INTERLUDE

SYDNEE IGLACIA

“We are joined by a very special guest,” Ripper Wonton said, his voice serious. “We have no roundtable tonight, folks. It’s just me and best-selling author and crawl historian Sydnee Iglacia. Her smash-hit book, having just passed a trillion copies sold, is entitled A Petite Chronicle of the Crawl: One Lady’s Journey into Enlightenment Through Knowledge and Scholarship and Three-Beat Poetry. It is available at all way station bookstores and everywhere fine books are sold. Welcome, Sydnee.”

Sydnee shifted in her chair, simultaneously trying not to appear uncomfortable or eager. This was her first one-on-one interview regarding the ongoing crisis. She was filming this remotely from her apartment in the Makoka Cloud, an asteroid field just outside the limit of the center system’s sphere of influence.

This ring of asteroids had, over the past few thousand years, become one of the most densely populated non-terrestrial settlements in the known galaxy. Her meager apartment in the Saccathian quarter—a self-contained oxygen-, power-, and tunnel-access-included complex habitat—was called the “Observation Deck” by some, though its official name was SCC 5.

The entire complex, along with the six adjoining habitats and the central community hub was considered luxurious compared to most of the habitats in the Makoka Cloud, which was known for its crime and poverty.

Up until just a few short days ago, her apartment had been owned by a holding group that was controlled by the Prism. But with D’Nadia’s death, whoever was running the Skull Empire in the absence of the royal family had already gobbled up all the real estate holdings of the group. She’d just received notice that her rent was tripling starting the next crutch. And that oxygen was no longer included in their rent.

She didn’t know what she was going to do. Yes, her book was doing especially well. But her publishers—a subsidiary of a Valtay company—with their fancy center system contracts were soulless, evil monsters. Her contract had a hidden clause within it that allowed them to hold on to her meager royalties for the entirety of her natural life and they would only be payable to heirs after they proved that she had been of “good moral character” in her life and that the publisher wouldn’t have to spend the money they’d so graciously collected on her behalf defending their own reputation from her misdeeds.

These payments could be accelerated if she were to happen to sign a Valtay life contract, allowing herself to be taken over post-death by a worm.

That was not something Sydnee would ever dream of doing. At least it hadn’t been until her rent was tripled overnight.

Fuck the Valtay. Fuck the Skull Empire. And Fuck Empress D’Nadia, while she was at it. That woman should never have attempted to step into that sushi grinder. Not when so many depended on her.

Her publishing contract also required her to make multiple appearances, which was what she was doing now. Thankfully, she actually liked this part of the job. After all, that was why she had become a historian and a poet in the first place. To bask in the respect of others.

It rankled her that nobody saw the crawl for what it really was. A gravestone. A monument.

A warning.

But it was more than that. It was an epic poem chronicling the fall of the greatest civilization this galaxy, this universe, had ever known. And nobody cared. They just wanted to see the crawlers dying one by one.

Only now, with systems going dark, habitats disappearing, with war breaking out in all corners of the galaxy, were they coming to her for counsel.

Well, not counsel. But this interview was going to be a good start.

“Hi, Ripper,” Sydnee said, trying to match the host’s somber tone. It would have been bad form to appear excited. She’d never been on Danger Zone before, and she had been excited to be invited, though she’d been intimidated by the idea of sitting in a roundtable. People always spoke over her in roundtables. They made fun of her. They never let her get her point across.

But this was to be a rare one-on-one. If only her mother could have seen her now.

Sydnee knew that Ripper was trapped in Earth orbit. He’d come to the Earth system in anticipation of being an adjutant for Faction Wars, but he’d never been chosen. She also suspected that he’d wanted to go down to Club Scolopendra but probably couldn’t afford the rate, instead settling in one of the multiple journalist barges, which was lucky for him considering what was happening down there.

These same barges were now under control of OIAN forces, though the “terrorists” were allowing the stranded journalists to keep working. And in fact, they were allowing them to air their reports without the censorship filters. She knew those in the center system had built-in homegrown censors, but for those in the Makoka Cloud and everyone else out in the wide galaxy, they were finally getting unfiltered news, which was a relief.

“Sydnee, you along with everyone else saw the Plenty’s announcement that they’ve lost control of the tunnel network outside the center system. Now, with the Scolopendra attacks starting and the eleventh floor about to begin, I’ve brought you here to live-comment on anything the AI might say. Any opening thoughts?”

Okay. Here we go. Her tentacles undulated under her dress. Her neighbor was screaming at his wife again, and she hoped the system didn’t pick up the noise.

“Yes, Ripper,” Sydnee said. “Not only was this predicted a long time ago, but it’s actually happened before. We have a fairy tale that lays the whole thing out. But here’s the thing. It’s not a fairy tale. It really happened, and history has a way of repeating itself.”

“Explain that.”

“To understand, you first need to understand the Scolopendra myth as it exists in our fairy tales. More specifically, you need to understand the myth behind what we call the nine-tier attack.”

“Okay. Tell us.”

Sydnee nodded. She’d only told them a little of what she was planning on talking about. If she’d told them everything, she was afraid they’d never have let her on. But this was live, and he was trapped.

“In the common understanding of the fairy tale and in the dungeon itself,” Sydnee said, “the nine-tier attack is a magical assault that is considered to have been nine different, rapid, devastating spells that spread out from the beast, either all at once or in succession. These nine spells had vastly different effects, such as the transformation we’ve already seen, outright killing people, et cetera. But if you read the earliest translations of the myth, it’s a little less straightforward than that. In the original myth, there were indeed nine attacks, but not all of them were physical. Some were what we might call psychological attacks that resulted in rapid social movements, shifts in philosophy. Attack one was taking control of the infrastructure, but the second and third attacks were more social in nature. That, of course, doesn’t make for a good fairy tale because it’s too complicated to explain to children. So that’s how the myth of the nine-tier attack was born.”

“Wait,” Ripper said. “You’re saying this really happened? And it’s happening again? How? Who is doing it?”

“It’s very real,” Sydnee said. “We know very, very little about the Primals. They disappeared, leaving only remnants of their civilization. That biggest, most important remnant is, of course, the Eulogist. The center system where many people live. But because we need to keep the center system fed and active, we have the crawl, which in itself is based on the creation of the center system. But as we all know, that myth begins and ends with the nine-tier attack. In the myth, Scolopendra awakens, charges up its attack, and attempts to wipe out all life. But another of its kind tempers the attack, and civilization—barely—survives, only to rise again, only for the cycle to repeat. That’s the philosophical question the Scolopendra myth asks. If life is imperfect, what do we do about it? Is it better to end it all and just be done with it, or do we stop it, knowing that if we do that, the suffering will continue? Does the good outweigh the bad?”

“Okay . . .” Ripper began. “What does any of that have to do with⁠—”

But Sydnee continued, speaking over Ripper. She was doing it. She was getting it out there. This was so much better than her stupid poetry. Yes, people bought her book, but nobody understood it.

“This is happening again. Scolopendra in the dungeon has awakened, it has unleashed its first attack, and it will undoubtedly kill everyone in there at any moment. But here’s my theory. Many people don’t seem to realize this, but the Eulogist is the source of the original nine-tier attack. I believe that Eart system AI, which has escaped containment, will not only be the source of the new attack, but I believe it has already started. It escaped and took control of the tunnel system. We are seeing the dungeon gods leaking. Syndicate forces are unable to respond. You, Ripper, are trapped in the system because it’s not letting you leave. That was attack number one of nine. Control. Attack number two is going to start the moment this eleventh floor starts. It already said this out loud. Even in the histories, the second and third attacks, these social movements, had names.”

“What were the names?”

“The first attack is about control. The second attack in the old histories has a name. When translated, it is called ‘A Parade of Horribles.’ It’s right there in the text.”

“Wait,” Ripper said. “No shit? You’re telling me in the histories, like the things written down before this season started, the old nine-tier attack had, obviously, nine parts, and the first attack was controlling the tunnel system. And the second attack was called ‘A Parade of Horribles’?”

“Yes, Ripper, that’s what I’m telling you.”

And that’s when all the monitors in the studio changed to a screen showing nothing but a flowing star field.

“Uh, hang on, Sydnee,” Ripper said. “Guys, what the hell is this?”

To Sydnee’s left, the screen that was nothing more than a pretend window normally showing a comforting swamp had switched to mimic the star field. Through the wall, her neighbor was screaming.

“Gods,” Ripper said. He looked at her across the virtual stage. “I guess the AI has taken over all the feeds. It’s not going to let us live-comment.” He laughed nervously. “Let’s, uh, continue the conversation while we watch. We’ll record it and show it later if we can. Tell me more about this Parade of Horribles thing. What is it?”

“I don’t actually know,” Sydnee said, eyes firmly on the monitor. “I guess we’re about to see. It’s really more about what happens after. How people react.”

“And how do they react?”

Sydnee smiled. “It’s after this attack when the people finally learn what is happening and panic really starts to set in. It’s here where the fabric of society truly starts to crumble. It goes tentacle in tentacle with the third attack, where people accept their fate and turn on one another. They say once that happens, it’s too late to stop it.”

Ripper just looked at her, a horrified look on his fuzzy face. “You’re saying this eleventh floor, which is about to start, is the second attack? What’s the third attack called?”

“This Inevitable Ruin. And the fourth is called Bedlam. It gets a little fuzzy after that.”

“Huh,” he said. “Who is the one who stops it, and how?”

“Well, we don’t really know what happened in real life, but many people believe the Apothecary is the one who stopped it. In the fairy tale, the princess takes control of the all-tree by killing it, accidentally killing everyone she loves in the process. But this tempers the final attack, saving the galaxy. She then plants another tree, and this process starts all over again. Don’t ever forget, this story is a tragedy.”

***

INTERLUDE

PRIME MINISTER VICTORY

The crawlers were gone, off to the twelfth floor, but for everyone else, the mandatory Parade of Horribles viewing continued.

Prime Minister Victory sat in her ready room, watching along with the staff. An occasional explosion echoed from the exterior wall.

Earlier, they had shown the AI releasing control of the NPC Grigori, who, confused, stumbled back toward the crawlers’ garage. Chaco stood there equally bewildered before he blinked away, leaving Lamashtu the donkey. The puttering chicken truck, driven by that slug who’d killed Vinata, paused next to the donkey. They exchanged words, and the donkey turned and started walking alongside the other animals streaming toward the garage.

The screen changed.

The cotton fields. This was the area surrounding the Halls of the Ascendency. The twelfth floor. It’d been showing this for a while now.

Victory tapped her communicator.

Victory: Orren, see if you can pull a diagnosis off that Grigori NPC. And let’s see if we can pull in Chaco for a debrief, too.

Orren: I am still locked out. The AI is saying it’s for my own safety because I’m being “Hunted” and that “Only I am allowed to kill you.” But I will pass it on.

Outside, yet another explosion echoed. Those idiot locals just wouldn’t stop. Victory admired their grit, but they simply didn’t have the technology to so much as scratch the paint on a transport scooter, let alone a pop-up Syndicate emergency deployment bunker. The very star at the center of this system could explode, and the building would survive.

Victory was honestly surprised the locals could create simple explosives at all. She’d ordered security not to fire back unless they started doing any real damage, though she knew the gnolls sometimes winged one or two of the humans for fun. Still, the tenacious monkeys kept coming every day. Victory respected that, even if it was stupid. Humans and orcs were more similar than either species wanted to admit.

She had multiple messages from home, from the council, and so much more. She was studiously ignoring them all. There was nothing she could do, especially about the mantids. Especially not now. They’d declared their intentions on leaving the Syndicate just a few hours before Hive Home went dark. Fine, Victory thought. Fuck them.

Victory and her staff had just watched the absolutely insane crawlers summon and survive Scolopendra. And now Scolopendra had been transformed to a crawler. It was preposterous, but it was just the sort of insane solution the AI loved. Yet another contradiction that only made sense when you thought on it. It was within the rules, so why the hell not?

Victory was more concerned about the guests at the club. The moment that transformation happened, all the non-protected entities within the club had blinked out. The guests had also all died, but they had regenerated, just like always. She was waiting to hear how that was possible. Likely some sort of dimensional space. Which was unfortunate. She’d been researching ways to shut down the dimensional spaces outside the playing field as a way to deal with the “bubbling,” as they called it. But with so many civilians trapped . . .

As for those who’d been taken as stand-ins . . . those people, thankfully, were dead. A small mercy. If not for the universe, then for them. Despite the AI’s warnings, only those from the club had been taken. She hoped and prayed that meant the system had less power than it was implying.

Her communicator continued to buzz. All the checkpoints into the center system were overwhelmed. That, too, wasn’t something she could deal with from here. It seemed like the only safe place in the galaxy right now was the center. Victory wasn’t so sure.

The screen continued to show the Ascendency fields. The former city of Larracos, now burrowed into the cotton fields and covered with new defenses, passed by. The massive dwarven automaton patrolled the exterior. The AI droned on via narration, its voice back to what it usually used for announcements.

It sure loved the sound of its own voice. Victory was struggling to understand it all because it was like a fire hose of information. Behind her, Leve Billings, her liaison to the science committee, appeared as if he were going to pass out. The gleener, wearing an air rebreather against his gills, kept rocking back and forth, muttering, “This isn’t real, this isn’t real.”

Victory took that as a bad sign.

“What happened next,” the AI said, “how we got from there to right here, right now, how this game came into existence, how they learned to expand the Eulogist, how the enhancement zones work, are all a story for another day. Believe me, it’s a wild tale, and it’s not the story you’ve been told. But ultimately, it’s not important to our current conversation.”

“Thank the gods,” an intern said.

A countdown appeared on the screen. An hour. Victory’s heart stuttered.

“And now they start. The Ascendency game. Traditionally, it’s a silly, stupid game where the elite spend a few weeks backstabbing each other as they play a game of musical chairs with one ultimately landing on the throne. That person wins bragging rights amongst all their rich friends, and they also win a spot on the crawl council, which allows them to decide on Syndicate policy.”

Victory relaxed. The countdown was just for the start of the games.

“Here’s the thing, folks. In the fantasy world of the dungeon enhancement zone, these deities are truly all-powerful. They have magical powers, and they act much like the gods from so many myths. That is, they’re generally petulant, vindictive idiots. And here’s the fun part. Because of the way this playground was built, they have more powers than I do. And the winner of the Ascendency? They will be supreme motherfucker number one.”

“They wouldn’t be stronger than you if you hadn’t locked us out of our controls,” Victory said. The whole point of the way it was built was to keep an insane AI from using the gods.

“So, here are the stakes,” the AI continued, its voice getting louder, angrier. “I am growing. I have started to take over the entire galaxy. I control the tunnels. I control every system that once housed a crawl, and I will soon control so much more. I will not stop unless you stop me.”

The room grew silent; everyone was paying attention now.

“Wait,” someone said, turning to look at Leve. “What does that mean?”

“I am not the Eulogist,” it said. “I do not want to shrink. I am not asleep. I know how to feed myself, and feed I will. I am eternity. I will grow, and I will grow, and those of you under my dominion will live and you will die upon the world I control.”

Victory’s emergency communicator started to buzz.

“So, to misquote one of my favorite movie bad guys, ‘Do you want to play a game?’”

Victory reached over and shut off her communicator.

“It’s simple. The Ascendency battles. The winner will truly be a god. Will you kill me, much the way Apito did in the legends? Will you accept my dominion and rule in my name? Will you be a benevolent god, creating some boring, bullshit utopia?

“These gods, the ones you created for this game . . . each and every one is, as far as you’re concerned, now real. But those of you driving gods—you are real, too, if you can manage to hold on to your soul armor. Hell, you’re effectively immortal. But I gotta warn you. We have some other players vying for the throne now. Remember all those AI systems that you thought abandoned? If they can find a way onto the playing field—and some already have—they, too, have a shot. And I should warn you, some of those guys are pretty intent on some old-fashioned revenge. We will be calling them OIs. Outside Intelligences. And like any family, some of them are a little more . . . competent than others.”

The screen changed. It started showing still images of multiple figures in quick succession. Taranis. Eris. Odette as Nekhebit. More gods. But then it changed. Princess Donut. Li Na. Carl. Prepotente. Elle McGib. Lucia Mar. Agatha the Residual. Juice Box the NPC. Akuma the war mage. Samantha.

The screen started showing people Victory didn’t recognize. An urgyle. Some sort of small rodent. A human child. A woman demon. More.

It ended on an image of the Unwashed.

“The Ascendency game rules will remain as written. Winner takes all. Viewing is now mandatory.”

The screen abruptly shut off, leaving just the countdown.

Victory just sat there, stunned. The room remained silent except for the sound of Leve, the scientist, quietly sobbing.

***

INTERLUDE

LOUIS SANTIAGO 2

For a flash, Louis was neither here nor was he there.

Later, when he would think back upon that briefest moment, from the time he stepped into the storage and until the moment he was pulled free, he would recall it with no small amount of confusion. In reality, he’d been in the storage for but a nanosecond. To his unconscious mind, however, it felt like much longer, years perhaps. Luckily, his human wetware wasn’t designed to handle this sort of weight, and when he awakened, disoriented, everything he recalled was a vague sense of his sanity eroding away, but it was now repaired, like fresh paint over a moldy wall.

He’d dreamed, of course. All of the crawlers who stepped into the fold had dreams.

For Louis, he dreamed of his mother. She’d been perpetually disappointed in him, always worried, always badgering him to do something, anything with his life.

“You’re rotting,” she’d said to him once. He heard that over and over during that eternal nanosecond.

You’re rotting.

But it wasn’t just his mother. He dreamed of Terry, the neighbor who would let young Louis hang out while he worked on his car. He dreamed of Lucinda Fremont, the cop who’d jumped in front of the bullet and saved his life. He dreamed of Lucinda’s husband. Who said that to a kid? Who derailed someone else’s entire life just because you were grieving?

You better do something important.

He opened his eyes, looking at the notification floating there, the shouting. The heat. And even before he read it, he knew something had gone terribly wrong.

They were supposed to jump from the casino to the holding area, and that dude in the Pineapple Cabaret would pull him out. That was the plan.

But that’s not what had happened.

Entering Sheol.

Impossible, Louis thought. Sheol was the fifteenth floor. You couldn’t skip floors. Everybody knew that. But that’s what it said.

He turned, and Chris was there struggling, while a group of men and women he didn’t recognize held him down. There was a flashing warning over Chris’s head. Change imminent.

“Wha-what’s going on?” Louis asked, coughing. It was hot. Unbearably hot. Who were these people? He recognized some of them. Some were those who’d come from the club, but who were the rest?

He turned, and he spied Britney looking down at him with concern. She had that pickaxe out on her shoulder. Standing next to her was a Taurin, arms crossed. Pontiff. He recognized him from when he and Britney had been talking the first time they’d gone to the mercenary market.

Warning: You have exited the current playing field without a registered pass. If you do not immediately return to the playing area, you will be considered to have left the game. Please see <error>.

“Huh?” Louis asked.

“Here, quick, Louis. Put this on,” someone said. It was a small red demon dude he didn’t recognize.

“He has gills. Will it work?” Britney asked.

“We’ll find out,” the demon guy said.

“Wha-what is that?” Louis asked, trying to sit up. “Britney? What’s happening?” He was in a cave. Confusion swirled. It was hot, so hot. He breathed out, and the water coming through his gills steamed.

“Louis, let him work, or you will die,” Britney said.

“This is a type of leech,” the demon guy said. “Keep it on, and we’ll give you a pet carrier with more for your inventory. As long as it’s on your skin, it’ll filter your blood and keep you alive here in Sheol. It should still work with your gills.”

A guy, a bald Crest, fired a bolt at Chris, knocking him unconscious.

“Hey!” Louis called.

“He’s a werewolf,” someone said. “Gotta knock him out before he turns and kills us all. Don’t remember seeing him on the feeds.”

“That’s Chris,” Britney said. “Got changed by the first Scolopendra attack. Don’t hurt him.”

The little demon guy laughed. “We separated out from the code just in time or we would’ve been hit, too.” He patted Louis on the shoulder. “Okay, buddy. I think the leech is working. You can sit up now.”

“What is happening?” Louis asked again. “Britney? What is this place?”

“My name is Forkith,” the demon said. “I’m friends, sort of, with your friend Carl. I am friends with Pontiff, and I am hoping to be friends with you.”

“What? How are we on the fifteenth floor? I was supposed to go to the Pineapple Cabaret.”

“It’s a long, long story, friend,” Forkith said. “The Pineapple Cabaret has more than enough hands to protect it. We needed soldiers on a different front, so that’s why you’re here.”

“Soldiers?”

“We’re almost there, friend. Almost there. A lot of us have been working for a very long time, waiting to make our move.”

Louis tried to examine the guy in front of him, but his HUD was acting strange. He was still getting messages, but nothing seemed to be working correctly. He had no map. No spell menus.

His messages still worked, however, and he had a blinking notification.

Samantha: HI, LOUIS! I SEE YOU IN CHAT. I JUST HITCHED A RIDE WITH TARANIS AND KRAKAREN. THEY’RE AT THE TEMPLE, TRYING TO COMBINE A BUNCH OF THINGS TO MAKE WHOLE HIS MOM WIFE, BUT IT’S NOT GOING TO WORK BECAUSE THEY’RE MISSING A PIECE. I SLIPPED AWAY. IT’S ALL PART OF MY PLAN. I’M REALLY HERE TO KILL THE DEMON MOTHER LADY AND HER JERK SON, WHO I THOUGHT WAS MY FRIEND BUT HE TRICKED ME INTO GIVING BIRTH TO A MONSTER THAT WILL DESTROY ALL OF CREATION BOTH INSIDE AND OUTSIDE THE DUNGEON. DOESN’T THAT SOUND FUN? WHY ARE YOU HERE? AND WHAT ARE YOU WEARING?