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
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.
The string won't cut into your finger. Aside from that, it's like pulling on a rope; you and the other thing are pulled together and whoever is more massive or better anchored wins.
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)?
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).
interrogate sapient mobs for alchemy resource/table locations
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?
I am exhausted, my spoons are low, and my bandwidth is full.
Here is the currently-winning action plan. If you have any suggestions, please make them in a concise manner, preferably where I could copy/paste it into a bullet point.
Nope. A party is a dungeon mechanic that has nothing to do with location or proximity. The Astronomy Army is a party of ~200 people; if the main group stays in one place while five people go hunting to the east and five go hunting to the west then you still have only 1 party, not three.
Yes. If you are holding John Smith's ticket on your person or in your inventory when you kill John Smith, you will get the coupon's benefits. (And the skull.) Doesn't matter if you received the coupon as loot, were given it by another crawler, or took it off the dead body of a prior owner.
Most frequently, you use it to buy things in shops in the dungeon. After a certain floor (I forget which), food is no longer free and then you have to buy it at restaurants, shops, or forage for it but that's not really important. Another miscellaneous example from cannon is that certain gods you may worship will demand a tithe. You, of course, hope to get benefits from the god.
However, my impression from cannon as well as the other DCC fan fiction, is that a typical crawler will spend the most gold on buying and furnishing a personal space. The personal space will then show up in any safe room you enter. The dungeon crawler universe has portal technology which allows this. The personal space can contain all kinds of items you buy to help you rest and recuperate, train, craft items, and do other things. For example, those alchemy crafting tables Levi mentioned are typically things you have to buy with gold and use in a personal space.
I am exhausted, my spoons are low, and my bandwidth is full.
Here is the currently-winning action plan. If you have any suggestions, please make them in a concise manner, preferably where I could copy/paste it into a bullet point.
I'll vote a little later but let me make a couple of suggestions first.
Get local knowledge - We heard about a new kind of mob called a tove. Lets try and get info before we have to fight them. 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.
I thought we missed the alchemy tables back on the first floor and no longer have a way to get back to them.
I'm a little leery of the tutorial plan, because if we want to make that our thing it's going to be something that takes time that we don't really have. If we're not grinding or resting/eating/taking care of ourselves, then we are falling behind other crawlers and the dungeon.
I would rather try to integrate tricks as "special moves" or something and try to do things like catchphrases and the like while grinding to try and bring in fans. Maybe take a page from ff10 and do Around the Earth Mk. 4 to keep em coming back each night trying to see some of the others.
The gold moves does have some potentially interesting applications, we could maybe make some explosives that have a gold trigger or pin. Something I would be interested in is putting some kind of gold firmly attached to Leo's skateboard, if her skill is high enough to ride it back that could be either a Emergency escape for her or some kind of crazy attack eventually.
Yes. This is an interesting point. I suspect that the alchemy tables were supposed to be the boss loot. One of the disadvantages of partnering with Luke's group is that we will have this sort of chaos. If we had found the tables, then probably the outcome would have been that we take one table and they take the other. On the other hand, maybe the loot we got is actually much better than we realize.
If they grow at a natural rate they'd never be a threat. Farming them would be a good move if Charlie and co. were still around. As it stands, not so much.
Tove — Level 4
This poor little guy is lost. Down on the third floor he was a happy and productive member of his herd, well liked and well respected. Then we plucked him and a bunch of his siblings up and brought him here to give you a taste of what's coming. Kinda cruel, I suppose. A short and violent lifetime of loneliness and being murdered...isn't that too great a price to pay simply to educate you dumb monkeys?
The tove was...disturbing. That was really the only word for it.
Start with a badger the size of a mastiff. Give it claws and bumpy green skin like a lizard. Now turn its head into taffy so that you can pull it out into a long strand that you then twist into a corkscrew spiral, except it's still recognizably the head of a badger. Finally, coat the entire thing in a thin film of orange slime.
In addition to being disturbing to look at, they were ridiculously aggressive, charging the instant they caught sight of movement. As this one was in the process of doing.
Calliope stepped off her board and kicked the tail, flipping the nose up into her hand. She piroutted smoothly aside as the tove came at her and used her momentum to bring the rear wheels of the skateboard down on the monster's back like a warhammer.
A health bar formed over the tove, a modest chunk missing, but the creature's motion was unimpeded and it continued its charge at the rest of the party.
Moose howled and would have leaped forward to the attack if Taylor didn't grab his ruff with one hand while flicking the yo-yo forward with the other.
The small device shot forward, the string stretching to its maximum length of over four meters. At the very end of its arc, a second before it hit the ground, Taylor said "Lock" and the yo-yo froze in space.
The tove was moving at least fifteen miles an hour when its chest slammed into the immovable yo-yo. Its sternum crunched inwards and it came to a jarring halt, all its breath shooting out in a reverse gasp.
Taylor let go of Moose and the dog lunged forward, leaping in the air so as to pass right over the monster's toothy corkscrew snout. He spun neatly around, reared up, and landed two feet on its back; his weight drove the tove to the floor and ripped its chest apart against the spatially locked yo-yo. Moose got his jaws into the monster's spine halfway along its back and bit down, ripping a chunk of flesh and bone loose. Its back half collapsed as its spine was severed, and its health bar plummeted.
Drew was on it, the tines of his bident clashing together to snip off the tove's left front leg. Blood gushed and the mob's health bar zeroed out at last.
"Unlock," Taylor said, shrinking the string so as to pull the yo-yo back to himself. He had to put a foot up on the tove's slimy shoulder in order to make it work. Shrinking the string while the head of the yo-yo was stuck inside or around something was like pulling on a rope that was tied around that thing; Taylor and the thing were pulled together and whomever was more massive or better anchored won. Fortunately, the string refused to cut into his finger or otherwise harm him in the process.
The yo-yo tore its way out through the meat of the tove's shoulder in a fountain of slime and gore that had Calliope yelping and glaring angrily. Taylor shrugged in mute apology and pulled out a sports bottle of water with which to rinse off the yo-yo. The enchanted object always shed blood and guts and other goop quickly and easily.
"Need to find some stronger critters," Drew said. "The XP wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either."
"We outclass them by too much, and there's four of us," Taylor said. "I suspect the AI gives awards based on the danger we're in and how exciting the action is. And probably other stuff."
"I'll go find us a group," Calliope said, dashing down the corridor, hopping on her skateboard, and pushing away. Taylor started to call her back and then stopped, shook his head, and let it go. As long as she stayed on his minimap and wasn't alone, it was fine.
Moose looked at the rapidly retreating Calliope, then at Taylor.
"Go on, boy," Taylor said. "Go with her."
"Arrrooo!" Moose was off like a shot.
Drew chuckled. "Those two."
"I know, right? C'mon, let's keep moving." They had already established that tove corpses were heavier than they should have been. Too heavy for any of the humans to lift. Instead, he looted it, obtaining a jar of 'Tove Slime — Alchemy Ingredient' then dropped a bag of napalm on it, lit it, and jogged off. Nothing was to be left for the brindle grubs.
They had already dealt with five small groups of the monsters, and it had been enough to push the humans to level 9. Moose had gone up two levels to level 10. He was still growing and was now the size of a small pony. He was clearly enjoying the heck out of his new stature, although he was large enough that Taylor had needed to remove his spiked collar.
"What do you think is going to happen with Charlie and his people?" Drew asked.
Taylor shook his head. "Dunno. They're stuck in stasis until this floor collapses, and then they're going to have to get a hundred and fifty-ish people through the class and race selection process. They've all got the same game guide, so that could end up taking a while if the guy is involved in the process."
"Plus, it's Lord Covvingtyn-Smythe."
Taylor laughed. "Yeah."
The Astronomy Army's game guide was a small lizard man, perhaps eight inches tall. His clothes and speech make him seem like one of the Three Musketeers: broad-brimmed hat with gold trim and feather, worn at an angle. Puffy-sleeved jacket with silk sash. Black leather gloves and a three-quarter-length boat cloak worn at a rakish angle. He carried a lute on his back and a tiny basket-hilted broadsword on his hip, and he spoke so fast that it was hard to understand him. He was snide, and pompous, and took offense at the slightest provocation. His offense generally involved a five-minute diatribe on the ill-mannered nature of the one who had offended him, with frequent divertissments regarding speculation on their poor breeding and low standards of hygiene.
"Glad we got Levi, and we're the only ones working with him," Taylor said. "We lucked out."
"Yup."
They fell into a companionable silence as they jogged. After a few minutes, Drew started humming and then broke into a rendition of 'Hotel California' that owed more to enthusiasm than musical skill. Plus, he didn't remember the words very well, as shown by the stanza "When she stood in the doorway / I heard the meow meow meow / and I was thinking to myself / this could go bad or go real well..."
o-o-o-o
Taylor focused on his yo-yo as much as possible, both in combat and stunting it for the benefit of the audience. It seemed to be working, a bit.
Still not the kind of numbers he knew they needed, but significantly better than he'd been doing. Annoyingly, Calliope was at 732 million views already; apparently adapting skateboard tricks into an effective combat style was better than yo-yo tutorials for drawing eyeballs.
Calliope: Found a batch of them, and they're higher level. Should be worth some good XP. And yes, I know. I'll wait for you two. Yeesh.
Taylor: Where are they? Corridor or room?
Calliope: Corridor. Well, a place where a bunch of corridors come together. Why?
Taylor: Damn. Got a thing I want to try next time we find 'em in a room. Okay, never mind. We'll be there soon.
Taylor and Drew shifted up into a faster jog, following their minimap to where Calliope waited. As they got closer, six red dots appeared. They were labeled simply Tove; on the previous floor the map had also shown the mob's level, but that was no longer the case. Now it didn't even show the subspecies.
The two men were panting by the time they pulled up to where Calliope and Moose waited, perhaps a hundred feet and two corners from the mobs. They bent over, hands on their knees as they gasped for breath.
"Yeesh," Calliope said. "You guys." She shook her head in disapproval.
Taylor: You're riding around on wheels. Try running and let me know how well you do.
The chat system was very handy when you didn't have the breath to speak.
Moose was panting happily, snootbumping Taylor in a demand for pets that would not wait until his human caught his breath. Taylor obliged, rubbing the dog's shoulder until he had his breath back, and then straightened up.
"Did you peek?" he asked, and then realized that it was a dumb question. This was Calliope; obviously she had peeked around the corner so that she could examine the monsters' properties. "What level are they?"
"Seven to nine," she said. "Should be worth some good XP."
Drew rubbed his jaw. "Six of them, and they're all around our level. That sounds like a tough fight."
"Burny Stabby Feet?" Taylor suggested. The team had been working out a set of standardized tactics and giving them names to make planning easy.
"Works for me," Drew said. "Leo?"
She grinned. "I'm down. Let's do this."
o-o-o-o
Calliope peeked around the corner of the crossroads where the creatures waited. They were milling slowly about while browsing the reddish moss that grew on the walls. Six corridors met at this location, providing a spacious area for the mobs to congregate.
"Hey! Dumbasses!" Calliope shouted. "Suck on this!" She stepped around the corner, reared back, and hurled her Kruthak Needle like a javelin, right at the nearest tove's neck. It was a bad throw; the weapon didn't hit straight. A health bar appeared but it barely moved and her weapon clattered to the ground instead of sticking.
"Taunt!" she called, activating the spell. A red 'Infuriated' angry-face emoji appeared over the head of the tove that she had speared. It shrieked and charged at her.
She turned and sped off, pushing for all she was worth. As she did, she activated the Needle's returning ability; it vanished from the floor and reappeared in her hand. She shoved it into her inventory and focused on speed.
The toves were all after her now, a baying, shrieking pack of thundering feet that was gaining rapidly. She clicked on the Speedy Delivery potion in her hot list and the skateboard shot forward as her speed suddenly doubled.
She came to the last corner moving too fast to make the turn. She ollied up and grabbed the board, twisting so that the wheels were pointed forward, then activated her Gravity Resurfacing spell so that gravity pulled her onto the wall and around the corner. In midair, the Speedy Delivery potion wore off and she nearly fell as her speed dropped back to normal. She barely stuck the landing, skating up the wall and across the ceiling so as to stay out of the massive cloud of smoke that hung unnaturally still in the air.
The toves came around the corner and hurled themselves into the smoke, their animal minds fixated on catching the obnoxious prey animal that had annoyed them.
There was a chorus of agonized shrieks and thumps as the toves in the lead had their feet torn to ribbons on the carpet of caltrops that Drew and Taylor had carefully spread across the hall before deploying the concealing smoke. The ones behind them slammed into their fallen leaders and a pileup ensued. Taylor tossed a torch into the smoke and the thin layer of napalm spread among the caltrops went up.
The smoke was a mixture of pot and burned plastic. Drew gestured and the cloud shrank, trading volume for density so that the fallen toves would breathe in as much sedative and toxic crap as possible.
Calliope came to a halt and stepped off her board. She hurled her Kruthak Needle again; it disappeared into the smoke, maybe stabbing something and maybe not.
Drew stabbed into the smoke cloud with his polearm. Calliope and Taylor joined in the fun, pulling spears out of their inventories and stabbing. Moose hung back, dancing to and fro and woofing his annoyance at not being able to participate.
"Napalm's out," Taylor said as the 60-second timer in his interface clicked to zero. It wasn't necessary to say; all three humans could feel the sudden absence of raging heat.
Drew gestured again and the smoke momentarily cleared, lifting up to the ceiling in order to expose the monster pile.
Four of the toves were dead from a combination of burns, smoke inhalation, and stab wounds. The two survivors were struggling to pull themselves out from the middle of the stack. They had been mostly protected from the napalm by the layer of flesh below and above them, but they were still badly burned and coughing weakly. Drew placed his bident around the neck of the one on the left and pulled the slicey handle; the device did not have the force to cut all the way through, but it still sliced open multiple arteries and made the tove bleed out in short order. Taylor and Calliope did for the other one with a series of spear thrusts.
"Sweet," Calliope said. "Almost to level 10. How'd you guys do?"
"Level 10 and halfway to 11," Drew said, grinning. He stuck his tongue out at Calliope's sputtering frustration.
"Same," Taylor said. "Maybe a little more."
"So not fair," Calliope grumbled. "I'm the one who took all the risk, leading them here."
New Achievement: Cunning Killer!
You ambushed a group of mobs that outnumbered you, and you murdered them before the poor things could do even a single point of damage to you! What a bunch of clever little bitches you are!
Reward: A Silver Fight Smarter Not Harder Box
"Did you guys get that?" Taylor asked. A surge of relief went through him as the other two nodded. They needed every box they could get, especially after the AI had given them such garbage in the Silver boss boxes they'd gotten for killing the Borough boss on the previous floor. Just as importantly, he didn't want to listen to Calliope whining about not getting one.
"Cool," he said. "It's time for a break regardless. Let's gather up the caltrops and then find a saferoom. Calliope, can you use that rope of yours to make a harness for Moose? We'll need to drag these off of each other."
Calliope groaned but did as asked, knotting one end of the indestructible Marston's Cord around Moose's chest and tying the other onto the topmost tove. Regardless of how she felt about spending time on manual labor, Moose was delighted to show off his enormous strength by un-piling all the creatures so that the humans could collect the caltrops stuck in the feet of the ones on the bottom.
It took nearly an hour to police up all the little bits of metal, and they probably didn't get all of them. The moment they were done, they each got an announcement.
New Achievement: No Bitching!
I thought it would be funny to give you crap for your Borough boss boxes. I was looking forward to drinking in those sweet, sweet tears of rage. Unbelievably, you went more than twelve waking hours without complaining once! Not a word!
Honestly, it's impressive. Sure, you spoiled my fun, but I've got to admire the self-control. Have a reward, you sweet little not-whiner!
Reward: You have received a Silver Knowing Your Place Box
The human members of Team Trick Shot looked at each other. No one said anything, although Taylor did rub his forehead in frustration for a moment.
o-o-o-o
It took twenty minutes of walking to return to the saferoom they had passed most recently. It should have been ten, but the party ended up lost twice because everyone had gotten turned around in the nearly-identical maze of corridors.
This particular saferoom was an Irish pub named Duffy's Bar and Grille. The Bopca behind the counter was wearing a red fright wig underneath a stereotypical leprechaun hat. A jig played on pennywhistle filled the room.
Welcome to the Saferoom. You are on the Second Floor.
Leaderboard:Leaderboard will populate upon collapse of the third floor.
Rental Rooms currently available: 20
Rental Room price: 10 gold.
Personal spaces will become available for purchase on the fourth floor.
Food is available at this location.
The menu hanging over the counter included a variety of traditional pub foods such as burgers, fries (which were labeled 'chips'), and beer. It also included shepherd's pie, potato soup, and haggis. The food was no longer free, but it was cheap. That didn't help Taylor, who had not received any gold in his earlier loot boxes. Calliope pretended to 'have to think about' whether or not to pay for him, but Drew cut her off and handed Taylor fifty gold.
"Aw, man," Calliope said. "Way to ruin the fun, Uncle Drew."
"Don't be a brat, Calliope," Drew said, not looking at her. "Not the time or place."
Calliope looked abashed. "Sorry, Unc," she said to Taylor.
"S'all good," Taylor said. "Come on, let's get our orders in and then check our boxes."
They each had a few Bronze boxes, which collectively yielded five Heal scrolls, three Heal Critter scrolls, and several bits of unenchanted junk such as an egg salad sandwich with lettuce, T-shirts with various logos, and twenty cans of tuna fish. They divided the magical loot and moved on to the (hopefully) better Silver boxes.
Taylor's Fight Smarter Not Harder box contained twelve more bags of Bathub Napalm and ten small round disks. Curious, he examined their properties.
Distributor Cap
Nope, not a car part!
Attach this to a container of gas, liquid, napalm, babies, what have you. Activate it and wait three seconds. The container will break (*) and its contents will be distributed evenly through a sphere 6 meters in diameter. It will hang in the air for up to two seconds before precipitating out. (It's probably a good idea to throw the container before this activates!)
(*) Some restrictions apply. Magical containers will not break. Extremely strong containers will not break. Batteries not included. Void where prohibited. Do not taunt happy fun cryo-kitten.
"Nice!" he said, not reacting to the list of potential contents. Best not to let a psychotic know they'd gotten to you, and this would make the napalm a lot more useful. He looked up at the ceiling. "Thank you, My Lord."
He moved on to the Knowing Your Place box. It contained 500 gold pieces and a fizzy green potion with a timer counting down above it.
Enhanced Cheat Code Potion
This potion will permanently reduce the mana cost of one of your spells by 50%, rounded down and minimum of 1. Pretty awesome, right? But wait, there's more! Because of the fact that you're getting this for impressing me, it will also add +2 to that spell and permanently raise one of your stats by +2. Now how much would you pay? (Answer: nothing! It's free, dumbass!)
This item has a short shelf life. Don't be a pansy, make with the drinky-drink!
Taylor looked at the potion dubiously, but he put it in his hot list and clicked it.
Mana cost of Gold Grabber reduced to 1!
Gold Grabber raised to level 3!
Dexterity increased by 2!
"Cool," he said. In point of fact, he would have preferred that it boost literally anything other than Gold Grabber, but free boosts were free boosts. He'd simply need to start practicing with the spell. He quickly explained to the others what he'd received.
"My turn," Calliope said.
Her Silver Fight Smarter Not Harder box flipped open amidst a fanfare of trumpets and a burst of confetti. Inside was a ring.
Ring of the Fall
Wearer may cast a level 10 Shin Breaker spell at will. The cost of this spell is reduced to 3 MP. It cannot be trained.
Spell: Shin Breaker Cost: 3 MP Duration: (Intelligence) seconds Range: (Spell Level) x 2 meters (Current value: 20 meters) AOE: A line 50 centimeters high, 1 centimeter wide, and (Intelligence x (Spell Level) x 3) centimeters long
A favorite of Kevin McAllister wannabes everywhere, this spell creates a wall of invisible force perfect for tripping up pursuers.
The wall is always vertical and it must be created in contact with the ground.
"That's pretty sweet," Taylor said. "We'll have to see how it defines 'vertical' when your Gravity Resurfacing spell is changing the direction of 'down'. Oh, and how it defines 'ground' when it's not level."
Calliope's expression had been conflicted, but it cleared up at the suggestion. "Very cool," she said, jumping up and grabbing her board with the clear intent to try the new spell out. Or, at least, she tried to. Her feet seemed to be glued to the floor.
"I think it wants you to finish opening your boxes," Drew said, grinning as the Silver Knowing Your Place box ran up to her on stubby little legs and flipped itself open.
Calliope grumbled at being restrained, but she reached into the box and pulled out a potion. She read the description, then put it in her inventory. A moment later there was a blue flash as she 'drank' it.
"Nice," she said. "It bumped my Sword and Thrown Weapons skills by two points each and my Taunt spell by one."
"That is good," Taylor said. "Five points from a Silver box? That feels strong."
"I guess the AI really was pleased with us," Drew said. He took a drag on his joint, then let it hang from his lips as he conjured his boxes.
The Fight Smarter Not Harder box contained, bizarrely, a tube of hair dye. Drew read it, smiled in amusement, and handed it to Taylor.
Going Gaga Hair Product
Rub this gel into your scalp; it will turn your hair a random color and also fix that Puli that seems to have glued itself to your head. This effect is permanent. Also, you will be able to cast a level 15 Gravity Anvil spell once every 30 hours.
Spell: Gravity Anvil Cooldown: 30 hours Duration: (Intelligence) seconds AOE: A 3-meter radius sphere centered around the right hand of caster + 50 centimeters of radius per level of Intelligence. (Current radius: 7 meters)
Within the affected area, gravity increases by a factor of (Spell Level). The caster and all members of their party are able to move freely despite the increased gravity.
Cost: This is an item-based spell. This spell does not require mana to cast. If you unequip the associated item, you will lose access to this spell. The cooldown will not reset.
Taylor's eyes went wide. "Wow. Gravity fifteen times stronger? That will turn mobs into pancakes." He passed it back.
Drew slipped the tube into his hotlist and clicked it. There was a blinding flash and, once the spots faded from Taylor's vision, he saw that his friend now had cobalt blue hair that flared up in a spiky and layered 'anime hero' look. He was busy admiring himself in a small hand mirror.
"Damn, wish I could have gotten hair this good outside the dungeon," Drew said. "Sweet."
Calliope was smothering laughter.
"Open the last box," Taylor said, struggling to keep a straight face. That hair would have looked fine on the lead singer of a '90s boy band, but it was going to take some getting used to on his childhood friend.
"Right," Drew said, gesturing his Knowing Your Place box forward. The Silver box was about the size of a microwave oven, but when it flipped itself open it contained nothing except a lump of gray metal no larger than a fist.
Shaft Extension and Hammer Enhancement
Stroke this on your pokey thing and see what happens. Also, get your mind out of the gutter!
Drew studied the metal with narrowed, dubious eyes for a moment, then glanced at the ceiling. With a shrug, he pulled the bident out of his inventory and rubbed the metal across one of the tines.
Immediately, the metal flowed onto the bident and formed itself into the head of a hammer positioned just below the tines. The shaft of the weapon suddenly shot out, nearly stabbing Calliope in the face. Drew wasn't expecting the change and the weapon jolted from his fingers, clattering on the floor.
He picked it up again and studied it. A moment later it shrank back to its original length, then continued shrinking.
"Some kind of size-modifying ability?" Taylor guessed.
"Yup. The shaft can be anywhere from thirty centimeters up to two meters plus fifty centimeters per level in Spear. It's at level 5 right now, counting the buff from the bident itself, so I can make the shaft four and a half meters. What is that in American, like, fifteen feet?"
"Something like, yeah," Taylor said.
"Seems kinda bonkers," Drew said. "Who's ever going to want a fifteen foot spear?"
"They used to use them," Taylor said. "Pikes. They'd get a whole bunch of guys with pikes, march around in formation. Nobody could get close to them but they could stab the crap out of you, or just hold you back while the archers shot you a bunch."
Drew grunted wordlessly.
"Personally, I think the size changing part is cool," Calliope said. "Can you use it like a battering ram? Put it against a door, make it longer, knock the door down?"
Drew shrugged. "Doesn't say. I guess we'll find out."
"Speaking of which..." Calliope said with a grin, jerking her head towards the door.
"No," Taylor said. "We're long past due for a break. We'll sleep, shower, then head back out."
"Awww," Calliope said, pouting. "I wanted to murder some fuckers."
"Go easy on these old bones, kid," Drew said. "Your Uncle Drew needs a good toke and a long sleep."
Calliope sighed, long and loud and exaggerated. "Oh, fine. I suppose."
"Good night, Calliope," Taylor said firmly, rising to his feet with a groan and rotating his hips so that his back cracked. The adrenaline of the day had worn off and he was suddenly exhausted. The physical tiredness weakened the walls that he'd been holding around his mind and allowed a flicker of memories to come through—Dad's eyes crinkled up in laughter, Mom scrubbing at Taylor's windshield because "You can't see a thing through that", Danni looking disgusted at something in the newspaper, the scent of Taylor's favorite pizza joint.
"Moose, go with Leo," he said, waving the massive dog towards his teenage niece who was much too tough to ever need a living stuffed animal to cuddle in order to keep away the nightmares. "I'll see you guys in the morning."
He kept his face still as he shambled to the Bopca and rented a room. The last thing Calliope needed was to shoulder her uncle's burden in addition to her own.
o-o-o-o
Seven hours of sleep and thirty minutes in the shower, scrubbing furiously away at dirt and blood and muck that existed only in his memory. He put on his least dirty clothes (which wasn't saying much) and joined the others for breakfast.
It was a muted affair. Everyone was tired, both physically and mentally. Despite the unlimited rich foods available in the dungeon, they had all been losing weight over the last week. Taylor and Drew had both had the weight to lose, but Calliope was looking drawn.
"We're becoming pretty much nocturnal," Taylor grunted. It was true; the clock in his interface said that it was currently 11:17pm, although there was no mention of a timezone to tie them to a physical location within the world. The dungeon was the world now, a place untethered from physical reality and filled with murder.
o-o-o-o
They found their first mob, a lone tove, within minutes of leaving the saferoom. The monster was standing over the corpse of a relative, happily munching the swarm of brindle grubs that were busy consuming the dead monster. Fortunately, the living one was facing away from Team Trick Shot as they rolled up.
Wood's Tove — Level 8
This one was larger than what they had fought before, at least six feet long but low-slung. It had the same distorted warped-badger appearance and the same layer of slime, but it was covered in reddish-brown tree bark instead of lizard skin.
"Hold up a sec," Taylor said, raising his arm to bar Calliope from charging in. "I want to try something." He pulled a handful of gold coins from his inventory and flung them as hard as he could. They sailed over the tove's head, plinking and bouncing on the stone floor ahead of it. The monster's corkscrew head jerked up and it snorted. A brindle grub was still hanging from its jaws, greenish-blue blood dripping.
"Gold Grabber," Taylor said, holding out his right hand.
Something nigh-invisible, like a heat wave on desert sands, rippled outwards. Moments later, the gold coins came rocketing towards Taylor. Most of them reached his hand but several slammed into the tove's face and fell to the ground again. A health bar appeared over the monster's head, meaning that the coins had done at least one point of damage.
"Sweet," Taylor said, grinning. "Okay, let's do this. Pincer formation, Static Shock." He lit up his yo-yo and moved, pounding five steps to the right and then pivoting to take the tove from the side. Calliope went left while Drew dropped to one knee, braced the butt of his bident on the ground, and lengthened it to its full ridiculous length. That was enough to jam the spear into the tove's ass, but Drew was still getting used to the effect of the increased moment arm; the head of the bident dipped slightly as it lengthened and it ended up catching the monster around the upper leg instead. That was fine; Drew yanked the handle to scissor the bident's tines together. Unfortunately, this monster was tougher than the one he had done that to earlier; it shrieked in pain as the blades cut into its flesh, but the leg was nowhere near severed.
Calliope was on her skateboard, pushing hard to the left. Her Marston's Cord swung out, wrapping around the tove's left rear leg and knotting itself. She was supposed to catch it around the ankle for best leverage, but she missed and got the upper thigh instead. That was fine.
She crouched, got a good grip on her board with one hand and on the Cord with the other, and twisted gravity so that the floor became, for her, a nearly vertical wall. She plummeted, her entire body weight yanking the monster's leg to the side.
It staggered but didn't fall. Instead, it pivoted around, its strength and mass yanking the bident out of Drew's hands and sending the shaft of it whipping into Taylor's knee. The yo-yo player yelped in pain and staggered, disrupting his throw and sending the head of the yo-yo off off at an angle that completely missed the mob.
And then Moose arrived.
The huge dog was supposed to be the 'Shock' part of the Static Shock plan. The three humans held the monster static, Moose ripped it apart in a shocking display of violence. The silly two-legs had completely failed at their jobs but that didn't mean he couldn't dog up and do his part.
He leaped onto the monster's back, got his teeth in its neck and his toenails into its ribs, then rolled to the side and dragged it off its feet. It went over with a pained yowl that sounded like metal tearing and thrashed, trying to get free as Moose continued the roll and slammed the tove into the ground on the far side before pouncing on it again.
The bark-like covering of its skin showed only minor damage and its health was down only about ten percent, but Moose had a good work ethic and wasn't going to let a little thing like that stop him.
The monster's rolls had yanked on the Marston's Cord that was still tied around its leg. The sudden jolt was enough to make Calliope lose her grip on her skateboard; it skittered away and the Gravity Resurfacing spell snapped off the moment she lost contact with the board, sending her sprawling on the floor. She was up a moment later, her Kruthak Needle sword appearing in her hand as she charged back to the fight.
Drew had recovered his bident with a muttered "Sorry about the knee" to Taylor, and both of them closed in on the swirling, whirling, snapping and clawing mass of dog and monster as they tumbled across the floor.
Moose was mostly staying clear of the tove's wickedly-sharp claws and had gotten his teeth into its left front knee. He was shaking his head, powerful neck and shoulder muscles amplied by his Rend and Back Breaker skills allowing him to tear the monster's tendons and rip chunks of bark-covered flesh free of the bone.
Drew jammed his bident forward, catching the right rear leg around the thigh; he leaned his full weight on it, struggling to hold the limb down even as he triggered the scissors again and again, slowly carving the leg muscle into hamburger.
Taylor slipped up to the head and leaned in close. "Boo, motherfucker!" he shouted in its face.
The corkscrew head peeled open like a flower, opening vertically and horizontally. A puff of stinking, rotting-meat stench blasted Taylor in the face and another of those tearing-metal roars clawed at his eardrums. The jaws clashed, opening and closing inches from his face—
And then he dropped the head of his yo-yo into its mouth and said, "Lock."
The magical device froze in space, the dungeon's physics-defying magic making it utterly immovable. And, of course, it was already indestructible by virtue of being dungeon loot.
The monster thrashed and jerked back and forth, choking on the yo-yo but unable to gag it up and without the room to disengage from it. A flashing red 'Suffocating' debuff appeared above its head.
Meanwhile, Calliope was stabbing it in the belly over and over. Her low strength and slight body rendered her unable to do much damage through its wooden armor, but she kept chipping away at it like a cocaine-fueled lumberjack.
Drew still had the bident around its leg and was scissoring again and again while jerking the entire weapon back and forth. That wasn't working well, so he retracted the bident and shifted to pounding on the monster with the weapon's new warhammer attachment. That worked a lot better, especially when he stepped back to give himself room to lengthen the weapon's shaft for extra leverage.
With his yo-yo occupied, Taylor's main attack method was out. Instead, he tossed some gold into the creature's mouth and stepped back, calling the coins to himself with his Gold Grabber spell. The coins rammed against the monster's cheek, stretched it farther and farther, and finally ripped the flesh enough that they could reach their summoner.
Meanwhile, Moose was busy doing the actual damage while the humans frittered their time away. He set himself at the monster's side, snapping at its knee while carefully staying out of the way of the claws. As soon as he managed to get a grip he braced his feet and yanked. There was a sound like a chicken wing being dismembered and the leg tore loose at the shoulder, dangling by a few scraps of meat and tendon.
After that, it was pretty much all over but the shouting.
o-o-o-o
"That was most gross," Drew said tiredly.
"Teetee," Calliope replied. The straw-haired teen was sprawled out on the floor, exhausted and drenched in blood and bits of viscera.
"Another fun and exciting day in the dungeon," Taylor said. He was also lying on the mossy stone, one arm flopped over his eyes. There was nothing on the minimap aside from some incoming brindle grubs, and those moved so slowly that there was time to cook, eat, and clean up a leisurely lunch before they arrived.
Corpse of Tove, killed by Crawler Mike Chur. Level 6
Corpse of Tove, killed by Team Trick Shot. Level 8
The first corpse, the one that had been already dead and covered in brindle grubs when the team arrived, had dropped its own heart as loot. The thing was labeled 'Alchemy Ingredient' and Taylor pulled it into his inventory without a word. The Wood's Tove had provided them a trio of 'Tove Flank Steaks', which the inventory system labeled as both food and alchemy ingredients. The brindle grubs that had been eating Mike Chur's kill had been smooshed in the fight, but those never gave loot.
"Whoever Mike Chur is, I hope he stops leaving his kills lying around," Taylor said. "Dunno what happens when those brindle grubs get to feed, but I doubt it's going to be good."
"Five gold says that they get huge and grow big long teeth and poison and tentacles," Drew said.
Taylor took his arm away from his eyes so he could roll his head to look at his old friend. "Huge, big teeth, poison, and tentacles? Really throwing the kitchen sink in there, aren't you?"
"Eh. It's the dungeon."
"Fair."
"Okay, that's enough resting," Calliope said, climbing back to her feet. "Come on, oldies. Back to work."
o-o-o-o
They explored for another hour. The first floor had been divided into Boroughs composed of Neighborhoods, each of which was two or three miles on a side and easily distinguished based on the different inhabitants. Things weren't that neat on the second floor. Either the neighborhoods were much larger or the entire Borough was Tove territory, or perhaps the toves had somehow spread and annihilated the Borough's other inhabitants without leaving a trace. Regardless, the team alternated a walk and a jog for a solid hour, moving in as close to a straight line as the dungeon allowed. With the exception of three Bopca-containing saferooms and a pair of Levi-containing guild halls, at no point did they see anything moving except brindle grubs and toves. Not even other crawlers, which was something of a relief, since no one wanted the drama. Charlie and his people weren't around anymore, having chosen to go down the stairs immediately and be in stasis for the next six (now five) days. Luke and Team Southern Pride were nowhere to be seen and there was no telling how things would go with any other crawlers.
The toves were becoming more and more common, and more and more varied. The Franklin's Toves had a nasty lightning attack; this was discovered when Calliope and Moose got zapped with it. They both went down and stayed there, spasming and paralyzed, with Calliope's health bar a fingernail from zeroed out. Drew and Taylor had immediately dropped their melee weapons and blown the tove into hamburger with shotgun blasts, shooting long past the point of its health bar emptying. They were not about to take chances against what was essentially an instant-kill technique.
The Pot-Bellied Tove was enormous, blubbery, and had a health bar as long as War and Peace. The rolls of flesh should have made it slow, but it could turn...well, not on a dime but at least on a tea saucer, and its claws had carved grooves in the stone. Worse, it chased them when they fled, and it was faster than they were.
They were on a straightaway, the monster only a few yards behind them, with Taylor shouting at Calliope and Moose to go, run, get out of there—and suddenly he blinked and was elsewhere.
The moss and dankness of the dungeon, the darkness illuminated only by Drew's Torch spell and, most importantly, the giant monster: gone.
Instead, he stood in a comfortable room with a sea-foam green carpet and a table loaded with snacks. The wall in front of him hosted a pair of makeup stations, chairs and a table in front of a large mirror, the table covered in jars and bottles containing various creams and powders. Soft jazz was being piped in from nowhere in particular.
"Huh," Drew said. "I guess Mom was right. Purgatory is real. Not like what I expected, though."
"Purgatory?" Calliope asked, her voice distracted. She was just as busy looking around in wonderment as the men.
"Can't be Heaven," Drew said. "The music's not Santana."
Moose huffed and moved to the snacks table, snuffling along the line until he came to a plate of doggy treats at one end. They were exactly at mouth level but he was a good dog; instead of snorfling up the entire plate he simply looked back at Taylor with imploring eyes.
Taylor smiled and moved to join his pooch, happily placing the plate of doggy treats on the floor where they were understood to be fair game. He even loaded up a plate with pepperoni and some miniature croissants and set that down next to the treats. Moose had more than earned it, and he did love his spicy meats and flaky pastries.
Calliope was already working her way through a plate full of breads, cheeses, and fruit salad. She ate with the dedicated focus of an ever-hungry teenager, intensified by the fading-adrenaline shock of someone who had been moments from death less than two minutes ago.
Drew and Taylor served themselves more measured helpings and had taken only a few bites when a door suddenly flowered into existence against the wall and a metal frisbee hovered through at chest height.
"Hello," it said. "Be calm. You are safe here. You are alone in the trailer and when you return to the dungeon you will be sent back to a saferoom." It paused, making sure that the humans had understood and accepted the statement before it continued. Moose didn't care too much about the words, but he clearly found the idea of a frisbee that hovered at perfect mouth height to be intriguing; he came over to investigate and the robot quickly rose up closer to the ceiling.
"I am HE1EN," it said. "I am a general-purpose synthetic intelligence currently tasked as a production assistant for a tunnel show. You may call me Helen and use either feminine or neuter pronouns as you wish. I am sure you are experiencing some disorientation right now. Allow me to answer what are likely to be your initial questions.
"First, allow me to say again that you are safe. You are in a production trailer on the surface of your planet. You are about to be interviewed for a tunnel stream, which is the galactic equivalent of a television show. At the end of the interview you will be teleported back to the dungeon. You will arrive inside a saferoom where you may rest and recover.
"The stream is called Second Stringers Saved. It focuses on crawlers who have achieved enough attention to be worth interviewing but not enough to be expensive. For initial interviews, guests are selected from crawlers in the appropriate bracket who have recently used the toilet facilities and are about to die. If you do well today then S3 will option your interview contract from Borant and you will be brought back for later shows at pre-arranged times, usually once per floor.
"You are the only sapient creatures in the production trailer right now—as I stated, I am a synthetic intelligence, not a full AI, and therefore I am not considered sapient. In a few minutes I will escort you onto the sound stage behind me. You will take your seats at the table and have a few moments to get settled before the hologram of your host appears. Please remain seated at the table until the interview is concluded. The sound stage is smaller than it appears and we do not want you accidentally bumping into walls.
"The host's name is Omusa Ulung. They are a member of a species called the Natrakuna. They look something like humanoid otters but with more fur. The Natrakuna gender system is more complicated than you are used to; please use the pronouns 'they' and 'them' to reference Omusa, as ascribing a masculine or feminine to them would be considered an insult.
"This particular episode is an introduction. Omusa will direct questions to each of you. Ideal guests are polite, forthcoming, and appear happy to be on the show. Ideal guests are invited back for future interviews, which will greatly boost their social numbers and thereby increase their odds of survival. I leave it up to you if you wish to be ideal guests or sullen and uncooperative ones who complain about the unfairness of the crawl.
"Do you have further questions?"
The humans looked at each other and shrugged in turn.
"One question," Taylor said. "You select guests in part based on whether they recently went to the bathroom? Seriously?"
Helen beeped in amusement. "We do indeed. It is cheaper than paying for a trailer with plumbing facilities."
"I have never been so delighted to have taken a dump at the right time," Drew said.
"Teeteetee," Calliope said, sincerity overflowing from the words.
"If there is nothing else," Helen said, "it is time to get you situated. Please follow me." She rotated in place (although it was a bit hard to tell since her chassis was entirely featureless) and floated back through the still-open door.
The room on the other side was enormous. They were standing on a stage, entering from stage left. The stage was occupied by a curved table with three chairs along the upstage side, where the people seated there would be facing the audience. The table was too low, coming only to just above Taylor's knee, and the chairs were sized to match. The house seating fanned out at a wide angle from the stage and was easily enough to hold ten thousand people. It included no less than six balconies, with multiple columns of VIP boxes along the walls. Everything was opulent; red velvet seats, chandeliers of crystal so clear that it wouldn't block line of sight, and murals that sprawled across the domed ceiling far above. Velvet curtains that started off royal blue at the top and swirled into heart's-blood red at the bottom, the change happening in shifting streams instead of a steady gradient.
Taylor stopped dead at the door, causing a small pileup behind himself.
"Again, the trailer is smaller than it appears," Helen said. "Here, I will show you."
The house blinked away, curtains, chandeliers, and all. What was left was a narrow metal box thirty feet long containing the table and chairs. It stayed in place for a few seconds and then the opulent theater returned.
It took Taylor another moment to shake off the surprise and move forward. Helen guided him to the far end of the table and settled him in the chair. Calliope sat to his left, Drew at the end of the table, with Moose wedged in between Taylor and Calliope.
Helen beeped in a remarkably clear tone of frustrated nervousness. "I should have stated that the dog was to remain in the green room. Please take him back, quickly. The show will start is under a minute."
"Are you sure?" Taylor asked. "He's been pretty needy lately. If you put him out of the room there's a good chance he'll start howling."
Helen beeped in annoyance. "Very well. Please have him lie down out of sight behind the seats. Animals are too distracting for an audience."
Moose was looking out at the empty house in fascination, head cocking as he looked at the chandeliers and VIP boxes. Somewhere along the line he had apparently been stricken with a Deaf debuff, as he failed to hear Taylor's command to "Lie down."
Taylor put a hand on Moose's head and ruffled his ears vigorously. "Hey, you. Lie down."
Moose huffed and looked away.
"Oy," Taylor said, pinching the dog's ruff lightly and tugging down. "I said lie down."
Moose huffed louder, still refusing to look at Taylor.
"You heard the dog," Drew said to Helen, amusement clear. "I think he wants to be part of the show."
Hovering over the table in front of Moose, Helen beeped angrily in what was clearly robotic cursing. "This is against protocols. You must put the animal away or I will need to remove him."
The humans tensed. Moose felt the change in the room because his head whipped around to face the robot. His lips lifted up slightly, exposing a little bit of tooth, and a faint growl rumbled from deep in his chest. It sounded like a heavily-loaded cargo train closing the distance rapidly.
"I'm sure you didn't just threaten my dog," Taylor said calmly, one hand resting on Moose's head. "Look, we don't want any trouble."
"I can't—"
There was a faint ploong! sound and suddenly there was another chair at the table, at the end to Taylor's right. In it sat a humanoid creature, perhaps five feet tall. He—they, did in fact look something like an otter, although Helen hadn't mentioned that 'otter crossed with a pipestem cleaner' would have been more accurate. Omusa's fur was an inch long and stood out straight from their body, everywhere except on the face, where it was sleek and glossy. The colors varied, a speckled pattern that was mostly orange with some rich browns mixed in.
"Welcome, welcome!" the alien said in a jovial voice. "Lovely to meet all of—hang on, what's up with the dog? Why is it still here?"
"Taylor was concerned that if we put him out of the room he would howl," Helen said. Her voice was defensive and she floated back and forth very slightly as she spoke. "I said to make him lie down but he won't."
"He," Taylor said to Omusa. "Moose is a he. Look, we don't want any trouble." He turned back to the dog. "Moose? Lie. Down."
The dog looked at him grumpily, chuffed even more grumpily, and settled down behind the table in a slow and very obvious, "I am doing this under protest" fashion.
"Good boy," Taylor said, scritching behind the dog's ears. Moose leaned into the touch for a moment, then remembered that he was grumpy with his person so he put his head down on his paws. Taylor smiled and leaned over so that he could stroke Moose's back one last time before straightening and returning his attention to the host.
"Welcome again," Omusa said. "I am Omusa Ulung, although HE1EN should have told you that already. It gave you the briefing, I hope?"
"Yes," Taylor said, catching himself before he could say 'she did'. "This is a question and answer show, right?"
"Yup! Don't worry, you'll do great. We do our research before choosing the guests. You guys are just what we're looking for—engaging and intelligent, with a generally positive attitude and drive. We try to avoid the depressed or angry ones. They give lousy face."
"Right."
Omusa looked down the table. "Hey, Drew, you're not burning your thing."
Drew blinked. "What?"
"Your thing." The otter made vague gestures towards their lips. "Those little tubes that you always light on fire and then stick in your mouth."
"You mean a joint?"
"A 'joint'?" The alien cocked their furry head, which involved turning their shoulders slightly. "Sure, I guess. It's part of your schtick, yeah? HE1EN, why didn't you give him some of these joints?"
"I was not aware that it was desired, mirn."
"Well it is. Give him a joint."
Helen turned towards Drew and beeped. "I have enabled your inventory system for ten seconds. Please remove a burning joint and only that joint. Please do not remove fire-starting equipment as it would constitute a breach of Owia Bru's contract with the company that rents us the production trailers."
Drew seemed a bit floored by the whole situation, but a lit joint appeared in his hand.
"Good, good," Omusa said. "Calliope—do you prefer Calliope or Leo? Your friends call you both."
"Either one is fine, mirn," she said. "Uh, I'm using that right, yes? 'Mirn' is the respectful term?"
Omusa beamed. "Indeed, indeed! Such a polite child. This will go great. Anyway, lean your skateboard on the front of the table where people can see it. Boats out, please."
Calliope was in the act of leaning forward to follow directions when she stopped and looked over with a face of confusion. "Boats...? Wait, did you mean trucks, mirn?"
Omusa tossed their head up and to the side in what Taylor decided to call a dismissive wave. "Boats, trucks, whatever. The wheels. Have them sticking out where the audience can see them."
"Yes, mirn."
Taylor could feel sweat prickling at the back of his neck. Calliope was never this biddable, and it suggested that something might be brewing.
Fortunately, Omusa seemed oblivious to the disaster that could be Calliope. "Taylor, if you could put your yo-yo on the table in front of you, that would be great. Gotta have the skins on, amiright?"
"The skins?" Taylor asked. There was a click and his interface turned on. He pulled out the yo-yo and set it down in front of himself. A moment later, his interface went away.
"Your skins," Omusa repeated, completely unhelpfully. They turned to face the house. "Showtime. Get your smiles on."
The stage lights lowered except for a spotlight on Omusa. The house lights brightened and suddenly every seat was filled. The audience varied wildly, from humans to rock monsters to weird creatures that could only vaguely be described in comparison to Frankensteinian amalgamations of terrestrial creatures. There were flickers here and there, creatures disappearing and being immediately replaced by something else.
Music played, starting off soft and rising to a crescendo. As it ended, Omusa waved both hands to the audience in the gesture that swimmers used to signal that they were drowning and in need of rescue.
"Greetings, greetings, greetings, fellow sapients!" Omusa said. "Welcome to Second Stringers Saved! We've got an exciting show for you tonight. You know them, you love them, iiiiit's...Team Trick Shot!"
The stage lights came up and the audience started applauding.
"Trick Shot, Trick Shot!" someone chanted.
"Marry me, Calliope!"
"Fertilize my eggs, Drew!"
"Spin the yo-yo-yo, Taylor! Spin it!"
"Now, now!" Omusa said, patting the air for silence. "Let's not overwhelm our guests right off the pop, yah? Plenty of time to work out the details of liaisons later on." They laughed.
Taylor shook his head sadly. "Ah, Omusa. I'm heartbroken. We're here five seconds and already Leo and Drew are getting proposals, but nothing for me? Heartbroken, I tell you."
The audience laughed.
"Where's the dog?!" someone shouted.
A chant spread around the room. "Moose! Moose! Moose! Moose!"
The canine in question picked his head up at the noise and looked up at Taylor, head cocked in inquiry.
Taylor looked to Omusa who gave him a 'what can you do' shrug, then nodded.
"C'mon, boy," Taylor said, gesturing for the dog to stand up.
Moose heaved himself to his feet and sat down next to Taylor, looking out at the audience in interest, his tail swishing back and forth happily. He was wearing a doggy smile and when the cheering started he gave a booming "Woof!" that made the noise redouble.
Taylor laughed and ruffled the dog's ears furiously. "Spotlight stealer," he said. Moose panted smugly.
"Okay, okay," Omusa said to the audience. "Settle down. We've got an interview to do here."
It took a few seconds, but silence was eventually restored.
Omusa turned back to the team. They were making a nasal chittering noise that was, Taylor guessed, their species's version of chuckling or even outright laughter.
"I suppose I should have known better than to let the dog onstage," Omusa said, clearly amused. "Taylor, tell us about him. When did you two decide to cohabitate?"
"Uh, well...Moose didn't really get a vote on the cohabitation thing. He's a pet, and he's sentient but not sapient."
"You think," Omusa interrupted, amused.
"I think, yes," Taylor said. "I admit, sometimes I wonder." He scritched Moose under the jaw. "Anyway, I got him from a shelter in town—that's a place that takes in stray dogs and dogs that people can't keep for whatever reason. They're always looking to find people who will take the dogs in and give them a loving home. He was a puppy when I got him and he's four years old now. Dogs his size usually live somewhere between twelve and fifteen years, so he's a young adult."
"Excellent. He's been quite the valuable ally in the dungeon, eh? I'm sure everyone has watched that scene of him rescuing Calliope from the kruthak."
"He's been fuckin' awesome," Calliope said fervently. "Oh, sorry. I guess I shouldn't curse on the tunnels."
Omusa leaned away, raising their hands in pretend fear. "Nooo! No witchcraft on my show!"
The audience laughed.
"What did that look like from your side of things?" Omusa asked her. "How were you feeling at the time?"
"Terrified," she said. "It was stabbing me and these horrible pincers kept snapping at my face and drooling acid on me. I was afraid it was going to get in my eyes." She reached up and touched the scar on her forehead.
"You should be proud of that scar," Omusa said. "It shows that you have done deeds in your life, been more than a drone. There's honor in that."
"Uh...thank you?"
"How about you, Drew?" Omusa asked. "What's with those smoke sticks that you're always sucking on?"
Drew exhaled a plume of smoke that he'd been holding. Unlike the other two, he was managing to make the seating look comfortable; he was half-lying down in his seat, legs stretched out under the table and crossed at the ankles. Calliope was short enough to look like a teenager sitting in a child's chair, but Taylor had pushed himself back so that his knees weren't banging the underside of the table.
"It's a plant called marijuana," Drew said, looking at the joint. "But we usually call it pot. It relaxes me and provides a little bit of a lift."
"It makes you happy?"
"Yeah, I guess," Drew said, taking a drag and holding it for a moment.
"You've been doing an excellent job of weaponizing it. Those hovawa in the plant sector are highly resistant to bladed weapons and small projectiles, but they're easy to poison."
Drew smiled. "Just glad I could contribute, ya know?"
"Indeed, indeed! All three of you have been contributing, haven't they folks?"
The audience chanted the team's names, Tay-lor, Tay-lor / Ca-lli-o-pe / Drew, Drew, Drew! the alien voices mixing into a blur of sound. Moose apparently felt left out because after a few seconds he barked. The audience cut off in surprise, then started laughing.
"Excuse me, excuse me! The four of you have been contributing," Omusa said with a laugh.
Moose huffed in satisfaction and grinned a happy doggy grin. When Taylor scritched behind his ear he leaned into the touch, eyes drifting closed in sybaritic pleasure.
"You guys have been doing great thus far," Omusa said. "People have been impressed with how active you've been, and how adaptable. On the other hand, you're here on S3 because you were five seconds from...death!" The last word came out spooky, complete with fuzzy jazz hands.
"Yeah, that thing was too much for us," Taylor said. "We thought that the Burny Stabby Feet we used on the other group would do it, but we weren't counting on it just ignoring the caltrops."
"And that cheapass Shin Breaker spell is useless," Calliope grumbled. "It's supposed to be an invulnerable wall of force! Call that invulnerable? I want a refund!"
Omusa grinned and chittered through their nose again. "In fairness, the problem wasn't that the spell broke, the problem was that the tove happened not to hit it. It was in mid-gallop, went right over the thing. Here, see for yourself."
The fuzzy alien otter gestured and the stage lights dimmed. A screen appeared in front of the table, facing the team. It showed Calliope peeking around the corner as the Pot-Bellied Tove approached, then leaping out in front of it and flipping it off with a double eagle.
"Fatty fatty, two by four! Can't fit through the bedroom door! Taunt!" she shouted. Midway through 'bedroom', the monster was already charging, its massive blubbery dewlaps flapping. Calliope ran for it, zipping around the corner and onto her skateboard.
The Burny Stabby Feet tactic had evolved since its first use. That first time around, one issue had become clear: running toves were faster that skateboarding Calliope. They were nowhere near as fast as Moose, but they could run Calliope down quick enough.
Marston's Cord to the rescue!
It had taken a lot of practice, more than a few falls, and several applications of the Heal spell in order to get rid of the resulting scrapes and bruises. The final result was worth it: with the Cord tied into a harness around Moose's chest and shoulders, the big dog could tow Calliope at speed. Taylor had felt tremendously clever when he suggested it, only to discover to his chagrin that there is nothing new under the sun.
"It's called skitching, Unc," she had said, with the roll of the eyes that teens everywhere used when educating their ignorant elders. "It's usually on a car. You know, like in that Back to the Future movie Grampa grew up on?"
Taylor and Drew had both been silent for a moment as the grim hand of age pressed down on their deepest souls. And then they had moved right on past it and went back to spreading caltrops and napalm across the floor, leaving a narrow section along the side for Moose to run across.
"Yeeee-haa!" Calliope shouted, her eyes watering and short hair standing straight out behind her with Moose's speed. "Comin' in hot!" Indeed, the Pot-Bellied Tove — Level 13 was close enough that she could feel the impact of its feet through the ground. She glanced back, struggling to blink her eyes clear so she could judge how far back the monster was.
Answer: not far. Not far at all.
"Shin Breaker!" she shouted. Her ring tingled and she saw a low wall of force, visible only to her and not the oncoming monster, shimmer into existence behind her.
They came to the final turn; Moose's massive body and ridiculous speed worked against him on cornering so his toenails scrabbled on the stone as he struggled to turn without slamming into the wall. He made it and continued down the corridor, gluing his left shoulder to the wall so that he could pass through the narrow corridor of clear space. Still hanging onto the Cord, Calliope flew out to the side like the last person in a game of crack the whip. She eeped in excitement as she flipped the board up onto the wall, turned gravity, and skated along opposite Moose with the Cord still stretched between them. Dropping it would have made it trail through the field of caltrops and ruined the ambush.
She passed the ambush site and the cloud of toxic and sedative smoke zipped down from the ceiling where it had lain in wait. It filled the corridor side to side and top to bottom, blocking all sight of the lethal toys that lay within.
Thirty feet down the hall from the smoke, Drew and Taylor waited with shotguns cocked and ready, torches in their off hands. This was the first Pot-Bellied Tove they had seen, and the first tove with such a high level. They would have assumed it was a boss had it been in a room instead of wandering the corridors, but under the circumstances they were taking no chances.
The tove gave its tearing-metal shriek as it came around the corner, bounced off the far wall, and galloped down the corridor at them. Drew and Taylor hurled the torches, lighting the napalm—
And the tove came straight through, not even slowing down. Every step now carried a tink, tink sound caused by the caltrops stuck in its feet clattering on the ground. It didn't seem to notice.
The creature was massive, as tall as a Budweiser horse but six-legged and far more massive. Its blubber cascaded in rolls, its eponymous belly nearly dragged on the ground, and it didn't seem to notice that it was on fire up to its knees from where the napalm had splashed up.
Drew and Taylor had time to fire two shots each before diving aside. The tove smashed straight through their metal barricade, crushing it like an angry toddler crushes an origami cube.
"Run!" Taylor shouted, racing towards the smoke and napalm and caltrops that were supposed to have saved them. He silently prayed that the corridor along the side was still clear of caltrops, but that wasn't going to do anything for the napalm.
He glanced back to see that the others were following; they were, so he dropped a Pyrophilia spell on Calliope, took a mana potion, and dropped a second on Drew. That left him on potion cooldown and at two mana—enough for a Heal spell, not enough for another Pyrophilia.
One step before the smoke, he gulped air and held it while simultaneously pulling a blanket from his inventory and draping it over his head. The heat was intense enough that the blanket lit on fire in the three steps that it took to pass through the flames. He threw it aside, leaving it to burn, and made his best effort to ignore the fact that his socks were also on fire and the elastic was melting into a thin grid of pain.
Sure, his best effort involved a lot of screaming, but he kept running instead of on time-consuming things like 'stop, drop, and roll'. Behind them, he could hear the tove slamming on the brakes and struggling to reverse course. It would be after them in seconds and he was currently out of ideas on what to do next.
His health was in the red so he spent his last two mana on a Heal spell and did his best to bat at the flames with his hands while not slowing down. It didn't put them out, but at least it burned his hands.
Calliope drew alongside, a Super Soaker in her hands, and did a super job of soaking him from the knees down, thereby extinguishing the flames. Taylor had brought the water cannon with a vague idea that it might be useful for spraying chemicals or something, and because it had been in the scratch'n'dent bin for $1 when he was at Walmart picking up more clearly useful things.
"Thanks!" he gasped.
She nodded, not wasting the breath to reply, and disappeared the Super Soaker so as to free her hands.
Behind them, the tove had gotten itself turned around and was coming back in that same ground-eating lope that had nearly run Moose and Calliope down earlier. Three humans running? It would catch them long before they could make it to the saferoom a half-mile away.
"Bathroom!" Drew panted, pointing ahead and to the right.
Hope blazed up in Taylor's heart; he hadn't necessarily gotten his friends killed! If they could make it to the bathroom, they could hide.
...Except they would need to get there far enough in advance to open and close the door four times so that they could each hide in their own instance.
"Fuck," he gasped. They had taken a left and a right since leaving the ambush site, but the tove must have been tracking by scent, or perhaps simply had very good ears, because he could hear it closing on them. There was not going to be enough time.
The tove came around their most recent turn and saw them. It bayed and charged, crossing the sixty feet with impossible speed—
All four members of Team Trick Shot vanished and the camera cut to show the current place and time, with the Terrans sitting at the table next to a smiling Omusa. It stayed there for a moment, then faded away and the stage lights came back up.
"Well," Omusa said. "That was exciting!"
"Dude, not cool," Drew muttered.
"Sorry, Omusa, but I think the word you're looking for is 'terrifying'," Taylor said, giving his best performer's smile.
"Drew, I'll bet you wish you hadn't used up your Gravity Anvil for the day," Omusa said.
"No cap'n," Drew said, blowing smoke out of his nose.
Calliope covered her face in embarrassment. "You're using that wrong, Uncle Drew," she said from between her fingers. "It's 'no cap', and no one says that anymore."
"They don't?" Drew said innocently. "Golly gee. You kids today are just so in flicking."
"Augh! It was 'on fleek', and no one says it anymore and I have no idea what you're trying to say but you're definitely doing it wrong."
"Really?" Taylor said, frowning. "I always assumed that on flicking was when you kept hitting the power button on the remote really fast to make the TV blink."
Calliope cringed harder.
Taylor smiled and turned to Omusa. "Now that Drew and I have sufficiently embarrassed my poor niece: I think we all wish that we hadn't used up the Gravity Anvil before fighting that thing."
"Did a treat on that other batch," Drew offered.
"It certainly did," Omusa said. He gestured and the lights dimmed again, the screen lighting up to show the team sneaking up on a mixed group of nine toves. There were two tanky Wood's Toves, six of the Electric Toves with their taser aura, and even one of the especially dangerous Gas Toves who breathed poison gas.
The screen showed the team having a quick discussion and then Drew stepping into view of the toves. Their heads came up, birdlike, and the nearest Electric Tove started to step forward, long claws clicking on the stone floor even as sparks jumped from its skin...
And then Drew slammed his fist down into his hand and all of the toves were crushed to the ground by an invisible force. The Electric Toves, built lean and fast, turned to meat slurry wrapped around bone fragments. The Gas Tove's chin hit the floor hard enough that its long, slender neck snapped. The two Wood's Toves were, amazingly, able to drag themselves very slowly along the ground in an attempt at escape.
The attempt failed when Taylor hurried over and drenched each of them in burning napalm.
The screen faded to black, then came up again to show the last few seconds of the Pot-Bellied Tove thundering after the team, them disappearing, and the tove sliding through where they had just been, its jaws snapping in fury at being cheated of its prey.
"Going back to the previous topic," Omusa said, "Drew, what was going through your head when you realized you didn't have the Anvil available because you used it on those weaker mobs?"
"Not much," Drew said, his voice slow and mellow. "I was a little busy thinking I was gonna die, you know?"
"Oh, pish tosh!" Omusa said. "You four are full of surprises! I'm sure your fearless leader was about to spring his next deadly trick, eh? Tell me, Taylor, what was your secret plan?"
Taylor could feel his smile start to slip so he nailed it in place and put a preemptive hand on Calliope's arm under the table. Last thing the team needed was her ruining the aura of competence that Omusa was trying to gift them.
"Okay, you've got me," he said breezily. "But I can't tell you the secret plan, Omusa. That's why it's called a secret plan." He smiled and winked at the audience. "Right, folks?"
There was a general laugh.
"I'll say this much: it involved something I brought in from the real world," Taylor said, measuring the words carefully. "Something big and red. Not saying more than that, though." He chuckled. "It would ruin the surprise if I just blurted it out. If you want to know the secret, keep watching!" Hopefully he would never have to admit that he didn't have the faintest clue what the non-existent 'secret plan' had supposedly been.
"Definitely," Omusa agreed. "You guys have certainly been full of surprises so far, and I'm sure you've got more up your sleeve. We've only got thirty seconds left, but any strategic plans you can share with us? What's next for Team Trick Shot?"
"Simple," Taylor said, wishing he knew where the hell the camera was so he could look directly into it. Instead he had to settle for running his eyes slowly over the audience. "It's just like the lady always says: we go out there and kill, kill, kill. Except we don't just kill all the crap that's running around the dungeon. We kill it hard."
He stood up and gestured subtly for Drew and Calliope to join him. Moose took the hint and sat up nice and straight, chin raised as he proudly surveyed his domain.
"We are Team Trick Shot," Taylor said, extending both arms to the audience. "For the last week we have made this dungeon our bitch, and we're going to keep doing that. The monsters? We aren't locked in here with them." He tapped his finger twice in the air, trying to subtly signal Calliope and Drew to join in. Both of them took the cue like they'd practiced it.
"They're trapped in here with us!" the three humans shouted.
"Ar-Ar-ARROOOOO!"
The audience was on its feet, thundering applause washing back and forth amongst whistles and chants of Trick! Shot! Trick! Shot!
The team held the pose until the lights faded and the holos disappeared, leaving them in an empty metal box with a table, three chairs, and a hologram of an alien otter that someone had carpeted in Brillo.
"Damn, kid, you nailed it!" Omusa said. "Gotta admit, I felt my gazorpem clench when you stood up like that. Risky move. Easy to end up looking like a melodramatic poser, you know?"
Taylor laughed and sat down cross-legged on the table. It was a better height than the chair. "Believe it or not, I've done this before. I used to make a living on YouTube."
"Sure, but mostly off your merch."
Taylor's eyebrows rose. "You did do your research, didn't you?"
"Nah, I just know how that whole schtick runs. In a population of only a few billion it's damn hard to make a living on personality. Anyway, good show." The otter leaned back in their chair, stretching their legs out and running all twelve fingers under their jaw in a vigorous scratch. The formerly sleek hair sproinged out. "Goddess curse, I hate that damn stage cream. Stuff itches like crazy, but all the polls say that the audience prefers a defined jaw."
"So what now?" Drew asked, blowing a smoke ring of pot. Next to him, Calliope caught some of the drift and coughed, waving her hand in front of her to disperse it. "Sorry, Leo," Drew said.
"Now, I go tell my people to go call Borant's people so we can grab your contracts," Omusa said. "You'll be coming back here once a floor. The bigger shows tend to grab the front spot, when you've just come down the stairs, so we'll probably be having you in at the midpoint."
"Assuming we don't die," Taylor said.
"Assuming you don't die, yeah. Try to avoid that, would you? You're cheap at this point but it's still wasted money if you don't make it back for at least one more show."
"Anything you can do to help us with that?" Calliope asked. She had perched herself on the table next to Taylor, one foot tucked up under her and the other swinging freely. "Some gear would be nice."
"Not allowed to give you stuff, I'm afraid," Omusa said. "Even if I wanted to, the Benefactor system doesn't turn on until the fourth floor and the costs are crazy. Just getting a crawler's contract is usually bonkers, but actually sending a Benefactor box? Hoooeee. Good chunk of my show's budget for the cycle, just to send a crappy Bronze box."
"How about some advice?" Taylor asked. "Our game guide said that getting our social numbers up is the most important thing. Being on your show will help, I'm sure. And I'd assume that you'll be promoting us, if only in the form of clips and commentary. Anything we can do to make it easier for you?"
"Yeah." The otter paused to pull out a small piece of brown paper and rub it across their wet black nose. "Oh, yeaaah. That's the good stuff, man." They sighed with the relief of a performer coming offstage, finally able to let the performative sparkle and polish leak away.
After a moment, Taylor cleared his throat.
"Oh, yeah. Right, advice. You're doing good with the yo-yo and skateboard thing, and the dog is an easy sell. Everybody likes dogs, either because they're cute or because they're tasty. Drew, you're dragging your tail. Figure out a way to distinguish yourself more. Taylor, you're the leader. Get a damn catch phrase already."
Taylor grimaced. "Yeah, Levi said the same thing. Guess I've been focused on other stuff, and I forgot."
"That bit about 'they're trapped in here with us' was good, but it's too long. You need something short, ya know? Punchy. See if you can work a curse word in there somewhere; violating social norms is a good way to stick out in people's memories, as long as you don't do it too much. Anyway, think about it."
"Yes s—mirn. Yes."
"Cool, cool. Now, one piece of advice that I can give you: you need to be prepping for the third floor."
"How so?" Calliope asked. "You mean the race and class stuff?"
"Yeah, exactly. There's a bunch of stuff that's always available, but it's generally crap. You want the specialty things, stuff that gets unlocked for you in particular. You killed a necromancer and a bunch of zombies, so there will probably be something undead-themed available to you lot that isn't available to the general public.
"For the rest of this floor, focus on doing as much different stuff as you can. The cores have hundreds of thousands of classes in them, and more get created every season, so whatever you want is probably in there already. Think about the kind of class you'd like to have and what you might do to make that available to yourself. Consider if you want to stay human or take a new race. Most people don't have the korts to do it, but there's a lot of advantage. Even if you're squeamish, there are races that look pretty much human.
"Whatever you decide, don't ask the AI for it directly. It might give it to you, it might take out that and everything like it just to mess with you. You gotta be subtle, hear me?"
Taylor nodded just as Calliope said, "Subtle. Got it. I can do subtle." Her voice was serious and it sent a chill down Taylor's spine.
"Cool, cool, cool. S'aright, off you go then. Try not to get killed, and I'll see you next floor!"
Voting time! What do you do next? Voting ends Tuesday,
or when there have been no posts for 24 hours.
[X] Action Plan: The Leverage of Loathing, and for Want of a Hook
Words: tbd
With Drew's help, check in with Leo. She's a teenager a little reckless, we can't go apeshit here.
Just like soccer, channel that into the game. Can't break the rules, and the punishment would be a lot harsher.
Drew needs a hook. Blue hair is nice, crowd seemed interested in the joint.
Drew was pretty good at correcting Taylor's treatment of Leo (don't mother hen/helicopter mom the teenager).
If Drew has any wisdom/interest/insight into the human condition, he could do a sort of philosophical podcast/series?
Taylor (think, in character/internally): "what's one of Drew's passions? A thing he could talk about for hours on end?"
Possible Catch Phrases
"United, We Prevail."
"Tricked ya"
"You're in here with me/us."
Continue Bravely searching the Floor
Prepare for Class and Racial Options (Share ideas with party, help each other out)
Using Pyrophilia
cover yourself in napalm and complete a fight while on fire.
Breathe ethanol onto active flame (torch or napalm?)
Get the finishing blow on a monster using Gold Grabber.
Use the tools and supplies to build some things to hopefully unlock an artificer class.
Carve symbols from human mythologies (ex: futhark runes) into the coins. Study relevant wikipedia entries to be able to tell the audience about the meaning of the symbols.
Check the information you brought for how to make fuel air explosives.
Make the biggest boom you can with the Distributor Cap and the supplies in your inventory.
Pick an appropriately leveled mob, have Calliope sneak up on it and kill it before it can see her.
Taylor and Drew stay hidden and only intervene if something goes wrong.
Then repeat for Drew and Taylor.
(with tools from inventory) Try to break apart a few gold coins.
If successful, add it to a piece of thrown napalm (with remote detonator) as shrapnel.
@eaglejarl
Are races restricted like classes? (some Default, Rest based in actions)
Or will we be able to write them in? (with the usualy being reasonable/nothing op caveats)
@eaglejarl
Are races restricted like classes? (some Default, Rest based in actions)
Or will we be able to write them in? (with the usualy being reasonable/nothing op caveats)
Ever since the quest started, I've been putting together a list of classes and races. At this point I have a couple dozen races and almost fifty classes. Y'all are welcome to suggest things from now until the third floor arrives, and I may use / take inspiration from whatever is suggested. Once the actual selection process starts, write-ins will not be accepted.
I think we need some specifics for unlocking race/class options. Here's what I can come up with right now:
*Cover yourself in napalm and complete a fight while on fire.
*Get the finishing blow on a monster using Gold Grabber.
*Use the tools and supplies to build some things to hopefully unlock an artificer class.
*Check the information you brought for how to make fuel air explosives. Make the biggest boom you can with the Distributor Cap and the supplies in your inventory.
Ever since the quest started, I've been putting together a list of classes and races. At this point I have a couple dozen races and almost fifty classes. Y'all are welcome to suggest things from now until the third floor arrives, and I may use / take inspiration from whatever is suggested. Once the actual selection process starts, write-ins will not be accepted.
Ah, assuming anthro otters (like the Natrakuna from this update) are already listed... anthro wolf and anthro dragon (with wings too weak for actual flight and no breath weapon, unless/until the ai decides we should have that)
Besides the furry bait, dragon would really fit Calliope, and besides the use that ears and nose would have, wolfTaylor could fit well with Moose.
Absolutely remember pyrophilia spell for that stunt, though.
To add:
*Carve magic symbols from terran mythologies (like futhark runes) into the coins. Use downloaden wikipedia to be able to tell the audience about the meaning of the symbols.
