Dungeon Crawler You!

Taylor creaked open sleep-gummed eyes and looked around in confusion. His bedroom window and his dresser had both disappeared and his bedside lamp had been replaced by an overhead light. Also, there was a man in the bed with him, facing the other way. Also, everything was pitch black.

What?

Should have been a lamp. Too bright. Too dark. Strange man—

Oh, right. Eight billion people had died, civilization had been destroyed, and he was currently miles under the surface of the earth. Made sense that he was not in his own bedroom. The man next to him was his other body and the reason things were both lit and dark was because he had opened Taylor Blue's eyes but not Taylor Gold's.

He struggled to keep Blue's eyes open as he fumbled through his interface to check the time. Five in the morning. An actual eight hours sleep, but he still wanted at least eight more.

With a quiet groan he flopped back down on his thin pillow and stared up at the ceiling as he tried to gather the will to rise and fight another day. His traitor eyelids stumbled downwards and after a dozen seconds he sank once more into the arms of Morpheus.

Just as he was starting to drift off, a massive tongue washed across Blue's entire face in one lick.

Moose: GOOD MORNING, TAYLOR! MOOSE IS SO HAPPY YOU ARE AWAKE! MOOSE HAS BEEN AWAKE FOR AN HOUR AND HAS BEEN WAITING FOR YOU TO WAKE UP SO WE CAN GO WALKIES!

All four of Taylor's eyes opened and both his bodies sat up, wiping their faces (Gold hadn't been licked but his muzzy brains were having trouble distinguishing) and glared at Moose.

Moose sat beside the bed, panting happily and doggy-laughing. He was currently at his normal supermastiff size.

"I know that you can talk like a normal person," Taylor grumbled. "I also know that you can open the damn door and 'go walkies' on your own."

Moose: WALKIES ARE NOT AS MUCH FUN WITHOUT MY PERSON! PEOPLE! GASP! TAYLOR IS A PEOPLE NOW! THAT IS WAY BETTER THAN ONLY A PERSON! AS A PEOPLE, TAYLOR CAN GIVE DOUBLE SCRITCHES! YAYYYY!

He leaned in, another tongue-washing locked and loaded, but Taylor pushed his snoot aside grumpily.

"I'm up, I'm up," he said, yawning huge enough that his jaw cracked. "Ugh. Fuckin' morning."

Mooses: TAYLOR SAID A BAD WORD!

Taylor glared at his dog and rubbed his eyes. "Fine," he said. "Come on, let's go." He swung Blue's legs over the side of the bed and teleported Gold to the door instead of climbing across the bed.

They stumbled into the bathroom and got clean. There were four showers side-by-side, each one the size of a cramped phone booth with a shower head mounted in the center of the ceiling and facing straight down. The water pressure was abysmal and the soap had bits of grit in it that made it feel like sandpaper. By the time all of both of Taylor was clean he felt as though he'd lost three layers of skin. Still, he was thoroughly awake.

It was when he stepped out of the shower that a thought spiked his adrenaline.

Taylor: Leo, Drew, where are you? Those guys in the bar last night didn't look friendly.

Calliope: Heyyyy! Look, a wild Unc has finally appeared! Moose went upstairs to get you a gazillion years ago.

Drew: Morning, Tay. Don't sweat it, things are all chill here. Food's not bad, either. Limited selection and it's all fried in lard but damn it's tasty.

Taylor: That's a relief. Okay, be down in a sec.

He slumped down the stairs, still yawning. Sure enough, Drew, Calliope, and Levi were waiting at a table with plates of bacon and eggs and fried toast upon which a massive campaign of destruction had been waged. There were even two fresh plates waiting for Taylor, which he gratefully started demolishing.

"I feel like I'm always hungry these days," Calliope complained, lifting her plate to her mouth so she could scrape in the last few bits of scrambled egg.

"Ew, gross," Drew said, gesturing to Calliope's bad plate etiquette. "Eat like a human person."

Calliope grinned and deliberately chewed at him with her mouth as wide open as possible. Drew rolled his eyes.

"Two days left," Taylor said, alternating bites and words between his bodies in order to refuel as efficiently as possible without violating the manners drilled into him by his mother.

"Fifty and a half hours," Drew corrected, lighting a joint and taking a deep drag.

Taylor gave him sour looks. "Whatever. I think our first priority today has to be finding a staircase. Moose, once we're done here, you get in the air and start scouting. That Pathfinder skill of yours should help. Plus, it trains by keeping the map open all the way, right? You can keep it open while you're flying without worrying about walking into stuff."

Moose: MOOSE CAN DO THAT! IN FACT, MOOSE DID THAT ALREADY, BECAUSE MOOSE IS CLEVER DOGGY! MOOSE WENT SCOUTING EARLIER WHILE ALL THE PEOPLES WERE HAVING SLEEPY TIME! MOOSE WENT EAST AND FOUND ONE! IT IS ABOUT NINETY MINUTES AWAY AS THE MOOSE FLIES! NINETY MINUTES AS THE MOOSE FLIES IS A LONG WAY! MOOSE THINKS THE FISH PEOPLES ARE NOT PLAYING FAIR WITH HOW STAIRCASES ARE DISTRIBUTED!

Taylor gave his dog a flat look. "Do you really need to do the dumb dog bit?" He ignored Levi's laugh.

Moose: MOOSE HAS NO IDEA WHAT TAYLOR IS TALKING ABOUT! MOOSE IS SMART BRAIN DOGGY! ALSO, MOOSE IS CUTE AND WANTS SCRITCHES.

He made soulful eyes at Calliope and leaned close. She smiled and ruffled his ears with one hand while drinking her orange juice with the other.

Taylor shook his heads and went back to his breakfast.

The others waited, staring intently at him.

"What?" he demanded.

"Uncle Drew said we couldn't open loot boxes until after breakfast," Calliope said.

Taylor considered that. "Oh." He went back to eating his food, except slower.

"Oh, come on!" Calliope said, throwing her hands in the air.

"Patience is a virtue," Taylor mumbled around his home fries.

She folded her arms and glared at him until he finished the last few bites, intentionally making a show of getting every last crinkly bit of fries and morsel of egg.

"Now?" Calliope demanded, bouncing in her seat.

"Now," Taylor said, pushing his completely clean plates aside with a double grin.

"Yes! Come to mama!" Calliope said, pumping her fist.

A line of lootboxes shimmered into existence in front of her and started opening themselves. A very short line of lootboxes. Two, to be exact.

"YES!" she shouted. "Rollup motherfuckin' level up! Gimme that bling, baby!"

The first box was a Bronze containing a police nightstick straight out of a 1920s British police uniform, and a shirt that gave +1 Strength and wasn't nearly as good as her current one. She impatiently tossed the shirt to Taylor, pushed the nightstick into her inventory, and turned to the second box. The Gold box created by Rollup.

It twirled open with a dramatic flourish and blast of horns; a piece of ribbon floated up out of it, hanging in midair while spinning slowly for several seconds.

Calliope grabbed it out of the air and studied its properties before breaking out into a wide grin. "Badass," she said, passing it over to Taylor.

Hair Bow of Dematis


+3 Dexterity
+3 to the Acrobatics skill
+3 to the Climbing skill
+1 to the Light on Your Feet skill
+1 to the Pounce skill
+1 to the Rope Use skill
+3 to the Wall-Running skill
The Good Balance Benefit
Immunity to the Vertiginous debuff

"Impressive," he said, passing it over for Drew to examine. "And definitely tailored to you. That's going to be an issue with our idea of using Rollup to make good gear that you then hand out to other people. It's not that this would be bad for me, but I'd prefer something that gave bonuses to my Flexible Weapons skill, for example."

"There's a related issue," Levi said. "People always think of this at some point, now's as good a time as any to put it to bed. Taylor, you could put this on and get all the skills at the indicated level. You could practice them until they went up a level, then pass the ribbon on to Drew. You'd lose the bonus levels supplied by the item but you would keep the ones you had earned and could then train it up from there.

"Two problems with that. First is that the audience likes to see parties made of distinct types. A tank, a healer, a blaster, and so on. If you all have the same skills then you'll all start to blur together, which can cost you views. Second problem with sharing items around like that is you end up with such a wide variety of skills that you either don't train most of them up, in which case what's the point, or you try to train everything up and you end up with no high-level skills."

"Seems like some skills are useful even at low levels," Taylor objected. "For example, that Murderous Attack skill that we saw in some of the classes during path selection. All your physical damage is multiplied by the skill level? Even at level 2 that's pretty awesome."

Levi nodded. "True, and if you get items that grant those skills then it might be worth it, especially since skills like that are less visible to the audience then things like Wall-Running. On the other hand, they are typically very slow to level so you'll end up hanging onto the item for a long time before you can pass it off."

"Fair enough," Taylor said. "Let's see what I got." He pulled up his Achievements and skimmed through. There were eight, mostly the usual mockery from the AI that earned either no reward or a crappy Bronze box containing potions and junk weapons, but one stood out:

New Achievement — Tubmanesque

Harriet Tubman, known as the "Moses of her people" was a slave that escaped and, instead of being content, went back into the Antebellum South multiple times to lead slaves to freedom. She also served as a scout, spy, guerilla soldier, and nurse during the Civil War. What a badass.

While you didn't lead anyone to freedom (because none of you are getting out of here alive if the mudskippers have anything to say about it,) you did make it out of a dangerous situation and then go back to rescue some fellow Crawlers. You're definitely not on Harriet's level but you're on the right track...

Reward: A Gold Rescue Box

"Nice," he said, grinning. He waited impatiently for the box to open and the prize to float out.

Ring of Martyrous Sacrifice

Once per 30 hours you may redirect the damage from a single attack from someone else to yourself. The original target must be visible and within 10 meters. The damage cannot be dodged or further redirected. Can be used before or up to 1 second after the attack lands. If used after the attack lands the original target will have their health restored to what it was before the attack. If they were zeroed out then they will be revived and restored. Requires that their body be mostly intact. Will not restore from gibbing, disintegration, total destruction by acid, or similar. Some restrictions apply. Void where prohibited. Do not taunt happy fun AI.

"Yow," Calliope said when Taylor showed her the ring. "That's...a thing."

"Good thing there's more" / "of me every floor," Taylor said, alternating between bodies. "I get a new body each time we go down the stairs."

"Dude, not cool," Drew said. "None of us are dying. Now let's go." He gave his childhood friend a speaking look, then stood up and headed for the door.


They had left the saferoom at 6:30 in the morning. The section of the ruins they were currently traversing was especially ruined; no convenient roads remained, only tumbles of broken brick, cracked concrete, and destroyed domiciles in huge piles which forced the team to hike up and down like the hills of Appalachia. The combination of up-and-down and terrible footing kept the party to a crawl if they didn't want to risk injury. Moose had estimated that it was about forty-five miles to the stairwell, so they were moving as fast as they could in order to get there before the floor collapsed. Drew's Constitution of 15, the lowest in the party, was still two or three times the high end of the normal human range, so they had been able to move without needing to stop for breaks.

They had been traveling for two hours when Moose spotted the first handful of imps flying along way out on the edge of his map. The creature was headed towards the team, so he had gone to deal with the problem before it could get close. It wasn't until he saw the creature's properties that everyone realized their mistake: they should have hidden instead of fighting.

Forerunner Imp

These little turd dumplings aren't the fastest demons, but they are among the tastiest to other demons. As a result, they like to find a more powerful demon to bond to and serve in exchange for protection. They fly and they can share their senses to their masters, so they make desirable scouts. Also, they spawn quickly amidst the pits of Sheol so there's a lot of them to be had.

"Well, that's some splat," Calliope muttered.

Three hours later...

"How many of these things are there?!" Taylor shouted to Moose as he hurled his third bottle of kobold fire gel over his shoulder while frantically jumping from one precarious stack of rubble to the next in a fruitless attempt to stay ahead of the swarm.

The distributor cap went off, spreading the fire gel through a wide area and lighting it with a fump! of heat on Taylor's back and a flash of reflected light. The vanguard of the enemy shrieked as their wings crisped and they fell to the ground.

Calliope laughed. "It's like the Vespas all over again!" She leaped up, turning a flip with a full twist. Midair, while backwards and upside-down, she hurled her Kruthak Needle like a javelin and spitted one of the imps. She finished the flip and landed back on her board, conjuring the Needle back to her hand. It was covered in black ichor.

"Acrobatics is the what!" she shouted.

Moose: THERE ARE TWELVE LEFT IN THIS VANGUARD GROUP! BEHIND THEM, MOOSE CAN SEE ABOUT A HUNDRED OF THE IMPS AND TWO MORE DEMONS!

"Annihilation Dart! Annihilation Dart! Take a potion! Annihilation Dart!" Drew shouted, firing destruction-causing finger guns at the pursuing horde. The first dart caught a terrier-sized imp in the head, the second missed entirely, and the third only grazed its target. It didn't matter; the power of an Annihilation Dart was more than enough to blow the monsters in half even with a graze. "Hey, cool! It leveled up!"

This was the third flock. The second had arrived two hours after Moose killed the first. It had consisted of fifty of the imps and a trio of larger demons that looked like someone had melted a pair of vultures together belly-to-back and then added a truly gauche amount of chitinous spikes sticking up through the feathers in various directions.

Daímonas Gýpas

Dumb as bricks but they hit like a brick to the head. Their claws can carve through stone, their feathers are strong as steel, and their beaks are infused with demonic essence that will eat away at anything they bite. Plus, they can smell magic. Yeah, you're fucked.

One of the more plentiful types of lesser demons, these guys are foot (well, wing) soldiers in the legions of most demon lords.

The vulture demons were surprisingly nimble; Moose had spent all four uses of his Legion Rush ability to splatter the three demons of the second assault group, along with thirty of the forerunner imps. The rest had scattered. Moose chased down and crunched as many as he could, but most of them got away.

The party had picked up the pace at that point, moving faster than was safe in the bad terrain. Calliope's hoverboard made her largely immune to the danger of turning an ankle on shifting rubble or accidentally stepping in a hole and spiking her foot on a piece of unseen rebar, but the board didn't glide smoothly over the choppy ground and repeatedly tried to dump her when the rubble shifted beneath her. As a result, she wasn't able to move much faster than she could have walked. Taylor tried chain-teleporting but gave it up the second time the rubble rolled and dumped him on his head. Drew, of course, had no particular movement abilities and could only do his best to travel quickly while using his Heal spell to fix the occasional sprained or broken ankle from falls on the unstable wreckage of a civilization that never existed.

When the announcement came, the team had just climbed up the remains of a fallen building in order to get a look at what was ahead. Their first sight had been what was behind them: a metric fuckton of infernal monsters, flapping rapidly towards them.

"We could—" Drew began.

System Announcement: World Quest!

"Ah, fuck," Taylor said as the message appeared on his interface and the world froze around him.

This quest is going out to every crawler on the third floor.

Lord Belphegor has fully awakened and escaped his prison!

Belphegor the Demon Lord, level 97 City Boss, has been held in durance vile for decades by the Cult of Apocalypse Averted! They've been feeding him a steady diet of drugged-up slaves in order to keep him pacified and in the giant roofed-over pit trap that they built around him all those years ago. Unfortunately, a minor drug squabble led to disruption in the cult's supply chain, which meant that old Belphy missed a couple of doses. Everyone can say a heartfelt thank you to:

• Team Trick Shot! (Taylor, Calliope, Drew, Moose)
• Team No Reservations (Goyathlay, Ruarcc, Kuruk, Tarak)
• Crawler Jostein I
• Crawler Kaapro Virt
• Crawler Māra
• Crawler Venkata

Once the drug supply stopped, Belphy started to wake up. He found himself trapped and began summoning and sending out his scouts and lesser soldiers to figure out where he was and what was going on while he waited for the haze to wear off.

The last of the drugs have finally cleared his system and he has torn his way out of the prison and did a little hellish yoga in order to loosen up. Sixty years of imprisonment will give you such a crick in the neck, am I right?

Anyway, he's fully pissed at the humans that did this to him and is going to be taking it out on...well, basically everyone. What's the point in trying to figure out who's a cultist and who isn't when you can just kill 'em all and consume their tasty, tasty souls afterwards?

Lord Belphegor is calling up his legions in large numbers now. Waves of forerunner imps will scout the entire floor and he will be able to portal his troops long distances in order to dispatch groups of enemies.

Yeahhhh...you're all fucked. Here's your quest: don't die! If you manage to survive for thrice thirteen hours then Lord Belphegor will get over himself, stop having his little temper tantrum, and fuck off back to the depths of Sheol on the fifteenth floor, never to be seen again. (Why do I say never? Because all of you are going to die long before reaching the fifteenth floor, that's why!)

Reward: A Platinum Hellfire Escape Box!

"Ah, hell," Drew said, dragging on his joint as the world unfroze. "That sounds bad."

Moose: NEVER MIND THE SILLY WORLD QUEST! IT IS TIME FOR HOT DOGGY!

Taylor paused long enough to glance over his shoulder at the cloud of imps that were flapping after them and steadily gaining ground.

"No point in moving on," Calliope said, gesturing to the wreckage that surrounded them for miles in every direction. "This is the best footing we're going to get."

The team was standing atop what had probably been a fallen six-story concrete apartment complex. It was fractured but mostly intact, meaning that, as Calliope said, the footing atop it would be better than anything else they could reach before the demons arrived.

"I hate this one," Taylor muttered. "C'mere, Moose!"

Moose hurried over and crouched down in front of Taylor, panting with eagerness.

"I really, really hate this one," Taylor said, even as both of him pulled out bags of kobold fire gel and hastily splurted them all over Moose's head, neck, chest, back, and wings.

Moose: MOOSE LOVES THIS ONE!

"Moose is a dumbass," Taylor grumbled. "Pyrophilia!" He jumped back and tossed a torch onto Moose, turning the elephantine dog into a flaming pyre.

Moose huffed in excitement and galloped towards the charging imps. His flaming wings snapped out and he leaped into the air.

The imps, for their part, saw what was coming and quite reasonably freaked the fuck out. They slammed on the brakes, whirled, and started flapping away from Moose as fast as their little wings could carry them.

Moose was upon them before they could escape. He zoomed past, snapping at an imp here and there but mostly just ramming into them and bashing them with his wings on the way to the vulture demons. At his current size his wing strikes could break wooden posts, so what they did to the little imps was inevitably fatal.

A few of the imps, either dumber or more desperate than their fellows, tried to strike back against Moose. They were immediately crisped by the flames that sheathed the massive dog; their carbonized bodies fell to the ground with meaty thumps.

The vulture demons descended on Moose, using their superior maneuverability to juke around his claws and teeth as they slashed at his belly and the not-on-fire parts of his wings and tail. The flames and the Pyrophilia spell continually healed him, letting him survive the initial assault. He turned and raced back the way he had come, the demons in hot pursuit.

Moose led them into reach of the team's ranged attacks and then spun in the air, his left wing swatting one of the demons in the chest and hurling it forty feet up and away. His health dipped slightly as the spikes on the monster's chest stabbed into him, but it was worth it since the separation meant that Drew no longer needed to worry about friendly fire.

Drew blasted the monster in two with a pair of Annihilation Darts. The first missed but the second, probably by sheer Tir Inqua luck, was a headshot that reduced three-quarters of the monster's skull to mist. It went limp and hit the ground with a thud.

Taylor was wielding a Sig in each pair of hands, firing with slow, metronomic precision that emphazied accuracy over speed. The bullets did nothing except mildly annoy the imps; the demon didn't even notice when it was hit. After half a clip each, Taylor stopped wasting ammunition. He stood there, helpless to influence the battle, with his heart in his throat as he watched Moose fight for his life. For all their lives.

Moose and the surviving vulture demon came together. The monster was only half Moose's size and a third his weight, making it far more maneuverable, but its weird body plan meant that it couldn't see below itself. Moose came up underneath it and chomped down on its belly, one of the few bits that didn't have visible spikes coming out of it. He bit down—

—and promptly let go and dropped away, his health bar dropping as the small spikes hidden beneath the demon's feathers punctured his mouth and tongue.

The demon spun on him but Moose was already away, his health rising to full again as the Pyrophilia spell healed him. He chomped down on another imp, wing-smashed one into pulp, skimmed close enough to a third that it was blackened by the furnace heat of the burning fire gel that drenched Moose's body.

And then the fire gel burned out.

Suddenly Moose was no longer shielded and no longer being healed. The imps, seeing that he was vulnerable, threw themselves on him like hungry piranha.

Moments later, Moose was in bad shape. Chunks of flesh were missing from his sides and belly. He had burned through his Iron Skin potion and half a dozen healing potions and a trio of Heal scrolls but his massive health bar was still down to thirty percent. That bar was still plummeting; the attackers were coming from too many directions and there were too many of them.

Moose: MOOSE HAS A PROBLEM! THE BIG DEMON IS TOO SPIKY! MOOSE CANNOT BAP HIM OR CHOMPY-CHOMPY HIM WITHOUT GETTING ALL OWWIED UP! ALSO, MOOSE IS FINDING THAT HE IS IN AN UNCOMFORTABLY TARGET-RICH ENVIRONMENT! ALSO ALSO, MOOSE IS GETTING TIRED!

Taylor: Strafe past me. We're combat loading.

Moose didn't argue; he folded his wings and dropped, trading altitude for speed before pulling out and zooming towards Taylor so low he had to keep his feet tucked up to not smash them against the rubble. Behind him, the flock of imps shrieked in excitement and charged after with the vulture demon right behind.

Taylor nudged Drew and jerked his chin to the side. "Feeling lucky, punk?"

Drew grinned. "Always." He backed up along the building, stopping forty feet from Taylor.

Taylor faced himself and interlaced all four hands, each grabbing the wrist of the next. Blue looked over Gold's shoulder for an instant, then back to Drew.

"Three!"

Drew bounced on his toes, shaking his arms out and taking a deep breath.

"Two!"

Drew rolled his shoulders and set himself.

"One!"

Taylor crouched as Drew sprinted forward with all the speed a 15 Dexterity would allow, his skin sparking with incandescent light. The stoner leaped, getting one foot onto the platform of Taylor's hands, and jumped even as his friend straightened up with four powerful legs and threw Drew at the sky—

—just as Moose zoomed by and rolled in midair, scooping Drew onto his back as he went past. Drew's Shield spell snapped into existence around himself, thereby covering parts of Moose's back and sides just in time for a pair of diving imps to pancake themselves against it.

"Buh-bye asshole!" Drew shouted, blasting a charging imp in the face even as he read a Confusing Fog scroll. The familiar fogbank appeared, wispy and transparent to the crawlers and pea-soup blinding to the red-tagged mobs. It covered a decent area but it didn't move once cast, meaning that Moose immediately shot out of it before doubling back. Drew read another scroll and another and another and another, spreading the fog through the sky. His intelligence of 47 meant that the effects of the scrolls would last for almost four minutes. By the time the fog dispersed the battle would be over one way or the other.

Unfortunately, the fog only blocked vision. This worked great against the vulture demon who was suddenly moving uncertainly and slower than it had been, but the imps apparently operated on some other sense because they completely ignored the effect and continued straight at Moose, their nail-on-chalkboard screams offering the vulture demon a rough guide to its target.

"Yeeeee-haw!" Drew shouted as Moose zipped through the fog, smashing and chomping imps. With his left hand, the stoner clutched tight to Moose's chest harness while also clamping his legs around Moose in a death grip. At the same time he fired a steady stream of Annihilation Darts from his right hand. Moose and the imps were moving and rotating through three dimensions and passing one another at high speeds; Drew's accuracy was terrible, meaning that most of his bolts hit nothing but sky.

Moose: DREW! AIM LUCKY, NOT GOOD!

Drew laughed out loud and fired a bolt over his shoulder without looking. Light flicked off his skin as he released and the bolt hit a passing imp right in the ass, traversing all the way through its body and detonating inside its head.

"Good call, buddy!" Drew said, slapping his free hand on Moose's back in thanks. "Suck it, monster dudes!" He dramatically squeezed his eyes closed and extended his arm to the right, sending an Annihilation Bolt zipping across twenty yards of fog-shrouded space to smash into the vulture demon's thigh. The finger-sized bar of black energy tunneled into the flesh of the leg and exploded with a Gallagher-does-watermelon impact. The demon shrieked, its health bar dropping to the yellow. It pivoted towards them, somehow backtracking the shot even through the fog.

The air between them was suddenly black with imps, scores of the little monsters shrieking and racing towards the two crawlers.

"Gravity Anvil!" Drew said, pounding one fist against the air just as the bulk of the imps reached them.

Every imp within thirty meters was smashed into the ground so hard they splashed. A flock containing scores of imps was suddenly reduced by ninety percent. Unfortunately, the vulture demon was able to break off before running into the effect.

"Stay in the effect!" Drew shouted. "It'll keep them off for 47 seconds while I snipe!"

Moose ignored him and continued straight. His wing beats were coming slower and he was breathing heavily.

Moose: CAN'T! MOOSE HAS BEEN FLYING, FIGHTING, AND CARRYING DREW! GOING TO HAVE TO LAND VERY SOON!

Moments later they were out of the Gravity Anvil's effect and among the surviving imps. Moose snapped one out of the air, bit down hard, and spat the bleeding and dying creature out. He yowled as another imp slammed into his haunch and attached itself like a limpet, clinging with teeth and front claws while scrabbling at him with the rear claws.

"Fuck off, jerk!" Drew shouted, reaching back and slapping the imp off of Moose.

New Achievement! Darwin Award!

One thing. There was one thing that I told you not to do. I gave you this amazing class with only one drawback. That was the deal: fantastic mystic power, no punching. Did you listen? Noooo. I guess you think you're so special that the rules don't apply to you, so you went ahead and hit something. Sucks to be you, buddy!

For breaking the restrictions of your class, you receive the following penalties:

• -1 point to all base stats (permanently)
• -1 level to all currently-known spells (permanently)
• You lose 50% of your current health
• You lose the ability to cast magic for the next 30 hours

I suppose calling this one a Darwin Award isn't quite fair. After all, it's not going to kill you instantly the way shotgunning a case of Schlitz would. (No, not from alcohol poisoning, just from the shame of intentionally drinking a Schlitz more than once.) Still, without your magic and with all that owwie-owwie pain that's about to hit, I figure you'll be dead in about 9.3 seconds starting from...now!

Reward: Bratty little know-it-alls don't get rewards!

Drew convulsed as his health bar dropped by half. His body went slack just as Moose was banking to avoid an attack; Drew's lower body detached from Moose and drifted outwards, a limp hand barely hooked around Moose's chest harness.

You have been Packed!

Moose barrel-rolled, corkscrewing around his line of travel to get himself underneath Drew again. Drew was barely conscious, limbs twitching slightly from the pain of his punishment. The vulture demon was directly in front of them and closing fast, its chitinous shoulder spikes glinting evilly in the light. If Moose dodged, Drew would not go with him.

Moose bucked and dropped. His haunches slammed into Drew, launching him on a high arc towards the hidden ceiling a few dozen feet above. The stoner went up, the dog went down, and the demon, unable to see where it was going through the magical fog, barreled past right between them.

Drew was only out of it for a handful of seconds and had shaken it off by the time his arc peaked. As he descended, Moose was under him again and the two came together with an almost audible click. Drew's health went back to full as he took a health potion.

"Sorry," Drew said, miserably, clinging to Moose's harness with both hands.

Moose: IT'S FINE! THANK YOU FOR GETTING THE BITEY THING OFF! IT WAS DOING ME AN OWWIE!

"Yeah, but now I'm fucking useless," Drew mumbled, clutching the harness with both hands and pressing his chest tight against Moose's back to reduce drag. "You said it yourself: you can't bite or claw the demon without getting hurt, and I can't Dart it. If I try to attack it with a weapon I just get thwapped again. Get on the ground where the others can help."

Moose: STOP THAT! DREW IS NOT USELESS! DREW JUST NEEDS TO HAVE GOOD POSTURE!

"I what now?"

Moose: GOOD POSTURE! SIT UP NICE AND STRAIGHT, LIKE MOM ALWAYS TOLD TAYLOR AND DANNI TO DO! IT WILL LOOK VERY IMPRESSIVE ON THE RECAP AFTER MOOSE AND DREW KILL ALL THESE STUPID DEMON THINGS!

"But if I...ohhh." Drew grinned and sat up, straight and tall just like Taylor and Danielle's mom had always told her kids to do.

Moose banked hard, forcing Drew to crunch his six-pack abs in order to avoid being whiplashed. The giant dog howled his battle cry and charged at the wounded vulture demon, accelerating as much as his exhausted wings would allow. The monster heard and spun around, flapping towards them through the obscuring fog. The two massive beasts closed, head-to-head at top speed.

At the last instant, Moose dipped and skimmed underneath the monster's belly.

Which, of course, meant that the demon slammed into Moose's passenger instead of into Moose.

Moose's passenger, who was still covered in a level-8 Shield spell.

The shield broke but so did the demon, its head smashed back into its torso and its health bar zeroed out.

The Shield was a foot from Drew's body, giving him just an instant between when it broke and when the demon's corpse actually impacted him. He limboed backwards, softening the impact and taking it as a glancing hit that was mostly on his chest instead of his face. The demon's spines tore into him, rending his belly open and scraping up his chest, but then it was past and plummeting.

Suddenly, the sky was clear. The last handful of imps were fleeing for their lives at the sight of their champion bested, flapping frantically in all directions so that Moose wouldn't be able to catch more than one or two of them.

The big dog didn't even try. He dropped back to the ground, exhausted, and enjoyed the scritches that were the proper due of any conquering hero.

Moose: MOOSE IS NOT GOING TO BE FLYING FOR A WHILE. PROBABLY NOT FOR THE REST OF THE FLOOR. HIS WINGS HURT. OW.

Taylor smiled and ruffled the big dog's ears.


An hour later they broke out of the worst of the badlands and into an area that still had some standing structures. They were able to make better time, except the area was swarming with demons.

Daímonas Fidioú

Snakey snake! Demon snake! Nothing particularly interesting about them. They're big, strong, incredibly poisonous and also incredibly venomous. Demon lords use them as basic infantry but also to exploit cracks in any defenses. Have fun!

The mobs in question were, indeed, giant snake demons with oily red scales and massive fangs. They were fifteen to twenty feet long and as thick around as Taylor's thigh. They slithered with the front third off the ground so that they could see all around them. In a truly unnecessary display, venom dripped from their fangs and slowly dissolved the rocks upon which it fell.

"Betcha that venom would be useful," Calliope whispered. Both of Taylor looked at his niece with disbelief.

The team was crouching in a ruined house as a slither of nine snake demons went past. Twenty forerunner imps were scouting for them. Experience had made it abundantly clear to the team that being seen by a forerunner imp meant having a platoon of demons dropping on your head in short order. Like the AI had said, Belphegor used portals to shuffle his troops around. Given these facts, attacking the snake demons in order to harvest their venom would have been literal insanity.

Moose: MOOSE IS STILL TIRED AND WOULD PREFER THAT WE NOT ACTIVELY SEEK A FIGHT WITH THE MONSTERS THAT HE WILL NOT BE ABLE TO BITE BECAUSE THE AI SAID THAT THEY ARE INCREDIBLY POISONOUS.

Taylor: Leo, we are not moving until those things are gone. And don't talk out loud.

She rolled her eyes dramatically and stuck her tongue out at him. She pointed frantically at the nearest demon and made frenetic stabbing motions. She held up her Marston's Cord, looped it around her neck, and pretended to garrote herself, complete with protruding tongue and dying face. Fortunately, she did not actually go running out to suicidally attempt to stab a demon in the face or choke it to death.

Drew: Speaking as the useless sack of potatoes who can't defend himself, I'd prefer we not start anything.

Calliope immediately looked contrite.

Calliope: Sorry, Uncle Drew. And you're not useless, you know.

Drew: Yeah, yeah. I can read Confusing Fog and Heal scrolls and play sentry. Big whoop.

Taylor: Hey, you've been doing the lion's share of the work all floor. Leave something for us, yah?

Drew: Whatever.

He looked away, taking the joint from behind his ear...and then put it back, since the smoke might give away their position. His jaw tightened but he said nothing.

Moose: THE MEAN SNAKES HAVE MOVED ON. THERE ARE TWO MORE PATROLS COMING, ONE FROM THE EAST AND ONE FROM THE SOUTH. THEY ARE FLYING. WE NEED TO MOVE NOW.

Moose's Pathfinder skill had leveled to 4 while the team was playing hide-and-seek with the demons in the ruins. An average's crawler's minimap showed roughly a square mile when fully expanded. Moose's enhanced map showed four times the area, letting them see every mob within a mile of their position. The forerunner imps and vulture demons could cross that area in a couple of minutes on the wing but the heavy infantry that mostly covered this area weren't much faster than humans and the extra warning gave plenty of time for the team to hide. Or, as in this case, to move out.

They hurried through the ruins as quickly and quietly as possible, ducking from one patch of cover to the next. Moose led the way and Drew stayed in the middle of the group where he could be protected. The one piece of good news in this situation was that the demons were like a grumpy Old Testament god: they killed everything and didn't sweat the details. The only mobs the team came across had been torn to scraps or melted into soup by the snake demons' horrific venom. It made traversing the ruins a lot safer, although Taylor thought he probably would have happily chosen to worry about random mostly-unintelligent mobs instead of what they were actually facing.

"I had just leveled them both up," Drew groused out of nowhere. "Dart and Shield. Dart hit 10. The base power went up and I could ramp it up by spending more—" He broke off, lips tightening angrily as Taylor frantically hushed him.

"There's no damn demons around," Drew hissed.

Taylor: There's none on our maps. That doesn't mean there aren't some stealthed and hiding in ambush.

Calliope: Actually, talking might be smart. The viewers are going to get bored if it's nothing but us sneaking around silently.

Taylor stopped short, staring at her in disbelief. Seriously? They were sneaking through ruins, dozens of miles to go to the stairwell and the clock getting shorter by the minute, and she was worrying about their socials?

She gave him an arch look and waved him on. He shook his heads but started walking again.

Calliope: What? C'mon, Unc. Socials are important, Levi's been hammering on that since minute one.

"Fourth floor is when we can buy a personal space," Drew noted, an edge to his hushed words. "A space with crafting tables in it. Levi said he can make us enchanted gear if we can put him in front of an enchanter's table. I'm hoping for grenades. Magical ones."

"Ooh, nice!" Calliope said. "I want a giant space blender bomb that turns everything in the AOE into soup."

Goddamnit.

"I'd rather have something more utility-oriented," Taylor said, getting in on the action because apparently this was his life now. "Or maybe defensive. Finally getting some armor would be great."

"Best defense is a good offense, Unc. Nothing bites you after you soupify it with the giant space blender bomb."

Taylor made himself count to ten.

Moose: ANOTHER FLYING PATROL JUST APPEARED ON MOOSE'S MAP AND IS HEADED STRAIGHT HERE! HIDE!

The buildings in the immediate area were largely destroyed; the team scattered, diving into whatever scraps of cover they could find. Moose shrank down to his smallest size, roughly that of a labrador, in order to worm his way into a dry culvert.

They waited nervously until a flying squad—a hundred imps and six vulture demons—went past overhead. Then they waited another five minutes before emerging from cover and hurrying on their way.

"If we get caught by one of those patrols, we're mulch," Calliope said, saying what everyone had been thinking.

Taylor: [private chat] Leo, shut it. Drew already has enough fear and self-loathing going on that he's about a minute from exploding.

Calliope: [private chat] Sorry, Unc, but I think you aren't giving Uncle Drew enough credit. He's tough, and pointing out the excitement is going to be gold for our viewers.

Taylor clenched his teeth so tight his jaw ached but said nothing more.

They needed to hide from patrol after patrol. The demons were getting more and more numerous and twice the Terrans needed to engage small ground-based teams in order to clear the path rather than having to circle far out of their way.

When night fell, the team found a saferoom and paused for dinner and a chat with Levi. The manager was dismayed at the tales of their adventures and only Drew's clear awareness of his mistake kept Levi from berating the man for losing his class abilities.

"Moose, how much farther?" Drew asked, once the briefing was concluded.

There was a pause. Moose chewed the air uncomfortably.

Moose: PROBABLY ABOUT 35 MILES.

"Shit," Taylor said. "Thirty-eight hours to go before the floor collapses, and we've only been making about a mile per hour what with all the fighting and hiding. The demons are getting even thicker on the ground, which means more hiding. This is going to be tight."

"If you didn't have to hide so often, you could make better time," Drew said. "You know, like if you could afford to fight because you didn't have a dead-weight party member that you had to protect." He had burned through one joint since they sat down and was now lighting a second.

"Fuck that," Calliope snapped. "Don't even try that splat, Uncle Drew. You are ours and we are not leaving you. The demons can go do a Florida."

"Besides," Taylor said, "the lockout is only for another twenty-four hours. Things are going to be at their craziest right at the end of the floor, and you'll have your power back before then. Even if you didn't, we're going to need you on the next floor."

Drew said nothing for half a minute. The others waited, watching him nervously. Moose nosed his head under Drew's hand in a soulful-eyed demand for pets; Drew obliged without seeming to notice.

"'Do a Florida'?" he asked at last, a measure of humor forced back into his tone.

"Yah," Calliope said, grinning. "You always hear things like 'Florida man died because he did a dumb'. You know, like giving an alligator meth and then trying to have sex with it or something."

"I...don't think that's a thing," Taylor said uncertainly. "Right? No one has ever actually tried to have sex with a gator, methed up or not. Right?"

Drew snorted. "It is Florida."

"Right." Taylor pondered that bit of existential horror for a moment and then forced himself to change tracks. "The question I see—oh, thank you." The last was addressed to the Bopca who had delivered his cheese and mushroom omelette with rye toast. One of the nice things about being an adult: you could eat breakfast for dinner if you wanted. "The question I see," he began again, "is whether we try to push straight through during the night or get some sleep."

"We keep moving," Calliope said firmly.

"No Torch spell," Drew reminded her.

"We've got regular torches," she replied. "And those awesome LED lamps."

"Which are visible from a lot farther away than my Torch," he shot back. "I could keep the spell dim and close to the ground."

"Sun's not up for twelve hours," Calliope said. "We can't afford to lose that much time."

"The extra time doesn't do us any good if we get caught and killed," Taylor said.

"What if he's covering the stairwells?" Levi asked. "We know Belphegor wants to kill everyone. He's summoning more and more demons. Some of them are patrolling, but what if he's sending some of them to guard the stairwells?"

No one said anything.

"He can portal his troops around," Calliope said, her voice uncertain. "Wouldn't they be already be there?"

"Maybe not," Taylor said slowly. "Presumably, he doesn't know where all the stairwells are. The one we're headed for is a long way from where he woke up. If his people haven't found it then it wouldn't be guarded yet."

"We're a lot more likely to get spotted if we're moving at night," Drew said.

Taylor took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "All things considered, I think we need to—"

---

What does Taylor think you should do?

Voting is open.

• [] Push on through the night
• [] Get some sleep
• [] Write in

Voting ends when discussion has run its course, but no earlier than May 17, 2022 at 6:30 PM .

Author's Note: Regarding the saferoom showers...I wonder how many of my readers know what a phone booth is? Sound off in the comments either way. Maybe this is an American thing and people from other countries still have them? Dunno.

Once more, thank you to @Geekdumb for the suggested achievements.

Old Achievement! Discordian Delight
You are invited to drop by the #dungeon-crawler-you channel in the Quests and Stuff Discord. (That second link is an invite to the server.)