Chapter 17 of 89 · Book 7, This Inevitable Ruin

Chapter 17 — Eleven hours

Book: This Inevitable Ruin · Part: The Ceasefire · Previous: Chapter 16 — Everly; Glory Bound · Next: Chapter 18 — The minor quorum; code red · Floor: Floor 9 — Faction Wars · Series: the series

Opening

» The Scavenger’s Daughter has been fed.

Summary

Carl wakes standing in a circle of blood and corpses, the Scavenger's Daughter fed, the Bedlam Bride quest failed, and Katia's dream still in him: Annie the baby, Fannar the ex, a cancer caught early but at a terrible price — Katia's addictions, which Fannar had told them about — a debuff by dungeon standards, a shattering for her; and the social worker in his own past saying 'Come on now.' A goblin aims a gun at his head and freezes, Naughty over him. Luke, a representative from the Lemig Sortion, drags himself away without legs and dies: 'Killed by a fellow soldier under the control of Shi Maria.' This is Queen Imogen's private ballroom in the Sugar Cube, the elf castle, now the Lemig Sortion's headquarters on the far side of the map, and fifty or more are dead in it. Panford, a purple dreadnaught, Adjutant for the Democratic Sortion, explains to Commander Stockade — a seven-foot caterpillar Phase Sorcerer with a Californian surfer's voice — that it is ruled an AI action, not an attack, and cannot be appealed: they planned to turn Carl into a vegetable and loose the spider on the Posse's base; instead Carl is safe and their throne room is destroyed. 'Luke, oh gods, Luke is dead. My beautiful, beautiful Luke.' Carl has lost eleven hours; twenty remain. Panford calls a foul: the Lemig knew the precise moment, no spy was declared, so the Sortion and the Madness used someone outside the dungeon watching the feed, and both will be sanctioned. Donut, Victory ('Hold tight […] You're safe if you don't move') and then two more adjutants flash in: a Minor Quorum, all local hostilities paused. The dream comes back in pieces: a male spider, Shi Maria's husband, then a man; Shi Maria arriving to mock him, seeing her husband, killing and devouring him as she sobbed, curling into a ball in the Icelandic hospital; the husband returned. Hapanzi. A god. 'I have her now, son […] She is good and trapped. You can always set her free, if you must. But do not unless all is lost.' Carl can see through the eye on his chest now and must keep it shut. Katia in chat: he went translucent, in two places, then vanished; the Lemig used the warlord chat at the exact moment; Mordecai fell over laughing. 'We left Shi Maria alone in that room with Annie.' It is not real; the real Annie is beyond them; the treatment, she thinks, worked. The spider is an egg inside him that only he can break — another weapon of mass destruction for the collection. He opens the third eye once, and clenches it shut against the power there.

Characters

• Carl — Wakes in a massacre he committed; sees through a third eye; carries an egg.
• Shi Maria — Loosed on a room by a summons; locked in a dream by her husband.
• Hapanzi — Her husband, a spider, a man, a god: 'I have her now, son.'
• Katia Grim — Annie, Fannar, and 'We left Shi Maria alone in that room with Annie.'
• Commander Stockade — Warlord of the Lemig Sortion, a caterpillar mourning Luke.
• Panford — The Sortion's dreadnaught adjutant, who calls the foul on his own warlord.
• Baroness Victory — 'Don't make any rash movements.'
• Luke — Dead on the tiles without his legs.

Locations

• The Sugar Cube — Queen Imogen's private ballroom, cracked; the Lemig headquarters on the far side of the map.

Motifs

• The Eye of the Bedlam Bride — The quest failed; the eye opens; an egg that only Carl can break.
• Faction Wars — An AI action, not an attack; a minor quorum pauses everything.
• Carl's family — 'Come on now' — a social worker at an interrogation room, glimpsed.
• Addiction — The memory the drug kept showing her, seen at last.