“We only have 83 of them left,” she sniffed. “I really want to buy the social media board. So we can see what people are saying about us.”
“Actually, it’s less than that.” I pulled thirty of the hats from my inventory and started tossing them onto the ground behind the cart. “In case there are any stragglers.”
Donut looked at me like I’d just slapped her. She made an incredulous, scoffing sound. “You know, it’s no wonder you were always so poor. There’s a fine line between being helpful and being a dumbass, Carl.”
“We still have over fifty of them.”
Katia laughed as Donut glowered. The cat looked back over my shoulder, as if she was contemplating jumping off the cart to go retrieve them. I put my own hat on my head. Donut didn’t want to remove her tiara, so instead she sighed and held an engineer’s key in her mouth. Mongo went into his carrier. I suspected that since the cart was allowed through the portal, we didn’t need either the hat or the key, but there was no sense risking it, especially since there was a cliff on the other side of the portal. Katia pulled the hat and plopped it on her head. It disappeared into her mass. A moment later, it reappeared as she did something to make it visible. She really was getting better at the doppelganger stuff. A lot better.
I eased the cart through the portal, and just like that, it was done.
Our plan was a success. There had been just over 1,400 people trapped at the end of the line, and we’d gotten them if not to safety, to a place where they at least had a chance.
The cart clunked loudly as it changed tracks. I eased off the throttle. Def Leppard’s “Rock of Ages” continued to blare from the immobile interdiction cart, but the song stopped a moment later after the guy with the sling scored a direct hit on the small trap.
There was this moment, right after the music abruptly ended, where our slow-moving cart coasted to a stop right behind the other cart, and we just faced the large crowd. The silence hung for a good few seconds, and then the 600 people broke out in applause. Bautista walked up and gave me a hug as we jumped off the cart, then he did the same to Katia. He patted Donut on the head.
“Thank you. Thank you so much.”
“We still have a little more than a day and a half, my friend,” I said.
“I know,” he said. “But we couldn’t have made it here without your help. And for that I’ll be forever grateful.” He gave me a wink and pulled the hat off his head. He put it on the ground in front of Donut, who looked up at him with wide-eyed surprise. “For you, Princess Donut.”
“It’s not necessary, I’m sure,” she said, suddenly switching to her imperial voice. “Please, keep it. I insist.”
But suddenly there was a line of people, all of them putting their hats in a pile of front of Donut. Her eyes shined, and her jaw trembled, revealing her two lower fangs as the people, one by one bowed in front of her and dropped the stupid train hat on the ground in tribute. “Thank you, Princess,” they said, one by one.
“Of course,” she said to each person. “It was nothing. Our pleasure.”
Carclass="underline" Was this your idea?
Bautista: Your partner, Katia, suggested it.
I looked over at her, and she grinned.
Donut gathered all the hats up into her inventory, tail swishing with pleasure. I suspected now that most of the crawlers were all at the front of the lines, shopkeepers would be less likely to give us money for these things. But we held onto the moment. I didn’t know what was going to come next, or if we’d even done anything here today other than delay the inevitable, but it felt good.
By god, it felt good.
29
Time to Level Collapse: One day and 16 hours.
The group turned and headed toward the gate. We’d instructed them on how to find the employee line, which would be free of monsters. Bautista and about twenty others held back as I went through the complicated process of trying to get the cart switched over to one of the regular colored lines. It didn’t matter which one, as long as it had a platform at both 60 and 75. I walked ahead, switching the lines while Katia eased the cart forward.
“Whoa, hey. I just got a box from my sponsor,” Katia suddenly said. “A silver benefactor box.”
“Yay!” Donut said. “That means you have a sponsor box and a fan box to open!”
“I got a sponsor box not too long ago, too,” Bautista said. I reached up and manually slapped the transfer switch. It made a loud clunk. “But I haven’t had the chance to open it yet. I’m on my way to do it now.”
“Who is your sponsor, anyway?” I asked the tiger man.
“Jaxbrin Amusements, Limited. The same folks who make my babies.”
“Your babies?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about this. Did you get any of them? Some do what I say, but sometimes they don’t, and I don’t know why. One even attacked me once. A green variant Slizzer. But the other Slizzers were fine. I still have another green variant, but I don’t dare use it now.”
I just looked at him. I had no idea what the hell he was talking about.
“Miss Quill? The old skyfowl lady from the last floor? Remember her?”
“I remember,” I said. I reached up and fingered the necklace with the small charm. How could I forget? She ended up being the head bad guy of the area. Her failed spell was the reason I had the about-to-explode nuke in my inventory. Bautista had a quest to kill her. A quest that failed because we’d inadvertently killed her when we blew a hole in the ceiling of the magistrate’s office. Bautista had been trying to get into her apartment at the time, but he’d found it empty except for…
“Are you talking about the beanie baby things?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said. He pulled one from his inventory. A brown frog wearing a spiked helmet. It still had the tag on it. It was the same type of creature Mordecai was currently shape-shifted into. Bautista tossed the bean bag to me, and I caught it. I rolled it over in my hand.
Stuffed Grulke Infantry Figure. (With tags)
This is the most common variation of the Grulke line of collectible figures. In terms of rarity, these things clock in just below frat boys with early-onset liver disease. It’s literally not possible to enter a waystation kinder shop and not find one of these for sale on the shelf. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a collector who will buy this off you.
It sure is cute, though.
“Miss Quill had more than 1,000 different stuffed monsters in her apartment. So far, I’ve used about 40 of them. You can keep that one if you want. I have four more just like it, though one has a different colored hat. They’ll attack bad guys for you, and they’re pretty strong, but they’re common, and the common ones only last about fifteen to thirty seconds before they’re done.”
I read the little paper tag on the stuffed creature. All it said was “Grulke Infantry. Jaxbrin Amusements, Ltd.” There was a symbol of a smiley-faced star on the other side. That was it.
“Wait, these things turn into real versions?” I said. “I didn’t know that! How?”
“You pull the tag off. Like a grenade. And then you throw it. Takes about 10 seconds for it to work. Depending on what it is, it’ll fight for you. Or, like I said, attack you. The rarer it is, the longer it lasts. When they’re done, if they haven’t been killed, they turn back to the beanies, but the tag is gone, and you can’t use them again. If they do get killed, the little beans fly everywhere when they die and then disappear.”
“That’s crazy,” I said. “We only have one. It’s a dude riding a horse. Named Kimaris. How did you figure it out?”
“The first one I did was called a Crane Crasher. A bird thing. We were sitting in a safe room, and I was just playing with it, and the tag came off. It came to life in my hands and flew to the ceiling, screaming. Then it attacked a guy in my party and teleported away. After that, I found another one. A Sage Sprite Lecturer. It said he was a teacher, so I pulled the tag. I thought he looked a little like my grandfather. He was helpful, but I should have saved him for later when I was better prepared. He was really rare and valuable. But he told me what was up with these things. Acted like I was an idiot for not knowing. He was one of my most valuable. Legendary rareness. Only one of five, but I didn’t know how to see that until he taught me. Lasted two whole hours. He was in this weird glass case. I have five more legendary rares, but I’m afraid to open the cases now because the description says there’s a chance I’ll be blasted with fire if I open the door. I can open them in safe rooms, but the Sage Sprite said the fire could still trigger in the safe room. I’d be safe, but the case and the item would both be ruined. I think maybe I can open it in my inventory, but I’m too scared to try.”