Chương 347: Day Three Hundred And Forty-Five

Dear Diary, Just when I think I've got a handle on how awful the here and now can be, something comes along and shows me I'm still a total awfulness virgin; I just wish Mimic didn't seem so dead set on being the awfulest thing in existence. Like, okay, when I got here I figured Phileo and The Yards were just way too true to life medieval versions of Philly and Camden.

Which wasn't wrong, per se, but then I realized they had 'Gods' who, from a wealth and power and morality standpoint seem to have looked at billionaires from the world of Eastside and said, 'hold my ambrosia'. So, like you do, I beat the shit out of one in an attempt to secure my place in the pecking order, not to mention marking my family as 'hands off'.

Then I got shown firsthand that the Gods of here and now aren't just as rich, powerful, and immoral as those billionaires, they're also arguably stupider, when one of them decided to pretend my wife was the Wicked Witch of the East and dropped a house sized rock on her.

I responded, like you do, by centimating the population of the offending City, killing off eighty percent of their Heroes, killing their ruler, doing the Dread Pirate Roberts' 'to the pain' by the numbers on the High Priest of Ares, who took credit for the whole 'drop a house on my wife' plan, then amputating the ruler's limbs and Reviving him so he could see what I did to his son. Like you do.

Honestly, at that point if I hadn't already met Loki and kind of adopted him as the dad figure I never had, I might have just started killing off any God I could catch. I'll certainly bring that point up next time one of my peers doubts my contributions to Deific society. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know it already Boss, but you're the best. I know.

So of course at that point some other Deific fuck shows that he's been lobbing loogies across the Atlantic at me, and can't even hit the fuckin' target, so I wind up having to fight a goddamned plague. Which aren't as entirely unsusceptible to being punched in the face as you think.

I go to help out my new friend Larry with getting the plague out of his house, only to find out that systemic enslavement and rape of women wasn't the worst thing in the area, but only because that culture had created 'Heroes' who one upped it from 'casual catch-and-release rape of women who don't hide behind the others' to 'hunting down one specific woman and raping her to death to prove a point'. After starting a war by going on a murder-rape rampage through Calverton.

After executing them, their Souls, and the Psychopomps sent to collect them, Larry, Marie, and I killed the fuck out of the remaining Priests of Ares, followed by Curing the rest of the Plague victims in the Tri State area, then killing the Plague Gods who started, maintained, and profited from the fucking thing.

So, I'm recovering from my 'everybody look at my massive tatas' moment when Big Miss 'if I can't nom it, what good is it' smells something bad down Calverton way, and I'm told there are legit Undead in the here and now. Which, honestly, didn't seem all that bad compared to 'rapist murderers rampaging'. Then Norfolk decided to get in our way, so I go visiting in my most diplomatic fashion, and I find out that in Norfolk, the rapist murders aren't rampaging, they've normalized that shit and are in charge.

So of course I... fuck. I wind up showing them that not only do I do murder better than their murderiest murderers, I literally get off on doing so. And now... And. Now. AND! NOW! When I've finally made some kind of semblance of peace with myself about my darker impulses being as fuckin' dark as anything else in the here and now, when I've spent a chunk of admittedly fun time learning to keep myself calm and in control in the face of violence and horror, life shits on me.

Okay, it didn't literally shit on me, because that would have been preferable. No, my son, who just happens to be both a sapient inanimate object, a Primordial force for Terror, and the biggest Troll in two realities, three if you count M-Space separately, thought it would be funny to spew the innards of a 'Hole Spawn' all over me. I still have no idea what miracle Marie worked to clean that worse-than-shit off, but I think I'm scarred for life. Psychologically, that is.

Physically I've got enough scars already that for one to be noticeable, it needs to be something pretty impressive. I mean, shit, I can only really remember two of them off the top of my head; the ones on my thigh and calf where a Dragon tried, unsuccessfully, to chomp my leg into Tabitha Mc Nuggets, and the one just to the right of the tip of my sternum where Svart gave me what I still think would have been an awesome piercing. Other than that?

I really have no fuckin' clue which of the rest were, y'know, shit from the Battle of the Walls, from the fights in Norfolk, or anything else. Oh, wait, the burns across the fingers of my right hand are from my last meal before my Court Martial. So yeah, I'm really not sure what lesson I'm supposed to be learning from all the bullshit life in the here and now has thrown at me.

I'm definitely not sure if there's even a lesson to be learned regarding being covered in something so disgusting it made being actively Pavlov buttoned by Saffron Not Worth. All I can say is that if Mimic starts trying to copy that shit, I will personally go to M-Space and start making Takoyaki. Except fuck, that won't work, because she'll smell worse than whatever came out of that Hole Spawn. Okay, I know what lesson I did learn, and I applied the shit out of that lesson yesterday.

Three dozen of me spent the day crisscrossing the Bay in a interweaving pattern, moving at a pace where I could carefully examine each and every log, boulder, or big clump of vegetation before I got within lunging range. Anything that looked sus in the slightest got four of me coming in from cardinal directions, then one of me collapsing into the northern me. Apparently Hole Spawn not only can detect me collapsing into myself like that, it's like goddamned catnip for them.

I wonder how Maenads react to catnip, but more relevantly, the catfish Hole Spawn are pretty easy to lure out of the water, and I managed to off a dozen of them by shooting them with Vulcan from near the fucking horizon. The little shit tried to spray bait-me every fuckin' time, but since bait-me wasn't pulling the trigger, I managed to collapse me into myself in time to avoid another Essence of Fermented Tanning Waste Sewage money shot. Last night Saffron called me back home overnight.

We're within a couple days of Calverton now, so one of Marie stays with the fleet while I sleep in my own bed, getting as much rest as I can. Of course, I'm pretty sure she's not following her own orders, because last night was an absolute avalanche of shrimp orchestrated not just by Marie, Saffron, and the super-chibi sous chefs, but the psychotropic tadpoles joined in as well.

There's a bunch of them with the fleet; I can only guess that some of the crew of the ships have legit started worshipping my ass or something similar. Maybe Saffron's been recruiting while I'm busy. I wouldn't put it past her. Then again, maybe they're literally worshipping my ass. They do seem like the sorts that would literally worship a muscle mommy, and my ass is pure rock hard muscle at this point.

Woke up refreshed, stepped back to the fleet, and immediately saw Skasn making his way to the eastern shore of the Bay just ahead of the fleet. I stepped over to his shoulder and said, "hey, big guy. You and Olga trading places?" He glanced over without turning his head too much.

"Nah. We'll be reaching The Hole by late afternoon, and we'll want both of us nearby to guide the ships around it."

"Wait. There's actually a Hole? Like, in the Bay?" He nodded.

"To the east of it the water's barely ankle deep. To the north and south, it runs chest deep, maybe deep enough to put my head under in some spots. To the west? Barely waist deep. But nobody knows how deep The Hole is."

"Oh! Like, it's a really deep spot." This time he looked straight at me.

"What did you think it was?"

"I have no fuckin' clue, man. I've spent the last year fucking around with Gods and Heroes and fuckers who can break the sound barrier through sheer unbridled rage. I figured it might be some kind of void of space bullshit, or maybe a portal to M-Space, or just, I dunno, a massive clipping error, like reality failed to load or some shit." He shook his head, and I noticed he'd begun prodding the bottom in front of him like a blind dude checking his path.

"I have no idea about some of the things you just mentioned, but The Hole is a bottomless pit from which monsters spawn."

"Literally bottomless?" He had some really big eyes to roll, and he rolled them all the way.

"I see why you're so hard to beat on the Green; complete lack of thought makes it hard to predict you."

"Thanks!"

"It wasn't a compliment. At any rate, no one knows if it's actually bottomless. I used to have two sons. Olaf was the shorter one by a head."

"Holy shit. How tall was their mom?" He just grinned without looking at me.

"Big enough I had to kick her feet apart as wide as I am tall." He went quiet a bit, and I respected his momentary reverie. Dunno if they'd been married or not, but they popped out three kids, so I figured the two of them were a thing for a while.

"At any rate, Ole decided he'd find out how deep The Hole was." I dropped to sit on Skasn's broad shoulder and patted it.

"Didn't come back up?" He shook his head.

"Nope. I didn't even see any signs of a struggle, save one last burst of bubbles, then nothing." This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. I tilted my head.

"You didn't go in after him?" He shook his head, his sigh a hurricane.

"He was a man grown. I told him it would kill him. I told him I wouldn't go after him, because The Hole is death. He refused to listen."

"Damn. I'm sorry, man. Was it just, like, macho bullshit, or did somebody pay him or something?" Skasn shrugged.

"Oh, there's a Crown Bounty on discovering the ultimate source of the Hole Spawn and ending it, but no. He couldn't make the Guild's minimum standards like his brother, and he certainly wasn't as good on the Green as his sister."

"So... macho bullshit?" He snorted.

"I guess you could call it that." While most of me scouted ahead, luring out Hole Spawn for me to snipe from a distance, one of me stayed shipboard, another rode Skasn's shoulder and shot the shit about Duelisting versus Heroing, and one of me got ridden back in the Love Shack, because even if she thought I needed my rest, Saffron wasn't about to let up on my distraction resistance training.

The shipboard me skipped back to Lancaster House and stole a scrying bowl, because I'd had some idea about scrying on all the ships. Among other things, I wasn't absolutely certain, but I thought I'd been able to Scry a little easier on places I'd Translocated to and vice versa, not to mention Scrying on a place was easier the more I did it. Also, I wanted to see if Scrying on a moving ship was even possible; it seemed to be, but with the slow pace and the open water I couldn't be absolutely sure.

I passed the morning and afternoon like that, until late in the day Olga met Skasn and I coming from the east.

"Hallo, daughter!"

"Hey, old man!" Behind her, I could just about make out the coastline.

"You want to take shore side or Bay side?" I amplified my voice and called out, "Should we even have any ships go shore side, with how shallow it is?" Skasn shrugged.

"The longboats can sail in shallows, but any of the bigger ships ought veer west."

"Okay, I'll let 'em know." I hopped through the fleet, Co-Locating until my head started aching a little, spreading the word that anything bigger than a longboat needed to steer west to avoid The Hole. Surprisingly, I didn't get even the slightest pushback. Weird with how psychopathically aggressive Norfolk guys normally were, but I wasn't gonna complain. Meanwhile Skasn rammed one of his poles into the bed of the Bay, then tied a red kerchief around the top of it.

A Skasn sized kerchief, which meant it was like four times as big across as I was tall. Then he tied two balls of twine to the upright ski pole and handed one to Olga. Skasn scale twine, which meant a fuckin rope thick enough I could see it clearly from like thirty feet away.

"I'll take Bay side, if you don't mind. The water feels good on my old bones." She nodded, clapped him on the shoulder, thankfully the one opposite where I sat, and said, "stay safe, old man."

"How do you think I got so old?" With that the two of them split up. With no more need for more of me aboard ship, I collapsed them into a single one of me on Olga's shoulder.

"I'll let you know if he needs help."

"Thanks," she said quietly.

"He's a tough old bastard, but... The Hole's The Hole. Fucking blight on our Bay."

"You really that mad about it?" She looked at me.

"It took my brother. It almost took my father, but I grabbed his hand, reminded him that he had two other children to raise. Well, mentor by that point. Not to mention an entire guild to look after."

"I'll take that as a yes." Not long after, we reached a point where she'd turned to move mostly straight north.

"Okay, I'm going to hold here. Is Dad good?" At that point, Skasn had jammed his other pole into the seabed and leaned against it, arms floating beside him, the picture of an old dude enjoying a dip in a pool.

"Yeah, he looks like he's enjoying himself."

"Don't let him do anything stupid, okay?"

"Are you kidding?" The me on Skasn's shoulder looked up at him and said, "you really want vengeance on a fuckin' oceanographic feature, huh?" He closed his eyes while he sighed.

"Yeah. Kinda do. Maybe once she's crowned I'll pay it a visit." I shook my head.

"Can't have that. Your daughter needs at least one advisor who doesn't have an ulterior motive."

"She's got Svart." I snorted.

"Yeah, and I don't have ulterior motives when I'm advising Saffron. Fuck, I don't know that I have any motive other than 'what will end this quickest and get her panties off'. You telling me Svart's not gonna be thinking with the little head some of the time?" Skasn just laughed, letting me know I'd hit the mark.

"With that in mind," I said to him, and then the me on Olga's shoulder said, "don't worry, Princess. Your old man can't possibly have any stupid at the moment. I'm taking it all with me." Then the me on Skasn's shoulder Co-Located into a beautiful dive into The Hole. Maybe thirty feet down, just below his knees maybe, everything went wireframe. I kept going, splitting my swordstaff and connecting a rope dart to each half, tucking the dart ends into The Dress' boots.

They cinched down to hold them, and I kept diving. Right around the level of Skasn's feet I saw some weird lights near the floor of the Bay, then I left all light behind and kept going. I'm not sure how long I dove into darkness, but as the sun touched the horizon The Hole narrowed down to maybe fifty feet across, its sides near vertical by that point. Deep grooves had been scored into the walls, not to mention innumerable pock marks.

I kept diving as the fuckin Hole kept getting deeper; eventually, just as it widened out to maybe two hundred feet, I saw a pebbly bottom, with something human shaped spread across it. Human shaped, but not human sized.

"I see him." I said quietly to Olga.

"You what?"

"Well, I think it's his corpse. Bigger than Olaf?"

"Yeah."

"Any other guys that big?" She shook her head, and I thought I saw a tear.

"Not recently. None that went in The Hole, at least." The bottom of The Hole was an inverted chalice, although it had what looked like little bumps or caves around the base of it. As I got closer to Ole's corpse, my gut clenched, a weird sensation I knew I'd felt before, but couldn't figure out where. I kept going, spiraling down to make sure I kept eyes out for anything lurking. Whatever the pebbling of the base of The Hole was, it covered Ole's corpse as well as it did everything else.

I didn't really get a sense of scale until I was just out of arms reach; at that point I not only got a sense of scale, I recognized the feeling. The 'pebbles' were each at least the size of a beach ball, with some nearly a yard across. The feeling was the same one I'd felt trying to Heal Furtim before I Smited his Undead away. The pebbles nearest me shifted, and one of them cracked. A tiny segmented limb stretched out from inside.

"Fuck. This. Shit." Yeah, talking underwater wasn't useful for communication, but it made me feel a whole fuckin' lot better. Before my feet touched ground, I Shaped a Smite through the sole of The Dress' boot, and it hammered down into the egg with one limb sticking out. It burned away, light and boiling water rising from it as it did.

I swam sideways, Shaping Smites as fast as I could, tagging every egg near me as the ones I'd Smited burned away, gradually raising the temperature in The Hole to something higher than the deep chill it had started at. More eggs rocked, more eggs burned. A few eggs went still, but I kept Smiting everything I got close to. Then I hit one of the medium sized ones with a Smite and the weirdest shit happened. It glowed, and the water around it boiled a bit, but it didn't burn away.

Instead, a claw punched through the shell. Not, like, a single Dragon claw or some shit, but the kind of thing you'd see on a crab.

"Nope." I Co-Located a dozen of me around the room, Shaping Smites as I appeared, tagging the biggest eggs first. The moment I did, every one of those 'bumps' around the edge of the room shifted, then stood up. More limbs than, like three of me put together held up hard carapaces. Claws as long as I was tall extended in front of the big crabs as they scuttled across the bottom toward me. I swam, trying to evade, trying to Smite more of the eggs before I got swarmed.

In seconds half a dozen monster crabs reached me, and I realized that like three of the big bastards had stopped to eat the eggs I'd cracked open. The same awful Undead energy I'd felt from the eggs rolled off the crabs in waves, and right then I noticed that each of them had at least four big, scaly limbs underneath. Not just giant fucking fuck off crabs, but giant fucking fuck off Hole Spawn crabs. All dozen of me shot through the water, trying to converge on one of them.

I slashed at it with Mana Blades, which did dick all. I hit it with my sword staves, which didn't even scuff its fucking shell. I wasn't stupid enough to try slinging a rope dart into it; I figured even if I lodged it, nothing that small would hurt something that big. Then its claw darted forward and grabbed me around the waist. I Translocated away, but another of the fuckers somehow knew where I was headed, and its claw scissored me in half at the fucking waist.

Today was not the day I wanted to learn that I was now tough enough to survive being cut in half at the waist. That me collapsed into another of me, which got scissored in half in turn. These fuckers apparently were enough in tune with however Translocation and Co-Location worked to use it as a fuckin' targeting mechanism. I screamed into the water and Translocated one of me halfway up the Hole, collapsing the half-me to that one as I did.

Four of the Hole Spawned Crabs fighting me rocketed upward in pursuit, armored shells splitting to reveal wings adapted for underwater work. The me in the neck of The Hole headed for the surface. Meanwhile the remaining nine of me squared off against the two crabs more interested in doing unto me than chasing the teleporter or eating their Smited siblings. Eight of me swam to surround one of them while the other me jumped in front of the final giant enemy crab, taunting it away.

All eight charged up the biggest Smite I could, and the moment it lashed out at the one of me in front of them I darted in and let loose with all of them. Which did dick all. Apparently Draconic 'fuck your magic' trumps Smite 'fuck your Undead', much like it does Mana Blades. Two of me wound up getting scissored apart, and I collapsed them to the me swimming upward. That crab decided to head upward as well, and the remaining seven of me converged on the last Hole Spawned Crab who wanted to fight more than eat.

Screaming my rage into the water, each of me Shaped Mana Lances with long thin points onto the tips of my weapons. Lunging in before it could, I rammed my spears into any place that looked like it might be a gap, stomping my feet through the eggs on the ground to get better traction. The Lances pinned it in place, more or less, but nothing punched through. Then the one of me in front of it managed to get one into its mouth-bits, where it sank in slowly.

Its claws lunged at me from both sides, but two of me leapt in the tips of the claws, getting my blades up and holding them open, my back against the dull moving bit, my blades braced against the jagged toothy bit. The me in the middle rammed that fucking Mana Lance forward, shoving inch by inch until something inside gave way.

It slid deep into the guts of the fucking Hole Spawn, at which point I poured Mana into that blade, turning it into a thicket of smaller blades inside the fucker as it twitched and kept trying to cut me in half. Eventually, its shell turning red in the light of my collected Blades, it went still. A moment later I registered two things. First, the other three crabs had decided that dead full grown Hole Spawn must be tastier than Hole Spawn Eggs.

Second, every orifice on the fucking Hole Spawn I'd just killed started leaking an awful looking goop.

"Fuck this shit, I'm out." I collapsed all of me in The Hole to the one on Olga's shoulder, inclusive of the one with five Hole Spawned Crabs chasing it. I had zero doubt that they'd keep following, but even if I had, the five motorboat sized wakes a couple hundred feet out were good evidence they still wanted a piece of Tabitha Ass to chew on. As the sun set I amplified my voice so the ships between us and the shore couldn't help but hear and hollered, "Hole Spawn Incoming!"