Dungeon Crawler You!

"And there we have it," Drew said as he clicked the button on his interface, locking in his class. "I am now a Former Child Actor."

There was a faint ding!

System Message: Manager appointed

"Thank the fucking Lady!" Levi said. "By Her Hair, I was literally praying you guys would pick something with the Manager benefit."

"Huh? What's the Manager benefit?" Drew asked. "It wasn't defined anywhere and when we asked about it, you said that you couldn't say."

"Yes, because I was a game guide," Levi said. "Being a game guide is the fucking worst. There's all this important stuff I'm not allowed to tell you, because if I told you then you might not die fast enough."

"You were a game guide?" Taylor asked.

"Right. I was. Now I'm Drew's manager. I'm not allowed to fight for you or with you, but everything else is on the table. I can tell you whatever I want, I can make gear for you, and so on." He grimaced. "There's some downsides. I've lost access to the tunnel network and the information codex, meaning that I'm limited to what's in my head. Fortunately, I make a point of refreshing myself at the start of each season, just in case I get a chance to be a manager. Also, I've lost access to my room and all the stuff that was in it. Which is why I moved all my books, entertainment cubes, and clothes out here when I knew you were going to make it to path selection." He waved towards the shogi screens at the far end of the room.

"The one hassle is that every time you lot enter a safe room, I'll be teleported to you," he continued. "That's aggravating, but I now have access to the chat system so you can warn me before you do that."

"This sounds inconvenient for you," Taylor said carefully.

"Eh," Levi said, waving one clawed hand. "Yes, but it's manageable. More importantly, being a manager has two big advantages: first, it pays way better than being a game guide, both in terms of time off my indenture and money added to the stipend I'll receive once I'm finally free."

"And second?" Calliope asked.

"And second, I don't have to be certain that everyone I've been trying to help is going to die." He raised a claw. "Don't get me wrong, odds are still heavily against you, but at least now I don't have to watch it happen while not being able to help."

"That is a terrific attitude," Drew said fervently. "I am totally down with that attitude."

"So what happens now?" Taylor asked.

"First thing, we fuck this linear path selection thing right in the bones. Drew, come with me."

"Wait, what?" Calliope demanded. "Aren't I picking my race now?"

"Nope," Levi said. "Your class benefits kick on the moment you lock in your class, but your race benefits don't go into effect until after your transformation—well, Manager does, but almost no races come with Manager. Scion of the Zree is the only one I've seen in the last hundred seasons, actually. Anyway, Drew took that Tir Inqua race that gives the massive luck bonus, but it's not in effect yet because he hasn't done his transformation. We'll want to get that turned on as fast as possible."

"Might help with selection?" Taylor asked.

"Possibly. I know that class and race choices are generated for an individual crawler at the same time. I do not know if all choices are generated for an entire party at the same time. Nor do I know if there's a random element in that generation. I also don't know if the AI will choose to be affected by the dungeon-based luck powers that it itself is creating and managing. Given all of those 'if's, having Drew do his transformation now probably won't help anything. On the other hand, it might, so he's doing it first."

He turned to face Drew. "Drew, I'm going to take you into the bunkroom. There will be a cot in there. Lie down on the cot and close your eyes. From your perspective, no time will pass—you'll blink and wake up as a Tir Inqua. You'll look mostly the same as you do now, but there will be some slight differences."

He gestured to the rest of the group. "For us, the transformation will take four or five hours. Ordinarily, we'd go all the way through selection and then all of you would transform at the same time. This time we'll do it piecemeal. Drew, let's go." He waved a clawed hand and led a bemused and more than slightly stoned Drew off to the bunkroom.

Taylor and Calliope sat mutely, neither having the least clue of what to say. Moose, who had his head on Taylor's lap, chuffed quietly and nudged his person as a polite reminder that ear scritching was appropriate at this time. Granted, a 'nudge' from something the size of a small elephant was enough to compress all the air out of Taylor's chest, but he happily complied.

Levi was back moments later. "All set," he said. "We've got some time to kill...I don't suppose you guys play cards, do you? I had a chance to read about a few of your games when we got here and I've been dying to try them out."


Drew emerged from the bunkroom five hours later. When Levi had said that Drew would look 'mostly the same', the word 'mostly' had been doing a lot of heavy lifting.

Drew was still a male in his mid-thirties and his face was still recognizable as himself, mostly. Also, he still had the dungeon's cobalt-blue anime hair that stayed spikey and attractive no matter what. On the other hand, he was five inches taller, carried an extra forty pounds of muscle, was down around 10% body fat, and now had broad shoulders and a V-shaped torso with six-pack abs. His teeth would have had Colgate executives weeping in delight, his skin was smooth and utterly flawless. It was also celadon green, making an excellent contrast to his hair. It should have looked bizarre and inhuman, but instead it looked exotic and intriguing. The joint that dangled from his lips gave him a very 'James Dean bad-boy' look.

"Whoa!" Calliope said. "Dude, looking good. What's up with the skin?"

Drew looked down at his arms in bemusement. "No idea. It freaked me out a little at first, but I got used to it pretty quick."

"The AI makes sure that you'll feel comfortable in your new body," Levi said. He gestured to his own bizarre form. "I woke up looking like this and thought 'huh, interesting' instead of 'holy fuck, rabbit manatee monster!'"

"It does look pretty wild, Drew," Taylor noted, smiling slightly at his own internal reactions. Drew had never been actively unattractive, but Taylor had been taller since they were twelve, and his more outgoing personality meant that he'd gotten the lion's share of female attention when they were growing up. That definitely wasn't going to be the case anymore unless he chose a race with an equally large Charisma buff. The idea didn't bother him, exactly, but it felt very weird.

"Don't worry about the skin too much," Levi said. "The appearance of a Tir Inqua often shifts slightly over time. It's usually slow enough that you won't notice it happening, but a week from now you might realize that you've become light gold. A very attractive shade of light gold, obviously, because Lady curse that a Tir Inqua should ever look unappealing." The final words were spoken in amusement at the state of the universe. He shook his head, pushing the thought away. "Any issues with your balance or your senses? Sometimes it can take some adjustment."

"Uh, well," Drew said, looking around. "Kinda? There's all this...stuff." He waved a hand in frustration at not having the words. "It's like a glow, maybe? Except that's not right, because it's not visual. I'm feeling it, except that's not right either."

"New senses can be hard," Levi said. "Does it conform to objects?"

"Does it what?"

"Is it pressed up tight to things, like a pillowcase around a pillow, or is it floating around randomly?"

"Yeah," Drew said, looking around. "A little of both. It's mostly around you guys." He pointed at the cards that remained on the floor, abandoned. "There's a bunch of it there, but if that's a nightlight then you guys are police spotlights."

"Luck sense," Levi said, nodding. "I had a feeling there might be something like that. Your luck ability works in favor of anyone that you consider an ally and against anyone else. Focus on how awesome Calliope is and how untrustworthy and conniving I am. Calliope, draw for high card." He held out the deck.

Calliope cut the deck, showing the king of hearts. Levi took the cards back, shuffled them, and cut to the four of diamonds.

"Cool," the rabbit man said. "Drew, keep it up." He quickly dealt a five-card hand to himself and to Calliope, then flipped them both over.

Full house to Calliope. Pair of fives to Levi. The manager nodded in satisfaction and dealt out three more hands, shuffling thoroughly between each.

Jack-high straight to Calliope. High-card eight to Levi.

Flush in hearts to Calliope. Pair of sevens to Levi.

Four nines to Calliope. Pair of fours to Levi.

"Excellent," Levi said. "Now switch it around. Think about all my stellar qualities of helpfulness, loyalty, and pleasant body odor, and also think about how high-strung and grouchy Leo is."

"Oy!" Calliope said.

"Easy," Levi said, waving her down. "It's just for the sake of the exercise. Obviously, Drew knows that you aren't really like that."

Taylor bent forward, hugging Moose tight and ruffling his neck. It was the easiest way to hide his face from Calliope.

Drew frowned, brows coming together in concentration as he struggled to sort through what he was sensing. Levi didn't wait; he once more dealt out three hands to himself and Calliope, still shuffling thoroughly each time.

High-card nine to Calliope. Straight flush in diamonds, queen high, to Levi.

Pair of twos to Calliope. Straight flush in hearts, queen high, to Levi.

High-card jack to Calliope. Straight flush in spades, queen high, to Levi.

"Sweet," Levi said, grinning like a shark. "We are going to the casino later. We'll need to get you guys a Desperado pass, but we'd have wanted that anyway."

"Hang on," Taylor said. "You mentioned the Desperado Club and Club Vanquisher before, but all you said was that they were separate organizations and you could only belong to one of them."

"Right, sorry," Levi said. "The Desperado Club is a combination nightclub, casino, and marketplace. Plus it has a variety of training halls where you can turn gold directly into skill levels. The Desperado is only open to people who have received certain achievements for doing something 'bad', such as accidentally killing a grandmother or stealing what you didn't realize was the last reminder someone had of their deceased true love."

Well, those weren't suspiciously specific.

"Club Vanquisher is the snooty, goody-two-shoes equivalent," Levi continued, unaware of Taylor's thought. "Except less fun. Think temples instead of casinos and brandy-swilling instead of nightclub, that kind of thing. As a general rule you can only belong to one of them, but there are some exceptions.

"Of the two, the Desperado Club is probably the better pick. Club Vanquisher gives you easy access to temples, priests, and powerful healers and cursebreakers, but they don't have the marketplace that the Desperado Club does.

"The Desperado Club has—" He paused and shook his head. "You know what? Put a pin in this. I'm letting myself get distracted." He sighed. "Look, I'll go into all this stuff later, but right now you guys need to finish path selection and get back to grinding. The timers are very short this year."

"Hang on," Calliope said. "I want to finish the game. I still need to win my money back." She pointed down to the sixteen gold pieces that remained in front of her, and the several hundred that were stacked in front of Levi. Taylor had dropped out two hours earlier, after it had become clear that all of his money was going to end up in front of Levi if he kept going. With claws like those, the game guide—manager, rather—should not have been able to hold cards, yet somehow he had no problem absolutely skunking the Terrans at Texas Hold 'Em. Instead of throwing good money after bad, Taylor had pulled out his Skyhawk and started running through his Regionals routine. It required the kind of focus that kept his brain quiet.

Levi laughed. "You think I'm going to let you play me for money while your Tir Inqua teammate is standing right here? Try again, kiddo."

"Hey!"

"Let it go, Leo," Taylor said with a smile. He bound his yo-yo up into his hand and vanished it into his inventory. "I told you, you should have dropped out when I did. I have a feeling that Levi's played this game before."

"Once or twice, maybe," Levi said, smiling. "And a few other games."

"But...oh, fine," she grumbled.

"Hey, don't be so glum," Taylor said, resuming his place on the couch and, before Moose could remind him, voluntarily taking up his ear-scritching duties once more. "You're getting a new set of superpowers."

Calliope brightened. "Right! Okay, let's do this."

Drew and Calliope sat down and Levi gestured, the screen once more fading into existence.

"No whammies, no whammies!" Calliope said, leaning forward eagerly as the options came up.

Crawler #7. "Calliope"

• Race: Dzichi
• Race: Satori
• Race: Tariaksuq
• +417 more...

• Class: Bike Messenger
• Class: Boring Ol' Fighter
• Class: Duelist
• +291 more...

Crawler #5. "Taylor"

• Race: Doppleganger
• Race: Multacorpalan
• Race: Scion of the Zree
• +308 more...

• Class: Diva
• Class: Metamage
• Class: Sysop
• +186 more...

"Hang on," Taylor said. "What's going on? Why are both of us up there?"

"Because I'm not a guide any more, bayyybeee!" Levi said. "That linear bullshit where you have to lock in your race before your class before the next person can go? Fuck that with a bandsaw. Let's get some synergy up in this bitch!" He looked over at Calliope and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Did I say that right? Did it sound cool?"

Calliope burst out laughing but forced herself to rein it in and nod solemly. "Yes," she whispered back. "That was just right."

Levi pumped one fist in over-exaggerated drama, then became serious again. "It wouldn't be practical to do this if we were in a larger group," he said. "But, it's only two of you left to go. I'm going to show you all of the race and class options you have on offer. We'll winnow it down to the short lists and then come up with builds that work well together instead of going in blind."

"Don't the classes and races interact?" Drew asked.

"Yeah, they do," Levi admitted. "Which means that you'll see some options that aren't actualy valid choices from the jump—for example, if something is labeled as an Earth class then you'll need to take a race that unlocks Earth classes in order to get it. It's straightforward.

"Okay, let's do this. Buckle up, folks. We'll be here for a bit."

---

Author's Note: In order to keep wordcount-per-post somewhat reasonable I have put Calliope's race and class lists in the next chapter and Taylor's in the one after.

Vote time! Voting will continue until we go 24 hours with no votes or until things have died down and the victor is clear.

We're voting to decide on race and class for Calliope and for Taylor, and on what class Drew should have for this floor. Drew's choices are the ones from Chapter 23. Calliope's are in the next post, Taylor's in the one after.

I'm asking that you vote plans as a way of preventing spelling and formatting issues that could otherwise gum up the works. That means that the vote line is a simple name that is easy for other people to copy/paste, and the details come below. For example:

Note that all I'm looking for here is the plan name with details below. As you can see from the examples, it's okay to format it however you like and you don't even need to provide options for both parties if you don't have opinions.

Also, no, none of the races and classes mentioned in the examples are real. I intentionally used fake options so as not to bias people in any particular direction.

Doppleganger
Satori
Tariaksuq
+417 more...

"Holy crap," Calliope said. "Four hundred races?"

Levi sighed. "Looks like. Okay, time for filters. I have a feeling it's going to be remarkably easy to cut this down to size."

Sure enough, all that was needed to cut the list by 40% was to click the checkboxes that filtered out strictly inferior classes and classes that relied on dealbreakers such as cannibalism, torture, sapient sacrifice...and erotic performance.

"For fuck's sake," Taylor said in disgust. "She's fucking fourteen. What kind of—"

Levi quickly raised a hand. "Stop. Whatever you're about to say, don't. Rule zero: Be respectful of the showrunners."

Taylor took a slow breath. "Fine. Let's go through the list."

Some of the remaining races were complex; it took four hours to go through every option and much discussion to winnow the list down to something manageable. There were repeated variations on "This is the {what / antiwhat}! I {need / am not getting} this one!", to which the reply was always either "Agreed" or "Put it on the short list and keep moving. We'll talk about it later."

Once the short list was put together, Levi insisted that everyone take a break, use the bed again, eat, use the loo, and do some simple stretches. Only when everyone was refreshed did he allow them to move on to winnowing Taylor's options. That process was exhausting enough that another rest cycle was mandated afterwards. If it hadn't been for the push-button bed, the third floor would have been half over by the time Team Trick Shot was finally ready to start actually discussing builds.

Race: Catkin

Did you honestly think we were going to have a fantasy-themed game without the option to be a catgirl? Please.

• +3 to Dexterity
• +5% cold resistance
• Enhanced senses
• +1 to the Stealth skill
• +1 to the Climbing skill due to claws
• +5% damage to bare-handed fist attacks due to claws
• Other benefits dependent on randomly-chosen subspecies
• Note: Choosing this race unlocks multiple exclusive Earth-based classes

You will become a furred, clawed, mobile-eared humanoid cat. Upon choosing this race you will be assigned a randomly-selected subspecies. All Catkin are decent at both combat and stealth work, but different subspecies go well beyond that in one area or another. Tigrans are big, strong, and tough, allowing them to body most enemies of their level. Cheetarans can use bursts of super speed. Who knows what you'll get?

"This race became a much better option now that Drew has his Tir Inqua powers," Levi said. "Like I said before, some of the potential subspecies are very, very good." ​

​

"You said that you weren't sure the luck powers would effect race selection," Taylor objected. ​

​

"I'm not," Levi admitted, "but I think it's the way to bet. Besides, there aren't any bad catkin subspecies. The worst you'll get is a mediocre option, but you may get something excellent. Either way, it'll be good for social numbers. The audience likes catkin." ​

​

​

Race: Chronan

Long ago, a breakaway sect of mages formed an academy to study the magic of time. Centuries later, those studies have become embedded into their very genetics. Although they still look human, they are...not.

• +3 Intelligence
• +1 to the Haste Self spell
• +4 to the Time Cube spell (available at level 20)
• The Borrowed Time benefit (available at level 30)
• +6 to the Time Rip spell (available at level 40)
• Note: Choosing this race unlocks multiple exclusive Earth-based classes

Spell: Haste Self
Cost: See below
Duration: (Intelligence) seconds
AOE: Sphere with diameter of (Intelligence) meters, centered on the caster's center of mass
Target: Self


Within the affected region, your timeline progresses 10% faster per spell level. This is a temporal effect, not an alteration of your body or perception. From your perspective, the world is slowing down while you remain moving at normal speed.

This spell stacks. The mana cost of each casting is 2^(N+1), where N is the number of castings already in effect, regardless of whether they were cast by you or someone else. Only instances that you cast will affect you.

Spell: Time Cube
Cost: 5 MP
Duration: (Intelligence) seconds
Range: (Spell Level) x 2 meters
AOE: A cube. Minimum side length: 10 centimeters. Maximum side length: (Intelligence) x 5 centimeters

Within the cube, time does not progress. The spell will fizzle if there is a solid object (other than the ground) that is crossing the boundary of the cube at casting time. Once formed, nothing can enter or exit the cube, move the cube, or affect the cube or its contents.

Benefit: Borrowed Time
Cost: 10 MP
Duration: Up to (Intelligence) seconds
Target: Self


You may borrow time from your worldline up to 1 hour in the future. During this borrowed time you will be free to move around but the rest of the world is frozen. You will have limited ability to interact with physical objects. When you catch up to the borrowed time you will disappear into stasis for (3 x seconds borrowed). You will reappear from stasis at the same location from which you disappeared. Time will not pass for you while in stasis.

Spell: Time Rip
Cost: 3 MP
Range: (Intelligence) meters


You fire a bolt of condensed time that causes Aging-type damage to whatever it hits.

"This is a good one," Levi said. "It's a solid attack spell like Magic Missile or Force Dart except that it does Aging damage instead of Force damage. It does the same amount of damage as Magic Missile to most things, but it also accelerates timers on whatever it hits. It's a great way to bring down something like a Shield spell. It also ignores most armor and some damage-reduction effects. One thing that's both a pro and a con: it accelerates regeneration effects for a time. Depending on how tanky your friends are and how high their Regeneration skill is, sometimes it's worth opening the battle by blasting them with one of these and then having them heal up with a potion before kicking things off. ​

"Also, holy fuck it's good not to have to check every word to make sure I'm not leaking important information." ​

​

​

Race: Cygnan

Humanoid swans with long necks and wings that have hands mounted on the leading edge of the highest point.

• -1 Constitution
• +4 Charisma
• The Flight benefit
• +5 to the Golden Layer skill
• A Club Vanquisher pass
• Note: Choosing this race unlocks multiple exclusive Earth-based classes

Skill: Golden Layer
Once every (50 - Character Level) hours (minimum of 3), you may lay an egg made of solid gold. Size of the egg is dependent on skill level. This skill cannot be trained. This skill automatically increases by 1 each time you descend to a new floor.

"You know that saying about how money makes the world go 'round?" Levi asked. "Well, in the dungeon it goes a long way towards survival. With unlimited money you can buy personal spaces and upgrades that stack up to give you a 100% bonus to all your stats, your XP gains, your training speed, your healing rate...it goes on and on. You can buy spellbooks of rare and powerful skills, you can hire fighters and sages. Enough money makes the dungeon far more survivable. That's part of why I was hoping Drew would choose the Entan race—their leaves are steel, silver, and gold. Literal, pure, metallic silver and gold. Combine that with their Regeneration ability and money literally grows on trees." He shrugged. "Not that Tir Inqua is a bad choice—it's not—but I've always been so-so on luck-based abilities. ​

​

"I don't know how much money these eggs will generate, but I suspect it's a lot since it's one of the only benefits and the fact that it's not directly trainable. ​

​

"Then there's the Flight benefit. That's an extremely overpowered ability in certain cases. I've seen cases where it turned entire floors from impossible to trivial. I don't know if it will be the case for this season, but don't discount it." ​

​

​

Race: Doppleganger

Ah, doppelgangers. So many legends, both on your world and out in the galaxy. Elite spies, shape-shifting assassins whose bodies are living weapons, infiltrators that can't be stopped even by the narrowest sewage pipe...the list goes on.

This rare and exclusive class is available only to crawlers who have obtained 1 trillion views before reaching the third floor.

• +10 Constitution
• The Body Sculpting benefit
• The Mass Absorption benefit
• The Color Shifting benefit
• +5 to the 'Walk in Their Shoes' skill
• All skills appropriate for this race are unlocked
• Hidden Bonus! +2 to any Doppleganger skill you gain
• Note: Choosing this race unlocks multiple exclusive Earth-based classes

"Skills being unlocked means that they can be learned from nothing if you practice them enough," Levi explained. "On the first floor many skills become locked and you can't get the dungeon version except from a dungeon item. On the second floor, more things become locked. On the third floor, everything is locked. The exception is if your class or race says otherwise. ​

​

"As to what that means in practice...if you tried picking a lock on the first floor, you probably would have gotten the Lockpicking skill. Now, no. By now Lockpicking is, pardon the pun, locked. If you want to pick locks, you need to do it the hard way, using only your real-world skill without the enhanced ability that you would get from the dungeon. Having racial skills unlocked doesn't mean you will have any of those skills, but they will stay unlocked throughout the dungeon and if you practice one of them enough you can get level 1 in it and then advance normally from there. It requires a lot of dedicated and focused practice; you're not going to be able to stick a paperclip in a lock one time and suddenly have a Lockpicking skill. What will probably happen is that you'll get it without expecting it after doing something that the AI thought was cool." ​

​

​

Benefit: Body Sculpting
With a bit of concentration you can mold your body like clay. Shapes are limited only by your available mass and skill. Density and hardness may be altered within limits.

Benefit: Mass Absorption
Equipped items aside from weapons are absorbed, becoming part of your body. You retain any bonuses or abilities. Absorbed items may be relocated across the body and can be reshaped so long as they remain contiguous.

Benefit: Color Shifting
You may change your coloration freely, allowing you to adopt any racial coloring, or go bubblegum pink, or (with sufficient skill) to blend in with the background. Only colors within the human-visible spectrum, you adorable little munchkin!

Skill: Walk in Their Shoes
If you can make your portrayal of another species or individual accurate enough, your properties display and system identification will be altered to match the targeted species/individual. Accuracy required: (100 - (2 x Skill Level))%

Hidden Bonus!
Dopplegangers have a racial affinity for a large array of skills and benefits. If you gain one of these skills it will start at level 3 instead of level 1. The bonus will be applied retroactively if you already have any of the appropriate skills when you choose this race.

"Used correctly, this can be an incredibly powerful race," Levi said. "The trick is that it's not like Changeling or Copy Cat, where the system handles the transformation for you. You need to sculpt your body manually, and that takes practice. On the other hand, the things you can do..." He shook his head. "It can be amazing. You get a backpack, you load it up with a huge amount of metal, and you can cover your entire body in a layer of metal two inches thick. You can become the tankiest tank that has ever tanked, and then if you can find a source of electricity you become a walking taser, or even arc welder. You can put spikes on yourself in order to cause extra damage. You can flow under doors and through narrow pipes, form yourself into copies of the guards or important NPCs, disguise yourself as a feature of the architecture. It can get ridiculous." ​

​

​

Race: Dryad

A race of shy forest spirits, dryads are normally portrayed as female in Earth mythology. In the dungeon, they will match your gender identity.

• +3 Charisma
• The Forestwalk benefit
• You may animate and control one plant within 50 meters of you, although the plant cannot uproot itself in order to travel. Duration: 30 minutes. Cooldown: 30 seconds
• +3 to the Plant Travel skill
• +3 to the exclusive Mystic Plant Growth spell
• +3 to the Senses of the Forest Mother skill
• Plants for your library: oak tree, blackberry thicket
• Note: Choosing this race unlocks multiple exclusive Earth-based classes

Benefit: Forestwalk
In a forest environment you may choose to move completely silently and/or leave no tracks and/or have yourself, your clothes, and your equipped gear receive high-quality camoflage. Functions as a level 15 Climbing skill when climbing plants.

Skill: Plant Travel
You may merge yourself into any plant of appropriate size. You may then step out of that plant or any other appropriately-sized plant within (5 x Skill Level) meters, without crossing the intervening space. 'Appropriate size' depends on skill level; at level 1 it requires a plant large enough to physically contain you, while at level 15 any plant large enough to see with the naked eye will do.

Spell: Mystic Plant Growth
Cost: 5 MP
Range: (Skill Level)x3 meters


Whenever you touch a plant, that species of plant is added to your library. When you use this spell, a plant of your choice from your library grows from the target location. Full maturity requires 30-(Skill Level x 2) seconds (minimum of 0.1 seconds), although you may stop the growth early or grow the plant more slowly if you wish. If target location lacks a biome appropriate for growing plants of that type then the growth will be fueled from your health. 'Appropriate' means the presence of appropriate plant food (soil, compost, etc), water, enough space, and the place isn't on fire or bathed in acid or whatever. Not all locations are valid targets. Living creatures are not valid targets.

Skill: Senses of the Forest Mother
Range: (Skill Level)x10 meters


A skill-based version of the Plant Awareness spell. By concentrating, you may receive full-sensory data from any desired set of plants that you have in your library and are within range. The clarity of the data depends on your skill level.

"Members of this race who have leveled up their skills are insanely lethal in a forest environment," Levi said. "They know everything that's happening in their forest and they can merge with one blade of grass and step out of another fifty meters away, meaning they can essentially teleport around at will within their patch and it's impossible to hide from them or suprise them. They can also animate all the plants and have them grab you, rip you up with their thorns, or generally beat you to death. They can make a giant tree spring up under you in order to launch you into the sky or slam you into the ceiling. If they have the right plants in their library they can grow things with fruit that work like healing potions, explosives, or a bunch of other things. They can spend a small amount of health to grow a big chunk of grass on top of solid stone and the grass counts as an 'appropriate biome' for growing other plants, meaning that if you give them a few minutes of prep time then they can create everything they need to get all those forest-based advantages. Most of the plants have multiple uses, too—for example, oak trees are great combatants but they can also be grown under a door in order to destroy it, or to serve as a means of reaching high places. Vines can be grown through small openings to serve as a sensor, and so on. Oh, and let's not forget being able to grow things that can be sold for cash, or alchemy ingredients, and so on and so on. A little bit of luck in what plants you find, a little bit of common sense, and a dryad can be rich as Croesus. ​

​

"Even better, these spells get significantly stronger as they level up. At level 10, Plant Travel starts letting you bring other people along and Mystic Plant Growth lets you grow multiple things at the same time. Oh, and the definition of 'one plant' is a little flexible. A tree counts as one plant but so does a whole patch of grass. The exact definitions vary from crawl to crawl so it's a good thing to test. ​

​

"Best of all, the sixth floor of the dungeon is a jungle-based floor. We can get into the details later, but the important point is that there's going to be a bunch of aliens hunting you in an environment where a dryad will absolutely pwn." ​

​

"Did you just say 'pwn'?" Taylor asked, amazed. "Like, the gamer slang?" ​

​

"Yeah? What, did I use it wrong?" ​

​

"Nah," Calliope said. "But nobody uses that anymore, unless they're being ironic. Well, nobody except oldies." She grinned at him. ​

​

Levi rolled his eyes. "Anyway, the downside to all this is that, obviously, dryads depend on having plants around. This is a race designed for people who are playing the long game and have friends to cover them. Which, fortunately, you are and you do." ​

​

​

Race: Dzichi

Human-like creatures with bronze skin covered in fine scales, eyes with horizontal slits in them, claws on hands and feet, and a huge mane of hair reaching to their ankles. At race selection you may choose hair and eye color (choose any human-visible color for each).

• +3 to the Skin Armor skill
• +3 to the Good Hair Day skill
• +4 to the Unarmed Combat skill
• Note: Choosing this race unlocks multiple exclusive Earth-based classes

Skill: Skin Armor
Your skin is armor. You retain full tactile sensivity but pain is muted. This skill trains by blocking damage.

Skill: Good Hair Day
During transformation, your hair will be grown out to floor length. Each strand of your hair becomes as tough as steel. Each strand of your hair provides full-sensory data. You may control each strand of your hair as though it were a limb. Larger bundles of hair and higher levels of skill provide higher sensory resolution and greater strength. Your hair grows extremely quickly, even at low levels.

Skill: Unarmed Combat
Your damage is increased by 25% per skill level when you are not wielding a weapon.

Levi chuckled. "I've seen this race dozens of times, and it tends to get the blow off. People don't think about the actual utility of being able to see, feel, taste, touch, and smell through their hair, wield multiple weapons in their hair, entangle people in their hair and so on. It's like having a huge number of arms and hands—you can't wear rings on them, but you can do pretty much everything else. Also, it makes picking most locks trivial since you can see and feel the inside of the lock and manipulate the tumblers or disks without needing tools. It's a solid choice, but it never gets any love." ​

​

​

Race: Human

You're already a human. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess you don't need a description. If you choose this, you'll get a physical touch-up and these racial benefits:

• +2 to all base stats
• Adaptability. +2% faster skill progression
• Note: Choosing this race unlocks multiple exclusive Earth-based classes

Race: Primal

For the first several seasons of Dungeon Crawler World, all contestants started off as Primals. Primals are blank slates; they start with no particular advantage but they can grow in any direction. Since no one knows what the actual Primals looked like, you will look like a touched-up version of yourself.

• All skills are unlocked
• All trainable skills and spells may be trained to level 20
• Note: Choosing this race unlocks multiple exclusive Earth-based classes
• Note: Choosing this race removes all requirements from Earth-based classes, aside from stat and social minimums
• Disadvantage: -1 to all base stats

Race: Satori

Freaky mind-screwing monsters. Nice if they're on your side, a complete pain if they're not. Also, their feet are deep into the uncanny valley. Ruins the appeal.

Ape-like hominids roughly 160 centimeters tall and covered in orange-brown fur.

• +1 Strength
• +1 to the Climbing skill
• +3 to the Mind Awareness skill
• +3 to the Brain Blast spell
• +3 to the Mind Reading spell
• Note: Choosing this race unlocks multiple exclusive Earth-based classes

Skill: Mind Awareness
For each mind within (Skill Level)x10 meters of you, there is a 10% per skill level chance that you will be aware of that mind regardless of intervening barriers. Ability to precisely locate and identify the source of a mind depends on skill level. At higher levels you gain an awareness of the emotional state of the mind and whether or not it is focused on you. Some creatures may be able to mask their thoughts.

Spell: Brain Blast
Cost: 6 MP
Range: (Skill Level) x 10 meters. Requires LOS
Target: a being with a mind


Deals psychic damage to the target. This attack has no visible display and does not require an unobstructed path to the target, only line of sight.

Spell: Mind Reading
Cost: 10 MP
Cooldown: 10 minutes
Range: Touch
Target: a being with a mind

You attempt to read the target's mind in order to extract specific information. Chance of success depends on Intelligence and skill level vs target's Intelligence and character level.

Race: Syvio

An entire race of tiny little assassins, and there is definitely no stereotyping involved in that statement. People look sideways at these guys and keep an eye on the silver whenever they're around.

Humanoid reptiles roughly twenty centimeters tall. They have light blue scales and a feathered ruff running down their heads, similar to the crest of a Roman centurion's helmet. The eyes are mounted on flexible stalks and the fin-like ears stick out to the sides. The eyestalks can pivot and bend for full 360-degree visibility, and the ears can rotate and/or lie flat against the skull. The short snout is filled with serrated teeth.

• +6 Dexterity
• +3 Intelligence
• -5 Constitution. (Minimum of 2)
• +3 to the Stealth skill
• +3 to the Move Silently skill
• +3 to the Advanced Backstab skill
• Land-based movement speed is multiplied by level in the Running skill
• The Running skill trains 5% faster
• Body is size Small
• Disadvantage: Base Constitution is capped at 10

"Calliope, 'land-based movement' would include your skateboard but would not include riding Moose," Levi said. ​

​

​

Skill: Advanced Backstab
Damage is increased by 250% per level if you attack from behind without the target being aware of you. There is also a small chance of a critical strike which will multiply your total damage by (Skill Level) on top of other bonuses.

Race: Tariaksuq

Whenever you are three-dimensional you will look like an idealized version of yourself.

• +8 Dexterity
• +1 to the Shadow Form skill
• Note: Choosing this race unlocks multiple exclusive Earth-based classes

Skill: Shadow Form
You can merge into your own shadow and enter Plato's Cave, becoming two-dimensional and solid black. In your shadow form you are nearly invisible in darkness. You can interact with the normal 3D world only through shadows; stabbing someone's shadow while you are in shadow form will act as though you had stabbed them in 3D space, shadows will act as physical objects, etc. You are immune to falling damage. You may shift back and forth at will.

"Definite pros and cons to that," Levi said. "On the upside, you can shift back from shadow form to regular from any point in your shadow. If you have a light source behind you so that you're casting a long shadow, it can be a way to jump across short distances by reforming from where the head of the shadow was. It takes a moment to shift forms so you can't use it as blink teleportation, but it is fast enough to use in combat if you're careful. On the downside, light- and fire-based attacks do double damage while you're in shadow form. ​

​

"This isn't a common ability so I don't know the ins and outs that well. Still, it's a skill so it will improve as you level it up. I would assume some of the restrictions and vulnerabilities will be lifted and you might gain access to more powerful uses of it. No promises, though." ​

​

​

Race: Tortugan Juvenile

Humanoid tortoises who can grow to massive size and had immensely long life spans even before modern life-extension technology kicked in.

Adult Tortugans tend to be sedentary and contemplative, remaining at home unless given pressing reason to travel. ('Pressing reason' tends to be along the lines of 'you harmed my third cousin four times removed and therefore I will now murder you and your entire bloodline.') In contrast, the juveniles of the species frequently experience wanderlust and upon reaching the age of majority (around 120 years old), they will go out into the universe to make their mark before coming home again.

Juvenile Tortugans who are off on their version of Rumspringa tend to be around 7' tall, weigh upwards of 1,500 pounds, and have claws that can carve into steel. All in all, they're some of the best tanks you could ask for. They are also surprisingly good at crafting knives, although perhaps it's not that surprising given the important place Tortugan blades and bladecrafting have in their culture.

The primary drawback of the Tortugan race is that their culture looks down upon the use of magic, considering it to be a shortcut that should be eschewed in favor of actual skill. As a result, they have evolved to the point where their biology literally resists magic use.

• +10 Strength
• +10 Constitution
• +1 Strength at every even-numbered level
• +1 Constitution at every even-numbered level
• +4 to the Unarmed Combat skill
• +3 to the Natural Weaponry skill
• +3 to the Powerful Strike skill
• The Armored Shell benefit
• Immunity to poison
• Immunity to disease
• Resistance to aging
• Standard cycle is 100 hours wakefulness followed by 10 hours of sleep
• A level 10 Bladesmith skill
• The Tortugan Blademaker benefit
• Disadvantage: -25% movement rate
• Disadvantage: -25% to mana regeneration rate
• Disadvantage: All spells cost 50% more mana
• Disadvantage: Cannot swim, or even float, without assistance
• Disadvantage: If a Tortugan makes a promise and then breaks it, they permanently suffer the 'Dishonored' debuff
• Disadvantage: If a Tortugan disrespects a Tortugan blade (e.g., loses it, sells it, gives it to an unworthy individual), they permanently suffer the 'Dishonored' debuff
• Note: Choosing this race unlocks an exclusive Earth-based class

"Before you ask: I've got no idea what that 'Dishonored' debuff is," Levi said. "There's dozens of things that go by that name each season, all of them different." ​

​

​

Skill: Unarmed Combat
Your damage is increased by 25% per skill level when you are not wielding a weapon, or when you are wielding a Tortugan blade.

Skill: Natural Weaponry
Your bodily armament, be it spikes, horns, claws, teeth, a stabby or bonky tail, or just your big swingin' dingus, count as both unarmed weapons and melee weapons. Also, you gain an additional +25% per level damage when fighting with only your natural weapons, or when you are wielding a Tortugan blade.

Skill: Powerful Strike
Your damage is multipled by (Skill Level) when you are not wielding a weapon, or when you are wielding a Tortugan blade.

Benefit: Armored Shell
Tortugans have a heavily armored shell that protects their torso better than most plate armor. When desired, they can pull their head and limbs back into the shell and seal it closed with an air-tight seal until they wish to come out again. They can hold their breath for up to (Character Level) minutes while sealed into their shell.

Tortugans shed their shells at each level divisible by 10. Upon reaching this milestone, the Tortugan has one hour to begin the shedding process. Delaying by more than an hour will inflict the 'Shell Sick' debuff until the process is begun. Among other things, this debuff will drain health at a steadily increasing rate until the recipient dies. Beginning the shedding process will remove the debuff. If the debuff is removed in any other way it will return within an hour and will be twice as intense as it was.

When the shedding begins, the Tortugan becomes dormant for 30 hours while their shell dissolves. The actual shedding takes 15 hours, at which point the still-dormant Tortugan is unprotected for 15 hours before awakening. Once the Tortugan awakes, a new shell begins to grow. It will finish growing over the course of the next 60 hours.

Benefit: Tortugan Blademaker
You can craft Tortugan blades.

Weapon: Tortugan blade

Tortugan blades are made of an exotic crystal, the secrets of which are known only to the Tortugans. They are not technically enchanted, but they convey the following benefits:

• They are indestructible
• They can affect incorporeal enemies
• Armor and shields, magical or mundane, are 50% less effective against them
• They ignore some types of invulnerability and/or damage reduction
• They meet the requirements for combat skills that a bladed melee weapon would normally meet (e.g., Knife, Sword, Melee Weapons, Backstab, etc)
• In the hands of a Tortugan, they meet the requirements for combat skills that require you be unarmed, such as Unarmed Combat and Powerful Strike
• All damage is doubled. This means that (e.g.) Powerful Strike multiplies your damage by ((Skill Level) x 2) instead of (Skill Level) even as Unarmed Combat adds 50% per level instead of 25%
• Damage is doubled again (total of x4 when compounded with the prior benefit) against creatures of the Outsider subtype, which includes demons, angels, elementals, summoned creatures, etc
• While wielding a Tortugan blade, XP gains to applicable combat skills are doubled

Tortugan blades cannot be bought or sold in stores and will never appear as loot items.

Creating a Tortugan blade requires materials with a base cost of 50,000 gold. The creation process requires 30 uninterrupted hours at a Tortugan Knifemaker's crafting table of level 7 or higher and can only be done by someone with the Tortugan Blademaker benefit and a level 15 Bladesmith skill.

Race: Uphetchug

These guys are just freaky. Seriously, they skeeve me out.

Tan-furred bipeds slightly larger than human with a canine head and a three-meter scorpion tail.

• +3 Strength
• +3 Constitution
• Immunity to poison
• +3 to the Melee Weapons skill
• +5 to the Natural Weaponry skill
• +3 to the Venom Strike skill

Skill: Melee Weapons
This rare and exclusive skill increases your damage with a melee weapon by 33% per level. Additionally, it allows you to use any melee weapon of any kind at the higher of your skill with that weapon or your skill with this one, meaning that if you have (e.g.) Sword at level 9, Axe at level 5, and Melee Weapons at level 6 then you will be attacking at level 9 with your sword and level 6 with your axe. In either case you will gain the benefit of the weapon skill (if you have one) and the damage bonus from Melee Weapons.

Skill: Natural Weaponry
Your bodily armament, be it spikes, horns, claws, teeth, a stabby or bonky tail, or just your big swingin' dingus, count as both unarmed weapons and melee weapons. Also, you gain an additional +25% per level damage when fighting with only your natural weapons.

Skill: Venom Strike
Your tail can inject a virulent neurotoxin. Strength of the toxin depends on level of Venom Strike. Quantity of venom available and speed of generation depends on level of Venom Strike.

Race: Vahntiri

These guys look almost exactly like what Christians think angels look like. Well, Christians who get their imagery from Hallmark cards instead of from their holy book, which is basically all of them. Cafeteria Christians, every single one of 'em. Eh, could be worse. The people of Mardwalet IV are among the most religious in the galaxy, but not a single one of them has read their holy book. Why? Because the orcs destroyed all copies of it, and every priest, shaman, temple, and shrine, over a thousand years ago! Oh, and their entire population over the age of sixteen. Why? Because the people of Mardwalet are a bunch of assholes, that's why! And so are the orcs, of course. Nobody likes either of them, but everybody hates that weird-ass Mardwaletan religion. Which has gotten at least two asses weirder since the destruction, given that it's all based on oral history as remembered by a bunch of children.

What was I saying...? Oh, right. This is what Christians who haven't read their book think angels look like. Actually, that's not quite true; these guys aren't Caucasian.

Tall humanoids with swan wings growing out of their backs. Their skin and eyes are a constantly-moving swirl of every color, including some that are outside of the range of human vision.

• +2 Strength
• +6 Charisma
• The Flight benefit
• The Healing Hug benefit
• +4 to the Wing Strike skill
• +3 to the Protective Wings skill
• +3 to the Catcher skill (wings only)

Benefit: Healing Hug


So long as someone is wrapped in your wings, they will recover 25% of their maximum health and 25% of their maximum mana per second. Additionally, the effects of debuffs and negative status conditions are suspended, but their expiration timers (if any) continue running. Additionally, expiration timers on buffs and positive status conditions do not advance while within a Healing Hug.

Skill: Wing Strike
You may use your wings to attack. They increase your base damage by 25% per skill level.

Skill: Protective Wings
Your wings function as armor. Higher skill levels increase the protection offered by the wings.

Skill: Catcher
You may use your wings in an attempt to catch physical ranged attacks directed at yourself or anyone within reach of you.

"That's an uncommon skill," Levi said. "And a damn good one. At level 10, if you manage to catch an attack then you'll be able to redirect it instead of simply blocking it. At level 15 you'll be able to catch targeted magical attacks as well as physical ones." ​

​

​

Class: Battle Klepto

Crazy little bastards. No, seriously, that's not an insult, it's a fact. DSM-5 302.32 (F63.3), Category: Disruptive, Impulse Control, and Conduct: Kleptomania.

• +3 Dexterity
• +3 to the Stealth skill
• +3 to the Pick Pockets skill
• No penalty for attempting to steal worn and/or equipped items
• At level 10 of Pick Pockets, you may attempt to steal from the target's inventory
• Experience gained towards the Pick Pockets skill is also applied to leveling

"Hah!" Levi said. "I was hoping this would show up again." ​

"Why?" Taylor asked. ​

"I know what you're thinking," Levi said, smiling in that infuriating way that people do when they know a secret that they know you don't know. ​

"Do tell," Taylor said, his voice dry as dust. ​

"You think this class sucks, don't you? That's why it didn't even get a mention when Drew was picking." ​

Taylor tried to find a diplomatic response to that but one did not immediately come to mind. ​

"It's total stank," Calliope said, after Taylor couldn't find his response for a trio of seconds. "No combat abilities, no healing, no buffs. Just stealing stuff. Useless against anything that doesn't use equipment." She rolled her eyes. "But, I'm not dumb. This was a trick question and now that I've given you the straight line you'll stop lording it over us and tell us what we don't know so that I can say 'Gosh, Levi, you are so smart! Thank you so much for educating me!'" ​

Taylor's breath caught in his throat, just for a moment. "Calliope! Don't be rude!" Holy crap, the last thing they needed was to piss off their manager. If Levi stopped wanting to help... ​

She huffed out a breath and threw herself back in her chair. "Fine. Whatever." ​

Levi chuckled. "It's cool. I've had plenty of teenage crawlers before. Calliope, you're right. This class is better than it looks. ​

"First of all, Pick Pockets is a somewhat misleadingly-named skill. It lets you do more than simply take things out of someone's pocket. It's all about manipulating objects, while in very close proximity to another being, without being noticed. For example, it lets you put something into the pocket instead of taking it out. Very useful if you have a locator beacon, or a miniature incendiary, or a time-release vial of contact sleeping powder. Or perhaps you'd like to tie the guard's ankle to the desk without being noticed? Clip off his purse? Swap his ID badge for a fake as part of a frame-up? That's all Pick Pockets. ​

"Second, don't underestimate the combat value of stealing things off someone's body. Lots of bosses are going to use equipment of one kind or another. With a high enough Pick Pockets skill you can literally steal the sword out of their hand while they're in the middle of swinging it at you—well, this class can. In most cases the penalties for stealing equipped items render that impossible. ​

"Third, with this class the experience that you get towards Pick Pockets goes towards leveling up. Here's the thing: experience is complicated. Among a million other things, the XP award for an action depends on the difficulty of success, the severity of potential consequences for failure, and how closely you conform to the expected outcome." ​

"Expected outcome?" Taylor asked. ​

"Every skill has an expected outcome for its use, and the closer you conform to that outcome the more XP you get. The Sword skill expects that you will kill things with your sword. The Running skill expects that you will traverse ground at your maximum speed, and so on. Pick Pockets has a much more nebulous condition: it expects that you will accomplish your chosen action without being noticed." ​

He paused as though waiting for applause but got three blank stares instead. He sighed. ​

"Let's do some examples. A level 50 crawler uses his sword to kill a level 200 Titan. Then he kills a level 2 goblin. Then he smacks a guard in the head and knocks him out. ​

"He gets huge experience for the Titan because he conformed to the expectation—he killed the thing—and the chance of success was very low and there were very high consequences for failure. By which I mean 'the Titan would have killed him'. ​

"He gets essentially zero experience for the goblin. He conformed to the expectation, but the chance of success was essentially 100% and the goblin was no threat so there were no consequences for failing." He paused, then made a tossing-away gesture. "Well, there are some. The goblin might raise the alarm and summon a more dangerous enemy, or run off with the thing that the crawler came to get, or whatever. Still. ​

"Going back to the examples, our heroic adventurer gets some experience for knocking the guard out, but not as much as he would have gotten for killing the guy. The Sword skill expects you to kill, not incapacitate." ​

"Pick Pockets has a much wider purpose and therefore you have more flexibility about how you earn experience for it," Taylor said, getting the point. "Which means a lot more ways to earn levels with minimal risk of dying." ​

"Exactly. Plus, there's the time and visibility factors. Back on the first two floors you probably noticed that you spent more time looking for mobs and walking to mobs as opposed to fighting mobs. There are going to be towns and settlements everywhere from now on, with hundreds or even thousands of people in them. Lots of targets for both killing and pickpocketing, but you can pickpocket someone multiple times and only kill them once. Also, the settlements will generally have some method of defense that you don't want to tangle with, so pickpocketing is much better than killing, at least until you're ready to leave." ​

"And the thief gets dinged less for lower level bad guys, right?" Calliope said, interested despite herself. "Killing a level 2 goblin when you're level 50 gets you nothing because its combat power is so far below you, but you said that the purpose of Pick Pockets is to do the thing without being noticed. A goblin has a lot less combat power than a Titan but not necessarily less awareness. The thief isn't competing with the goblin's combat power, he's competing with its awareness or Spot check or whatever it's called." ​

"Gold star to the skater girl! That's exactly right. You get dinged a bit on the 'consequences' front since the goblin can't hurt you if you fail, but even there the ding is likely to be less. The pickpocket is probably trying to do something that will be screwed up completely if they're noticed—they want to raise money so that the party can buy necessary gear, or they want to steal a thing that they need for a quest, or whatever. Even if the target can't hurt them it can still raise the alarm, which brings the town guards, which forces the thief to abandon whatever he was doing and flee the town. ​

"Final item: there's only so many ways to swing a sword and the audience gets bored pretty fast unless you're constantly in life-threatening danger or constantly fighting new and different types of mobs. Pickpockets can go after different targets, can use their skills in different ways, and can give themselves different challenges. For example, you could decide that you're going to wear bright orange while you're picking pockets. You could decide to swap the wallets of everyone on a crowded street. You could do a simple bump-and-dip in passing, or you could get a teammate to chat someone up while you strip them bare." He snorted. "Literally, with this class. Get your skills high enough and you could literally steal the clothes off their back without them noticing." ​

"I'm getting the feeling that you had the Pick Pockets skill," Drew said dryly. ​

"What gave it away?" ​

​

A manatee's top lip is split in half and it opens to the sides as well as up. This makes their smile horrifying. ​

"Okay, but you said that character level isn't a big deal," Taylor said. "All it gets you is stat points, but what you need for survival is skills and spells." ​

"True," Levi said, nodding. "But it's more complicated than that. I couldn't talk about most of this before, but now I can. Among other reasons that level matters is that there's a list of the top ten crawlers. It doesn't populate until next floor, but being on that list is a golden ticket for getting views and Benefactors. No one knows the exact formula for getting on the top ten list, but level and views are definitely part of it. If you're the highest-level crawler in the game, that's going to work for you. ​

"Basically, Pick Pockets is a way to level up, fast and safe. That gets you views, which gets you on the top ten list, which gets you more views and Benefactors and fan boxes, which gets you survival. Plus, it's a lot safer than combat, often more entertaining, and still very useful in combat if you're creative." ​

​

Class: Bike Messenger

This rare and exclusive class is only available to crawlers who, prior to reaching the third floor, have:

• Acquired a level 5 or higher skill on a wheeled vehicle
• Received at least 500 billion views
• Have a base Dexterity of 15 after assigning stat points but before class bonuses

This is an Earth class. As an incentive to choose an Earth class, you will receive a Silver Earth Box upon choosing this class.

• +3 Dexterity
• The Wheeled Speedster benefit
• +2 to Acrobatics, only while mounted on a wheeled vehicle
• +3 to the Rush skill
• +3 to the Armored Vehicle skill
• The Gravitic Frame Bending benefit, only while mounted on a wheeled vehicle and in motion
• +3 to the One With My Ride skill
• A Platinum-tier Scroll of Upgrade that will target your vehicle
• A coupon for a Vehicle Bay personal space upgrade

Benefit: Wheeled Speedster
While mounted on your vehicle your speed increases by ((relevant vehicle skill) x (Dexterity / 2))%

Skill: Rush
Cooldown: 30 hours
Your speed is magnified based on the level of Rush. Your body is flung forward, causing damage to whatever you hit. You are invulnerable for the duration of the Rush. Damage caused is based on speed at the moment Rush is activated.

"Rush is a powerful ability," Levi said. "It's like Moose's Legion Rush ability, but better in some ways and worse in others. Moose's ability can be used multiple times a day, but only while he's in motion and there's a brief glow before it activates, which gives away the fact that he's using it. Once it activates, it increases his speed and mass and gives him half a second of invulnerability at the start but nothing after that. If there's something immediately in front of him when he activates it, that thing is going to be vaporized. On the other hand, it makes it so that he doesn't turn well, which means that he's likely to die if he hits something after the invulnerability runs out, or if he simply trips or loses his footing and slides. Plus, he'll weigh literal tons, meaning he can collapse bridges and sink into muddy ground. ​

​

"The normal Rush skill can be used from a standing start with no sign that you're using it, it keeps you invulnerable for the entire time you're moving, and it doesn't change your mass. The problem is that it's very short ranged, and it's unpredictable. You might go five feet, you might go twenty. You might go the direction you're facing, you might go ten or even twenty degrees off. ​

​

"Since Rush activates immediately and without warning, the momentary invulnerability can be used as a defense if you get the timing right. That's theoretically possible with Legion Rush, but it's much less practical because of the warning and the fact that you need to be in motion." ​

​

​

Skill: Armored Vehicle
Your skin functions as armor while on your vehicle and in motion.

Benefit: Gravitic Frame Bending
The no-cost, souped-up version of the Gravity Resurfacing spell. You may redirect your personal gravity so that 'down' is towards any solid surface within 10 meters, allowing you to travel on or fall towards walls and ceilings. Only works while on your vehicle and in motion.

Skill: One With My Ride
You can adhere your body to your vehicle, reducing the chance of falling off or being separated from it during (e.g.) mid-air acrobatics, even if you don't have a limb available to hold on.

Class: Blood Blade

Ooh, yeah. I loves me a good masochist. Bleed for me, bitch. Bleed for your Daddy.

Cardiovascular mages are among the strongest magic users in the game. They have a nigh-limitless bag of tricks, including making an enemy's heart beat so fast that it literally catches fire...which is both awesome and gross. Grawesome? Whatever.

Of course, not everyone is cut out to be a mage. One time, long, long ago, one little dilettante managed to learn a few bits of Cardio before getting kicked out of totally-not-Hogwarts. Next he tried to be a cleric but got bored and quit after learning some minor stuff. Then he started studying how to bash things with a pointy metal stick and discovered he had finally sunk to his proper level. He managed to put all the various bits of learning together into something that didn't get anywhere near grawesome but maybe made it to grool. (Gross + cool, get it?)

• +3 Constitution
• The Transfusion benefit
• +5 to the Sanguine Sword spell
• +1 to the Blood Bomb skill
• +(Constitution)% to damage caused by your blood
• +6 to the Regeneration skill whenever you have at least half a liter of blood in your stomach (the blood will be consumed in the process)

Benefit: Transfusion
Cost: 5 MP and whatever fraction of your health you wish to transfer
Look how generous you are! You can transfer health from yourself to another, and all you have to do is force your own lifeblood into their veins. Health transferred will be applied per your/their Constitution. Good news! Obtaining this benefit converts you into a truly universal donor. Screw blood types, your blood can go into a silicon-based lifeform with no issues. Additionally, learning this spell protects you from all negative effects of contact with, or ingestion of, blood.

Spell: Sanguine Sword
Cost: 3 MP and 5-10% of your health, depending on the sword
Duration: (Constitution) minutes


Forgot to bring a weapon? No problem! Cut a vein open and your blood will fountain out to create a sword of whatever type you like. (The cut will then close.) The resulting sword has durability, duration, and damage based on the level of Blood Sword. When the spell expires, the sword returns to its liquid state. Only you can wield the sword. The spell ends if you lose contact with the sword.

​

Levi nodded in satisfaction as he read the description. "That spell is better than it seems. You'll need some kind of Sword or Melee Weapons skill to use it to best effect, but you can probably get one of those one way or another. Even without, it's got decent damage. More importantly, it's got a lot of utility. The system is very flexible about what it considers a 'sword'. Give it a three-foot cup handle with a short blade and you've got a shield with a spike on it. Put a big bulge on the end with sword tips coming out in all directions and you have a mace. Shape the tip appropriately and you've got a key. Make it five feet long with a hook on the end and you've got a climbing pole. ​

​

"Of course, the problem is that it's starting off at level 5, which is pretty low for the third floor."​

​

Spell: Blood Bomb
Cost: 10 MP + at least 5% of your health
Duration: (2 x Spell Level) hours


You're a blast! Well, your blood is. Your blood can be converted into explosives and either thrown or planted as a trap. Triggering options depend on your level of skill in the spell. Damage depends on level of spell and amount of health sacrificed.

Class: Boring Ol' Fighter

Ungh. Thog hit annoying man with club. Magic? What is magic? Thog kill stuff. Not need fancy magic.

Requirements: This rare and exclusive class is only open to crawlers who, before reaching the third floor, have:

• Obtained a skill of at least 5 with a physical weapon
• Killed 200 mobs with attacks from that weapon
• Not killed a mob using a spell

Stat requirements: After assigning stat points but before class bonuses, you must have base stats of:

• 20 Constitution
• 15 Strength

Benefits include:

• +15 Strength
• +15 Constitution
• +15 Dexterity
• You gain 1 additional attribute point per level, not retroactive. This point can only be assigned to Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution
• +5 to the Acrobatics skill
• +5 to the Dodge skill
• Dodge can be trained to level 20
• +3 to the Unarmed Combat skill
• The exclusive Melee Adept skill at the level of your highest relevant skill (minimum 1)
• The exclusive Ranged Adept skill at the level of your highest relevant skill (minimum 1)
• +3 to the exclusive Weapon Specialization skill (Category: 'Variable')
• +3 to the Murderous Attack skill
• Murderous Attack can be trained to level 20
• Pick one of (Unarmed Combat, Melee Adept, Ranged Adept). That skill can be trained to level 20
• A Gold-tier piece of armor for a slot you do not currently have occupied
• +5 to the Regeneration skill
• The Regeneration skill can be trained. Training consists of healing non-consensual wounds
• Regeneration can be trained to level 20
• Access to either Club Vanquisher or the Desperado Club, your choice
• Disadvantage: You cannot cast spells or activate item-based spell abilities

"As to the rest of it, an 'item-based spell ability' is anything that has the ability to cast a spell for you without you spending mana," Levi said. "A scroll would be the most common example. The Gravity Anvil spell that Drew got from the hair gel is a more specific one. When he activates it, it's the hair gel that's casting it, not him. ​

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"The main problem is that healing potions duplicate the 'Fix Me!' spell, so they won't be usable. Mana potions will be, but that doesn't help you much. Other types of potions may or may not be usable depending on what they do." He paused and his eyes glowed for a moment. "Okay, looks like abilities that modify or affect a device without duplicating a spell are fine. Taylor, you would still be able to change the mass and string length on your yo-yo, Drew would still be able to use the size-changing ability on your bident, and Calliope can still summon her sword back to her hand." ​

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"I've never heard of the Regeneration skill being trainable before. At level 15 you'd be essentially immune to anything that didn't insta-kill you—think 'Wolverine' from the comics. Above level 15 it would actually provide damage reduction in addition to the healing, meaning that even some insta-kill effects wouldn't matter. Granted, Regeneration isn't very useful on combat time scales until you get it to level 12 or 13, but even so this is incredibly impressive. Until then, you'll have Dodge, plus armor, plus your team can use Heal scrolls and spells on you. ​

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"Speaking of Dodge, being able to train Dodge to 20 is huge. At level 15 it's almost impossible to hit you with a targeted attack unless it takes you by surprise. At level 20 you can do stupid things like dodge a nuke going off at your feet, regardless of whether you knew it was there. Of course, it's insanely hard to get a skill to level 20; you'll need potions, training guilds, and other cheats. Those are either hard to come by, unreliable, or prohibitively expensive." ​

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Skill: Murderous Attack
Damage from your physical attacks is multiplied by the level of Murderous Attack.

Skills: Melee Adept, Ranged Adept
These rare and exclusive skills allow you to use any weapon of any kind within their category at the higher of your skill with that weapon or your skill with this one. They also increase your weapon damage by 50% per skill level. e.g., if you have Sword at level 9, Axe at level 5, and Melee Adept at level 6 then you will be attacking at level 9 with your sword and level 6 with your axe. You will gain the benefit of the weapon skill (if you have one) and the damage bonus from Melee Adept.

Note: This class awards these skills at the level of your highest relevant skill. Therefore, in the Sword:9, Axe:5 example, you would receive a Melee Adept skill of 9 and would be attacking at level 9 with both sword and axe.

Skill: Weapon Specialization (Category: 'Variable')
This rare and exclusive skill allows you to choose a class of weapon such as spear, axe, crossbow, etc. When using a weapon of that type your damage is increased by 66% per level of Weapon Specialization, the weapon is treated as enchanted, and it also becomes capable of harming incorporeal beings. You may change your specialization at the start of each floor.

Class: Cowpoke Sheriff

This rare and exclusive class is only available to crawlers who have either:

• Killed someone using a rope or lasso; or
• Acquired the ability to manufacture rope and/or lassos either magically or biologically

Yeehaw! Time to punch some cows and shoot some bad guys!

Once upon a time you were a drifter, moving from town to town with nothing but the clothes on your back, the lasso at your hip, the battered white hat on your head, and the tired old horse between your thighs. You found work where you could—herding cattle, rounding up sheep, whatever there was for a homeless cowboy.

Eventually, you came to the town of Boring, in the middle of the state of WhoTheFuckCares. They had an infestation of bandits and you rode to the rescue in a hail of gunfire. In gratitude (and a desire to not be infested with bandits in the future), the townsfolk made you their sheriff. You sometimes miss the old days of riding the range, but at least now you can sleep in a real bed every night and know where your next meal is coming from.

This is an Earth class. As an incentive to choose an Earth class, you will receive a Silver Earth Box upon choosing this class.

• +2 to Constitution
• +2 to Dexterity
• +1 to Charisma
• +4 to the Riding skill
• +4 to the Lasso skill
• +3 to the Hangman skill
• +4 to the Danger Sense skill
• +3 to the Quick Draw skill
• +3 to the Mana Bullet spell
• The Lawman benefit

Skill: Riding
The art of riding a quadruped or a non-powered vehicle for purposes of fun and function. While you are astride, your mount's speed is increased by 50% per skill level. Living mounts have their Dexterity increased by 10% per skill level.

Skill: Lasso
Spin a rope with a loop in it, throw it. Allows you to grapple things at range and pull them towards you, immobilize enemies, drag immobilized enemies across broken glass, and more!

Skill: Hangman
Damage inflicted using your lasso is increased by 125% per skill level.

Skill: Danger Sense
There is a chance based on skill level that you will be alerted to dangerous situations such as traps, ambushers, beings who are about to attack you, etc.

Skill: Quick Draw
If your Danger Sense warns you of a threat, you can react with superhuman speed in order to launch an attack before the threat manifests. The stereotypical example is that you recognize someone is about to launch a spell at you and you blast them with a Mana Bullet before they can get the attack off.

Spell: Mana Bullet
Cost: 3 MP
Range: (Dexterity) x (Spell Level) meters


Make a finger gun, pull the trigger. A bullet of pure mana shoots out and blows the bad guy's head off. Or, at least, reduces their health bar.

Benefit: Lawman
Damage you inflict on crawlers who have skulls is increased by 50% for each skull they have. You will not get a skull for killing crawlers who have skulls. Upon killing a crawler who has a skull, you will receive a bounty payment of ((your Character Level) x (their Character Level) x (number of skulls they had) x 10) gold.

Class: Duelist

You have offended my honor! Slap, slap, stab, stab!

Requirements: This class is only open to crawlers who, before reaching the third floor, have:

• Gained a level 5 or greater skill with an appropriately swashbuckler-ish melee weapon

Benefits include:

• +3 to the relevant melee weapon skill
• Damage with the relevant melee weapon skill is increased by (Dexterity x 3)% per skill level in the weapon
• +3 to the Parry skill
• +3 to the Pissed at the Piste spell
• +3 to the Be My Second! spell

Skill: Parry
You may attempt to deflect an incoming physical attack. At level 10 you may attempt to deflect targeted magical attacks. At level 15 you may attempt to deflect AOE attacks. A successful parry of a ranged attack will send the parried attack in a random direction. At higher levels you may attempt to choose the direction.

"Before you ask," Levi said, "yes, you can block an attack without having the Parry skill. The skill enhances your ability, makes you more successful at doing it against regular attacks and allows you to block things that you shouldn't physically be able to. Think 'deflect a sledgehammer with a rapier' and 'knock a fireball back at its caster' types of things." ​

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Spell: Be My Second!
Cost: 10 MP
Cooldown: 2 minutes
Duration: 30 minutes per spell level or until the target dies
Target: One mob (red- or white-tagged does not matter)
Warning: You must have a Charisma of at least 40 to cast this spell

If successful, the target mob becomes your second. All damage you sustain is redirected to them. If they die, you sustain any damage beyond what was necessary to kill them. You do not gain any influence over them. You may have only one second at a time; successfully casting this spell while you already have a second will cause the first mob to stop being your second. Chance of success is based on skill level and your Charisma versus their level and Charisma.

Spell: Pissed at the Piste
Cost: 10 MP + 2 MP/minute
Cooldown: 10 minutes
Duration: Until all enclosed mobs are dead, the caster runs out of mana, or the caster dismisses the spell
AOE: A cuboid from 1 to (Skill Level) meters wide, from 2 to 2+(Skill Level) meters high, and with length 7x the width.

Transparent barriers enclose the selected volume. You and one or more red-tagged mobs must be inside the volume at formation or else the spell fizzles. Mobs, their weapons, and their actionables cannot pass through the barriers. Neither can you, your weapons, or your damage-causing actionables. Sufficient damage to the barriers will cause them to fail, ending the spell.

If the spell fizzles or ends in any way except all red-tagged mobs inside it being killed, the caster suffers the following debuffs:

• Cowardice: For the next 90 hours, every time a mob causes damage to the caster, there is a 50% chance that the caster will be struck with a level 10 Fear effect
• Banned: For the next 90 hours, the caster cannot use Pissed at the Piste or Be My Second!

"Spells like this don't care about physical barriers," Levi said. "That means it will reach through walls if you make it big enough." ​

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Class: Fire Dancer

What could be cooler than slinging fire around?

This is an Earth class. As an incentive to choose an Earth class, you will receive a Silver Earth Box upon choosing this class.

• +3 Dexterity
• +3 to the Fire Dancing skill
• +1 to the Pyrophilia spell
• +3 to the Acrobatics skill
• +3 to the Dodge skill
• Dodge may be trained to level 20
• A Fire Dancing kit containing appropriate tools for fire dancing

Skill: Fire Dancing
You can sling flaming objects around to look cool, block attacks, and burn the fuck out of anything you don't like. You do +125% damage per level with fire weapons. Oh, yeah, also you can burst into flames for up to (Skill Level) minutes, cooldown 2 hours.

Spell: Pyrophilia
Cost: 3 MP
Range: 5 + (Spell Level) meters
Duration: (Spell Level) x 30 seconds


You are immune to high temperatures, magical or mundane. Fire heals instead of harming.

Class: Jinete

Cowardly little twats who refuse to get their lilly-white gloves dirty by closing with the enemy, or brilliant skirmishers who delight in taunting their foes with their superior mobility? You decide!

Requirements: This rare and exclusive class is available only to crawlers who, before stepping onto the third floor, have:

• Reached level 5 in some riding skill (vehicle or animal)
• Reached level 5 in some ranged weapon skill
• Reached level 5 in some melee weapon skill
• Received at least 100 billion views

You receive the following:

• +2 Intelligence
• +3 Dexterity
• +10 more Dexterity while mounted and in motion
• +1 to the Dodge skill
• +1 to the Javelin skill
• +1 to the Sword skill
• +5 more to the Dodge, Javelin, and Sword skills while mounted and in motion
• A bottomless quiver of javelins that sublimate 60 seconds after being removed from the quiver
• +3 to the Skirmisher skill
• Movement speed is increased by (5 x Character Level)% when mounted

Skill: Skirmisher
Damage with javelin and sword attacks is increased by ((Character Level) x 3)% per skill level.

"Keep in mind," Levi said, "that by the time you guys arrive on the sixth floor, you're going to be level 40 or 50. That skirmisher skill would be adding something like 150% per level of Skirmisher to your attacks, and it will only get better from there." ​

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Class: Juvenile Ninja Mutant Turtle

Have you ever wanted to see a literal ton of furious reptile backflipping around, slicing throats and then disappearing back into the shadows? Now's your chance! These guys are a prime example of why toxic waste should be disposed of according to all relevant OSHA regulations and not, I repeat not, by flushing it down the commode.

Requirements: This rare and exclusive class is only open to crawlers who selected the Tortugan race.

This is an Earth class. As an incentive to choose an Earth class, you will receive a Silver Earth Box upon choosing this class.

• +3 to the Hide in Shadows skill
• +3 to the Stealth skill
• +3 to the Acrobatics skill
• +3 to the Advanced Backstab skill
• A Desperado Club pass
• Membership in the Five Fists of Death Brotherhood

"No idea what that Brotherhood thing is," Levi said. "The name suggests a ninja organization, which suggests that it's a combination of a quest giving guild and a place that you can call on for mercenaries." He shrugged. "Memberships like this tend to be pretty good, but we won't know what the exact details are unless Calliope takes it." ​

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Skill: Advanced Backstab
Damage is increased by 250% per level if you attack from behind without the target being aware of you. There is also a small chance of a critical strike which will multiply your total damage by (Skill Level) on top of other bonuses.

Class: Monster Truck Driver

Yee-haw! Time to put your baseball cap on, grab a chaw of 'baccy, and climb up into your ridiculously giant-wheeled truck. Maybe you can get some cornbread and fried Oreos on the way to bang your sister!

This is an Earth class. As an incentive to choose an Earth class, you will receive a Silver Earth Box upon choosing this class.

• +15 Constitution
• +1 to the Second Fuel Tank skill
• +1 to the Rush skill
• +1 to the Pathfinder skill
• +1 to the Speed is Life skill
• Immunity to wind spell damage
• +50% resistance to the Buzzed and Shit-Faced debuffs (only from beer)
• Beer acts as a minor healing potion, but only if it's Freedomland big-name beer

Skill: Second Fuel Tank
Absorbs and stores a percentage of the damage from every hit you take. Every attack you receive has a chance of triggering this ability; when triggered, all stored damage will be reflected back on the attacker. Will activate at most once per fight. Trains up based on the amount of damage absorbed.

Skill: Rush
Cooldown: 30 hours
Your speed is magnified based on the level of Rush. Your body is flung forward, causing damage to whatever you hit. You are invulnerable for the duration of Rush.

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Skill: Pathfinder
Your minimap covers a much larger area. This skill is trained by keeping your map open to maximum size.

Skill: Speed is Life
Gotta go fast, gotta go fast! You receive a bonus to your Constitution depending on how fast you are moving. The increased Constitution raises both your maximum and current hit points for the duration of the bonus. Damage taken while the bonus is in effect will be removed from the bonus hit points first.

Class: Parkour Tagger

Unstoppable engines of chaos and awesome, parkour taggers race through populated areas performing superhuman stunts and leaving their mark behind for all to enjoy.

This is an Earth class. As an incentive to choose an Earth class, you will receive a Silver Earth Box upon choosing this class.

• +3 Constitution
• +5 Dexterity
• +2 Charisma
• +3 to the Running skill
• +3 to the Acrobatics skill
• +3 to the Parkour skill
• +3 to the Tagging skill
• +5 to the Dodge skill
• Dodge may be trained to level 20
• Your feed will be listed on multiple mesh boards related to physical activities similar to parkour

Skill: Tagging
You may leave your tag on any surface. Requires momentary contact with the surface. Tags fade after (Skill Level) hours. These tags provide the following benefits:

• You are always aware of the precise location of your most recent (Skill Level) tags
• You may choose for a Target:Self spell to be applied to a tagged being instead
• Your targeted spells will not miss when aimed at one of your tags, although they can still be blocked, parried, hit their range limit, etc. Extremely high levels of Dodge may allow a tagged target to evade.

"Having your feed listed on those mesh boards is a huge deal," Levi said, nodding. "The only problem is that they probably won't stay up for very long. Remember, the Crawl is technically illegal, or at least frowned upon, in most Syndicate systems. Think how you would have reacted if someone posted to one of your hobby forums with a live webcam feed of people being brutally murdered. It'll get you a big spike in social numbers and probably some extra momentum, but it won't be the giant and ongoing boon you might think." ​

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Class: Pirate Captain

Arrrr! Ya scurvy scalawag! Shiver me timbers and set sail for high adventure! Sure, real pirates were murderers, rapists, and thieves, but you get to be the romanticized, Errol-Flynn-esque version. Lucky you!

This is an Earth class. As an incentive to choose an Earth class, you will receive a Silver Earth Box upon choosing this class.

• +3 Dexterity
• +3 Charisma
• +2 to the Acrobatics skill
• +2 to the Sword skill
• A Platinum-tier eyepatch
• +5 to the Plunder skill
• +5 to the Age of Sail skill
• Every time you kill a boss, you will receive two loot boxes instead of one
• When you swing on a rope, chandelier, etc you will receive the Pirate's Luck effect for 10 seconds. Cooldown 1 minute
• Pirate-type mobs will not be automatically hostile to you

Skill: Plunder
Every time you kill a boss you will receive (boss level - your level, minimum 1) x (Skill level) x (Charisma) gold pieces.

Skill: Age of Sail
While you are aboard a water-going vessel, that vessel's speed, handling, and toughness increase by 50% per skill level.

Effect: Pirate's Luck
Reminder: This effect is only active for 10 seconds after you swing on a rope, chandelier, etc and has a cooldown of 1 minute.

Similar but superior to the Fortune Sculpting spell, this effect distorts probabilities in your favor. The bonus/malus varies based on your Charisma and your Character Level.

Class: Professional Bodybuilder

Hypertrophied men and women with bulging muscles oiling themselves up and posing in a speedo. Tens of thousands of hours of obsessively studying themselves in a mirror. Obsessively planning every morsel of food. Obsessively lifting heavy things and putting them down again. Obsessively injecting horse-dick-sized needles full of steroids. Very healthy, I'm sure.

This is an Earth class. As an incentive to choose an Earth class, you will receive a Silver Earth Box upon choosing this class.

• Add your level to your base Strength
• +1 to the Murderous Attack skill
• +1 to the Powerful Strike skill
• For every 2 stat points you assign to Strength in a given session, a third will be added
• A Gold-tier speedo (or bikini, for people with boobs)
• Disadvantage: Your strength boost, Murderous Attack skill, and Powerful Strike skill only function while your naughty bits are minimally covered and the rest of your torso and limbs are exposed

"Huh," said Levi, frowning. "That's odd." ​

"What?" Calliope asked. ​

"You fight with a sword that's also a javelin," Levi said, gesturing towards the Kruthak Needle lying on the floor next to her. "It's a unique item that you got early and you've been using for a while, so it's part of your look. The AI gave it to you, but now it's backtracking a bit. This class wants you to fight barehanded, because the damage is going to be completely insane when you stack up insane amounts of Strength and then multiply it by not one but two separate 'damage times level' skills. The inability to wear armor is a big problem, but it's manageable if you can get a Shield spell or something like it. You'll still be able to wear rings, toe rings, piercings, hair ties, helmets, bandanas, and lots of other things. Possibly even cloaks." ​

"Not keen on that idea," Taylor said. "Leo, we're all pretty squishy right now and this class doesn't offer anything towards mitigating that." ​

"Yeah, but think about the damage," Calliope said. "I could punch through steel! It would look so cool for me to skate up a wall, onto the ceiling, then drop out of the sky and hit 'em with a motherfuckin' superman punch that craters the ground!" ​

"Language," Taylor and Drew said together; all three of them laughed. ​

"Also," Levi said, "adding your level to your base strength, as opposed to your effective strength, is a big deal. When a stat hits a base of 100 you'll get to choose an ability relevant to that stat, and they tend to be extremely powerful." ​

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Skill: Murderous Attack
Damage from your physical attacks is multiplied by (Skill Level).

Skill: Powerful Strike
Your damage is multiplied by (Skill Level) when you are not wielding a weapon.

Class: Train Conductor

This is an Earth class. As an incentive to choose an Earth class, you will receive a Silver Earth Box upon choosing this class.

• +5 Intelligence
• +1 to the Train Ticket skill
• A wide array of skills are unlocked

Skill: Train Ticket


At the end of class selection you will be given two (2) Train Tickets. At the start of each floor thereafter you will be given (Skill Level) Train Tickets. No, these are not tickets that lets you ride on a train. They are tickets for training.

Tearing up one of these tickets allows the user to select one actionable that is gained from or boosted by an item they have equipped. (May only be used on a given actionable once per user.) The user will immediately gain a copy of that actionable, at level 1 if it is a skill or spell. When the source item is not equipped the user will retain access to that actionable and may train it normally if it is trainable. Putting the item back on will cause its normal effect to apply and will not interfere with the trained version.

If the actionable is trainable then it may be trained to level 20. Skills acquired through Train Tickets act as though they are two levels lower (minimum of 1) for purposes of how quickly they advance.

Ironically, this skill cannot be trained. It increases by 1 every time you descend to a new floor.

"Wow," Levi said. "That's a surprisingly powerful ability, especially because the tickets can be passed around. If Drew had one of those tickets, he could learn the Gravity Anvil spell provided by his hair gel. He would get it at level 1 and could train it up to level 20 over time. That version would cost mana, but once a day he could still have the hair gel cast it for him for no mana. ​

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"It's got to be an equipped item, so that lets out your Confusing Fog scrolls, which is a pity. That would be a heck of a thing to have on tap, but you basically never see Confusing Fog as anything other than a consumable." ​

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Class: Warlock

Final words of most warlocks: "Hey, watch me summon a—grkk!"

• +3 Intelligence
• +3 Charisma
• +1 to the Summon Demon spell

Spell: Summon Demon
Cost: 1+ MP and 100+ gold
Casting Time: 1 hour

You attempt to summon a demon. If successful, you can negotiate with this demon for various services, such as providing information, going to a place in order to kill a person or deliver an object/message, or serving as your battle companion for a time. If you make a deal for battle companion services then the demon will return to the vasty deeps until called. Calling a bound demon back requires merely speaking its name and the demon will appear immediately.

The amount of mana and gold necessary for the summoning varies depending on the level of demon you wish to summon. Spending extra mana and/or gold will improve the chances of success.

"Think very carefully before you take this one," Levi said. "On the one hand, high level demons are very powerful in a fight and excellent sources of information. On the other, they're super dangerous and can turn on you in an eyeblink. Make sure you jack your Charisma as high as possible, since it will make negotiating with them easier. Also, summoning powerful demons gets very expensive in terms of gold, which means less money available to buy spells and gear and personal-space upgrades." ​

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Class: Washed Up Figure Skater

Ridiculous amounts of money spent on fancy costumes and high-end skates. Thousands of hours of time on the ice, spinning and twirling and leaping; you fell down over and over, but you got up again and went home to have a drink. A vodka drink. And a whiskey drink.

It all culminated in your bid for the Olympics. One shot. One opportunity to seize everything you ever wanted. You glided onto the ice with determination in your soul, a plastic smile on your face, and your sequined costume riding up the crack of your ass. You skated your heart out, giving the best performance of your life...and failed. Not just failed, you came in dead last.

You struggled on, desperate to make it, and never got there. You paid the bills by teaching little kids, you got on a few local cable TV shows, you achieved a degree of minor celebrity on the also-ran circuit. Now you're back. You've kicked the booze, you've gotten your life together, and you're ready to make another bid.

This is an Earth class. As an incentive to choose an Earth class, you will receive a Silver Earth Box upon choosing this class.

• +5 Dexterity
• The Surefooted benefit, only while wearing ice skates
• +5 to the Ice Skating skill
• +5 to the Combat Skater skill
• +4 to the Zamboni spell
• A pair of Gold-tier ice skates
• The Manager benefit
• A total of 2 hours of positive promotion on relevant tunnels, allocation handled by a temporarily-assigned mudskipper PR rep

"Calliope, if you take this then I'll be the manager for both you and Drew," Levi said. "Wouldn't make any significant difference, except that I stay in the dungeon so long as at least one of you is still here. If one of you decides to bail at the tenth floor and the other continues on, the one who stays won't lose access to me." ​

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Taylor smiled at the deftness of that positive spin. ​

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Benefit: Surefooted
You will never lose your balance, although you can be pushed over. As a result, you may walk around on ice skates as easily as on normal shoes.

Skill: Ice Skating
Whenever you are on ice and wearing ice skates, you gain the following benefits:

• So long as at least one skate is in contact with the ice, you cannot be knocked over by any means unless you allow it
• You take no movement or Dexterity penalties from traversing ice
• This skill duplicates the effects of Acrobatics and will stack with it
• Your movement speed is multiplied by your skill level
• Momentum-based attacks against you may be turned back on their source

Skill: Combat Skater
This rare and exclusive skill functions only while you are wearing skates and on the ice. It allows you to substitute this skill for Dodge and/or Parry if so desired. Additionally, attacks with your ice skates will increase your damage by 50% per skill level.

Spell: Zamboni
Cost: 6 MP
AOE: 5 + (Spell Level) meters radius around the caster


The ground within the AOE is covered with a flat, smooth layer of ice. Beings receive penalties to Dexterity and movement rate while on ice unless they have some means of mitigation.

Class: Wheeler Dealer

This is an Earth class. As an incentive to choose an Earth class, you will receive a Silver Earth Box upon choosing this class.

• +25% discount at all stores
• +1 to the Rollup skill

Skill: Rollup
When you open dungeon-generated loot boxes (i.e. not fan or Benefactor boxes) they will be rolled up into higher-grade loot boxes before manifesting. Number of boxes necessary to roll up varies by type:

• Bronze x2 becomes Silver
• Silver x4 becomes Gold
• Gold x4 becomes Platinum
• Platinum x8 becomes Legendary
• Legendary x8 becomes Celestial

Your skill level determines the level of box that Rollup will affect: level 1 = Bronze, level 2 = Silver, etc. When applied, all boxes at the appropriate levels will be rolled up in order, meaning that if you have a Rollup of 2 (can affect Silver boxes) then 29 Bronze + 1 Silver + 1 Gold will result in:

• Bronze rolls to Silver: 29 Bronze => 14 Silver + 1 Bronze
• Silver rolls to Gold: 1 Silver + 14 Silver + 1 Bronze => 1 Silver + 3 Gold + 2 Silver + 1 Bronze
• STOP. Rollup of 2 cannot affect Gold boxes

Final result is that you will open:

1 Gold + 1 Silver + 3 Gold + 2 Silver + 1 Bronze
= 4 Gold + 3 Silver + 1 Bronze.

Had you had a Rollup of 3, the 4 Gold boxes would have rolled up into a Platinum box.

Levi's jaw gaped open when he read the description. He sat there, eyestalks rigid, eyeballs flicking slightly back and forth as he read and re-read the description. ​

"That is the single most broken class ability I have ever seen," he said. "Bar none. The showrunners are really playing with fire." ​

"How so?" Taylor asked. ​

"Once you get this and have leveled it up enough, you could save up your boxes in order to make a Celestial," Levi said. "Celestial items are so powerful that getting one early on would make the first eight floors a breeze. If there were no restrictions on it then the showrunners could strategically hand them out in order to increase the number of crawlers who survive to the deepest floors, thereby increasing the amount of money the showrunners make. They could use them to distort the balance of power on the ninth floor faction wars. They could make bets in advance and use these to skew the odds. It's nuts. ​

"It's so nuts that there's rules against it. Each season, the hosting faction is allowed to give out a few Celestials for free, mostly the ones that are due for killing a Floor boss. Everything after that, they have to pay for it. Each successive Celestial costs more than the one before it. The Nagas had a season where they were required to pay out on eighteen Celestial boxes, and they've been bankrupt ever since." ​

"Ah," Taylor said. ​

"Seems like a risky ability," Calliope said. "It encourages you not to open your loot boxes for a long time so that you can build them up into something better." ​

Levi see-sawed one hand. "Like any skill, it trains by being used. You'll need to use it a lot in order to level it up to the point where it can make Celestial boxes. It's encouraging you to open your boxes in large groups, which is something that the showrunners can market. ​

"Here's the trick though," he continued. "It's the nature of Dungeon Crawler World that the AI and the hosts of the season are somewhat at odds. Both of them want control of what's going on, and it's inevitable that they'll step on each other's toes. As a result, the AI always starts to develop a certain level of hostility towards the showrunners. You'll generally see early flickers of it as early as the fourth or fifth floor, and by the tenth or eleventh it's closing in on a full-blown feud. It's a major oversimplification to say that the AI can hand out whatever boxes it likes up to Platinum, but run with it for a second. It would require a couple thousand Bronze boxes to create a Celestial, but the AI can do that. It would lead to legal action from the showrunners, which is a whole ball of worms I don't want to go into, but by the time the lawyers get involved there's no good outcome for the showrunners. ​

"Honestly, I have no idea why this was allowed into the game. Maybe the AI proposed it and the vetters missed it? Dunno." ​

​

Class: WWE Champion

The roar of the crowd! The echoing voice of the announcer! The funny costumes and weird catchphrases! WWE was proof that you people were able to invent at least one cool thing before we destroyed your world and murdered most of your species.

This is an Earth class. As an incentive to choose an Earth class, you will receive a Silver Earth Box upon choosing this class.

• +3 Strength
• +2 Constitution
• +3 Charisma
• +4 to the Unarmed Combat skill
• +2 to the The People's Elbow skill
• +1 to the spell Taunt
• +1 to the spell Second Wind
• +5% to all physical stats for the duration of the fight (max 10 minutes) if you use a catchphrase and flex at the start of combat

Skill: The People's Elbow
Requirement: You drop prone and land an elbow strike on an already-prone opponent
Your damage is multipled by (2 x (Skill Level)). You have a ((Skill Level) x 2)% chance of inflicting the Stun debuff for (Skill Level) seconds. Debuff does not stack but does reset the timer.

Spell: Taunt
Cost: 5 MP
Target: One mob
Duration: 30 seconds
Requirement: Immediately before casting this spell you must insult the target. Doesn't matter if they understand it; it's mostly for my amusement. Quality of insult influences the chances of success.

If successful, the target is forced to attack you, eschewing other targets or actions. Mobs that were not red-tagged become so. Chance of success depends on your Charisma and the target's Intelligence.

Spell: Second Wind
Cost: 10 MP
Cooldown: 12 hours


You gain ((Skill Level) x 10)% of your maximum health. You gain ((Skill Level) x 10)% of your maximum mana. If this takes you above the maximum of that stat then you gain bonus HP or MP. Bonus points will drain away in a few minutes if not used.

For each debuff or negative status condition you are suffering, there is a ((Skill Level) x 5)% chance that it will be removed.

"Another of those classes that encourage her to fight barehanded," Taylor noted. ​

​

Levi shrugged helplessly. "Dunno what to tell you. Maybe it's a personality thing? Classes do tend to reflect what the AI thinks of the person's style. These are brash, exciting, and over the top, just like Calliope." ​

​

The girl in question visibly struggled to decide if she'd been insulted or complimented. ​

​

​

---

Author's Note: Taylor's choices are in the next post, again to keep the wordcount manageable. Putting all of this in one post basically melted my browser.

Taylor's list was just as daunting as the others' had been. Fortunately, the fact that they were seeking synergy with Calliope and Drew's options made it easier instead of harder to trim out unneeded choices.

• Race: Doppleganger
• Race: Multacorpalan
• Race: Scion of the Zree
• +308 more...

• Class: Diva
• Class: Metamage
• Class: Sysop
• +186 more...

Race: Akovishan

• Intelligence +3
• Dexterity +5
• The Spider Limbed benefit
• The Spider Climb benefit
• The Spider Eyed benefit
• +8 to the Chitinous Armor skill
• +5 to the Dodge skill
• +5 to the Unarmed Combat skill
• +5 to the Powerful Strike skill
• +5 to the Webweaver skill
• Akovishan silk runes are unlocked
• Note: Choosing this race unlocks an exclusive Earth-based class
• Disadvantage: Base Charisma is set to 3. It can be increased only by divine intervention, meaning not through stat points, equipment, spells, etc
• Disadvantage: You cannot wear anything heavier than cloth or jewelry. In particular, no armor. A lot of regular clothing won't work either
• Disadvantage: The feet are gross. Ew, ew, ew. Not that you care

Benefit: Spider Limbed
You have eight clawed walking legs and two manipulator appendages. Your legs are covered in fine hairs that detect air currents and vibration.

Benefit: Spider Climb
You can walk on walls and ceilings more or less as easily as flat ground. Gravity remains the same, so tuck your shirt in...oh wait! You can't wear shirts!

Benefit: Spider Eyed
You have eight eyes, pointing in slightly different directions, giving you a nearly 360-degree field of vision. You can see the visible spectrum plus ultraviolet.

Skill: Unarmed Combat
Your damage is increased by 25% per skill level when you are not wielding a weapon.

Skill: Powerful Strike
Your damage is multipled by (Skill Level) when you are not wielding a weapon.

Skill: Webweaver
You can literally pull silk out of your butt! Sticky or smooth, thin or thick, blah blah weave webs and nets, blah blah amazing blah stronger than steel blah. Seriously, you've read a textbook on spider biology at some point, right? It's like that. Wait, you haven't? Sucks to be you, you uneducated nimrod! I guess you'll just have to figure it out for yourself.

Race: Big-Brain Gnome

Big-headed humanoids, roughly 100-120 centimeters tall. Regardless of gender, they have puffy white beards and hair to their shoulders.

• +2 Strength
• +5 Intelligence
• +3 to the Find Trap skill
• +3 to the Backfire skill
• A level 3 Automaton crafting table (available on the 4th floor)
• A variety of rare automaton crafting components
• +25% discount on all trap and automaton supplies
• The Remote Trigger benefit
• The Trapmaster benefit
• Note: Choosing this race unlocks multiple exclusive Earth-based classes

Skill: Find Trap
Traps that you set will be shown in your interface and clearly identified. When you approach a trap that you did not set, there is a chance that you will be alerted to its presence.

Skill: Backfire
You may attempt to pick up and/or disassemble a trap. Chance of success is 100% for traps that you set.

Benefit: Remote Trigger
By touch you may designate a trap, explosive, or incendiary. You can activate the designated item from your interface regardless of distance. There is no delay on activation. You may have as many designated items as you wish.

Benefit: Trapmaster
Traps, explosives, and incendiaries that you have set or are holding are 50% less likely to trigger accidentally. Their damage and effectiveness are increased by 50%. If they have a stability or similar counter then it counts down at 50% the normal rate. You will be notified when a trap that you set is triggered.

Race: Capreolin

Crafters. Ugh. You people come into a place of high adventure and excitement and you decide to spend it on a jumped-up minigame? It's enough to make a good AI despair.

Capreolins look like human power lifters with cloven hooves, the head of a deer, and wide-spanning antlers.

• +25 Strength
• +50% discount on crafting tables
• A coupon for a Basic Crafting Studio personal space upgrade
• Three coupons for a free level 2 crafting table
• Two coupons for a crafting table level up
• If you spend 6 uninterrupted hours working at a crafting table, you gain level 1 in whatever skill that table uses (if you don't already have it)
• If you have a skill relevant to a given crafting table, that table is treated as being (Skill Level)/5, round down, ranks higher than it actually is
• All crafting recipes that involve waiting for something to boil, cool, etc operate 20% faster
• Goods that you craft have a base price 50% higher than usual
• For every 100 total hours that you spend working at a particular crafting table, that table ranks up 1 level
• Membership in the Dungeon Kit of the Floor Club (Category: Personalized)

The Dungeon Kit of the Floor Club (Category: Personalized)
Once per floor you will receive a kit in the mail. The kit will contain supplies appropriate for a randomly-chosen crafting table that you own. Mailboxes can be found in every safe room and personal space.

"Wow," Levi said. "That Strength bonus is huge for the third floor. You would do massive damage, enough to absolutely dominate on this floor and the first part of the next, although the value of it will get washed out by the power curve after a while. ​

​

"As to those crafting bonuses, they are seriously impressive and in multiple ways. ​

​

"First off, the items in those kits are going to be valuable, so you can make bank by selling the stuff you don't need. ​

​

"The crafting system isn't available until the fourth floor. The way it works is that you buy a personal space, which is a home base that travels with you. It's a safe room and you can access it from any safe room in the dungeon, and also from most pubs that aren't safe rooms. They're expensive—tens of thousands of gold for the most basic version, hundreds of thousands for the versions you want. Once you've got that, you buy a crafting studio upgrade for it, which would normally run around 100,000 gold but this race gets it for free. Then you buy crafting tables to go in the crafting studio. Those generally cost about 25,000 gold but, again, you're getting them for free. The tables act as boosts and multipliers for whatever skills you have. If you're standing at an Alchemy table and you know nothing about alchemy then you'll still be able to successfully brew any low-level potion you have the recipe for. Taylor, you know how you got that Chemistry crafting table in your Platinum box? Your chemistry skills will be greatly improved when you are standing at that table. Your attempts to create stuff will be much more likely to succeed and anything that doesn't succeed will fail safely and be clearly labeled as a failure. ​

​

"The important part is that most things can only be created at a crafting table. If you're strong enough then you can bend a chunk of metal into a curve and tie it to your body for protection, but it doesn't become proper armor until you put it on an Armorer's table. When I say 'proper armor' I mean something that can be equipped. When it's equipped it will resize itself to fit comfortably, it won't chafe or pinch, and it becomes both lighter and indestructible. You can still take damage through armor but the armor itself won't be harmed. ​

​

"Crafting tables have a level, and the best stuff requires a high-level table. You can use gold to buy tables up to a higher level but it becomes unaffordable very quickly. There are loot items that will increase their level, but those are rare. Easiest way to level them up is to go down the stairs; table levels increase by one each time you arrive on a new floor, regardless of whether they are in your inventory or in a crafting studio. That's why it's important to get them as early as possible." ​

​

​

Race: Catkin

Did you honestly think we were going to have a fantasy-themed game without the option to be a catgirl? Please.

• +3 to Dexterity
• +5% cold resistance
• Enhanced senses
• +1 to the Stealth skill
• +1 to the Climbing skill due to claws
• +5% damage to bare-handed fist attacks due to claws
• Other benefits dependent on randomly-chosen subspecies
• Note: Choosing this race unlocks multiple exclusive Earth-based classes

You will become a furred, clawed, mobile-eared humanoid cat. Upon choosing this race you will be assigned a randomly-selected subspecies. All Catkin are decent at both combat and stealth work, but different subspecies go well beyond that in one area or another. Tigrans are big, strong, and tough, allowing them to body most enemies of their level. Cheetarans can use bursts of super speed. Who knows what you'll get?

"Same thing as I said for Calliope," Levi said. "This is much better now that you've got Drew's luck powers on your side. Probably, anyway." ​

​

​

Race: Doppleganger

Ah, doppelgangers. So many legends, both on your world and out in the galaxy. Elite spies, shape-shifting assassins whose bodies are living weapons, infiltrators that can't be stopped even by the narrowest sewage pipe...the list goes on.

This rare and exclusive race is available only to crawlers who have obtained 1 trillion views before reaching the third floor.

• +10 Constitution
• The Body Sculpting benefit
• The Mass Absorption benefit
• The Color Shifting benefit
• +5 to the 'Walk in Their Shoes' skill
• All skills appropriate for this race are unlocked
• Hidden Bonus! +2 to any Doppleganger skill you gain
• Note: Choosing this race unlocks multiple exclusive Earth-based classes

Benefit: Body Sculpting
With a bit of concentration you can mold your body like clay. Shapes are limited only by your available mass and skill. Density and hardness may be altered within limits.

Benefit: Mass Absorption
Equipped items aside from weapons are absorbed, becoming part of your body. You retain any bonuses or abilities. Absorbed items may be relocated across the body and can be reshaped so long as they remain contiguous.

Benefit: Color Shifting
You may change your coloration freely, allowing you to adopt any racial coloring, or go bubblegum pink, or (with sufficient skill) to blend in with the background. Only colors within the human-visible spectrum, you adorable little munchkin!

Skill: Walk in Their Shoes
If you can make your portrayal of another species or individual accurate enough, your properties display and system identification will be altered to match the targeted species/individual. Accuracy required: (100 - (2 x Skill Level))%

Hidden Bonus!
Dopplegangers have a racial affinity for a large array of skills and benefits. If you gain one of these skills it will start at level 3 instead of level 1. The bonus will be applied retroactively if you already have any of the appropriate skills when you choose this race.

Race: Draconid

Humans are perverts. Like, serious perverts. Formicophilia? Coprophilia? Don't even get me started on those weird-ass axillism folks. Anyway, is it surprising that there are humans who want to bone dragons? (Answer: no. It is not.)

Weirdly, dragons can be almost as perverted as humans and yes, there are some of them who want to get freaky with humans. Given the size difference, making that happen is challenging. Still, some of them manage it! (Maybe with a step ladder?) And what results from that joining can be...wild.

Draconids are humanoid dragon juveniles. They vary in height from 5-7' and can be built either lean or tanky. In color they vary wildly, from night black to metallic gold or silver to bubblegum pink. They have the normal human-like two arms, two legs, and 5-fingered hands. They also have scales, wings, claws, and impressive teeth. At race selection you may choose scale and eye color (choose any human-visible color for each).

• +3 Strength
• +3 Constitution
• +3 to the Natural Weaponry skill
• +3 to the Unarmed Combat skill
• +3 to the Wing Smash skill
• The Developing Wings benefit. Wing power increases based on character level. Abilities are cumulative but depend on being able to control your wings (i.e., being conscious, wings not bound, etc):
  • Level 1-30: Falling damage will not reduce your health below 10%
  • Level 31-60: The Gliding benefit
  • Level 60+: The Flight benefit
• The Enhanced Growth benefit
• (At level 30): +1 to the Firebreathing skill
• (At level 50): +2 to the Skin Armor skill
• Note: Dragons have a complicated relationship with other species, and draconids even more so. Many species will react strongly to you, either positively or negatively. Those who do not have strong reactions will look on you with suspicion.
• Disadvantage: The Draconic Hoarder effect

Skill: Natural Weaponry
Your bodily armament, be it spikes, horns, claws, teeth, a stabby or bonky tail, or just your big swingin' dingus, count as both unarmed weapons and melee weapons. Also, you gain an additional +25% per level damage when fighting with only your natural weapons.

Skill: Unarmed Combat
Your damage is increased by 25% per skill level when you are not wielding a weapon.

Skill: Wing Smash
Your powerful wings allow you to smash face. You do extra damage per skill level, the percentage increasing with character level. Additionally, each strike has a chance of delivering the Evisceration insta-kill effect. Character level determines the damage bonus per skill level and the base chance that the Evisceration effect will activate, as shown below:

• Level 1-30: +33%, very rarely
• Level 31-60: +66%, rarely
• Level 61-90: +125%, very occasionally
• Level 91+: +250%, occasionally

Benefit: Enhanced Growth
You will grow larger, stronger, and tougher with each new character level. You will gain +1 Strength and +1 Constitution every level that is divisible by 3.

Skill: Skin Armor
Your skin is armor. You retain full tactile sensivity but pain is muted. This skill trains by blocking damage.

Disadvantage: Draconic Hoarder
Dragons are well known for their hoards. What they are less famous for is that the hoards are a matter of necessity, not greed. You will be required to maintain and sleep on a hoard of gold coins in order to maintain your well-being. The requisite size of the hoard is based on your character level. When not sleeping on it, your hoard must be in your inventory.

"I've never heard of this Hoarder thing before," Levi said. "Probably something new to this season." ​

​

​

Race: Dryad

A race of shy forest spirits, dryads are normally portrayed as female in Earth mythology. In the dungeon, they will match your gender identity.

• +3 Charisma
• The Forestwalk benefit
• You may animate and control one plant within 50 meters of you, although the plant cannot uproot itself in order to travel. Duration: 30 minutes. Cooldown: 30 seconds
• +3 to the Plant Travel skill
• +3 to the exclusive Mystic Plant Growth spell
• +3 to the Senses of the Forest Mother skill
• Plants for your library: oak tree, blackberry thicket
• Note: Choosing this race unlocks multiple exclusive Earth-based classes

Benefit: Forestwalk
In a forest environment you may choose to move completely silently and/or leave no tracks and/or have yourself, your clothes, and your equipped gear receive high-quality camoflage. Functions as a level 15 Climbing skill when climbing plants.

Skill: Plant Travel
You may merge yourself into any plant of appropriate size. You may then step out of that plant or any other appropriately-sized plant within (5 x Skill Level) meters, without crossing the intervening space. 'Appropriate size' depends on skill level; at level 1 it requires a plant large enough to physically contain you, while at level 15 any plant large enough to see with the naked eye will do.

Spell: Mystic Plant Growth
Cost: 5 MP
Range: (Skill Level)x3 meters


Whenever you touch a plant, that species of plant is added to your library. When you use this spell, a plant of your choice from your library grows from the target location. Full maturity requires 30-(Skill Level x 2) seconds (minimum of 0.1 seconds), although you may stop the growth early or grow the plant more slowly if you wish. If target location lacks a biome appropriate for growing plants of that type then the growth will be fueled from your health. 'Appropriate' means the presence of appropriate plant food (soil, compost, etc), water, enough space, and the place isn't on fire or bathed in acid or whatever. Not all locations are valid targets. Living creatures are not valid targets.

Skill: Senses of the Forest Mother
Range: (Skill Level)x10 meters


A skill-based version of the Plant Awareness spell. By concentrating, you may receive full-sensory data from any desired set of plants that you have in your library and are within range. The clarity of the data depends on your skill level.

Race: Dzichi

Human-like creatures with bronze skin covered in fine scales, eyes with horizontal slits in them, claws on hands and feet, and a huge mane of hair reaching to their ankles. At race selection you may choose hair and eye color (choose any human-visible color for each).

• +3 to the Skin Armor skill
• +3 to the Good Hair Day skill
• +4 to the Unarmed Combat skill
• Note: Choosing this race unlocks multiple exclusive Earth-based classes

Skill: Skin Armor
Your skin is armor. You retain full tactile sensivity but pain is muted. This skill trains by blocking damage.

Skill: Good Hair Day
During transformation, your hair will be grown out to floor length. Each strand of your hair becomes as tough as steel. Each strand of your hair provides full-sensory data. You may control each strand of your hair as though it were a limb. Larger bundles of hair and higher levels of skill provide higher sensory resolution and greater strength. Your hair grows extremely quickly, even at low levels.

Skill: Unarmed Combat
Your damage is increased by 25% per skill level when you are not wielding a weapon.

Race: Franken

These guys can be pretty great when they grab a pair a sexy legs and feet, but most of the time...ew.

Long ago, a mad scientist created a creature from body parts stolen from the morgue and the graveyards. Unfortunately (for him), the creature learned everything that its creator knew and then went off to create more of its kind. Today, still wanted by the government descendants of the mad scientist, they survive as soldiers of fortune, wilderness hermits, and whatever other profession they find themselves inclined to pursue. (They are, after all, people. They have diverse preferences!) If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find one, maybe you can hire: the Bodyparts Team!

• +3 Strength
• +2 Constitution
• -2 Charisma
• The Golem Body benefit
• +2 to the Flesh Attachment skill

"That Golem Body benefit is mostly a bunch of immunities," Levi said. "You won't need to breathe, you'll be immune to poison and disease, that sort of thing. The problem is that you won't have any passive healing. You'll need a Regeneration skill or you'll have to rely on potions, scrolls, and spells. It's similar to Undead Body and it's a tossup which is better. Golem Body doesn't make you vulnerable to spells that target undead, but it also doesn't give you the power-ups from Unholy effects." ​

​

​

Skill: Flesh Attachment
You may remove your body parts, reattach them at will, and place them in inventory.

You may remove body parts from a corpse and attach them to yourself. You gain the donor's relevant actionables—boosts to Strength if you take their arms, Flight if you take their wings, etc. The body parts will start to rot after a time. Once a body part has progressed to a certain stage of decomposition, it must be removed or it will inflict the Blood Poisoning debuff on you. Stolen body parts will eventually decompose completely and disintegrate.

Higher skill levels slow the process of decomposition.

Race: Human

You're already a human. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess you don't need a description. If you choose this, you'll get a physical touch-up and these racial benefits:

• +2 to all base stats
• Adaptability. +2% faster skill progression
• Note: Choosing this race unlocks multiple exclusive Earth-based classes

Race: Multacorpalan

Be grateful; I don't generally allow ranged communication in my dungeon aside from the chat system. Especially not quantum entanglers.

When you look at the image in Levi's display you will see two copies of yourself, standing side by side, except each version is what you always wished you looked like if you just went to the gym enough and ate all your vegetables and brushed your teeth religiously.

• +4 Strength
• +4 Dexterity
• A level 2 Two Body Problem skill
• +1 to the Body Flicker skill
• Note: Choosing this race unlocks multiple exclusive Earth-based classes

Two Body Problem
You have one mind in up to (Skill Level) bodies. You can coordinate the bodies perfectly and information is exchanged between them instantaneously regardless of that pesky speed-of-light limit. This allows you to have multiple conversations at once, enjoy multiple meals at once, coordinate attacks from two directions at once, and so on.

This is a race-locked skill.

• At the end of path selection you will start with (Skill Level) bodies
• All bodies have the same base stats
• Physical effects generally apply only to the body they target
• Mental effects generally apply to all bodies, since there is only one mind
• Each body has a discrete health and mana total
• If one of your bodies has line of sight to a point, all of your bodies have line of sight to that point
• If one body dies, all surviving bodies will suffer negative effects
• Dead bodies are not revived on skill level up, reaching a new floor, or other threshold event

This skill increases by 1 upon descending to the next floor, thereby creating a new body. It cannot be trained.

New bodies appear with gear copied from some or all of what the other bodies are carrying.

"No idea what those 'negative effects' might be from one of your bodies dying," Levi said. "One thing I am sure of: be careful when you get a new body. If you try to get cute and exploit the duplication effect too hard, the AI will get pissed. It might or might not object to a very small bit of cheese, but don't push it. In particular, don't pile the entire party's gear onto yourself when you go down a level. It won't go well. Also, the gear is intended to be used by that body. Nothing is stopping you from giving it away but if you do so immediately then you might annoy the AI, which would lead to worse picks at the next floor." ​

​

​

Skill: Body Flicker
Cooldown: 15-(Skill Level) seconds (applies only to the body using it)
Range: (Skill Level) + 5 meters, needs LOS


This is a race-locked skill.

The quantum-entanglement of a Multacorpalan's mind can be stretched to apply to its bodies as well, at least briefly. This skill is similar to the short-range teleportation spell known as Blink. Cooldowns are per-body, meaning that a given body's cooldown is not relevant to the other bodies.

When a body uses Body Flicker, it can transport itself to any point within range of any body, line of sight permitting. Physical obstacles are ignored. Physical orientation upon arrival is at your discretion and need not match where you left from. You may choose to retain any fraction of your velocity from 0-100%.

Race: Primal

For the first several seasons of Dungeon Crawler World, all contestants started off as Primals. Primals are blank slates; they start with no particular advantage but they can grow in any direction. Since no one knows what the actual Primals looked like, you will look like a touched-up version of yourself.

• All skills are unlocked
• All trainable skills and spells may be trained to level 20
• Note: Choosing this race unlocks multiple exclusive Earth-based classes
• Note: Choosing this race removes all requirements from Earth-based classes, aside from stat and social minimums
• Disadvantage: -1 to all base stats

Race: Scion of the Zree

These guys are freaky weird. They're a eusocial species that actually has enough brains to regard others as something more than food and/or enemies. As a way of adding to the knowledge and power of the hive, they send their kids out into the universe to learn and forge connections with other species. Problem is, their young are massive uggos and they tend to be completely lacking in gorm, which makes them absolute shit as ambassadors. The royals know that, so an advisor is always sent with them to keep them from tripping over their own shoelaces. (No, they don't wear shoes; it's a metaphor, idiot.) Eventually, after they have learned and grown enough, they will metamorphose into their adult form...except there is no adult form of the Zree. They copy the appearance and dietary habits of a race that they want to form closer ties to. Their family dinner table looks friggin' gross, with bowls of curry next to piles of flies and plates of rotting moss. Also, how can you trust anything with no feet?

This rare and exclusive race is only available to crawlers who have a royal or imperial member in their family history within the past 1,000 years. Which isn't that much of a restrictions, since your royals and imperials were a conquering, raping bunch and therefore most humans can trace themselves back to someone who qualifies.

Juvenile members of this race look vaguely like massive worms with arms, where the worm has soaked up too much rainwater. They're roughly 60 centimeters thick, 2 meters long, corpse-white, squidgy, and covered in a thin layer of mucus. Their hands have three fingers and a thumb. They have no neck or face, nor visible sensory organs.

Adult members of this race look like members of whatever species they decide to metamorphose into.

Scion of the Zree

• -2 Strength
• -2 Intelligence
• -2 Constitution
• -2 Dexterity
• Charisma is set to 3 and may not be raised
• Omnidirectional vision
• The Manager benefit
• Membership in the royal line of succession for the Zree Polity
• A weekly stipend of 25,000 gold pieces
• The Zreean Royal Metamorphosis benefit, usable only once and only after achieving required stat minimums
• Disadvantage: XP awards are reduced by 5%
• Disadvantage: Movement rate is reduced by 30%
• Disadvantage: Diminished senses
• Disadvantage: Fragile skin. All injuries except for fire or acid damage inflict the Bleed debuff. Debuff will expire after inflicting as much damage as the original injury. This debuff stacks
• Disadvantage: Vulnerability to fire. Fire damage is increased by 50%, although burns do not inflict the Bleed debuff
• Disadvantage: Morphology prevents use of many magic items due to absence of appropriate equipment slots (e.g., no toes for toe rings, no legs for trousers, etc). Six fingers and two thumbs means only eight ring slots
• Note: Upon choosing this race, you have the option of commiting to choosing 'human' as the species of your final form. If you do, multiple exclusive Earth-based classes are unlocked. You will not be able to go back on this commitment

Adult Royal Zree

• Stat penalties to Strength, Intelligence, Constitution, and Dexterity are removed
• Charisma reduction and cap are removed, returning base Charisma to what it would have been without the reduction
• +8 Strength
• +8 Intelligence
• +5 Constitution
• +5 Dexterity
• +10 Charisma
• XP penalty disadvantage is removed
• 'Diminished Senses' disadvantage is removed
• 'Fragile Skin' disadvantage is removed unless possessed by the species of your new form
• Omnidirectional vision is exchanged for the vision format of your new form's species (which might be blindness, depending on species)
• Your senses are substantially enhanced as compared to the species of your new form
• Manager benefit is retained
• Membership in the royal line of succession for the Zree Polity is retained
• Stipend increases to 100,000 gold per week
• You gain a level 4 personal space (available on the fourth floor). If you already have a personal space then it is increased to level 4 or increased by 2, whichever ends up being higher
• Tier-2 personal space upgrades are unlocked. (Normally they are not available until the sixth floor)
• Pick one:
  • 3 coupons for tier-1 personal space upgrades
  • 1 coupon for a tier-2 personal space upgrade
• Pick one:
  • 6 free Gold loot boxes
  • 2 free Platinum loot boxes
  • 1 Legendary loot box (cost: 500,000 gold; will wait in your inventory until you have the funds)
  • 1 Celestial loot box (cost: 5,000,000 gold; will wait in your inventory until you have the funds)
• Disadvantage: You will acquire all disadvantages and penalties of your new form's species
• Note: You will acquire a random number (none, some, or all) of the positive aspects of your new form's species

"I asked you before what that bit about the royal line of succession meant," Taylor said. "Anything more you can say now?" ​

​

"So much more," Levi said. "Oh Lady, so much more. Not having to watch every word is such a relief. Key points about this race: ​

​

"First, the mucus layer on the scion form is a problem," Levi said. "They leave droplets of it everywhere they go, which pisses off shopkeepers and makes it easy to track you. Also, the Fragile Skin debuff can give you a minor Bleed effect simply for crossing especially rough terrain. And, obviously, it's going to tank the social numbers of whoever takes it until they go through the metamorphosis. It'll probably hurt the numbers for the team, too. On the other hand, the benefits of the adult form are huge. In particular, those personal space upgrades are amazing. ​

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"The part to think most carefully about is that royal line of succession thing. That's not a joke and it's not just for the game. Royal lineage is taken seriously out in the galaxy and there's a lot of laws around it which the crawl sticks to. If this thing says that you are being added to the royal line of some interstellar polity, you truly are being added. That means that after you leave the dungeon you're set for life. Comfortable conditions, probably enough power to make a difference in the universe. On the other hand, you're dropping yourself into a whole mess of politics and picking up a list of people who would find it convenient if you were dead. On the third hand, the Zree are a fairly popular star nation and a wealthy one. They have more allies than enemies, so it's not as bad as joining the Blood Sultanate, the Skull Empire, or the Green Shell Faction. Their wealth and popularity makes it much more likely that you'll get Benefactors, in particular ones who can afford to send you great stuff. ​

​

"This race is definitely high risk, high reward. I honestly don't know whether to recommend you jump on it instantly, preferring it to any other choice, or tell you to stay the heck away from it at all costs." ​

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Benefit: Royal Zreean Metamorphosis

Important: Your base Constitution and Intelligence must be at least 50 before you can use this.

You cocoon yourself for 30 hours while you transform into your adult form. Being removed from your cocoon early is fatal.

Your adult form is your choice of any species a member of whom you have touched. You will count as a member of that species and also as a member of the Zree species and the Royal Zree subspecies.

You gain all disadvantages and penalties of the chosen species. You will acquire zero or more of the positive aspects of that species.

Your final sex and gender are up to you but must be among the options for your chosen species.

Your final appearance is up to you but may not be more than a 65% match for any individual of that species. The only exception to this is that if you choose your original race then you may design a new appearance that meets the restrictions, or you may take your original form, or you may take the form of an idealized version of your original self.

Race: Suleizul

What do you get when a god gets freaky with a human? A divine scion, also known as a demigod. Divine scions have more specific type names depending on the identity of their godly parent; for example, the scions of storm gods are called djinn.

What do you get when a djinn gets freaky with a human? One of these watered down, barely magical creatures. Sad. Just sad.

The grandchild of a storm deity, these hemidemigods can still channel a fraction of their progenitor's divine power but they lack the strength and breadth of ability that more direct ancestors have. Their true form is that of an attractive human with swirls of color continually rippling across their body. They can control the flow of color in order to (e.g.) make an artistic display, conceal their nature, or blend into the background. Twice per day they can call upon the totality of the divine power within them in order to temporarily merge with their grandparent's domain.

• +4 to all base stats
• The Color Shifting benefit
• The Storm Merge benefit

Benefit: Color Shifting:
You may change your coloration freely, allowing you to adopt any racial coloring, or go bubblegum pink, or (with sufficient skill) to blend in with the background. Only colors within the human-visible spectrum, you adorable little munchkin!

Benefit: Storm Merge
Cooldown: 12 hours
Duration: (Charisma) x 5 seconds

You may shed your corporeal body and become one with the air. By default you will be no more visible than the wind, but you retain your color shifting powers and therefore can render yourself visible if you so choose. Visible or not, your body is gaseous and therefore immune to kinetic damage, poison, and many other forms of harm. You can form yourself into any shape you desire, travel through the tiniest opening, and so on. You can compress and expand yourself to a moderate degree.

Your ability to perform fine manipulation is greatly reduced in gaseous form.

You may cancel the ability and resume your corporeal form at any time. You will automatically shift back when the duration expires. Shifting back within a space that is not large enough for you is contraindicated.

Shifting form in either direction will reset your health to 100% and will remove many debuffs and status conditions. When you shift back to corporeal form you will resume your base form, meaning that amputated limbs will be restored, scars will be removed, etc.

If this ability is not on cooldown then it will activate automatically whenever your health bar zeroes out.

Race: Tariaksuq

Whenever you are three-dimensional you will look like an idealized version of yourself.

• +8 Dexterity
• +1 to the Shadow Form skill
• Note: Choosing this race unlocks multiple exclusive Earth-based classes

Skill: Shadow Form
You can merge into your own shadow and enter Plato's Cave, becoming two-dimensional and solid black. In your shadow form you are nearly invisible in darkness. You can interact with the normal 3D world only through shadows; stabbing someone's shadow while you are in shadow form will act as though you had stabbed them in 3D space, shadows will act as physical objects, etc. You are immune to falling damage. You may shift back and forth at will.

Class: Archmage

A figure of legend, the archmage rules with an iron staff over a guild or nation of mages. He (because, let's face it, legends are sexist and the powerful characters are always men) is the one that young protagonists look up to and desire to emulate, the source of the legendary spells that reshape the world.

Don't get too excited. You get the name but it'll be a while before you're doing that stuff.

• +3 Intelligence
• +2 Charisma
• +1 Intelligence every level divisible by 2
• 1 spellbook for a low cost spell
• 1 spellbook for a medium cost spell
• 1 spellbook for a high cost spell
• Membership in the Dungeon Book of the Floor club
• +25% to your maximum mana pool
• Every level divisible by 3 you get one enhancement point
• Disadvantage: You cannot wear metal armor or wield a weapon other than a staff or polearm

"When it talks about low, medium, and high cost spells, it's referring to the mana cost," Levi explained. "Low cost spells are generally single-purpose things that you'll use constantly, like attack spells. Medium cost are mostly utility and defense, and high cost spells tend to be war magic. They affect a huge area and have extremely powerful effects. War magic can be used anywhere, obviously, but it's most commonly used on the ninth floor. Surviving the ninth floor without some war magic is...well, not imposssible, but extremely difficult. Finding war magic in the dungeon is rare, so being virtually guaranteed an instance of it makes this a very valuable opportunity." ​

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Dungeon Book of the Floor club
Once per floor you will receive a random spellbook in the mail. Mailboxes can be found in every safe room and personal space.

Enhancement Points

• 1 enhancement point: Permanently reduce the mana cost of one of your spells by 25% of its original base. Minimum cost: 1MP
• 1 enhancement point: +1 to the level of one of your spells. You may not raise a given spell more than 5 levels in this fashion
• 5 enhancement points: Uncap one of your spells. That spell may be trained to level 20

Class: Blood Blade

Ooh, yeah. I loves me a good masochist. Bleed for me, bitch. Bleed for your Daddy.

Cardiovascular mages are among the strongest magic users in the game. They have a nigh-limitless bag of tricks, including making an enemy's heart beat so fast that it literally catches fire...which is both awesome and gross. Grawesome? Whatever.

Of course, not everyone is cut out to be a mage. One time, long, long ago, one little dilettante managed to learn a few bits of Cardio before getting kicked out of totally-not-Hogwarts. Next he tried to be a cleric but got bored and quit after learning some minor stuff. Then he started studying how to bash things with a pointy metal stick and discovered he had finally sunk to his proper level. He managed to put all the various bits of learning together into something that didn't get anywhere near grawesome but maybe made it to grool. (Gross + cool, get it?)

• +3 Constitution
• The Transfusion benefit
• +5 to the Sanguine Sword spell
• +1 to the Blood Bomb skill
• +(Constitution)% to damage caused by your blood
• +6 to the Regeneration skill whenever you have at least half a liter of blood in your stomach (the blood will be consumed in the process)

Benefit: Transfusion
Cost: 5 MP and whatever fraction of your health you wish to transfer
Look how generous you are! You can transfer health from yourself to another, and all you have to do is force your own lifeblood into their veins. Health transferred will be applied per your/their Constitution. Good news! Obtaining this benefit converts you into a truly universal donor. Screw blood types, your blood can go into a silicon-based lifeform with no issues. Additionally, learning this spell protects you from all negative effects of contact with, or ingestion of, blood.

Spell: Sanguine Sword
Cost: 3 MP and 5-10% of your health, depending on the sword
Duration: (Constitution) minutes


Forgot to bring a weapon? No problem! Cut a vein open and your blood will fountain out to create a sword of whatever type you like. (The cut will then close.) The resulting sword has durability, duration, and damage based on the level of Blood Sword. When the spell expires, the sword returns to its liquid state. Only you can wield the sword. The spell ends if you lose contact with the sword.

Spell: Blood Bomb
Cost: 10 MP + at least 5% of your health
Duration: (2 x Spell Level) hours


You're a blast! Well, your blood is. Your blood can be converted into explosives and either thrown or planted as a trap. Triggering options depend on your level of skill in the spell. Damage depends on level of spell and amount of health sacrificed.

Class: Construction Foreman

Builder of buildings! Raiser of bridges! Abuser Leader of men! This guy's got it all.

This is an Earth class. As an incentive to choose an Earth class, you will receive a Silver Earth Box upon choosing this class.

• +3 to the Wall spell
• +3 to the Earthmover spell
• +3 to the Survey spell
• +50% discount on trap supplies
• +3 to the Crew Chief skill

Spell: Wall
Cost: 5 MP
Cooldown: 30 - (2 x Spell level) seconds (minimum 0)
Range: 100m


A wall rises from a solid surface that you can see. The wall can be at any angle and will be solidly fixed to the surface, although some surfaces are not strong enough to support a wall and will therefore collapse. Volume and material of the wall is determined by spell level, as is the ability to shape the wall and the rate at which the wall rises. At base level the wall is 30cm thick, 1m wide, 2m tall, made of red granite, and takes 10 seconds to reach full height. Multiple castings that are in contact will fuse into a single whole. Not all surfaces are valid targets. Living things and their equipment are not valid targets.

"The 'invalid targets' bit is there to stop truly egregious exploits," Levi said. "Things like making a wall grow on top of someone's head in order to crush them. There's no way of knowing how strict the AI is going to be about that sort of thing—there's a new AI every season and they all have different personalities. It's worth trying every exploit you can think of; if it doesn't work then there's unlikely to be any punishment and it's even possible that you might amuse the AI enough that it gives you a loot box. Fair warning: if you find a particularly broken exploit it will almost certainly be patched out." ​

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Spell: Earthmover
Cost: 2 MP
Range: (Intelligence x Spell Level)/10 meters, minimum of 10 meters. LOS required
AOE: A cuboid of up to (Spell Level) cubic meters

You may move all elemental earth (dirt, sand, stone, etc) in the area of effect. Minimum volume affected: 10 liters. Force exerted by the spell (and therefore acceleration of the affected material) increases with spell level. Affected material does not change properties and cannot be compacted or reshaped. It all moves as a unit. Think of this like an invisible excavator vehicle, except better.

Spell: Survey
Cost: 20 MP
Casting time: 5 minutes
Cooldown: 5 hours
Range: (Intelligence x Spell Level)/5 meters. LOS not required
AOE: Cube with sides (Intelligence)/2 meters, centered on the target point

You gain detailed information about everything in the AOE. Higher levels of the spell increase the amount of information gained.

Skill: Crew Chief
AOE: Sphere (Skill Level)/2 meters in radius, centered on you.

While within the AOE all members of your party, including yourself, gain the following benefits:

• +(Skill Level) to all base stats
• +(your Intelligence)% damage per skill level of Crew Chief

"Base stats means Strength, Constitution, and so on. Not skills or spells," Levi explained. ​

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Class: Death Knight

Spooooky!

The reanimated corpse of a powerful warrior, these guys have a certain cool factor going for them. Still, they're undead. Bleh.

Requirements: This class is only open to crawlers who, before reaching the third floor, have:

• Killed a necromantic boss monster
• Acquired a skill of at least 5 with a melee weapon

Stat requirements: After assigning stat points but before class bonuses, you must have base stats of:

• 15 Constitution
• 15 Strength

Abilities:

• +3 Strength
• +5 Constitution
• The Undead Body benefit
• Your attacks affect incorporeal enemies
• +1 to the Control Undead spell
• +1 to the Destroy Undead spell
• Once per hour you may apply the Wasting debuff to an enemy. Requires physical contact or successful melee attack
• A Platinum-tier Scroll of Upgrade that will target your equipped weapon(s)
• A Platinum-tier Scroll of Upgrade that will target one piece of your equipped armor (your choice). If you own no armor then you will be given a piece of Platinum-tier armor instead
• Disadvantage: Many types of mobs and NPCs will be automatically hostile to you

"Undead Body is a collection of abilities such as immunity to gases, suffocation, poison, disease, and so on," Levi said. "The downside is no passive healing. You need to use spells, potions, or get a Regeneration ability. Also, you're vulnerable to spells that specifically affect undead, such as 'Control Undead' and 'Destroy Undead'." ​

​

"The Scroll of Upgrade ability is nice because it's allowing you to specify the thing you want to upgrade. Usually the AI chooses one equipped item at random and if you try to force it by taking off everything except one item then the upgrade will be garbage. This is letting you choose and guaranteeing that you'll get something good. ​

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"No idea what Wasting is. Presumably some ability drain or damage over time." ​

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Spell: Control Undead
Cost: 10 MP
Cooldown: 1 minute for a given target
Target: 1 undead


Attempt to gain control of an undead you do not control. Chance of success depends on your Intelligence and spell level versus the target's level and level of the controller if it has one.

Spell: Destroy Undead
Cost: 10 MP
Cooldown: 1 minute for a given target
Target: 1 undead


Attempt to destroy an undead mob. Destroyed mobs do not drop loot but do provide XP. Chance of success depends on Intelligence, spell level, target's level, and level of the controller if it has one.

Class: Diva

If you've ever referred to yourself as 'the talent', this is you. If you've ever pitched a fit because the sparkling water in your dressing room was colder than 62F, this is you. Basically, if you've ever been a whiny, entitled asshat who made everyone else's life miserable...congratulations, you're a diva.

A performer, a star, the idol of millions. A pain in the neck to work with, but worth it for the star power you bring...at least, that's what you tell everyone.

This restricted class is only available to crawlers who:

1. Have a Charisma of at least 30 after spending stat points but before class bonuses
2. Have received at least 1 trillion views before reaching the third floor
3. Have received at least 500 billion favorites before reaching the third floor
4. Before entering the dungeon, had been professional performers with at least 100,000 followers on one social media platform
5. Since entering the dungeon, have obtained an effective level 10 skill in whatever their performance skill was outside the dungeon.

This is an Earth class. As an incentive to choose an Earth class, you will receive a Silver Earth Box upon choosing this class.

• +8 Charisma
• The Manager benefit
• A dedicated PR rep
• A rhinestone-encrusted pet carrier if you have a pet
• A wardrobe of unenchanted yet highly stylish clothes
• A level 5 personal space (available on the 4th floor)
• Three tier-1 upgrades of your choice for the personal space (Bedroom, Bathroom, and Social categories only)
• 500,000 gold
• The Concert Benefit (once per floor, with an option for a second time at the mudskippers' discretion)

PR rep
Some poor mudskipper will get assigned to help you polish the turd that is your brand among the drooling, snot-nosed morons who think you're cool.

"Don't ever use the M word," Levi said quickly. "The showrunners absolutely despise that word. They tried to get it banned as hate speech, but that just made people use it more." ​

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Pet Carrier
A magical device that's totally not a pokeball. Allows you to put one of your pets into extradimensional storage (so long as they are within 10 meters of you) and retrieve them later. They will be asleep and unaware of time passing while in storage. They will not die or take damage from debuffs or status conditions. Their cooldowns, timers, and passive health regeneration will continue normally. They will be awake and aware when released.

Personal Space
A permanent base that can be accessed from any safe room. It counts as a safe room and will travel with you through the dungeon. At level 5 it comes with a two-level common area, a bed+bath suite for the owner and each member of their party, plus your manager's room will be conjoined to the space. You may purchase additional upgrades for your space, each of which will provide various benefits. Party members may conjoin their spaces for a fee, resulting in a single higher-level space.

Benefit: Concert
Only applies so long as you have at least 500 billion favorites.

Once per floor you will be removed from the dungeon to do a two-hour performance, with an optional meet'n'greet to follow at the mudskippers' discretion. Tickets will be limited and based on your number of favorites. You will receive a (very!) small cut of the revenue from the performance.

"Those personal space features represent a huge amount of money," Levi said. "A pet carrier is usually about 20,000 gold. Personal spaces and their upgrades can run up to several hundred thousand. Those upgrades are worth every penny; there are tier 1 upgrades that give 10% to all stats, or increase your experience-earned rate, or make it so that you need only a couple hours of sleep. This is an extremely powerful class, even if it doesn't look like it. ​

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"As to the Concert ability...usually, the marginal ratio starts at 1 ticket per billion favorites. It decreases by a factor of 10 every 3 orders of magnitude of your fans. Speaking roughly, that means that at 1,000 billion favorites you get 1,000 tickets, at 1,000 trillion favorites you get an additional 100,000 tickets, at 1,000 quadrillion you get an additional 10,000,000, and so on." ​

​

"Am I likely to get that many?" Taylor asked. ​

​

Levi shrugged. "Depends on how well you do. Top crawlers can get that many in just a few weeks. Remember, there's octillions of people watching the crawl. As a percentage, a quintillion favorites is pocket change. You had over 200,000 favorites on YouTube, right? That's a much higher percentage of Earth's population than a quintillion favorites would be of the audience for the crawl. As to how much money you're likely to make...my best guess is 'a lot'. The tickets will sell in credits and you'll get your cut in gold, which is good for you since the exchange rate is ridiculous. The showrunners are likely to either cap it or step the rate down at some point, but it should still be a lot of money." ​

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Class: Elemental Arcanist

A specialist in elemental magic, you must choose one of the mythological elements to focus on, which will also decide your elemental weakness: metal => fire => wood => earth => wind => lightning => plant => water => metal. The preceding list is in order based on elemental advantage, so metal beats fire beats wood, etc

• +50% effectiveness to spells in your chosen element
• 25% discount to any costs (MP, gold, etc) for spells in your chosen element
• -75% (net -25% if using a spell in your chosen element) effectiveness to your spells when the target is aligned to your elemental weakness
• -50% (-90% if the target is aligned to your elemental weakness) effectiveness to non-elemental spells aside from Heal
• +25% discount in magic shops when buying spellbooks or scrolls of your chosen element
• 3 random spellbooks for spells of your chosen element
• The spells from those spellbooks will start at level 4
• Immunity to environmental effects of spells you cast within your element unless you choose to be affected
• Disadvantage: Cannot cast spells from your elemental weakness

"Immunity to environmental effects means that walking into a room full of superheated air will damage your lungs, but if you walk into a normal room and use Pyrofuego to superheat the air, you're fine," Levi explained. "The fact that it's optional means that by default you won't be lifted into the air and thrown around by your Tornado spell, but you can be if you're casting it as a way of getting your feet off the ground that is about to be covered in lava." ​

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Class: Fire Mage

These guys ain't exactly subtle.

• +8 to the Fireball spell
• All fire spells cost 50% less mana, round down, minimum of 1
• Damage from your fire spells is multipled by (Spell Level)
• Immunity to damage from heat or fire, normal or magical
• Your pets receive all of your immunities
• Disadvantage: You cannot cast spells of elemental water.

"Immunity to a damage type covers yourself and your gear," Levi said. "As with everything, it depends on the AI's interpretation. Everything that's equipped is protected and normal clothes are protected. Things you're carrying in your hands are usually protected. Living things that you are carrying are almost never protected." ​

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Spell: Fireball
Cost: 5 MP (2 MP after class discount)
Range: (Skill Level) x 5 meters
AOE: (Skill Level) / 5 meter diameter, round up

A ball of flame flies from your fingers and explodes on impact.

Class: Lacrosse Junior Varsity Middie

Ah, yes. The practice. The tryouts. The training. All that effort and you still weren't good enough to make varsity. Hey, at least you're on the field! Pity that it's the football players who get all the chicks.

This is an Earth class. As an incentive to choose an Earth class, you will receive a Silver Earth Box upon choosing this class.

• +3 Dexterity
• +2 Strength
• +2 Charisma
• +4 to the Thrown Weapons skill
• +4 to the Lacrosse skill
• +4 to the Catcher skill
• The Mark Your Man benefit
• +4 to the Blocker skill
• +2 to the Teamwork skill
• +2 to the Foul! skill
• A Gold-tier weapon (lacrosse stick)
• +50% movement speed

Skill: Lacrosse
Thousands of years ago, the Roman legions recruited Balearic slingers as mercenary auxiliaries. Those guys used staff slings to throw small objects long distances with skull-shattering force. Nowadays, high school and college kids do the same thing but pretend it's a game so that the po-po don't object.

You do +33% damage per level while wielding your lacrosse stick.

Skill: Catcher
You may use your lacrosse stick in an attempt to catch physical ranged attacks directed at yourself or anyone within reach of you.

"That's an uncommon skill," Levi said. "And a damn good one. At level 10, if you manage to catch an attack then you'll be able to redirect it instead of simply blocking it. At level 15 you'll be able to catch targeted magical attacks as well as physical ones." ​

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Benefit: Mark Your Man
You may mark a single opponent who is within 10 meters of you. Marks may be removed at will. See below for uses.

Skill: Blocker
So long as you stay within arm's reach of the marked opponent, you may attempt to prevent them from covering ground, although they will still be able to pivot and move normally otherwise. Chance of blocking successfully depends on Skill Level and Dexterity.

Skill: Teamwork
All members of your party in melee with your marked opponent gain +(Skill Level) to all stats and do 10% more damage per skill level.

Skill: Foul!
Upon landing a solid blow to an enemy with your lacrosse stick, you have a ((Skill Level) / 3)% chance to stun it for (Skill Level) seconds. If you are successfully Blocking the target then the chance of success and the duration of effect are increased.

Class: Local-Access TV Psychic

If you were psychic, why'd you come into the dungeon, huh?

This is an Earth class. As an incentive to choose an Earth class, you will receive a Silver Earth Box upon choosing this class.

• +1 Intelligence
• +5 Charisma
• +1 Charisma every level, not retroactive
• +1 to the Tarot Reading spell and a tarot deck
• +1 to the Enhanced Clairvoyance spell
• +5 to the Silver-Tongued Liar skill
• Silver-Tongued Liar may be trained to level 20
• 20% interest on gold in your inventory when you arrive on a new floor of the dungeon

Spell: Tarot Reading
Cost: 20 MP
Casting Time: 15 minutes
Cooldown: 6 hours


You will receive information relevant to your current situation. Accuracy and level of detail increases with spell level.

Skill: Silver-Tongued Liar

When you make an effort, you can convince people to believe the bullshitiest of bullshit!

If successful, the target will believe whatever you tell them. Only works on mobs. Will not work on some mobs. Mob must be able to hear you and understand you. Chance of success depends on skill level, Charisma, and the ridiculousness of what you are attempting to convince them of.

Class: Metamage

Some mages study fire magic. Some study healing magic. These guys study magic-related magic. What a bunch of nerds.

One of the most theoretical disciplines of magic, metamagic still manages to be remarkably effective in the real world. On the other hand, it requires a certain type of mind that tends towards the eccentric, which can be off-putting.

• +10 Intelligence
• -1 Constitution
• -2 Charisma
• The Metamagic benefit
• At class selection, you may use the Metamagic benefit twice
• Upon descending to a new floor, you may use the Metamagic benefit once

Benefit: Metamagic
When used, select one of your spells and one of the following advantages. The chosen spell will be permanently modified to incorporate the chosen advantage. Repeated applications of a given advantage will compound.

You may bank uses of Metamagic for later if so desired. Using Metamagic takes only a moment, so it is possible to make the choice while in combat, but the choice is permanent and cannot be altered once applied.

• Autofire. Each casting creates twice as many instances of the spell. (At casting time you may choose to use fewer instances.) These additional instances do not require mana or other costs. Casting-time choices (e.g. target designation) may be made separately for each instance
• Cheap. Mana cost is reduced by 50%, rounded down. (e.g. a spell that costs 35 MP now costs 17.) Minimum of 1. Cooldowns are reduced by 25%, rounded down
• Choke. (Only relevant for AOE spells.) At casting time you may choose to reduce the volume of the spell by any amount desired
• Far Strike. The spell's maximum range is multipled by (Spell Level)
• Homing. Allows designating a target before casting. Chance of hitting a designated target is increased by 50%. Applying this benefit twice will upgrade the benefit to 'Guided', allowing the spell to be steered in real time or to fire-and-forget with a 100% chance of hitting the marked target
• IFF. At casting time, you may designate one or more beings to remain unaffected
• Indomitable. This advantage requires 2 picks. Spells with this advantage are immune to counterspelling, anti-magic, redirection/reflection, hostile alteration, and muting effects
• Intensified. The spell does twice as much damage but costs 50% more mana
• Penetrator. Armor is only 50% as effective against the spell and damage is increased by 50%
• Shaped. You may modify the AOE of a spell. Total volume must remain the same but the arrangement of that volume is at your discretion. Excessively bizarre shapings will be disallowed, causing the spell to fizzle
• Spread. AOE spells have each of their dimensions doubled. Non-AOE spells become AOE, usually spherical with a 1 meter diameter. Some targeted spells may be converted to have a larger or differently-shaped AOE at the AI's discretion
• Storable. You may cast the spell and place the result in your inventory to be taken out and discharged later. You may use this ability at most once every 3 hours. The casting cost of the spell is paid as normal, and then you must pay an additional amount of mana equal to 3x the cost of the spell. You may have at most (Spell Level)/2, round down, instances of the spell in your inventory at a time
• Trample. If the spell strikes and kills its target but there is damage left over then the spell will continue in a straight line, applying the remaining damage to the next target it strikes. Repeat until all damage has been applied to a target

"One thing to know," Levi said. "All of the spells you've been getting so far are cheap, usually three or five mana. Later on you'll start getting spells that cost 50 or more. That 'Cheap' advantage is better than it might seem." ​

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Class: Pyrotechnics Engineer

Need to set Michael Jackson's hair on fire, or start a massive wildfire at your gender reveal party? Here's your guy!

This rare and exclusive class is only available to crawlers who, prior to reaching the third floor, have:

• Achieved 500 billion views
• Violated the Geneva Convention regarding chemical warfare

This is an Earth class. As an incentive to choose an Earth class, you will receive a Silver Earth Box upon choosing this class.

• +3 Intelligence
• +2 Dexterity
• +3 to the Fireworks spell
• +5 to the Backfire skill
• +5 to the Escape Plan Skill
• A level 2 Chemistry crafting table (available on 4th floor)
• A level 2 Pyrotechnics crafting table (available on 4th floor)
• Baby's First Home Chemistry Kit
• A box of trap supplies suitable for chemical traps
• +25% discount on chemical supplies
• +25% discount on pyrotechnics supplies (stacks with chemical supplies discount)
• +50% bonus to the sales price of chemicals and pyrotechnics you produce
• The CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, installed into your interface
• The Delta Force field reference manual, installed into your interface
• 20 assorted books on various industrial processes, installed into your interface
• Membership in the Dungeon Kit of the Floor Club (Category: Trap Supplies)

"I know you already got a Chemistry table," Levi said. "Don't worry about it. Having two is good because it allows you to specialize one of them. A specialized table makes stuff faster and has other benefits." ​

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Spell: Fireworks
Cost: 10 MP
Duration: (Intelligence + Spell Level) seconds
Range: (Spell Level)x5 meters
AOE: 3 + (Spell Level) meters diameter


The target area is filled with sparks, smoke, and explosions. Red-tagged mobs will temporarily be rendered blind, deaf, and nose-blind. Flammable materials might be set on fire. At higher levels, red-tagged mobs are considered flammable.

Skill: Backfire
You may attempt to pick up and/or disassemble a trap. Chance of success is 100% for traps that you set.

Skill: Escape Plan
Increases the chance of noticing secret and/or concealed doors. Provides access to the Dungeon Locator.

Item: Baby's First Home Chemistry Set
It's a chemistry set, duh. Beakers, flasks, that kind of thing. Allows doing chemistry stuff outside a saferoom and without a crafting table. Unlike a crafting table, this kit does not provide knowledge boosts and does not prevent your bumbling efforts from exploding in your face.

Books: CRC Handbook, Delta Force manual, Assorted Industry Books
The CRC handbook is the definitive guide to essentially every chemical known by the pitiful primitives of planet Earth, including cooking directions. The Delta Force manual is kinda like the Anarchists' Cookbook except not stupid and wrong; it includes instructions for various kinds of guerrila warfare, traps, IEDs, and so on. A key resource for any special forces soldier (not you) or budding terrorist (you). The other books cover things like how to do electroplating, calculate thermal output of reactions, etc.

The Dungeon Kit of the Floor Club (Category: Trap Supplies)
Once per floor you will receive a random trap supplies kit in the mail. Mailboxes can be found in every safe room and personal space.

Class: Septic Tank Cleaner

I don't know if it's true that where there's muck there's gold, but if it is then these assholes must be the richest bastards around! Nothing like wading around in sewage to give you some perspective on life, eh?

This is an Earth class. As an incentive to choose an Earth class, you will receive a Silver Earth Box upon choosing this class.

• Constitution +15
• Immunity to poison
• Immunity to disease
• Immunity to acid
• Immunity to cloud-based spells, traps, and effects
• Immunity to suffocation and drowning
• +2 to the Acid Stench spell (cost discounted)
• +1 to the Share Immunity spell

Spell: Acid Stench
Cost: 5 MP after class discount
Range: 10 meters + 2 meters per spell level
Duration: Constitution x (Spell Level) seconds or until dismissed
AOE: Sphere with diameter chosen at time of casting. Minimum 4 meters, maximum 10 meters + 1 meter per spell level.

A cloud of toxic and corrosive gas appears, centered at the chosen point. All beings in the area receive the Poisoned debuff. All beings in the area must resist or receive the Queasy debuff. Everything in the area receives acid-type damage over time. Extended exposure can lead to the 'Blind' debuff being applied. This is a cloud-based spell, to which you are immune. It can be dismissed at will, in which case the gas disappears. Multiple castings do not stack but do increase the opacity of the cloud. The caster can see clearly in the cloud.

The gas is not considered smoke.

Spell: Share Immunity
Cost: 5 MP
Duration: (Spell Level) minutes


The target receives a copy of one of your immunities. This will cure relevant debuffs.

"That's a damn good spell, and hard to come by," Levi said. "At level 5 it ramps up to let you affect more than one person at a time. I don't know how many it will be; they like to fiddle with it every season. It's especially good in combination with Acid Stench, which is a nasty thing to be on the wrong end of. Not sure what upgrades it will get at level 10, if any." ​

​

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Class: Sysop

The mudskippers didn't want this class in the game. Fuck them.

This restricted class is only available to crawlers who:

1. Have a base Intelligence of at least 30 after spending stat points
2. Have received at least 1 trillion views before reaching the third floor

This is an Earth class. As an incentive to choose an Earth class, you will receive a Silver Earth Box upon choosing this class.

NOTE: Unless stated otherwise, your class abilities that operate on crawlers can only operate on crawlers in your contact list. You are a valid target for all of your class abilities.

• Abilities with no cooldown:
  • Put a crawler in your contact list by touch, without requiring consent
  • You may copy any or all contact information from another crawler's contact list to your own. You must be touching the other crawler
  • You may copy any or all contact information from your contact list to that of another crawler. You must be touching the other crawler
  • When you cast a 'Target: Self' spell, you may choose to have the effect apply to another crawler instead of to you. The target crawler must be within (your Character Level) meters. The target crawler must either be in your contact list or you must have line of sight to them at the moment of casting
  • You may transfer a debuff or negative status condition from a crawler or pet to yourself. You must be touching the donor
• Abilities with a cooldown of 1 minute:
  • Provided that both sender and receiver are willing, you may move items from one crawler's inventory to another's
  • When a saferoom door is open you may rehome a crawler's departure point to be the other side of the open door. The ability triggers at the end of the cooldown. Throughout the cooldown period you must be touching the crawler, you must both be inside the saferoom, and the door must stay open
• Abilities with a cooldown of 5 minutes:
  • You may edit the stylesheet of a crawler's chat system. You must touch the target
  • You may transfer any buff or positive status condition from yourself to another crawler
  • You may transfer any buff, debuff, or status condition from yourself to a mob, crawler, or pet within (your Character Level) meters and in line of sight
  • When you cast a 'Target: Self' spell, you may choose to have the effect apply to another crawler instead of to you
• Using any of the following abilities will deactivate your class abilities for 6 hours.
  • Provided that both sender and receiver are willing, you may reassign all unopened dungeon loot boxes (i.e. not fan boxes or Benefactor boxes) from one crawler to another. You must be touching sender when you use this ability
• Using any of the following abilities will deactivate your class abilities for 30 hours.
  • Reset a crawler's mana and health to 100%
  • Remove all debuffs and negative status conditions from a crawler
  • Reduce one of a crawler's currently-running timers by 50%
  • Provided that both sender and receiver are willing, you may transfer a tattoo from one crawler to another. This ability takes 10 minutes to activate and you must be touching both crawlers throughout that time
• Using the following abilities will deactivate your class abilities for the rest of the floor
  • Provided that both sender and receiver are willing, you may copy an actionable from one crawler to another. This ability takes 1 hour to activate and you must be touching both crawlers throughout that time. You may not be in a saferoom while using it. When copying a levelable actionable, the recipient will get the actionable at level 1
  • Choose a crawler and an NPC who is not currently a manager. That NPC becomes that crawler's manager. You must be touching the NPC when you use this

Class: Train Conductor

This is an Earth class. As an incentive to choose an Earth class, you will receive a Silver Earth Box upon choosing this class.

• +5 Intelligence
• +3 to the Train Ticket skill
• A wide array of skills are unlocked

Skill: Train Ticket


At the end of class selection and at the start of each floor thereafter you will be given (Skill Level) Train Tickets. No, these are not tickets that lets you ride on a train. They are tickets for training.

Tearing up one of these tickets allows the user to select one actionable that is gained from or boosted by an item they have equipped. (May only be used on a given actionable once per user.) The user will immediately gain a copy of that actionable, at level 1 if it is a skill or spell. When the source item is not equipped the user will retain access to that actionable and may train it normally if it is trainable. Putting the item back on will cause its normal effect to apply and will not interfere with the trained version.

If the actionable is trainable then it may be trained to level 20. Skills acquired through Train Tickets act as though they are two levels lower (minimum of 1) for purposes of how quickly they advance.

Ironically, this skill cannot be trained. It increases by 1 every time you descend to a new floor.

Class: Tug Boat Captain

An old salt who spends his time in a tiny little boat pushing great big boats around in horrible weather, being drenched in salt spray, and being thrown around by huge waves. Complete badass or anti-social misanthrope? Six of one, half dozen of the other.

This is an Earth class. As an incentive to choose an Earth class, you will receive a Silver Earth Box upon choosing this class.

• Strength +3
• +100% effectiveness to wind spells per spell level
• +100% effectiveness to water spells per spell level
• A randomly-selected wind spell
• A randomly-selected water spell
• +3 to one of your wind spells
• +3 to one of your water spells
• You cannot lose your balance
• Immunity to nausea-inducing attacks and debuffs
• +5 to the Unstoppable Push skill

"Class benefits are always applied from top to bottom," Levi said. "That means that you'll have at least one wind and one water spell when the AI selects which spell to boost. This class is a complete crap shoot if you don't already have wind or water spells. There are some incredibly powerful options out there and if you get one of them then you're going to stomp everything for the next couple floors. On the other hand, if you get something lame then you're screwed." ​

​

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Skill: Unstoppable Push
When attempting to physically push something, your Strength is multiplied by the level of Unstoppable Push.

Class: Warlock

Final words of most warlocks: "Hey, watch me summon a—grkk!"

• +3 Intelligence
• +3 Charisma
• +1 to the Summon Demon spell

Spell: Summon Demon
Cost: 1+ MP and 100+ gold
Casting Time: 1 hour

You attempt to summon a demon. If successful, you can negotiate with this demon for various services, such as providing information, going to a place in order to kill a person or deliver an object/message, or serving as your battle companion for a time. If you make a deal for battle companion services then the demon will return to the vasty deeps until called. Calling a bound demon back requires merely speaking its name and the demon will appear immediately.

The amount of mana and gold necessary for the summoning varies depending on the level of demon you wish to summon. Spending extra mana and/or gold will improve the chances of success.

"Think very carefully before you take this one," Levi said. "On the one hand, high level demons are very powerful in a fight and excellent sources of information. On the other, they're super dangerous and can turn on you in an eyeblink. Make sure you jack your Charisma as high as possible, since it will make negotiating with them easier. Also, summoning powerful demons gets very expensive in terms of gold, which means less money available to buy spells and gear and personal-space upgrades." ​

​

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Class: Wheeler Dealer

This is an Earth class. As an incentive to choose an Earth class, you will receive a Silver Earth Box upon choosing this class.

• +25% discount at all stores
• +1 to the Rollup skill

Skill: Rollup
When you open dungeon-generated loot boxes (i.e. not fan or Benefactor boxes) they will be rolled up into higher-grade loot boxes before manifesting. Number of boxes necessary to roll up varies by type:

• Bronze x2 becomes Silver
• Silver x4 becomes Gold
• Gold x4 becomes Platinum
• Platinum x8 becomes Legendary
• Legendary x8 becomes Celestial

Your skill level determines the number of times Rollup will be applied in a single sitting and the maximum rank that can be created (level 1 = Silver, level 2 = Gold, etc). Rollup is always applied to boxes in rank order from lowest to highest.

---

Author's Note: Forgot that I had most of this done, just not in the file I thought it was in. Anyway, here we go. Please remember the voting standards as described in Chapter 24.1.

"That...is a list," Taylor said, dismayed.

"Four of them, actually," Levi said. "It could be worse. Take a breath and we'll all work it through together. I'm sure you have questions."

"Yeah," Taylor said after a moment. "Primal has that thing where all skills are unlocked. Does that mean it could learn how to do Rollup and make higher-level lootboxes from lower-level ones?"

"No," Levi said firmly. "I am as positive as I can be that there is not going to be any way to get Rollup without having the Wheeler Dealer class. Honestly, it's suicidal of the showrunners to even have one method of someone getting and using that skill.

"The thing to remember about skills being unlocked: all it means is that if you do the thing enough then you will get the dungeon-enhanced skill. Pick enough locks, you'll get the Lockpicking skill. Bash a few trolls with an axe, get the Axe skill. You need to actually be able to do the thing in question, so even if the Big B were willing to have multiple ways of getting Rollup, you still wouldn't be able to get it because it's not a thing you can simply choose to do." He paused. "And, again: all skills are now locked by default, so you're not going to be getting any skill just by doing the thing. Not unless you have a class or race that says you can."

"What about this Sysop class?" Taylor asked. "Is the ability to copy an actionable from one crawler to another itself an actionable, or are all these non-capitalized abilities that interface with the system something outside that category?"

Levi's eyes flickered as he read through the interface. "Looks like the Sysop abilities are outside the normal scope of the system. Weirdly, they are not themselves actionables even though that term literally means 'thing that the AI needs to take action to enable'."

"I want to know about Doppleganger," Calliope asked. "Can I learn all race-based skills of other races if I can imitate them with Body Sculpting? Like that Draconid skill, 'Skin Armor'—if I imitated that by putting metal just below my skin, could I get that? Or Wing Strike by growing wings and using them to hit stuff?"

Levi shook his head. "No. Well, sort of. There's obviously a lot of overlap between races." He paused, visibly struggling to organize his thoughts.

"Okay, back up," he said. "As of this floor, all skills are locked unless stated otherwise. That means you can no longer acquire a skill simply by doing the action, you need to have some sort of item or event or whatever before you can learn it. As with everything, there's an asterisk on that. In the case of Doppleganger the asterisk means that a lot of skills remain unlocked for you because they are considered Doppleganger racial skills, so you could learn them simply by doing them. We don't know what's on that list, but it doesn't matter what you look like when you're doing the thing. If the skill is unlocked and you do that thing often enough, you'll get the skill."

He checked to see if she was following; at her expression, he shrugged. "Here's my advice: don't waste time thinking about it. All that it really means is that the AI might occasionally give you a level-3 skill out of nowhere, so just do your regular thing and don't waste time on it. Sure, we could theorize about what might or might not be on the list and you could go specifically pursue that action in order to unlock that skill, but that's not time-efficient. If we guessed wrong and the skill is locked then you've wasted time. Much better to simply do what seems like the optimal thing for long-term survival and be pleasantly surprised once in a while."

"When?" Calliope asked. "Like, if I keep letting Moose pull me, am I eventually going to get a skill for it?"

"Maybe," Levi said. "If there's a skill called...I dunno, 'Skitching', then we can assume it's locked by default. If Skitching turns out to be a racial skill for Dopplegangers then it will be unlocked and you'll eventually get it if you let Moose keep towing you around. If it's not a racial skill for Dopplegangers then you will never get it unless you find a lootbox item that gives a bonus to it. Like I said, don't waste time thinking about this. Focus on making a good build pick."

"On that subject," Taylor said carefully. "You said that we aren't being observed right now, yes?"

"You aren't being observed by anyone except the AI and the showrunners," Levi corrected. "Why?"

"Is there any way for us to have a truly private conversation with you?" Taylor asked.

"No. And the fact that you need to ask that means you should probably put whatever was in your head right out of your head."

"Ah," Taylor said, feeling a little green. "Right, so, moving back to safer ground: if I pick Dzichi, can I manipulate my yo-yo to insane degrees with my hair?"

"Oh deeps, can you ever," Levi said, amused. "It'll be bonkers."

"Speaking of Moose," Drew said, even though the conversation had moved on. "When we first got here, Moose batted at the air as if he were getting the same notifications as us. Has he been getting loot boxes?"

"Yes," Levi said. "Anything above a certain weight that comes into the dungeon gets a crawler ID. Anything with a crawler ID earns achievements and loot boxes. It's not meaningful with pets in most cases, since they can never open them, but the system does it because it's easier than having a special exception and it works well in cases where the pet gets transformed into a sapient through some means."

"As a Soulbonded Familiar, Moose gets +1 Intelligence every 30 levels," Taylor reminded him. "Does that mean he'll be able to open them when he hits level 30?"

Levi's eye stalks rose up. "Ooh, right, I forgot about that. Once he hits level 60 and has an Intelligence of 2, I think he'll count as sapient. I'll be able to turn his interface on and yes, he'll be able to open loot boxes. Wow. He'll have a craptop of them by then."

Taylor grinned and scritched furiously at Moose's ruff. "That's my good boy. You are going to break this place."

Moose looked delighted. Uncomprehending, but delighted.

"Will he be able to talk?" Calliope asked.

"Maybe," Levi said. "He won't have the vocal structures for it, but the dungeon is weird sometimes. He'll be able to use chat, though."

Taylor carefully did not ask the obvious question: Would the Sysop class let me transfer Moose's boxes to someone who can actually use them? The answer was almost certainly 'yes, but it's hard to predict how Borant will respond.' Still, it was worth considering.

"How about Character Actor?" he asked instead. "How would it interact with the Medical Student's debt?"

"Can't be sure, since that's a very unusual disadvantage," Levi said. "My guess is that you would keep the debt even after losing access to the abilities."

"Well that's not good," Taylor said.

"Tell you what else isn't good," Calliope said. "This Boring Ol' Fighter class. I mean sure, I love it to pieces and would absolutely take it because who doesn't want to be a massive badass, except it's going to lock me out of using my skateboard to ramp on walls."

Levi hesitated. "Here's the thing: the AI is a sapient person, so attempting to manipulate it in any way is wrong right from the get-go. It's also much smarter than us and vastly more powerful, which means that we can't manipulate it and doing anything that even hints that we might want to can get us killed. Because of all that, it's a bad idea to talk too much about what the AI will or won't do. Also, we've already seen from these options that the AI is willing to push you towards an unarmed class and away from using your sword.

"With all that said, while I don't expect that the AI will give you a way to continue using your skateboard after taking Boring Ol' Fighter, it also wouldn't surprise me if it happened. The AI gave you the skateboard in a Legendary box and it's a fan favorite. Borant will definitely want you to continue using it for the views and it seems not unreasonable that the AI will want you to continue using this very impressive thing that it was kind enough to special create for you. Granted, there might be some drawback in combination with the ability. Still, BOF is so overpowered that you should definitely consider it."

"So these classes are overpowered?" Taylor asked.

"They're definitely top shelf classes," Levi said. "Probably has something to do with the fact that you and Calliope have single-digit crawler IDs and Drew is barely in double digits."

"Speaking of me," Drew said. "I asked before about what happens to my skill XP when I go down a floor. You said you couldn't answer as a game guide. Also, what's the difference between descending the stairs and entering a new floor?"

"Right," Levi said. "As to the skill XP, I don't actually know. The best I can say is that Character Actor skill is clearly intended to give you a fresh slate every floor, so it would surprise me if you kept the abilities. That said, asking the question has now brought this idea to the showrunners' attention, which means it's even less likely that you'll keep the skills.

"As to that other point: popular crawlers get brought onto tunnel shows, like you guys were with Omusa's show. There's two slots for those, and the first slot is between when you descend and when you arrive. That means that your abilities won't update until after the show—it's almost never an issue, since your interface is generally turned off while you're outside the dungeon, but it's still worth a mention."

And another way of hinting that you should take Manager, he audibly did not say.

"Cool," Drew said. "Can I choose the same class two floors in a row?"

"Yes, although your class list is going to change each time. It usually only gets longer, with new options being added on top of old, but there's nothing saying that they can't remove choices."

"How does Be My Second from Duelist interact with damage immunities?" Calliope asked. "The class looks pretty cool, but that's a really important part of it. If my second is immune to fire damage and I get hit with fire, am I protected? If I'm immune to poison, can I do Be My Second on someone and drink poison to poison them?"

"As with everything, this is at the AI's discretion," Levi said. "The way it usually works is that damage you're immune to happens but is immediately reduced to zero. That means that yes, you would be immune to fire damage as long as you had a second that was immune to fire damage." He raised a claw. "Before you ask: Pyrophilia converts damage into healing before it's applied, so the damage won't be transferred to your second. As to the poison thing: yes, that should work."

"I'm looking at Multacorpalan and Sysop," Taylor said. "Would I be able to receive a buff with one body and transfer it with a second? Is there a distance requirement for the Two Body Problem skill?"

"These Sysop abilities are weird and don't work like anything I've ever seen before," Levi said carefully. "I would expect that yes, you could use the Sysop powers to transfer buffs from one of your bodies to another. I might be wrong about that—the ability says that you can transfer it to 'another crawler', and since the two bodies will have the same crawler ID they might be excluded. Still, I think it would work. As to distance limits, no. The two bodies are both you."

Taylor nodded, thinking. He went back and reread some of his options and then asked, "Just how rich are the Zree? Like, in comparison to the rest of the Syndicate? And how likely are they to use that to our benefit?"

"'Very' and 'fairly, I think'," Levi said. "I'm not an expert on galactic lore, but my understanding is that the Zree are an entire eusocial species where only the royals are sapient. They breed fast and control a lot of worlds. An uncountable number of tireless and perfectly coordinated workers generates one deeps of an economy. The fact that their royals explicitly go out and form bonds with other species before transforming means that they've got a good-sized net of allies, and they are known for two things: playing straight with people who play straight with them, and absolutely annhiliating the fuck out of anyone who does them wrong. This race could only be here if they authorized it, meaning that they are looking for candidates who are smart enough and tough enough to prove themselves in the dungeon, and honorable enough to serve their indenture without being censured. If they like what they see then there's a good chance they would sign up as a Benefactor on the fifth or sixth floor, and urge their allies to do the same. As long as you live up to their standards, it would go an enormous way to guaranteeing your survival."

"Hm," Taylor said. Living up to the unspecified standards of an alien species had some flags over it, but if Levi was right that it simply consisted of "survive and be honorable" then that was straightforward.

"Oh, another Sysop question," he said.

Levi's eyestalks rolled up to point at the ceiling. "Really? I've already said I don't know about this class."

"Okay, but give me your best guess. It says that I'm a valid target for all of my class abilities, right? And it also says that I can choose a crawler and an NPC who is not currently a manager and make that NPC become that crawler's manager. Does that mean I could make myself someone's manager?"

Levi cocked his head in confusion. "I mean...even if it does, why would you want to? The main advantage of having a manager is that they've been around the dungeon a long time and know stuff that you crawlers don't. Also that they can use their skills to help you in non-combat ways. You don't know more than your fellow crawlers and you're already free to use your skills to help them. And sure, as a general rule I'm perfectly happy to help other crawlers, although my priorities are Drew's survival first and the survival of his party members second. Everything else is a distant third."

"I was hoping to be able to do some cheese with teleporting to their location when they enter a safe room," Taylor explained.

"Ah. Well, I doubt that Sysop would work that way and even if it did, the teleportation thing wouldn't be worth it."

"Fair enough," Taylor said. "Speaking of helping other crawlers: when we're done here, would you help our friends in the Astronomy Army? If they have good picks that means they can help us out better and we'll have better things to copy if I go Sysop."

Levi shook his massive head. "I'd be willing, but it's not possible. Until path selection is done, no one can enter their guild hall and chat messages can't go in or out."

"Rats."

"Hey Levi," Drew said, "what do you think the Zree's opinion of Sysop copying the Royal Metamorphosis benefit would be? Would they think it was smart or would they consider it 'doing them wrong'?"

Levi scratched his ear. "Can't be sure," he said at last. "On balance, I'd advise against it. The point of that race is that they expect you to test yourself—have the courage to take a short-term disadvantage and the intelligence to survive despite it. If you skip the disadvantage then you haven't passed the test. Might be a bad thing, might simply mean they test you somewhere else. Either way, it's not going to be a positive."

"Are enhancements considered actionables?" Taylor asked. "Moose gets some great bonuses for being a legendary familiar. Could I copy the 'legendary familiar' status to Drew?" He carefully did not say 'to Calliope' because she would absolutely have made an inappropriate comment that would have melted his brain with embarrassment, and unfortunately simply having that thought was enough to make his brain cough up candidates for the statement which was causing the embarrassment second hand and oh god how could Calliope commit psychic warfare without even taking one of the psychic races?!

Levi sighed. "I'm going to start twitching every time I hear the word 'Sysop', aren't I? Look, I don't know how many times I can say this: I don't know about this class. There's never been anything like it as far as I know. I'd be shocked if you could copy a race, or a familiar status, or anything of the kind, but how the deeps would I know? This class is ridiculous to start with, so why shouldn't it be stupid as well? Sure, let's assume it can make Drew a familiar—in fact, let's not think so small! Maybe it can copy my indenture contract onto you lot! Think about it, you could be done with the dungeon right now! How fantastic would that be? Oh, oh, wait! Maybe we can copy Moose's view count onto each of you, repeatedly, until you have so many views that you're on the top ten list and you get a Benefactor contract and then we copy the Benefactor contract? Wouldn't that be filled with combs and dandelions?!" He threw all four hands in the air in frustration.

Taylor gave him a slow count of three to calm down before asking, "Feeling better?"

"Yes. And don't ask me if you can copy Moose's familiar status. I have no idea, but the answer is probably no."

"Speaking of animal-related things," Calliope said, "what about the catkin race? When we were talking about it you said there were some really good ones. Give us some examples?"

"Sure," Levi said, leaning back and tapping his lips in thought. "So, you've got your basic ones. Tigrans are very strong, very tough, and pretty fast. They've got nasty claws that give the Unarmed Combat and Powerful Strike skills. Cheetarans start with a high Dodge and can use bursts of superspeed for escape, tactical positioning, and damage enhancement. Those are pretty much opposite ends of the spectrum, and there's a bunch of other subspecies that fit somewhere in the middle—lynxans, leopardans, and so on. Then you get into the really wild options."

"Yeah?" Calliope said, leaning forward with rapt attention. She was so invested that she had stopped working her way through the plate of miniature cannoli.

"Yeah," Levi said. "See, the various subspecies fall into two categories: there's the group where they take a real cat and give it stats and skills suggestive of that animal. Tigers are big and strong, cheetahs are fast, lions have a powerful roar that functions as a sonic attack, and so on.

"Then there's the ones where they build off a mythological cat." He sipped his tea, thinking. "There's a subspecies based off the legend of Cat Sith. It eats the souls of enemies it kills, powering itself up in the process. I haven't actually seen it, only heard about it from other guides, so I'm not sure what its base stats are, or how it works mechanically. Might be simply stat boosts, might be some of the abilities of the downed foe, might be something else.

"There's a displacer catkin subspecies. They're permanently invisible, with an illusionary image of themselves that's always about a meter from where they actually are. The image shifts around sometimes, changing where it is relative to them.

"The wampus catkin has psychic attacks, the killakee can turn intangible for short periods, the kamadan has six poison snakes growing out of her torso, and the lammasu is required to worship a deity and can therefore cast spells from that deity's domain." He raised his lower left arm, one claw extended, while simultaneously sipping his tea. "Worshipping a god is a real crapshoot and I strongly advise against it. I was relieved to see that none of you ended up with a cleric or paladin class that would have required you to pick a god. Gods are generally more trouble then they're worth and I advise staying faaaar away from them if you can."

He smiled. "And then there's the hellcatkin."

Calliope leaned farther forward, her eyes shining and one foot tapping furiously with impatience.

"Now, I've only seen this once in all the time I've been in the dungeon," Levi cautioned. "So you really shouldn't get your hopes up. Even if Drew's luck aura is in place—which it probably isn't—then it's still extremely unlikely you would get this subspecies." He paused, looking uncertain, then shook his head. "In fact, you know what? Never mind, I shouldn't even have mentioned it. Just forget I said anything. Catkin is a solid racial choice with good options, but if it were me I would lean towards—"

"Come on!" Calliope burst out. "You gotta tell me!"

"It's not a good idea, okay?" Levi said. "You'll just get your hopes up, which means you won't consider other options and you'll take the race because you're sure you'll get hellcatkin and then you'll be disappointed when you don't. Really, I shouldn't have said anything."

"Stop teasing her," Taylor said, amused. "I know it's fun, but her head might explode. I promise I'll make her give the other races a serious look."

Levi snorted. "Way to ruin my fun, man. Fine. Seriously though, this thing is extremely rare. Not 'literally seen it once ever' rare, but only a clawful of times.

"The dungeon monster called a 'hellcat' is built from a conflation of various mythological entities. It's pitch black, very big, very strong, permanently on fire, vomits lava, inflicts a wasting debuff on anyone who touches its tail, and so on. A hellcatkin is a scaled down version of that, based on the premise that the spirit of a dead human banged a hellcat and the progency was kicked out of the underworld. They keep the 'pitch black and on fire' part, they have claws as long as mine"—he wiggled the banana-length weapons that extended from his fingers—"except much sharper. They generally don't get all of the powers of their progenitors, but they do get a subset of them. That means some combination of turning intangible, vomiting lava, literally ripping your soul out through your nose, and so on. It's like getting a Celestial box at race selection. Let me emphasize that you should not expect to get it—in fact, let's reverse that: you should expect to not get it."

Calliope's eyes were shining. "That is zoomy to the core," she breathed.

"Calliope," Taylor said, his voice filled with warning. "Get those stars out of your eyes. Catkin is a mystery box. Sure, maybe you roll a natural twenty fifty times in a row and get that monster thing, but it sounds like you're much more likely to just be fairly strong and fast. Compare that to satori, where you can literally kill people by thinking about it, or cygnan, where you can fly. Oh, or doppleganger—you'd be very tough right from the start and if we get you a backpack and some metal you could hit like a truck and transform into things and laugh in the face of anyone who hits you, and and and..."

She bobbed her head. "Yeah, okay. Still, Unc, you gotta admit—even leaving the last one aside, some of those catkin options sound amazing."

"Sure," Levi said. "But most of them either don't have a Constitution bonus or they have an actual penalty. The dungeon's conception of cats is that they're generally fast but fragile. There's a few exceptions, like the tigrans and panthrons, but if you go catkin then it's probably going to be risky to keep being a frontline fighter."

She frowned and deflated. "That's pop," she grumbled. "Still...they're fast, right?"

"Yes," Levi admitted. "Most of them. Most of them get a Dex bonus and a lot of them get a Dodge skill."

"Then let's keep it on the list," she said.

Taylor stared at the options, chewing his lip in thought. "Levi," he said after a moment, "how much more lethal is this floor going to be compared to the last two? If Drew takes Wizard Supremacist and attacks something physically then he takes a huge penalty and gets his powers shut off for 30 hours. How likely is that given that we have Moose and Leo to run interference? In particular, I'm worried about those Skyfowl dive bombing Drew."

Levi see-sawed a massive hand. "There's a huge amount of variability on this floor. If you spend all your time in the ruins, you likely won't see a skyfowl the whole time. If you go into the settlements, you'll see them but they mostly won't care to interact with you so if you don't seek them out they won't bother you." He shrugged. "In fact, if you do cause a problem, it's unlikely that the skyfowl will attack you. Instead, they'll summon the town guards who are all going to be level 75 or 80 and absolutely unbeatable at your level. You'll have to run away—they won't chase you beyond the town, but you'll never be able to go back to that town.

"All in all, it's up to you," he said, looking at Drew. "If you take Wizard Supremacist you'll have an extremely powerful attack spell, at least one strong defensive spell, and a wide array of other things. Keep your bident in your inventory, don't do anything stupid, and you're likely fine."

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Author's Note: I'll edit further questions in as we go.