The Gate of the Feral Gods Read online

  The Gate of the Feral Gods

  Dungeon Crawler Carl Book IV

  Matt Dinniman

  Dandy House

  Copyright © 2021 by Matt Dinniman

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Permission will be granted in exchange for tasteful feet pics or not-so-tasteful boob shots.

  Cover Illustration by Luciano Fleitas

  https://www.artstation.com/lucianofleitas

  Cover and Interior Design by Toby Dinniman

  https://www.collageorama.com

  Thanks so much to everybody who has helped make this series something really special, including all my friends over on Patreon and Royal Road. Also, extra special thanks to the person who messaged me a random picture of her (?) foot with no message or explanation. I’ve forwarded them off to the AI for you.

  Capital punishment means those without the capital get the punishment.

  Executed Prisoner, John A. Spenkelink

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Epilogue

  Woohoo!

  About the Author

  Mailing List! Patreon!

  Also by Matt Dinniman

  The page where we tout Facebook groups so they let us spam them about this book

  1

  Phase One of Four. The Gnomes.

  Time to Level Collapse: 15 Days.

  Views: 1.43 Quintillion

  Followers: 7 Quadrillion

  Favorites: 2.4 Quadrillion

  Leaderboard rank: 3

  Bounty: 800,000 gold

  Welcome, Crawler, to the fifth floor. “The Bubbles.”

  Sponsorship bidding initiated on Crawler #4,122. Bidding ends in 45 hours.

  Remaining Crawlers: 178,887

  Entering Bubble #543 out of 1172. Air Quadrant.

  New Achievement! The Quarry Sees Another Spring.

  You managed to enter a stairwell while listed in the current top 10. You’re a survivor. A scrapper. And just as the buck’s antlers grow another point as they mature, you too, have grown as both a crawler and as a prize.

  Reward: You have received a Gold Venison Box! Don’t get too excited. It’s just money. In addition, all bounties against you now and in the future will have a (x2) modifier attached.

  Hey, at least the prize for surviving the floor goes up, too.

  “What the shit?” I said, seeing the notification. Nobody had warned me our bounties would double. Mordecai hadn’t mentioned it, nor had I seen it listed in the cookbook. I wondered if that was a new thing. Those fuckers.

  I coughed, regretting I’d said anything out loud. I spit the sand from my mouth.

  Tens of thousands of crawlers hadn’t made it past the last few hours of the fourth floor. I felt my fist clench and unclench as we trudged forward, leaning into the wind.

  Donut mewled with irritation from my shoulder. Hot wind blasted against us, and every time I breathed, my mouth and nose started to fill with sand. We needed masks. We could only talk using chat.

  We’d stepped from the warehouse onto the fifth floor just a few minutes after the fourth level collapsed. I felt the standard rumble in the ground while we were still in the warehouse, but it was much more distant than usual.

  Donut: I NEED TO PICK A NEW CLASS! I REALLY WISH THEY GAVE ME MORE TIME. THE CHOICES ARE ALL DIFFERENT.

  Carl: Mordecai. Help Donut choose. We’re in an air zone.

  Mordecai: There you are. By the gods, did Odette make you clean her house first before she let you go? I’m already here and have been gathering intel. Come to the town that’s hunched up against the northwest curve. The walls block the sand storms. Locals say the storms only last an hour or two each day. Apparently there’s only two towns in the area. Donut, read me your choices.

  Donut quickly read off some of the class choices. None of them had a flying ability. Many sounded more interesting and exotic than usual, like Nine Tails and Demigod Attendant, though there were a few in there that had to be a joke. Like Vape Shop Counter Jockey. Mordecai asked rapid-fire questions. He zoomed in on two choices.

  Mordecai: The class choices keep getting better. We still need to keep your Constitution up. You just lost ten points from losing your Football Hooligan. There’s one that’ll replace it and more. Glass Cannon normally forbids you from adding to your constitution upon level-up, but it comes with a plus fifteen constitution base, and it’ll also greatly increase your training speed on all spells. It does not increase your intelligence, but it lowers the cost of all spells, which is almost the same thing. Your Magic Missile will be much stronger, and it’s already pretty strong. You can’t train constitution anyway, so it’s a good choice, especially if we grind on your magic. But if you don’t actually obtain some of those benefits, it could be a waste of a class.

  Donut’s Character Actor benefit went up in power each time she descended a floor, but it still came with a risk. She didn’t always obtain all of the chosen class’s benefits, and once she picked, it was set for the floor.

  Donut: I CHOSE IT!

  Mordecai: Well? What did you get?

  Donut: I… WELL, I GOT EVERYTHING. EXCEPT THE PLUS 15 TO CONSTITUTION.

  “Goddamnit,” I muttered and immediately regretted it. I had to spit out more sand.

  Mordecai: Okay. We need to really focus on keeping Donut out of harm’s way until we get her better armor. No more riding Mongo into battle.

  Class choice out of the way, we started to move. Dust and sand swirled around us. The ground felt solid, though my feet sank to the ankles with each step. With the dust storm, I could barely see more than twenty feet in each direction. I looked up, and I saw nothing but brown. I turned, and the door we’d just left was gone, replaced by a curved, rocky but uniform wall. It seemed to rise high and away, like we were standing inside of a crudely-sculpted bowl.

  Katia: Okay. I see the edge of town. It’s close, about three hundred meters ahead and to the left. My pathfinder skill is acting a little odd. I can’t see anything behind us except the mountain wall.

  Donut: THERE ARE NO TUNNELS AT LEAST. I HATE TUNNELS.

  I wasn’t so sure about that. My chat was filled with people checking in with their surroundings. I minimized it until we were someplace safe, but I saw a few people mentioning tight, claustrophobic tunnels. Bautista was in one such passageway. Elle and Imani said they were on a round, floating island that was really a bunch of boats lashed together. They were being pelted with a hailstorm and had taken shelter in the hold of a cargo ship that was filled with level-29 fish monsters.

  Carl: I can’t see shit. Watch out for mobs.

  Donut: THIS IS RUINING M
Y FUR. AND IT’S HOT. I DON’T LIKE THIS, CARL. MONGO IS MISERABLE.

  Carl: Mongo is still in his container. You don’t know if he’s miserable or not.

  It was hot. It felt like a hairdryer blasting on us. I remembered how cold it was when we’d first entered the dungeon. My eyes caught a countdown timer in my upper left vision. It was my potion sickness indicator from when I’d taken Mordecai’s Special Brew. I still had over four hours until I’d be able to take another potion. At least the timer had kept ticking while we were on Odette’s show.

  Carl: Donut. Minefield.

  Donut unleashed Mongo, who squawked with dismay at the driving sandstorm. She cast Clockwork Triplicate on the pet, and she ordered the two automatons to range ahead of us. With our limited vision, they’d provide an early warning for both mobs and sand dunes.

  The town was close, but getting there was a chore. We didn’t see any mobs. We passed a cave-like entrance in the ground that offered shelter, but the clockwork Mongos were unable to enter despite it being wide-open. It was a short, sloped descent filled with swirling eddies of sand. In the hole I could see a tunnel fading away into darkness. I took a few steps down the slope, and I saw the shimmering wall. It was not a portal, but a forcefield of some sort, similar to the wall of my Protective Shield spell, protecting the entrance to the cave. The sand passed right through. A clockwork Mongo walked up and swiped at it, claw bouncing off it like it was a physical wall. The creature didn’t explode or blow back. I formed my gauntlet and hesitantly reached out to tap it.

  Warning: You may not enter this quadrant until your current quadrant’s castle is liberated.

  I tried to shout what I’d learned at Donut and Katia, but the wind was just too loud. We had to stick with chat.

  Carl: This is a cave entrance to the subterranean zone. It sounds like we can’t leave the air zone until we deal with the gnomes.

  Katia: The map won’t let me see anything inside there. But look at the walls. I thought this was a mountain, but it all looks carved. I think there’s a building under our feet.

  I took a banger sphere and rolled it down the slope. It bounced a few times down the uneven ramp, entered the area as if the wall wasn’t there, and just kept going. It disappeared into the darkness.

  A moment later, the ground rumbled with a distant explosion. I didn’t hear it, but I felt it in my feet.

  You have set off a trap. Maybe next time you’ll be more careful.

  Carl: Shit, it sounds like the subterranean tunnels have traps in them. We need to be extra vigilant.

  Katia: I believe it’s an underground tomb. Like Indiana Jones stuff.

  She pulled a regular torch from her inventory, lit it, and tossed it through the forcefield. It lit up a long, sloping hallway made of carved bricks.

  Carl: I think you’re right.

  Relief patterns of what looked like a flaming, screaming pterodactyl adorned the walls. Well that’s ominous.

  Donut: CAN WE DISCUSS THIS AFTER WE GET OUT OF THIS SAND? I MEAN, REALLY. WE CAN’T EVEN GO IN THERE. THAT’S NOT OUR AREA. THIS IS JUST AWFUL. SOME PEOPLE ON THE CHAT SAY THEY’RE IN A TROPICAL PARADISE AND SOME SAY THEY’RE IN A SNOWING ZONE. ANY OF THOSE WOULD BE BETTER THAN THIS, AND I DON’T EVEN LIKE SNOW.

  We abandoned the cave entrance and continued on toward the town. The fact we hadn’t seen any mobs was concerning. Less mobs usually meant stronger mobs.

  We did see one oddity as we trekked to the town. There was a twisted, burned-out shell of metal on the ground. It appeared it’d been there for some time. I couldn’t determine what it used to be, but it might’ve once been a vehicle. The system didn’t label it at all. I touched the metal to see if I could take it into my inventory. It felt solid and light, but rusted. It was half-buried in the sand. We left it and continued on our way.

  We soon came to a tall, curved wall made of sheets of metal riveted together. The walls rose high, maybe twenty feet, and a fabric awning covered it above that. The thick, blue and white striped material whipped violently in the storm, threatening to rip away at any moment. The fabric curved up and away into the darkness. Every few dozen feet, large, dark boxes stood atop the walls. They appeared to be lookout towers. They were closed up against the storm.

  Katia: The town is built against the wall. There’s an entrance that way.

  She pointed right, and we followed along the patchwork metal until we reached an arched doorway built into an alcove that was mostly protected from the wind. Donut started hacking up sand onto my shoulder. There was a crude sign over the large, double doorway. It read “Hump Town. Bang twice to enter.”

  The knocker was a mallet, like for a giant drum. It hung from a chain by the entrance. I grabbed it and smacked it against the door twice. The whole doorway echoed loud and deep.

  “That was louder than I expected,” I said. We could finally talk here, though we still had to raise our voices.

  Donut continued to hack in my ear.

  “Hey, don’t puke on my shoulder.”

  “Where else am I going to do it, Carl?” she said between breaths. She proceeded to puke on my shoulder.

  “Goddamnit, Donut,” I said.

  “In ancient Egypt, it was considered an honor for a cat to vomit upon you. You should thank me.”

  “Hump Town,” Katia said drily. “I can’t wait to find what that’s all about.”

  Several minutes passed, and nothing happened. The clockwork Mongos timed-out and collapsed. I was about to bitch at Mordecai to come open the door when it groaned, opening inwardly.

  “It’s a big NPC,” Donut warned just as the creature appeared.

  The tall creature looked down on us while we looked up at him. It was a camel. A giant camel wearing a headscarf and robes. The thing walked on two legs and had long arms with two fingers and a thumb. The tan creature had to be eight feet tall. His giant hump looked odd when he stood straight, like an overstuffed, low-slung backpack covered with robes.

  Clay – Dromedarian. Level 30.

  The Dromedarians are a common, formerly nomadic race that is found throughout the drier parts of the universe. With the ability to store mass amounts of liquid in their bodies, it is said a Dromedarian can survive up to two months without taking a single sip of water. When these hunters and warriors are placed in a situation where they can no longer wander, they tend to become lethargic, sloth-minded creatures. But make no mistake, this is a mighty race of warriors who were once known for their abject brutality.

  Trapped atop the Necropolis of Anser, these local Dromedarians are locked in a three-way stalemate with the Bactrians and the Dirigible Gnomes. Any day now this smoldering conflict could boil over into an all-out war. A war they probably would not survive. In the meantime, they’re perfectly content to sit around, smoke weed, and do their best to drink all their problems away.

  “Hump town,” Katia said, looking up at the camel. “That’s what they mean.”

  “Yo,” Clay the camel said. “Welcome to Hump Town. Don’t just stand there. Get in so I can close the door.”

  I just stared, blinking at the creature. Based on the way he was dressed and the description, I was expecting a stereotypical middle-eastern type accent. This was more like a gruff, biker dude. Like Joe Camel, I thought. The old cigarette mascot.

  “You don’t worship Grull, do you?” I asked as we stepped in. The wind howled around the village, and sand still rained in a dozen little spots here and there. The ground was covered with it. But it was nothing like out there.

  “Do I look like a face-painting, bull-worshipping bitch?” Clay asked.

  “Uh, no,” I said.

  “You lot got here just in time. Storm’s almost over. It’s dangerous to be out there when it stops blowing.” He slammed the heavy door closed. He carried a long, dangerous-looking spear over his shoulder. But he also carried a long tube that looked like a homemade bazooka or mortar. Sure enough, five, pineapple-shaped explosives dangled on a string from his back. My UI tagged each one as a
Guided, Anti-Air Rocket. They were unarmed, so relatively stable. If they were “guided” then it had be magical, as they appeared to be pretty simplistic. It wouldn’t let me examine them further.

  “So the beasts hide when the wind is blowing?” I asked after Clay caught me staring at his gear.

  Clay grunted, a loud, wet sound that sprayed snot everywhere. “You must be new. You’re lucky you ain’t dead.”

  “There’s a Desperado Club,” Katia said. “No Club Vanquisher. I see several stores and inns.”

  “Not so fast,” Clay said as I took another step. “You can’t just enter Hump Town empty-handed. You gotta pay the toll. And if you’re the Club Vanquisher type, you are in the wrong place. They don’t call it Hump Town for nothing.”

  “What’s the toll?” I asked.

  “Gold, drugs, or pleasure.” He looked me up and down. He snorted again, spraying more snot. “Gold or drugs for you.”

  It was the dungeon version of the old bumper sticker, “Cash, grass, or ass. Nobody rides for free.” I chuckled.

  “How much gold?”

  “How much you got?”

  Donut, sensing a deal to be made, straightened on my shoulder. Sand cascaded off of her. I held up a hand to stop her.

  “How about this?” I asked, pulling a single blitz stick from my inventory. It’d gotten a couple of these from Quint the Desperado Club pharmacist.