Olivebirdy
mook.
[X] (Tactics) Ask questions first, shoot later. Try using your Charisma when possible. Where not possible, use lead.
I was under the impression that it was far more popular than 'the audience is small', thought it was like soccer, or basketball. Where the assumption is that you're watching it, rather than not.
This was explicitly quoted in the books.
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Yup, except the numbers don't work. Canon says that:
- DCW is the most popular show in the universe and basically everyone watches
- Galactic civilization has FTL communications so everyone everywhere can watch in real time
- Galactic civilization has Clarketech that allows for reality manipulation on the level of reversing gravity and seemingly stopping time in a limited area
- 700 trillion
views[EDIT: followers] by the 4th floor is a lot
tl;dr Matt didn't think the numbers through. Easiest explanation IMO is that DCW is like dog fighting -- it's got a small but fanatic audience, except "small" in galactic terms is huge in ours.
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Yeah, this is eaglejarl's private conviction that he has expressed in discord many times and I guess gets to make true in his quest. In canon DCC, the Crawl is very popular across the galaxy.
IMO the easiest explanation is that:
This is the part that's wrong and making an untrue assumption somewhere. Possibly in there's something weird going on with maximum populations. At one point a character claims a moral justification for the Crawl is that they have to eliminate the life-bearing worlds seeded by the Primals, like something genuinely bad will happen if the population of the galaxy gets too high.
I can't stop him from making the "small but fanatic audience" true in his quest, but I don't like it and consider it kind of a clumsy way of explaining something that needed no explanation... I'm actually not even sure that the stuff in DCC is "Clarketech" and am open to the idea that magic is a thing and Earth was just being prevented from knowing that as part of the general complete reorganization of our culture to match the Crawl.
IMO the easiest explanation is that:
This is the part that's wrong and making an untrue assumption somewhere. Possibly in there's something weird going on with maximum populations. At one point a character claims a moral justification for the Crawl is that they have to eliminate the life-bearing worlds seeded by the Primals, like something genuinely bad will happen if the population of the galaxy gets too high.
I can't stop him from making the "small but fanatic audience" true in his quest, but I don't like it and consider it kind of a clumsy way of explaining something that needed no explanation... I'm actually not even sure that the stuff in DCC is "Clarketech" and am open to the idea that magic is a thing and Earth was just being prevented from knowing that as part of the general complete reorganization of our culture to match the Crawl.
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You're welcome to your own opinion of course. For me personally though I think the overpopulation trope is lame and uncompelling (and potentially even harmful rhetoric but that's a different topic). 700 trillion does seem pretty notably small for a population that spans 2 galaxies so to say
This is my first exposure to this setting so maybe it would bother me more if I'd read DCC. As a first time reader though it doesn't strike me as an odd or clumsy choice.
it is pretty funny to me that you did actually need to provide an explanation for it. Whether it's EJ changing the math or having to infer lore about population control and precursor alien races, either way you're having to "explain" it.
This is my first exposure to this setting so maybe it would bother me more if I'd read DCC. As a first time reader though it doesn't strike me as an odd or clumsy choice.
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*eyebrow raises* Interesting. Here are the underlying assumptions; tell me which you think is wrong:
- There are 100 billion stars in our galaxy
- Most solar systems will have at least one rocky planet that can be disassembled to build a Dyson swarm
- A Dyson swarm can support on the order of 1 septillion human-ish beings
- At least one intelligent species will expand to the limits of available resources
- The civilization(s) in question will have the ability, either on their own or by hiring another species, to disassemble planets and build Dyson swarms
- The civilizations(s) in question have had sufficient time to spread across at least one galaxy.
If you want to argue that #1 is wrong then you are factually incorrect.
If you want to argue that #2 is wrong then I have no objection to saying that it's only 0.1% of solar systems that have the resources. That only drops the total population by three orders of magnitude, which is irrelevant for the argument I'm making.
If you want to argue that #3 is wrong then (a) you are factually incorrect but (b) I have no objection to saying that it can only support 0.1% of that, meaning 1 sextillion humanish beings. That still makes no difference to the argument I'm making.
So, which premise do you disagree with?
'Clarketech' literally means "technology so advanced that it's indistinguishable from magic." Potayto, potahto.
I kind of object to the whole premise of trying to calculate plausible population numbers and then comparing them against the numbers given in Dungeon Crawler Carl and saying that it must be DCC that is wrong rather than "I dunno, I guess it just works that way." And the reason for that it that it seems to me that it's important to the premise of DCC that the Crawl is a big deal that the upper reaches of the interstellar/galactic government actually cares about and concerns themselves with as being important rather than a niche thing that only happens because no one cares enough to stop it. I consider that premise sufficiently important to the underlying story of Dungeon Crawler Carl that any possible plausibility of the population numbers is just of far less importance.
If I did want to engage with your six premises though, I'd probably find a way for half of #2 and then #4-#6 to be the ones to modify. I saw "half of #2" because I probably wouldn't engage on quantity of raw materials, but the "can be disassembled to build a Dyson swarm" part on the idea that maybe Dyson swarms out of the raw materials of a solar system are not a technically feasible thing due to unknown engineering/physics problems that we can't we can't even imagine. DCC spoiler: I mean, even the "seeded worlds" like Earth are said to be the result of Primal now-gone technology running wild rather than something that current engaged mainstream interstellar society is doing, and that seems way easier than dyson swarms. I suppose that's in some way the same thing as point 5, but this far there's no evidence that anyone in the setting is building Dyson swarms, rather than arguing about the capability of any particular civilization to do so.
I suppose the whole idea of unchecked expansion having happened on an imaginably ancient time scale (though the time scale does seem pretty long to be fair) is also maybe argued against by the fact that there are still multiple competing interstellar civilizations that appear to be based around planets, where if we were doing the unchecked expansion thing you'd think someone would have decisively won by now. Another late book spoiler. When the Crawl is taken from Borant, the ships are said to be circling their home planet, not their home Dyson swarm.
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So, in short your argument is that you don't like that I'm taking this interpretation and you think that yes, there is a plot hole here but it's more important to maintain the "Crawl is super popular with everyone" aspect of it than to fix the plot hole and therefore we should either ignore the plot hole or use motivated reasoning to find a way to justify it.
*shrug*
Okay. I don't view "it's popular with everyone" as important at all. If you care about maintaining the "it needs to be super popular with everyone" part then you do you. If you care about the "upper reaches of the interstellar/galactic government actually cares about [the Crawl]", then nothing in my interpretation is inconsistent with that. Rich people and governments are corrupt and support reprehensible activities? Gasp! Say it ain't so!
Honestly, under my interpretation there would pretty much *need* to be some high-power people running cover for the Crawl in order to keep it from being shut down. I literally even wrote this into chapter 0: "it's an extremely dedicated fanbase and some of the fans are quite wealthy, or even heads of state."
Anyway. This is the way it works in DCY. I hope you'll stick around and participate but if it offends your sensibilities too much then I certainly can't stop you from bailing.
Yes, that is it on the nose. Good discussion!
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PSA: Slight retcon going on. Thomas => Drew.
Yeah, turns out, having a protagonist named 'Taylor' and a secondary character named 'Thomas' is a bad plan. The third or fourth time that I got their names mixed up I decided to change it. Thomas is now and always has been Drew.
Yeah, turns out, having a protagonist named 'Taylor' and a secondary character named 'Thomas' is a bad plan. The third or fourth time that I got their names mixed up I decided to change it. Thomas is now and always has been Drew.
Chapter 2: First Contact
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Chapter 2: First Contact
Even with the protection of his motorcycle helmet, the impact had stuffed Taylor's head full of cotton batting and then shoved a tuning fork against each ear. It took a few seconds to shake it all away and bring himself back to focus, but as soon as he could think straight he pulled the helmet off and turned to check on his passengers.
Calliope wasn't bleeding and didn't seem hurt; she could be checked in more detail later, because...
...Moose was upside down, butt on the seat and head in the footwell with his harness tangled around him. The poor dog was whimpering and struggling futilely to escape until Taylor managed to tug the leash loose from where it had been looped around the headrests. That let Moose sprawl clumsily into the footwell, then twist around and get back on his feet.
"You okay, boy?" Taylor asked, running his hands over his friend to check for sensitive areas or blood. Moose grumbled but slurped his face in forgiveness for ending their car ride—a thing that was supposed to be relaxing and fun—by smashing into a wall in a loud and unpleasant way. More importantly, Moose didn't wince at being touched anywhere and there was no blood on his fur. The stack of pillows and the ersatz seatbelt had done their job and kept him safe. Taylor unclipped the leash and made sure that the harness was straight and not pinching.
"Leo?" Taylor asked, glancing over to where Calliope was now sitting up and shaking her head. "You okay?"
"Yeah," she said, her voice finishing the transition from 'blurry' to 'focused' over the course of the word. "Yeah, I'm fine." She pulled the black motorcycle helmet off. Amazingly, she was grinning fit to split her head. "That was epic."
Taylor laughed. "You are one weird kid."
"Hey, I learned from the best." She chucked him on the shoulder. "C'mon, let's go see what's out there!" She reached for the door handle but Taylor grabbed her arm.
"Load first," he said. "Don't want to have to do it once something spots you. Remember the first rule?"
"Finger off the trigger until you fire," she recited. "Second rule: don't point a loaded weapon at anything you don't want to shoot. Third rule: the weapon is always loaded, even if you just checked and saw that it's not."
"Very good, but let's work on that sarcastic tone, yeah?"
"Why? I think I do a very good sarcastic tone."
Taylor rolled his eyes. "Load your weapons." He shifted pillows out of the way so that he could access the shotgun and the .45 that were fixed under his seat with bungie cords. He pushed a magazine into the butt of the pistol and racked the slide, checked to make sure that the safety was on, and set the weapon on the seat beside him while he pushed shells into the shotgun.
"UwU Tavor TS12 semi-automatic shotgun," Joe had said. "One of the most versatile weapons on the market. Bulldog design with a piccalilli rail and regular gas, three tubes with five shells each and they can be rotated by pressing this here button on the grip and turning. Load one tube with birdshot, one with buckshot, and one with slugs, you're set for pretty much any threat envelope and blah blah blah lots of cool gun words that are causing your brain to drown in testosterone."
On reflection, Taylor was fairly certain that he hadn't remembered all of that correctly.
The weapons had been kept unloaded for the trip into the dungeon because Taylor cringed every time he thought about one of them potentially going off if and when the truck hit something. Now, however, he wanted to be armed and dangerous as fast as possible. There was no knowing how the dungeon would work—maybe they would be swarmed by Lovecraftian snakebearpig monsters the moment they stepped out of the vehicle. Maybe they wouldn't see anything for hours. Only thing to do was assume the worst and be prepared.
His hands were shaking enough that he dropped the first shell and had to pick it up off the floor, much to Moose's amusement.
"Hush up, dog," Taylor muttered. Moose woofed and slurped him before Taylor could get an elbow up to protect himself. He gacked and wiped his face clean. Moose panted happily.
Weapons finally ready, Taylor shoved the .45 into his holster, looped the shotgun's patrol sling so that the weapon hung at his side, and slipped one finger into the loop of his Skyhawk. He yanked the door handle and kicked it open, sliding out of the truck with the most insouciant move he could manage. He threw the yo-yo and spun it, then flipped it through a simple set of trapeze mounts and dismounts so familiar that his hands could do them on their own, thereby leaving his eyes free to look around with studied casualness.
"This it it?" he said loudly. "The big, bad, world-eating dungeon?" He looked up at the ceiling. "Hey, Borant! Not impressed so far! You guys destroy my world and the best you can do is a gloomy stone hallway with glowing moss? Would it kill you to put in some decent lights? Preferably the LED type—they're better for the environment."
Welcome, Crawler. Welcome to Level One.
A timer appeared in the upper right of his vision. It was at 4 days, 23 hours, 57 minutes, and counting down.
Moose galumphed out of the truck and looked around, then sat down and batted at the air with one paw.
Holy crap. Whatever this was, Moose saw it too. As Taylor watched, a text box appeared over the dog's head.
Crawler #6. "Moose"
Level 1
Race: Dog (Tibetan Mastiff/Rottweiler/Golden Retriever)
Class: Pet
The heck? Moose had Golden Retriever in him?
You have been designated Crawler Number 5.
You have been assigned the Crawler Name "Taylor".
You are currently level 1.
You are assigned the race of Human.
You may choose a new race and a class as soon as you descend to the third floor. Your stat points have been assigned based on your current physical and mental profile. See the stat menu for more details.
"Menu? Stats? Help?" Taylor tried, to no effect. Moose got up and started snuffling around, scouting the neighborhood for things to eat, bite, or lick, depending.
Congratulations! You've earned your first achievement: Doggy Daddy
Walk me, daddy! Walk me! You are the first person to have entered the World Dungeon accompanied by a dog. Awww, ain't that sweet?
Reward: You have received a Legendary Pet Box!
New Achievement! Early Adopter
You are one of the first 10 Crawlers to enter a new World Dungeon. Sucker.
Reward: You have received a Platinum Adventurer Box
New Achievement! Clown College
A yo-yo? Really? I suppose next you'll tell me that you're a brony and you still use your Wonder Woman lunchbox.
Reward: You have received a Silver Weirdo Box!
New Achievement! Doomsday Prepper
Holy shit, dude! Guns, armor, machetes, sure. The 10' pole is a classic. You brought a frickin' generator and an ebook reader loaded with ebooks and YouTube videos??? You must be some kind of lunatic.
Reward: You have received a Legendary Prepper Box!
New Achievement! Cheater!
There is no way that you happened to have all this shit with you and still managed to enter the dungeon in the first ten. You got warned the dungeon was opening, didn't you? Naughty, naughty!
Reward: You have received a Silver Cheater Box
New Achievement! Ballsy Fucker!
Three minutes in the dungeon and you're already calling out the fish? Good for you! They'll kill you for that, but good for you.
Reward: You have received a Silver Ballsy Box
Ohhhhkay, maybe he shouldn't insult Borant anymore. He wasn't sure why the AI was referring to them as 'fish'—unless those carvings on the doors had been Borant people? Yeah, that made sense. Anyway, he had already done it and would have to live with the consequences, but he'd keep his mouth shut until he knew more.
A clatter caused Taylor to spin around; Calliope's skateboard had been tossed out of the truck, followed immediately by the girl herself. She landed on the board, stuck the landing, and then jumped off and did something with her feet that caused the board to flip up into the hand that wasn't holding the shotgun. "This sucks!" she said, looking around. "Where's the monsters? Where's the dramatic alien construction materials? It's just raw stone and moss!"
"Don't tempt fate," Taylor said. As he looked, another infobox popped up over her head.
Crawler #7. "Calliope"
Level 1
Race: Human
Class: Not yet assigned
"I'm fine, thanks," Drew called, crawling out of the wrecked Altima. The nose of the vehicle had gone under the elevated back of the trailer and been crunched down into a wedge by the force of impact. Drew had needed to duck to avoid being decapitated. He got to his feet and started pushing shells into his shotgun's right-hand loading port.
Crawler #12. "Drew B"
Level 1
Race: Human
Class: Not yet assigned
"Wow," Taylor said. "I thought you were right behind us, but four people got in between Leo and you. I wonder how many will go in overall?"
"Dunno," Drew said, wrestling with his weapon. "Hey, how do I load the other two tubes again?" he asked, turning to face the others.
"Muzzle! Muzzle!" Taylor shouted as the barrel of Drew's weapon swept across him. Drew jerked it up into the air. "Push the release, then rotate the ammunition tubes," Taylor told him more calmly, moving to assist.
"Hey, did you guys get a bunch of achievements?" Calliope asked.
"Yup." / "Oh yeah!"
"Cool," she said. She looked into the air, eyes moving as she read, then snorted in disgusted amusement. "'Bitch Brat'? Apparently I'm the first female teenager into the dungeon. Gets me a Gold box, whatever that means. Also Silver for being the first with a skateboard, Silver for 'Cool Entrance', Platinum for 'Early Adopter', Legendary for 'Doomsday Prepper', and Silver for 'Cheater'. You guys?"
"Nice," Taylor said. "I got the Early Adopter, Prepper, and Cheater ones, plus a Legendary for being the first one in with a dog, a Silver for being first with a yo-yo, and a Silver for what I said about Borant."
"Aw, man," Drew said. "I got the Prepper and Cheater ones, but only a Silver for Early Adopter. I guess being in the first ten really does matter."
"Eh, getting four Legendary boxes between us sounds pretty good," Taylor said. He looked around. "Okay, time to pack this stuff into inventory and then find a tutorial guild." He stepped over to the bed of the truck, undid the tie-downs, grabbed a toolbox...and then paused as he realized he had no idea how to put something in inventory.
"Inventory?" he said hopefully. "Activate storage? Go go Power Ranger subspace storage?" He grunted in annoyance. "Like I said, time to leave this stuff here and go find a tutorial guild."
"Couldn't someone steal it?" Drew asked, looking at the wrecked vehicles.
"Fair point," Taylor said. "Let's go pairs. Me and Moose will look for the guild, you two mind the store."
"What?! No way, I wanna go badass my way through traps and monsters, not babysit a couple of busted up cars!"
"Leo...look, no one should be alone, okay?"
"Then how about if I take Moose and you stay here and be lame? I can keep him out of trouble better'n you can."
Taylor snorted. "Actually, that reminds me." He stepped back to the cab of the F-350 and rummaged under the seat. "Moose, c'mere boy."
Moose trotted over and sat, head cocked in doggy curiosity, as Taylor crouched down and undid his collar, replacing it with one that had brutal half-inch spikes on the sides and top. "There we go, fella," Taylor said, ruffling his dog's ears. "Let's see anything try to get a bite out of you now, huh?"
Moose panted happily and barked, once.
"Ssshhh!" Taylor said, tapping Moose on the muzzle and then placing a finger over his own lips. "Don't attract attention."
Moose sneezed in annoyance and shook his head as though shaking off water. The new collar had no tags on it, so there was not the expected jingle.
Taylor turned back to Calliope. "Leo, you're younger and faster than I am. On the other hand, I'm bigger and stronger than you are, I've had the most weapons training of any of us, and I've had a lot more time to plan. Which of us do you think should go and which should stay?"
Calliope glowered her frustration at that and crossed her arms over her chest. "Fine."
"Thanks, kiddo," Taylor said with a smile. He reached behind the driver's seat and pulled out a bulging backpack, shrugging it on and adjusting the straps carefully. "I'll be back soon."
Calliope looked at the pack and snorted in amusement. "Cheater. If I'd had time to plan then I'd be going. Leave you two oldies sitting here while I went off and had exciting adventures."
"True," Taylor lied. "On the other hand, I'm pretty sure there's plenty of exciting adventures in front of us. Probably more than we would prefer."
"Personally, I'm all for preventing excitement," Drew said, pulling a joint out of his shirt pocket, sticking it between his lips...and then pausing and shaking his head before putting it away again. "I mean, excitement in this place is going to involve a lot of bleeding and screaming and dying."
"As long as it's not us doing the bleeding and dying, who cares?" Calliope said with a feral grin.
Taylor adjusted the patrol sling of his shotgun so that it hung facing forward and he could have it ready while also having his hands free. "Yeeaaaah...on that subject. There's going to be other people down here and it's too dark to see far. Make sure you know what your target is before you start shooting. Especially because it might be me."
"Yes, mom," Calliope said, rolling her eyes.
o-o-o-o
Taylor walked, his hands going through a series of easy and low-risk tricks with the Skyhawk even as he kept his eyes up. Gotta attract those eyeballs and build that brand, also gotta not die. The shotgun hung horizontally, barrel poking forward and next to his lower ribs; it interfered with and constrained the motion of his arms, but he made it work instead of shifting it to muzzle-down and out of the way. Again with the 'not dying'. Moose paced along at heel next to him, on his left and therefore away from the gun.
He had been walking through the wide stone corridor for five minutes before he saw his first monster.
It was a rat. It had the usual long, naked, worm-like tail and grasping front paws. It was also the size of a Maltese dog, its eyes glowed red, and it had teeth like a beaver—four protruding vicious chisels visible even when it wasn't hissing.
It was chewing its way into the stomach of a human corpse.
Corpse of Crawler Li X — Level 1
The rat must have heard their footsteps because it skittered back out of the corpse and whipped around to face them. It was drenched in blood all the way to the shoulders, brown fur matted and red. It shrieked, red eyes blazing, and charged.
Rat — Level 1
Taylor dropped his yo-yo and went for his weapon. The yo-yo string was on his right hand and it tangled over the barrel of the shotgun, arresting his motion before he could reach the trigger. Ten feet away, the rat gathered itself in mid-charge and leapt. Its jaws gaped wide, yellowed teeth bared and aimed straight for his face even as he tried to duck aside. He was clumsy, the weight of the shotgun changing his center of balance and making him stumble.
Moose leapt up and snapped the rat out of midair like it was a thrown doggy treat. There was a crunch, a yelp, and a series of head-shakes that would have broken the animal if it weren't quite thoroughly dead already. Nonetheless, Moose pinned it down with one paw so that he could tear it in half.
"Jesus," Taylor said, straightening up from his panicked duck-and-dodge. "Good boy, Moose. Good boy. Holy crap." He took a moment to untangle his yo-yo and slip it off his finger, then pulled a pack of dried jerky out of his pocket and handed over half a palm-sized sheet of the stuff as a reward to his very, very good boy.
Moose accepted the jerky as his due and chomped on it happily, pausing only briefly when a laughing Taylor crouched down and wiped the rat blood off Moose's jaws.
With Moose looking less like a creature from a horror movie, Taylor stepped over to examine the corpse.
Lootable Corpse. Crawler Li X. Level 1. Killed by a rat.
That was all it said. Nothing about who this man had been, nothing about whatever family might be missing him or why he had come into the dungeon. Even his name was subordinate to the fact that his corpse could be looted.
He was an athletic Asian man of an age that was probably close to Taylor's own thirty-four years. He was wearing running shoes, sweat pants, and a T-shirt that said 'Chicago 10k, 2020'. The rat, or something, had chewed through his left shoe. The front half had fallen off and his toes were gone, blood pooled around the mangled flesh. His eyes were open and his face frozen in pain.
"I'm sorry," Taylor said to the corpse. "I don't know who you were or why you came down here. I wish there was something I could do for you but..." He gestured helplessly at the barren corridor: a twenty foot square of rough stone with glowing lichen and no place to bury a body.
The corpse made no answer.
Taylor arranged the limbs into a more respectful pose and closed the man's eyes. They promptly opened halfway, making Taylor shrink back.
Taylor looked down helplessly for a moment more. "I don't know what your beliefs are—were," he said, "but I guess I hope you get the good side of them." He looked around vaguely, unsure what else he could do, then nodded to the corpse and went on his way.
He shifted the yo-yo to his left hand this time.
o-o-o-o
The door said 'Tutorial Guild' in gold calligraphy letters on frosted glass. It was straight out of a 1920s hardboiled gumshoe's office. The moment Taylor read it, a glowing blue box shimmered into existence in front of him and the AI's snarky voice spoke in his ear.
New Achievement! You have discovered and read an official dungeon sign.
Wow. You can read. Whoopie.
Reward: All official dungeon signage will now be highlighted and easier to spot. Nearby guilds, bathrooms, and safe rooms will appear on your minimap.
Taylor glanced down at Moose who looked up at him in silent query.
"Here we go, boy," he said quietly. He took a breath and pushed the door open.
Inside was a massive room, easily forty feet on a side, with a hardwood floor so pale it was practically silver. The ceiling soared thirty feet above, a massive crystal chandelier glowing with warm yellow brilliance. Thick, brightly-colored, asymmetrical rugs were scattered around, dividing the room into three notional segments. To the left of the door was a pale blue carpet on which sat a redwood dinner table surrounded by eight Bauhaus chairs. To the right there was no rug but a pair of shoji screens blocked off sight of the rest of the room. Directly across from the door was a fireplace big enough to roast an ox, a bonfire happily blazing away inside it. In front of the fireplace was a rug that faded from burnt umber to crimson sunset, topped by a glass coffee table and two brown leather couches with lines of brass upholstery tacks. A royal-blue velvet-covered armchair with a high back was angled to face the happily crackling fire.
A huge screen was displaying something on the wall above the fireplace, but it winked out before Taylor's eyes could parse what he was seeing. The screen faded away, becoming indistinguishable from the richly-textured honey blond wood of the walls.
Tutorial Guild Hall
This is a Safe Zone.
Warning: level timers are still active.
"Damnit!" cursed the armchair. (Or, hopefully, the person sitting in the chair.)
Something leaned around the side of the chair, looking at Taylor. It studied him for a moment, then sighed and stood up. It looked like it had been built out of the leftovers from an animal construction kit.
Start with a humanoid rabbit, almost seven feet tall. Give it the head of a manatee, four arms with impressive claws, and mount its eyes on octopus-like tentacles that stuck out to the sides.
Levi — Lepotrichus — Bardic Adept. Level 56.
Guildmaster of this guild hall.
This is a Non-Combatant NPC.
You know those kids in high school who had a shitty garage band and unrealistic dreams that went nowhere until the kids gave up and became CPAs? Bardic Adepts are like that. They use the power of music to heal friends, charm enemies, and occasionally induce vomiting with their emo lyrics.
Taylor stepped back and put his hand on his shotgun as Moose lowered his head, growling.
"Relax," the monster said, waving a hand dismissively. "I'm friendly, and attacking me in here would be a bad idea. It's a safe room and I'm a non-combatant." With a grunt, he picked up the heavy armchair and waddled it in a circle so it faced towards one of the couches. "Sit, sit. Let's get through this quickly and maybe I can get you out of here before my show ends."
"Uh...who are you?" Tayler asked, not taking his hand off the shotgun. It hung from the patrol sling so he was able to aim it with one hand while setting the other on Moose's head. Taylor kept his weapon aimed at the floor between himself and the alien, and he kept his finger outside the trigger guard, but that was as far as he was willing to go towards disarmament.
"I'm Levi," the
Taylor didn't move. "Can you tell me how to use the inventory system?"
"Yes, yes. That, and the chat system and I'll answer all your questions and yadda yadda. Sit, damnit!"
"I've got a couple friends that I had to leave guarding our gear when I came in. How about you explain the inventory system to me and I'll go fetch everything, then come back here and we'll do the rest? That way you'll only have to do the speech once."
Levi hesitated. "I'm not supposed to send you back out with only a partial explanation...there's a process."
"But you can, right?"
"Well..." He glanced back to where the screen had been. His neck was thick enough that this required twisting at the waist; he was far more flexible at this than a human or rabbit would have been. "I'm really not supposed to. It's important stuff and not getting the full briefing can be a problem."
"Look," Taylor said, "it'll take me about half an hour to get back to my gear, then I have to load up, then another half hour back. You should have time to finish whatever your show is and I'm going to get back here as fast as I can. I have lots of questions."
Levi dithered, wringing both pairs of hands. Finally he nodded. "Okay. Here." He waved one hand.
Game Guide Levi has activated your interface!
A pale yellow rectangle appeared at the bottom right of Taylor's vision, with three dots inside it. The top of his field of view was suddenly populated by a grey dot, a green bar, a blue bar, and the countdown timer that was presumably measuring how long he had before the level collapsed.
"Concentrate on the grey dot and blink twice to click it," Levi said. "That will bring up your menus. Click on 'Inventory'. That will give you an 'Add to Inventory' option. You need to be holding a thing in order to put it in your inventory. If it's heavy then the AI will make you hold it off the ground for four seconds before it lets you inventory it. Light stuff you can put in as fast as you can click the button. Leave the rest of the interface alone for now and I'll explain it when you get back. Now go on, get outta here." He picked up his chair and turned it around again, settling down so that he was once more obscured from sight.
Bemused, Taylor stepped back out of the room and closed the door behind himself.
Moose woofed quietly, looking at Taylor, then at the door, then back again.
"Yup, that was weird," Taylor said to his dog. "C'mon, let's go get the others."
o-o-o-o
Taylor was moving faster now, the yo-yo in one of the pockets of his tactical vest and his shotgun at port arms. He studied the new interace elements as he went.
The yellow rectangle was clearly a minimap; it showed everything within about fifty yards, including side passages beyond line of sight.
The green dot in the center was himself, and looking at the orange dot at his side brought up the label Crawler #6. "Moose". Levi had been represented as a white dot, but it had disappeared as soon as Taylor moved out of range.
Curious, he clicked on the grey dot.
New Achievement: Using your interface!
You have used your interface outside a safe room for the first time!
Reward: Nothing! Be grateful we gave you an interface!
Glowering, he waved the blue notification box away. Instead of disappearing, another one popped up.
New Achievement: Dumbass!
You ignored the rules and didn't let your game guide give you a proper explanation of your interface! Sucks to be you!
Reward: Nothing! You don't get rewards for being stupid!
This is one of the rare achievements that can be received more than once.
The translucent notifications stubbornly refused to go away regardless of how much he waved or blinked, and they remained directly in front of his eyes no matter how he moved. Taylor suddenly found himself with better understanding of what his father's life had been like after the glaucoma set in. (He's dead. You'll never see him again.)
He swallowed a lump from his throat and focused on walking, looking slightly to the side and using his peripheral vision to see what was in front of him. Moose seemed to have picked up that something was wrong because he kept looking up at his owner and whining nervously.
"It's okay, boy," Taylor said, patting Moose. "I'll be fine. We just have to get the others and get back to the guild hall. I chalked the way so it'll be easy. Levi will straighten this out for me."
As best Taylor could tell without being able to look directly at him, Moose seemed unconvinced.
They were perhaps ten minutes away from where the others waited when Taylor saw the red dot appear in a side corridor on his map. Looking at it brought up the label Rat — Level 2. He cursed and tried to go faster, but he stumbled on the slightly uneven floor and almost fell.
The red dot started moving towards them. Taylor fumbled with his gun, rotating the ammunition tubes to put buckshot in the feed. He had painted the tubes orange, blue, and white in order to be able to distinguish them better.
"Moose, stay," Taylor said as the rat came around the corner and ran towards them. The dog growled but did as he was told.
Taylor got his weapon aimed as well as he could while looking through two popups with 80% opacity and yanked the trigger; the shot went nowhere near its target. The rat reeee'd its disapproval and accelerated.
Desperately, Taylor fired again, and again, shooting as fast as he could pull the trigger until the five shots in the tube were gone.
"Moose, okay!" he shouted, stepping back and struggling to get the barrels rotated to a fresh tube.
Released from 'stay', Moose growled and ran to meet the attacker. The thing was bigger than the last one, easily the size of a terrier. Impressive as that seemed, Moose had no trouble explaining to the creature exactly who the apex predator was around here.
"Good boy, buddy," Taylor said, voice shaking. "Very good boy." He crouched down; his knees were shaking too much from the adrenaline to reliably support him. He tried to pull shells out of the loops on his tactical vest in order to reload, but his hands were shaking too much and he had to wait a few seconds.
Moose panted happily and woofed his expectation.
"Yes, you do seem to be doing all the work around here," Taylor said, bemused. "Still, let me reload anyway." He managed to get the shells into the tube, then pulled out another sheet of jerky. This time he gave Moose the entire thing. He'd brought plenty and Moose had earned it.
The pair were two minutes back on their way when Calliope came charging out of the darkness, shotgun in hand and Drew two steps behind her. She started to raise her shotgun when she saw Taylor and Moose but let it fall again as she recognized them.
"Uncle Taylor, you're okay!" She charged up and glomped him the way she had when she was much younger. "I heard the shooting."
Taylor hugged her back and ruffled her hair. "I'm fine, kiddo. Moose took care of it. C'mon, let's get everything loaded and then get back to the tutorial guild. It's about half an hour away. Also, I can barely see because of these two announcements that I can't dismiss, so you guys are going to have to help me."
Voting remains closed. I'm going to write the tutorial and loot unboxing for chapter 3, then we'll get back to questing.
Author's Note: Taylor doesn't know squat about guns. Among the things he doesn't know:
- Yes, shotguns need to be aimed. This is especially true when firing slugs instead of shot. (Well, he knows this now.)
- The IWI (not UwU) Tavor TS12 shotgun is a bullpup (not bulldog) design, it has a Picatinny (not piccalilli) rail and is gas regulated (where 'gas' refers to the phase of matter, not the fossil fuel). It has three ammunition tubes, each of which can take 4x 3" shells or 5x 2.75". Pressing a release button allows the tubes to be manually rotated in order to access a different ammunition type / a tube that isn't empty.
- It's wildly unlikely that a properly-loaded and properly-maintained firearm will 'go off' by being dropped or thrown against something, even in a car crash. It's a big universe and almost anything is possible, but they are pretty much designed to prevent accidental discharge.
- Despite the previous bullet point, don't throw your weapon against a wall, and avoid car crashes whether or not your firearm is in the car with you.
- Taylor does in fact know this one, but it bears repeating: always treat your weapon as dangerous. It is always loaded, even if it's not. It's never okay to point the muzzle at someone unless you intend to kill them, even if the weapon is unloaded and the slide is locked back and there's a trigger lock on it.
- For Ghu's sake, keep your finger off the trigger unless it needs to be there.
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Moose is such a good boy.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Moose for Successor Of Planetary Resource Rights
- Location
- Book Fort
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[.
So glad I thought to ask if we could bring a dog as a companion!
Moose is a hecking good boy! ^.^
So glad I thought to ask if we could bring a dog as a companion!
Chapter 3: Tutorial
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Chapter 3: Tutorial
Levi was waiting for them when they returned, his chair facing the door.
Both Calliope and Drew stopped in the door when they saw the enormous and visually disturbing game guide, but after a moment they stepped inside willingly enough.
"Hey," Levi said, waving a hand. "I'm Levi, and I assume this guy explained that I'm your game guide." He paused and frowned. "Jesus, man, I told you not to mess with your interface." He waved a hand and the notifications finally disappeared from in front of Taylor. "See, this is why there's a process. Sit down, all of you. There's a lot to cover.
"Most important thing first," Levi said. "This is a safe room. You cannot injure or kill another being while in this room and they cannot injure or kill you. I am a Non-Combatant Non-Player Character, or NCC. You can kill regular NPCs but you can't injure or kill NCCs anywhere in the dungeon.
"Don't attack anyone in a saferoom, or an NCC anywhere," Levi continued. "The first time you do it, you'll be frozen in place for about 100 seconds while you listen to an automated lecture on good manners. Second time, you'll be frozen for an hour or so. Third time, you'll be stripped naked and teleported into the middle of a mob nest. You will die."
"What if—" Calliope began.
"This will go a lot smoother if you just let me talk. I'll take questions at the end."
Her jaw clicked shut and she glowered.
"Second most important thing: You are going to die in this dungeon unless you do exactly what I tell you. Got that?"
All three humans nodded jerkily, eyes widening slightly.
"Here's the first thing I'm telling you to do if you want to survive: Focus. Don't waste time on anything you aren't going to need right now. Once you make it to the second floor you can start thinking about the future. Until then, your entire attention needs to be on surviving the next five minutes.
"Now, I'm sure you're bursting with a million questions and they're going to keep buzzing around and preventing you from focusing, so let's get those out of the way.
"First, who am I, why am I here, and what am I to you? Like I said before, I'm Levi, your game guide, and I'm here to help you get oriented. I was a crawler like you a very, very long time ago. My world was reclaimed, I made it to the eleventh floor, and now I'm indentured. After I serve as a game guide for enough seasons I get my freedom and a small pension. It's better for me if my crawlers survive to the fourth floor but it's not essential. I'm motivated to help you but I have restrictions on what I'm allowed to tell you so don't be surprised when I won't answer some things."
That didn't sound ominous at all.
"Moving on, what is the dungeon and why is it here? It's a reality TV show crossed with a snuff flick. You crawlers fight your way through level after level of deadly traps and monsters. The vast majority of you, if not all of you, are going to die. While that's happening, uncountable numbers of Syndicate citizens will be watching your struggles, betting on it, writing bad fiction about it, and making money off of it. Is it cruel, unfair, and unreasonable? Yes. Get over it.
"How do you survive the dungeon? Broadly, you kill things. Then you loot their bodies for stuff which lets you kill things better, and you keep doing that until you can exit the dungeon. There are two ways to exit: If you make it all the way through and out of the eighteenth floor then you become the owner of Earth and all the aliens have to leave. You won't make it."
"Why not?" Taylor demanded. "We're well prepared, well armed—"
"No. You are not, and you will not. This show has been running longer than your species has existed on Earth and no one has ever made it past the thirteenth floor. One person made it to the thirteenth floor, one time. One. He died within half an hour. You three are not such special snowflakes that you're going to be the first." He glanced at Moose and corrected himself. "You four." Moose panted happily.
Calliope looked mutinous but, fortunately, did not interrupt.
"The only way you get out of this dungeon, the one that you're going to use if you're very, very lucky and you do everything I tell you, is to make it to the tenth floor and cut a deal."
"You said that you made it to eleven and that other people made it to twelve...?" Calliope asked.
"You're not as good as I was." He raised a hand to cut off any response. "You're a tiny little girl, two nerds, and a dog. Yes, you've got a bunch of guns so you'll probably survive until tomorrow, but it's very unlikely that you'll make it off this floor. Me, I was a decathlete, a four-time martial arts champion, and I came in with both a ranged and melee weapon, both of them excellent."
"Dude, we've got machetes, shotguns, pistols, and armor," Drew said. "Mellow out, yeah?"
Taylor's heart started pounding in his chest. Drew wasn't wrong, but potentially upsetting Levi seemed like a very bad plan.
The alien man ignored Drew's comment completely. "Now, probably the stupidest question that we need to get past but one that I get every time: You may have heard something in the dungeon announcements that referenced your pop culture or some other aspect of your world. That's because the dungeon didn't spring up overnight. The advance teams started working back in your 1950s or '60s. They scouted locations, recorded your media, laid out construction and programming plans, lined up the galactic media rights and so on.
"Finally, who is doing this? The Borant Corporation is the one running the show. The Syndicate is the overall galactic government. Don't use those names. Using either of those names causes that timestamp of your feed to be saved for evaluation by a moderator. If they find you were being disparaging to either of those entities then you can be accelerated, which means you will die. If you need to refer to those entities be respectful and try not to do it by name. Say 'showrunners' or something like that."
"I, uh, already took a shot at them," Taylor said nervously. "When I first got in. I was trying to look cool for the audience."
Levi's tentacle-mounted eyes briefly looked at each other, then back at Taylor. He wasn't sure what that meant in Lepotrichan body language, but it almost certainly wasn't complimentary.
"Well, don't do it again," Levi said. "It's probably not an issue. The audience feeds don't get turned on until you hit the second floor, so the showrunners will probably forgive you once. Probably."
Taylor swallowed nervously and nodded. "I'll be careful."
Levi nodded, grateful that his advice had been heeded. "Now, since you've brought up the subject of the audience, let's skip to that part. It usually comes later in the discussion but might as well do it now.
"Like I said, this is a TV show. The only way to survive until the tenth floor is to attract an audience. Fans can send you fan boxes that contain gear you wouldn't find in the dungeon. If you develop enough of a following then you may get a Benefactor—that's a rich person, corporation, or government that decides to sponsor you. Benefactors can also send you loot boxes and they will generally be better than anything you would get from regular boxes or fan boxes. I had two Benefactors during my crawl, and I wouldn't have made it without the suar that they sent me, and the picks that came with it. You need to be interesting, you need to pop. Develop a catchphrase, have some kind of gimmick. Think you can do that?"
"I was a YouTuber," Taylord said. "Over 200,000 followers."
Levi's eye-tentacles curled up like double quotes. "Cool. That's going to help a lot. Keep in mind the differences; once the feeds get turned on, the audience can and will be watching at all times, everywhere except in the bathroom stalls. They aren't allowed to look there. If you need to wank, do it in the stalls and be quiet. They can still hear you even if they can't look in."
Calliope blushed crimson.
"Okay, let's move on to your interfaces." His right hand glowed for a moment; Drew and Calliope jerked in surprise.
"You two should have received a notification saying that you have access to the Crawler Menu. Look at the minimap in the bottom right. You're the green dot in the center. Other crawlers are shown in blue, pets are orange, hostile mobs are red, non-hostile mobs are white. If you focus on a dot it will tell you what it is. Try that."
Taylor looked at the dots on his minimap. Sure enough, the names and levels for each of his friends and Levi came up.
"Look at your map," Levi said. "Mentally pinch in and out to resize it and try moving it around in your view so that you can customize your HUD."
Taylor did as instructed and found the interface easy to manipulate. When he expanded the minimap it showed more area around them, including a trio of red dots two corridors away to the east. He focused on one of them.
Kruthak — Level 2
He blinked in surprise and the displays went away.
"Okay, let's talk menus," Levi said, rubbing his clawed hands together. "Eventually you'll be able to control them mentally, but for now just flick your eyes up twice to make them appear."
He walked them through it, explaining how to open and close things, customize the view, and generally getting them accustomed to their new enhancements. They asked questions and got clear, albeit impatient, answers.
The most important menus were the Chat menu, which allowed them to mentally write texts back and forth, and the Party menu. Since they had come in together they were automatically in a party, meaning that they would share experience for kills. Taylor had been chosen as the leader of the party due to having the highest combined stat total.
Partway through the introduction the room shook and a new voice spoke in Taylor's brain. This time it wasn't the AI's rough bass, it was a saccharine soprano.
Hello, Crawlers! The dungeon is now sealed. We have a diverse group joining us this season, and we are very happy to have you here. We had just under 13 million human crawlers make it through the gates and into the dungeon. We are already down to under 10 million. A quick note, the entrances to the second floor will not open up until the introductory episode of Dungeon Crawler World tunnels, which will be in approximately 30 of your hours. Once that happens, the entrances to the second level will populate. There will be no lag time for the appearance of additional levels. On behalf of the Borant Corporation I wanted to thank you for volunteering, and I wish you all good luck and a happy crawl.
"Right, we're nearly done," Levi said, blithely ignoring the announcement.
"Dude, are you serious?" Drew asked, eyes wide. "They just murdered three million people!"
Levi shrugged. "Eh, that's about average. All of you chose to come down here."
"Because it was cold and you destroyed all the buildings and food supplies!"
Levi's eyes looked at each other again. "Look, I wasn't the one who did it. I'm indentured, I'm just along for the ride. Remember what I said before, about 'get over it'? Here's where that applies."
Drew glared but said nothing.
"Okay, moving on. Let's talk about stats. Taylor, we'll do you first since yours are highest."
Levi looked up at the ceiling, his eyes glowing for a moment as he fiddled with menus. Suddenly, a blue box popped up, visible to everyone present.
Crawler #5. Taylor.
Level: 1
Race: Human
Class: None
Strength: 4
Intelligence: 5
Constitution: 4
Dexterity: 5
Charisma: 5
"Not bad," he said. "Most humans range between 3 and 5 on each stat with 4 being average, so yours are better than most. Now, the ranges are narrow and the starting values are low, so it's possible for anyone to go in any direction as regards their build. That said, your initial stats suggest a rogue or mage build. Whether you like those or something else, it's important to try to pick something and work towards it right from the beginning, because once you start acquiring loot and gear you'll end up locked in pretty quickly.
"On the first floor the AI will generally help you get into whatever build it thinks is right for you. Your preferences seem to be one of, although far from the biggest, factor in its decision. The loot and skills that you get will pretty much determine what you're capable of, so if you want to go rogue then you need to focus on sneaking around, scouting, stabbing stuff from the shadows, that kind of thing."
Taylor looked up. "Sir, or ma'am, or...I'm sorry, I don't know the appropriate address. I'd prefer to go mage if it's all the same to you, but I'll respect whatever you think best. You're smarter than me and know the dungeon better than I do."
New Achievement: Brown Noser!
Awww. Diddums think you could sweet-talk me into doing you a favor? Dat's so kyoot!
Reward: Brown nosers don't get rewards!
"Ohhhkay," Taylor said. "Sorry about that."
New Achievement: Chatty Cathy!
'My Lord and Master, Highest of the High' is preferable, but I'll settle for 'My Lord', or even just 'sir' if I'm in a good mood.
Reward: The information is the reward, bitch!
This is one of the rare achievements that can be received more than once.
Until now the achievements had been spoken in Taylor's ear, audible only to him. This one was out loud, coming from nowhere and everywhere, and the tones were so deep that Taylor could feel them in his chest. When the announcement was finished he needed to swallow before he could say, "Thank you for telling me, My Lord."
Levi's eye tentacles were wiggling nervously, flipping in all directions, and his claws were drumming on his belly with a furious rhythm.
"It's been fifty seasons since I've seen an AI speak that directly to a crawler," he said, his voice shaky. "You'll want to be very careful about that."
"Right." Drew and Calliope were looking at him, wide-eyed.
Levi took a moment to gather himself. "Right. Uh...okay. So, everyone has spell points equal to their Intelligence, so if you do end up going mage then you'll start on the high end. You regenerate spell points, also called mana, based on your Intelligence and you regenerate health based on your Constitution. You'll also find potions of various kinds around the dungeon. There's a cooldown after drinking one before you can safely drink another. It's based on your Constitution for everything except mana potions, which are based on Intelligence."
"How common are potions?" Drew asked.
"Not so much for the first floor but the availability ramps up a lot after this. You'll be drowning in them by the time you get to the third or fourth floor. Here." From thin air he conjured three small test tubes full of blue liquid and passed one to each of them.
Minor Health Potion
"Flick your eyes down twice and your hotlist will appear. Practice with it and eventually you'll be able to activate the menus or the hotlist with just a thought and no need to move your eyes, but it's easier like this to start with. The leftmost item in your hotlist is the Heal spell that everyone gets. It costs two mana points and heals you about 20%. It can fix broken bones but not amputations so don't let your bits get cut off. On the right you've got nine more slots that you can fill with whatever you like and then activate mentally. Put the potion in the first free slot and then click it."
Taylor did as instructed; a feeling of warmth flooded through him and various aches and pains that he hadn't even realized he was carrying all disappeared.
"You can drink potions manually, but they generally taste like ass," Levi said. "Better to put them in your hot list. Also, practice with your hot list and the rest of your interface. As the system learns your thought patterns you'll start to be able to control it without all this blinking and waving.
"Okay, let's do stats for you two." He gestured and two blue boxes appeared, floating in midair the way Taylor's had earlier.
Crawler #7. Calliope.
Level: 1
Race: Human
Class: None
Strength: 3
Intelligence: 5
Constitution: 4
Dexterity: 4
Charisma: 5
Crawler #12. Drew.
Level: 1
Race: Human
Class: None
Strength: 4
Intelligence: 4
Constitution: 3
Dexterity: 3
Charisma: 4
"Not bad, kid," Levi said to Calliope. "You'll probably want to go with some sort of Dex-based build. Swashbuckler if you want to fight, rogue if you want to sneak. Maybe a bard if—"
"Fuck bard," Calliope said instantly. She immediately remembered Levi's class and blushed. "Sorry. I'm here to have adventures. I want to kill shit, not sneak around or play music in the back. No offense."
Levi smiled, revealing square teeth. "No offense taken. I used to kill plenty of shit—I could control my picks at range and they were razor sharp. Still, I get it. Lots of people think that bards suck. You know what they say: opinions are like assholes. If yours is bad and you share it, you're the asshole."
Despite Levi's admonition not to worry about his stats, Drew studied them with a look that somehow combined worry, disgruntlement, and a modest amount of offense.
"Moving on," Levi said, waving the stat windows away. "Let's talk about the inventory system." He explained it for the benefit of Drew and Calliope, then gave them pebbles to practice with until it became second nature.
"Okay," Levi said at last. "Levels, skills, bosses, loot, and then we're done.
"You earn XP—experience points—for killing stuff and various other things you do in the dungeon. Each time you kill enough stuff you level up. Each time you level up you get three stat points. You can't distribute your stat points until you get to the third floor so don't worry about it. For the first couple of floors, your stats will go up automatically as you use them, but slowly and not that much." His eyes glimmered for a moment as he did something with his interface, and then he chuckled.
"Amusingly, your dog is currently level two while the rest of you are only level one. Don't let him kill steal so much."
Taylor covered Moose's ears. "Don't listen to the bad man, Moose," he said. "You go ahead and kill anything that's trying to eat my face."
Moose shook his head to throw Taylor's hands away, then turned around and slurped his face. Taylor gacked and Moose panted in a happy doggy grin.
"More important than your level is your skills," Levi said, ignoring the byplay. "Let's look at those now."
He helped them through reviewing their skills. There were a ridiculous number of them, mostly useless things like Breathing: 4 and Shoe-tying: 2. At Levi's direction Taylor filtered it down to skills that were higher than level 2 and not basic life functions, which left him with a disturbingly short list.
Swimming: 3
Video editing, Shotcut: 5
Scriptwriting: 4
Performance (YouTube): 7
Yo-Yo: 8
"Wow," Levi said after studying list. "No combat skills whatsoever?" His eyes glowed for a moment. "Ah, there we go. 'Shotguns: 2' and 'Pistol: 1'. Yeah, you're toast unless you practice those up. I hope you brought a lot of ammo."
Taylor smiled. "I really, really did."
"Well, it's going to run out eventually, so you're going to want to practice with dungeon weapons too. My recommendation: in each fight, one or two of you use the guns and the others stick with dungeon weapons. Dungeon weapons could mean barehanded fighting, spells, swords, hammers, whatever you get. It's important to do that now; it's easy to get skills just by doing things on this floor, but it gets a lot harder on the second and is virtually impossible after that. You'll get new skills from loot and occasionally from doing stuff, but only very occasionally. None of you have a decent Running skill, so run everywhere on this floor so that you can build that up. You're going to be doing a lot of running away throughout the dungeon.
"Speaking of running away, you're going to be fighting. A lot. There's two kinds of mobs out there: regular ones and bosses. There's six levels of boss: Neighborhood, Borough, City, Province, Country, and Floor. The power level of mobs and bosses goes up as you level so boss monster levels will generally be higher than yours no matter what yours are. Neighborhood bosses on the first floor will probably be around 8 or 10.
"Killing regular mobs will sometimes get you a loot box. Killing a boss will always get you a loot box. Neighborhood bosses give Bronze, Borough bosses give Silver, then Gold, Platinum, Legendary, and Celestial respectively. Also, they drop maps that will show you what's going on in a wide area around you, including where all the mobs and crawlers and such are. Boss maps update in real time so they're a huge advantage. Since there's four of you I'd suggest grinding on regular mobs until you're all level 6 or 7, then find the local Neighborhood boss, kill it, and collect the map so that you can more easily find other stuff to grind on.
"Do not try to take on a Borough boss on this floor if you can possibly avoid it. If for some bizarre reason you absolutely have to then make sure you've got as many levels as you can first and team up with a bunch of other people." He looked at them seriously. "If you forget everything else I've told you, remember that. You will die if you don't.
"Aaaand, speaking of other people: player killing. Yes, it's a thing that can happen. Nothing is stopping you from killing other humans. It can even be very profitable, because you'll get all their gear and players usually give good XP. Also, the audience loves watching treacherous backstabbing assholery, so the AI will generally feed you good loot boxes as a motivation to do it." He shrugged. "I'm not going to tell you that you should or shouldn't do it. The one thing to know: if you kill another crawler, you'll get a skull floating over your head, permanently. One skull per kill. Doesn't matter if it was self-defense or mercy killing or whatever. You kill another crawler, everyone will know it. Catch my drift?"
He waited until all three of them had nodded in acknowledgement and then the serious expression fell away and he clapped his hands in delight.
"Okay, on to the fun part. Loot! You'll get loot boxes based on stuff you do. Taylor, we'll start with you. Go into your menus and click 'Open Loot Boxes'."
Taylor did as instructed. A line of boxes appeared in midair in front of him, stretching out across the room.
Levi's eyes glowed for a moment as he checked his menus and then he goggled. "Wow. Four Legendary boxes between you guys? Nothing lower than Silver? Damn, you guys are lucky sons of bitches. You just might make it a few floors."
Voting remains closed. Loot chapter coming up.
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- Location
- Pacific standard
[] Good Morning Universe!
Once we've all met with the Guide and reclaimed our Stuff, film the first episode of "Good Morning Universe!" A vlog series that we'll update at minimum every morning - this is when we should open our loot. We'll go over our antics, plans, trash talk our enemies etc. Once we have a significant following transition into Mr Beast like content - 'challenges', give aways, really clickbaity stuff.
[] STOP
You said we need to stand out right? On Earth, at least, unboxxing stuff is an entire entertainment category. How much would we stand out if we waited until the second floor when the cameras turn on to open all of our boxes? You said that our guns would be enough to get to the second floor right?
Edit: just realized voting is still closed. Oops.
Once we've all met with the Guide and reclaimed our Stuff, film the first episode of "Good Morning Universe!" A vlog series that we'll update at minimum every morning - this is when we should open our loot. We'll go over our antics, plans, trash talk our enemies etc. Once we have a significant following transition into Mr Beast like content - 'challenges', give aways, really clickbaity stuff.
[] STOP
You said we need to stand out right? On Earth, at least, unboxxing stuff is an entire entertainment category. How much would we stand out if we waited until the second floor when the cameras turn on to open all of our boxes? You said that our guns would be enough to get to the second floor right?
Edit: just realized voting is still closed. Oops.
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- Location
- Book Fort
- Pronouns
- They/Them
- Location
- Pacific standard
"Wow look at this guys, I'm so good that the dungeon thinks I'm cheating! Pshhh y'all know I'm that good."
Won't fool any big wigs but eh, the numbers are what matter
- Location
- Texas
I'm worried the Cheater Box is going to brand us somehow. Shame you can't selectively open boxes.
Our first actual decision didn't get anyone killed, hurray!
Our first actual decision didn't get anyone killed, hurray!
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
I'm gonna say we ignore that. We gotta go for high-variance strategies to win this.
- Location
- Pacific standard
I think a well timed private message to the AI could be incredibly powerful. Maybe after the first time the fish lawyers fuck with its brain?
- Pronouns
- He/Him
>the AI decides Borant is interfering with its ability to properly run a gameshow and destroys the entire corporation just to get back to running the dungeon