Chapter 39 of 89 · Book 7, This Inevitable Ruin

Chapter 39 — Alliances break; Operation Snake Pit

Book: This Inevitable Ruin · Part: The Ramp-Up · Previous: Chapter 38 — Relationship advice · Next: Chapter 40 — Little Günter; a dragon chain · Floor: Floor 9 — Faction Wars · Series: the series

Opening

“Carl,” Orren said after a few moments.

Summary

'Is that what you did? You helped break the AI from its containment?' Carl does not answer; Orren supposes it does not matter. 'Would you have rather died?' He left the Knot to be an actor and stay pure, and history will remember him as the one who let this happen. He begs discretion; Donut is already narrating to everyone and the whole council watched. The warlord chat has moved on: the former Prism castle ceded to the Dream; the Bone Clan and the Dream out of the Bloc, which is now the Sultanate, the Madness and the Reavers; the Good Guys are Retribution and the Posse; everyone is moving as if they know the failsafe is dead. Florin is picking off the retreat but will not pursue. Damascus Steel walks past the door and Donut chases him; he and Anaconda were hunting their father, who now runs the club. Donut's chat with War Chief Stalwart, a page long: he demands the signet ring, the body and the stolen credits before his sister reaches the station; she offers him a loan from Rosetta, says his father's skin is Mongo's powder-room rug, that his father called him a disappointment before he died — 'THE ONE THING I'M NOT LYING ABOUT' — and 'YOU ARE MUCH TOO POOR TO BE TALKING TO ME LIKE THIS.' He will boil her fur off. She has read War Crime and is afraid to use it; Mordecai told her not to say what it does. Orren teleports them home. Boomer's debrief on the walk: the south quiet, Florin retaking the old northern trenches, looted weapons mostly attuned, the Operatic blast a Weeper that 'malfunctioned' — not a fragging, so the captured Weepers stay parked; most of the castle's mages dead, defences down; Simoom has not left Gonk's side and Dong Quixote is petting the yak. The missing: Prepotente unaffiliated and hiding, Lucia Mar likewise, Burcu's whole team apparently conscripted by the Madness, Osvaldo in the woods with a group calling itself Team Flamengo, a few crawlers with the NPC team, the orcs' conscripts all dead. Carl has Rust's body, a second Ring of Divine Suffering and the necklace. Boomer, in code — 'time to move on the Operatic castle' — and Carl's answer, 'when they least expect it': Operation Snake Pit, the raid that must wipe the nagas out to the last snake if Donut and Katia are ever to leave this floor. Katia is almost back. The Gate of the Feral Gods is still in Carl's inventory, 'a weapon of mass chaos that would soon be unleashed'.

Characters

• Orren — 'History is going to remember me as the one who let this happen.'
• Princess Donut — A page of trash talk to a new king; War Crime read and feared.
• Prince Stalwart — King now, demanding his father back; 'MUCH TOO POOR'.
• Boomer — A debrief in code.
• Damascus Steel — Walks past a door in the club, alive.
• Carl — Two rings and a necklace in his inventory; Snake Pit begins.

Locations

• The Desperado Club — Astrid's portrait, a stripper in the hall.
• The FUPA — Corpses unlooted; a yak and a rhino inseparable.

Motifs

• Faction Wars — The Bloc down to three; two unaffiliated; a castle changing hands by the hour.
• The Crown of the Sepsis Whore — Snake Pit: the nagas to the last snake, or neither of them leaves.
• The Ring of Divine Suffering — A second ring; two cannot mark the same person here.
• The Skull Empire — A king who cannot get his father's body back.