Chapter 14 of 89 · Book 7, This Inevitable Ruin

Chapter 14 — The flag room and the Ramp-Up

Book: This Inevitable Ruin · Part: The Ceasefire · Previous: Chapter 13 — The FUPA; a suicide bomber · Next: Chapter 15 — The Rolling Battle Formation Ball · Floor: Floor 9 — Faction Wars · Series: the series

Opening

» The Four Phases of Combat, plus triggering conditions:

Summary

The flag room's interface, like a badly organised city-builder, spills windows across the walls: troops, secured locations, the nine other teams and a direct line to their warlords — Donut is already typing at Empress D'Nadia and is told not to. Victory: nothing said here reaches viewers for eight days. Clearing the screen turns Carl's whole HUD off, and when it comes back so does the spam folder, with hundreds of entries: Gloom Wraith Phase failed to activate, Mind Balance prevented it; an attempt to disable Mind Balance prevented by Mind Balance; Mind Balance risen to level nine in hours. Shi Maria is trying to cast through him, and the phase would have set off Herman's non-magical satchels and killed Donut; the spider got 'Watch out, Carl' through anyway, and is getting stronger with each attempt. A race. Mordecai: Rosetta has briefed him; there are options, none pleasant. Victory explains adjutants: most warlords never leave the flag room, but the Orcs, Reavers and Dream lead from the front; she can teleport to follow Carl into major fights, can go invisible, cannot participate, and will call every foul including the Posse's. Donut asks whether her sister Ugloo was nice or a jerk — 'You can judge someone based on how they talk about the dead' — and gets a careful answer about a sister who lost herself in a royal marriage and sent one last message before the Scolopendra Club. Mongo and Rend lick the axe; she leans it down for them. The map: a wagon wheel of nine wedges around Larracos and its pink ring of Shanty Town ('a smart trade'); the Bone Clan's King's Point in spot one, the only pre-built castle, on a lava-ringed mountain with the rivers; the Operatics' hills in two; the Posse's flat three with the only lake; the nagas in four. A hundred thousand mercenaries with their own gear are camped on the Operatic border, the Dream's artillery behind them and on the naga side, another ten thousand there: 'Their best chance is to sweep over our position and take us out immediately.' The four phases, and the Ramp-Up's rules: 180 hours, no celestial summonings, entry only through kilometre-wide gates where the enemy is already massed, and a suppression field over the floor against offensive magic and every teleport — Wall of Fire, Puddle Jumper and the Gate of the Feral Gods dead, Gloom Wraith Phase allowed as a skill and a phase, static traps only. Bloody hand-to-hand and non-magical artillery against pulse rifles and power armour for a week, with two gates to hold. Victory's read: the enemy are mostly mercenaries — 'The AI changed the 15K rule to allow the outsiders into the game' — security forces, not warriors, wanting one overwhelming punch before consequences. Florin has a no-man's-land of Tripper-proof traps and trenches going in, with fall-back positions. Louis, Katia, Bautista and Samantha arrive — Samantha bawling snot onto Louis's neck at missing the wedding, mollified by the Confirmation to come — with Bonnie in a Dallas Cowboys jersey, who likes the airship, reports gremlins and door guns, and answers Carl's 'stay safe' with a chilling smile: 'Have they stopped thinking about trying to kill me?'

Characters

• Carl — Hundreds of blocked casts in his spam folder; a race he is losing.
• Baroness Victory — Rules, a map, a sister's last message, and an axe for pets to lick.
• Princess Donut — Wall of Fire will have to wait; a message to D'Nadia unsent.
• Shi Maria — Casting through Carl, stopped hundreds of times, once not.
• Bonnie — A gnome child asking why she shouldn't think about killing outworlders.
• Samantha — Missed the wedding; there is another.
• Florin — Trenches, traps and fall-backs.

Locations

• The plains of Larracos — Nine wedges; the King's Point on its lava mountain; the Posse's one lake.
• The FUPA — The flag room, where the viewers wait eight days.

Motifs

• Faction Wars — Four phases; the Ramp-Up's suppression field; 100,000 at one gate.
• The Eye of the Bedlam Bride — 'She was winning the race.'
• The Gate of the Feral Gods — Dead for the Ramp-Up.
• The Skull Empire — Ugloo remembered by her sister.