Chapter 12: Plant Your Feet
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Chapter 12: Plant Your Feet
Despite her dramatic exit, Calliope wasn't acting like the balls-out berserker that Taylor had feared she would be. She stayed with the others. She didn't get close to the enemy, keeping the distance open and blasting them to slurry with her shotgun instead of closing in and smashing at them with her skateboard. Every kill got a double tap of buckshot into its tiny skull after it went down, 'just to be sure'. She was burning through ammunition at a frightening rate but Taylor said nothing.
He would have been delighted at the change had he not noticed the tiny little hitch in her step every time a red kruthak dot appeared on their minimaps.
With Calliope providing fire support, Taylor was free to practice beating monsters to death with his yo-yo, as well as experimenting with its 'spatial lock' ability. Drew, having no system-provided method of physical combat, stuck with his shotgun and spear. He hit the kruthak with his ganja smoke whenever he could, leveling Smoke Form up to 6. The stuff was highly effective against the insectoid monsters; spending more than a few seconds in the cloud would leave them sluggish and clumsy. Unfortunately, his control over the smoke wasn't perfect and it tended to dissipate when the spell wore off, meaning that he was constantly having to burn more weed to make smoke. A pound of weed was a lot when you wanted to get baked but not so much when you wanted to fill a massive area with smoke.
Taylor, having learned his lesson, insisted on more breaks. Every four or five hours they would stop at a saferoom to eat, rest, and check in with one another. It was at the second of these stops that Drew took his opportunity. He waited until Calliope had left for the bathroom, and then asked the question that Taylor had been dreading.
"Hey Tay...why us?"
Taylor's stomach dropped. "Hm?" he asked, sipping his orange juice in a futile attempt to hold the conversation off a few more seconds. "Hey, pass the bread, would you?"
Drew passed the basket of bread over, but pressed on. "Why did you ask me and Calliope but not Danni? Or anybody else?" He drew on his joint; they were going to bed after this so it was safe to smoke. The Bopca had scowled when Drew lit up, but hadn't said anything.
Taylor tossed a couple chunks of bread into the half-full pot of cheese fondue, swirled them around, and fished them out. This was one of the unrestricted safe rooms, where the Bopca could prepare anything you liked. One of the advantages of living in the end times was that there was no reason to worry about eating healthy or minding your weight, so the table was groaning under the weight of cheese fondue, chocolate fondue, bite-sized slices of filet mignon with blue cheese drizzle, sliced pepperoni, creamed carrots, six kinds of ice cream in little double boilers of steaming liquid nitrogen, candy corn, and marshmallow Peeps. In bizarre violation of stereotypes, the last two items had been Drew's request, not the teenage Calliope's.
Drew waited with an expectant look as Taylor delighted in the first of the cheese-drenched bread cubes. Under his friend's unrelenting scrutiny, Taylor set the other cube down with a sigh.
"I thought about it," he admitted. "I thought about putting it on my channel, giving my audience a chance to choose, but I was worried that I might get arrested for incitement to terrorism or something. I asked you because I knew you could handle the question and you had a shot at surviving in here, and because I wouldn't want to do this without you."
Drew smiled, but it was a little lopsided. "And Calliope?"
Taylor shifted uncomfortably. "She was there," he admitted at last. "I don't think I would have called her if Danni hadn't dropped her off."
"You didn't tell Danni? That it was real, I mean."
"What do you think she would have said?"
"Dunno, but she would have had the choice."
"Yeah. I guess...I couldn't see her being convinced. She was going to get the option that she chose in the hypothetical, so why push? Maybe I would have tried if she had said that she would choose the dungeon, but she didn't."
"Another gun hand would be useful."
"She died painlessly out there and there's a chance that we can revive her. In here, death is permanent."
Drew snorted in amusement. "So you gave her the choice, but—" He broke off and tipped his head towards the bathroom door that Calliope was emerging from, her face freshly washed.
"Hey," she said, dropping into her chair and tossing a handful of strawberries into the chocolate fondue.
"You know you're supposed to do those one at a time, on your fork, right?" Taylor asked, amused.
Calliope shrugged, speared one of the strawberries, and ate it with gusto. "Easier this way. Besides, morituri whatever, right? No reason to worry about proper etiquette when we're all going to die a horrible death soon enough." The jocular tone made the words even more depressing than they might have been.
"I suppose," Taylor said, not rising to the bait. "How you holding up?"
"Doin' great!" Calliope said around a mouthful of chocolate-covered strawberry. She paused to swallow, then grinned. "I mean, sure, the world ended and everyone's dead, but on the bright side: no need to stress about Christmas shopping, right?"
"Dayum," Drew said. "Calliope wins the Dark Humor award for today."
"I'm working on one about 'crushing it with the kruthak'," Calliope said. "You know, because I crushed that one when I nollied on it? Hasn't quite come together yet."
"Definitely needs work," Drew agreed, alternating between nibbles of pepperoni and candy corn.
"I know it's pretty stressful in here," Taylor said. "If you're feeling like you want to vent, or if you need help with anything..."
Calliope rolled her eyes with superduperhyperhyperbolic drama. "Oh, please. Why is it that adults are always asking me if I want to talk? You, the guidance counselor, mom..." Her eyes brightened. "Sweet! I don't have to talk to Ms McIntyre next week. Win!"
"Who's Ms McIntyre?" Taylor asked.
"Guidance counselor. It's part of this new initiative where random kids are assigned to talk with counselors twice a week for a month. I'm pretty sure that the real point is to conceal who's being sent there because of disciplinary issues, but it's not like we can't figure it out, right? Kids are young, not dumb."
"What happens at these meetings?"
She waved a hand dismissively and helped herself to a scoop of dark chocolate fondue on a slice of angel food cake. "Blah blah tell me about your home life, blah, feelings, blah blah difficult point in life, blah blah blah. Waste of time and Ms McIntyre smells like moth balls."
"How do you even know what moth balls smell like?" Drew asked curiously. "I don't think I've seen a moth ball in twenty years."
"Pah. I know what they smell like, okay?"
Taylor put his hands to his cheeks in exaggerated horror. "Oh no, I'm being forced to talk to a trained professional who has my best interests at heart and wants to give me a safe place to vent my frustrations! Help! Help! Oh, the humanity!"
"Look, you—" Calliope broke off as the safe room's screens lit up, the whirling 'Dungeon Crawler World: Earth!' logo spinning into sight.
This recap was more of the same as the previous one, except it skipped over the review of last year's crawl. The first half focused on people dying. They were ripped in half by massive ogres. They had their guts pulled out by hook-handed monsters made of blades. They were eaten by wolves. They ran from monsters until they fell into spike-filled pits. They were burned to death by flaming chihuahuas, which seemed like an 'insult to injury' sort of thing. All the while, the words 'Crawlers Remaining' blinked at the top right of the screen, the accompanying numbers plummeting like an elevator with the cables and brakes cut.
Eventually, the second half of the show began. This was the part where the humans survived. The part where the woman in Valkyrie breastplate and helmet used her firebolt-shooting crossbow to cut a bus-sized spider into giblets. Where Lucia Mar ran along the wall and jump-spin-kicked a humanoid alligator so hard that its head popped off. Where an old woman, stuck in a wheelchair and armed only with a kitchen knife, kept a swarm of rats from eating her husband and daughter. Where humans were kind to one another, helped each other, and triumphed over everything the dungeon threw at them.
When the screen cut off, the team watched the counter spin down for several seconds. One in three humans who had been alive in the dungeon during the last recap were dead during this one. Of the humans who had entered the dungeon, three out of four were dead.
After a few seconds, Taylor pushed himself to his feet with a sigh. "C'mon, folks. Let's get some sleep. We've got a busy day tomorrow."
"Unc?" Calliope asked hesitantly. "Could Moose sleep in my room tonight?"
Taylor smiled. "Absolutely. Go on, boy."
o-o-o-o
The next day they plunged deeper into kruthak territory.
The basic kruthak were mostly in the level 2-4 range and no real threat even though they now traveled in groups of three to five. The kruthak assassins were in the 4-7 range and usually came in trios—a manageable threat in a standup fight and a deadly danger in an ambush—but they startled when exposed to bright light, so all the team needed to do was flick a 100,000-lumen flashlight beam into every shadow they approached, then shoot whatever came flying out.
The kruthak gatherers were a different story. They were the size of a small hippo and ranged from level 7-10, meaning that the strongest of them were stronger than the Neighborhood boss that the team had killed. Unlike their quadrupedal lesser siblings, the gatherers had four pairs of needle-pointed legs and were covered in heavy armor that left almost no vulnerabilities exposed. They moved slowly until alerted, at which point they would charge.
Calliope, in the lead as always, had come around the corner to investigate the Kruthak Gatherer — Level 8 dot on her minimap. It was twenty yards away and should have been safe enough to spy on while the others caught up but, unfortunately, something about her movement riled up the creature's teeny little brain and sent it into furious motion. It accelerated like a race car, aiming to smear her across the wall. She barely dodged, pivoting onto the wall and skating up to the ceiling. The gatherer slammed into the stone wall below her, crushing it to a depth of three inches and spiderwebbing cracks for six or seven feet in all directions.
"Calliope!" Taylor shouted, breaking out into a sprint with Drew beside him and Moose zipping ahead.
The gatherer was stunned for only a few seconds, but Calliope took the opportunity to flip off the ceiling and land on the creature's back, the board tipped just slightly so that all of her momentum was concentrated through the rear two wheels. The basic kruthak that she had embedded her board in earlier would have snapped in half from that attack. The gatherer didn't actually notice that it had been hit.
Calliope slipped to the ground, rolling in one direction while her board went another. The gatherer noticed her standing up from the corner of its deep-set eyes and turned towards her, chelicerae spreading wide. She summoned the board back to her hand, stepped around the curve of the monster's turn, and used the board like an axe to hammer on the shoulder joint of the third left leg. Unfortunately, skateboards are not axes and fourteen-year-old girls do not have the upper body strength to damage heavy chitin.
Dogs the size of tigers, however, do.
Moose leaped forward, shouldering Calliope aside and sending her sprawling away from the gatherer's grasping mouth parts. He pivoted adroitly as the monster reversed its turn, staying ahead and out of its reach so that he could get his teeth into the monster's leg. Massive shoulders and neck convulsed as he ripped...and accomplished nothing.
The kruthak hissed angrily and swatted him with one of its midlegs, striking so hard that it lifted him off the ground with a crunch of shattered breastbone. The mighty dog hit the ground gasping, legs spraddled out and health bar at half.
That was when Taylor and Drew arrived, puffing and panting and holding their fire so as not to hit their friends. Taylor hammered on one of the Heal Critter scrolls in his hot list; Moose glowed and his health bar shot back to full. He rolled aside just as a leg like a hydraulic-powered spike stabbed the ground where his head had been. Snarling, he leaped forward, got his teeth into the shoulder of that leg, put all four paws up on the kruthak's side, and tore the leg straight out of its body in a surge of explosive power.
The monster screamed and lunged for Moose, catching him a glancing blow with one chelicera; glancing or not, the serrated edge of the monster's jaw ripped an inch-deep furrow down Moose's side from shoulder to hip. A moment later another Heal Critter scroll wiped the injury away and Moose jumped back out of reach, snarling and snapping. The kruthak turned towards him—
Calliope darted in just as Taylor and Drew were about to open up with their shotguns; the two men barely checked fire and raised their muzzles in time. She grabbed the kruthak's severed leg off the ground, screamed in fury, and rammed the steely point of the leg in through the raw bleeding meat of its exposed shoulder joint. The tri-segmented leg was nearly as long as she was and the tip went in at least a foot.
The kruthak spasmed and staggered to the side.
"Die, you motherfucker!" Calliope shouted. "Die die motherfucking die!" She threw herself against the ersatz spear, trying to rip it through her opponent's guts, but its flesh was too strong and the leg barely moved.
"Drew!" Taylor shouted, pointing. He jumped into the kruthak's line of sight, waving his arms overhead. "Hey, ugly! Look over here, you stupid bug!" The kruthak jerked away from Calliope, its primitive brain reacting towards what seemed like a new threat.
Drew raced to Calliope's side and threw his weight onto the leg. Drew wasn't a large man—five seven, exactly the amount of muscle you'd expect from a Kinko's clerk who never exercised—but he was large enough. Something inside the creature gave and the leg suddenly shifted, the tip tearing through a foot of internal mass. Drew and Calliope yanked it out, unplugging the wound so that blood could geyser out as if from a high-pressure hose.
The kruthak stumbled and went down on its front knees. Its legs spasmed, its jaws clashed twice, and then it went limp.
Calliope panted for a moment, then picked up the blood-slicked leg and used it like a club to pound uselessly on the monster's armored skull. "You stupid! Motherfucking! Bug! Die, you fucker! Just fucking die, all of you!"
"Easy, Leo, easy," Taylor said, stepping in close with his hands raised in placation. "It's dead."
She hit it one more time, then threw the leg down and bent over, hands on her knees as she panted. She was trembling, probably from the adrenaline. Taylor rubbed her back while Drew stood nearby, looking uncomfortable.
Moose, of course, was having none of this foolishness. He walked up and stuck his nose in Calliope's face, snooting furiously at her in a very clear statement that she was freaking him out and he didn't like it when his humans were upset and would she please feel better and hey maybe some doggy cuddles would help? Also, petting him was definitely a good idea and had been shown to have excellent therapeutic effects.
Calliope laughed, the sound coming out more like a hiccup, and ruffled Moose's ears thoroughly before straightening up. Moose panted happily at her, tongue hanging out in an expression that the average meme creator might have subtitled: see? moose am good boy and fix Calliope sad, so gib bacon and scritches.
Taylor ruffled Moose's ears and scritched under Moose's collar, bracing himself as the huge dog leeeeaanned against him. He laughed, thumped Moose on the shoulder affectionately, and straightened up. Moose grumbled a little at the cessation of scritches and lurv thumps.
"You okay?" Taylor asked Calliope.
She nodded, embarrassed. "Yah. Sorry, guess I kinda lost it."
"Eh," Drew said, shrugging. "Seemed pretty reasonable to me."
"Ditto," Taylor said. He paused, choosing his words. "So, what do you think?"
Calliope eyed him. "You want to pull back, don't you? Think the monsters are too tough here. You're going to say that we barely handled one of these things and that if we ran into two, or even one of these plus some basic ones, we'd be toast."
"In point of fact, I was not going to say that. That thing got me to level 7, finally." The other two had already leveled, so this merely restored parity among the humans. (Moose, of course, was still leading at level 8.)
Calliope's lips compressed into a disgusted line. "Fine, you're going to make me say it. Yes, we shouldn't keep going deeper. These things are getting too strong. We should circle back and keep working around the perimeter so we can handle them in smaller batches."
"Oh? Well...I suppose we can do that," Taylor said with a drawn-out sigh. "If you really want."
"Hey, if you think we should—"
"No no," he said quickly. "I am the doting uncle who doesn't enforce bedtimes and gives you chocolate cake for dinner. If you want to move to the perimeter instead of going deeper towards what are undoubtedly overwhelmingly powerful monstrosities, far be it from me to stop you. Lead the way, oh mighty one who displays the wisdom of age in the body of youth."
She stared at him suspiciously for a moment and then pushed off down the corridor in the direction they had come.
Drew caught Taylor's eye; the two carefully stifled their laughter.
o-o-o-o
They had one more encounter on the way out, this with a single basic kruthak that took under thirty seconds. They stood back and blew it to the southern border of kingdom come with a deluge of .45 bullets, then closed in so that Taylor could smash it in the head repeatedly with his yo-yo. (He'd been trailing the others and needed the XP.)
It was then that the 'time for a rest' alarm in Taylor's interface went off, so they found a safe room and stopped briefly for coffee, donuts, and down time. Soon enough they were off again.
They worked the perimeter of the kruthak neighborhood, briefly straying over into Charlie's turf to shut down a few stragglers. "A few" was a bit of a misnomer; they found two dozen basic kruthak and another gatherer. They dealt with the basic ones up close, using skateboard and yo-yo and spear. The one time they came across a group of five they blew three of them away at range with shotgun shells, then closed in for the last two. In both cases, Taylor had Moose hang back. The dog was out-leveling everyone else and the humans needed XP too.
At seven in the morning it was time to sleep. They found another safe room, this one with a Southern theme that focused on chile and chittlins and grits, and racked out for a night of poor sleep and bad dreams.
They woke just in time for the recap, which included many horrifying images of humans dying, some images of humans triumphing, and a long list of patch notes delivered by the woman with the saccharine-sweet voice who ended every message with "now get out there and kill, kill, kill!"
And so they did, grinding their way south into the neighborhood of the plant monsters. (Taylor lobbied to name them 'phytophages', because 'plant monster' sounded dumb. The idea was roundly rejected.)
This neighborhood started off with standard tunnel walls covered in patches of moss, the patches growing larger and larger until the team was walking through a stone-floored tunnel of dark green velvet. Within a hundred yards the moss began to droop down in slobbery loops and dangling curtains.
"Ow!" Drew said, yanking his hand back from the curtain of moss he had been pushing aside. He pulled a rag from his inventory and wiped his reddened and rapidly swelling hand. "They're covered in acid, or poison or something. It burns." He used his Heal spell to fix the damage. "That's better."
"Guess we're bushwacking," Taylor said, pulling a machete out and using it to chop down the nearest loops. He kicked them aside and started walking. For once, Calliope was content to fall in behind him instead of ranging ahead; the tunnel had narrowed enough that walking two abreast left uncomfortably little clearance to the pain-inducing walls.
"Mind the muzzle sweeps, Uncle Drew," she said over her shoulder.
"I was," Drew grumbled. "Yeesh."
Ten minutes later came their first encounter with the natives. The first they knew was when a spear stabbed out of the wall, into and through Taylor's thigh. He screamed and went down as a three-foot creature made of leaves and moss climbed out of a nook on the wall. It was humanoid but the proportions were all wrong; the arms were too thick and bent in places they shouldn't, the head was simply a lump attached directly to the shoulders, and the feet were wider than they should have been. The team hadn't seen it because of how perfectly it blended in with the moss that covered the walls. Its spear was also green, wooden and narrowing to a sharp tip that had apparently grown that way, since there was not a tool mark to be seen. Worse, it was covered by more of the harmful moss.
Drew glanced down and saw an update to the infoblock above Taylor's head. In addition to the familiar crawler number, name, race, class, and bronze star acquired for killing a Neighborhood boss, there was now blinking red text saying Acidified. Drew dropped a box of washing soda on Taylor's chest and whirled on the green man.
"Moose, back!" Calliope shouted as she leaped at their attacker, machete in her right hand and her skateboard held along her left forearm as a shield and supplemental bashing weapon.
Moss Man — Level 3
The team was heavily overleveled for outer-rim mobs such as this; only the stronger monsters deeper in a neighborhood were much of a threat. Unfortunately, no one had told the moss man. Calliope's machete went through its head at a downward right-to-left angle like a kitchen knife through jello, but the creature caught the tip of its head as it started to slide off and pushed it back into place. The moss promptly grew seamlessly back together.
"That's not good," Calliope said, drawing back slightly.
"Step back and let me try," Drew said. He pulled a tupperware tub out of his inventory, opened it, and let a huge cloud of smoke burst out—he had been using Smoke Form to pack the tub full of so much smoke that it was actually pressurized, causing the tub to bulge outwards. He clicked his Smoke Form spell and wrapped the smoke around the creature like a second skin.
At first there was no effect, but then the moss man wobbled. The top of its spear lowered uncertainly, and a moment later the weapon fell from the mob's hand. It stood, swaying muzzily, and then collapsed to the ground and fell apart.
"Huh," Drew said. "I didn't think it would work that well."
They broke free of their surprise and turned back to Taylor, who was on the ground clutching at his leg. Screaming had become rapid, shuddering panting and his face was pale. Fire crackled inside the wound on his leg.
"It leaves spores," he gasped. "Couldn't neutralize the acid because it's the spores. Had to pack the wound with napalm and use Pyrophilia."
Just then, the Acidified debuff faded away and Taylor slumped to the ground, his face smoothing out as the pain ceased.
"Jesus Christ, I'm glad I've been practicing that spell," Taylor said. "The dungeon napalm lasts 60 seconds. The spell is level 3 now, so it lasts 90 seconds. I had to use two separate applications, so I'm on potion cooldown and also out of mana potions."
"Have a couple of mine," Drew said, passing the blue bottles over. "You need them more than I do. Speaking of, how many health potions do you guys have?"
"Two," Taylor said.
"Three," Calliope said.
Drew nodded and handed two more to Calliope and one to Taylor. "Here. I've got five of the things but I'm in the back. Makes more sense for you to have them."
She took them gratefully and pushed them into her hot list.
"Do we keep going or pull back?" Drew asked.
"We most definitely keep the heck going," Taylor growled. "I want to find some more of those things and burn them to goddamn ash." He held up the napalm-filled cake bag that he had been using to clear his wound. The contents had shifted from their normal brown semi-gelatinous form to a white chalk that crumbled when Taylor squeezed the bag. He cursed again.
"Apparently, once you open the bag you've got about a minute to use the stuff," he growled. "Guess the dungeon doesn't want us parceling it out in small doses as a regular thing."
Drew held out a hand and helped Taylor back to his feet. The yo-yo player took a couple steps to check his leg, found it good, and nodded in satisfaction. "Before I forget: thanks for dealing with that thing. Shall we?"
They prowled deeper into the neighborhood, poking carefully at the walls with their spears. Drew kept his smoke moving in front of them in the form of a long Chinese dragon that coiled back and forth across the tunnel, brushing against the walls on both sides.
They found six more of the moss men within the next hour, but the things weren't dangerous as long as you knew what to look for. They could only see directly forward, so once they were spotted it was straightforward to stand back and smoke them out before they could react. They didn't even seem to realize they were in danger; after the smoke dragon wrapped them in its coils they would remain still until they absorbed enough of it to fall apart. The team discussed simply having the dragon scrape along the walls as a method of detection, but the smoke took long enough to affect the mobs that it would have slowed them down too much.
The moss men weren't the only threat. Flowering plants began appearing in the middle of the corridors, giant sprawling masses like a blackberry bush run rampant. The flowers could fire puffs of gooey yellow liquid, the brambles could lash out like thorny whips, and they burned with a lovely bluish flame once you threw some napalm on them. Taylor saved his detonators; it was easy enough to pierce the bag, throw it, and then throw a torch after it. Easy, and it saved the irreplaceable magical implements.
There were still safe rooms and bathrooms in this neighborhood. They were easy to spot, since the moss remained carefully away from them so as not to obstruct the doors. There were even tutorial guilds, the minimap showing that Levi was inside each of them.
At noon, the team rested and ate at a McDonald's safe room before going back out. Hours later, as they were considering taking their second break, they ran into their first non-plant monster.
Backwoods Oni
Status: Enraptured
The oni of myth are hulking and anthropophagous figures with horns where you would expect them (i.e., on their foreheads, roughly), clear skin that comes in a variety of colors but only one color each, and forward-facing feet that have a rather pleasing shape that is somewhat ruined by those ugly claws.Of course, every species has its exceptions. The backwoods oni are the ones who decided that tricking and eating humans was too much work and they would rather retreat to the far back of nowhere and spend all day picking their noses, banging their sisters, and singing without realizing that none of them can carry a tune in a bucket because the bucket is a metaphor, you idiot. Although they're too dumb to use a metaphor if it was handed to them on a platter with clear directions on self-activating audiobook.
This guy here? He's the best of his litter. That should tell you something about his brothers and sister/girlfriend.
The monster was not quite four feet tall, with patchy skin that varied in color from a sickly green to a muddy blue/brown. He wore the remains of grease- and dirt-stained overalls, ripped and torn everywhere, including a most unfortunate one around the groin. He had a lazy eye, a horn growing sideways out of his left nostril, and he had six fingers on his right hand and four on his left.
He had a bucket at his feet, filled with the yellowish goop that the flowers extruded. He was currently busy milking one of the hanging vines into another bucket. The resulting substance looked exactly like phlegm. The kind of phlegm that came up from the lungs of deeply sick people—thick and greenish yellow.
Team Trick Shot stopped and raised their shotguns as soon as they saw the creature. Unlike everything else, it didn't charge at them, so Taylor straightened up, pushing the barrels of his companions' weapon down gently before aiming his own at the floor ten feet in front of himself.
"Hello?" he called. "Can you understand me?"
"Can't talk," the creature said dreamily. "Boss needs ingredients."
"What?" Taylor said.
The oni ignored him. He finished milking the vine, filling his bucket almost to the brim, then picked up the other one and shuffled off down the corridor.
The humans looked at one another in confusion. Moose growled softly; Taylor had been keeping him back from all the fights, since biting a creature made out of acidic spores seemed like a bad plan. The big dog was clearly frustrated at seeing his humans repeatedly endanger themselves while not allowing him to help. Here was an opponent that he could safely bite (probably) and he clearly wanted to be turned loose.
"I say we shoot him and be done with it," Calliope said. "It's what we're here for."
"Hold off," Taylor said. "This feels like a clue, and I want to know more." Despite the words, he checked that his shotgun was fully loaded and then kept it aimed forward, finger alongside the trigger as he followed the oni.
The oni led them down two hallways, up a third, turned left, and walked another five minutes. The tension cranked higher with every step; not only were they going deeper and deeper into the territory without having cleared the edges first, the path they traversed was suspiciously clear of threats. It felt very much like they were being invited onto the primrose path.
Calliope and Drew both objected several times, but Taylor was adamant. This was the first intelligent monster they had seen who wasn't a boss, and it was acting strangely.
Finally, just as even Taylor was about ready to turn back, they came to their destination.
They had passed multiple small rooms. Four of them were barracks with a trio of bunk beds occupied by half a dozen sleeping backwoods oni and one was a cafeteria/kitchen arrangement with a full-blood oni (eight feet tall, heavily muscled, brick-red scales, one large horn in the center of its forehead) and a dozen more of the backwoods type.
Oni — Level 7
Status: Enraptured
One variant of the yōkai from Japanese myth, these creatures are big, tough, and they just love the crunch of little crawler bones. Yummy, yummy!
Ahead, the hallway ended in a wide green door. It swung open at their unwitting guide's approach, providing a quick view of multiple vats of bubbling chemicals into which nine backwoods oni were pouring their buckets. There was one of the vine phlegm, one of the flower spittle, two of an oily purple liquid so dark it seemed black, and several more that Taylor couldn't see into from this angle. The minimap showed another room beyond this one, but nothing of its contents...except for one thing:
Staircase to Floor 2
Team Trick Shot stopped walking and the door closed in front of them.
"Boss chamber?" Calliope asked.
"Boss chamber," Taylor sighed. "Of course. Let's go find a saferoom and eat something while we figure this out."
o-o-o-o
They were most of the way back to the edge of the neighborhood; Taylor and Drew both walked silently, stuck in their heads. Taylor jerked back to the present moment when he saw Calliope and Moose hurrying back towards them.
Calliope came around the corner, pushing quickly but clearly not fleeing. Moose loped easily beside her, tongue hanging out in enjoyment of the run.
"What's—oh," Taylor said, as five more blue dots appeared on his minimap.
Crawler #1,731,692. "Luke F"
Level 10
Race: Human
Class: Not yet assigned
Crawler #1,731,693. "Roxanne N"
Level 9
Race: Human
Class: Not yet assigned
Crawler #1,731,696. "Sally Qu"
Level 9
Race: Human
Class: Not yet assigned
Crawler #1,731,697. "Holt Nor"
Level 9
Race: Human
Class: Not yet assigned
Crawler #1,731,698. "Morris Perk"
Level 8
Race: Human
Class: Not yet assigned
Crawler #1,731,699. "Bobby Perk"
Level 8
Race: Human
Class: Not yet assigned
Crawler #1,731,702. "Davis Ir"
Level 8
Race: Human
Class: Not yet assigned
Taylor studied their stats with dismay. The weakest members of Luke's team were a level higher than Team Trick Shot's human members, they had two separate bronze stars over their heads, each indicating a Neighborhood boss kill, and their gear had improved since the teams' previous encounter. Luke was wearing a Roman legionairre's breastplate, Bobby's hammers had a flickering black aura around them, and the others had various pieces of mismatched clothing that was clearly dungeon-made. Davis, the weasely one with the face tattoos, was carrying a wavey-bladed dagger that simply screamed 'assassin'.
Luke nodded as the Southerners approached. "Good to see you guys again. Wanted to thank you for the advice." The words had a tension behind them that belied sincerity.
"Oh?" Taylor said, tensing.
"Yeah," Luke said. "I did the piss-drinking thing. Got a Platinum out of it." He gestured at his team. "The others did it after me and they all got Platinum too."
"Oh. Uh, well, glad it worked out."
Luke smiled grimly. "Ah course, the box was for an achievement called 'Sucker!' The description is"—he paused for a moment, his eyes glowing briefly as he flicked through his interface—"Congratulations, dumbass! You just got scammed into humiliating yourself! I should really rub it in by giving you nothing, but I think it'll be way funnier if I give you something awesome and tell you that Taylor Stone and his friends on Team Trick Shot are the ones who did this to you. Oh, don't worry. I'll give your friends the same if you read this to them and they're still willing to humiliate themselves. Gotta be at least a pint, though, and it's gotta be out of that deliciously butch combat boot you're wearing!"
Team Trick Shot shifted their feet, shotguns rising. Luke seemed calm enough but his backup were absolutely seething, knuckles tight on their weapons and murder in their eyes.
Luke waved a hand. "Relax. Back on the surface we'da gut you for a stunt that dirty, but we're fixin' to let it go for now...maybe. Way I figure it, I've got three reasons not to kill and only one reason to kill you." His Southern twang was a lot thicker than the last time they'd met, leashed anger humming underneath the words.
"Oh?" Taylor said. "Do tell."
"First off, your bullshit got us some good gear and that's like to save our lives down here. Next on, killing your asses the way we maybe should do is what the aliens want, and I'd rather fuck them than you. Third, we just now killed the Neighborhood boss for this place and got the map. The staircase is back the way you're coming from, and I'm pretty sure it's in the middle of the Borough boss chamber." He gestured at his team. "We're good, but we ain't takin' a Borough boss on our own. You help us do it and open the staircase, we wipe the slate and walk on. You don't help us...well, that'd be a shame."
"Fuck you," Calliope spat. "Seems to me that we've got guns and you don't, asshat." The strong words were angry, but there was a note of stress and fear under them that Taylor hoped the Southerers couldn't hear. The hopes were dashed when a grim smile spread across Roxy's face. The skinhead woman blew Calliope a mocking kiss but said nothing.
"You might want to put a leash on her," Luke said, not taking his eyes off Taylor. "Y'all are gettin' a free pass; might could want to take it."
Taylor stopped himself from looking at the other two. This was no time for weakness, nor for uncertainty. Luke being...'able to recognize enlightened self-interest' was about the farthest Taylor was willing to go on the 'not an asshole' scale. His flunkies didn't seem to be firing on even that many brain cells. Roxy and Bobby both had a look in their eyes like the only reason they weren't attacking Team Trick Shot right then and there was because Luke was standing in the way. The fact that Luke was standing in the way wasn't lost on Taylor; it didn't feel like an accident.
"I don't give a shit about your free pass," Taylor said, "but you're right that helping each other with the boss makes sense." He shifted the aim of his shotgun so that it was pointed at the ground in front of Luke instead of at the man's center mass. With his left hand he waved for Calliope and Drew to lower their weapons. Beside him, Moose growled and leaned slightly forward but did not move from where his shoulder was pressed tight against Taylor's hip.
Calliope: You can't be serious!
Taylor: It's a Borough Boss. We need their firepower. Doesn't mean I'm going to let them stand behind us.
"You got a plan?" Taylor asked.
Luke's head jerked in a little chin-thrust of acknowledgement; an alliance had been established, albeit no trust.
"First, we pool information," Luke said. "Talk about what we can bring to the fight. You start."
Taylor pursed his lips in a moment of thought. "Let's go talk to Charlie and his gang," he said. "No reason to go through all of it twice." Plus, it would give him time to discuss with the other two as to what capabilities they wanted to keep in their pocket.
o-o-o-o
"Hey Charlie," Taylor said, trading grips with the shorter man. "Good to see you again."
"You too. Yes, especially you, boy," Charlie said, laughing and reaching down to ruffle Moose's ears as the massive dog headbumped him in a demand for pets.
"How are things?" Taylor asked.
Charlie stopped petting Moose and blew out a breath before running one hand through his thinning hair. "Stressful," he said after a moment. "Can't find the damn staircase and we've only got a day to go. Eugene is still doing his bullshit, I've got fifteen people who refuse to come out of the safe room and thirty more who have just given up. They're lying in the hallway, haven't moved or eaten in a day, won't talk."
Drew winced.
"Well, we can help you with one of those problems," Taylor said. "Good news/bad news thing. Good news: we found the staircase."
Charlie's eyes lit up for a moment, then became guarded. "What's the bad news?"
"It's in the middle of a room that we're pretty sure is the Borough boss chamber. We're here to recruit people for a raid. Middling news: Luke and his group are pitching in, and they've got the highest levels we've seen in the dungeon, and possibly the best gear, but they probably want to kill us"—he gestured at himself and his team—"so we'll have to watch out for backstabbing."
Charlie cursed.
"Like I said, we're here recruiting," Taylor continued. "Who do you have that would join us and what gear can they provide? Here's what we've got." He copied a list of the team's gear from his scratchpad and slid it to Charlie over chat.
Charlie's eyes flickered as he read it and his eyebrows rose. "That's a bunch of good gear. Not sure we can match it, but I'm sure we can find some fighters. Let me ask around."
Voting time! What do you do next? Voting ends at , or after 24 hours of no posts.
I'm looking for an action plan that specifies what you want to do about Luke and how you want to approach the staircase situation—tactics, preparations, etc. Everything you know has been shown on screen.
Charlie has asked around and rounded up all of the fighters he can. They can contribute the following:
- 27 fighters ranging in level from 3-6 and ages 25-38
- 6 fighters of levels 3-7 and ages 14-17
- A husband and wife team, both level 5, and aged 59 and 61 respectively
- 12 scrolls of Confusing Fog, obtained from the winged snakes. Creates a lot of mist that blocks the vision of mobs but not crawlers
- 49 healing potions
- 36 mana potions
- 12 scrolls of Mind Defense, obtained from the Neighborhood boss of the nagas in neighborhood 17, who was a Mind Mage. The target of the scroll receives the 'Brain Barrier' buff, which will block a certain amount of psychic damage and also remove/prevent mental debuffs
- A scroll of level 8 Fireball
- A scroll of Minor Shield that hits the caster with a level 5 Shield spell. The person reading the scroll acquires a shimmering blue personal force field that will block a modest amount of physical damage
- 3 single-use silver coins. When flipped, they will either blast a target mob with a level 10 Force Lance spell (if they land heads) or heal them to 100% (if they land tails). They can only target mobs within 20' of the person flipping the coin.
- A potion of Infuriation. Drink it and you gain the ability to use a level 10 Taunt spell, once. Calliope already got this ability as a spell in chapter 10, although it's only level 2.
- A flag with a symbol of a vaguely humanoid fish on a red and yellow background. When planted on the ground and held firmly, it projects an aura with a radius of 50'. The aura affects crawlers but not mobs. While you are in the AOE, potions and scrolls are 20% more effective and spells are 10% more effective.
You can choose to fight the Borough boss, keep exploring and hope there's another staircase, or whatever you like.
If you choose to ally with Luke and his crew then you will have information on two more neighborhoods, neither of which contains a staircase.
Team Trick Shot provides the following:
- Taylor, Drew, and Calliope are all level 7. Moose is level 8
- 3 shotguns, each with several hundred slugs, buckshot, birdshot
- 6 .45 pistols, ~1000 rounds of ACP each
- Skyhawk Yo-Yo, various enchantments including spatial lock and length-changing string
- Iron Skin potion x2
- scroll, Confusing Fog x6
- scroll, Heal Critter x4
- bathtub napalm x4
- remote detonator x6 (each can trigger up to 10 items. 10 second delay)
- Mutable Ring, 10 stat points to assign as you will
- Marston Cord (changes length, unbreakable, assists in all rope-use efforts)
- Enough smoke to fill a 20'x20' area. Does not obscure vision
You have 24 hours before this floor collapses.
New Achievement! Discordian Delight
You are invited to drop by the #dungeon-crawler-you channel in the Quests and Stuff Discord. That second link in an invite to the server.
Reward: You are invited to have social experiences and you want more?! Yeesh, some people.
Last edited:
Olivebirdy
mook.
This is exactly the sort of thinking that got us into this mess in the first place. So first, everything is televised. Not only is our betrayal not going to stay quiet, but whatever loot they get is meant to pigeonhole them into being evil bigot caricatures. Because the AI thinks it's funny. Second, these guys have stayed remarkably calm and non-murderhoboey. No new skulls, and boy there's a lot of soft human targets here.
I want to accept their offer. Set the battle up so they can't betray us, we can't betray them, everyone who survives walks away happy.
As for the boss, first there's planning and preparation that needs to be done. We've got clues, we've got time. And most bosses have some sort of trick to them. We need to talk to the Oni more, we need to find out what the black oily stuff is that they're carting. Examine the other ingredients, etc. The boss is enthralling hick stereotypes, I'm thinking of a witch brewing moonshine.
Last edited:
The confederates might be a bit distrusting after the piss incident. Could make it hard to lure them into a trap (and they could be trying to trap us, or one of them could loose their temper when given the chance for revenge in the heat of the battle)
But, we can prepare traps for the boss.
One possibility:
We got 3 single use items with a chance to use a level 10 Force Lance spell. Previously it sounded like level 15 would be good to kill a City boss. So a level 10 might be "almost one hits a boroughs boss". Especially considering the buff from the fish banner.
Prepare banner and confusion Fog, flip coins until we get a 10 lance, fire a lvl 8 Fireball. Still a risk. (especially because we could flip 3 coins and get 3 heals)
Then if we can figure out what the boss eats and can trap that piece of food:
Napalm + Remote detonator.
There is the open question of what they are brewing.
There are the "Enraptured" Oni and backwoods Oni. Probably gonna support the boss in a fight. If the Enrapture is broke, will they be angry and attack the boss? Will they attack the crawlers?
Probably should see if we can find an isolated Oni and use a Scroll of Mind defense on it (assuming we can trade with Charlie for one, but kinda assuming that won't be an issue)
If it does react hostile we can at least see if asphyxiation works on Oni and hope that the info won might be applicable to the boss.
When non-hostile when un-Enraptured we might get good info on the boss. AND learn about the possibility of a sort of slave rebellion by un-Enraptureing the other Oni. (just remember to keep enough scrolls to have team trick shot protected from possible Enrapture debuffs)
The brew might have something to do with the enrapture. Denying new brew to the boss might severly weaken the boss.
But, we can prepare traps for the boss.
One possibility:
We got 3 single use items with a chance to use a level 10 Force Lance spell. Previously it sounded like level 15 would be good to kill a City boss. So a level 10 might be "almost one hits a boroughs boss". Especially considering the buff from the fish banner.
Prepare banner and confusion Fog, flip coins until we get a 10 lance, fire a lvl 8 Fireball. Still a risk. (especially because we could flip 3 coins and get 3 heals)
Then if we can figure out what the boss eats and can trap that piece of food:
Napalm + Remote detonator.
There is the open question of what they are brewing.
There are the "Enraptured" Oni and backwoods Oni. Probably gonna support the boss in a fight. If the Enrapture is broke, will they be angry and attack the boss? Will they attack the crawlers?
Probably should see if we can find an isolated Oni and use a Scroll of Mind defense on it (assuming we can trade with Charlie for one, but kinda assuming that won't be an issue)
If it does react hostile we can at least see if asphyxiation works on Oni and hope that the info won might be applicable to the boss.
When non-hostile when un-Enraptured we might get good info on the boss. AND learn about the possibility of a sort of slave rebellion by un-Enraptureing the other Oni. (just remember to keep enough scrolls to have team trick shot protected from possible Enrapture debuffs)
The brew might have something to do with the enrapture. Denying new brew to the boss might severly weaken the boss.
3 single-use silver coins. When flipped, they will either blast a target mob with a level 10 Force Lance spell or heal them to 100%. They can only target mobs within 20' of the person flipping the coin.
Seems like a good opener for a boss. Flip it, either heal them for 0, or cast Lvl 10 Force lance.
Seems like a good opener for a boss. Flip it, either heal them for 0, or cast Lvl 10 Force lance.
Exactly.
And important detail: the damage is described as a spell. The healing isn't. That means the damage should be affected by the bonus from the banner.
[x] Plan: Investigate then Engage
This staircase is the only one we know of and we don't have much time. Better to prepare for and engage this boss than potentially waste time looking for another staircase.
First goal should be to defeat it with the puzzle solution; we need to find out about the collected reagents and see if we can either cancel their effects or even boobytrap them in such a way as to weaken the boss.
If it comes to a hard fight anyway, plant the flag, use confusion fog, use Drew's smoke on it immediately (unless it seems somehow like a boss that would get powered up if it were high), and flip the coin as opening salvo until the first force lance is used, then stop.
[x] Ditch the Piss-drinkers
I don't think we can trust Luke or his squad, they seem interested in killing us in a hallway, let alone during a battle. As much as we could use their high-level help, they might want to use *us* as meatshields. Even if they want our help and we win, they might kill us afterward (or they might be trying to get us killed in the fight, without getting PK skulls).
This staircase is the only one we know of and we don't have much time. Better to prepare for and engage this boss than potentially waste time looking for another staircase.
First goal should be to defeat it with the puzzle solution; we need to find out about the collected reagents and see if we can either cancel their effects or even boobytrap them in such a way as to weaken the boss.
If it comes to a hard fight anyway, plant the flag, use confusion fog, use Drew's smoke on it immediately (unless it seems somehow like a boss that would get powered up if it were high), and flip the coin as opening salvo until the first force lance is used, then stop.
[x] Ditch the Piss-drinkers
I don't think we can trust Luke or his squad, they seem interested in killing us in a hallway, let alone during a battle. As much as we could use their high-level help, they might want to use *us* as meatshields. Even if they want our help and we win, they might kill us afterward (or they might be trying to get us killed in the fight, without getting PK skulls).
It was there in the description. Crunch crunch Crawler bones.. the question is if we're willing to desecrate one of the dead for this purpose..
2 things:
- Is that what it always eats or just something that it likes that is pointed out for dramatic effect?
- Does it need to be Crawler bones or would other human(oid)s count?
- Like Zombies that were presumably made to resemble humans
Olivebirdy
mook.
Nobody said the one that enraptured the oni is also an oni. We do have a full barracks of oni we might need to deal with, though.
I really like the idea of using the Brain Barrier scroll on, say, the fullblood oni. Not that it will necessarily help, but it would be interesting.
[X] Talk to the Oni, use a Brain Barrier scroll on the largest oni. Investigate, then sabotage the ingredients they're harvesting.
[X] Accept the help. Borough Bosses are no joke, we'll need them and they need us.
Honestly, the piss drinking, while a prank, wasn't actually bad advice. This dungeon crawl is like Jackass on illegal drugs, the most wild, reality-tv-worthy things you do will be rewarded.
I really like the idea of using the Brain Barrier scroll on, say, the fullblood oni. Not that it will necessarily help, but it would be interesting.
[X] Talk to the Oni, use a Brain Barrier scroll on the largest oni. Investigate, then sabotage the ingredients they're harvesting.
[X] Accept the help. Borough Bosses are no joke, we'll need them and they need us.
Honestly, the piss drinking, while a prank, wasn't actually bad advice. This dungeon crawl is like Jackass on illegal drugs, the most wild, reality-tv-worthy things you do will be rewarded.
[X] Accept the help. Borough Bosses are no joke, we'll need them and they need us.
I think luke can be trusted, maybe, but his lackey not so much, still, we may very well need them to fight the boss and not fighting it means loosing a lot of loot and exp, maybe we should look for a last level up for the party before the fight, if they are close.
Also we should try burning the moss to make smoke for drew, see if it is poisonous or usefull any other way.
I think luke can be trusted, maybe, but his lackey not so much, still, we may very well need them to fight the boss and not fighting it means loosing a lot of loot and exp, maybe we should look for a last level up for the party before the fight, if they are close.
Also we should try burning the moss to make smoke for drew, see if it is poisonous or usefull any other way.
Lots of stuff we could learn from a not-brainwashed-Oni (if they will talk).
I have serious doubts about starting with the strongest we can find.
Charlie has 12 scrolls of Mind Defense, might be best to try it on an isolated weak oni before trying it in the middle of their base.
If they become hostile to us, the strongest oni would be a much bigger threat than an isolated weak oni.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I don't think he can be trusted, but I don't think we can beat the Borough boss without their help and we only have less than a day to find a different staircase. These borough bosses wipe parties of like 30 people.
We may even be able to bring up that the AI is kind of setting us up as rival groups and that we could play into the roles a bit...
- Location
- The Soviet Republic of Canuckistan
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I'll freely admit that this is a little long, but a decent chunk of it seems like offscreen prep. The tl;dr is to prep and then go all-in on the coins (one in eight odds we don't get a lance) followed by a fireball.
I think having Levi critique our general approach to the plant creatures is one of the better ideas I have here; refining our technique will be important. We want this to flow.
[X] Action Plan: Playing the Odds
I think having Levi critique our general approach to the plant creatures is one of the better ideas I have here; refining our technique will be important. We want this to flow.
[X] Action Plan: Playing the Odds
- Accept Luke's offer.
- Leo might not love it, but you'll manage your people if he manages his.
- Don't display weakness or apologize; you're men, making a deal as men.
- Recruit fighters from Charlie's camp. (Goal: outnumber Luke and co. 2:1)
- Take anyone level 5+ who's willing to go; if there aren't enough, go by level.
- Brief them on Luke: be honest about what you did, but be clear they're a threat. Watch our back; we'll watch yours.
- Don't let the religious nut join the strike force.
- Ideally, he never finds out about it.
- Get a few people who aren't coming to the fight to make sure he doesn't interfere or try to steal the kill.
- If he makes a fuss, make a j'accuse speech calling out his predatory behaviour and bounce.
- Approach a non-stupid Oni.
- Try Brain Barrier it (give it a scroll?).
- If successful, pump it for intelligence. What's it gathering? What's the boss like? You're looking for an edge, or the trick.
- If not, kill it.
- Try to poison/sabotage whatever it's gathering.
- See if soybean-and-anchovy smoke kitsune are distracting/effective - you brought Wikipedia, so bone up on folklore!
- Try Brain Barrier it (give it a scroll?).
- Hunt monsters (plants/Oni) in the area to get familiar with them/practice with your new comrades.
- Have Levi critique your performance.
- Ask him about Luke and co. Any tips? Does the AI generally set up rivalries like this?
- Brainstorming session:
- Discuss abilities/resources. (Keep small stuff back; you're immune to fire but don't mention it heals you, etc.)
- Designate roles/teams (monster management, battlefield control, support, boss strikers).
- Distribute mundane resources (barriers, acid neutralizer, etc.) and run drills.
- Distribute Brain Barrier scrolls to key individuals - boss might try mind control.
- Lean hard on any intelligence you got from the Oni.
- Talk about previous boss experiences and see if there's themes to the weaknesses.
- The fight:
- Start six hours before the collapse.
- Drop the banner ASAP so it covers as much space as possible. Designate someone(s?) to run smoke/fog scrolls: keep monsters off-balance. (Have Drew coordinate?)
- Designate someone highly mobile (nominate Calliope if she's willing) to use the protection scroll, then to get close to the boss and start flinging coins. Stop when you get a lance; throw the fireball (from within the banner) when you do. Two big spells should do a hell of a lot of damage.
- Goal is a fast, decisive victory. Looks good on TV and minimizes risk.
- Keep half an eye on Luke's people, especially as the boss' health drops.
- Be very cautious if Luke dies - his successor might not be so reasonable.
Last edited:
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Note that you have the following options for fighters, so it would be smart to specify which ones you want:
27 fighters ranging in level from 3-6 and ages 25-38
6 fighters of levels 3-7 and ages 14-17
A husband and wife team, both level 5, and aged 59 and 61 respectively
Basically, (A) do you want to bring the old people, (B) do you want to bring the teenagers, and (C) do you want to bring all the adult fighters or only the high-level ones?
- Location
- The Soviet Republic of Canuckistan
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Can we assume all those people are willing to go?
I want 10 people minimum but 20 would be better...but anyone below level five is unlikely to be useful. I have some Feelings about young kids - the elderly probably manage just fine if they got to level five.
If you can give us exact numbers then that makes life easy, or I can say 'bring at least 15 people, selecting for level and ideally not bringing anyone younger than Leo'?
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Yes. That was the point of "here's what they can contribute" -- the ~200 person group has more stuff than that, but here's what they are willing to provide to the Borough boss battle.
This works. I might do up actual numbers later on, but a general guideline like this would work too.
Olivebirdy
mook.
I like Playing the Odds a lot, especially the idea of selling Luke on being rivals with us. Drama is survival here. More attention, better loot. However, there's three quibbles I've got that I'd like to change.
One, we only have twelve scrolls, we shouldn't waste one on the NPCs programmed to be dumb. If we can't handle the strongest Oni, we must not fight the Borough Boss. If the most useful, knowledgeable minor mob is too strong for us to beat, so is the boss, and we should be spending our time looking for an alternative staircase.
Two, you've left out the idea of sabotaging the ingredients they're collecting, which could be quite important.
Three, regarding the drilling section, we should practice working as a raid and try to power-level the lowest-level people, I'm thinking we'd want to find several Neighborhood Bosses to fight together.
- Location
- The Soviet Republic of Canuckistan
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I agree with you while disagreeing with you.
My hope with hitting an Oni with a scroll is that they'll be pissed that they're mind-controlled and just dump intel on us. Fighting them isn't a big priority for me.
As far as 'if we can't beat it', again, agreeing and disagreeing. When we take on the boss, we're doing so with 7 high-level companions, our crew, a team to handle support/mob maintenance, and we have a 90% chance of landing a tenth-level spell followed by an eight-level spell. That evens the odds quite a bit IMO.
Targetting a smarter one seems smart, and we can have Levi critique that fight. I'll make the change.
Fair - I'll get this. (Not now, but within 24 hours.)
We have 24 hours until the level collapses. We need to spend eight of them resting. I'd like to start the second level six hours early. I don't think that taking out a neighbourhood boss in that time is realistic, to say nothing of 'several', to say nothing of the potential resource burn that comes with fighting a boss like that with people we don't know. It's also unclear to me that partying up and taking out a boss would push any of Charlie's people over the top.