Chapter 54 of 89 · Book 7, This Inevitable Ruin

Chapter 54 — The Waffle Maker; Hellik's message

Book: This Inevitable Ruin · Part: The Ramp-Up · Previous: Chapter 53 — Super Heavyweight Temple Battle Grudge Match Extravaganza · Next: Chapter 55 — Head Banger; Milk · Floor: Floor 9 — Faction Wars · Series: the series

Opening

<Note Added by Crawler Allister, 13th Edition>

Summary

Allister, thirteenth edition, on Immortality: it stops death and dismemberment but not pain, and injuries must heal before it lapses; 'all suffering leaves scars.' Unfreeze: three guards charge on Speed potions, the cousins flee invisible into the endless hall, Vinata charges invisible and immortal; Katia and Prepotente drink Black Nimbus and are ejected from the temple as tested; Khepri forms red fire, confused; Carl casts Little Günter — a fat pink kewpie-orc child in lederhosen with a lollipop and an ostrich feather ('Hi, I'm Günter!') — sends him at the god, and drops the second-largest bomb he owns: the Waffle Maker, a thermos-sized thermobaric successor to Just Wait Until Your Daddy Gets Home, of which Louis carries fifty. In a room like a cannon barrel it turns Carl inside out into a burning sack spread over the door, alive only because immortality holds his atoms together; blind, deaf, numb — 'This is what it's like when we're not here and we're not there' — and healing back is worse than dying. The two cousins are dead; one to go. The bugs are immortal too, crushed and burning and screaming by the million, embedded in the walls like stars. A second, distant blast is Günter reaching Khepri. Carl is wrapped in something outside the temple in the club: gods are pouring out of the portal, Katia says, and the Scavenger's Daughter is handing him a buff or debuff for each — Never-Ending Mana, Shit-Faced, Stiff Legs, suction-cup fingers, screaming worms out of his nose, the Emberus ring overloaded and a slugpox boil on his back. Shi Maria stirs: 'Use me while you still can. I can save you.' The thing wrapped round him is Vinata, gone grey, crushing, punching, stabbing with glowing daggers, slamming his skull on the floor by his loose hair, weeping: 'We were almost free […] You ruined it the moment that fucking cat put that tiara on […] I was going to have children with him' — driven mad by the open Eye of the Bedlam Bride. Khepri comes out chittering with his burning bugs; 'You. Begone false god,' says a voice, and Khepri leaves the realm. An olive-skinned man sits cross-legged beside them, heat coming off him, and waves the bugs away: Hellik. 'Tell my brother I did not kill his son […] Tell him our mother and sister, Apito, has been corrupted […] the All Tree is beginning to rot […] Nekhebit has returned, and I believe she is behind it all […] I will treat with Issitoq on your behalf. Scolopendra stirs. It is all connected.' Carl is a friend of Hellik's church. Vinata keeps slamming, immortality surely spent — and a sluggalo bursts out of Carl's back and puts a hatchet between her eyes. 'Yeah, bitch! Right in the nugget! […] I wish I had feet. I'd make me some snakeskin boots!' Vinata's three riflemen are probably dead too: 'nothing short of immortality would've protected them.'

Characters

• Carl — Bombs himself while immortal; flattened; strangled by a princess; blessed by his god's enemy.
• Princess Vinata — Mad from the Eye; 'We were almost free'; a hatchet in the forehead.
• Hellik — 'I did not kill his son'; Apito corrupted; the All Tree rotting; Nekhebit behind it.
• Khepri — Banished at the temple portal in Club Vanquisher, outside his own temple, by a voice.
• Kandy Bigs Newton — A sluggalo from under Carl's shirt, who kills the Sepsis Whore.
• Little Günter — 'Hi, I'm Günter!' — sent running at a god.
• Katia Grim — Ejected on Black Nimbus; 'get the hell out of there'.
• Shi Maria — 'I'm still here, Carl.'

Locations

• The Temple of Khepri — A cannon barrel of fire and immortal insects.
• Club Vanquisher — The portal desk, gods pouring out.

Motifs

• Explosives — The Waffle Maker, dropped at his own feet.
• The Scavenger's Daughter — A buff or debuff per god, dozens at once.
• The Eye of the Bedlam Bride — Open by accident; it drives the Sultana mad.
• The gods — Hellik's message for Emberus: Apito corrupted, the All Tree rotting, Nekhebit, Scolopendra.
• The all-tree — 'Tell him the All Tree is beginning to rot.'
• The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook — Allister on immortality and the Open Wound.