by DoctorHepa
Carl: You talked to Donut about her coupons?
Imani: We talked about them when she received the box. She wasn’t too happy about them, and she was having a really hard time coping with getting that skull. I told her to get rid of them. She’s like a child, Carl. She doesn’t process things the way a person does. Talk to her about it. I gotta go. We’ll message you later.
I had no idea Donut and Imani had ever said two words to each other. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. It made sense. Donut had done the same thing I just did, which was immediately turn to the person with the most experience in the matter. The coupons were designed to instill a wedge in a group, whether they were used or not, and Donut recognized that. It was a smart, mature decision. Still, it suddenly felt as if something had changed in the dynamic between us.
Carl: Okay. Thanks. Be safe.
“Hey,” I said to Katia. “So why didn’t Hekla want that guy in the party with you and your friend? Was it because he was a man?”
“No,” Katia said. “He was a creep. I don’t think Hekla would care if a guy joined the group.”
“So it’s just a coincidence the daughters are all women? What if Donut and I wanted to join up, do you think she’d let us? Do you really think she’d let me join?”
Katia paused. I saw the tell-tale flash in her eyes. She’s talking to her right now.
“Do you want to join up with the daughters?”
“Maybe,” I lied.
“I think she’d want to talk to you first. Hekla thinks you’re a bit reckless. But she really likes Donut.”
“Okay,” I said. “We better get back before…” I paused as I saw the red dot on the map. It was on one of the colored line landings. The Puce line. “Hang on. Stay here. Get ready to run.”
“Carl,” she called after me as I rushed off. I wasn’t sure why.
I jogged over to the stairwell that led down to the landing. Shit. More red dots appeared. I peered down the stairs. As I suspected, it was the festering ghouls from the trainyard. It was just a few for now, but there would be more soon. I saw additional dots on the adjacent platform. They’d traveled from the trainyard all the way up to station 24. Station 12, I knew, was already filled with Jikininki janitor ghouls.
As I watched, however, it was clear they weren’t sticking around. Some of them clambered up onto the landing, but only for a few moments before jumping back onto the passageway. They continued on their way up the track.
I also noted that none of them appeared to be getting shocked by the third rail. From this angle I couldn’t really see what was going on. Either they knew about the rail and were avoiding it, they were immune to electricity, or the power was off. There was no way to know which of those three scenarios it was.
I tossed a pair of hob lobbers down the stairs just to kill a few, then I turned and fled for the trap door. We quickly descended the stairs and went on our way.
* * *
Stations 36 and 48 were identical to station 24. It was too soon for the ghouls to have walked this far. We’d check on them again after we ditched Madison. Zev sent us a message that we needed to find a saferoom soon because we were supposed to go onto that show in a few hours. I told her we were too busy, and she said she’d have us teleported away no matter what we were doing. I told her to go fuck herself, and she laughed as if I was joking.
I didn’t yet say anything to Donut about the coupons. I wanted to wait until we were up in the production trailer. I just knew that since Katia had voiced her suspicions out loud that they were going to make this a thing. I wanted to cut it off at the knees while nobody else was watching.
There was more to the story, too. Katia was having a hard time. It wasn’t just the coupons. She was struggling with something. I suspected maybe it was because I didn’t quite treat her like a member of the team. Yes, I’d spent money and resources on getting her bulked up. But I’d done that for myself and Donut just as much as I’d done it for her, and she knew that. We all knew she was eventually going to go back to Hekla. It was clear that was what she wanted.
The thing was, I liked Katia. I liked her a whole lot. She was painfully quiet. Even when she was bulked up, it was easy to forget she was there. But she was just so damn earnest. She was afraid and hesitant, but she never once ran. If she said she was going to do something, she did it. And she usually did it well. That was a rare quality. With just a bit more training and mastery of her race, she would be the ultimate tank. Still, with Odette’s warning about Hekla, I couldn’t stop from thinking maybe it would be better if we just cut her loose sooner rather than later. I didn’t want to do that, but maybe it was the safer bet in the long run. If we did go that route, I’d need to really up my own defenses first. Or we’d have to find another tank. Maybe we could hire Bomo and The Sledge from the Desperado Club. Mordecai had hinted that it might be possible to hire NPCs.
I hated this. Why does everything need to be so complicated? Can’t people just be loyal? I’d said that not too long ago as Bea and I were fighting about her decision to get rid of Donut. We’d been in the car, on our way to a Christmas party, and she’d casually mentioned one of her mom’s Persians—Sugar Bun, who was Donut’s aunt or cousin or something—was pregnant and was due soon. Once weaned, Bea would be taking two of the kittens and Donut would be returned to her parents who would try to sell her as a show-quality breeder.
You don’t even like her, Carl. Why do you care?
She’s your cat. She’s a living thing, and you took responsibility for her. I don’t understand how you can just give her up. I don’t care if you get another cat, but why do you have to give Donut away?
Do you know how much money she’s going to sell for, Carl? She’s a former international grand champion. She’s past her prime. I don’t understand what you’re not getting about this.
Goddamn bullshit. All of this.
In addition to the stops with the stairwells, we paused to examine stations 50, 58, and 59. With 50, I wanted to see if it was one of the Krakaren drug dens. It was not. The trap door lifted revealing a tiny room the size of a small house. A single ramp sectioned down, leading to nine different platforms. The small station had no mobs. It looked as it had never been visited by anything or anybody.
Next, we stopped at the ladder outside of station 58, which should’ve been a regular stop with a random nest of regular mobs, and it was equally empty and small. The next station after that was number 59, a prime number, and therefore supposedly a real transfer station. This one was as it should be. The place was set up just like any other transfer station we’d visited at the higher stops. There was a restaurant, a general store, and a small church leading to Club Vanquisher. The trap door popped up behind an alcove in the wall next to the general store. The only difference was it appeared there were 27 different platforms attached to this one station.
After discussing it some with Madison, we learned stop number 60 was supposed to be a sprawling station filled with dozens of dormitories and apartments, along with restaurants and stores for the employees and their families to shop and eat. All colored trains would stop there, along with the Homeward Bound, the employee-only train that was supposed to be on this track. There would be a portal at the station platform which would work like the backroom entrance to the Desperado Club. It didn’t matter what train one used to get to station 60 nor what substation they started at. Once they stepped through the portal, they’d end up in the same place.
However, when we arrived at the employee-only platform for station 60, it was clear something was wrong. The platform—the only platform on this entire line—was old and decrepit, covered in cobwebs. We stopped to investigate. The stairwell led up into a tiny room just like with station 50. A single, additional stairwell led down to a confusing mess of stairs and platforms where one could catch multiple trains.
“Nice,” I said after we saw there was no settlement here.
“It’s a mistake,” Madison said, spinning in circles, as if that�
��d make the buildings magically appear. “I don’t understand. This is where our employees live. This is where their families live. What did you do?”
“Now you know why they made you give everyone mandatory overtime,” I said.
My suspicions had been correct. They never turned this into a real place. There were no families. No wives or children. No food boxes with a touch of fish. It was all made up. All false memories. That Homeward Bound train probably never even rode once. It would’ve been nice to have a large settlement here with saferooms and NPCs. Instead they were playing up the evil corporation angle, which I thought was pretty meta considering the source of all this bullshit.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s see if there really is a turnabout for the train. If not, we’ll have to drive backwards. We’ll go to station 41 and hit the saferoom there.” That was the closest place with a Desperado Club. I wanted to go in there and add more people to my chat list. We’d have to risk leaving the train on the tracks. It appeared the ghouls were avoiding this tunnel because it didn’t lead to regular platforms other than this one. Hopefully it remained that way.
“No. I’m staying here,” Madison said. She sat down firmly on the rocky ground and crossed her arms. She looked up at us defiantly. “Someone will come investigate what’s going on. I don’t know what you did, but transit security will sort it out. People are scattered, and they will come here. Even if here isn’t a real place, this is where they’ll go.”
“Is there really a transit security department?” I asked. “We’ve been up and down the line, and I haven’t seen any sign of them.”
She huffed. The woman did have a point. The workers who escaped the ghouls probably would be coming here. But I didn’t give a shit if she lived or not. If she couldn’t help us anymore, there was no point in keeping the murderous NPC with us. Part of me knew it wasn’t really her fault. That her personality and memories were programmed into her. I still didn’t care. She wasn’t from earth. She wasn’t a crawler, nor a former crawler as far as I could tell.
“If not security, then Rod will come,” she added out of nowhere. “Rod always comes.”
“Who the hell is Rod?”
“He’s her ex-husband, Carl. Haven’t you been paying attention? He’s also the CFO of the Iron Tangle and works at Station A,” Donut said. “Madison, are you sure?”
“Rod will come.”
“Bye, Madison,” I said, turning away. “Go fuck yourself, okay?”
“Right back at you, boxer boy.”
“I remember who she reminds me of!” Donut exclaimed as we returned to the Nightmare. “Miss Beatrice’s mom! She’s just like her. She was really mean. I never liked visiting. None of the cats there were very happy. I could tell she didn’t treat them as well as Miss Beatrice treated me.”
“Come on,” I said. The comparison didn’t seem so funny anymore. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
A note from DoctorHepa
Hey all! I hope your weekend went well. Things are crazy here. Chanel the psychic Maltese has mostly recovered from her injury. She is still sore, but she's attempting to jump up on the counter again using her supernatural jumping ability, so that's a good sign. The air quality here is just awful with the wildfires. Yesterday the AQI was 240-something. Apparently that's not so good. *cough* *hack*
Anyway, onto the important news. Dungeon Crawler Carl will appear on Amazon on October 2nd. When that happens, chapters 2-44 will go away to comply with Amazon's Kindle Unlimited rules. If you're reading this, then you don't have anything to worry about. RR and Patreon will always be the location for the newest chapters. Also, I want to avoid this, but I *might* have to change the title here on RR to something slightly different so there's no unfortunate misunderstandings with the great and powerful Zon.
Since the first few chapters are going away, I would like to offer everyone who's still reading this a FREE Advanced Readers Copy of the DCC e-book (Floors 1-2) before it's available to purchase. The link is here. It is mostly the same as what's here, but edited and all compiled and pretty. You will be required to sign up for my email list to get the book, and I would really, REALLY appreciate it if you leave a review on Amazon once the book appears. Thanks!
TLDR: Click here.
Chapter 92
Time to level collapse: 4 days, 20 hours.
It took me longer than I’d like to admit to figure out how to turn the train around. There was a section of track designed for the purpose. The track was shaped like a T on its side, and I had to steam past it, get out and hit the switch, back into the base of the T, hit the switch again two times, and it turned the Nightmare around.
I managed to talk Zev into delaying our obligation to go on the show about pet and beauty pageants for six hours. She’d huffed and puffed, but since it wasn’t a live show, it turned out to not be a big deal. It would give us time to sleep, eat, get our training room time in, and shower. Plus I wanted to stick my head into the Desperado Club. Then we’d go on the stupid show, which would eat two or three hours. This close to the end, that seemed like a ridiculous waste of time.
We went down to station 41 and parked the train. I told Brandy our plans, and she seemed content to just sit there and idle. Donut leaped to my shoulder as I ascended the ladder. This station was exactly as I expected. One restaurant, one store, and the Desperado Club. There were multiple exits.
A line of red-tagged ghouls appeared on the map from all of the colored station landings, but they weren’t stopping. They remained on the tracks, shuffling higher.
Once we were up there, Donut finally released Mongo, and we headed for the saferoom, which was a Greek café called Everest. We skipped past the bopca and went straight to our personal space. We’d missed the last recap episode, and the announcement hadn’t been anything special. The leaderboard hadn’t moved.
As we entered the room, I received updates from both Meadow Lark and Bautista.
Imani and crew had safely ridden the conveyor system all the way down to Trainyard D, which also had a breached gate. Still, they’d arrived in a yard full of ghouls. They’d had a harrowing running and fighting battle. They’d taken shelter in the Iron Tangle administrative building outside of the yard. Elle had floated above the ghouls and frozen them by the hundreds, eventually killing all the ones surrounding the building. I got to listen to her bitch for five minutes straight about how little experience she’d received for it. Once they killed all the ones in the immediate area, all the newcomers ignored the building and walked straight back into the tunnels. The former Meadow Lark residents were currently holed up in the building planning their next move.
I suggested they take the employee train tunnel on foot up to the nearest transfer station.
Meanwhile, Bautista said the Kravyad wasn’t a boss monster at all, but instead was a multi-armed snake woman NPC, just like Madison had reported. The NPC had attempted to hypnotize the crawlers, but Bautista had somehow neutralized her ability to cast the spell. He said, “I used my last Voca Nye. The purple variant.” I had no idea what that meant.
But a new wrinkle had developed. Defenseless, the Kravyad was now threatening to kill herself if the crawlers got any closer. The crawlers remained on the platform while one of them, apparently a former police negotiator, was talking to her through the doorway. If she did kill herself, and that portal closed, it was going to get ugly. Less than half of them still had their hats which would allow them passage through the only other portals in the area, the portals above the abyss. That was their last practical chance to get to the stairwells after the employee portal. With less than five days left and the vast majority of the subway trains now stopped, those in the group without their souvenir hats were in very real danger of finding themselves stranded.
I trained my Powerful Strike, which did not advance, and then I collapsed into bed, sleeping the full two hours.
Afterward, Donut and I headed to the Desperado Club to talk to any remaining crawlers while Katia spent some ti
me at her makeup table. We only had about an hour of free time before we’d get teleported away, and I didn’t want to waste it.
“Sledgie!” Donut cried when we entered the club. She jumped to the rock monster’s shoulder.
The cretin grumbled in greeting. A blue magic protection spell appeared around us, followed by a new one, this time a translucent shield spell, a real shield spell, that would also protect us from physical attacks. Between the two spells, we were now practically invulnerable while we were in the club.
“I bought shield spell,” Bomo said proudly. “The Sledge cast magic protect. I cast smack protect.”
“That’s really awesome,” I said. “We appreciate it.”
We moved to the dance floor, which was sparsely populated with actual crawlers. After explaining why I wanted to exchange everyone’s chat info, I ended up collecting an additional 10 names to my list.
“We should go into the Bitches and Penis Parade strip clubs to see if anybody is in there,” Donut said. “Plus I’ve always wanted to see a naked man dance around. One with better moves than that one weird guy who always came over when you were gone. He used to dance in the mirror and stare at himself and call himself a king. He’d put your socks on his wang and twirl them around in the mirror.”
I barely heard her. Instead, I was staring at the man sitting at the bar. “Holy shit,” I said. Donut hadn’t yet noticed the purple-skinned elf creature. I tapped her on the back and pointed. She turned and hissed, all of her hair poofing out.
“Did that guy come in alone?” I asked Bomo.
“He alone,” Bomo rumbled. “He always alone. He here a lot. Usually in Bitches room.”
“What are we going to do?” Donut asked. “Should we get him?”
