A Parade of Horribles (Dungeon Crawler Carl #8)

Interlude

CHANDRA

“Hello, Donut,” Princess Chandra, Esquire, said.

Across from her, the blood-soaked, wild-eyed creature thing looked madly about the blank room. Chandra could smell the gore, and she immediately flicked off the receptors in the control panel.

Chandra was coiled aboard the communications room in the Ventilator, a class-C rapid-attack battle cruiser fresh off the shipyards.

The Naga warship had sustained a large amount of damage during the short but violent and tumultuous coup that had removed the king and ultimately placed her uncle on the Naga throne.

Her uncle, the former opposition leader of the Gilt Party, was calling himself “Sultan Protectorate of the New Reformer” or something equally inane.

It would be cycles before this all sorted itself out, for which Chandra was glad.

She’d waited her entire life to find an opportunity like this, and she’d jumped at the chance when it presented itself.

It was risky, yes. But if the next few weeks went as she hoped, it would all be worth it.

And as long as the political upheaval stabilized long enough for her to collect her money and leave her home system, it didn’t really matter what happened next.

She didn’t care about power, or titles. She didn’t care who was in charge of what. She just wanted out of her home system. That was why she’d become a lawyer in the first place. It’d been a way out.

She suppressed a bitter laugh. At least she now had a plan. A good plan.

And it all hinged on this disgusting, warm-blooded, fur-covered rodent before her now. Donut. “Princess” Donut. What a joke.

This creature wasn’t even a true life-form, but a barely sapient, invasive cyst that had artificially formed itself on a seeded planet.

No different than mold, really. And more dangerous. If they didn’t need these things to die to help fuel the center system, Chandra would be all for the original soother proposal to eradicate all the seeded worlds.

Still, this one was valuable. She’d already signed several contracts on the creature’s behalf and was already collecting royalties. The “Donut Holes” licensing fees alone made it all worth it.

Still, there were always rumblings when any contract originated in the Naga sector. Chandra was sick of how her kind were treated. How they weren’t trusted. Or worse, looked down upon as inferior. They were sometimes even lumped in with the Nullians. Absurd.

That was why Chandra wanted out. Why she wanted to move to the center system. Once she paid the visa fees, she wouldn’t have to worry about political upheaval ever again. She wouldn’t be constantly ashamed of her own people.

At least Vinata was dead. Her plan had been to flee into the frontier.

To start over. Chandra couldn’t even imagine such a thing.

Why would one flee away from society? It was practically the same thing as devolving.

She tried to imagine herself working the dirt of an uninhabited planet. Preposterous.

The thought of wide-open skies was suffocating to her.

Chandra couldn’t wait to get away from it all. Her idiot late husband had been constantly involved in the court’s machinations, and where had that led him? Murdered by a crawler while playing a game.

That one action had turned out to be the luckiest turn of events in Chandra’s life.

Chandra had reluctantly accepted the noble title of princess when her uncle came to power. She didn’t want attention brought to herself, but the title was necessary if she wanted to claim Widow’s Rights.

The path that had presented itself to Chandra had appeared all at once, as if by magic. As if a divine entity had seen how much she’d suffered, the humiliations she’d had to endure, and thought: Enough. Now is your time.

All it required was for Carl and Donut to survive for just a little longer.

It was so simple. It was meant to be. All her suffering. All that hard work. The humiliation of being a second wife. It would all be worth it.

Once this was all done, Chandra could possibly be one of the richest private citizens in the galaxy.

And all because of a fucking human in his underwear and his pet rodent.

The first few steps in the plan were already done.

This first part had happened so fast. It had been literally just a few hours’ worth of legal work and filings to get started.

She’d done it from this tiny room in the Ventilator.

It was done before Faction Wars were finished.

Even as the dwindling royal battleships had fired their last salvo, she’d not felt even a tingle of danger.

It was amazing how much one could accomplish while sitting in a tiny room with wideband tunnel access.

In hours, she’d changed the course of her own life.

She’d asserted her Widow’s Rights and claimed Carl as her husband in Naga court.

She’d had a moment of terror when the judge had thought it worthwhile to put the matter to public jury.

But, apparently, the idea of “punishing” Carl by forcing him to marry her was amusing to the uneducated peasants, and they’d voted overwhelmingly to allow the union.

They’d even added the traditional wedding gift—the holdings of the defeated—as Carl’s “prize” in a fan box.

Either way, now that was done, Chandra, as Carl’s wife—and therefore his signatory in most legal matters—had already gotten the burners fired up on multiple contracts.

Carl’s own lawyer, a Nullian named Quasar, had done a surprisingly competent job building the legal entities required for the Princess Posse fan group to collect money.

Though she still had a case pending to withdraw half of their profits early.

Where this Quasar had failed was in not asserting Carl’s rights over all of Donut’s earnings.

Donut’s species was not yet recognized as a legally competent racial entity by the Syndicate and therefore all of her assets should have been placed under a conservatorship.

Carl was clearly the best choice as custodian.

And not just a custodian, but a true beneficiary.

She’d filed on her new husband’s behalf to be recognized as such, and it was granted automatically.

The will wasn’t necessary. As his wife, she would automatically get everything upon his inevitable death, minus any taxes. But she filed one anyway. Better to be safe.

And then, after a short conversation and a discreet payment to a district judge’s reelection campaign, Chandra had found herself assigned as Princess Donut’s attorney, effectively giving herself access to both Carl’s and Donut’s financial empires.

She was currently in the process of threatening the second fan group, the Donut Holes, with obliteration should they not immediately assign 38% of their profits directly to Donut’s conservatorship.

Their newest product, the Princess Palette eye makeup kit, was already the highest-earning crawler merch in the history of the crawl.

The Donut Holes group had recently won the auction for Princess Donut’s open sponsorship slot.

There was yet another court case pending on whether or not to allow it.

Chandra’s assistant was writing a brief asserting that the claim should be allowed, but only if the Donut Holes agreed to pay the licensing fee to the conservatorship.

With 60% already going to the Syndicate, the 2% left over should have been more than enough for them to keep operating.

And either way, she really wanted to take a look at their books.

That group had much more money than they should have.

There was something going on there, and she needed to get to the bottom of it.

If the Donut Holes didn’t agree to the 38%, Chandra would have her two Taurin associates call on the families of the founders of the unauthorized fan group. It was always easy to get people to agree to things when one exerted pressure in the proper place. Especially when they had small children.

She’d have them do that as soon as they were done with their first assignment: eliminating her biggest threat. Quasar. She’d paid the fee, and they were already on their way to pay him a visit.

But all of the legal issues with the Donut Holes could wait until tomorrow. For right now, Chandra needed to make certain the rodent didn’t take a deal. She didn’t think this would be difficult.

“Who are you? And why do I feel funny?” the creature asked.

She shook her head, splattering red ash over everything.

Chandra had missed what’d happened at the end of the previous floor, though she was glad to hear Donut had survived.

The oddsmakers had had her survival rate at 40% the last she’d checked, but Chandra had known the creature would pull through.

Rodents had an uncanny ability to come out on top.

Chandra spent a moment examining the ugly thing. She didn’t understand how this creature had captivated so many people. It resembled and had the same coloring as the long-haired pack voles from her world, but with an annoying flat face.

That thought made her stomach rumble.

“My name is Princess Chandra, Esquire, and I have been assigned as your attorney,” Chandra said.

“You feel funny because you’re in a type-A containment zone.

Most of your enhancements are turned off.

It’s like a zero zone, but designed to accommodate certain types of crawlers who might have issues in regular zero zones. ”

“Princess?” The creature straightened on her chair. “And my attorney? I thought it would be Quasar.”

“Then you thought incorrectly.”

Donut spent a long moment examining her. “Very well,” she finally said, sounding hesitant. “So, you’re a princess, then? I certainly hope you don’t hold what happened against me and Carl. I do hope the dead snake lady wasn’t your sister or something.”