Chapter 38 of 99 · Book 8, A Parade of Horribles

Chapter 38 — Akuma's account: Herot, Menerva and the Pineapple Cabaret

Book: A Parade of Horribles · Part: Horrible One · Previous: Chapter 37 — Chicken and Waffles and Upgrades; Elle and the war mage · Next: Chapter 39 — The Lollipop: a needle over the singer · Floor: Floor 10 — Don't Come in Last · Series: the series

Opening

“I will fucking kill you all,” Akuma cried, gasping as I leaned down next to him.

Summary

Donut: 'I bet they liked this. It’s a lot funnier when a woman does it.' Prepotente collects the ice flecks in a beaker. With minutes before the shield kills him, Akuma answers why he wanted Carl here: too many crawlers survived; the AI is drawing NPCs and mercenaries from 'the deep reserves' and 'emergency backup', depleted since the seventh floor broke and the eighth had to be populated fast. How he knows: a former crawler, a skink, trapped in the Cabaret, 'more annoying than the cat' — Herot, author of the sixteenth edition, alive, who taught him the Worn Path Method; mobs are meant to be recycled after a few seasons and are not, so the dungeon fills with mobs who know their nature — 'The whole thing is poisoned […] Nothing inside the dungeon will be allowed to survive past this season no matter what happens.' The dungeon is modular: the framework, a physical object moved planet to planet holding the stored mobs and reusable places, installed third from last; the showrunners feed their plans into it; then the macro AI goes into the Primal Engine 'and I suddenly wake up, thinking I’m a godsdamned palace guard' with paper-thin memories (Louis: the empty apartments of the Iron Tangle). Herot and another former crawler, Menerva, asked a showrunner to build the seventeenth floor — a maze of enhanced early mobs and traps with an unkillable boss, a place to dispose of awakened NPCs; the showrunner was murdered, the paperwork never transferred, and the two are 'ghosts in the system', accruing no hours, unsupervised, rebuilding the floor every season. The floor is a front: attached to it is the only door to a pocket dimension they built, an oasis for mobs and NPCs — the Pineapple Cabaret. Carl's view counter spikes; 'Of course he, or she, would do that.' Now everyone knows, and next season starts from scratch. The Cabaret is like the Nothing: a crawler inside when the floor collapses is 'lost', not killed; the war mages might build a door from it to the planet's surface. Akuma and others were there and left, back into cold storage and out through Faction Wars, to find the Scavenger's Daughter — 'She’s crucial, as is her father' — and in their absence the protections lapsed and the dimension was infested: forgotten monsters, shadow mimics, leftovers of the Ogre Imperium, 'remnants of things we don’t want to wake. Things that Agatha can and will wake'. Five mages are left; the crawlers are the third choice after building more mages and an ally in the Nothing, both ruined by Carl. Two ways in now the Gate is broken: the Desperado Club's casinos, or something with the shop interface (Herot's idea). The requirement: no worshipper of a god may enter — a smite — which rules out Carl and most of them; 'Eris knows everything […] She doesn’t count' And the two teams: so the system would pit Carl against his friends and leave him no choice. Carl breaks his nose.

Characters

• Carl — Breaks Akuma's nose at the end of the account.
• Princess Donut — Listens.
• Elle McGibbons — Donut, on the testicle: 'It’s a lot funnier when a woman does it.'
• Imani — The shield's minutes run.
• Florin — Present.
• Louis and Firas — Louis: the empty apartments of the Iron Tangle.
• Prepotente — Collects the ice flecks in a beaker.
• Samantha — Present.
• Akuma — Tells it all: the reserves, Herot, the framework, the seventeenth floor, the Cabaret, the god rule, the Scavenger's Daughter, and why two teams.
• Herot — Alive, a skink, trapped in the Cabaret; taught Akuma the Worn Path Method; Akuma calls him 'more annoying than the cat'.
• Menerva — The other former crawler who built the seventeenth and the Cabaret.
• Agatha — Akuma, of what infests the Cabaret: 'Things that Agatha can and will wake.'
• Eris — 'Eris knows everything […] She doesn’t count'

Locations

• Chicken and Waffles and Upgrades — The account, under Imani's shield.
• The Nothing — The Cabaret is like it: lost, not killed.
• The Desperado Club — Its casinos, one of two ways in.

Motifs

• The war mages — Five left; the crawlers their third choice.
• The Pineapple Cabaret — A pocket dimension for awakened NPCs behind the seventeenth floor, now infested; no god-worshipper may enter.
• The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook — The sixteenth edition's author found.
• Waking the NPCs — Mobs never recycled: 'The whole thing is poisoned.'
• The Scavenger's Daughter — 'She’s crucial, as is her father.'
• Primal engines — The framework installed third from last; then the macro AI goes in.