| Status: Bonked |
| Further head trauma may result in loss of consciousness. |
| You have been captured! |
| Certain gameplay features, including your inventory, are restricted until you regain your freedom. |
My eyes fluttered open, but I couldn’t immediately see. When my vision returned, it booted up like an old tube TV, with one white dot in the center, then gradually expanding into a fuzzy haze of light.
The scene before me slowly focused into an opulent office framed by floor-to-ceiling windows. Artificial AllVerse sunlight streamed into the space, casting everything in golden afternoon hues.
Sounds of chattering filtered into my consciousness as the fog began to lift. Sync cried out in pain, shaking the last vestiges of brain-damaged slumber from me.
“I’ll get you for that, you turkey!” Silas roared. “No, I take it back. Turkeys are delicious. You’re much worse. You’re… you’re a sea cucumber! All cucumbers taste like sadness, especially the underwater kind. You won’t get away with this!”
I shook my head and attempted to stand. My whole body hurt, and I was low on HP. Worse, my wrists were chained to a gargantuan mahogany desk. Whoever owned it had great taste. I wasn’t going anywhere while chained to that heavy thing.
Behind the desk sat a huge Rockhopper Penguin. He wore a tuxedo, which seemed a bit too on-the-nose for it to actually be funny, and his yellow-and-black feathers were slicked back like hair.
| Don Crowleone – Level 100 NPC |
| Game/Class: The Godfeather – Godfeather |
He regarded me with a smirk as he chewed on a lit cigar. I couldn’t help but notice a bottle of 30-year McCallahan single-malt and a lowball glass sitting near his right flipper.
Eider duck down duvet and matching pillows… Egyptian cotton sheets… and a nice pour of McCallahan 30-year to top it all off… I mused. Man, I really need to get outta here.
The chattering pulled my attention away from the huge penguin, and I realized Silas and the rest of the Karjok were squished into a tangled fishnet pinned against a pillar off to one side. Their munitions all lay in a pile on the opposite side of the room. They all seemed present and accounted for, squirming and writhing but unable to break free.
I couldn’t imagine how the Godfeathers wrangled all the Karjok into a net like that. Perhaps because I’d lost the Feud, they were automatically imprisoned, or perhaps they’d been close enough that the flashbang took them out as well. Or maybe they’d captured Chancellor Hachem, so the others surrendered willingly.
It seemed impossible to have collected all 50 of them, plus Silas, but they were there. I guess it didn’t really matter how it happened, and I’d probably never know anyway. Dealing with our current predicament was more important than the specifics of how we got into this particular mess. Especially since it definitely wasn’t my fault.
Sync was handcuffed, tied to a chair, and looked weary and rough, even beyond being a repulsive lady/bird hybrid. I didn’t notice any apparent wounds, but splotches of glitter tainted her black dress, always in close proximity to holes in the fabric that weren’t there the last time I saw her.
I was still hazy, but I didn’t think she had any unhealed wounds. She was, however, staring at me with an unusual fierceness, a determination that I couldn’t quite place. I’d expected to see desperation in her eyes instead, especially given her battered appearance.
Icarus stood before her with his back to me, holding a gleaming knife in one hand and a revolver in the other. A mound of Health Packs lay on the floor next to him, and suddenly the glitter stains and the holes in her dress made sense. My stomach twisted when I realized what was happening.
He was torturing her.
“Fine.” Icarus gave an ominous hoot. “Guess I’ll just take your flappin’ arm off.”
He tucked the pistol in his belt and snatched her arm at the elbow, exposing her WHIM. On their own, the handcuffs securing her wrists fell off—probably some sort of command through Icarus’s HUD—and he pressed his knife against the feathers above her WHIM.
Sync gasped.
“Hey!” I pulled against my restraints. “Hey, marble-feather! Stop!”
Icarus turned his head 180 degrees and stared at me with empty black eyes. Even with a beak instead of a normal mouth, I could tell he was sneering at me.
“Ah, you’re finally awake,” he said as the rest of his body turned to match the position of his head. “Really quaint, attempting to break in here, initiating a Feud with us. Even with your little army of octopi, it wasn’t gonna work.”
“Karjok!” all fifty of the captive Karjok hollered at him in unison.
“Shut up, or I’ll fry you like calamari.” Icarus’s threat silenced the Karjok chatter.
The irony wasn’t lost on me that I’d considered a similar course of action not long after I met Silas. As I considered that, I caught Sync’s eyes again, fixed on me with the same intensity as before, and she started opening and closing her beak, as if mouthing words.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
But she had a beak, not a mouth with lips that I could read. It just looked like she was choking or gasping for air in a repeated pattern, even though I knew that wasn’t what was happening.
I squinted at her. What is she trying to tell me?
“Big talk from a buzzard. Let us outta here and say that to my face, why don’t you?” Fredrick hissed, and the other Karjok cheered. “And by the way, even we know the plural of octopus is octopuses, you git.”
Huh, I mused. All this time, I thought it was just “octopus.”
Icarus ignored them and turned back to me, and we met eyes again. “Startin’ a Feud was a good idea, and your infiltration was a commendable effort, but ultimately a fool’s errand. You always were too impatient to enact any meaningful strategy.”
“What do you mean, always?” I furrowed my brow at him. “We’ve met, like, twice, dude.”
“Figures you’d be tryin’ to escape the AllVerse,” he continued, unfazed. “You can’t stand a world where you’re not at the top, lookin’ down on everyone else. But the AllVerse is the great equalizer. Now I’m on my way to the top, and you’re just an idiot in dollar-store Cthulhu boxers.”
“Blasphemer!” Chancellor Hachem shouted, pressing his squishy form against the net with renewed fervor.
This time, instead of ignoring him, Icarus drew his revolver and pointed it at the mass of Karjok. “I told you to shut the flock up!”
“Chancellor, get down!” Fredrick cried.
BANG.
Fredrick shoved Chancellor Hachem out of the way and took the hit instead.
“Fredrick!” Will shouted.
“No!” Chancellor Hachem yelled.
A collective gasp arose from the Karjok, followed by frantic mass-slapping to try to heal Fredrick’s wound.
“Don’t waste… your wallops, blokes. I’m a goner. There’s… no hope for me now.” Fredrick wheezed, and the Karjok fell silent once more.
I glanced at Sync, who continued to try to mouth words to me, but I still had no idea what she was trying to convey. My Bonked debuff had almost expired, so maybe I’d “get it” once that was fully gone.
“Silas…” Frederick called. “Where is… Silas?”
“I’m here, mate.” Silas squelched over to him, still penned in by the net. He took one of Frederick’s tentacles in his own. “What is it?”
“You…” Fredrick moaned. “You… got us into this mess… so you need to get us out of it.”
“This is what you’re using your dying words to say to me?” Silas furrowed his brow. “I’m working on it, Fredrick.”
I still didn’t understand how Silas and the other Karjok could tell when a wound was fatal or not, or why they could heal some wounds but not others. Regardless, Fredrick was taking his sweet time dying.
Meanwhile Sync continued mouthing words at me, even more determined to make me understand, all to no avail.
Honestly, it was pretty annoying. Like, just whisper, or do the cough-and-say-a-word-thing. Or better yet, don’t turn yourself into a disgusting owl-woman monster with no lips. My debuff expired, and the haze lifted, but it didn’t help me make out what she was trying to communicate.
“We don’t have time for this nonsense.” Icarus raised his revolver for another shot.
“Wait!” Sync yelped. “You shoot again, and you’ll never get the WHIM.”
“Huh?” Icarus stopped short.
“Let this play out, and then the WHIM is yours,” Sync said.
“How?” Icarus asked.
“Yeah, how?” I parroted.
She glowered at me, then refocused on Icarus. “Just let the Karjok do their thing. It’s served us well so far. I promise you’ll get what you want.”
Icarus glanced between her and the Karjok. “Ehhh, fine. But make it quick!”
“I’m not… wastin’ my breath, lad,” Fredrick continued with a wince. “I’m sayin’… you’re the only one who can save us. It’s why… it’s why we entrusted the Octo-Boxers to you. You… you must find the… Eldritch Warrior of Destiny. Only you can.”
Silas gave a solemn nod. “Your confidence in me is inspiring, Fredrick. I never knew you felt so—”
“Confidence?” Fredrick spat, perking up. “I’ve got no confidence in you, lad. That’s why I’m tellin’ you this. You crashed our ship. You indebted us to the Earth government. You damaged our chances for positive diplomatic relations with humanity. You scattered our people across the world and lost our Star Charts and—”
“Alright, alright. I get it.” Silas waved a tentacle. “I didn’t know it was possible to drag a heroic death out this long.”
As much as we didn’t need the distraction, I had to admit, it was a nice change of pace to watch Silas get roasted instead of me.
Yet again, Sync tried to signal me and mouth words to me, and yet again, I couldn’t get it. This time, I mouthed back, “What? What the quail are you trying to tell me?”
But Icarus glanced back at her, and she froze, beak clamped shut, eyes fixed on the Karjok drama playing out before us. I looked back at the Godfeather, who still sat at his desk, not saying a word. He sipped his McCallahan 30-year, and I almost drooled in self-pity.
Fredrick’s voice took on a wheezy quality again. “Alas… my end draws nigh. I’ll soon join Neptune. I wonder if he’ll find me a worthy servant…”
“You have performed admirably,” Chancellor Hachem said. “Your reward doubtless awaits you in Coralhalla.”
With the last of his strength, Fredrick grabbed Silas by what would’ve been his collar, if he’d been wearing a shirt, and hauled him close. “Do… your… duty.”
Fredrick gave a pained sigh, his eyes rolled back and shut, and he died.
Chancellor Hachem produced two golden sand dollars. “May the boatman ferry you into Neptune’s halls far beneath the waves, and may you live forever in that great ocean in the sky.”
Chancellor Hachem placed the golden sand dollars over Fredrick’s eyes, and he promptly dissipated into sparkles and a splash of water until he was gone. The Karjok all shifted, now with a little more space to move around, given that there were only 49 of them bound by the net rather than 50.
I glanced at Sync, and mouthed the words, “Great ocean in the sky?”
She just shrugged. I’d expected her to try to mouth at me again, but she wore a defeated look on her face. Somehow, I could make that out easily enough, but whatever she’d been trying to tell me hadn’t come through at all.
“Are you done with your little cutscene?” Icarus tucked the revolver back into his belt. When the Karjok didn’t respond, he said, “Good. I’m tryin’ to gloat over here. Now where was I? Oh, yeah. Rightin’ certain wrongs. Rebalancin’ the equation, but this time in my favor. Right, boss?”
I ground my teeth, my attention now solidly fixed on Icarus. The way he talked, his bravado, his demeanor, and even the way he moved reminded me of someone. I just couldn’t pinpoint who.
His words reeked of whimperings from a former employee—although that didn’t narrow it down much. Though I liked to make firings personal, I rarely, if ever, actually remembered the names of anyone who got the axe after they were gone.
While Icarus focused on me, Sync grimaced, moved her feathery fingers to her WHIM, and typed in a code or something. She was still restrained, but now uncuffed; she could reach her WHIM again, and with Icarus distracted, she could work her magic. That had to be better than whatever message she’d been trying to share earlier.
At least I hoped it would be.
Icarus knelt in front of me. “Truthfully, I’m glad you didn’t listen to me. You know, about the launch? Seein’ you like this now, havin’ you here is even better than watchin’ you get ousted from Ascendant Games and watchin’ me take over.”
In that moment, it all clicked into place:
Icarus’s initial hesitation to shoot me when we first locked eyes back on the bridge.
His obnoxious persistence in chasing Sync—and later, me.
His boasting, posturing, and conniving.
Of course, I knew him. I’d known him all my life.
“Nate… you miserable old clown.”
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break--Royal Road. They call us the Critical Hitters.
In the desolate desert of the North American Sector, the government harvests the Soul Energy of siblings Eos and Maxima in secret.
When their powers attract the attention of a dangerous criminal organization, their routine lives are shattered. Eos and Maxima must search for freedom and the truth about their past as hostile forces close in.
The answers they seek lie behind one word—!
Occam's Favor
A grizzled ex-mech pilot is drawn back into the Everwar, a decades-long conflict raging across Jupiter’s moonscape.
This time he refuses to fight alone, bringing a crew of misfits and a mech powerful enough to rewrite the war itself.
is a can't-miss power-scaling mech series. Read it now!
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Dungeon Crawler Carl Audio Immersion Tunnel for Soundbooth Theater, and he's the lead writer for the Dungeon Crawler Carl Role Playing Game.
