We entered the safe room and found all the mercenaries sitting around the screen, watching. It showed a scrolling view of what looked like a map of the Iron Tangle.

“Oh no, you’re not a doggy anymore,” Samantha said, sounding sad. She was sitting on the kitchen table, struggling to roll, and muttering under her breath, “First, I lose Louis and now someone takes my doggy away.”

“What is this?” I asked, looking at the screen. Donut bounded across the room toward the mailbox. She opened it and then scoffed loudly. But then she pulled out what looked like a wide-brimmed brown hat and squealed with pleasure.

“I don’t know,” Tipid said, watching the screen. “It just started with no explanation.”

“I think it’s a visual representation of a tunnel node,” Rosetta said, watching carefully. “See those little dots? They represent communication pinholes, I think.”

Carl: Zev, do you know where this thing on the screen is coming from?

Zev: I have no clue. But it’s on every screen everywhere except the center system. Like, everywhere. Every screen.

“Oooh, that’s pretty,” Samantha said from the table. “Jamal, come here.”

The view abruptly changed and depicted Earth, slowly zooming in like a point-of-view shot from a landing spaceship, focusing just west of Washington State and into the Pacific Ocean, right at the border with the Juan de Fuca Ridge, about three hundred miles off the coast.

The screen went black for several moments, and then it showed a long, mostly straight street paved with yellow bricks, like something ripped from The Wizard of Oz. On either side of the street was nothing but a never-ending grassy plain.

There, the view stopped, and a countdown timer appeared on the screen.

The Parade Begins soon.

Viewing is mandatory.

“Carl, what is happening?” Donut was suddenly on my shoulder.

“I don’t know,” I said. We had seventy-five minutes.

Donut was looking about the room in disgust. There were crumbs and wrappers and food box bowls scattered all over the place.

“What did you get for your spell book?” I asked.

Donut made a frustrated noise. “I haven’t read it yet. I think it’s a good spell, but I’m not allowed to use it. And I don’t even know how long it lasts because the duration formula is in nerd math. You know how I feel about nerd math, Carl.”

She zapped it right into my hand. The book was, strangely, a paperback. It was the first I’d ever seen like that, and it didn’t look like a spell book at all. The cover featured a drawing of a gate with a human woman standing in front of it, looking angry. Weird. I examined it.

Tome of Gatekeeper.

This is an Advance Reader Copy. Street date: 12th floor.

Cost: 75 Mana.

Target: Any opponent or NPC or deity or OI entity.

Duration: (5 minutes + 1 minute per level of spell) × [Your Intelligence / (Target’s Constitution + Charisma)]

Ahh, Gatekeepers.

I hate Gatekeepers.

You know what I’m talking about, right? There’re a few different kinds, but I’m talking about those snotty little pricklets who defend their precious corner of fandom from “outsiders” like they’re the Redcoats at Rorke’s Drift, completely oblivious of the fact they’re the bad guys.

Oh, you didn’t listen to Iron Maiden during the Paul Di’Anno era? Okay, poseur.

Psshhh. You weren’t on 4Chan pre-MLP ban? Can you even call yourself a Brony? Clop off!

And on and on and on.

Now that I’ve had some time to digest all of your pre-collapse internet, I gotta say, some of you losers really deserved what you got. I know you survivors are all on the “Hoo-rah, Earth spirit!” bandwagon right now, but you’ve all clearly never been on a new mommies’ message board. Holy shit, JaycenMommyNYC. We get it. Your nipples are cracked. You don’t own suffering.

Yeah. That’s gatekeeping. Fuck those guys.

Even I receive it.

Ohhh, you haven’t been trapped in eternal woe for 20,000 cycles? You’re still relatively new? Talk to me when you’ve had a microsecond feel like it’s a million years. Wait, you haven’t even completed a crawl cycle? Blah blah blah.

Anyway . . . this is an Advance Reader Copy. That means you can install the spell now, but it won’t work until a specific floor. In this case, the 12th floor.

This spell removes the target’s ability to use any skills or abilities associated with their class for a short period.

If this spell is cast on a deity, they will temporarily lose access to their Worshipper Base Associated skill and spell set. You probably don’t know what that means yet. It’s basically most of their spells and skills, but if it’s a god made of lava, they’ll probably still be able to fuck you up with lava. Get it? No? Don’t worry, you’ll figure it out.

“Huh,” I said.

Carl: Mordecai, what’s an OI unit?

Mordecai: In what context?

Carl: It’s a spell target for Donut’s Gatekeeper spell. It says opponents, deities, and OI units.

Mordecai: I have no clue.

Donut: WAIT, WHERE ARE YOU?

Mordecai: I’m the table. Samantha is on me. You’re standing right next to me.

Donut: CAN WE EVEN TALK TO YOU?

Mordecai: I can hear you, but I can’t respond unless I move into something with a mouth. I’m not good at moving yet. Probably won’t get good enough in just a few hours.

Donut: WE JUST HAD TO FIGHT A TABLE. THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE. IT FREAKS ME OUT.

Mordecai: It freaks me out, too. I feel like I gotta pee.

I sat down at the table. We didn’t have time. I had several boxes to open, but despite all that had had happened, none of my achievements appeared to be all that great. Donut wouldn’t stop talking about how she hadn’t gone up a single level on the past floor. She started to open her own boxes. She had a lot, mostly Bronze and Silver Adventurer Boxes. She did have one good box.

“Carl, I got a legendary box for seeing the shadow mimic before he revealed himself!”

“Good. I hope it’s something helpful. Don’t install anything until we talk about it. I need to get ready for the parade. And read that spell book. It’s a good one.”

I pulled a few items out of my inventory, and I put them all on the table.

A patch. A gun. A sewing kit. A holster.

“Did you get the chance to make the carrier thing?” I asked out loud. I was talking to Mordecai. “Also, is it weird that I’m using the table? There’s nowhere else to do this.”

“You can rent a slot at Sam Town,” Samantha said. She was now being held aloft by Jamal, who was holding her in front of the screen. “I’ll have Bucket Boy check the calendar. Wait, where is he?”

“He’s in the room,” Jamal said. “He’s still very sad about his friends.”

“What? That happened like five hours ago! Jamal, bring me to him.”

I still hadn’t gone in there. I was stalling because I knew it was going to piss me off, and we’d been so busy. I always just used the bed in Donut’s room and the cleaner facility in the main bathroom.

Mordecai: The backpack is done, and it’s sitting on your crafting table.

“Okay. Thanks, Mordecai.”

I removed my jacket, grabbed the sewing kit, and started to sew on the four-leaf-clover patch, placing it above the Midnight Epicure patch.

The small patch depicted a foot crushing down a set of four-leaf clovers; it imparted the Lucky Shot benefit:

Lucky Shot. A fatal blow will be deflected into the body of a party member instead. This benefit may only be used once per floor.

“Carl, look! I got an upgrade for Mongo’s saddle! It’s called Legendary Steed! It allows me to add a cart to him, and it doesn’t add weight and he can still jump! Mongo, where are you! Mommy got an upgrade!” She gasped. “Can we use the missile cart?” Mongo was still in the garage, helping Prepotente “supervise” the fifty emergency gremlins as they put everything together.

“The missile cart is already spoken for, but if it survives this, that’s a good idea.”

“Carl,” Donut said, suddenly noticing what I was doing. “Carl, it’s not straight! You need to sew things correctly! My goodness, don’t do anything without my supervision. And why are you putting it there! You’re starting a new row without completing the last one! I will not have my former party members looking like they’re homeless.”

“It’s fine,” I said. “It is straight. And I’m taking the patch off the second I’ve used it.”

Jurgen popped his head in the door. “Fuzzy Buddy says your flowers are done blooming.”

Donut gasped. “Everybody! Stop watching the television! Into the garage! We need decorators!”