Chapter 25 of 89 · Book 7, This Inevitable Ruin

Chapter 25 — Empress, you have visitors

Book: This Inevitable Ruin · Part: The Ramp-Up · Previous: Chapter 24 — No Man's Land · Next: Chapter 26 — Milk; the Empress marked · Floor: Floor 9 — Faction Wars · Series: the series

Opening

» Donut: CARL, CARL GET UP.

Summary

Carl wakes twenty-five seconds later, a level higher, with a message he has expected for a while set aside: the soul discharge gave him a debuff called Post Nut Clarity and buried everyone in dirt. 'Don't do that again when we're that close.' The first trench is theirs; the third or fourth Dazzler salvo lands between it and the middle trench; his hearing is gone until the music is far away. Dong Quixote has gone from 45 to 52 and climbing. Elle has the second anti-air down and two mages on her scent. Command passes to Boomer: no celebrating, do not push too hard, 'We don't want them surrendering. We want them thinking it's a stalemate' — half an hour. Party Planner lands at the rendezvous with Bonnie in an oversized Cowboys jersey and helmet behind a belt-fed ballista door gun — Donut gave her the last scout slot during the dream therapy ('SHE'S OLDER THAN I AM, CARL') — and a thin changeling scout called Gangue who is Skarn hiding his age. Imani stays to save the wounded; a hand on her shoulder, no words. 'Break them all.' Thirty miles fast and low over the plains, Donut against the fuselage with her eyes closed and not asleep, Mongo cramped against empty bomb racks. Three guards outside a warehouse of a castle, killed before they know; a landmine, three alarms and a useless guard-summoning trap stolen from the door; Rend rolled through it to bounce against a painted wall pattern he chuckles at. 'Entering the headquarters of the Prism.' Hunter-seeker automatons find three guards and one large saccathian in the throne room: Empress D'Nadia, who spent every penny getting here and, after the quarantine, has only friends for officers. Her adjutant appears, and then Victory, shaken: the middle trench — the NPC scout, a porsuk bartender, and his partner filled it with water from a scroll, turned the water to acid with a chemical-alteration scroll meant for stocking bars, and hid it with an illusion, and the retreating enemy jumped in blind; the scout went up nearly twenty levels. 'I think we need to revisit what’s considered ‘offensive’ magic.' Carl puts on the Ring of Divine Suffering. 'You have visitors.'

Characters

• Carl — Post Nut Clarity; the Ring of Divine Suffering on his finger at D'Nadia's door.
• Boomer — Takes command; wants a stalemate, not a surrender.
• Bonnie — Behind a door gun with a scout's slot.
• Skarn — 'Gangue', a changeling boy hiding his age on a bomber's crew.
• Princess D'nadia — In a warehouse castle with three guards and few friends.
• Baroness Victory — Shaken by an acid trench.
• Imani — Stays with the wounded.
• Dong Quixote — Seven levels in a night.

Locations

• The southern front — A captured first trench and a hidden lake of acid.
• The Prism headquarters — Thirty miles south: a small castle with no protections worth the name.

Motifs

• Faction Wars — Command handed to a colonel; 'Break them all.'
• The mobs are victims — Retreating conscripts and mercenaries into acid; an adjutant wants the rule revisited.
• The Ring of Divine Suffering — Put on for an empress.
• The changelings — Skarn hides his age; a porsuk bartender turns a trench to acid.