Chapter 87 of 89 · Book 7, This Inevitable Ruin

Chapter 87 — The Nothing has been broken

Book: This Inevitable Ruin · Part: The Peeling of Larracos · Previous: Chapter 86 — We just need to kill you · Next: Epilogue — Epilogue: Don't Come in Last · Floor: Floor 9 — Faction Wars · Series: the series

Opening

» Samantha: HE’S NOT TOUCHING ME ANYMORE.

Summary

Samantha clunks back, ten times more burned: he meant to eat her, she had him throw her in the volcano, and 'He's blowing up the world now'. Three minutes. Katia left Annie's card on the table, and Donut takes it. Donut: 'I feel really bad about pooping in Mordecai's mother's ashes now […] she was really killed by a cat poop arrow.' Bautista: 'I keep losing family, Carl […] I know I am not considered human anymore, and that is my great shame'; Kimaris is one of the brothers of Sheol, summoned for the remainder of the floor. Samantha remembers that 'Kimmy', one of her best friends, gave her the potion that put her baby in her — 'His mother! I will kill his mother!' Mordecai: 'I lost so much today […] But I think I gained more. Thank you, Donut, for setting that up.' Donut, on the way to the stairwell: 'They are not going to break me. No matter how hard they try.'

Two remain on the floor: Emberus, and Justice Light, hidden by a spell. He lied to Juice Box; she jumped into the Nothing alone and, if it does not drive her mad, 'would be reborn as the ultimate weapon to end this madness. This war.' Porthus and the Apothecary know the plan; the survivors will suffer for it. 'I am not sorry. Peace to you all, brothers and sisters.' A talon snaps twine, and a Legendary Trap tips a bijou fairy trap, threaded to the twelfth floor, and a demon trap full of evicted demons that can open a way to Sheol into a permanent portal to the Nothing made from the broken winding box of the Gate of the Feral Gods. Four planes fold together, and he caws as the fire takes him. 'The Nothing has been broken […] draining into The Halls of the Ascendency […] into Sheol […] into Scolopendra's Lair. Scolopendra stirs.' The Scolopendra Club must be evacuated, with nowhere to go except the sixteenth floor, 'Agony of Mirrors', reachable only through the seventeenth, 'The Backstage Death Maze', which is built and running. 'Scolopendra has awakened.'

Characters

• Justice Light — Dies triggering the trap that breaks the Nothing; 'I am not sorry.'
• Juice Box — Into the Nothing alone, to be reborn a weapon.
• Samantha — Kimaris gave her the potion for her baby; she cannot remember why.
• Daniel Bautista — 'my great shame'; a warning about Kimaris.
• Mordecai — 'I lost so much today […] But I think I gained more.'
• Princess Donut — 'They are not going to break me.'
• Emberus — Fills the world with fire.
• Kimaris — A brother of Sheol; Samantha's friend; a potion for a baby.

Locations

• Larracos — An empty pit; a hidden tunnel of traps; a portal in a winding box.

Motifs

• The Nothing — Broken; draining into the Ascendency, Sheol and Scolopendra's Lair.
• Scolopendra — Stirs, then awakens; the Club told to run.
• The Gate of the Feral Gods — Its winding box a permanent door to the Nothing.
• The Open Intellect Pacifist Action Network — Porthus and the Apothecary knew.