“Holy shit, really?” Chris? Imani’s crew hadn’t had any interactions with Frank and Maggie as far as I knew. I’d told them the story, of course. Especially after everything that had happened on the Maestro’s show. Was that why? That didn’t seem like the Chris I’d known. But Imani and Elle had said he’d changed. I remembered Brandon’s last words about his brother. I had the message pasted into my scratchpad, and I found myself reading that last message, especially the part about Chris over and over.
…Tell him I love him. That’s the most important part. It’s always been the most important part, but I didn’t realize it until it was too late.
I sent a quick note to Imani and Elle, telling them what happened and asking her if they’d managed to get Chris to talk. They didn’t answer right away. They were likely asleep. I knew they’d been heading for a saferoom.
“If I may interrupt your drama,” Mexx the robot said. We both looked up at the floating frisbee. “Your time with me is drawing to a close. You may freshen up a bit before you return to your crawl, but do not take too long. When you’re ready to go, you may exit through the doorway to the studio. On behalf of Senegal Production Systems, I’d like to thank you for using our services. Have a great day.”
That door, which had been a normal door only moments before, transformed itself to a one-way subspace portal. I took a screenshot, and it showed the main room of our personal space. It was empty. Katia was likely in the crafting room.
Donut returned to the picture window and looked out. “I wonder why Chris did that. But I’m glad he’s okay, even if he liked stupid tv shows. Anyway, that was fun. I like the interviews better, but I think it’s good for the Princess Posse to get some culture in with their daily Donut fix. Plus they had a video of me and Miss Beatrice winning a show, so that’ll be a bonus for the fans.”
“Princess Posse?” I asked.
“Zev says that one seems to be winning out, no thanks to you. Some are going with the Donut Holes, which I do not approve of.”
“Whatever,” I said. “Look, I want to talk to you about something real quick before we leave.”
“Is it about the PVP coupons?”
I froze. “How did you know?”
“Imani is a big gossip,” Donut said. “She doesn’t look like someone who’d be one, but she is. She felt bad about telling you about the coupons when you asked her, and she messaged me to apologize. She said you’d probably ask me about them. How did you find out?”
“I heard someone talking about them.” That technically wasn’t a lie.
“You don’t need to worry, Carl. I got rid of them. I didn’t like having them, so I buried yours under a train track, and I threw Katia’s out in the garbage at that Hotdog on a Stick place. And quite frankly, it’s a subject I’d rather not talk about.”
I relaxed. That went much easier than I thought it would.
I moved to the kitchen to see if the refrigerating cabinets could be removed from the walls. They pulled off easily, like they were magnetized. I wanted to see what the electrical connections, if any, looked like. There were none. The shelves appeared to be self-powered, like I hoped. There were four shelves, and I took them and pulled them into my inventory. I looked up at the ceiling to see if the robot would object, but it didn’t move. Well, if we’re doing this… I went and picked up the entire makeup table and pulled it into my inventory as well.
“What are you doing?” Donut asked.
“You know how the ice machines sometimes don’t work in the saferooms? I figured we could make our own. I’m sick of drinking warm soda.”
Donut cocked her head to the side, but then shrugged. I wasn’t normally a steal-stuff sort of guy, and she knew it. Plus that excuse was dumb as the ice usually did work. But I couldn’t exactly tell her the real reason why I wanted the shelves. I didn’t have a specific use for them yet, but there were multiple trap, potion, and bomb recipes in my book that required items to be frozen or cold before they were utilized. And the makeup table would fit well in the main room of the space. I thought about taking the rest of the chairs, but I didn’t want to piss Zev off too much.
Still, I thought. Why the hell not? I went to pick up the couch, but I paused when a message came in.
Bautista: Hey Carl. Want to give you an update. We tried to paralyze the Kravyad, and she ended up dying. The portal closed. Over 150 of us don’t have our souvenir hats. We’re not sure what we’re going to do. The trains have stopped coming on all the tracks. We’re going to head up to that abyss portal on foot. It’s about 50 kilometers.
Carclass="underline" Shit. Do you have a hat?
Bautista: Nope. A guy at the bar was bragging about how much they were buying them for. A bunch of us sold them. Dumb.
Carclass="underline" Get to the abyss. Send those who have hats through on foot. See if maybe you can find a way to station 436, which is where the named lines go.
I went on to explain the catwalk that surrounded the interior of the abyss. I warned him of the lizard mobs I’d seen there. If they could maybe find one of those small trapdoors, they could get to the station and onto a named train like the Nightmare, take it over, and steam it into the yard. That was really their only hope.
“Let’s get going,” I said to Donut. I picked up the couch and stole it. I pulled the bowl filled with cat treats off the counter and added it to my inventory for good measure.
“Have you ever noticed how shit always happens while we’re doing these shows?” I asked Donut. I told her about Bautista.
“At least we get snacks,” she said.
“Yeah. Let’s get out of here before something else happens.”
I paused before the portal. Out of habit, I pulled one more screenshot. I froze.
Our personal space, which had been empty just minutes before, was now full of people. There were at least thirty of them. All women, as far as I could tell, of various races, from humans to fairies to a four-armed lizard. I saw Hekla there in the back, peering inside the training room while Katia pointed at something.
“Motherfucker,” I said.
21
Time to Level Collapse: 4 Days, 9 Hours.
Entering The Royal Palace of Princess Donut.
“Hi, Hekla! Hi, Hekla’s friends!” Donut said. She jumped to my shoulder. “Look, Carl. It’s Brynhild’s Daughters!”
“Yeah, I can see Donut.”
Thirty pairs of eyes turned toward us. I quickly looked over the group. Hekla had risen to level 33, one higher than my 32. The rest of her crew averaged around 25, which was respectable, but a little lagging. That was the problem with staying in a big group. I’d discussed this with Mordecai a while back. He firmly believed small groups were the best for that very reason. Experience was shared, but due to the nature of the earlier floors, there was only a finite amount of experience to be had. So while the bigger groups offered a certain amount of protection, it came with diminishing returns regarding experience.
But looking over the diverse group of crawlers and classes, I could see the advantage of having such a large team. The pool of spells and skills amongst them had to be impressive.
At level 24, Katia was no longer the odd one out. She’d fit right in. I sighed.
Hekla and Katia pushed through the crawlers. Hekla held out her hand. She was even taller than I realized. She was about nine inches taller than me. Her muscles bulged. She kept her automatic crossbow slung over her shoulder, and the thing was huge. I hesitantly shook her hand. It practically swallowed my own. Her hand felt as if it was made of iron. I wondered what the woman’s strength stat was.