Chapter 170: Chapter 164

Rayna was getting the rest of our troopers paired up for a long session of sparring, with sharp blades and plenty of PRDs to recharge. They were raring to go, grinning and baring teeth at one another in anticipation of the upcoming violence.

Tollya and I had just been the opening act, our troopers were going to spend a good chunk of the night tearing one another apart, just to get used to the sensation, and learn what it took to fight through it the way Tollya and I could.

They’d need it.

Jada got my attention from the other side of the room with a wave, and I stood to join her, walking through a crowd of eager starfish troopers.

“Axle says we have a problem, Tyson,” she said, once I had arrived. I nodded and started climbing the stairs up. Jada followed and sealed the door behind us. A hobb was guarding the entrance, regardless of how deep in the military portion of Prescott we were. That encouraged me to see.

BlueCleave never failed to take our problems seriously.

“What’s goin’ on,” I asked when we were clear.

Jada pointed to a nearby hovercraft that was coming in for a landing. “Something’s wrong with the desalination plant. It’s stopped working entirely.”

The few hours of sleep I’d gotten looked to be all I was going to get, and I sighed. “Shit. Of course.”

Axle was on board, swiping through his tablet nervously licking his nose every few seconds.

“The plant isn’t the only problem we face.” He glanced over at me and blinked in surprise. I was covered in drying blood and dressed in the torn rags of my basketball shorts.

“Uhh,” Axle said. “We can find you some clothes on the way.” He blinked and licked his nose again, turning back to his tablet.

“On the way where?” I asked.

“Home,” Axle said. He gave me a significant look and said, “Check your Afflqwst.”

I sighed and did as he instructed. The app sprang to life in my vision and displayed our newest quest.

Quest – Calm the irritation of your beholder guest, before it turns to wrath, and they harm your affiliate.

REQUIREMENTS:

1. (Optional) Negotiate with beholder. Chance of success is high.
2. (Optional) Kill the beholder. Chance of success is very low.

REWARD – Item coupon.

The item coupon price was higher than a simple starfish suit, but less expensive than my last upgrade. It made me hope for a second tier suit upgrade. We’d need it if we could somehow talk our way out of whatever trouble we were in with Quadrum.

Jada found me a pair of the hobbs combat fatigues and boots, which I put on without any complaint. I’d gotten used to wearing their clothes.

Our pilot lifted off without any commentary, and we made the short trip to Silken Sands in silence.

Once we’d landed at my old site, Axle gestured with his chin, and we started walking. Past Phyllis and the sleepy ravens, between the residential blocks, and past Morbin Time, we stopped at the elevator.

It had seen some upgrades since we’d first installed it, and a mid-sized cargo elevator platform stood over the entrance. The hobbs used it daily, for both foot traffic and goods. They’d even installed a staircase alongside it, to avoid having to walk the long way around. Jada, Axle, and I took the elevator down to the bottom floor, which required a key to enter.

The rest of the underground area had been renovated rather dramatically by the hobbs. It was still a part of BlueCleave’s primary housing facility, but it had been converted for use as physical storage and maintenance. The oversized boiler that provided hot water, the primary air conditioning fans, etc. Buildings that size required infrastructure, we had basement to spare.

Rayna and I agreed that the more floors between our Beholder and the people it could potentially harm, the better.

For Quadrum’s part, they had kept their end of the bargain. No one had been disturbed, and we benefited from the radiation they emitted, good for both our Sleem farm and the strange power-supplying entity we all called Cube.

Axle had sound proofed the lower level, so once we were past the security door, we could speak openly without fear of Morbin’s powerful ears overhearing us. Jada stood at the heavy door, as Axle and I headed for the entrance to Quadrum’s lair.

“What the hell is their problem now?” I muttered.

“I may have an idea, but I don’t want to color your expectations. Best we go in, speak with them, and find out what is wrong,” Axle said. His ears were flat back, and his tail was tucked.

As we approached the far end of the long hallway, a portion of the wall melted away and a booming voice sounded from below.

“BE NOT AFRAID!” shouted Quadrum. It was never particularly convincing.

The way the walls shimmered and shook as we approached certainly didn’t help.

Axle and I walked down a set of stairs that protruded from the wall itself. Quadrum’s lair was composed of a monstrously thick layer of nanobots, as best we could tell. Hundreds of quintillions of the microscopic robots formed the walls, floor, and any hatches, doors, or pools the beholder required for its work.

The room was uncharacteristically empty, the otherworldly science equipment all pushed back up against the far wall. In the center of the room, above the gaping hole down to the Sleem cavern, hung Quadrum.

The beholder resembled a living star, wrapped in mobile metal rings. Each ring was capable of deploying sensory and manipulation tentacles, to use as its hands and eyes. Quadrum’s own great eye of lidded flame blinked as we approached, a lid of red flame washing over the yellowish orb.

“BEHOLD! WHERE ARE MY SLEEM?!” Quadrum demanded.

I hesitated on the last step and stared at the beholder.

“How the hell would I know?” I muttered. Axle drew in a sharp breath and shook his head at me.

“The farm’s production has been down for a few days, but I assumed it was just the aquifer lowering. I should have realized . . .” he said.

“Great Quadrum!” Axle shouted, stepping forward with his arms wide. “We have only now become aware of the Sleem’s absence, and we will do everything in our power to find them for you!”

The beholder’s primary eye swiveled toward Axle for a long moment before it turned back to me. “WHERE ARE MY SLEEM?” they rumbled.

“Have you checked the basement?” I asked.

The flames composing Quadrum’s primary body flickered and swelled, pressing against the constraints of his rotating rings before deflating again.

Axle grabbed my elbow and hissed, “do not be sarcastic. Beholders react very poorly to sarcasm.”

You are reading story BuyMort: Rise of the Windowpuncher – How I Became the Accidental Warlord of Arizona. Apocalyptic GameLit at novel35.com

“SLEEM ARE GONE FROM BELOW! WHERE ARE MY SLEEM? FIND MY SLEEM AT ONCE!” Quadrum rumbled into our heads.

“Yep,” I quipped, smiling, and nodding my head. “Will do, Quadrum ol’ buddy ol’ pal. I’m on it.”

“BOTH SERVANTS!” The beholder roared. “BOTH SERVANTS GO, FIND MY SLEEM!”

Axle eyed the gaping hole in the ground and licked his nose as his tail crawled up between his legs.

“I’ve got you, Axle,” I whispered. “It’ll be okay.”

The Knowle looked over to me and nodded, but his tail remained tucked, and his ears were plastered to his head.

“We’re going, now, Quadrum. Can you move, please? We need to use the tunnel,” I said to the floating ball of sapient flame.

Axle once told me they were living energy but was unable to tell me how they lived in such a state. Just that the rings and tentacles were thought to be a kind of prosthesis, though some had clearly organic versions. With beholders, nothing was certain.

The ball of flame and spinning eyeball rings retreated, allowing us to access the gaping hole in the floor. Without their flames burning up the toxic odor of raw sewage and Sleem, Axle gagged and retched. I was tempted myself, but instead summoned my helmet.

Quadrum blinked when they saw it form but did not move or say anything else.

I stepped up behind Axle and carefully pressed my hands into his armpits. In spite of being much larger than me, I was able to lift him easily before dropping us both into the hole.

He whined deep in the back of his throat and closed his eyes tightly. The gravitic drive seemed like it was made for exactly what I was doing with it. The fall gentled, and I was able to easily change its direction to match the slope of the old tunnel.

My helmet showed me the area around us, while Quadrum’s light receded from above. Axle was plunged into stinking darkness. We passed by the specialty sewer pipe, with its locking ejection mechanism. It ensured that all the waste our many residents produced went straight to feed our population of Sleem.

The Sleem themselves were gone, however. We’d had a massive population in the cavern below, populated by an oversized red birthing block. It had ensured our Sleem farm remained profitable, absorbing the radiation from not only Quadrum, but a stash of old radioactive ingots in the cave.

I floated us over the bottom of the concrete ramp, and away from the lake of sewage that had formed in the few days since our Sleem left. My shoes smoked a little as I landed, but most of the remnant Sleem slime was dried out, and non-harmful. Axle, being barefoot, set his paws down gingerly on a dry patch of smooth stone.

Once his footing was secure, he retched again, and then explosively vomited.

I pulled up my BuyMort app and did a quick search for Knowle friendly breathing masks. 

Knowle’s Knowle Market Emporium. No one knows Knowles like Knowles do. 

An affiliate specializing in Knowles. Perfect. I went ahead and let the advertisement lead me to the affiliate site. Many times these things ended up being virtual construction yards or warehouses.

But in the case of Knowle’s Knowle Market Emporium, it was a vast art gallery, walls with framed pictures of the merchandise with in. Whole galleries and wings labeled in ornate brass and bronze with the category of their goods.

DINNERWARE read one such gallery. Old World Electronics read another. 

Spinning 180 degrees, I glanced through them, looking for my category. The way these things worked was by tags, I knew. So if I could find a category that Knowle’s would tag a mask into, I’d be golden.

And there I saw it. Masks and Faceplates the gallery sign read.

Was straight forward enough. I jumped in, scanning the portraits that spread out over a wall a thousand times my height and a million times as wide.

These shopping trips got, well, trippy at times. Luckily they seemed to be time-compressed. So my hours in here would be minutes in the real world.

Or so it had seemed thus far.

I scanned high and low, and the only thing that immediately stuck out to me as something up to our needs was a full-face mask. I plunged my hand into the picture and it glooped through as if liquid. Something seized it and I was yanked through to a dark room, the mask sitting on a white marble pillar and illuminated by a spotlight.

Knowle’s Air Poison Prevention and Security Mask — Don’t let carelessness be your undoing. 140,000 morties, 4.3 stars.

After all of that lead up, the advertising was so simple and basic. So clean and pure.

I decided that, when things settled and cleared, I really needed to visit the worlds of the Knowles and learn what it was that made them tick. They were such an amazing and direct people in so many ways.

I pulled out of the ads, back to real life, and I glanced over at Axle. The guy was miserably puking his guts up. So I ordered it, and got him a pair of Sleem-Stomper boots as well.

“Sorry Axle,” I said, closing my app as a pod ripped into the air beside us. “I got you some things to help though.”

He looked up, eyes bleary with tears, before retching again.

Unable to do anything else, I opened the BuyMort box while waiting for Axle to stop vomiting. He went on for a while, long after his stomach was empty he was still dry heaving. I glanced over at the small lake of sewage and nodded, hands on my hips. That made sense.

After a few minutes of heavy retching and more than a few whimpers of discomfort, Axle reached out a hand from his kneeling position and snatched the mask. He struggled into it, stretching it over his nose and taking a large breath through it. The Knowle slumped and sighed in relief, swallowing the next gag reflex that threatened him.

“You alright?” I asked, handing him the boots next.

He nodded and took them. “I am now. That was unpleasant,” he said, partially muffled by the mask. The Knowle slipped on the Sleem Stomper boots, before bending to secure their straps. He stood again and nodded at me.

“Thank you Tyson. Now all I need is a light,” he said, peering around the oversized cavern.

I activated my helmet’s light function, a ‘spell’ that caused my entire head to glow lightly, while projecting a beam of light from the faceplate. It automatically dimmed whenever I looked at Axle’s face, but otherwise lit up the entire area. The cavern radiated the soft light back at us from its still-glistening walls

All of the stone was smooth, as if eroded. The stalagmites and stalactites scattered throughout the cave were all smaller than I remembered too.

The only thing missing appeared to be my oversized puddle of Sleem.

 

 

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