I'm surprised everyone is so leery of Luke's group, not that they are harmless of course, but Luke himself seems to have an iron grip on the group and looks to be pretty calm and rational. If he dies then sure we might be in trouble as the rest of his group is wild, but as is we can probably expect him to act in his group's self interest, it would take an extraordinary piece of loot to be worth the 3 skulls it would take minimum to kill us without witnesses, more if there's members of Charlie's group there.
And there really wouldn't be a good time for them to betray us, during the fight and they risk failing the encounter killing everyone, afterwards and everyone is right next to the stairs down and they risk a witness escaping.
It feels like we are the ones poisoning relations between us and in trying to limit the fallout of a potential betrayal we are probably increasing the likelihood of one.
My biggest concern is them letting us die or subtly using us as meat shields. Recall that the boss's health bar is clearly visible. They just have to wait until it's far enough in the red that they're confident they can take it the rest of the way without our help.
You also raise a good point about the group being wild. If Luke's a lead-from-the-front kind of guy, he might well not make it, and then we have problems. Borough bosses are bad news when you don't have enough explosives to crater a small country, so betting on any one member's survival is unwise.
I'm not happy with only starting six hours before collapse, that eats into head start time, doesn't allow us rest and recuperation after the fight, and doesn't leave us time to hunt neighborhood bosses after getting the xp and good loot.
I am increasingly alarmed by the fact that @eaglejarl has Insightful'd my posts. If it turns out I have committed the cardinal sin of Giving the QM Ideas, please don't lynch me.
I am increasingly alarmed by the fact that @eaglejarl has Insightful'd my posts. If it turns out I have committed the cardinal sin of Giving the QM Ideas, please don't lynch me.
I'm not happy with only starting six hours before collapse, that eats into head start time, doesn't allow us rest and recuperation after the fight, and doesn't leave us time to hunt neighborhood bosses after getting the xp and good loot.
It's a balance. I think that ten hours to complete the plan (plus eight hours to rest) is about the right amount of time.
Look at it this way: we do whatever we need to do to get ready (10 hours) then rest up for eight hours. Then, we go fight the boss. If we survive, we pop a healing potion/spell and get to business on level 2 after (perhaps) taking an hour-long break and debriefing with Levi. Getting in five hours early, as opposed to six, isn't the end of the world. We'll be a little fried, but light exploration should be fine.
Suggestion: be mindful of what equipment you show off in front of Luke's party. The boss may be a kitchen sink encounter, but it's best not to give the party any extra incentive to let you die (or finish you off once loot boxes have been opened) in order to loot your bodies. The same can be said of abilities--e.g. if there's good reason to believe the boss will be immune to Drew's smoke, it would be best to hold that back as a trump card in case of post-boss conflict.
They know about his ability to control smoke; they saw it earlier. (I know this was illustrative.) We can't hide Moose, and Calliope's abilities are probably going to be necessary. The yo-yo, we can try to hold back a little. Fire is the one I'd really like to keep in our back pocket.
That said, there's a balance to be struck here. Let's say we get in a bad spot in the boss fight and trot out an ability we kept in our back pocket. Yet again, we look sketchy in front of Luke (and everyone else).
I think keeping 'fire heals us' in reserve might be reasonable, but I don't know if that would be visible if it happens mid-combat.
My biggest concern is them letting us die or subtly using us as meat shields. Recall that the boss's health bar is clearly visible. They just have to wait until it's far enough in the red that they're confident they can take it the rest of the way without our help.
I'm hoping it's a sufficiently insane scramble, and if they drag their feet a little in the fight...well, they drag their feet a little and we bring it up during loot distribution. I don't think they're going to be able to afford to turtle and let us get taken out and then do mopup; bosses are smart enough to try to heal, so any free time would probably go to that.
You also raise a good point about the group being wild. If Luke's a lead-from-the-front kind of guy, he might well not make it, and then we have problems. Borough bosses are bad news when you don't have enough explosives to crater a small country, so betting on any one member's survival is unwise.
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!
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.
I'm probably too late to have an effect and I don't have the spoons to put together an action plan, but I feel like we're trying to play things safe and strategic. Who knows how many billions of people have been put through a dungeon. I assume most of them tried to do things as safe as possible and none of them got close to winning. I feel like the only way to have a shot at this is to be suicidally reckless and hope we survive long enough to get popular with the big players watching.
I'm probably too late to have an effect and I don't have the spoons to put together an action plan, but I feel like we're trying to play things safe and strategic. Who knows how many billions of people have been put through a dungeon. I assume most of them tried to do things as safe as possible and none of them got close to winning. I feel like the only way to have a shot at this is to be suicidally reckless and hope we survive long enough to get popular with the big players watching.
IMO if we ditch Luke and co. then we have no chance of taking down the boss. It'd be us and a mob of people who are level 3-6. It's possible we could brute-force it on our own with the coins/fireball play but I'm very, very nervous that our associates would wind up mind-controlled and therefore a liability.
A tense fight side-by-side with our enemies (?) makes for good TV. It's a calculated risk, and hopefully enough to get us some screentime.
[X] Plan Trust then Verify
-[X] Choose to trust Luke's group, ask them for their group's makeup and fighting style, do they have anyone tough that would generally fit the "tank" role, does the assassin like crawler have any stealth skills?
-[X] Take the scrolls and use 1 to free an enraptured Oni and find out what the deal is with the Boss and what they are brewing
-[X] Use an info that we receive to try and get an advantage in the fight
-[X] Take all fighters that volunteer, give each person a health potion and the mana potion for the those that have spells
-[X] Your party and Luke's party will use the scrolls of Mind defense (Moose included) before the boss fight, also each person gets a health potion and mana potion.
-[X] Give the "tank" from Luke's group the infuriate potion for the level 10 Taunt as well as the Shield Scroll
-[X] If the "assassin" has stealth skills give him the coins and explain how they work to him as well as using them for to start the fight
-[X] Have Leo use the Fog Scrolls to create zones that the mobs can't see into for crawlers to pop in and out of
-[X] If Fireball is an aoe scroll, save it for later in the fight when Taylor can use the banner followed by pyrophilia on the tank and then the scroll to both heal the tank and damage the boss.
-[X] Explain all these tactics to the groups
-[X] Distribute soybeans to all of the fighters and Oni lore about their aversion. -[X] Drew burns the rest of the soyabeans and collects the smoke. Sardine smoke as well for good measure. -[X] Practices making Kitsune shape smoke-forms.
[X] Plan Trust then Verify
-[X] Do a different thing
-[X] Take all fighters that volunteer, give each person a health potion and the mana potion for the those that have spells
-[X] Use an info that we receive to try and get an advantage in the fight
-[X] Your party and Luke's party will use the scrolls of Mind defense (Moose included) before the boss fight, also each person gets a health potion and mana potion.
-[X] Give the "tank" from Luke's group the infuriate potion for the level 10 Taunt as well as the Shield Scroll
-[X] If the "assassin" has stealth skills give him the coins and explain how they work to him as well as using them for to start the fight
-[X] Have Leo use the Fog Scrolls to create zones that the mobs can't see into for crawlers to pop in and out of
-[X] If Fireball is an aoe scroll, save it for later in the fight when Taylor can use the banner followed by pyrophilia on the tank and then the scroll to both heal the tank and damage the boss.
-[X] Explain all these tactics to the groups
I am increasingly alarmed by the fact that @eaglejarl has Insightful'd my posts. If it turns out I have committed the cardinal sin of Giving the QM Ideas, please don't lynch me.
For sardines and soybeans, all we need is an unlimited saferoom. I'm pretty sure that there are examples of people taking food from saferooms, not just in cannon DCC, but also DCD, and DCK.
As per the result of the vote, chapter 12 has been updated to cover your conversation with Luke. The vote call has been removed and replaced with this:
"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 was...'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.
I would like to reiterate something others have said but I think not clearly enough. Not only do we want to use the Brain Barrier thing on the Oni but there are multiple kinds of info we want. We want general information, anything useful to defeat the boss, but beyond that, more info about alchemy in general would be helpful. Are the oni blindly following orders from a master alchemist? Following directions from a book? We want those books if they exist.
I'm afraid you're right. I think I suggested it too late for it to have been voted on. Also, I mentioned bars in towns as the likely source rather than safe rooms.
While Charlie was asking around among his people to see who was willing to face nigh-certain death against a Borough Boss, Luke and his flunkies went back out to grind. A tired Team Trick Shot headed to the nearest safe room that wasn't full of Charlie's people.
They arrived in time for the second half of the recap, which was actually a good thing. It meant that they missed the part about people dying and caught the part about people winning. There was something satisfying about seeing humans beat the crap out of everything the dungeon could throw at them. There was something uplifting about watching people help each other—sharing supplies, offering healing, and even just providing emotional support.
The recap ended with another series of patch notes, including the fact that the Feral Rabies debuff was no longer airborne and could be cured with a health potion or spell. The fact that these words were followed with "Sorry, New Zealand" washed away all the positive feelings the team had gained from the recap itself.
"And that's it," said the overly sweet voice of the woman who gave this part of the recap. "Now get out there and kill, kill, kill!"
"I really hate her," Taylor said. "Never met her, but I still hate her."
Drew raised his beer and clinked it with Taylor's in silent agreement, then downed a long pull.
"Oh, hey," Calliope said, sitting up straight. "Check it out! I got a Gold box!"
Taylor's eyebrows went up. "Really? For what?"
"Stabbing that kruthak with its own leg, apparently. Cool." A trio of boxes appeared in front of her and she hurried through the two Bronze ones (a pair of mana potions and a pile of random junk) in order to get to the Gold.
It popped open with a puff of orange smoke and fanfare of trumpets followed, weirdly, by a kazoo. Calliope waved the smoke impatiently aside so that she could reach in and lift out...
"What is that?" Taylor asked, confused.
It was brown, smooth, and a bit more than three feet long. It was a cylinder—well, a cone—that started off four inches wide and narrowed to a point so sharp it was invisible when looked at end on. There was a subtle glimmer of bluish light around it.
Calliope turned it this way and that, studying it. Her face lit up with glee and she shoved her hand into the base of the cone, flicking it out in front of her like the sword that it suddenly obviously was.
"Cool!" she said, standing up and jumping around the room with a series of Daffy-Duck-esque ha! haha! ho! ha! ho! noises as she jabbed and swished and slashed.
Taylor and Drew shared an amused look.
"Can I see?" Taylor called.
Calliope clutched the weapon to her chest in performative greed, but reluctantly came back and handed it over.
Kruthak Needle It's a melee weapon and a thrown weapon! It's a dessert topping and a mustache wax! For the ladies, you can use it to wax...I dunno, your leg hair? Whatever.
+2 Dexterity
+1 to the Sword skill
+1 to the Thrown Weapons skill
Can be summoned to your hand at will. Cooldown: 5xN seconds, where N is the number of times you have used this ability in the last 30 hours
"Pretty cool," Taylor said, handing it over. Drew held out his hand and Calliope graciously allowed him to review it as well, before taking it back and returning to her madcap imaginary battles. The latest thing was to zoom along on the skateboard with the Needle extended in front of her like a lance.
Drew lit up a doobie and smoked it while Taylor opened his three Bronze boxes, granted for lukewarm achievements that the AI clearly hadn't put much effort into. They contained only a single health potion, three more bathtub napalm bags, and a lot of assorted junk.
"My turn," Drew said, disappearing the doobie into his inventory. Two Bronze, a Silver, and a Gold box appeared.
"Cool," Taylor said, eyebrows going up. "What's the Gold for?"
"Getting severely baked in uncleared dungeon halls while actively hunting mobs. The Silver is for helping Leo when she stabbed the kruthak with its own leg." He opened the boxes one by one, working through them methodically. The loot was surprisingly good; two mana potions, three Heal scrolls that would heal other crawlers, and a seven-foot-long bident. The tines of the bident were wickedly pointed, serrated on the outside, razor sharp on the inside, with backwards-pointing spikes at the bottom. There was a lever on the shaft, similar to handlebar brakes on a bike. An experimental squeeze caused the tines of the bident to clash together like a pair of massive scissors.
Enchanted Polearm of the Big-Brain Gnomes
The Big-Brain gnomes are well known for their construction skills. This particular weapon is what you get when a trio of drunk gnomish weaponsmith apprentices start playing the "Wouldn't it be cool if it also had a..." game.
+2 Strength
+3 to the Spear skill
3% chance to inflict the Bleed debuff
+2 to the Weapon Focus skill (spears)
Skill: Weapon Focus
Your training has focused intensively on a single weapon type, in your case spears. When wielding a weapon of that type, your damage is increased by 50% per level of Weapon Focus. (Note: 'Spear' includes any long pokey thing intended to kill people, including spears, longspears, tridents, bidents, quaddents, partisans, ox tongues, pikes, etc. You humans have a lot of names for specific ways of poking each other to death!)
"Very cool," Taylor said, passing it back. "Damn, I'm jealous."
Drew snorted. "You and your fancy yo-yo can cry me a river." He played with the thing that he instantly dubbed the 'slicey handle', causing the bident's tines to scissor together over and over.
Taylor smiled, watching his friends enjoy their new toys. Drew's second-hand smoke was making him feel loose and relaxed, he was full of delicious food, Moose was curled up on his feet, snoring happy little doggy snores, and the team had agreed to rest for an hour before going back out to risk their lives.
He let his head tip back against the wall and his eyes drift closed, just for a moment. He was asleep within seconds.
o-o-o-o
Luke F: Finally found one of the fuckers alone.
Taylor: What happened?
Luke F: About as expected. The Mind Defense scroll took off the 'Enraptured' status.
Bobby Perk: And then it flipped the fuck out. Never seen nothin' like it. Cursin' up a storm, punchin' the fuckin' walls, growlin' about how "that raging bitch" did something to its brain.
Charlie Tho: Did you get any information from it?
Luke F: Not much. It yelled something about being forced to milk rotweed vines, then it said "I'll give you your rotweed milk, bitch! I'll give it to you right up your godsdammned hoo-ha!" and it ran off.
Martin Chal: 'Hoo-ha'? Really?
Luke F: On a Bible.
Maggy D: Great. What do you want to bet the dungeon's got some sort of misogynistic cliché going on? Probably a tall, skinny sorceress in a slinky gown slit up to her thing.
Martin Chal: 'Her thing'? *amused*
Maggy D: Someone wants to be sleeping on the couch tonight, hmmm?
Martin Chal: Eep! Oh no! Not the couch! *sticking out tongue*
Charlie Tho: Let's stay focused, people. We've got 25 hours before it's time to fight this thing and we know that Borough bosses are bad news. The plant monsters don't seem to be very mobile so the Oni are likely to be the issue. How many have people seen?
Luke F: Twenty-something of the little ones, nine of the big ones.
Maggy D: It's mostly been the plant monsters over here, but we've seen a few. Eight of the little ones, none of the big ones. Here's the weird thing: the little ones were carrying pamplets that said 'Are you a humanoid in good health? You could earn 50 gold for participating in a study on eternal life!'
Binh Ngo: Thirteen littles, twelve bigs. We've seen the same pamplets. Different language and they're written in Comic Sans, which should be a war crime. Same message.
Taylor: I think we must have hit the motherlode on the big ones. We saw a group of sixteen of them. They were mining chunks out of the walls, spreading something on the holes, and then putting moss over it. I think they were farming the stuff.
Charlie Tho: Hopefully some of these are repeat sightings, because almost forty of those big guys sounds like a problem all on its own. Everyone knows the plan, right? Grind with the current groups for three hours, then swap members so we all get a chance to work together, repeat. Meet back at the safe room at 1500. We'll eat, strategize, and get some sleep.
Roxanne N: You always this bossy? Reminds me of my first-grade teacher.
Calliope: Cut it out, you raging bitchhole! Charlie's trying to keep everyone alive!
Luke F: That's enough, both of you. Not in the group chat. Yes, Charlie, we've got the plan. Team Southern Pride is rocking on the south end of the neighborhood. Maggy, we'll meet you on the west side to swap people?
Maggy D: Sounds like a— Holy crap, kruthak!
Taylor cursed. Team Trick Shot were working the east side of the plant territory while Maggy and her husband Martin had volunteered for the north border. They were the highest leveled members of Charlie's Astronomy Army and had agreed to take a squad of three newbies out and help them level up in exchange for them coming to the boss battle.
Team Trick Shot waited, standing in place and staring into nothing, while desperately hoping for word. A dozen times, Taylor started to send a chat message to demand updates, but each time he stopped. The last thing that Maggie and Martin needed right now was a distraction.
It was three long, agonizing minutes, more than two hundred seconds scraping past each nerve, before the message came in.
Martin Chal: We got jumped by a bunch of assassin kruthak. They killed Jason and Booker before we even saw them. Us and Alice killed two of them and then hid in a bathroom. Maggy's hurt and we're in separate instances so I can't check on her. Maggy? You okay, babe?
Maggy D: I miss my garden. The bugs were smaller.
Martin Chal: You scared me. Are you okay?
Maggy D: Not so much. I've got a Poisoned debuff. It feels like my blood is on fire.
Martin Chal: Just hang on, okay? I'll get you out of there, we'll get through this. Okay? Please?
Maggy D: Not going to happen, honey. Those bugs are still in front of the door. The poison is eating away at my health faster than I can keep up. I've used up all my mana on Heal spells and I've taken a health potion. My potion cooldown is too long. I love you. You're the best thing that ever happened to me.
Martin Chal: Don't give up. We'll find a solution.
Drew started moving, jogging north at the fastest pace the team had found they could sustain.
Drew: I've got three Heal scrolls that can be used on other people. We're on our way. Stay alive, Maggy.
"Give them to me!" Calliope demanded, extending one hand. "Moose and I can go on ahead. We're faster."
Drew looked at Taylor. Taylor hesitated for a single moment that he would forever hate himself for, then nodded. Drew passed the three scrolls off like a runner passing the baton and, moments later, Calliope and Moose were flying down the corridor.
Taylor: Maggy, Calliope will be there in a few minutes. Hang on.
The intended recipient of this message is dead. Group chat conversations in which the crawler participated will have the crawler's messages struck through to clarify their status. Direct messages exchanged with this crawler have been archived.
o-o-o-o
Maggy Durham was eighteen when she married the (at the time) twenty-year-old Martin Chalker. The 1980s version of Atlanta wasn't as bad for a young black couple as the 1960s version that they had been born into would have been, but it still wasn't great. They had scraped by, often having to choose between buying food and paying rent, and learning to set aside little things like being stopped and frisked because they had been 'walking while black'. Things improved marginally as the years went by; they were never rich, but they still managed to move to Arizona where they made friends, went to church, and set down deep roots in their community. Where they became parents to three children and grandparents to eight. And where they became popular members of a starwatcher society and ended up trapped in a dungeon bathroom.
Chat messages flew back and forth, Team Trick Shot and the Astronomy Army ("Army? There's barely two hunnerd of us—that's a damn company!" one of the members had said) reassuring Martin that they would get him out. Everyone recognized and no one said that Maggy's body was now unrecoverable, since only she could open the door to her particular instance of the bathroom. She would be buried when the level collapsed and that was the only burial she would ever receive.
One of the hunter teams from the Astronomy Army got to the bathroom before Calliope and Moose. There were six of them: Jamal, Lisa, Milly, Howard, Mark, and Jacques. They ranged in level from 3 to 5 and in age from 14 to 22. They were armed with three machetes, a pitchfork, a coal shovel, and the 2-iron from a second-hand set of golf clubs that had probably been worth twenty bucks before the dungeon spat it out as unenchanted loot. The six barely-adults had gone to the same church as Martin and Maggy for most of their lives, had taken Bible school from Maggy on Sundays, and had joined the starwatching society because of the stories told to them by the 'gramps and gram' that they had chosen despite no claim of blood.
Taylor told them to wait. Charlie told them to wait, that more squads were converging. Calliope told them to wait, that she and Moose would be there in minutes. Half a dozen members of the Astronomy Army told them to wait. They should have waited.
They didn't wait. They charged at the four assassin kruthak who had taken up position around the bathroom door; three were leaping and scratching at it as they hissed in rage at the temporary escape of their prey, the fourth had been badly wounded by blade and by hammer. (The weapons, not coincidentally, wielded by Maggy Durham and Martin Chalker.) A fifth and sixth lay dead on the floor forty feet from the bathroom, the corpses of two young people lying next to them.
The youngsters fell on the kruthak, screaming and stabbed and smashing. The kruthak screamed back and lashed at the humans with needle-sharp legs and serrated jaws.
Unfortunately for the kruthak, humans work together brilliantly. The hall had been too wide for Martin, Maggie, and Alice to make a stand and prevent themselves from being encircled, but it was just the right width to let six furious young people demonstrate why humans were the apex predators on a planet that contained tigers, bears, and wolves.
When the battle ended, Jacques's throat was torn out, Milly's left calf had been burned away by acid, and all four kruthak were very, very dead.
o-o-o-o
"Everyone ready?" Taylor asked, looking around.
General murmurs and grunts of assent went around the group, although many people were either too nervous or too focused to do more than jerk their heads in a spastic nod.
"Okay," Taylor said. "Remember, we can do this. Yeah?"
The acknowledgements were half-hearted at best.
"Jesus, that's your big talk-up?" Luke demanded, glaring in disgust at Taylor.
"What?"
Luke rolled his eyes and turned to the crowd. "Listen up. These aliens? They're on our goddamn turf. This is our fuckin' planet, and they think they can take it from us. They put their pussy little Borough boss between us and the stairs because they think it's cute, because they think we ain't tough enough. We are fuckin' tough enough, and it's time to show 'em. Right?"
A few people nodded, a few more answered "Right!"
"The fuck is wrong with you people?!" Luke said. "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Speak the fuck up! Everyone standing here has survived five days in the worst prison yard ever invented. You have killed every-fuckin'-thing that got in your way. The strong and the pure carried the weak and the sick until they could stand on their own feet. You lazy types got over it and went to work. The cowards all died, so if you're standin' here then you're not a coward, you're not lazy, and you're not weak. You're a goddamn badass, and it's time to show these aliens how real humans get the job done. Right?"
"RIGHT!"
"Fuckin' right it is! Let's do this!" He threw the door open and stormed through, his chain and kettle bell in his hand. His minions followed him, spreading out to the sides with their own weapons drawn. Team Trick Shot (led by a bemused and chastened Taylor who vowed to work on his pre-battle speechmaking skills) were on the the southerners' heels.
The outer room was as they had seen it before; a waystation filled with vats, where Oni of both kinds dumped liquids before moving on to the inner room where the boss presumably waited.
The outer room was large but not cavernous, perhaps a quarter the size of a basketball court. There were a dozen vats, each pressed tightly against a wall. Seven of them were in use, one by an Oni and the rest by the smaller Backwoods Oni.
It was alarming how unresponsive the mobs were to the humans' entrance. They were all focused on pouring their buckets carefully so as not to spill or splash; the most that happened was an ear twitch.
As planned, a Mind Defense scroll went off, targeting the full-size Oni. The giant monster jerked, slopping the bucket it was pouring. It froze for a moment, then threw its bucket down and started cursing up a storm. The six Backwoods Oni glanced over, then shrugged and went back to their tasks. The vats were as tall as they were, so they were having to hold the buckets over their heads and pour blind, which apparently required careful focus.
"You raging bitch!" the Oni cursed. "How dare you?! How dare you?!"
"Hey there, big guy," Taylor said quietly, his shotgun pointed at the ground between himself and the Oni. "Everything okay?"
The monster spun around. "That raging bitch turned GnarledHorn into her personal puppet! GnarledHorn has been milking those vile plants for two years now! GnarledHorn has a family and they must think he died!"
Two years? The dungeon had opened less than a week ago.
"Where are they?" Taylor asked. "Maybe we can help you get back to them."
"They are on the slopes of..." It hesitated, then shook its head. "Why am I talking to you? Get out of the way, mortal." It started for the door, which was currently clogged by armed members of the raid party.
"Hold up, now," Luke said, stepping in the creature's way. "We done you a favor, breakin' her hold on you. We figure on goin' in there and killin' her, so how about you tell us a little about what we'll be fightin'?" The Southern drawl was especially pronounced right now.
GnarledHorn snorted in disgust. "She's an Oni, obviously, except she's a plant. Tall, beautiful, green, covered in leaves. She's back in there." It jerked its thumb towards the inner door. "Don't look her in the eyes. That's how she gets you." It frowned. "And she smelled really good, too."
One of the Backwoods Oni finished emptying its buckets, picked up the empties, and turned for the door. The humans pressed themselves to the walls, making enough room to let the ensorcelled little creature pass.
"How many people are likely to be in there?" Taylor asked.
The Oni waved its hand impatiently. "Probably a dozen or so of the True Folk, and three or four times that of these little worms." It aimed a kick at one of the Backwoods Oni, catching it right on the butt and sending it soaring into the wall head first. The creature hit with a meaty thud and a crack of neck bones. Its body flopped to the floor, its bucket rolling aside. The other Backwoods Oni snapped their heads around, glaring at the murderer.
The humans all tensed at the ease, both physical and moral, with which the Oni had killed its distant cousin. Hands clenched on weapons and for a moment the air crackled with battle readiness.
"My name's Taylor," Taylor said, forcing himself to relax. "It is an honor to meet you, great GnarledHorn." A stolen hour of skimming through previously-downloaded Wikipedia articles on his e-reader had given him basic knowledge of the stories about the Japanese spirits known as oni, which might or might not have anything to do with the dungeon's Oni. Unfortunately, the stories varied a lot. Some oni were supposed to be quite smart while others were dumb and easily tricked. On the other hand, they all enjoyed flattery and many of them enjoyed bargains.
"Yes, it is," the mob said, puffing itself up. "Are you standing in my way, little man?"
Taylor raised his left hand in placation, but didn't take his right off the shotgun that was carefully aimed at the ground. "If you want to leave then I could not stop you, nor would I try, oh mighty GnarledHorn. Still, my friends and I intend to go kill the woman who wronged you. A moment of your time to answer our questions seems a fair thing to offer in exchange, wouldn't you say?" Internally, he winced at how pretentious his language was getting. The stories and legends were bleeding into his speech.
The Oni's lips narrowed in annoyance, but it nodded. "Very well. Ask your questions, mortal."
"First, can you tell us—" He broke off as the remaining Backwoods Oni screamed in unison and charged at their taller cousin, swinging their buckets in rage.
GnarledHorn gave forth an angry noise that was somewhere between a bleat and a scream, then waded into the group of enraptured minions, kicking with its feet and slapping with the backs of its hands. The 'fight' was short and one-sided; the bodies of the Backwoods Oni went sailing, two smashing into the wall, one into the ceiling, and the rest knocking humans over like tenpins in the packed hallway.
The Backwoods Oni who had been thrown into the hall jumped to their feet, sqeaking in fury, and started to turn to attack GnarledHorn...only to be instantly extinguished by a dozen humans who had been living on a hair trigger for too many days now.
"You were saying?" GnarledHorn asked, turning back to Taylor. Its tone was polite, casual, as though the interruption had been nothing but a quick sneeze instead of a rapid murder.
"I...was going to ask what you could tell us about the next room," Taylor said, needing a moment to get his train of thought back. "What's in there?"
"A giant tree," GnarledHorn snarled. "Vines and leaves everywhere. The bitch's minions, both Oni and other, move about within, tending her needs. They have their own sleeping places among the green."
"You said there were a dozen of your kind and two or three dozen of the Backwoods ones, right?" Taylor asked.
"Are you so lack-witted that you need repetition? GnarledHorn dislikes repeating things, mortal."
"My apologies, great one." Ugh. Still, a little sugar helped the medicine go down, and the monster stay cooperative. (From the corner of his eye he noticed that Luke was staring flatly at Taylor but keeping his mouth shut. Good.) "Is there anything in particular you can tell us that might help us kill her?" He gestured to the vats. "In particular, what exactly is she doing with these things? If we poison them is it going to hurt her?"
GnarledHorn snorted. "She does nothing with the vats. That is her pet alchemist, a human like you. There are vines at the back of each of those vats that draw the materials through, purify them, and drip them into the alchemist's holding tanks, but it takes hours."
"Alchemy is real?" Taylor asked, wonder in his voice. "The legends say that it's incredibly powerful. Did you learn anything from the alchemist?"
GnarledHorn drew himself up. "Of course! GnarledHorn knows everything the alchemist knows and more!"
"You must be really smart," Taylor said, forcing himself to sound admiring and also to ignore the eyerolls and disbelieving stares of the other humans in the room. "Would you be willing to tell us anything about it?"
"Hah!" GnarledHorn said, waving one hand dismissively. "Alchemy knowledge is secret and not for sharing with puny mortals. It involves crushing things and mixing them. Lots of boiling things and stinky smells, too. Beyond that, GnarledHorn will not say!"
Uh-huh. Absolute master of the art. Yup.
"Aww," Taylor said, doing his best to imitate Calliope's level-15 'Eyes of the Puppy Dog' ability. "Please?"
"No! GnarledHorn has wasted too much time on you. Stand aside, mortal!" It strode forward, raising its hand to smash Taylor out of the way.
Luke's arm flicked forward and a ten-pound kettle bell smashed the Oni in the belly, making it bend forward with an involuntary oof! Holt stepped forward and repeatedly stabbed his broken bottle into GnarledHorn's neck, arm moving like a sewing machine. Blood geysered forth and the mob's health bar dropped into the yellow. GnarledHorn managed to straighten convulsively, catching Holt with one of its horns and throwing the southerner across the room with a gash in his stomach.
A trio of shotguns went off as Team Trick Shot each dumped an ammo tube's worth of slugs into GnarledHorn's head. Its health bar zeroed out and it hit the ground with a thud.
There were long seconds of silence as everyone waited for the ringing in their ears to fade. By the time it had, Holt was fully healed.
"Guess you liberal pussies are learnin' why gun control's a bad idea," Luke said with a chuckle.
"Hey!" Calliope said. "Fuck you, man!"
Taylor raised a hand to cut her off. "What makes you think I'm a liberal?" he asked, curious.
"'Cause you don't know shit about using a gun, dumbass," Bobby said.
"Hush yourself, Bobby," Luke said.
"What, you can make fun of 'em but I can't?!"
"Right. Now hush yourself before I do it for you." He turned back to Taylor. "Cool out, it was just a joke. Still, he ain't wrong. Your buddy there"—he chinned towards Drew—"keeps up with the muzzle sweeps and somebody's gonna die. Plus, you hate on the southern flag."
"Like I said, flag of traitors and slavers," Taylor said. "I'm not your friend, bubba, and I don't appreciate your bro humor or whatever the hell you thought that was. Now, we're burning time. Let's go kill this bitch so we can get down those stairs." He turned for the inner door, stiff-arming it out of the way and striding through as though he intended to walk through any wall that got in his way.
The boss chamber was massive, easily fifty feet wide and a hundred feet long. It was as GnarledHorn had described it: a mass of leafy, flowering vines covering the floor and walls and ceiling. Vines drooped here and there, forming ropey curtains that made it hard to see any distance. The skittering of rodent paws came from everywhere and occasional glimpses of furry bodies could be seen here and there among the leaves. Oni, both regular and Backwoods, were spread around the room tending to the vines in various ways—pruning, watering, and plucking dead petals from the flowers.
Through the obscuring vines Taylor could just barely make out a massive tree at the far end of the room. It was easily eight feet in diameter and rising up to a twelve-foot ceiling. It was gnarled and twisted, roots as thick as Taylor's waist forming swoops and swales large enough to hide a grown man.
"Finally!" an annoyed voice said. "Did you bring my death orchid nectar? I'm out of death orchid nectar, you cretins!"
A man stepped into view from among the vines. He was tall, rake-thin, and wore an apron covered in row after row of test tubes, each in its own little pocket. His eyes went wide as he saw the humans filing quickly into the room and spreading to the sides to make room for the next person. Taylor hurried to check his properties.
Mervyn — Level 8 Human Alchemist
"Welcome!" Mervyn said, eyes lighting up. "More applicants for the study, eh? Apologies for my brusqueness—I thought you were more of those idiot creatures. They've been slacking on delivering my ingredients. Can't get good help these days." He shook his head sadly. "In any case, I assume you are here for the Elixir of Life study? I must say, I wish the Oni were as efficient as our marketing department. Now, if you'll follow me, I'll be happy to sign you up for our trial. Please be advised that half of you will be getting the actual Elixir and half will be getting a placebo. I won't know who is getting what, because that would corrupt the study. Come along." He turned and started to move back the way he had come.
Davis Irwin, Luke's little prison snitch follower, jumped forward and stabbed Mervyn in the back with his wavy-bladed dagger. The alchemist hit the ground in a heap, screaming and struggling to crawl away.
The music began to play and the world froze, cutting Luke off halfway through a curse.
Mug shots and names for each of the crawlers slammed into the air, a blood-dripping 'Versus!' next to them, followed by the mugshot of the boss. It was nine times larger than those of the crawlers and it showed only a question mark.
B-B-B-Boss Battle!
Welcome, welcome, welcome, to the lair of Aurata Rukha Cūhā!
She's mean, she's green, she's a mind-controlling killing machine! If you dig around among these vines you'll find the bones of two dozen crawlers who came before you! Enjoy these last few breaths of freedom and life, because sixty seconds from now you're going to be either her latest victim or her latest slave!
Annnd... Here. We. Go!
The music cut out, the world unfroze, and the door slammed shut. Thirty-odd people had made it into the room, meaning that nearly half the raid party was still outside. Granted, those would have been mostly the low-ranked people whose job was simply to stay out of the way and hide. They weren't there to fight, they were there to get a Silver box for being in the room when a Borough boss was killed.
Davis attempted to stab the alchemist again, but a trio of wrist-thick vines reared up in his path, forced him to back away. The screaming alchemist was lifted up and crowd-surfed away on a wave of vines.
"Forward!" Luke shouted.
The crawlers had practiced this move as best they could given the limited space and time available, and they had taken the proper formation as they came into the room: Taylor and Luke in the center with their teams spread out to their right and left respectively, the other crawlers behind them. As one, they charged forward, Moose howling in battle-ready delight as he went.
"Fucking vines!" Calliope cursed, tossing her skateboard into her inventory. The floor was so covered in vegetation that it was hard to run without tripping, much less ride a wheeled vehicle smaller than a car.
There was a screee! of high-pitched rage and dozens of rats flung themselves out of the undergrowth. They were met with buckshot, blades, and blunt force trauma. A few got through, latching their teeth into Holt and Drew and several people in the second rank. Holt ripped the rodent free and broke its neck, casting the body aside. Drew screamed and batted futilely at the creature as it scrabbled its claws, tearing gashes into his chest and belly until he managed to crush its windpipe with his thumbs. The creature gagged and let go, at which point Drew threw it away from himself and left it to suffocate or be trampled.
Despite the attack, the party kept moving forward.
A noose of vines lashed down at Taylor; he ducked aside and slashed at it with his machete. From behind him came a series of urk sounds followed by cracking vertebrae as the vines caught other members of the formation and yanked them off their feet so hard their necks broke.
Taylor cursed. "Hold here!" he shouted, skidding to a halt. The others piled up behind him, several people running into each other and sprawling in a tangle of limbs and dropped weapons. He ignored all that and the demanding cries for an explanation and instead yanked five bags of bathtub napalm out of his inventory, slashed them open with his machete, and hurled them forward. Calliope was on top of it; lit torches followed so close on the heels of his maneuver that some of them hit the ground before he had finished prepping and dispersing all five bags.
"Bac—!" Taylor started to shout as the napalm went up in a raging whump! of heat and light and smoke. He was interrupted as a vine grabbed his ankle and yanked his feet out from under him, sending him smashing to the floor on his face.
The world went white for a second and he lost track of his body. He vaguely heard clattering noises as his machete and shotgun went flying, but all he could focus on was the pain in his broken nose and the bone-conducted crack of his ankle breaking under the compression of the vine.
Some unknown number of seconds later, his awareness came back. The vine was gone from his ankle, cut free by someone, so the pain was merely the residual agony of a green-stick break instead of the ongoing torment of being dragged and shaken by a plant stronger than Arnold Schwarzenegger. It took a moment to get his limbs coordinating with his will again, but he managed to scramble forward to collect his weapons, meanwhile hitting his Heal spell twice to fix the broken nose and ankle. He popped a mana potion to refill himself.
The shotgun was nowhere to be seen, lost among the ankle-high leaves and vines, but the machete was sticking up and easily grabbed. He rolled over, pulling his feet in and slashing at the vine noose that was reaching for him. To his left, two vines caught hold of a crawler named Junfeng and ripped him in half.
The tree at the far end of the room was screaming as the vines burned; in some rational corner of his mind that was not subsumed by combat, Taylor recognized that all of the plant life in the room must be a single organism and that hurting any of it was hurting all of it.
He regained his feet and joined the other humans in slashing and stabbing and smashing at the vines that writhed and lashed, each of them trying to grab crawler body parts to crush and drag and break. The vines were hard to cut—thick, anywhere from a finger to a wrist, and woody. Blunt weapons did little except to knock them away from their targets, but the raid squad had pressed close together and were chopping frantically, clearing a safe place to stand. Their numbers had been cut in half in less than two minutes.
"Forward! Into the burn!" Taylor shouted. "Drew! Clear the smoke!"
"Right!" The smoke from the napalm, now burned out, compacted into a sphere the size of a soccer ball. The humans rushed forward, standing in the burned-out section of the room where they didn't need to worry about the vines under their feet attacking them.
The burn was irregularly shaped, only ten feet wide at the widest point but twenty feet long. It was just enough space for the survivors to crowd together.
"Coins!" Luke roared, pointing towards the tree at the back of the room. "All of 'em!"
"Right!" Calliope said. She pulled a stack of three silver coins from her pocket and flipped them off her thumb. They had been donated by one of Charlie's people, obtained from a loot box somewhere. She had been carrying them because her skateboard was supposed to make her the most mobile member of the group and would have allowed her to get close to the boss.
"Wait!" Taylor cried. "Use the—"
Heal! Heal! Force Lance! said the AI's voice as the coins tinked off the ash-covered stone floor, two of them face-down and the last face-up.
Blue light shimmered across the plants and the vines burst into frantic growth, surging back across the burned-out area. Humans frantically slashed and kicked at the new growth, struggling to keep their footing clear.
A blast of force, visible only as a ripple in the air, lanced out and smashed into the tree at the end of the room. The intervening vines were ripped aside and a fist-deep gash four feet wide and five feet high was ripped into the front of the tree. It keened in pain and shuddered, its roots rising and falling like ocean waves in a storm.
"—banner!" Taylor finished. He looked over his shoulder "Banner! Put the banner up! Scrolls!"
One of the volunteers, a level 4 woman named Tamara, had been carrying the rolled-up banner with the picture of a humanoid fish that one of Charlie's crew had gotten from a Silver box. She unrolled it and planted the butt of the staff firmly, bracing it with one foot.
Golden light washed out for twenty feet in every direction, raising the effectiveness of spells by 20%. It was an open question whether it would have boosted the Force Lance that came from the coin but it certainly wouldn't have hurt.
"Confusing Fog!" someone shouted, reading off a scroll. Translucent mist appeared, spreading through the room. It would block the sight of mobs but not crawlers.
"Fireball!" someone shouted, activating another scroll. A moment later he screamed as a swarm of rats rushed from the foliage, up his body, and tore him to giblets in seconds. Fortunately, the spell had already gone off.
The Force Lance had plowed a path through the hanging, vision-blocking vines, thereby giving clear line of sight to the massive tree at the end of the room. A pea-sized ball of flame, burning so star-hot that Taylor could feel it as it passed three feet to his side, fwooshed down the room and burst against the tree, setting it ablaze. The tree's health bar was already in the yellow and it continued to drop as the flames took hold. The tree screamed and shook like a man having a seizure. The vines were going berserk throughout the room, thrashing back and forth in raging spasms that lacked the coordination to grab or pull but still broke bones and skulls when someone didn't duck fast enough.
"You ruined the study!" Mervyn shouted, the vines parting around him as he ran towards the crawlers, somehow ignoring the Confusing Fog effect. "All my samples, ruined! Die, all of you!" He started hurling test tubes with both hands.
Sheila, a level 6 blonde woman from Phoenix, took the first tube in the face. It shattered, spilling a pale blue liquid over her, and she went to the ground screaming as her flesh bubbled and melted.
A deep red tube hit off to one side and exploded, killing two crawlers and knocking Drew and four others to the ground.
Drew was on his ass, legs spraddled in front of him, but he still managed to get his shotgun pointed in generally the right direction and dump the magazine. His aim was terrible and he didn't have the weapon braced so the recoil made it worse, but Mervyn was at the perfect distance for buckshot. Drew's first two shots missed completely, hitting low. His third took Mervyn in the knees, the fourth in the face and throat, and the fifth splashed off the ceiling, tearing holes in a patch of leaves.
Mervyn fell forward onto his apron of potion tubes; there was a cataclysm of fire and lightning and explosion, and when it passed Mervyn was more-or-less missing from the waist to the shoulders, the surviving pieces barely connected by a few shreds of meat.
"Get the fuckin' tree!" Luke called, starting forward.
Taylor grabbed his arm and jerked him back. "No! Hold here!"
Luke spun on him, murder in his eyes, but before he could react Taylor lunged at him, sticking the barrel of his shotgun over Luke's shoulder and blasting the rat that had been leaping at the man's back. Luke flinched at the noise and looked behind him to see the remains of the foot-long creature on the ground, its head pulped into ratburger.
"Thanks," he grunted. He slotted back into his place on the perimeter and focused on using his chain and kettle bell to knock leaping rats out of the air while simultaneously kicking at any vines that crawled too close. At the far end of the room, the tree's health bar was into the red and the flames were starting to spread along its roots and the vines that emerged from it and traced along the walls and ceiling.
Several of the lower-leveled crawlers had been tasked with using the Confusing Fog scrolls to keep the room blanketed so that the mobile monsters couldn't find the crawlers. The last of those spells expired.
Between flames and blades, the crawlers had removed most of the vines in the immediate area, enough that sightlines ran for twelve or fifteen feet. There was a furious rustling noise as something crashed through the undergrowth and Taylor clicked his detonator just as a wave of Backwoods Oni came charging out of the foliage and across that killing field, six of their giant brethren behind them. Unfortunately for them, their loud arrival had given just enough warning for the crawlers to redeploy. The Backwoods Oni scrambled to a halt, piling into each other and knocking each other down, when they found themselves faced with a hedge of spears and other polearms aimed at the creatures' faces.
"Mind shields on the big ones!" Taylor shouted, slamming the Mind Defense scroll in his hot list. The Oni that he had been staring at jerked as a cloud of blue light briefly glinted around its head, wiping away its Enraptured status. It slowed to a halt and then bellowed in fury and started slashing at the vines all around it with its clawed hands.
Across the line, each of the other Oni was also freed of their servitude and started berserkly attacking everything in reach. One of them grabbed a Backwoods Oni, twisted its head off with the ease of a person opening a beer, and hurled the two pieces into the backs of its mates, sending them sprawling.
"Where are you, bitch?!" shouted one of the Oni, grabbing a bundle of vines and peeling them free of the ceiling in a long sheet. "Where are you?!"
The Backwoods Oni found themselves caught between a wall of sharp things and a wall of furious Oni. They scattered, spreading out to the sides and trying to wrap around the crawlers' formation to find an unprotected direction to attack from. Unfortunately, that wasn't hard; there were only fourteen crawlers alive, enough to form an effective phalanx in one direction but not to protect against encirclement.
"Three...two...one," Taylor said under his breath. Halfway through 'two', he tossed his last two bags of bathtub napalm. The remote detonator's ten-second delay ran out while they were in the air and the bags erupted, spraying jellied fire all around the side and rear arcs of the crawlers' formation. All but three of the Backwoods Oni were caught in it and died screaming.
"The tree is that way!" someone yelled to the Oni, pointing.
"Who gives a shit about the tree?!" the Oni shouted back. "I want that mind-controlling rat bitch!"
Oh, hell.
The ongoing wails of the burning tree rose to a crescendo and then stopped as its health bar zeroed out. The vines went limp everywhere, their leaves drooping to the ground. Most of the ones on the ceiling released their rootlets and dropped, exposing vast swaths of the room and also setting the ground cover aflame. The fire accelerated, sweeping faster through the vines as though the tree's death had dried them into tinder.
The three surviving Backwoods Oni were running for the exit; they got to the door and found it locked. They hammered on it, leaping and screaming for someone to open up and let them out. The hungry flames raced towards them, reaching out with eager arms.
Despite shooting and being knocked around, Drew had stayed on task and kept the smoke away from the crawlers, leaving them standing in the only clear space in the room. The surviving Oni were bent over, coughing and struggling to breathe even as smoke billowed around them, pressing in with unnatural density.
Still, smoke inhalation wasn't the only danger. The flames were coming closer and closer and the air was so hot it hurt to breathe.
From a patch of flaming foliage on the ceiling, a green rat the size of a Great Dane leaped out and landed in the center of the raid squad. The world stuttered, freezing in place just long enough for the AI to read the description in everyone's ear.
Aurata Rukha Cūhā — Level 18 Borough Boss
The Rukha Cūhā are fierce predators with sharp fangs and intelligence equal to a very dumb dog or a very smart human. (Yes, I got that the right way around!) Aurata is a sport, her preternatural intelligence making her a leader and a shaman of her people. Meet her eyes and she will become that which you most desire...at least, as far as your mind-controlled little brain can tell. Unfortunately, her tribe was hunted out by a bunch of slack-jawed idiots on safari and now she hates humans with the fiery passion of a thousand suns. She wants nothing more than to kill you all!
The creature was on fire and its health bar was deep in the red, but that was no comfort to Alice Jones, forty-year-old temp worker from Scottsdale, when it lunged forward and bit her leg and half her pelvis off. She went down with a scream, bleeding out almost before she hit the ground. Aurata tossed the leg aside and locked eyes on Michael Bell, a young black man from Edgewater. He was level 5, a star athlete, varsity track and field, and had been about to celebrate his six-month anniversary with his girlfriend when the Collapse happened and billions of people died. He met Aurata's eyes and his pupils shrank to pinpricks, his muscles going slack for a moment.
And then he turned and drove his spear into Roxy's side.
A chain and kettle bell smashed the Borough boss even as a Morris Perkins, the broken-nosed twin from Luke's crew, crushed Michael Bell's head like a cantaloupe with his spiked baseball bat. A gray skull shimmered into existence above Morris.
The crawlers fell on Aurata, stabbing and smashing and slicing in a fury. The creature was dead in seconds and the world froze again.
Winner! The Astronomy Army! Team Southern Pride! Team Trick Shot!
Time resumed. In previous battles the boss's minions had died when the boss did. In this case the tree shimmered and fell apart into sawdust, revealing the staircase, but the vines continued to burn.
"Fuck!" shouted Sally Quigg, Luke's skinheaded minion. "It's supposed to stop!" She jumped aside as a plat of blazing plant matter fell from the ceiling almost on top of her. It did land on Moose, who yelped in pain until Taylor hit him with a Pyrophilia spell that rendered him immune to the flames and healed him. He wriggled out from under the blazing vines and headbutted his person in thanks.
Sally ignored Moose's plight and took off running for the stairs, shouting "Come on!" Luke shouted for her to stop but she ignored him and kept going.
That was all it took to start a stampede.
Within seconds, everyone except Team Trick Shot was running, disappearing down the stairs as fast as they could go.
Taylor looked around. The room was almost fully ablaze now. Patches were still clear but getting to the stairs would involve hurdling over several low walls of fire. The door to the hall was open, but completely blocked by raging flames. Through the fire he could barely make out the faces of several crawlers looking in.
"Go!" he shouted, racing after the departing crawlers with the rest of the team hot on his heels. He had the presence of mind to divert a few steps, heft the body of Mervyn the Alchemist over his shoulder with a grunt, and stagger four seconds worth of steps until he could put the body in his inventory.
Moments later, Team Trick Shot descended to the second floor, leaving the inferno to burn itself out behind them.
Voting time! What do you do next? Voting ends Friday,
or when there have been no posts for 24 hours. Obviously, you don't have a lot of information to work with, but you will be coming out in the middle of Luke's group (minus Roxy, who is dead) plus Charlie and several other Astronomy Army crawlers. You will also have a Silver Boss box and likely one or more Bronze boxes in your inventory. You should decide how you want to deal with the other crawlers, when to go to a safe room, whether to focus on exploring multiple neighborhoods or clear one, and anything else you want to do.
The staircase to the third floor is visible on your map as you descend the stairs. It is in a small room that contains three red dots that are labeled 'kobold' and vary in level from 2-4.
Mervyn's inventory contained 102 gold coins with humanoid fish stamped on one side and the planet Earth on the other, a well-thumbed copy of the June 1972 issue of Playboy with some pages stuck together, and a thin book containing the alchemical recipe for three potions: Universal Poison Antidote, Cure Critter, and Minor Mana Reservoir. There were also scribblings describing his research into a life-extension potion but the handwriting is terrible and what you can make out is too jargon-heavy and abbreviated to understand. All of the recipes require the use of an 'alchemy table', which you do not have.
New 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.)
Reward: You are invited to have social experiences and you want more?! Yeesh, some people.
Can we please, please, please try to forge any sort of alliance with Luke?
He's a bastard. Whatever. We have a common fucking enemy. Luke's ability to perpetuate hatred is pretty fucking limited right now and so are our resources. We wouldn't have been successful without them. As well as being heavy hitters, they more-or-less neutralized the alchemist and morale matters.
If he's amicable to continued sharing of intelligence and teamups where we can actually help each other, then we all stand to do a lot better.
I would desperately like to start with asking Calliope to keep just a slightly more civil tongue in her head, and probably follow up with clasping hands like men, stating that we'll never agree with his politics but that he's a damn good fighter, and toasting Roxy and the rest of the fallen.
Point of order: Roxy was probably a racist piece of shit. She still had inherent worth as a human being and we are literally fighting for the survival of the human race as we know it. (Yes, there are other people out there on other planets: they aren't our tribe.) Refusing to act like she - and her people - have inherent worth as human beings is stupid and childish and honestly makes me not want to interact with the quest very much because I don't really feel like trying to convince people of the fundamental humanity of other people who probably had very shitty and traumatic childhoods and lives in general during my leisure hours. No, that doesn't excuse their behaviour. However, there but for the grace of god go all of us and you don't build an effective movement with solidarity by spitting on people or convincing them to drink piss. Working with them does not mean agreeing with them; it means agreeing that we have bigger fish to fry. I am all for pushing back hard if they try any racist shit, but so far, it's been talk.
(Clementine Morrigan is a cool lady and says a lot of neat stuff on her Instagram which encapsulates a lot of the points that I'm trying to make better than I can.) That was a tremendous chapter. A lot of the fervor and emotion there was because I'm still riding the high. I'm excited to see more, and I'll try to get a plan up at Some Point.
How are we doing health-wise? Who leveled, and to what?
Can we please, please, please try to forge any sort of alliance with Luke?
He's a bastard. Whatever. We have a common fucking enemy. Luke's ability to perpetuate hatred is pretty fucking limited right now and so are our resources. We wouldn't have been successful without them. As well as being heavy hitters, they more-or-less neutralized the alchemist and morale matters.
If he's amicable to continued sharing of intelligence and teamups where we can actually help each other, then we all stand to do a lot better.
playing up the rivalry some might be good for both our publicity tbh
Makes the reluctant team ups more dramatic and serious too (I mean think of like, cartoons or comics where the heroes and villains had to team up to fight a bigger villain. Hype af)
