Dungeon Crawler Carl Book 2

by DoctorHepa

  A double aisle of seats, facing inward, filled the train car. The seats were made of beige, molded plastic with brown cushions that were ripped and tagged with marker and spray paint. The words were in nonsensical letters in Russian. The floor was dingy and pocked. Scorch marks dotted the plastic walls. Poles rose to the ceiling at regular intervals and also ran the length of the car. The whole place smelled like a pile of dead rats.

  The train car was empty except for our party.

  “It’s a Metro car from Moscow,” Katia said. “But the ones I rode were in much better condition than this. And cleaner.” Her face had returned to the mostly-human, blond-haired form she’d held earlier. Her nose had been knocked halfway around her face the last time I’d seen her in her doppelganger form, but she’d willed it back into place.

  At the end of the subway car was a closed door with no window. Above the door hung a small, electric sign with red words scrolling across the top.

  Red Line Train 15A, Car 20. Next stop: Sirin Station (81) in 12 minutes and 32 seconds.

  “Everybody get dressed,” I said. I sat down in the chair and quickly began the process of putting my gear back on. I briefly examined the stupid train hat we’d received, and it was junk. It wasn’t magical. It was a simple, blue and white hat one would see on a toddler. It had the words “I rode the Iron Tangle” embroidered on it.

  “Carl, it says I have to pick a new class because of my Character Actor skill. I only have six minutes to choose, or I will get a ‘random’ one,” Donut said. “The list is full of new stuff. Not the same as before.”

  Carl: Mordecai. Help Donut pick a class. She’s going to read off some choices. We’re in a moving train car. I think it’s a subway system-themed floor.

  Mordecai: Welcome back. Donut, hit me with the suggested list.

  Donut: I DON’T LIKE THESE CHOICES, MORDECAI.

  As Donut rattled off a list of options in the chat, including things like Alley Cat Brawler and Nec-Cat-Mancer, I moved to the window and peered outside.

  We moved swiftly. The exterior wall of the tunnel was right there, barely inches from the window. It appeared to be made of dirt or rock. Lights flashed by occasionally, as if electrical lights were built into the tunnel walls at random intervals.

  “Why does she always type in all caps?” Katia whispered as I peered out the window. “Is it because she’s four-legged?”

  “No. It’s because she’s Donut.”

  “She’s quite the handful, isn’t she?”

  I remembered what Odette had said about Hekla wanting to steal Donut away.

  “More than you know,” I said.

  We had 10 days to complete this floor. Our first priority would be to find a stairwell. If we were constantly moving, that was going to provide a unique challenge. There were only 9,375 stairwells this time. If the level truly was subway or train-themed, and this wasn’t just taking us to some random location where the floor was really going to begin, we needed a map. Even if there was a stairwell at each and every stop, that suggested this system was beyond huge. Finding a stairwell wouldn’t be enough if we didn’t know how to circle back.

  My Escape Plan skill couldn’t find any directions or maps, at least not in this car. The skill worked great, but you had to know where the hidden maps were before you could utilize it.

  “Wow,” Katia said. “My constitution is double what it normally is. I’m at 102. I have an active momentum bonus even though I’m not moving.”

  “Good,” I said. That means you’re our meat shield, I didn’t add. “I hope that’s by design. Otherwise, I wouldn’t get used to it. If the showrunners didn’t mean for that to happen, you can bet it’ll be patched out tonight.”

  If we were going to be doing a lot of close-quarters fighting this level, that meant I needed to work on my hand-to-hand. Last floor had been all about explosions. I suspected that was going to take a backseat here.

  Donut: SO, SHOULD I DO THE FOOTBALL HOOLIGAN OR THE FIRECRACKER CLASS? QUICK, I’M ALMOST OUT OF TIME.

  Mordecai: Hooligan. If you’re going to be stuck in a series of tubes, it’s the best choice. It comes with a momentum bonus and several team buffs. Plus the Mascot skill, which gives a bonus to Mongo.

  Donut glowed for a moment.

  Donut: I DID IT. I GOT THE MASCOT SKILL! BUT I DIDN’T GET GROUP CHANT OR MOVING RIOT. I GOT THE 10 POINTS TO MY CONSTITUTION THOUGH.

  Mordecai: Damn. Chant would’ve been good. Okay you three. I just peeked my head out of my room, and I am in what appears to be a train station settlement. It looks as if the stores and inns are placed at these stations. This is a bigger one where you can switch between three different train routes. One of the trains is a subway like you described, but another is much larger. Like a regular transcontinental railway train. Get off at the next station, and see if you can find a saferoom or inn.

  Carl: 10-4. By the way, thanks for telling us about the bounty.

  Mordecai: So you made the top 10, huh? Find a saferoom, and we’ll talk.

  I looked at Donut. I tried to remember what she’d lost by switching away from Artist Alley Mogul. The only noteworthy benefit was the 15% bonus to item sales. Also, she’d received a few extra coins when we went down the stairs, but it wasn’t much. “So what do your new skills do?”

  The ground rattled as we went around a bend. The lights flickered.

  “I only got a couple of new ones. It came with a skill that would’ve raised my damage if we were moving, but I didn’t get it. The best one is Mascot. If Mongo deals damage to an enemy, everybody in the party receives a bonus to dexterity and constitution. If he kills a mob, the bonus lasts for a couple hours.”

  “That is a good one,” I said.

  “Also, my Constitution went up by 10 points. Oh, and I got a skill called Guinness that doubles my strength if I’m drunk.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Quite,” she said. “So if we’re going to be doing any fighting, we’ll need to stop at the club first so I can get another dirty shirley.”

  Carl: Mordecai, is it me or are these classes better than what we were offered before?

  Mordecai: It’s an unintended benefit. A lot of these rarer classes weren’t available because she didn’t meet the minimum requirements. But as her stats increase, the classes she’s offered on each level will be better. There’s another benefit I hadn’t anticipated, too. She’d received a level-5 Negotiation skill with that Artist Alley class. Before you guys left the third floor, she’d raised the skill to level 7 thanks to all that selling you did on the last floor. When she lost that class, the five levels went away, but she retained the two she’d received, including the skill experience, so it actually bumped itself up to four on its own.

  Carl: Wait, I don’t understand. So if she gets a temporary skill, she keeps it the next floor down? What about the stat point increases?

  Mordecai: She won’t keep the stat points. But as long as she uses a skill enough to level it at least once, it looks like she’ll keep it, minus the levels she received as being a part of that class. Skill experience is a complicated, under-the-hood metric crawlers can’t see. It takes a lot to break the cherry, so to say, and obtain level 1. But once you’re in, you’re in. So in other words, use Mongo as much as you can, and you’ll keep that Mascot benefit. Also, from now on, we should keep an eye out for classes with rare spells. If she levels the spell at least once, then I think she’ll keep it.

  Carl: That seems like a bug.

  Mordecai: I think it might be. So don’t talk about it out loud or bring attention to it. They probably won’t notice until she manages to keep a spell from one floor to the next. Now get to work. I’ll look for a map, but you should, too.

  “Katia,” I said. “You have the Pathfinder skill. Do you see anything?”

  “The skill is only level 3. It was level 1 when I got it, and it’s hard to upgrade. I have to keep my map open all the way to train it. My old game guide said I needed to find a training guild
to really boost it. I can zoom my map out really big, but when I do, I don’t see much. There are tubes everywhere, like a mess of noodles. Though a minute ago, I saw another train rush by on another track on the other side of this wall, shooting off at an angle from us. As for this train, there are 20 cars, and we’re on the last one.”

  “Can you see any mobs?”

  “No. It usually doesn’t show monsters. But if we’re close to a stairwell or a saferoom, I’ll get a notification. But I can see car number 15 is shaped differently than this one. I can’t see what it is. It’s not a passenger car like this one.”

  I looked on my own map, and it showed the first half of car 15. I knew normally my map zoomed out a little bigger than that, but it shrank while we were moving. If Katia could see all 20 cars, then that skill really did make the map a lot bigger. The map also helpfully labeled the cars for me, something I hadn’t seen before. We were in Cabin #20 – Passenger Car.

  “What does the label say for that 15th car?” I asked Katia.

  “It just has a question mark.”

  I examined the back wall of the train. Normally there’d be some sort of emergency exit. Instead, it was just a solid, metallic wall. I wondered what would happen if I attached an explosive to it, breached the wall, and jumped out onto the track. Considering how tight the tunnel was, we’d probably get squished by the next train in a matter of minutes.

  “Okay, guys,” I said. “Let’s go check it out.”

  I moved down the center aisle. Donut jumped to my shoulder. Mongo pushed his way to my side. He had to struggle past the vertical poles. If he got much bigger or the aisles any tighter, it was going to become a problem. We came to the door, which seemed out of place here. There was no glass window. I sensed this door was something added by the dungeon, and normally there’d be a short, open gangway where one could walk the length of the train unimpeded. Above, the timer to the next stop was at five minutes.

  “I’m going to pull the door open. Katia, your Constitution is four times mine, so you go in first. You okay with that?”

  She swallowed but then nodded. I could see she was trembling. “I guess that’s my job, isn’t it?”

  “Don’t worry, sweetie. We got your back,” Donut said.

  The door slid to the side, revealing a small, enclosed space between the two cars. The gangway floor bounced up and down. The walls connecting the two train cars were a black, accordioned material that looked like reinforced fabric. The distance between the two cars seemed longer than it should be. Below my feet was a panel that I could presumably pull up to get to the connector. A second door appeared, leading to the next car, and I put my hand on it. Behind me, Katia now held a small, glowing axe.

  “Have you used that thing before?” I asked.

  “It’s a good weapon,” she said. “But my strength isn’t high enough, and it doesn’t do a lot of damage. Though I killed some lumber monkeys with it.”

  I nodded. “Here we go.”

  I slid open the door, and she leaped inside. Mongo jumped in with her, snarling, causing her to faceplant. I stumbled back at the pet’s sudden, unexpected forward motion.

  “Goddamnit, Mongo!” I yelled, examining the room for threats.

  Empty. The car was identical to the last.

  “Mongo! Bad!” Donut cried. “Be nice to Katia!”

  “Okay, let’s try that again,” I said. “Mongo. Don’t be an experience hog.”

  The dinosaur squawked as Katia grumbled and pulled herself to her feet. She’d dropped her axe, and it’d skittered ten feet in front of her. She ran to retrieve it.

  The next car was the same. Empty. But at least Katia didn’t fall on her face when we breached. The next car after that was similarly unoccupied.

  By the time we reached car number 16, the timer was almost out. I wanted to at least peek into 15 before we tried to find a saferoom. The cars beyond that one were more of the normal passenger cars. Katia said cars ten and five were also different, but not the same as 15. Plus the entire first car was just a solid block on her map. She said that usually meant it was behind a magical door.

  “There’s gotta be something in this one,” I said, indicating the door to train 15. It was different than the previous ones. It was still a sliding door, but it appeared to be made of a thicker, more stable material.

  “Looking at the map, 15 is almost the same shape as this one, but there aren’t any doors to the outside,” Donut said.

  “You’re right,” I said as we approached the metal door. It was definitely thicker, but the handle was the same as the others. The door was not locked. I slid it open and moved onto the gangway. The next door was the same. The train started to slow. The high-pitched squeal of brakes filled the air, along with the stench of oil and smoke.

  A static-filled voice crackled over a loudspeaker. “Coming up on Sirin Station, folks. Station number 81. Next stop will be Mora Station number 82 followed by a Traveler Transfer station number 83.”

  “Monsters,” Donut hissed. “Smaller sized, but there are a lot of them.”

  I lifted my hand off the door to car fifteen. “Okay, we’ll back away for now until…”

  “No, not in there. At the train station!” Donut said, just as the platform eased into view. To my left, a simple landing area appeared. A sign Sirin Station - 81 hung from the ceiling.

  “Oh god,” Katia said.

  The station teemed with several hundred fat, wrinkly monsters, clambering over each other as they surged at the door. The creatures looked like demonic, grey-skinned babies with sharp claws and giant mouths filled with much too many teeth. Each stood on two legs, and they stood about knee height. A few were attached to the concrete pillars, climbing up them on all fours, like goddamned spiders. They wore nothing but tattered loin cloths, and they leaped and scratched at the doors, some jumping as high as the car’s ceiling. They screamed as one, their cries unsettlingly baby-like. They surged against the train at the sight of us through the windows, crashing like waves into the glass.

  The train continued to roll forward, but it would stop at any moment. And when it did, those doors were going to open, letting them in here.

  I examined one of the monsters through the glass.

  Drek. Level 6.

  Everybody loves babies, right? What kind of asshole doesn’t love babies? How about demonic, ravenous, berserking babies who travel in packs of at least 50? It’s rumored these lil’ rascals can devour a full-sized elephant down to the bone in less than five seconds. And you’re a lot smaller than an elephant.

  “Shit, shit,” I said, pulling at the door to cabin 15. “Close that door behind us!” I slid the heavy door open, and we piled into the humid, dark train car. The room stank of rotten meat.

  Behind us, the doors to the train station hissed open, and the squealing monsters poured in. Katia slammed the first door. She rushed into the dark, windowless rail car and slammed the second shut just as Donut cast Torch, illuminating the room.

  “Oh for fuck’s sake, I said, seeing the new pair of monsters.

  Jikininki. Level 17.

  Of all the types of ghouls one may find in the Iron Tangle Rail System, the Jikininki is the most common, the most well-behaved, and the most insatiable. Their voracious appetite for flesh makes them the perfect janitors. They’ll generally leave you alone as long as you’re not bleeding, as long as you don’t litter, and as long as you don’t trespass into their personal space. It’s rude.

  On the map, the system helpfully replaced the question marks on the label with Janitor’s Lair.

  The hunched, thin monsters appeared to be grown-up cousins of the Drek babies pouring into the train behind us. These white, emaciated creatures were about seven feet tall with arms that dragged to the ground with serrated, black fingernails that clinked like porcelain as the monsters stood to their full height at our intrusion. Their faces were all sharp teeth and white, bulging eyes. The mouths on both creatures started chattering up and down like a wind-up toy, m
aking the sound of an industrial shredder.

  Both of the creatures wore tattered and threadbare double-breasted suits with golden buttons. Under the dark suits were white, blood splattered dress shirts. One had a bowtie. Both wore conductor-style hats with golden letters across that said, “Janitor.” The one without the bowtie had a pinback button on his breast that read, “How may I hurt you?”

  Other than the two monsters, the rail car was empty save for a pile of bones and two brooms and dust buckets.

  “Double Shot!” I yelled.

  Two full-power Magic Missiles rocketed out, each one a headshot. The creatures staggered, their health moving into the red as Mongo roared. The raptor leaped half the length of the car, landing on one of the humanoids, feet first. Donut jumped from my shoulder to Katia’s as I rushed at the ghoul, forming a fist. The monster hissed as I reared back and punched it in the face. To my left, Mongo had decapitated the monster and was in the process of swallowing the head. My target hit the ground. I stepped onto its chest, caving it in. Black, tar-like gore spread out in a v-pattern from where I stomped. The action felt odd on my foot, but I didn’t have time to think about why.

  You have received a temporary five percent bonus to Dexterity and Constitution thanks to your team’s mascot.

  We didn’t have time to revel in our victory. I took a few bones and looted a handful of gold coins from each ghoul. I also took the “How may I hurt you?” button as I rushed back to the end of the room.

  “They’re trying to get in!” Katia cried, backing away from the door. Donut remained on her shoulder, fur poofed out. We could hear scrabbling and scratching and screaming coming from car 16. They hadn’t yet broken through the first of the two doors. All they needed to do was pull the handle down and slide, but it appeared they didn’t know how.

  I looked nervously at the door at the other side of the car, the one leading to car number 14. That one was also presumably filled with the Dreks. We were surrounded.

  There was no sign in this car, but I remembered the announcement had said the next station was called Mora or something like that. But the one after that was something different. A traveler transfer station. Hopefully that meant a safe place like Mordecai had described. But there were no doors to the outside in this car. How could we get out there?