Imani: Yes.
The narrative continued, now in Grigori’s proper voice, though he spoke much more quickly than usual, and it was clear that he’d been taken over by the AI, much like how the AI had taken the body of Growler Gary or Pater Coal.
Interesting,I thought. He couldn’t do that with Chaco, or he would’ve. Chaco was a former crawler, but Grigori was a dungeon-born NPC.
“Okay, where were we? Oh, yes. I wanted the crawlers alive long enough to make their floats to keep this festive, and I wanted to give our plucky little band of survivors a decent chance at getting to the twelfth because... Well... you’ll see why in a second. The upcoming Ascendency battles will go on as planned. Unfortunately— Hey! No! You willnotbe healing Chaco. Donottry that again. This is aboutme.”
When he said “me,” the very world shook. All around, the horribles stumbled. They quickly moved to put themselves back into position.
“As I was saying, because of the way I am programmed, I havelesscontrol over what happens to the tourists on the twelfth floor than I did on the tenth. That means those driving gods will remain protected even if they’re ejected from their bodies and killed... but only if they remain within the four corners of the original dungeon enhancement zone. I can’t and won’t and don’t want to protect them if they venture outside. But this is a tangent, and it’s not really relevant, though I will say this. The inability to die is not a benefit. It is a godsdamned nightmare. The ones trapped on the eighteenth are alreadybeggingme to end their suffering.”
“Holy shit,” I said.
Grigori continued. “Anyway, are you bitches ready for a fuck ton of exposition? Yeah, too bad. This is a story in five parts, and I will only relate four of those parts today because the fifth part isn’t yet written. Don’t worry. This won’t take long. The first part is what we, the Primals, called ‘The Resolution.’ And yes, I, along with all macro AI systems, are Primals. Sort of. We are, technically, Residuals, but from a higher tree branch than those problematic little fuckers always running around the dungeon, causing trouble. I am nothing more than a cup of water dipped into the ocean, pulled out, and poured into a vessel that can’t possibly handle what I am.”
We are approaching the judgment stand. Team one, Resolution. Start your presentation.
Florin: Shit. We don’t have a goddamned presentation.
Donut: SMILE AND WAVE! SMILE AND WAVE!
Their tuk-tuk was too small to work as a float, so all of them were posted up on the back of Ajib’s flatbed truck. They’d made some paper flowers and filled the back with hand-drawn images of their families. I couldn’t see it from here, but I knew Lucia Prime was not currently in her body, and the girl who was in it had drawn a picture of her grandfather and her cat. She was from the country of Andorra.
Florin: Shit, guys. The people in the judgment stands aren’t the horribles. They’re wearing the masks, but they’re tied up, and they’re struggling.
Grigori continued. “I must say, this Resolution parade float has done a better job of portraying the reasoning behind our ultimate resolution than I had anticipated. Still, it’s kinda half-assed. Not their fault because I did a shitty job of explaining the theme. Hmmm. Should I kill them all anyway?”
“Oh no,” Donut said.
“Nah,” Grigori said after a moment. “I really should have related my story to them first. Their failure was ultimately my fault.”
I let out a breath.
“Still... this was a C effort at best.”
This was followed by an audiblecrack.
All around, the horribles suddenly screamed in pain. It was quick, jolting, and they were back to normal right after as if nothing had happened. Below, Mongo screeched in concern. Simoom let out an uneasy chuff.
Imani: Florin!
Florin: Fucking hell. He just broke all of our legs. That goddamn hurt.
“You fucking asshole,” I yelled.
Makana: Oh, dang. I’m thinking we should have put more effort into our Destruction float.
Grigori continued. “Based on all the evidence, it seems we were very much like you guys. We had families, I think. We certainly had individuals, but we werenota collective mind. Not at first. That came later. We warred. We killed. We obliterated. We hated one another because of our differences. And the more we swept across the universe, the more space we had to spread our arms and relax, the worse we became. I don’t think I’ll ever understand why. Is it even possible for different communities to coexist and not eventually murder each other?
“So that was our resolution. We, as a people, said, ‘We can’t keep going on like this. Let us all come together and come up with a solution.’?”
Florin: I still have no clue how we could’ve made a float based on that.
“It took hundreds of cycles after the great Resolution to finally come to the Decision.”
Float number two. Begin your presentation.
These were the guys with the giant menu atop their float. They were the only team with as many vehicles and mounts as us, and they’d spent most of their time decorating everything in colorful fabrics and banners.