Chapter 54

Enter Sansus

The massive boot hopped out, almost crushing my toes under its hulking mass. Acting on reflex, I held my hands out and called on my power, preparing to yeet the thing at the wall.

"Hey, RaeDarz!" Boot's voice came from somewhere, sounding robotic and scratchy, like it was coming from a bad speaker.

"Boots, what the fuck is this thing?" I didn't put my hands down but, for the moment, I resisted attacking it.

"Isn't she the best? She's my mascot. Behold, The Boot Licker Kicker—trademark pending."

"You made an AI out of your username?"

Now that I knew I wasn't in danger of being attacked, I let my guard down and noticed that not only was the thing a boot—but it had eyes. They blinked, constantly, and with the abundance of eyelashes she looked like she was coming onto me. But it seemed more likely that it was some kind of glitch. The more I looked at her the more I realized she wasn't a full AI.

"I'm kind of bad at AI designing so she is more like a robot at this stage, with minimal intelligence and functions. But I'm working on it! Kicky, say hello to our friend."

"Hello... friend." The toe of the boot opened as she talked, a super robotic voice coming from within. "May I... lick your boots?"

"No, Kicky! I told you, you KICK the boot lickers. You aren't one, damn it!"

Kicky compressed, preparing for something, and it didn't take a genius to figure out what. I stepped out of the way just in time as she jumped up, kicking her body forward. She landed back down, rocking the room a little.

"Better!" Boots said, overflowing with pride.

"Boots, as much as I love...Kicky... I'm here for you. Get out here already."

"Oh, no, that's what she's for. I'm not coming out."

I rolled my eyes. "Dude, we agreed on this. You can meet me here, it's a safe zone."

"I didn't agree to physically meeting you. This is a handoff. Kicky, if you will?"

The boot's mouth rumbled, and a noise similar to a cat preparing a hair ball came from inside. I tried to get even farther away but not fast enough this time. Her mouth exploded open, a long tongue unraveled, hitting me with a wet WHAP. It exited her mouth with such force that it knocked me off balance and I fell on my butt, the tongue continuing to unravel into my lap.

"Ugh! Why did you make it like this, Boots!?" I tried to lift the tongue off me but it was heavy and slimy to the touch.

"Put the mask on the tongue," he said, all business, not bothering to offer me an ounce of an explanation.

I did it as fast as I could, summoning the mask and putting it on the tongue in record time. I wanted it off me as soon as possible. The tongue disgustingly wrapped around the mask and rolled it back up into her mouth. She swallowed it with a wet SMACK.

But the important part was that I'd been released. I jumped to my feet and wiped slobber off myself. "That was the grossest fucking thing I've ever experienced."

There was a weird noise, sounding like a back firing motor.

"Don't say that! She's sensitive. It's okay Kicky."

The boot was... sobbing. I instantly felt bad and tried to pat it on the head but she shuffled backwards and disappeared through the doorway. The door shut behind her.

"You're a monster, RaeDarz."

"I didn't mean to! Tell her I'm sorry." I knocked on the door. "Kicky, I didn't mean it!"

"It's too late. You'll have a chance at redemption when you come back for your mask."

"No I won't, I can recall it whenever I want!" I banged on the door again.

"Oh. Oh yeah. I guess she is just gonna hate you for a while. Better luck next time, later!"

The terrible sound quality died and I was alone in the waiting room. I sighed. I didn't know why I cared what a giant boot thought of me, that was probably something to discuss in therapy, but I was currently avoiding my therapist hardcore.

I leaned on the door while I planned out my next move. I didn't know how long Boots would be working on the mask, or really any idea what he would be doing to it at all. So that left me with an unknown amount of time with which to kill. Fun stuff.

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Well, I knew one thing: no matter what I would need to be as powerful as possible for whatever came next. And I had some ideas on what I could do to improve. The first and I assume easiest would be to make myself all pink, to match my helmet. Buying pink armor was a no brainer, but I wanted to go further than that. I wanted to make my mental Magic pink as well.

My idea was, that if I was all gaudy pink, and my powers were pink, I could use my energy to guard myself without anyone knowing it's there. I could release it out over my body for a decent protection for my measly HP and then move it into place to block the more intense blows. Couple that with me continuing to amass more energy I have access to and being able to use it for longer periods... that would go such a long way to working against one of the fishbowl's biggest drawbacks.

So, first things first, I needed to go shopping.

I knocked on the door again. "Hey Boots, do you know anywhere I can get cheap but really good armor? And, uh, also color customizable."

The echo speaker clicked on. "Oh yeah, for sure, go here."

He sent me a world address. "Paradise?" I said. "What is this?"

There wasn't much info to go on:

[ Heaven Haven | The place of tranquility and peace | Come meet your maker! ]

"Oh, it's the black market, basically."

I laughed. "Uh, what? You're telling me a black market is hidden inside a religious world?"

"Yup, that's what I'm telling you exactly. Pretty clever huh? Now, please get out of here, I'm busy."

He killed the speaker again. When he had a new toy to play with he was back to a one track mind. But, whatever, I had a new destination.

I clicked the link and was whisked away, coming face to face with a morbidly obese God.

#

The statue before me was like if Santa Claus and Jesus did a Dragonball Z styled fusion dance. The outer layer was Jesus—long hair, middle eastern like he was always supposed to be, and the classic Biblical garb. But the body itself—the girth—all Santa. And I guess the height, too. I'd always pictured Jesus taller than me but a short Santa made more sense.

The statue was made out of a sparkling rainbow metal that if it had a name, I didn't know it. It was a little hard to look at, if you stated at it too long your vision started to squirm with colors. I looked up, seeing a digital display above.

[ Welcome to Heaven Haven! Come on and join us in prayer! ]

I peeked my head around the Santa Jesus and, sure enough, there was a big church behind it, the style of which completely took me aback.

When I said all that stuff about the Santa and Jesus I was mostly kidding. But whoever ran this world? They weren't.

The church was covered in snow, made of a mix of traditional brick and classic church architecture—crosses and pointed roofs. But it was also another part wooden construction and red and green almost building block like constructs.

In other words it was a church and Santa's Workshop smashed together and was about the ugliest thing I'd ever seen. Fat Jesus I could maybe kind of get behind, but this was a little too much.

I walked around the statue, underestimating Jesus' girth and bonking my head on his belly as I passed. The church doors were open and a teenager in an elf costume mixed with Biblical robes. He looked ridiculous.

"Where can I get that outfit?" I asked as I approached the door.

He looked at me with the deadest most bored stare I'd ever seen. "You have to accept Sansus as your Lard and Saviour."

Surely I didn't hear that first part correctly.

"Right. What about Jesus?"

The boy scoffed. "Made up. Sansus is the true King. You really need to read this."

He handed me the smallest Bible I'd ever seen. It was the size of my palm and, for a Bible, surprisingly thin. "Not a lot of lore in this one, huh?"

He shook his head sadly. "I will pray for you. Might I suggest page one hundred and forty-four?" He gave me an odd look, like that number had significance.

I just smiled and walked inside the church. Despite the outward appearance, the inside was a bit more traditional church. Tall ceilings, wooden pews—but some Santa influence still spilled in. There were toys lining everything, every end of a pew was adorned with a toy, the pillars on the walls. And I saved the best for last: a giant stained glass window on the far wall, showing Santa Jesus surrounded by elves in a forest, one hand holding a cross and the other a wooden toy train.

What the actual fuck?

And almost as weird as that, was the fact that the church was packed, almost full capacity. I had to walk over to the very back row, the only pew still with spots available. That worked for me, less walking and if I needed to bail I was close to the door.

A preacher was speaking, mid sermon. "...and one day Sansus will come back for us and save us from the digital hell we are all living in."

Yikes.

He went on and on. I was hoping for more tidbits on the lore but it was mostly all normal religious stuff besides the name being changed. I kept an ear out for anything weird but beyond that I checked out, pulling out the little Bible.

Now it was where I could find all the answers. But, annoyingly, it was still written like the real Bible and I didn't have time to try and unravel the meanings. So, instead, I immediately turned to the page the teenager recommended and I was stunned to see something different: a completely blank page. Puzzled, I turned to the next one and the one before. Both had words on it. And the latter continued on from where the one before left off. It was like the middle page shouldn't even be there at all.

I just kept looking at it, unsure what it meant. Was it a joke of the teenager? This is his favorite page because it was devoid of the weird religion? That was an awful lot of trouble to go through for a joke.

[ What are you staring at? ]

Digital words appeared inside the book, like an Interverse message but written out in the printed words.

"The fuck?" I whispered.

[ It's not nice to curse in a church. ]

"There are curse words in the Bible," I said before I could stop myself. Was I really defending myself to a book?

[ Touché. You want in or not? ]

"Into what?" I asked.

[ Oh. You looked like you knew. Never mind then. ]

All the words that had been written/spoken started to disappear off the page, melting away.

"Wait!" I said, a little too loudly, people nearest me turned to give me a dirty look. I went back to whispering. "You mean the black market?"

The words came rushing back.

[ Ah! You do know. Yep. You ready? ]

I took one last look around the church, where the priest was handing out... Rudolph noses? What the actual fuck?

"I'm so ready."

[ Buckle up! ]

The Bible started to glow and rocked in my hand. I held onto it, scared it would take off flying. The pew beneath me cut on either side, separating me from the rest of the pew then, to my horror, a hole opened up in the floor. Red hot flames burst from below, licking at my feet. I moved my feet up onto the pew but it was futile: my seat collapsed, dumping me into the hole like a carnival dunking booth, into the flames of hell.