Chapter 72 of 89 · Book 7, This Inevitable Ruin

Chapter 72 — Diah

Book: This Inevitable Ruin · Part: The Peeling of Larracos · Previous: Chapter 71 — Donkey Kong · Next: Chapter 73 — An act of fiendish cruelty · Floor: Floor 9 — Faction Wars · Series: the series

Opening

The potion worked. A pink glow appeared around Lucia’s dot.

Summary

Under Orders: Lucia drops the terrified act for malice, then obeys — protections off, thirty hotlist triggers Carl cannot see. Tequila, a lunge stopped by an invisible wall, her own spit catching fire on her face, Spanish insults untranslated. 'Do you think I have control over Gus? Do you think he listens to me?' The net is a scroll on Donut, bound to her room; she will explode if she teleports. 'Harpocrates has been successfully conscripted' — level 250, a member of the Princess Posse, Li Na alive and unhurt. Carl sits beside her: sweat, alcohol, a child's sweet perfume; over 200 player-killer skulls, twenty hunters, her own game guide. 'I don't have any player killer skulls […] that's the thing with scars. We rarely get to choose them.' He puts on the Ring of Divine Suffering and apologises for what he is about to do. Her eyes change; her voice rasps: 'My name is Diah. Lucia is with Alexandro. And Alexandro is only here when the dogs are close […] We are in the dark, and it's so cold […] It's like there's a river running through our room, and if we touch it, it hurts. They say such sad things.' He cancels the mark, then orders her to say if that is true: yes. Yarilo in range: the AI patches the effect live — 'Protection from all venereal diseases.' Mongo goes down the chute after the dog with two clockwork triplicates; Donut cannot leave the room. Lucia does not know what 'remove every stable magical item' means: 'I don't know how to play.' Outside, in the burning night: Gustavo 3, Raul, three Mongos; the dog's lightning kills clockworks; Harpocrates, Under Orders, Legionnaire in the White Dragons, flattens a block and swings the ball by Meatus's shaft into Yarilo, who is now a war-mage conscript; Eris's status unknown. Porcupine Defense quills erupt through Mongo's mouth from the inside; the quills electrify; Raul is blasted to smoke; the dog shakes the unconscious dinosaur by the neck. Carl steps into the gale tower's line, folded in half, the sleep wand shattered in his hand. 'She's never going to forgive me […] This is what will break her.' A deep giggle over the ridge: Rend, much bigger. Hi-Yo Silver again, and Wrecking Ball: the back half of Gustavo 3 explodes in red mist. 'Good boy' The gale bolt hits Rend; he giggles. Lucia in hag form on her knees pours a pet healing potion on Mongo — 'You did it' — then stands and does not flinch as a bolt passes her head: 'You should’ve killed us both when there was still a connection […] Now it’s too late. Now the Eulogist has another ally in the dungeon, and now you can’t kill me. Not unless you want all the children of Earth to die.' She walks off. Carl has told her the limit: 'The conscription only lasts until the end of this floor'.

Characters

• Lucia Mar — Diah, Alexandro, the dark and the cold; then the Eulogist's ally.
• Carl — Chooses not to mark her; 'We rarely get to choose them.'
• Mongo — Quilled from the inside, throat torn, alive by a sliver.
• Garret — Bigger; Wrecking Ball; the death of Gustavo 3.
• Raul — 'Die, demon, die!' — gone in smoke.
• Li Na — Conscripts a god and lives.
• Harpocrates — A conscript swinging a ball of eighty thousand at Yarilo.
• Gustavo 3 — The second rottweiler, terror of the dungeon, dead.

Locations

• The Nest — The vestibule, the chute, and the burning ground outside.

Motifs

• Lucia's voices — 'We take turns'; a river through their room that hurts to touch.
• The river in Carl's head — Diah's cold river; 'They say such sad things.'
• The Eulogist — 'Another ally in the dungeon' — Lucia, once the connection breaks.
• Conscription — A god at level 250 on the Posse's roster; a girl who can't be ordered to understand.
• Scars — 'We rarely get to choose them.'