Thresholder, Non-canon Bonus Chapter, Pissworld

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This is a special Patreon-only bonus chapter that imagines Perry going to somewhere other than the world he canonically went to for book four. Why did I think this would be funny? I don't know. Call it an extended shitpost, I guess. Or not a shitpost, but ... you know. Sometimes I do things because I realize that no one can stop me from doing them.

Anyway, happy 100 chapters of Thresholder! And yes, this is what we're doing to celebrate, sorry.

~~~~

Perry stepped through on a crusty white shore that crumbled beneath the soles of his boots. The sky was a sickly yellow color, and the sea was a darker yellow color.

“Marchand, status report,” said Perry. His sword was in his hand, but there was no sign of life. It was what he imagined the surface of Venus to be like, though he wasn’t instantly crushed or burned to death, which meant that it couldn’t be that bad. “Do we have breathable air?”

“Running through the protocols you set now, sir,” said Marchand. “There are no radio signals, no immediate threats, several signs of life, and no environmental hazards. The air is breathable, though I would recommend against it, as there are high levels of ammonia.”

“Show me the signs of life,” said Perry, who was looking around the beach and frowning. There were some dead trees further inland, but nothing that looked alive, and Perry couldn’t fathom what had happened here to make this place like this.

“Look at your feet, sir,” said Marchand. Perry looked down, and after a moment, saw some small crabs moving about there, each no larger than his thumbnail. They were scurrying along, in and out of the water, if it was water. Water was supposed to be blue, not yellow, and when Perry looked closer, he didn’t think that the yellow of the water was just a reflection of the yellow sky.

“No humans?” asked Perry. “When I said signs of life, I meant humans.”

“Ah, I believe there was some confusion on my part, sir,” said Marchand. “I haven’t seen any people, structures, or anything of that nature. Shall I launch the drone?”

“Give it a second,” said Perry. Incoming portals could be detected, either by the locals, as Richter had done, or by the enemy, as Perry himself had done. The most perilous time for a thresholder was in the first five minutes of arriving in a new world, at least by Perry’s reckoning, and there was a very good chance that he would have cause to fight within moments.

Mette was in the shelf space, and he had been eager to let her out and show her a new world, but this wasn’t quite what he’d thought it would end up being. It didn’t seem like a nice place. The yellowness certainly did it no favors, and the dark yellow sea was ominous. The white crust that covered the beach turned into sand further in, but there were still large chunks, grown crystals.

There was a chance they would be in trouble when it came to food.

“Sir, I’ve made a further analysis of the environs,” said Marchand. “I believe we’re standing on the edge of a large animal waste lagoon, similar to the ones used in factory farming.”

Perry stared at the yellow ocean. “Uh,” he said. “Unless that ocean is a foot deep, that would have to be happening at a scale that would boggle the mind.”

“From spectral analysis, I believe the ocean to be quite deep,” said Marchand.

“Wait,” said Perry. “Why are you thinking animal waste?”

“It seems the obvious conclusion, sir,” said Marchand. “From both spectral analysis and atmospheric sensors, there’s a large amount of ammonia, various salts, and urea.”

Perry stared out at the whitecaps on the dark yellow waves, and at the foam that was gathering where the waves lapped at the shore.

“You’re saying that’s an ocean of piss,” said Perry.

“I wouldn’t phrase it like that, but yes, sir,” said Marchand.

“We’re on a piss planet,” said Perry.

“I don’t believe we’ve seen enough to come to that conclusion, sir,” said Marchand. “If we had landed on the dark side of Esperide, we might have come to the conclusion that we had landed on an ice planet of perpetual night. A scientific approach can only lead us to the conclusion that we’re in a place with an unusually large amount of urine, but the rest of the world might be different.”

“I see,” said Perry. “I’ll keep that in mind.” He paused and looked down at the white crust. It was dried up piss, all the salts and other things, washed up on the shore. The crabs didn’t seem to mind that they were swimming in piss. On Earth, their ability to live in this environment would make them extremophiles. A bit of spare trivia floated up from Perry’s brain, which was that flamingos were halophiles, a type of extremophile that could tolerate extreme salinity. It wasn’t a terribly helpful thing for his brain to tell him. He was having trouble processing this world and its implications.

“Alright,” said Perry after a moment of silence with the piss-waves lapping up against the beach. “We’re going to have problems. Keep me on the oxygen tanks for now, I’ll reduce intake on my own. We’re going to need water, food … I can go without for a bit, maybe for a long time, but there’s Mette to consider. I … don’t really know how I’m going to break this to her. It’s going to be a world of hardship. I’m not sure how I can deal with all this, it’s going to take some planning.”

“Yes, sir,” said Marchand. “It does look like … one moment, recalculating.”

“Recalculating?” asked Perry.

“I’m trying to make sure that I say this right,” said Marchand.

“Say what?” asked Perry.

“Just a moment, sir,” said Marchand. There was a long pause.

“Well?” asked Perry.

“Sir,” said Marchand. “It appears as though urine trouble.”

Perry sighed. “Thank you for that. Let’s go exploring.”

~~~~

The drone showed more signs of life, and the dead trees he’d seen looked less dead than they had from a distance, with some of them having actual leaves that were capturing the sunlight. Perry sent the drone to follow a river as far as it could, and to Perry’s shock, he saw a settlement with perfectly normal looking people in it, though the houses they lived in looked nothing like he’d ever seen on Earth — or anywhere else for that matter. None of them seemed to spot the whisper-quiet drone, and he recalled it to him quickly, worried that he would be found out.

Of course, he wasn’t planning to step out of his armor, not when there was an entire ocean of piss right there. He wondered how these people dealt with the smell of the piss ocean, but it wasn’t just a piss ocean, because the river had been a river of piss, and passed right by the village.

“Why is the sky yellow?” Perry asked as he walked along the banks of the river toward the village.

“I don’t know, sir,” said Marchand.

“The sky of Earth is blue because of Rayleigh scattering,” said Perry. “The skies of alien planets would be different colors depending on their atmospheric composition. It’s not a piss sky, right?”

“An excess of nitrogen dioxide would explain a yellow sky,” said Marchand. “However, atmospheric sensors don’t detect any such thing, which is good, sir, because nitrogen dioxide is toxic.”

“Hmm,” said Perry.

He had a choice about whether to approach the village with his armor on or not. There were clothes in the shelfspace, and there was even a chance that he could find something that would help him not stick out like a sore thumb, but that would only bring him down from the level of ‘crazy outside context problem’ to ‘weird guy from some other village probably’. For the time being, he would prefer to keep his armor on, not just because of the piss everywhere, but to keep himself protected from any threats.

The villagers looked at him with awe. Perry had seen plenty of peasants in Seraphinus, people who owned maybe two pieces of clothing and lived more or less under the thumb of the local king. That was a deal they accepted only because of the threats outside the borders, but Perry couldn’t really pretend that it was a just system. He’d been reeling from the death of Richter and only just understanding the reality of thresholding, not really in a mindset to try changing things.

This was an entirely different level of poverty. They apparently had used the salts of the piss to make their homes, piling up timbers and stone and then caking everything in place, using it as mortar, maybe through some kind of process of refinement. It was piss stucco, except with no refinement, no attempts at making it look nice, and Perry was pretty sure that some of what was there was just residue leftover from when it rained, because he was also pretty sure that the way things were going, the rain was going to be piss. There was a big fire going in the center of the town, and Perry was glad to be insulated from the smell, because he had exactly one guess as to what was boiling away in a big pot there.

A man dressed in thick linens approached Perry. He had a long white beard that was stained yellow around his mouth, and there were clogs on his feet to keep him elevated above the muck, which had only partially worked judging by the fringes of his robe. Perry had a lot of questions, like how these people bathed, what they ate, what they drank, but the question to a lot of those answers seemed to be ‘it’s unfortunately piss’.

“Who are you who comes here?” asked the man. “Our taxes are paid in full.”

They were mistaking him for a tax collector or a knight, which was good. “I fear I’ve gotten lost,” said Perry. “I wasn’t going to ask anything of you except for directions.”

The man nodded. “The Yellow King’s castle lies that way,” said the man. “If you follow that road, you shall find it true enough. The roads get bigger as you go.”

“Got it,” said Perry. “Thank you.” He hesitated. “The Yellow King.”

“Apologies, your grace,” said the man with a low bow that threatened to drape his clothes into the mud.

Perry waited for more, but none came. “And have any mages been by lately?”

“Mages?” asked the man with a furrowed brow.

“People who do magic,” said Perry. He could tell that the word was right, because there was no twinge of translation tugging him in some other direction.

“Why would a mage come by these parts?” asked the man.

“What do you know of mages?” asked Perry.

“Little enough,” said the man with a slight sniff. “They give no lessons, this far out.”

“What have you heard that magic does?” asked Perry.

“The crocks or the lancers?” asked the man.

“Either,” said Perry. “Both.”

“You had said you only needed directions,” said the man. “I’ve told you I know nothing of magic.” He sniffed again. “You want only to humiliate me.”

Perry had his sword in its sheath, and pulled it out slowly. He wished that it made a cool noise, but it was oiled leather, and barely made a sound. “Tell me of the crocks and the lancers, or I’ll do far more than humiliate you.”

Somewhat predictably, the man pissed himself.

~~~~

“That seemed intemperate, sir,” said Marchand.

“I’m not particularly happy to be here,” said Perry as he walked down the road.

“The armor is quite distinctive,” said Marchand. “It is far beyond what anyone in this world could create, at least from what we’ve seen so far and what that man said. They seemed to have precious little in the way of iron.”

“I said I got it,” said Perry.

“Very well, sir, though I should point out that you did not, in fact, say so,” said Marchand.

“It’s not like I killed the man,” said Perry. “I drew my blade, that was it, and maybe if he was going to be so scared about it, he shouldn’t have been mouthing off to a knight.”

“It’s possible the norms here are different,” said Marchand. “The man might have expected to have some latitude in his speech.”

“Possibly,” said Perry. “Whatever, we’re moving on.”

Perry made his way down the road, and eventually broke into a jog, which with his current levels of power was at nearly highway speeds. He wanted to get this all over and done with, but he’d never had a world that was wrapped up quickly, and he didn’t think that this one would be any different. He’d been hoping there was some kind of magic that would clear the air and make things clean, but apparently that wasn’t on the table either.

The ‘lancers’ had piss powers, and were able to control their piss, unleashing a stream to devastating effect. There was nothing special about it, it just took time and training, making it the province of the nobility. Almost every knight of any renown was a lancer, drinking water pure and clear, then unleashing blasts of piss at enemies from quite some distance.

The ‘cauldrons’ were more traditional mages, and pissed into cauldrons after having ‘refined’ the raw material. This mostly consisted of eating and drinking a bunch of weird things and having their kidneys do some of the work, but it was more promising to Perry because it sounded a bit like the internal alchemy of the Great Arc.

He didn’t like any of it though, obviously. He hadn’t exactly liked Teaguewater, which was a disgusting place overall, but it hadn’t been this.

He was going to try to speedrun the world, that was what he was going to do, and maybe he could do it fast enough that he wouldn’t even have to mention to Mette the nature of the place he’d ended up. He would learn their magic, master it in a day or two, then kill the other thresholder, and it had better not take two years for that to happen or he would devolve into endless screams.

Unfortunately, he didn’t yet have a pot to piss in.

~~~~

The castle was as piss-crusted as the rest of the place, but at least the roof was waxed metal that didn’t seem to accumulate so much of the stuff. There were flags, and some of them weren’t piss-stained, which must have been by dint of a religious level of devotion to cleaning. The rest of the city — if you could call it that — was in much less good condition, and it was clear that the flags were a signal that the Yellow King couldn’t back up.

Most of it was blue, and Perry could immediately guess why: it was the color of water, which had so far seemed to be in short supply. With his armor, he at least fit the motif, which was a small mercy.

When he reached the castle, he told them that he was Sir Peregrin, here to meet the king, and he wasn’t terribly surprised that they let him in. Armor was proof enough that he was someone important, and his outclassed theirs by several orders of magnitude. He hadn’t actually expected that he would be taken to see the king, because in Seraphinus — and so far as he knew, on medieval Earth — you needed some kind of letter of introduction, and there weren’t many knights that just showed up places and expected to have an audience or get taken in, especially if they didn’t have a retinue of some kind.

Perry was going to charge in like a bull and hope that they needed him. It had worked in Seraphinus, where his martial prowess and sheer desire to hit things with swords had helped him to swing the ongoing war in the king’s favor.

To Perry’s surprise, he was taken to the king almost right away, though a maid came to him and used a cloth to wipe down his armor.

The throne room was an immaculate place, in comparison to the rest of the world. It was the first place that actually looked clean, and that was all the more impressive because so few of the surfaces looked like they would be easy to wash. There was inlay and filigree, whorls and curls of metal, and the king himself was dressed in lace and heavy furs. Perry wondered whether there were animals that had pelts in this world, as he’d seen few animals on his way over, but there must have been, if this king was wearing such a thing. The throne was (and Perry didn’t think that he would ever be able to repeat this fact without giving a long sigh first) porcelain.

“You, lancer,” said the Yellow King. “You wear my colors but I do not recognize you, nor the fine make of your armor. You are a strange one, to come to my kingdom so. Tell me your business here.”

Perry dropped to one knee. It was what the old man had said was custom, though it seemed as though it would carry much more weight of humiliation if it had been done anywhere that wasn’t the very clean throne room.

“I come from distant lands,” said Perry. “I seek knowledge, and have heard that your pot-pissers are among the best in the region. I would speak with them, and learn their ways, and in return, you would find no more loyal servant.”

“Is that so?” asked the king. “That is no loyalty at all. I would not trust the word of a man who has no one to vouch for him.”

“I am no mere lancer,” said Perry. He was still on one knee. “If you cannot consider my loyalty beyond reproach, then you would do well to consider my swordsmanship and battlefield prowess as unimpeachable.”

“Mmm,” said the king. “That we shall see. But for your water rights, I should be getting someone of impeccable skills, if you require as much as a lancer.”

“I will need only enough to learn,” said Perry. He was keeping his eyes down, but the camera had adjusted him to show the Yellow King’s sneering face. He already didn’t like the guy. “I can go many days without water.”

“Then that is what you will do, for three days and three nights,” said the Yellow King. “And when that is done, we will see a demonstration of your abilities.”

Perry was tempted to fly, and even more tempted to just shoot the man, but he would need a place to sleep, and at least the castle promised not to be as unclean as everywhere else.

“There is only one rule you must abide by and keep in your heart,” said the Yellow King. His lips curled into a smile. “Don’t piss me off.”

~~~~

“Ugh,” said Mette. “What’s that smell?” She was trying to peer past him, but Perry had already closed the opening.

“I have some bad news,” said Perry.

“You were gone almost a full day,” said Mette. “I thought you had died.” Yet the first thing she had noted was the smell. “What is that smell? Perry, what’s going on?”

“It’s … it’s kind of a pissworld,” said Perry.

“A what?” asked Mette. “A password?”

“No,” said Perry. “It’s … look, it’s a world where the oceans are made of urine, there it rains urine, where all the magic is urine passed, it’s a pissworld, I don’t know how else to say it. I’m going to get us out of here as soon as I can, but I really do think that you should spend the next however long here.”

“Uh,” said Mette. “First off, I don’t think you can just say ‘pissworld’ like I should know what that means. Second … no, I’m not going to be stuck in here. I didn’t come with just to be shoved onto a shelf. So the world isn’t ideal, it’s not what either of us would have chosen, but I’m not just going to sit in here. Let me out.”

“It smells,” said Perry.

“I’ll get used to it,” said Mette. “Come on, open up, we can talk out there.”

“I don’t think you’re taking my warning seriously,” said Perry. “It’s really piss themed. It rains piss. They have different words for it depending on whether it’s nearly clear or dark yellow. It’s rivers of piss going into a piss ocean. The water they have, they’ll say that it’s been purified, but it doesn’t taste purified, it tastes like watered down piss.”

“Let me out,” said Mette. “Please. The air in here is getting stuffy.”

Perry winced and then opened up the conjoining place between worlds. Mette stepped through into the room that Perry had been provided.

“Uuugh,” she said, almost retching. “Why didn’t you warn me?”

~~~~

“The lancer controls his expulsion, but only his expulsion,” said the wizard. He was a knobbly old man with a study that smelled like a gas station bathroom, piss with chemical overtones. There were beakers and retorts, some of the only glassware that Perry had seen during his time in Pissworld. “In the seconds after the lancer has expelled, the magic is no more, the connection severed. If you are serious about becoming a crocker,” there was doubt in his voice, “then you will need to cultivate a connection that extends beyond the momentary.”

“I’m going to need lots of bottles of saved up piss,” said Perry.

“Yes,” nodded the wizard. “First though, I will give you a single cauldron, one which you will meditate over, one which will be your only place to expel. This is very important. Do you understand?”

“I do,” said Perry. “A single pot. Only place to go. Got it.” He hesitated. “Potty training.”

“Yes,” the wizard nodded eagerly.

“Fucking Christ,” muttered Perry.

“Now,” said the wizard. “Much of what you need to learn will be learned in the course of your expulsions and meditations, and I will warn that it’s a long and arduous process even before you’ve started on the ingestions that come with the most powerful of spells. There will be much book learning, and I’m afraid that you’ll need to learn to read, as not everything can be understood from pictures alone.”

“I know how to read,” said Perry.

“Oh?” asked the wizard. He seemed quite surprised. “Then I suppose you have some education?”

“Some,” said Perry. “I’m here to learn and be humbled.” He gave a slight bow, which seemed to delight the wizard.

“Good,” said the wizard. “Good, good. Then we shall start right away with the central and most important stricture of the art. Let me teach you about the Golden Rule.”

~~~~

“I hate this,” said Mette. “I hate this so much. They’re working with bad tools, bad materials, bad attitudes. I went to go talk to a blacksmith and he seemed to think that I was there to serve him. Did they have to also be misogynists?”

“I don’t think they had to be, but that’s what it was like in the medieval period for reasons I don’t think we have time to get into,” said Perry. He was stretching out. “Though some of that was just their belief that a woman’s role in society was to have children, which … you also believe, right?”

“How are you going to have a functional society if women aren’t having children?” asked Mette. “Doesn’t mean you have to be a dick about it. And it’s not like they treat their pregnant women any better.”

“Well, sorry,” said Perry. “I hope that when we get the hell out of here, it’s to somewhere more equal. And with less piss.”

“Can we find the other thresholder?” asked Mette. “Set up the detector again? I mean, we wouldn’t have the same kind of dish, but passive receptors wouldn’t need much in the way of energy, and … no, I’ve spoken with the blacksmith, it’s off the table.”

“I’ll prove myself,” said Perry. “Then we’ll put the word out far and wide, and either we’ll catch wind of where they are, or they’ll catch wind of us, and we’ll be done with it.”

“What if it’s two years?” asked Mette. “I don’t think I could do two years here.”

“We’ll get used to it,” said Perry.

“I’m not sure we will,” said Mette. She watched him stretch. “What are you doing?”

“I apparently insulted another lancer, and now I have to go fight him,” said Perry. “Shouldn’t be much of an issue.”

“You’ve been here three days,” said Mette. “You know how to … lance?”

“I’m second sphere,” said Perry. “It’s going to help me. But even if I lose, it’s just a matter of honor, I don’t have to kill myself and I won’t be banished. So far as I know, we’re just going to be in the battle dome, trying to knock each other off pedestals. It seems stupid, but that’s how they handle these disputes.”

“Are you going to be okay?” asked Mette.

“I’ll be fine,” said Perry.

“I don’t think it’s good of you to get into these arguments if you can at all help it,” said Mette. “These …”

“Go on, say it,” said Perry.

“No, it’s not important,” said Mette.

“Say it,” Perry insisted.

“These pissing matches,” said Mette.

~~~~

“So, where are you from?” asked the wizard. “There’s some discussion in the castle, you might know. You can read, your armor is of incredible make, and you engage with others in ways we have never seen.”

“I’m from elsewhere,” said Perry. He was trying to read from one of the books, which was unfortunately rather stained. He was also trying not to think about what it was stained with.

“From the islands, they say,” replied the wizard. “Excontinent.”

“What?” asked Perry, looking up from his book.

“Excontinent?” asked the wizard. “Those who aren’t on the mainland?”

“Which would make people who are on the mainland — you know what, no, don’t say it,” said Perry.

“Incontinent,” said the wizard, even though he’d been asked not to.

~~~~

It took only two weeks for the other thresholder to show up, which was long enough for Perry to have some rudimentary grasp on ‘crockery’ but also felt like it was far too long. He would often retreat into the shelfspace, but after a while, it felt like he’d brought too much of the smell in with him. Second sphere allowed him to clean himself without using precious refined water, but it didn’t feel like enough, and Mette had no such protections.

The other thresholder came straight to the castle, decked out in solid gold armor, and knelt prostrate before the king. Perry was there, by the king’s side, in favor due to how many pissing matches he’d won.

“I’m seeking the one called Peregrin,” he said. He sounded weary, which was sensible. “I have to do battle with him, and I hope that he’ll do battle with me.”

The Yellow King gave Perry a look, and Perry strode forward. He had his armor on, as he often did, the better to keep him away from this disgusting world.

“I’m Peregrin,” said Perry with a sigh. “Please tell me you’re the other thresholder.”

“Yes!” said the man, getting to his feet. “Thank god I’ve found you, yes, please let’s just get this over with.”

“Here?” asked Perry. “Now?”

“There shall be no fighting in the throne room,” said the Yellow King. “If there is cause for quarrel, it can be solved between the two of you in the dome.”

“No,” said Perry. He looked at the king. “It needs to be no holds barred.” He turned back to the other thresholder. “We’ll get this over with, and then we’ll move on. We can move outside, so they won’t interfere. I’ll let you live, all I’m after is the portal.”

“Me too,” said the other thresholder with a sigh. “This world is awful.”

Perry nodded. “Follow me.”

The other thresholder followed him out of the throne room as the king began yelling at them. “I’m Quince.”

“We’re just going to beat the piss out of each other and then get this over with,” said Perry. “We say goodbye to this awful world and get on with it.” He glanced back, just for show, because Marchand was showing a rear view picture-in-picture through the cameras. “You’ve been doing this for a long time?”

“Five worlds,” said the other thresholder. “This is the worst of them. Abject poverty, the tyranny of kings, almost no drinkable water … you know, I haven’t really had a chance to talk to another of us. Usually it just goes straight to the fighting.”

“We’ll get clear of the castle, then throw down,” said Perry. “I haven’t gotten much power from this world yet, but I’m fine skipping all that if it means I get to leave.”

“Same,” said Quince.

“I really wouldn’t have thought there would be a pissworld,” said Perry. “I mean, of all the things, right?” It took him a moment to realize that Quince had stopped in his tracks. Perry turned back. They were out of the castle, but still some distance to the outer walls. “What?”

“What did you mean by that?” asked Quince.

“By what?” asked Perry.

“You said … a pissworld,” said Quince.

“You know,” said Perry, gesturing vaguely at all of it. “Piss themed. Piss rain and piss oceans, piss rivers, piss magic, material conditions dictated by the fact that — I mean, it’s a pissworld.”

Quince was staring at him. He had tears in his eyes. “Are you … are you telling me that they’re not all piss themed?”