Chapter 38 - Red Carpet

I’ll be the first to admit I tend to build things up in my head.

But that was super hard when I wasn’t sure what to expect.

Don’t you just hate it when that happens? When guests show up without any notice? When you don’t even know how many are coming? Or who they are? Or what they look like? Or what they like to eat?

At least, back in the gate, I’d known most of those answers. That’s how I was able to plan my Lair Warming Party. You remember that, right? All those fun sewer games? I’d been able to plan a warm welcome. You know, because there was only the one entrance and the one exit – the shit only flowed one way through that extra-dimensional hellhole.

But out here, in the Five Rivers, there were only questions. Like how would our creditors be travelling all the way out here to Apati? By land? That seemed slow. Also, unlikely. Especially with the screaming bamboo forest encircling the city. We hadn’t even built the highway to the north yet. Although, it was still possible, right?

Or maybe they planned to come by water? But that came with its own host of problems. Not that I have to tell you, right? We had a small-to-moderate sea serpent problem.

It was frustrating. How was I supposed to create lofty and completely unreasonable expectations if I didn’t even know what to expect? That’s right… there was only one way.

I just had to plan for every possible contingency.

Maybe that was overkill. Fang seemed to think so.

But that was also why I was prepared when our creditors showed up.

Or, at least, I thought I was. But that wasn’t just any boat traveling downriver.

It was a hulking behemoth. The mother of all ships. One so wide it disappeared into the ever-present mist that floated atop Cocytus, the bow cutting through the dancing rainbow river of spirits. At least ten stories. Giant holes in the side for the equally huge cannons – ones wider than even Horus’ impressive arm span.

And manning that vessel was a new race – one I heard long before I caught sight of them. I’d only heard stories of the sirens. A race of creatures born to the water, their vessels adapted to swim and work the river. Their voices had been described as eerie. Sublime. Luring other races and innocent creatures to the shore – pacifying even native monsters.

Like the sea serpents that had infested the bay.

Honestly, I hadn’t even tried to fix that problem. First off, I hadn’t had time – not with everything else going on. But also, what were we going to do? Fight them in the water?

And that trick we’d used with my precious babies didn’t seem like it would work anymore – not after the serpents had spent weeks devouring all of the native wildlife. We must have fought infant sea serpents before, because the giant scaly river monsters were now nearly 100 feet long. Frankly, it was all we could do to keep them on the other side of the big metal wall that encircled the harbor.

Yet the sirens handled them easily enough.

Their voices rose through the air, singing a caressing lullaby that lured the snakes from the waters, their bodies weaving in time with the music. And as the sea serpents hovered there, the sirens took the opportunity to fire at those easy targets.

The cannons exploded with a puff of smoke, launching enormous harpoons that streaked through the air but seemed to miss their targets…

Huh, that was weird. Maybe they were terrible at aiming?

Oh, wait, I got it! The harpoons pivoted in midair, guided by some unknown spirit as they arced and curved back toward the boat, wrapping the snakes’ armored scales until they cinched taut. The serpents barely reacted, their movements listless and confused, the song still working its magic even as the crew hauled them toward the boat.

Even more interesting, the prow of that impossibly huge ship began to open up, splitting down the center and revealing a giant bladed guillotine. The crew simply hauled the sea serpents toward that blade and as the first entered—

SWISH, CRUNCH.

Headless sea serpent, its lifeless body dropping to the deck where a crew began to butcher and carve up the creature with expert precision. A well-oiled machine. Only minutes later, the corpse had been disassembled and pushed aside, the team ready for another.

I’ll admit, I was impressed.

This seemed like a great way to get rid of the sea serpents.

And for a moment, I considered doing nothing. Abandoning my Plan B.

But I was also curious, my mind abuzz with a frantic and compelling new series of questions. Like did the snakes prefer calming music? Not a wailing death shriek produced by possibly sentient bamboo tubes screaming in abject horror? Had… had my new sound system created this problem? Possibly even lured in the snakes from miles around? I mean, the problem had definitely been getting worse, hadn’t it?

Was all of this potentially my fault? I know, crazy right?

Unfortunately, there was only one way to test my theory.

Thankfully, I’d had the foresight to prepare a reception for our new guests no matter which way they decided to arrive. Really roll out the red carpet treatment, if you know what I mean. Offer them the gift of pure friendship.

And why not? What could possibly be closer and more important than the bond between debtor and creditor? Nothing, of course! Fang had taught me that. You remember that too, right? His little notebook that tracked my debt in ventu corpses? Plus, now that I knew our guests loved music, they’d probably appreciate this even more…

WAIL. SHRIEK. SCREAM.

The screams were so loud that they drowned out the sirens’ song, blowing it apart and with it the relative calm that had settled across the bay. The tethered serpents began to kick up a fight, thrashing and pulling against their restraints – those thick braided metal ropes straining and snapping taut. Okay, that seemed like proof…

The snakes really hated the sound of the bamboo.

Although, that didn’t explain why the waters of Cocytus began to, well… boil.

Yet that mystery was solved only moments later as more serpents began to emerge. Not one or two or even a dozen. But hundreds. In all shapes and sizes. A veritable writhing mass of serpentine flesh and snake-like eyes – all of them pointed at that offending ship – the one standing between them and the shore where we were making sweet music. The sirens’ song faltered and was soon replaced with shouts and screams of alarm, tiny dots rushing across the deck – hard to make out at this distance. It looked like—

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Yup. They were trying to turn the boat. To run away. Smart play.

Unfortunately, the ship was pretty big – possibly too big.

Plus, the sea serpents seemed really upset.

Probably because DJ lil’ P was still laying down some sick beats, the vulpin slamming his keyboard with abandon. His furry ears plugged with wax and his eyes closed as he focused on making musical magic with his fingertips.

The wave of snakes crashed against the side of the hull with explosive force, causing the impossibly huge vessel to list. Then they began to scale the side, many slithering up the decks and boring into the portholes in the side before disappearing inside the ship. That giant gaping hole in the front also turned out to be a serious liability. It was just a bloodbath. The crew must have decided to change plans at that point because smaller boats started dropping from the side of the massive ship – the one nearest the shore.

“Over here! Flee to the harbor,” I shouted through a tube, waving at the harbor wall, the gates creaking open with a horrific, shrieking grind of metal on metal. Not that the serpents paid this much attention. They seem pretty fixated on that ship.

It was probably all the screaming…

Anyway, for safety, we’d also installed several glowing lamps filled with light spirits – you know, to make sure the harbor was visible through all the steam and mist and splashing water. See? Obsessively planning for every possible contingency is important. Critical really. The secret to my genius.

The smaller boats were soon making a beeline straight for us – abandoning their mothership to the sea serpents who were tearing it apart in a writhing, massive pile of snake flesh. One that towered up more than a hundred feet into the air. Hundreds of sea serpents united in their desire to destroy that offending vessel – the one between them and the shore; between them and the source of that wailing death ballad.

They also began to hunt the smaller boats in the water. One. Two. Then a dozen of those boats broke apart as the serpents slithered after their quarry. The sirens’ screams blended with Pietr’ wailing death ballad before cutting off, the water stained a dark red, the waves kicked up by the thrashing serpents pushing it to shore.

The first boats soon made landfall, the survivors rushing from the vessels and scrambling up the steep, muddy banks as fast as they could – which turned out to be almost comically difficult.

Like I said, I hadn’t known what to expect of our creditors – what vessel might be carrying those sublime voices. I’d assumed something curvy and voluptuous. A vessel as scintillating as their music. One that might even be hotter than Fang’s mom…

Which just goes to show that you shouldn’t make assumptions.

The sirens were, well… thick.

They each weighed about a ton. Like big humanoid walrus. Tusks jutting from their mouth – webbed hands and feet. Dense, slick fur that helped mask the impressive rolls of fat. Or blubber, I guess? Is that the technical term?

Okay, before you start with me, I’m not body shaming them! I would never do that – not with my own issues. To be clear, I’m jealous. I’m down with the thickness.

Hell, there was a time when I would have loved to pack on that kind of poundage. If I’d had a body like that back in the hell sewer, I’d have made the best bait. I mean, look at them! The snakes were taking them out so fast, even the ones that were flopping their way up the bank, breathing hard and heavy and clearly unaccustomed to such intense cardio.

And in the distance, their ship was—ahh, it was burning now. I guess something must have caught fire. Just a giant pyre of flames and writhing, armored snakes, thick smoke billowing up into the air and obscuring the twinkling spirits from sight. Wreckage and corpses and thick blood forming a massive mile wide trail up to the shore.

“What am I watching?” Cole muttered in horror beside me.

“The red carpet treatment,” I announced with a smile.

“Are you serious?” he snapped.

“The blood is the carpet,” I explained helpfully.

“Yeah… yeah, I caught that,” he shot back in a dry voice.

Meanwhile, everyone else looked pretty excited. Lili was roaring her approval in the back of my mind, Maribel’s hand was twitchy, Manslaughter and her daughters were all watching with rapt fascination – their glowing snake eyes wide and jaws slack.

And Fang was already barking orders. “Man the bamboomers! Focus!” He roared through his own bamboo tube. The engineers all assumed their positions along the interior wall we’d built along the shore – you know, for our safety.

The smaller savran were each operating one of our new and improved, steam-powered bamboomers. Once I’d shown the engineers the design, they’d really run with it – narrowing the barrel and attaching a pressurized steam chamber. Although, the recoil was pretty fierce. Too much for the wimpy engineers. That’s why we’d mounted the turrets to the tops of the buildings along the shore. And why a female savran was standing next to each one, funneling their steam into the contraptions until they let out a high-pitch whistle.

“And FIRE!” Fang roared.

Missiles erupted from those cannons and rocketed through the air at the speed of pure teamwork, passing the surviving sirens flopping their way up the bank before crashing into the oncoming line of sea serpents – a writhing, roiling, boiling mass of snake flesh that was barreling toward those meaty songsmiths.

See what I mean? The sirens were the perfect bait…

The missiles drilled into the snake’s armor… and I mean that literally. The tips glowed a bright red and gave off a whirring grind as they spun. That was more than enough to allow them to punch through those thick scales. Yet we weren’t done. The contents in the shaft exploded, bright green poison seeping into their snakelike bodies and the excess billowing out in an expanding wave – one that saturated the waters and coated those snakes.

We’d had to use a bunch of our reserves from the poison springs.

It was actually highly toxic and dissolved flesh in seconds.

At least, for other people. Turns out I was special.

I’d always suspected, but it was nice to finally have proof.

Fang ordered the engineers to keep firing. Again and again. Until the snakes movements began to slow, growing confused and listless. More than a few were just floating on the surface, writhing and twisting and twitching amid waters now stained a festive red and green. The other sea serpents seemed to be catching on to the problem, and slowed their assault even as the harbor gate slowly began to grind closed.

With a wave from yours truly, DJ lil’ P finally cut the music – leaving only the sound of splashing, groaning, grunting, and the crackle of the massive ship burning in the distance as it slowly sank. And in that void, the others stared at me—

Awestruck by my genius, obviously.

I could feel the heat of their praise from here… or, uh, that might have actually been the ship in the distance. Wow, it was really burning fiercely. I wonder what they must have been carrying onboard. Something flammable most likely.

But there wasn’t time to dwell on that. Our guests were still scrambling up the shore.

And among the sirens were other races. A few vulpin, a couple dozen sapiens, and a whip thin man with a serious case of resting-elf face – glaring and screaming at the others. Tossing a few of his teammates behind him as bait for the few surviving sea serpents that had managed to sneak inside and slither through the flotsam of blood and body parts.

Accompanying him was also the biggest siren I’d ever seen… which I guess wasn’t saying a lot since this was my first time. But he was also wearing a really cool hat and his crew seemed to be rallying around him, raising their voices with his and forming a protective barrier of rainbow energy along the shore – enough to blunt the feeble attacks of the injured serpents, the rest of the brood retreating back into depths of the river.

I couldn’t be sure, but I was guessing he was the captain.

The nimbus radiating off him and the elf was just… exquisite.

“Finally! Finally, after all this talking and craziness and family nonsense, it’s time to feast! Kill them all and drain their oversized vessels of their sweet nimbus!” Lili roared.

“Uh… no,” I replied slowly. “That’s not the plan.”

“Wait, what?” she snapped. “But you burned their boat and killed most of the crew! Seriously, they’re injured – distracted. This is our perfect opportunity.”

“Don’t those two look super dangerous, though?”

“So what? Just open a couple ratholes and drop them back in the middle of the bay!”

Huh, that… that actually wasn’t a terrible idea.

But, unfortunately, I had other plans. Better plans.

“Okay, but the ship was an accident. An experiment. Weren’t you listening?”

“Well… no. Not really,” Lili replied reluctantly. “I tune you out when you’re monologuing. Are we seriously not going to eat them? Aren’t you hungry? Ravenous? It’s been forever since we’ve eaten and they’re so thick and juicy and filled to the brim with—”

Which was just more body shaming. I expected better – especially from Lili. You’d think with her eating disorder she’d be more compassionate. Or maybe she was just deflecting? Making the problem about them instead of about her?

“I don’t have an eating disorder. I—I just have a fast metabolism. And I’m not deflecting. You never let me pillage and murder anymore. Ever.”

“That’s not true. What about the monkeys?”

“You did that for Maribel – not me.”

My left hand twitched happily. Ahh, right.

“Okay, fine. Next time, I’ll let you murder-pillage, sound good?”

Lili just grumbled in the back of my mind, but seemed resigned.

Ahh and the others were staring at me again. This time like I was insane.

Shit. That might have been out loud. Again.

Anyway, we still had to greet our new guests. Or potential new employees – at least, if my plan worked – which it always did… except when it didn’t. Anyway, my voice soon boomed across the bay where the survivors were bleeding and groaning along the beach.

“Welcome to Apati! The home of friendship!”