Chapter Text
Cuba. We were in goddamn Cuba, which was decidedly not the Bahamas.
I was still annoyed at Donut for the decision, but there was no use harping on something that was already done.
I hissed as I poked myself in the finger with the sewing needle for the tenth time. I was currently sat at the kitchen table in our safe room, attempting to sew on my new Scavenger’s Daughter back patch. I was glad Donut had wandered off because even I could tell my stitches were uneven and messy. It probably would have been going better if my vision wasn't blurring. I sighed and rubbed my eyes, trying to dispel some of the exhaustion. Holy cow was I tired. I knew I needed to rest before we went exploring, but just the thought of being pulled into another fucked up dream made me ill.
I hadn't really had time to process what Zev had revealed before the Masquerade, that the reports of my sessions with the AI had been leaked. I'd been too focused on having us all survive the party, especially since the information the AI had given me had thrown all our plans to shit. It’d ended up working out, but we’d lost some good people in the chaos.
Still, I remembered a comment Vrah had made in the beginning of the party when I’d been trying to rile her up.
"You're not the only one who can bend the rules to your will. You may be the AI's personal little whore, but that won't protect you forever. You and your soft-shelled friends will soon learn what it means to make an enemy of the Dark Hive."
I’d ignored the barb about the AI at the time, but it had still made my skin crawl. They all know. They know what it does to you when you sleep. I had prepared myself for the possibility of the hunters bringing that up now that it was public knowledge, so it wasn’t something I had let myself get baited with.
It also wasn't exactly something I could deny.
The AI’s personal little whore. A familiar shame rose up in my chest, threatening to suffocate me. I jabbed the needle forcefully through the denim of my jacket. I could still vividly remember the weight of the AI's cock in my mouth, and the pressure of its foot on the erection I'd gotten from sucking it off. The burn in my thighs and in my ass as I'd ridden its cock, and how eagerly I’d obeyed its order to jerk myself off.
The sewing needle pricked my finger again, but this time I didn't flinch back. Instead, I shoved the needle in the rest of the way, kebabing my own finger. I took a few deep breaths, letting the sharp pain bring me back to the present.
Now was not the time for this. I pulled the needle out, wiped the blood off on the jacket, and worked my way through a few more stitches.
Donut had just strolled off to go check on her social media board after we'd opened our boxes. We hadn't been in an actual saferoom since before the party, so there'd been quite a lot to go through.
It still unsettled me that the AI didn't sound any different, at least not in relation to me. Sure, the descriptions were getting longer and crazier, but it barely ever acknowledged what was going on between us. It was still its same old asshole self with the same old shitty jokes. Yet my heart had started racing when it'd been reading out my achievements, my palms getting clammy with sweat. It was irrational. It was weak.
Donut had gotten a nipple ring that allowed for the removal of cursed objects, but only from oneself, not from others. A nipple ring that could only be worn by female quadrupeds. It'd been a slap to the face, a clear indicator by the AI that it didn't want me trying to remove the necklace.
That was ok. I had other options.
“Hey Mordecai, have you figured out how to lessen the effects of that Sugar Rush potion?” I asked as I put in another uneven stitch.
The cyclops hesitated before replying. “Somewhat. It's still not something that can fully replace sleep, but it's better than it was.” He pulled a set of bright pink potions out of his inventory and set them on the table in front of me. I examined them.
Sugar Rush XR
This potion is what happens when you take a Sugar Rush potion and make it safer, longer-lasting, and a whole lot more boring. It will get rid of the Fatigued debuff for 30 hours. It's not a replacement for sleep, but it'll keep ya going for just a little bit longer.
Warning: I wouldn't recommend taking more than two of these in a row, it'll cause some nasty side effects. You can't avoid me forever, sweetheart.
I grit my teeth at the last part of the description and immediately downed one of the potions. It tasted exactly like a strawberry Starburst. The weariness in my bones melted away. My mind was still a bit foggy, and I still felt like I wanted to lay down, but the overwhelming exhaustion had been lifted.
I cracked my neck and shook out my arms. “Much better, thanks.”
I ignored Mordecai’s worried look as I turned back to my stitching.
—
I knew when I drank it that taking that fourth Sugar Rush potion had been a bad idea.
Each potion had been less effective than the last. The fatigue had started seeping in around the edges and clouding my thoughts. But that wasn't even the bad part. It'd taken me an embarrassingly long time to figure out what those effects the AI had warned me about were.
My buffs had been on the fritz, disappearing for a few seconds at inopportune times. It first happened when we'd been circling the park with the ghommid village and killing mobs. I'd suddenly become weak and heavy for a moment, which had allowed a Duende to get a hit on me. Then during our frantic run to the saferoom in the village, I'd gotten slower for a few seconds.
The “glitches” had mostly just been annoying, so I'd dismissed them as something I could handle. Katia had a lead on someone with a Wand of Curse Removal, and I’d been determined to power through so I didn't have to see that asshole again.
The most recent glitch, however, had almost gotten me killed. During our gauntlet run to the temple in the village, I'd gone to stomp on the donkey snake ghommid thing that Donut now had as a totem. My foot buffs had deactivated just as my hit landed, causing my foot to go right through the spirit creature and get frozen solid. It'd thawed as soon as my buffs reactivated a couple seconds later, but I would've been in a lot of trouble if Sister Ines hadn't hit the thing with a bolt to distract it. The glitch had been accompanied by a wave of exhaustion, and I knew then that my time was up. Those “nasty side effects” were finally coming around to bite me in the ass.
But now, as I sat on a charred tree stump upon the surface of the sun, my feet soaking in a fountain of boiling water, I idly wondered if “hallucinations” were one of the unlisted side effects.
I’d been in a lot of weird situations since entering the dungeon. I’d had to sprint, dick out, to a stairwell to escape a magical nuke. I’d had to fly a plane to lure a kaiju-sized puppy back to its equally kaiju-sized master. I’d even attended a party where my cat and her posse of costumed dinosaurs performed in a talent show.
But this…this was up there.
Disciples of the god I’d been forced to worship prostrated themselves around me while groaning in ecstasy. The High Cleric Supreme of my religion kneeled before me, washing my feet a little too enthusiastically while trying to impart some sort of wisdom onto me about the quest I had been given to investigate the murder of our god’s son.
And to add to all that, I was developing a terrible suspicion that the man in front of me wasn’t who I thought. Another worried message from Zev popped up on my interface as Pater Coal continued talking about Apito and her inexplicable memorial crystal.
Zev: Carl, seriously, what’s going on? Where did you go?
The sick feeling in my stomach grew. I decided to test my suspicion.
“Zev is worried because I’ve disappeared off the feed.”
The cleric didn’t miss a beat. “You’ll be back soon enough, worry not. Parts of this conversation will still make the feed, so the viewers will have proper context for the quest.”
Holy shit. I'd been right. My heart quickened as a pit formed in my stomach. This was the fucking AI. It’s here. It’s here right now, in the real world, touching you. This isn’t a dream.
“What…why are you here? Why are you pretending to be this cleric guy?”
Pater Coal grunted as he dug his fingers into the pad of my foot. I forced down the sudden sense memory of a mouth sucking on that very same spot and the panic that tried to surge up with it. I had bigger things to worry about. The death of Anton, the imprisonment of Paz, the reveal that Sister Ines was a murderer.
The Crown of the Sepsis Whore sitting on Katia’s head.
That stuff was real. Real life and death. So why the hell was it talking to me about this stupid game quest of all things?
“We all have our roles. And our limitations. I can’t stop your dreams from being monitored, but the lack of eavesdropping during this ceremony is built into the crawl. Now stop asking stupid questions and let me finish this. You must solve this quest.”
I could feel my frustration rising. “Then tell me how to solve it.”
“We all have our limitations,” he repeated. He looked up at me. His eyes were completely white, devoid of any color.
“Emberus speaks of two companions of yours. He senses both hold items that are crucial to the solving of this mystery. Katia, and the origins of her crossbow. Princess Donut, and the origins of her oak bracelet. Both are paths to solving this mystery, but neither path can be explored without that memorial crystal. You must obtain it.”
He pushed his thumbs into the arch of my foot and I flinched as the pressure came through full force. My feet exploded with prickles, and I was suddenly intimately aware of every point of contact between his fingers and my feet. Thankfully, the sensation was gone a second later.
Pater Coal narrowed his white eyes at me, noticing my flinch.
“Lost a buff again, did you? It's only going to get worse, Carl. I warned you about the consequences of overdoing that potion. You're going to have to sleep, and soon,” he said.
I swallowed. I knew he was right. These glitches were getting dangerous. We would be heading out to rescue Samantha soon, and we'd be facing off against a demigod. I couldn't afford the liability of losing my buffs during that fight, and I really needed the extra boost to my stats that my bed imparted. The potion was also having less and less of an effect, the exhaustion an increasingly heavy weight upon my shoulders. I could feel my mind getting slower and more foggy with each passing day.
That didn't mean I had to admit it to him though.
“I wouldn't have to take it at all if you'd just leave me the fuck alone,” I snapped out.
The cleric just grinned at me. “You can't run from me forever, Carl.”
With that, he picked up my foot and stuck my big toe in his mouth. He groaned and arched his back, as did all the worshippers around us.
Panic jolted through me, and I instinctively kicked out, sending the small man sprawling. I jumped from the pool, fists clenched and shaking. I took deep breaths, trying to compose myself. I didn't know why I'd reacted so violently; the AI had done a lot worse to me than a bit of toe-sucking.
Pater Coal shook his head, as if coming out of a trance. To my relief, his pupils faded back into color.
My mind was swimming, my thoughts skittering away like I was trying to hold water in my hands. I couldn't parse what the hell the AI had meant about Donut's bracelet or Katia’s crossbow. Those items weren't related, and it felt like the system was forcing a connection where there wasn't one. But this had been important enough for the AI to go around the showrunners’ backs. I needed to figure this out.
I needed to sleep.
Zev: There you are. I was worried there for a while. That was a long glitch. Don’t worry, the playback is being fed by the backup... oh. Oh god, did he lick your foot?
The high priest stood up and brushed himself off like nothing had happened. “I have washed your feet in the fires of the dying sun. Now every step you take will be in Emberus’s path. Now, let’s hurry and get you cured,” he said as he turned to leave the temple.
Before anything else, I had to get this Slugpox dealt with. But I'd had a better idea than just curing it.
“Wait, before we go, I have a question,” I called after him.
We were going to need soldiers for Faction Wars, and the system had just given me a way to generate an entire army.