By the time we finally found a safe room, we had participated in ten more skirmishes, all against rats and these large cockroach things called Scatterers. The bugs were the size of and shape of a loaf of bread. We didn’t receive any additional loot of interest except multiple rat pelts, and one cockroach dropped an item called a Scatterer Carapace which added itself to my Crafting Items menu. I killed every single one of them with my bare feet. I punted the rats and jumped on top of the cockroaches. The bug mobs crunched like potato chips under my feet.
While I did most of the fighting, Donut now made an effort to fire one magic missile each fight from the safety of my shoulder. Her skill level in the spell went up to three. I spent a moment examining her stats. My view was limited, but I could see she currently had a 17 in intelligence, giving her 17 mana points. Each zap of her spell cost five mana points. For me, the spell points regenerated very, very slowly, making magic almost useless. Donut regenerated much faster, at about one point a minute. I didn’t know why she generated the points more quickly, but one a minute was still pretty slow. Most of these fights were decided in seconds.
I hit level three and gained a skill called Foot Soldier, and a second one called Smush.
The Foot Soldier skill increased the damage I dealt by kicking.
The Smush skill was… something else.
The voice reading the skill description was deeper, more throaty than usual. I could actually hear him breathing like he was a dude beating himself off while he said it.
Smush: Skill Level 3
Killing with your feet. Your bare, beautiful feet.
Taking your bare foot, placing it on top of a living, conscious life, and then pressing lovingly down until that life ceases to be. Is there a more noble way to kill?
The amount of pressure you can bring to bear upon an enemy with your unshod foot is increased by 10% with each level of this skill.
I remembered the weird message I’d received before when I’d jumped on the goblin engineer. I’d thought it was just a throwaway joke, like most of the descriptions. But it seemed the AI—or whatever it was that controlled the game messages—really did have some sort of foot fetish. It was fucking weird.
“I guess we’re not getting you shoes,” Donut said after I made the mistake of describing the skill to the cat.
“Yes, we are. As soon as possible,” I said.
“It sounds to me like the computer fancies you,” Donut said. “Or your feet, at least. We’ll need to take advantage of that. If the system likes us, then maybe it’ll go easier on us.”
“It makes me uncomfortable,” I said.
“Being eaten by a bugbear makes me uncomfortable, Carl. So if your boyfriend ogling your tootises keeps these easy-peasy bugs coming at us instead of more of those lava-spitting llamas, then you better buck up, get over your human male privilege, and take one for your princess.”
“Take one for my princess,” I muttered as she cackled with laughter.
I saw the safe room glowing green on the edge of the minimap, and we angled our way toward there as we continued to argue.
The Scatterers were becoming more frequent, and I knew the main nest had to be nearby. At least I hoped that was what was happening, and that Donut wasn’t right. A single level four cockroach scuttled away at our approach, disappearing toward a large, round cavern that was just past the entrance to the safe room. We didn’t pursue it, choosing to head toward safety.
We entered the safe room.
9
Entering Safe Room.
We entered the room, and both of us stopped at the entrance, gaping.
“What is this magical place?” Donut asked, jumping from my shoulder, her tail swishing about with excitement. “That’s the biggest cat tree I’ve ever seen!”
“It’s not a cat tree,” I said. “It’s the playground.”
We were in a fast food restaurant. It was almost like a McDonald’s, but instead of everything being red and yellow, it was white and blue. The playground with the massive slide and tunnel system and ball pit were straight out of my own childhood. The signs on the walls were in a weird language, Polish maybe. Pictures of plastic toys from some cartoon movie indicated this month’s prize inside their off-brand happy meals. I couldn’t remember the movie’s name, but I recognized the hippopotamus and ferret thing. The movie was new, just released.
They had taken a complete, intact fast food restaurant from some random country, and placed it here underground.
We’d come in through a main entrance. Large windows surrounded the empty restaurant, but the glass showed nothing but solid wall beyond. Three large screens stood directly above the counter where the menu would normally be.
But instead of a menu, the screens contained information about the game in Syndicate common language. Donut bounded toward the play area, disappearing into the colorful children’s maze while I read the screens.
The first was a countdown until the level collapse, which was in four days and 17 hours. The line below that read:
Countdown until the premiere of Dungeon Crawler World: Earth.
23 hours, 42 minutes.
Remaining Crawlers:
4,322,395.
I blinked at that. Holy hell. It had been 10 million just a few hours before. As I watched, the number just kept going lower and lower.
I looked down at my feet, which were bloody and covered in bits of bug chitin and that white goo that came out of the bigger ones. We’d been lucky so far. We’d found some good gear and had survived several attacks. Weren’t these other people working together? It seemed like too many people had died. I shuddered.
I swallowed and continued to examine the signs.
The next screen over read:
Leaderboard:
Leaderboard will populate upon collapse of the third level.
The third screen read:
Welcome to the Safe Room. You are on the First Level.
Rental Rooms currently available: 20
Rental Room price: 0 gold.
Personal spaces will become available for purchase on the fourth level.
Food is available at this location.
Rooms available? I looked at the minimap, expanding it to fill my screen. The restaurant had three exits. There was the door we’d come in through, a second door on the opposite wall that had a dotted line on the other side and an X over the door. I mentally clicked on it, and a box popped up.
Personal Spaces are not yet available.
That made it sound like I could buy an actual house or base of operations here. But if the floors kept collapsing, did that mean I’d have to buy a new one each floor?
Through the third door, which would’ve normally led outside, I could instead see a small hallway flanked by ten tiny rooms on each side. Mini hotel rooms, each no bigger than a closet. Sleeping spaces.
That’s when I noticed the white dot on the map. I startled, realizing there was a creature standing right next to me, just behind the counter. I waved away the map and looked. A furry creature with a paper hat stood there, barely taller than the counter, which explained why I’d missed him. I examined his properties.
Tally – Bopca Protector. Level 63.
Caretaker of this saferoom.
This is a Non-Combatant NPC.
Bopca Protectors are magical, gnome-like creatures who exist solely to watch over Safe Rooms. They do everything from scrub the toilets to prepare your food. They are surly, smelly, and they never wash their hands.
I cautiously approached the counter. The hairy dwarf didn’t move, like he was a statue. His hair was brown, but it had an odd, almost green tinge to it. The creature had so much hair on his face that I could only see his black eyes and his bulbous nose, which was covered with angry, red veins. He smelled vaguely of wet moss. He wore a blue apron, a plain paper hat, and he had a nametag that read, “Tally.”
“Hi there,” I said.
“Do you wish for food?” he said, his voice louder than I expe
cted. The creature had a Slavic accent. Not quite Russian, but close.
“Uh, what do you have?” I asked, looking back up at the menu board, which hadn’t changed. “Is there a list somewhere? Sorry, I’m new here.”
“Tally knows you are new here. This dungeon has just opened. It opened without warning, so Tally is not ready. But I am ready enough to make most food for human crawler. Tally is prepared, has been preparing for many of your years to make food for human crawlers.” He leaned, raising up on his toes to look at Donut who was bouncing about in the ball pit. “I am not prepared for cat. But I have milk. Is better than pet biscuit.”
“Actually, she really likes yogurt,” I said. “I’m not supposed to give her too much. Bea gets…” I paused. “Cats need meat to survive.”
“Will you be renting room?” The creature barely moved a muscle when he talked. It unnerved me.
“Yes,” I said. “I know our time is limited, but I need to sleep.”
“I shall give yogurt to cat. I will have meat for cat when you wake. But I can make food for you now if you wish.”
“Sure,” I said. “You really have yogurt?”
“Yes. What is it you wish for?”
I realized, at that moment, that I was starving. “Is there anything you recommend?”
A pause. “You wish me to make food of my choice?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Why not? As long as it’s not any sort of fish. I’ve had enough fish to last two lifetimes.”
Tally nodded by barely moving his chin. “What is your spice tolerance? One to five?”
“Uh, are we talking human spice tolerance? I like spicier, so four. But only if it’s on a human scale.”
“It is a human scale. Now sit. Open boxes. Wait. Tally will bring you food, then you sleep.” He placed a fast food cup and a small paper bowl on the counter and then nodded at a row of self-serve soda machines before turning and waddling toward the back.
My choices at the soda machine were something called Hoop Cola, water, milk, vodka, and something called Warka, which I determined to be beer after I tapped the lever. I was tempted by the beer, but I went with water. I filled the little bowl with water as well. I took a sip, and I was surprised at how cold, how pure it tasted. I shook my head and sat at a booth.
I’d received multiple boxes, including a silver Adventurer Box for finding my first safe room. I spent the next several minutes sifting through the mostly useless loot. Potion, potion, torch, bandages—that was new. They stopped Bleed effects. I didn’t know if my troll skin shirt stopped that or not.
It was all the same stuff except for a silver ring I found in the silver box. The ring gave me +1 to my constitution, bringing the stat up to 10.
Donut jumped up on the table while we waited. She drank a bit while I finished examining my loot. She had several boxes as well, including a gold magic item box she’d received for being one of the first 100 crawlers to level Magic Missile up to level three.
In the box was 25 potions of mana restoration and a collar charm. The charm was a little silver butterfly. Donut squeaked in delight when she received it. It even had a little ring on it so it’d easily attach to her collar. The charm jingled when it moved.
I shook my head. The game really was tailoring the prizes toward the crawler.
“You don’t want to wear a damn bell around your neck. Do you know why people put them on cats? So the birds and squirrels can hear them sneaking up on them.”
“It’s adorable,” Donut announced as the charm poofed onto her collar ring. “And I am wearing it.”
I examined the charm’s properties.
Talisman of the Slate Butterfly
Those who remember and commemorate the sad tale of the Slate Butterfly are given a boon by the fairies of the world. That story even made me cry.
Adds +4 to the Light on Your Feet skill. Adds +1 to Intelligence. Winged fairies will no longer be automatically hostile toward you.
I had no idea what the tale of the Slate Butterfly was, but I had to admit it was a good item. But was it worth the extra noise we would make? I didn’t know. I wasn’t exactly the king of stealth, either.
The Light on Your Feet skill simply meant she’d be able to pounce higher and farther. She was already a three in the skill when she’d received it, so the charm made her a seven. The moment she put it on, she went bounding back toward the play area and jumped all the way to the top of the plastic tubes, a leap that was twice as high as she’d been able to go before. She spent the next ten minutes with the zoomies, rushing around the play area like she had when she was a kitten.
Shit, that had been what? Four years ago?
“Hey,” I called. “Be careful! Don’t forget you still gotta land!”
Tally emerged from the kitchen holding two trays. He waddled from around the counter and placed them both on the table. “Eat.”
Donut had a simple bowl filled with white yogurt. She returned to the table and sniffed it suspiciously.
“What is this?” I asked, poking at my food with a plastic fork. It smelled delicious.
“Murgh Vindaloo, spice level four. Boneless chicken cubes simmered in velvety sweet and sour vindaloo sauce. Also potatoes and other spices. It is on top of biryani rice, and I have also made garlic and spinach naan. I apologize I do not have lamb. They took my lamb for a mob in preparation for the second floor.” He turned to Donut. “Also, Your Royal Highness, I have special ordered a fresh salmon for your meal upon waking. I will have it properly prepared and diced and garnished for you later.”
“Your highness?” I said.
“Thank you, Tally.” Donut said. “Oh, and Tally?”
“Yes, Your Highness?” he asked, bowing slightly.
“Please make sure Carl and I have the best appointed room for our convalescence this evening. That’ll be all.”
“I’m pretty sure they’re all the same,” I said. “Also, you don’t want a room of your own?”
“Of course, Your Highness,” Tally said and turned away.
I looked at the cat, and she blinked and tilted her fuzzy head, her approximation of a shrug. “It’s not my fault he sees me as royalty.”
I took a bite of the food, and I immediately forgot everything else in the world. It was literally the most delicious thing I had ever tasted. I’d never been a huge Indian food fan, but holy shit. It was just the right level of heat. I devoured it in minutes.
Tally had returned to his post at the counter and remained there, unmoving.
“Dude,” I said. “This was the best thing I’ve ever eaten!”
He nodded slightly.
“Are you going to be in all the safe rooms?”
“No,” he said. “When this floor collapses, I will move to a random floor in the dungeon. When that floor collapses, I will move down until I am no longer needed.” He didn’t elaborate further.
“Well, I’m thinking we’re going to stay here the next couple of days,” I said. I fought the urge to lick the plate. Could he really make anything in the world?
The world is gone.
A wave of sadness washed over me, unexpectedly. I took a deep breath. I pulled out the pack of cigarettes from my pocket and was about to light one when a loud, but firm, “Nope,” from behind the counter made me put it away.
“We can’t stay here,” Donut said. “We need to keep moving.”
“I have an idea,” I said. “I think there’s a nest of those Scatterer bugs just next door. I say we spend our time here and try to clear out the nest. Surely we’ll get some experience. Once the entrances to the next level down show up, we’ll go searching for a staircase. But until then we have a spot to sleep, a supply of good food, and a nearby source of experience. I think this is a good place.”
“Okay,” she said after a moment. “But we need to come up with a snappy way to kill them. Something exciting, yet cute. Something with zest. I want on that show, Carl.”
“We’re not getting on the show,” I said.
&nbs
p; “Weren’t you paying attention? Millions of followers! Loot boxes! We need to get on that show. Maybe we need a catchphrase.”
I sighed.
10
Time to Level Collapse: 4 days, 3 hours.
I slept much longer than I planned. The rooms were small, but not claustrophobic like the dungeon bathrooms or the racks in a Coast Guard cutter. The bed was more comfortable than I expected. The white cotton sheets smelled brand new and faintly like laundry detergent. And while the halls of the dungeon were humid and stuffy, the temperature in the rooms was a bit chilly, just how I liked it. Donut insisted upon sleeping in the room with me. As usual, she slept on my neck.
I didn’t dare take off my shirt or cloak, though I knew I was supposed to be safe. Once my head hit the pillow, I was out. I didn’t dream, wasn’t haunted by nightmares like most nights.
I awakened feeling refreshed and full of energy. I looked at the countdown time, astonished that I’d slept 10 hours straight. I hadn’t slept that long without waking in at least five years. It took the literal end of the world to finally give me a full night’s rest.
Donut yawned deeply and rolled onto her side as I sat up. “Go back to bed,” she said sleepily. “I need several more hours. That is an order from your princess.”
“Get up,” I said. “Tally is making you food, remember?”
That perked her up.
The bathrooms in the restaurant had stalls for showers with soap and shampoo dispensers. There was also cheap, disposable razors and shaving cream. I finally peeled my clothes off and took a long, warm shower. I stayed until the water no longer ran black. I shaved. There were no towels, however, and I had to drip dry.
My internal clock was already broken. I knew it was nighttime again on the planet’s surface, but when I saw the plate with bacon, eggs, and pancakes, I sat down and inhaled it all. It felt like breakfast time. It felt like a new day.
Dungeon Crawler Carl Page 8
