- Location
- Book Fort
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[Slams head on desk]
That's what I get for skimming it while three other things demand my attention. Yeah, looks good, sorry for the redundancy.
That's what I get for skimming it while three other things demand my attention. Yeah, looks good, sorry for the redundancy.
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Yes, although the only way to get them there is to draw in the scratchpad and then copy/paste it over. Nothing you can find in the interface allows you to simply take a picture with your eyes.
- Location
- Book Fort
- Pronouns
- They/Them
The apocalypse happens, and Taylor becomes rich by selling porn. Welp. I guess that's one way to get power.
It's a long shot, but i mean millions of desperate civilians with all that tension and stress...
Now if we could figure out how to shamelessly tale advantage of Drew's pot-head and that alchemical book, that would be 👌.
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Missed this before, sorry. It would need to be manually typed into your scratchpad and from there it could be c/p'd into chat.
There is still the risk of Luke demanding it for his team, If he sees it.
I mean, Luke would have to touch the book--and I dont think his pride could handle that. Might make our relationship less strained if they knew that Taylor really got his hands dirty to try and get a reward or tangible trade from this though.
Notice they could try and take the alchemy book as well if they wanted. I think Luke and company will continue to be pragmatic enough to work with us here.
- Location
- Ivory Tower
My guess is that Luke's team probably got her body. They presumably would have wanted her stuff. On the other hand, that was a confused and chaotic dash for the stairs and her body may have been left there. It was good quick thinking that we got the alchemist and i'm happy with that much.
Chapter 14: Welcome to the Second Floor
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Chapter 14: Welcome to the Second Floor
Floor Two
Views: 0
Followers: 0
Favorites: 0
Taylor didn't know what he had been expecting, but the fact that the second floor looked identical to the first was disappointing.
Well, granted, it was fairer to say that the area within forty feet of the staircase looked the same as the first floor: square stone hallways, moss that ranged from light green to dark green, and that was it. Sightlines were shorter since the hallway ran only forty feet before ending in a T-junction in either direction. The map showed a grid of hallways, which was a little different; most of the first floor hadn't been so orderly.
More importantly, the map showed a small room containing four things that felt like balm to Taylor's soul:
Tove — Level 2
Tove — Level 3
Tove — Level 4
Staircase to Floor Three
"Impressive, right?" Charlie said, his smile tired but real. "No hunting around, no stress. We can stand here until the rest of the group shows up, then I'll take them all down the staircase immediately. Our old folks and kids can get races and classes, maybe have a chance to survive. With younger bodies the old folks who have given up may find themselves ready to make a try of it. Instead of two hundred people with twenty or thirty fighters we may find ourselves having two hundred people with two hundred fighters."
Bobby snorted. "People don't grow a spine if they don't got one."
"Go f—" Calliope began, her tone harsh. She broke off when Taylor put a hand on her shoulder. She also turned her head to glare at him.
Taylor: Go easy, kid. Sure, they're probably racist pieces of shit. They're also powerful. We need to have enough of a working basis that we can team up for another boss fight in the future if necessary. Plus, they're human. There's not enough of us left to be fighting each other. Save it for the showrunners.
Her face soured but she jerked her chin in a nod of grudging agreement.
Taylor turned to Luke and held out his hand. "Never gonna agree with your politics, but you're damn good fighters and you held up your end of the bargain. Thank you."
Luke preemptively gestured silence at Holt (or, as he would forever be in Taylor's thoughts, "Aryan Bro") and took Taylor's hand. "Same back to you—those guns make you effective and you played it straight. Thanks."
Taylor raised an eyebrow at the not so subtle implication that without the guns they wouldn't be effective, but he said nothing.
"Good job with smacking the boss," Drew said. "You broke its nose, made its eyes water enough that it couldn't use that mind whammy thing anymore. Might have lost more people if you hadn't."
"Thanks, brother," Luke said. "You were pretty handy with that smoke. For a minute there I thought we were all going to choke to death."
Davis's eyes were flickering with the light that suggested he was using the chat system. The weasely little man with the teardrop tattoos and the prison snitch appearance had his wavy-bladed dagger in hand, but with the blade flipped up so that it was hidden behind his arm.
Taylor tried not to tense up. Now that Roxy was dead, Team Southern Pride was down to six members. That still meant they outnumbered Charlie (the sole survivor of the Astronomy Army raid squad) plus the four members of Team Trick Shot. The southerners also outleveled everyone else; Team Trick Shot were all at level 8 while Charlie was level 6. Luke was at 11 and his team were all level 9.
"I'd like to offer a toast," Taylor said, pulling a box of shot glasses and a bottle of Macallan 18 out of his inventory. He offered the glasses around.
"Sweet!" Calliope said, snagging a glass for herself.
Taylor eyed her.
She shrugged. "What, I'm old enough to fight for my life but not to have a shot of whiskey? Besides, we don't even know where on the planet we are right now. There might not be a drinking age here."
Aryan Bro laughed. "I like this one," he said. "She's got spunk. Go on, give her a shot. Kids need to learn sometime."
"Oh please," Calliope said, rolling her eyes. "Like this is my first shot of booze. This is just my first time having the good stuff."
"What do you normally drink?" Drew asked, curious.
"Mostly crap beer," she admitted. "You know, the stuff that has commercials like 'You don't drink us for our rich, smooth taste. You don't drink us for our dark, caramel color. You drink us because we're $3.99 a case! God bless America!'"
Drew and all of the southerners laughed. Charlie grinned with an eye-twinkle, and Taylor did his absolute best to be disapproving but ended up cracking within seconds.
"Fine," he said, pouring her shot glass full. "But I'm not holding your hair if you puke."
"Yes, mom." She raised the glass high. "Sláinte!" She started to toss the drink back, but Taylor caught her arm.
"No," he said. "We do this right."
He turned back to face the others; everyone had drifted into their own little groups, the southerners arrayed in a line, Charlie on his own by a step or two, and Team Trick Shot pressed close. Taylor gestured for everyone to bring it in and, after a moment, they all did. They gathered close so everyone was in a circle with humans (and canine) standing shoulder to shoulder despite their differences.
Taylor raised his glass and studied the legs of amber fluid that lay slick on the inside of the glass after he swirled it.
"To Roxy," he said. "I didn't know her well, but she was a human and she died fighting to save other humans. For that, she has my respect." He slammed his shot back and everyone else followed his example. Calliope choked a little on hers, earning her a good-natured laugh from some of the southerners.
"Round two," Taylor said, refilling everyone's glass. "We should probably only sip this time, just so we don't all die of alcohol poisoning." He looked to Charlie. "Which of the fallen would you like to toast first?"
Charlie blinked in surprise, then smiled. There was sadness in the smile, years of memories cut short. "To Michael," he said. "He grew up in a poor neighborhood with a single mom—"
"Of course," Sally the skinhead muttered. Her head jerked to the side as Luke punched her in the ear without looking.
"You will keep that tongue still or I will sew it to your lips," Luke said, still not looking at her and instead keeping his eyes locked on Taylor's. "Whatever else the boy was, he died fighting to save American lives." He shifted his eyes to Charlie and nodded politely. "Please continue."
Charlie looked back and forth between Luke and Sally, then nodded and raised his glass again. "He grew up in a poor black neighborhood with a single mom after his father, a cop, was killed in the line of duty by a white man robbing a liquor store. He was a straight-A student, he ran varsity track and field, and this was the first starwatching party he'd been to in three months because he recently met a girl." He sipped, and the rest of the crew followed suit.
Taylor looked to Morris who stood at Charlie's left.
It took a minute for Morris to get the point that he was supposed to toast. When the penny dropped he got flustered.
"Take a sec," Taylor said. Morris had slammed his second toast instead of sipping, so Taylor topped him off with a chuckle. "Seriously, though. Sip, don't slam. We've got a lot of names to get through and we're gonna need to be able to walk a straight line when we're done." He gestured 'go ahead' to Morris.
"To Tommy," Morris said, holding his glass up. "He was one of us. Died when we first came in. Got stabbed in the neck by one of those bitch-ass—"
Luke cleared his throat and Morris cut himself off, then started over. "He was a good man. Paid his dues on time, came to all the marches, always shared his beer. Hell of a hunter." He raised the glass and sipped, then looked to Bobby who stood next to him.
"To my old lady," Bobby said, staring at his glass as though it held the secrets of the universe. "She could be a right bitch when she got in a mood, but she loved me. Gorgeous, sweet as sweet tea most of the time. Real firecracker, and totally out of my league. Dunno why she never realized that." He snorted in amusement and raised the glass, then sipped.
"To Billy," Luke said. "He'll know why." He sipped.
The toasts went around the circle, and around again, and around yet again. There were too many names and not enough booze; they killed the bottle long before anyone was finished listing everyone they loved who had died in the dungeon and the Collapse. By the time the last drop had been drained, the mood was somber.
"Charlie, you lost everyone from your team who came with us on that raid," Taylor said. He offered the empty Macallan bottle. "Your people can never be replaced, but I hope you'll remember this moment and know that there are other humans in here who share your pain and will stand beside you to help bear it."
Murmurs of "Hear, hear," and "Fuck yeah," went around the circle. Charlie took the bottle with a smile and blurry eyes. He wiped them away and cleared his throat. "Thank you." He swept his gaze over the southerners, making eye contact with each for a moment and then nodding to Luke. "And thank you for standing with us."
Luke grunted and jerked his chin in acknowledgement. "What's your plan? You really gonna stand here 'til your folk show up, then go straight down?"
"Yup," Charlie said. "Some of them were in the hall and they saw us clear the room. They'll go get everyone and bring them down the stairs. Then I'm going to take everyone down the stairs to the third floor."
"You'll be froze until this floor collapses," Luke noted. "First floor was five days, our guide said they usually add five per floor. Ten days is a lot of time to miss out on. You're gonna be underleveled for the third floor."
"Sure, but that's not that different from now," Charlie replied. "Our biggest problem is that most of us are over sixty and there's a dozen or so little kids who need someone to watch them. The ones who are physically capable don't have any decent weapons, so it's hard to level. It makes everyone feel like there's nothing to be done, so morale is in the crapper and too many people have just given up.
"If we go down now then we won't lose anyone on this floor and on the third floor we can make race and class selections. That should give us some firepower, and they rebuild your body. Make you an adult but young and fit and healthy." He grimaced. "Apparently the aliens like watching young, pretty people get killed instead of fat old ones. Anyway, it should make the old people and the kids combat effective, either as fighters or support, and hopefully it will boost morale enough that people are willing to get up and get out there."
Luke nodded thoughtfully. "Can't say as it's a bad plan." He studied Charlie for a moment, then looked to Taylor. Finally, he nodded. "We're headin' out. Gotta get those levels while we can. We'll see you on the next floor. Good luck to you." He looked back to Taylor. "Yankee, you've got our digits. Call if you find another boss you need help with."
Taylor nodded, biting down on the urge to shoot back something equally passive-aggressive. Instead, he said, "Will do. Try not to die. There's not enough humans left."
Luke's team made various noises of amusement. Luke smiled slightly. "Same to you. Good luck when the ammo runs out."
"Not happening anytime soon," Taylor said confidently, praying that Drew wouldn't react and blow the gaff. The team actually was starting to run low on buckshot and shotgun slugs—probably enough for another two, maybe three days at the rate they'd been going through it. What had seemed like enough ammunition to fight a war turned out to be a lot less when you were in a literal war zone. Especially when an angry teenager was taking her trauma out on the trigger of her weapon.
"Sure," Luke said. He gave them a little chin-thrust of acknowledgement, then turned and strode off. His flunkies flashed looks at Team Trick Shot, looks that varied from 'angry' to 'wondering what was in a loot box', but they followed their leader without saying anything.
Charlie waited until they were well out of sight before letting out a long breath. "Wasn't sure how that was gonna go."
"Me neither," Taylor admitted. "I've got a couple other things I want to talk to them about, but I'm very happy to be able to do it over chat."
Drew gave him an eyebrow. "You want to talk to those creeps?"
"Yeah. For one thing, I grabbed that alchemist's body before coming down here and he had a book on him with three potion recipes in it: Universal Poison Antidote, Cure Critter, and Minor Mana Reservoir. I want to spread that around, make sure that everyone has them."
Calliope looked at him like he was crazy. "Jesus, Unc. You really want to power those guys up? I get that they're strong and any port in a storm and enemy of my enemy and all that bullshit, but did you see the way that guy with the knife looked at me on the way out? Luke is barely holding them back from going full murderhobo. If he dies, those guys are absolutely going to try to gut us for our gear. Us and everyone else they come across who doesn't look like a Nazi recruiting poster."
She wasn't wrong, but Taylor wasn't going to say that out loud. They were on the second floor now, and the universe was watching. "That's a little hyperbolic, Leo. Anyway, let's talk about the next move. Charlie, I'm figuring we find a safe room and—"
Charlie's eyes started flickering and he held up a hand to interrupt. "Bryce says that the boss room has burned itself out and it's safe to travel through. He and his team are staying to hold the entrance but they've messaged some of the organizers back at camp. People are already moving this way. They'll be here soon."
"Cool," Taylor said in relief. "We'll wait here with you until you've got some more people as guards, then we'll clear the toves out of the stairway room and scout around to make sure there's nothing else in your way."
Taylor: Hey Luke, got a thought for you: our tutorial guide says that rivals are good for ratings. Something to consider while you're all discussing Davis's suggestion that you kill us for our gear. *humor*
Luke: I'll keep it in mind while we're discussing.
o-o-o-o
Team Trick Shot set up barricades around the staircase, then waited with Charlie for two hours until his people started arriving. Once he had enough of a bodyguard available, they left and cleared out the path to the staircase room.
Five minutes out from the barricades, they saw their first mob appear on the minimap.
Brindle Grub — Level 2
"Shotguns for the first one," Taylor said quietly. "Moose, stay back until we know if they have poison or acid or something."
The big dog chuffed his annoyance but he stayed at Taylor's side instead of moving into the advance.
They came around the corner to see...a fuzzy, legless cylinder with brown and black fur. It was sliding along the corridor very, very slowly. Taylor checked its properties as soon as they were in range.
Have you ever found a dead, bloated, and decomposing body? Have ya poked it with a stick just to see what would wiggle out? Perhaps rubbed it with your bare foot? You know you've wanted to. Well, wonder no more. Here on the second floor, rats are yesterday's news. Brindle Grubs are now all the rage, and janitor duty falls unto them. The more monsters you kill in an area, the more the grubs eat. The more the grubs eat, the bigger they get. Once you start finding them in the pupa stage, you best move on. Grubs are easy to kill. Their older siblings are not.
"They eat corpses," Calliope said. "Do they eat each other's corpses?"
No one spoke for a second.
"We're going to be carrying tons of corpses around with us, aren't we?" Drew said plaintively.
"Oh yes," Taylor said. "Absolutely. No corpse left behind from now on." He fired off a message to Charlie, pasting the grub's description into the chat message and suggesting that they be sure to pick up every corpse they came across or created. After a moment's thought, he sent the same thing to Luke.
Calliope's shotgun barked, the sound deafening in the close quarters of the corridor, and the grub exploded like a water balloon filled with jello. Greenish blood flew everywhere, leaving only a small rag of flesh on the floor.
"That was easy," the girl said.
"A little...too easy," Drew said, dropping his voice into an exaggerated noir rasp.
"Nose goes for corpse duty," Taylor said, putting his finger on his nose. Drew followed him almost instantly.
"What?" Calliope asked, confused.
"You have to pick up the corpse," Taylor said. "You were the last one to put your finger on your nose."
"What?! That's stupid! How was I supposed to know that I needed to put my finger on my nose?"
Taylor and Drew offered synchronized Gallic shrugs.
"Everyone knows nose goes," Taylor said. "Well, everyone cool."
"I think you mean everyone old," Calliope muttered. "Fine. But I'm not getting the next one." She collected the corpse, taking care to keep the blood and guts from touching her board or her skin.
o-o-o-o
From then on they started running into more brindle grubs. The creatures came every hundred yards or so, often in groups. The level 2 version were absolutely harmless; they had no claws, no teeth, and testing showed that their jaws weren't even powerful enough to mark a hot dog. You could literally put them on your shoulder and it wasn't a problem. Calliope briefly considered doing that until she looked at their underside, where the soft and attractive fur gave way to an array of lamprey-like mouths with long gray tongues. The mouths continually irised open and closed as the grub slurped the floor clean. The tongues were apparently what they used to drag themselves forward.
They learned to kill the grubs as neatly as they could, then inventory the corpses. Drew had a fun time using the scissors function of his polearm to snip them in half. Moose seemed to find them delicious. At first, Taylor tried to hold the dog back so that the humans could get some grinding done, but the grubs gave such miniscule XP that it was better to let Moose have his fun. The big dog treated the grubs like he treated his favorite chew toy back home—he would pick one up in his jaws and shake it furiously back and forth, then pin it down with one paw and bite it in half. He ate a couple of them, clearly finding them even tastier than his usual diet of pet biscuits.
The room with the inbound staircase and the room with the outbound staircase were close enough to show on a fully-expanded minimap; as the crow flies, the team could have walked from one to the other in a few minutes. Unfortunately, they weren't crows. There was no direct approach and the shortest route was more like forty minutes at a brisk walk, which meant more like ninety while performing an initial scout.
By the time they got to the staircase room, it was empty, the toves who had been in it earlier long gone. Team Trick Shot investigated carefully to be sure there were no hidden ambushes or traps; there weren't, so they notified Charlie of what they had (not) found and doubled back to one of the guild halls they had passed. Taylor made a point of stunting his yo-yo as they walked, turning the rave mode on and off unpredictably for dramatic effect. He stuck with the handful of tricks that he had practiced the most; this was no time to be dropping the yo-yo.
Views: 15,017,831
Followers: 19,127
Favorites: 102
He found himself sweating worse than he had since the time he'd posted his first video to YouTube and then stayed up all night refreshing his stats page to see if anyone was watching it. (No one was.)
It had taken a week to get his first subscriber, three months to get his 100th subscriber, sixteen months to get his 1,000th, and thirty-six months before the lucky break that put him on a rocket through the 100,000 barrier. Team Trick Shot didn't have that kind of time. If there were octillions of aliens watching the crawl then fifteen million views was probably the number of people who saw you only because they accidentally typoed the name of a better channel.
Granted, the team had only been on this floor for a few hours. Maybe fifteen million was good? Doubtful. Still, maybe?
Taylor: Guys, I'm going to try something. Play it cool.
"Hey up there in outer space," Taylor said, offering the ceiling his best 'welcome to the channel' smile. "I'm Taylor and I do yo-yos!" He flicked the Skyhawk to rave mode and popped it out to the side, sent it into an Around the World, and bound it back to his palm. "I thought some of you might be interested in trying this at home. I'm going to assume that you guys have Space Amazon or 3D printers or something that lets you get a yo-yo of your own. Why don't you put me on DVR and go get yourself a copy of my Skyhawk? I'll do a lesson later on parts, responsive versus unresponsive, and the advantages of different brands. I've got a couple dozen different ones in my inventory that I can show off eventually, but let's keep it simple to start. Go grab your yo-yos! I'll wait." He made a point of freezing in place like a still frame, then smiled and started walking again. "Everybody back? Okay, great. First thing you'll want to do..."
o-o-o-o
"Welcome to the second floor," Levi said. His eyes glowed for a brief moment, presumably meaning that he was skimming their feeds. "Pretty uneventful so far, huh?"
"If you mean 'boring as math class' then yes," Calliope said.
"I watched your fight with the Borough boss," Levi said. "I'm sure it doesn't seem like it, but you handled it well. You had a good plan and you executed on it smoothly."
"Lot of people died," Drew noted. He had taken his usual seat on the couch and already lit up a joint.
Levi nodded somberly. "I know. That's going to happen a lot, especially on the first two floors where people are sorting things out and learning how to fight. There's always a massive death toll on the first floor, and a large one on the second. Old people and kids, anyone with disabilities, people who lack the grit to fight, and people who just get unlucky. By the time you get to the third floor all of those people are gone and the loss rate slows down. You brought thirty-one crawlers into a first-floor Borough boss fight and you walked out with eleven. That's honestly impressive, especially given how underleveled some of your people were."
Taylor nodded grimly. "Doesn't feel that great. I had talked with all of those people, learned a little about them."
"Don't do that," Levi said. "It's cold, but you don't want to get to know people on a personal level in here. Know their names and abilities, yes. Know about their lives, hopes, and dreams? Avoid that shit like the plague. All it will do is mess you up and make it harder to survive. Every crawler is dealing with traumatic loss and survivor guilt from the moment they step onto the first floor. Don't go out of your way to make it worse."
"Noted," Taylor said, in a tone that indicated there was a big difference between that and 'agreed'. "Anything in particular you can tell us that we should have done differently?"
Levi's eyes glowed again and then he scratched his neck in thought. "Not much, really. In a perfect world, someone would have looted that woman's body instead of leaving it to burn, but you were in the middle of a room that was on fire so it's hardly surprising you didn't. Depending on how badly she got ashed, it's possible that one of the people who came along later will be able to get her stuff, but I wouldn't count on it. Also, that dipshit with the dagger attacked too early. The AI didn't begin the fight until Dipshit attacked the alchemist. If he'd waited then you could have gotten more people in the room." He made a tossing-away gesture. "On the other hand, that might have just meant more crawler deaths. No way to know."
Levi went back to watching the replay, clawed fingers twitching as he manipulated invisible interface controls. "Oh, wow," he said. "Wow, Dipshit Dagger Dude really screwed you guys hard. If he hadn't stabbed the alchemist when he did, you might have been able to follow him back to his workbench before the fight started. Looks like his stuff was the real prize in that room. Not one but two separate alchemy crafting tables, a couple dozen potions, and another recipe book." He typed on invisible keys for a few seconds, then whistled. "Oh, damn, you guys got screwed. That book had recipes for a healing potion, a regular mana potion, and a Plant Grenade potion. Oh, man."
"Plant Grenade?" Taylor asked, leaning forward.
"Yeah, you throw the potion and plants erupt from whatever it breaks against. If it hits a wall or floor or ceiling then you've got stuff to hide behind and vines to climb. If it hits a mob then, depending on what type of mob it is, the roots will sometimes grow right into the body and kill the thing."
"Fucking Luke and his fucking assholes," Calliope groused.
"Language," Drew and Taylor said in unison. Calliope glared death lasers at them but said nothing. She was too busy smothering her fury in a tub of Nutella.
"Anyway," Levi said. "Overall, it was a good plan. Breaking the Oni out of their mind control meant you didn't have to fight them and they would have chipped in against Aurata if there had been a chance. Probably swung the battle with that one move. Confusing Fog and destroying the tree meant that the vines weren't attacking you or intentionally blocking the path. Yep, overall, well done."
"Dude," Drew said, offering Taylor a fistbump.
Taylor returned the bump out of politeness and then looked to Levi. "Speaking of the Oni, one of them mentioned that they'd been here for years. The dungeon only opened a few days ago, so what gives?"
"There's a few different kinds of beings inside the dungeon," Levi said. "There's crawlers, like you. There's former crawlers, like me. There's contracted servitors, like the Bopca and some of the staff at the Desperado Club. And then there's the mobs. The mobs aren't naturals—that is, they weren't born as infants and then grew up in the normal fashion. They were printed out of a biotank as full adults, and then the sapient ones have a personality and memories implanted in their heads. Galactic law considers them property, no different from a chair."
"They're slaves?" Calliope demanded. "Are you kidding me?"
Levi shook his head. "No. It's seriously fucked up, but it is what it is. On top of that, many of the mobs get reused from crawl to crawl, their minds wiped and re-installed each time. If you talk to them enough you can sometimes get them to realize—" He broke off, then shook his head. "Sorry, I'm getting a notification that I'm not allowed to talk about this."
Damnit.
"Anyway, yes. The sapient mobs are slaves and they've been programmed with memories that extend back farther than the time the dungeon has been open. That's what happened with that Oni you talked to."
"I see," Taylor said slowly. "Okay, thank you. Does the AI often try to set up rivalries between crawlers? It was clearly doing that with Luke's team and ours."
"Yeah, it's pretty common. The audience loves crawler-on-crawler fights, so it gets incentivized."
"Incentivized how?"
Levi smiled. "Good question. I'm not allowed to volunteer this, but since you've asked I can tell you that if you kill a crawler, any crawler, then you'll receive a book of PvP coupons, one for each other member of your party. If you have the coupon in your inventory and you kill the person whose name is on it then you'll gain a ton of stuff. Usually it's a level and several Platinum or Gold boxes."
Drew winced. "Maaan, that's cold." He blew out a plume of pot smoke, which the room's silent and invisible HVAC system quickly pulled up to the ceiling and away.
"Oh, crap," Calliope said, pausing with a spoonful of Nutella halfway to her mouth. There was a smudge of it on her chin. "I don't remember...did Charlie say that Eugene guy had 'mercy killed' a couple of his flunkies? If so, doesn't that mean he'd have coupons for everyone in the Astronomy Army?"
"I don't remember," Taylor said after a moment. "I know he said that a lot of people got killed around Eugene, but I don't remember him saying the guy had a skull."
Calliope's eyes flickered for a moment. "Charlie says he does, yeah. Only one and he got it two days after we met them, but he's got one. Spun a story about how a kruthak had spat on one of their team so he had to do it. The three survivors backed him up."
"Oh, hell," Taylor said, puffing out his cheeks in frustration.
Taylor: Charlie, you said that the hunter teams were splitting off from the main party so as not to dilute the XP. Did Eugene and his group rejoin the main Astronomy Army party before he got his skull?
Charlie Tho: Not sure. The party leader has to approve adding people to the group, and I'm not the actual party leader. Honestly, I'm not sure who is at this point. It was originally Angela, but she died on one of the hunter missions and I don't know who it moved to. One sec, let me check the interface.
Taylor waited, one foot jiggling impatiently as he hoped against hope that he was wrong.
Charlie Tho: It's Asahi and yes, Eugene got himself added back to the main party before he got his skull. Why?
Taylor quickly recapped Levi's information about player killing leading to player killer coupons.
Charlie Tho: Damnit. Okay, thanks for the warning. Half the group has gone down already, including Eugene. The rest of us will be out in another 45 minutes or so. I'll be going last and I'll warn people as soon as we wake up on the other side.
Taylor: Good luck.
Calliope: Good luck, Charlie. I always knew that guy was no good.
Drew: Good luck, man. Stay cool.
Charlie Tho: Thanks, folks. See you on the flip side.
The connection closed and Team Trick Shot exchanged grim looks.
"Let it go," Levi said, once they had explained it to him. "You can't save everyone. You're not here to be the police, you're here to survive. Don't mix in with other people's drama unless there's something big in it for you."
"No offense," Taylor said, "but that's pretty self-serving."
"Yup," Levi said with a shrug. "It's also practical. I made it to the eleventh floor, so maybe think about taking the advice?"
"Fair enough," Taylor said, sighing. For a moment, he felt the weight of it all pressing down on himself, but he forced it away and tried to inject life into his voice as he asked, "Hey, can I ask what you do when we aren't here?"
"Normal stuff. I play my uelo, I watch TV and movies, I read, I browse the tunnels. After you guys make it off the third floor I'll move down to the eighth or ninth and I'll have access to my enchanting studio. I'll be able to putter around with that. I've been working on a special armor where each of the scales is an independent piece of razor-sharp metal with a lightning enchantment on it. They use swarm intelligence to both protect you and fight alongside you." He chuckled. "I've been working on it for the better part of six hundred cycles now. There's been some scope creep."
"Anything we can do to make things better for you while we're here?"
Levi's ears cocked in surprise. "Good of you but no, I'm fine. You know, I don't remember the last time someone asked me that."
"Seems like the decent thing to do," Taylor said. "You're helping us, after all. Least we can do is reciprocate."
"Still unusual. Anyway, I'm good."
"Okay. How about other tutorial guides? Do you know them, or get to talk to them?"
"Sure. Once we're all down on the deeper floors we can get together if we happen to be assigned to the same settlement. We can also meet up in the Desperado club. There's a couple hundred of us who stay in contact, at least a bit. It's hard to do for long periods, because we never know where we're going to be assigned. And no, I can't put you in touch with them. One guide per crawler, that's the limit."
"Fair enough," Taylor said. He checked the time on his interface. "We've got two hours before the level collapse and the recap. Do you mind if we stay here?"
Levi shrugged all four shoulders. "I suppose not. You don't want to go grind?"
"I've got some homework I want to do," Taylor said, pulling an e-reader out of his inventory. "I've been putting it off for five days now." And if he had done it earlier he might have been able to save more people during the boss fight.
"Watcha reading, Unc?"
"Stuff I downloaded before the dungeon opened," Taylor said. "Wikipedia, YouTube videos, a bunch of prepper blogs, some chemistry textbooks. There's a lot of stuff about making IEDs, lethal gas, things like that. I keep thinking about how that boss fight would have been a lot easier if we'd tossed in a bunch of chlorine gas and slammed the door. I'd rather not have another two dozen people die because I procrastinated on doing the reading."
o-o-o-o
The recap started immediately after the collapse of the first floor. The entire dungeon shook for a moment and the message was given as a public announcement, not a normal one that played only in their ears.
System Message: The first floor has collapsed. Time to second floor collapse: 6 days.
The timer started counting down.
"Six?" Taylor asked. "I thought it was going to be ten. That's what Luke said his guide told him."
Levi was frowning. "That's what I would have expected too. It's usually five days for the first floor, then they add five days each time you descend. They like to have the faction wars run for at least a month; it's a major spectacle and they don't want it to be rushed. The legal minimum per-floor extension is one planetary day, but it's almost unheard of for them to stick to the minimum. I'll dig around a bit, see if I can find out what's going on."
The recap episode was the same, but also different. On the one hand, crawlers dying, crawlers triumphing. On the other hand, a lot more focus on the social system and reactions by the audience.
On the gripping hand, the announcement that came at the end of the recap was extremely different.
Hello crawlers.
Welcome to the second floor. Congratulations to all of you. We have just under 1.3 million crawlers still in the game. That number is slightly lower than our projections, so we are speeding up the second floor timer to the minimum legally allowed by the rules. You have six days to find a staircase down. Once again, we urge you all to wait until the last possible moment to descend.
You may have noticed that follows and favorites have been turned on. The numbers will populate slowly on your interface, so don't be too disappointed if you don't see anything just yet.
We have improved how patronage works this season. This is a major change, so please pay attention.
All crawlers are now limited to three patrons, and all three spots will be up for auction for one day immediately upon the start of the fourth, then fifth, then sixth floors respectively. Your benefactors may choose to transfer their patronage to other parties at their own discretion starting on the seventh floor.
All patronage spots will become available at a bid of one credit, meaning this season virtually all living crawlers will have patrons.
But, be warned. Any bids the patron pays above the standard patronage fee will be reflected in loot box discounts for that patron. Any funds below the fee will be reflected in additional costs to that patron for loot boxes. In other words, the more your patron pays for you, the more and higher-quality Benefactor Boxes you may receive. The higher your social numbers, the better your chances at receiving the best loot. Your tutorial guide should have more details and will help you if you have any additional questions.
Finally, we must say we are disappointed in the disrespect we are being shown regarding the bathrooms. As of this moment, if any human-born crawler intentionally urinates or defecates anywhere outside a designated bathroom area, they will be immediately and swiftly penalized in the form of a Rage Elemental plucked from the 13th floor. This elemental will kill them and everyone in their party before they can get their cocks or pussies tucked away.
That's it for tonight. Have fun out there, and remember to kill, kill, kill!
Everyone, including Levi, simply stared at the screen as the Dungeon Crawler World: Earth logo faded away.
"Well," Levi said. "That happened."
"It's bad, right?" Drew asked. He was elbow deep in a bag of homemade potato chips that he'd gotten from one of the Bopca.
"Oh yeah," Levi said.
"Moose doesn't count, does he?" Taylor asked, nervous.
"No, he doesn't, fortunately. That's why they specified 'human-born'. Still, best to find out of the way spots for him to do his business."
o-o-o-o
The last thing they did before returning to the grind was to open boxes. Their loot boxes were plentiful but mostly meh when compared to what they had been hoping for. There were achievements for seeing a Borough boss while below tenth level, for defeating a Borough boss, for defeating a Borough boss with a mixed group of crawlers, for defeating a Borough boss in under ten minutes, and so on. Plentiful they might be, but too many of the achievements were simply the AI taking the chance to be snotty, with a 'reward' like Nah or You'll be dead in two minutes, so what's the point?
Calliope received two more health potions, a pair of Confusing Fog scrolls, a Speedy Delivery potion that temporarily added 3 Dexterity and doubled her movement speed, and 100 gold coins.
Taylor received a health potion, two mana potions, two scrolls of Heal Critter, and a dozen bags of Bathtub Napalm. These bags were unlike the ones from the previous floor; they contained the same amount of napalm but the bag was twice as large and resealable.
Drew received two health potions, two Heal scrolls, ten pounds of marijuana plus more rolling papers than he knew what to do with, and the same 100 gold that Calliope had gotten.
"That," Calliope said with a grin, "is a lot of weed, Uncle Drew."
"Yah," he said. "Would have kept me and my buds for a good long while before. Or gotten us busted, one or the other." He laughed.
"C'mon, guys," Taylor said, standing up. "As the lady says, let's go kill, kill, kill."
Voting time! What do you do next? Voting ends Friday, or when there have been no posts for 24 hours.
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.)
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- Location
- The Soviet Republic of Canuckistan
- Pronouns
- He/Him
What's the utility of gold?
Also, poor fuckin' Luke. He is a racist asshole and a little bit more of a jerk than I would have hoped, however, managing his people seemed hard enough without needing to worry about them all turning on each other for loot.
Frankly, at this point, I think Charlie should just do his damndest to put Eugene down. I'd be happy to contribute some explosives to the cause. He's trustworthy and if he needs to give anyone the mercy stroke the Army will benefit.
Also, poor fuckin' Luke. He is a racist asshole and a little bit more of a jerk than I would have hoped, however, managing his people seemed hard enough without needing to worry about them all turning on each other for loot.
Frankly, at this point, I think Charlie should just do his damndest to put Eugene down. I'd be happy to contribute some explosives to the cause. He's trustworthy and if he needs to give anyone the mercy stroke the Army will benefit.
- Location
- Book Fort
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[X] Action Plan: Adaptation
- Explore Bravely.
- Prioritize using Dungeon weapons to level associated skills and to conserve ammunition.
- Practice using gold coins as weapons (Leo or Drew throws a coin, you Summon it to yourself, with an enemy in the way, who then gets damaged).
- Get local knowledge
- We heard about a new kind of mob called a tove.
- Have another look at the mini map and see if we can find some NPCs to talk to first and find out what we can about this level.
- Interrogate sapient mobs for alchemy resource/table locations
- We heard about a new kind of mob called a tove.
- Continue yo-yo tutorials in free time, enjoy similarity between this and YouTube.
- Leo, want to do skateboard tutorials? We can show you the ropes of showmanship and what other?
- Drew, wanna participate? You could joke with the both of us, lightening the mood for us and for the viewers? Or, if you'd rather do your own show, maybe you could review different brands/strains of weed?
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- Location
- The Soviet Republic of Canuckistan
- Pronouns
- He/Him
EJ has requested plans have titles if they're more than ten words. (I suspect you just missed a newline.)
Can you add getting Calliope to start a skateboard "channel"? Maybe Drew can review different strands of pot...
- Location
- Book Fort
- Pronouns
- They/Them
- Location
- The Soviet Republic of Canuckistan
- Pronouns
- He/Him
If you can add something about interrogating mobs for alchemy resource/table locations, that would be neat.
- Location
- Book Fort
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I'll specify "sapient" mobs (I doubt we'd get anything from mindless slimes), but sure
I got kinda confused, charlie went down with his group to the 3rd floor already right? we could maybe invite him temporarily to our party so he can level and we have one more person we can trust, and when we go down he'd split up and go with his original group, but guess that is not an option anymore.
but for now i guess we just do the basics, scout and farm
[X] Action Plan: Adaptation
but for now i guess we just do the basics, scout and farm
[X] Action Plan: Adaptation
- Location
- Over there
There's a few things I'd like to test. What happens if the yoyo string wraps around something while it's 400m long and then shrinks to it's normal length? If we coat it in napalm will it get any significant bonus fire damage?
Also, we should be feeding the corpse we have to any grubs we come across until they're big enough to give xp.
Also, we should be feeding the corpse we have to any grubs we come across until they're big enough to give xp.
The grubs are perfect experiment victims for this question:
Prior patchnotes included that crawlers can't inventorize mobs to kill them for xp. Does that mean we can't inventorize mobs anymore? Does that mean they stay alive? Does that mean we just don't get xp anymore?
@eaglejarl
Can we still send Charlie a pm about remembering the wide array of support options for classes? No army is made up just of fighters. A healer, a crafter, a bard, a therapist, a fortune teller, a trapper, a scout, a builder (think of the later levels being month+): Many many options for the parts of his group that don't think they are fit for fighting roles.
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Prior patchnotes included that crawlers can't inventorize mobs to kill them for xp. Does that mean we can't inventorize mobs anymore? Does that mean they stay alive? Does that mean we just don't get xp anymore?
@eaglejarl
Can we still send Charlie a pm about remembering the wide array of support options for classes? No army is made up just of fighters. A healer, a crafter, a bard, a therapist, a fortune teller, a trapper, a scout, a builder (think of the later levels being month+): Many many options for the parts of his group that don't think they are fit for fighting roles.
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Does that just describe how many coupons (number of coupons equal to group size) or is it about encouraging backstabbing (coupons are guaranteed to have the names of your group members)?
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