
• Florin — Ranks, artillery, and a caiman that hops.
• Penn — A Fortification Engineer with an H-beam and a war cry.
• Big Tina — Out of the stronghold again, in a tutu.
• Princess Donut — Surrounded by bowing bune; 'YOU'RE GOING TO GET MONO'
• Mongo — Sniffs the air before the door opens.

Locations

• The base camp — Territory three: a bait shop, a lake, a hill, a stronghold going up around a saferoom.
• The FUPA — The elf castle's changelings and golems began the stronghold.

Motifs

• The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook — Ikicha on York and the dream of the authors together.
• Faction Wars — The blood bar is back; nine mercenaries per guildhall; Fortification Engineers.
• The blood bar — Kills buy hours; hours drain only inside.