The loudspeaker crackled.
“Leave me alone,” a new voice said. “Why won’t you let me die?”
Cascadia.
“Say what? What catchphrase? Fuck you.”
This was followed by the pained screaming of Cascadia. It abruptly cut off.
“What the hell?” I muttered.
Zev’s voice popped back on.
The AI wants you to know Cascadia is still alive, but she has lost some— Oh my gods. She has lost a few flippers. Next time she’ll say her catchphrase like a good little mudskipper. In the meantime, I gotta say it. Uh, get out there and kill, kill, kill.
The loudspeaker cut off again.
Donut: ZEV, ARE YOU OKAY?
Zev: Can’t talk now, Donut. But I’m okay. I’m okay.
Jesus fucking Christ,I thought, just breathing. I cursed myself for thinking everything had gotten simpler.
My attention returned to the paper still clutched in my costumed hand. I hesitantly peeled it open.
The paper was an old blank invoice for the place called C&W&U. I remembered seeing it in Hungry Eyes. The paper was an invoice similar to the ones we used in the shop for boat repairs. The line under the shop name read, “Shop opens after the third heat.”
Underneath that, it was a crude drawing. It showed a stick-figure woman showing her poorly drawn breasts to a group of cheering stick-figure gremlins. There was a note that said “Your mom” with an arrow pointing toward the woman.
The gremlins on our truck burst into laughter.
I was about to crumple the note up when my Escape Plan skill tingled. This was the same skill that allowed me to read thecookbook along with dungeon signs for mobs. I hadn’t had it activate in the wild in a while.
What the hell?I blinked as the words formed.
Don’t tell anyone about this note. You need to kill two teams next heat. Come visit us when we open after the next race, and I’ll explain why. Ask for the top-shelf upgrades so you’re led to the back. We don’t have to be enemies, Carl. We want the same thing. I can smuggle friends to the Pineapple Cabaret. We can escape this chaos. Come alone.
Akuma
[ 24 ]
I seethed.
Akuma. The leader of the War Mage Rebellion from Faction Wars. The magic-based creature who’d almost ruined everything. He’d killed Stalwart and stolen the Gate of the Feral Gods. He’d disappeared after they’d taken the castle and tasked me with killing Agatha.
I watched Samantha hop up and down as Jasha poured beer into her mouth. I remembered that whole business with her sand-ooze daughterthat had supposedly been hiding in the castle. The same castle the war mages had been searching.
Samantha. Her daughter. The Scavenger. Emberus. The murder of his son, Geyrun. The memorial crystal Prepotente now had.
It was all connected somehow, and I had no idea what the fuck any of it meant.
I reread the note, putting the words into my notepad.
I can smuggle friends to the Pineapple Cabaret.
I’d only heard that term one time before. The Pineapple Cabaret. It wasn’t mentioned anywhere in the cookbook that I could recall. The AI, in possession of Growler Gary’s body, had offered the orc princess Formidable “Backstage at the PineappleCabaret” as one of the location options for her banishment after she’d tried to trigger the fail-safe.
She’d ended up choosing the Earth’s surface, and apparently the AI had dropped her in the ocean somewhere, implying all the locations on that list had beenbadchoices.