We’d anticipated the attack from the centipede. Right now everyone was hunkered down inside of the RV from team Makana. Twenty-two crawlers plus all the mercenaries shoved into the same vehicle with the Apito memorial crystal around Prepotente’s neck. It would, in theory, protect them all.
Once that was over, they’d finally move into the arena.
I did not know if being literally inside Club Scolopendra would protect me and Penny. I hoped it would. If it didn’t and it killed Penny, hopefully Taranis would unleash his wrath on Scolopendra, killing her.
That was only one of multiple contingencies, but that wasn’t the main plan. We had contingencies stacked upon contingencies. That was the only way to truly survive here.
I couldn’t actually remember the first time the dungeon had given me a hint on how to defeat Scolopendra. There were a lot of them peppered throughout the dungeon descriptions over the floors, but the first time I noticed was during one of the god descriptions during the Thorn room.
Look for the clues. Every single one of those descriptions had one thing in common.
Lightning.That was the secret. That was one of two reasons why I knew Taranis, god of lightning, had to be here.
But we couldn’t rely on him. So all of us were strapped head to toe in lightning spells.
Every single page fromCarl’s Book of Boom, Donut’sA Banquet Fit for a Princess, and the originalBook of Voodoothat offered lightning magic had now been removed. I personally had consumed ten different spells. Donut had a dozen. Elle, too.
But . . .
Contingencies upon contingencies.
The planwasn’tto kill Scolopendra. That was the backup. All of this planning with the gods, all of it was a fallback if this absolutely batshit plan didn’t work.
I found a door just sitting there attached to the end of some sort of tube, and we squeezed under it, coming into the building.
Entering Club Scolopendra.
You have distanced yourself from Taranis, and the benefit fades.
You have entered the presence of another deity.
Temporary effect from Emberus: You are immune to Sheol-based attacks.
Oh, thank god,I thought. I hadn’t been sure about this last part, but it worked. The protections of the club supposedly safeguarded those inside from external deity auras. I hoped it would work against Scolopendra’s attacks as well.
We entered the shaking blood-splattered hallway. I canceled the ooze, and I reconstituted on my back on the floor. I pulled myself up and looked about. The map showed multiple moving red dots along with several purple dots indicating tourists.
The star that designated Emberus stood in a wide center room just down a stairwell. Not too far but on a different level. As I watched, multiple red dots in that room turned to X’s.
A voice boomed. This was from outside, muted. Taranis. “Penelope! My sweet love! Hold on! I will protect you as soon as I figure out how to get you out!”
Penny: WHO IS THAT?
“Uh, don’t worry about him,” I said out loud.
And then a new voice boomed, this one from inside the club. “Carl!” Emberus called. “I am here!” His voice shook the walls.
In the hall, hanging from a sticky, orange-colored spiderweb, was a creature. An alien. A tourist.
She was some sort of thin stick-figure alien I’d never seen before. She had a health bar, but it showed just the barest sliver of red. She had long, dripping quills sticking out of every exposed surface of her body. I wasn’t sure I knew what this species was supposed to look like, and I only knew she was female because the description described her as such.
She quivered and gasped. She had been horrifically tortured and flayed. The horrors I’d witnessed in Architect Houston’s surgical theater were nothing compared to this.
Cerni Pinta.
Non-Player Tourist.
Guest of Club Scolopendra, and she is currently checked into room #422 along with her three husbands.