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Chapter Text

CH 1

I was in the middle of a perfectly restful night of sleep, with no dreams of desperate battles or surging Wizardly might burning in my veins or ice-cold eyes; no horrifying nameless monstrosities or vampires or flashing obsidian knives. It was peaceful. Some folks might have even called it serene, but for my choice of sleeping location.

I should have known it would be too good to last.

"WARDEN," rumbled the wall-shaking bass voice of Demonreach, the namesake spirit of the island I had been living on since Halloween of last year, out in the middle of Lake Michigan, off the coastline of Chicago by a couple of hours. Demonreach was a Genius Loci, a nature spirit embodying a particular place, and it was a capital-B Big One. And apparently in addition to being inscrutable, immensely powerful, and utterly humorless, it was now auditioning for the role of world's loudest gong.

"Gah!" I yelled in surprise, jolting out of my not-entirely-stable discount Ikea bed in the mostly-no-longer-ramshackle cabin on the island's highest point, falling flat onto my face in a tangle of blankets. One of my shelves fell off the wall, scattering my meager new collection of paperback books. Most Wizards lived in secluded towers full of magical amenities, or exclusive penthouses, or surprisingly roomy apartments built by Svartalves, or other, more esoteric locations. I had a damn shack on an island that hated everybody who set foot on it, except probably me.

"Dammit, Alfred! Since when are you an alarm clock?" I grumbled to myself, muttering dire imprecations as I got untangled from my bedsheets in the dim light of the banked fire in my fireplace. I felt a sudden pang of loss, thinking of my now-destroyed Mickey Mouse alarm. It was gone, like my original library of novels, in the destruction of my apartment by the vampires who'd kidnapped my daughter, Maggie, a couple of years ago. I tried to peer out the window but saw only utter blackness.

"What the hell is going on? It's the middle of the damn night! I don't hear any explosions, so I'm guessing it's not an attack…" I trailed off, staring up at the huge, cloaked figure as it loomed over me.

"VISITORS. THE QUEENS OF WINTER. SOMETHING IS…STRANGE," Demonreach's voice reverberated again, sparks shaking loose from the fire as I felt my brain rattle around between my ears. It was being chatty today. And louder than usual.

Its words woke me right the hell up, even if you disregarded the volume. Which I couldn't. Queens. Plural. It had to be Mab. Mab, the Queen of Air and Darkness, monarch of the Winter Court and technically my boss. I'd signed up to be her Knight to help save Maggie after I had broken my back falling from a ladder, trying to save my upstairs neighbors from the fire. She'd healed my spine and in return, I'd secretly arranged my own assassination in order to not fall into her control. But as luck would have it, that bastard Kincaid had tagged me in the chest instead of the skull with his sniper rifle while I was on the boat that was acting as my temporary home. I had fallen into the cold, dark waters of Lake Michigan, right into Mab's waiting arms. At least, after a bit of an out-of-body experience courtesy of the Archangel Uriel. Mostly dead, as it turned out, was indeed still slightly alive.

She had her claws into me nice and deep. But the thing about tying someone to yourself so tightly was that it gave you some leverage over them, too. A little, anyway, I kept telling myself. I'd told Mab that I'd be her hatchet man, but I pick the jobs. If she tried to compel me, either magically or through threatening my loved ones, I'd be the one thing that she couldn't stand: utterly without motivation. I'd take no initiative, ask for directions at every step. I'd be a regular old Garfield, and every damn day would be Monday. And the threat had worked. She needed me. For what, exactly, I wasn't sure, but she'd chased me for years before I finally hit a point where I was forced to take her deal, cutting the last Knight's throat in a place of Power to take his strength as my own. So it had to be something big. I'd probably hate it. But the job had its perks: the physical therapy I'd had to undergo to help my broken body recover had left me in the best shape of my life, in addition to the supernatural strength and speed it leant me. But it also came with intense urges of lust and violence, the bread and butter of the Winter Court's smorgasbord of depravity and excess. I was doing something like 4 hours of exercise a day and another 4 of meditation and spellwork just trying to keep my thoughts in line; working the body and the mind in an orderly fashion helped tamp down the pressure the mantle of Knight put onto me.

Mab had left me stuck out here by myself in the aftermath of her first job for me: a battle to defend the island from an army of monstrosities from beyond reality and their... Mind controlled? Infected? Corrupted? I still wasn't sure which... stooge, Maeve, the Winter Lady and Mab's daughter. Her first target to kill. The fight had seen the deaths of the Ladies of both the Winter and Summer Courts of Faerie and the ascension of my own former apprentice, Molly Carpenter, to the mantle of Winter Lady.

Those beasts that had attacked were called Outsiders. They were called that because they were from Outside reality. Nobody knew much about them, other than that they were very dangerous, very resistant to magic, and very much wanted IN. I had watched a nigh-endless horde of them assaulting the Gates that protected our reality as part of my investigation into Mab's hit on her daughter. Gates guarded by a finite but still freaking huge army of Winter fae. Knowing that part of why beings of Winter acted as they do was because they had been made to fight that…well, it made my role as Knight a little more bearable.

The Outsiders had attacked the island because it wasn't just an island, and Demonreach wasn't just a Genius Loci. It was a maximum-security prison for thousands of the worst of the worst that reality had to offer: old gods, gibbering horrors, corrupted titans, and something that vaguely looked and sounded like some British guy that I suspected was probably one of the worst of the lot. All chained in opaque crystal cells, all of which I had the key to because I had magically claimed the island as my sanctum as part of a different scrum a few years back.

Demonreach was the spirit of the prison, its walls and guards and cells, and by claiming the island as my sanctum, I had become its Warden. Not that I had known that at the time. If the Outsiders had been able to break into the prison, it would have been the End. A massive explosion, the prison's failsafe, would have wiped out much of the Midwest and many of the imprisoned beings would have, apparently, eventually recovered from their atomization and gone about wrecking the rest of the world eventually.

Thankfully, my allies and I had been able to stop them, but now I was stranded out here. Some sort of parasite was living in my head, and without Demonreach to silence the thing, I would be laid low with debilitating migraines that would eventually kill me. Mab had told me that Molly could help, but she had been away under Mab's tutelage for her new role as Lady and hadn't been taking my calls. Well, not answering my messengers and letters. I'm pretty sure if I had tried to bring a cell phone out to the island, the sheer ambient magic would detonate the thing's battery or something, like what happened with all technology around Wizards. Karrin Murphy, an ex-cop and one of my closest friends, along with Thomas, my sex-vampire half brother, had been out to visit a little before Christmas when the weather had warmed up slightly. But other than that, I'd been going a bit stir crazy with nobody but monsters and Demonreach to talk to.

For Mab to be here, now? She had to have a job for me. She left me here to stew to get another lever underneath me to move me where she wanted me to be. And she had brought one of the other queens. Mother Winter probably wouldn't leave the Nevernever, the spirit world, for anything short of Armageddon, so it had to be Molly. Oh yeah, she definitely wanted something if she came with carrot and stick in hand. I started getting myself together, deliberately moving slowly, starting with stoking the fire a bit and fixing up my bookshelf. If Mab was going to try to force my hand on something, she could damn well wait an extra few minutes or thirty. Demonreach stood menacingly in the corner of the cabin, staring. I don't think it was trying to menace me, particularly. That's just sort of how it stood all the time. He was a real hoot at parties. Just as I was pulling on a pair of jeans, the other part of its message finally sunk into my sleep-addled brain.

"Wait. What exactly is strange? What would you even find strange?" I asked.

"ENERGY MOVES. SMALL, BUT WIDESPREAD. IT BRUSHES THE WARDS BUT CANNOT PENETRATE THEM. IT WILL PROVE NO ISSUE, BUT I HAVE NEVER FELT SUCH A THING BEFORE," it stated, slightly quieter than before.

Wow, very chatty today. That didn't bode well. I sat there for a minute, pondering the implications, when another voice called out.

"HARRY!" came Molly's voice at a volume that would probably make Demonreach start looking for earplugs if we had been closer to her in order for me to be able to hear her from the dock. She and Mab would have to be there, because with the defenses up, nobody could step foot onto the island without my say-so. "I KNOW YOU'RE PROBABLY TRYING TO TWEAK MAB'S NOSE OR SOMETHING BUT YOU REALLY, REALLY NEED TO LET US UP THERE. YOU'RE OUR ONLY HOPE, OBI-WAN."

Damn. Mab didn't do Star Wars. That had to be Molly. Probably. "That's really the queens, right?" I checked with Demonreach, "It's not some sort of imposters or Outsiders or traveling vacuum salesmen or something equally malicious?"

"IT IS THEY," was the spirit's reply. "THE MAB AND GRASSHOPPER." Double damn.

"Ok, let them in. But keep an eye on Mab," I ordered, throwing on my newly enchanted duster over a white undershirt and grabbing my work-in-progress staff and blasting rod from the box by my door, rattling the battered Winchester rifle I kept there as I stepped out into the moonlit clearing around the cabin. To my left, the broken lighthouse that served as the entrance to the underground prison clawed at the sky, looking grim and foreboding. The wind blew, quick and cold, shaking the leafless branches of the trees all around the hilltop. I lowered my gaze from the tower and there they were.

Molly looked like she'd lost a few pounds; she looked lean and hungry and my eyes and mouth and tongue just about did a classic Hannah-Barbera "AWOOGA" at seeing her in her outfit, the Winter Mantle instantly leaping to life in the back of my mind. Molly was blonde and tall, barely a head shorter than my NBA-sized self, and she was, in the parlance of our times, stacked. And she was wearing some sort of Boris Vallejo-fever dream-inspired set of chainmail bikini armor with a wicked sword on one gloriously over-exposed hip and what looked like a cat-o-nine-tails whip on the other. She'd apparently gotten some new tattoos; multiple different images climbed up her legs and arms and torso, something about them scintillating and seeming to move in the dim light of the clearing. My Mantle was practically pounding the caveman button in my brain over and over again as I fought the urge to cry "WOMAN!" like that drummer muppet, something in her own Mantle resonating with mine.

But fight it I did. The mantle wouldn't control me. I had known Molly since she was in middle school. She was my best friend's daughter and also technically my boss as well. And just because she had been carrying a torch the size of Mt. Doom for me for going on two thirds of a decade at least didn't make it right, and didn't make her right for me. I quickly rattled off a series of perfect square numbers in my head, rational thought helping block the Winter out of my mind as I turned my gaze to my other guest.

Mab was beautiful, as she always was. The picture-perfect image of a queen, gorgeous features sculpted from the finest marble, full lips as red as fresh-picked cherries. Her slightly canted eyes were usually opalescent, shifting, sometimes blue, sometimes green, sometimes everything in between, but always cool and calculating and with a depth any man could drown in. Here, now? They were black. As was her garb, a martial getup looking like some sort of elegant brigantine crafted of the finest leather, polished to near-mirror shine, but with altogether too many belts in the strangest places. Uh-oh. Black was her aspect of Judgement. I should probably try to not mouth off to her today.

"So," I began with a heavy sigh, "What brings you lovely ladies to my door at whatever-the-fuck time this is? I don't do booty calls; you may have noticed the lack of telephone lines."

Oops.

"The time, Wizard," Mab hissed, her voice filled with the same venom it had held when she whispered her order to kill Maeve into my ear, "Is approximately 4:33 AM in the mortal styling of this location. And I am here to assist you in saving your puling mortal world from what is coming to it in less than an hour."

"Wha-," I started to say, when suddenly she disappeared from in front of me and I could feel the chill of her presence right behind me, her breasts pressing into my back as one of her thumbs dug into the middle of my forehead and her hands whipped my head around to face the direction of Chicago.

"Look!" she spat, her voice the cracking of an iceberg calving off a glacier, "See!"

And just as I was about to call for Demonreach, she ripped open my Third Eye.

All Wizards posses something called "The Sight". It is a mystical way of viewing reality that pierced all barriers and showed the Wizard what truly Was. It was damn useful and damn dangerous. It could give you information you could never find otherwise, information that could save your life. But if you looked at the wrong thing... I had accidentally looked upon the form of a Naagloshi, a skinwalker, once, and it had nearly driven me mad. I had Seen the true forms of Mab and Titania as they prepared a battlefield in all their might and glory, nearly scouring away my mind. And you could never, ever, forget what you Saw. Wizards who were too carefree about opening up their Third Eye invariably went coo-coo-cachoo cr-cr-cr-craaaazy and often had to get put down by the Wardens, the military and police force of the mortal magic-user "governing" body, the White Council of Wizardry. Wardens like me. Though thankfully I hadn't had to do much of anything like that in my work for the Council. Assuming I still had that job. The Gatekeeper, one of the Council's seven leaders, had promised to help with my return-from-death paperwork, but I had no idea where that process was at.

Mab forcing me to open my Sight was not a type of attack I would have expected or been prepared for in the best of times, but all thoughts of retaliation vanished in the face of what I Saw. Small, but widespread, Demonreach had said. And that was the case, here on the island. I saw what looked like little red raindrops sparking off of the dome of protective magics surrounding the island, centered above the locations of the cabin and the lighthouse, but striking lightly everywhere else. I could tell only my status as Warden of this place kept my brain from being utterly wiped clean by the defensive bulwark, its might seeming to fade into the background wherever I was looking, but shining brighter than a thousand suns just at the periphery of my vision.

But that light wasn't what grabbed my attention. I stared across the lake, towards Chicago, where thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions, or tens of millions of streams of energy were cascading towards the city from on high in a revolving conflagration. It looked like the city was the site of a ten-mile-high blaze, or the world's most energy-intensive rave. And above that blaze, which was filled with so much destructive force that detonating a nuke for every single person on the planet couldn't come close to matching it, all across the sky, blotting out the stars and moon, was a sea of laughing faces. Human faces, pig faces, bird faces, and a thousand other monstrous, cackling visages. I even saw some that looked like those little grey men knickknacks you could buy from the gift shops in Roswell. They laughed and laughed and laughed, a cacophony as loud as it was seemingly distant, and their mouths all dripped and slobbered and frothed with the blood of billions. They craved it, loved it, needed it, with a desire that sickened even the Mantle within me. I wrenched my Sight closed as I collapsed to the ground, retching up my dinner and lunch and probably breakfast too. God. What was that? What was coming for my city? Oh god. What was coming for Maggie? For all my friends?

"What," I coughed, looking up at Mab, Demonreach looming over her shoulder, "What the actual fuck is happening?"

And Mab said something I could scarcely believe, something that chilled me to my core. She looked down upon me, and in her eyes, I saw it. It was just a mote, but I could see it clearly as her eyes cooled to pools of palest, icy blue. Fear.

"That, Wizard mine, I do not know."

Chapter Text

CH 2

I sat back heavily, my mind racing at the implications of what Mab had said and what I had Seen. Something wasn't adding up. How could there be that much energy moving and I hadn't even felt a whisper of it? That kind of power doesn't come from nowhere and even if the wards of the island blocked out most of it, that sort of vortex of power should be disrupting every piece of technology in the city. It was also just as clearly a working that hadn't been cobbled together in a single night. Even magic not cast by a mortal, which usually avoided the walking technbane properties that Wizards had to deal with, would have an impact at that level of usage. I looked back out across the lake with my normal vision. The glow of the city's lights stood out starkly in the distance, calm and steady. I shook my head, trying to clear the sea of bloody faces from my mind as I stood unsteadily to my feet. I looked to Mab, coming to a conclusion.

"Bullshit," I said, the words heavy on my tongue as I spat out the last dregs of bile from my mouth, "If you really didn't know anything at all, you wouldn't be here. You're planning something. What's your angle?"

Mab's thin, grim smile was like a crack in the ice after you stepped out onto a frozen river. "The complete picture remains...elusive," she admitted, "but suffice it to say, what you have seen and are about to witness is a work of mortal ferromancy the likes of which has never been seen on this world. By its very nature it is nigh-impossible for the likes of the Fae to observe directly." Her lips curled distastefully at the confession. "However," she continued, "I did indeed become aware of some… scenes… within the portrait a short while ago. But I am Mab. Even such a working as this shall not be enough to displace all that I have wrought. Which is why we are here. You, my Knight, shall assist me in dealing with these interlopers."

I reeled at that. This was the work of mortals? Even the entire White Council, acting in concert and in the numbers it had before the war with the Red Court Vampires, wouldn't be able to do something like that. Not without a whole lot of prep work and some sort of reality-warping god or seven sponsoring the project, at the very least. I should have been able to feel it when I first came back from Mab's boudoir into the realm of cheeseburgers and deep-dish pizza. The great fire and jeering ocean of monsters pressed upon my mind like the gore-ridden carcasses of a rawhead trying to crush me. If Mab was telling me the truth - and since she couldn't lie, that was a mostly foregone conclusion - then we needed to stop this. I knew what I had to do.

"Alright," I said, my resolve firming as I finally cast the vision back into my subconscious mind with an effort of will, "What more can you tell me? This can't be the work of the Council. Who's behind it? What can I even do against that that you can't?"

Mab's reply was brisk, "Time is short, my Knight. We must act with haste. You are correct, the minds behind this attack are not of the Council. Most are not even of human origin. What you can do is obey me. You will be given protections and you shall enter the lair of our enemy, where I cannot go freely. You will find the motive forces behind this and eliminate the threat they pose."

"What does that even mean!?" I exclaimed, "Not of human origin? What kind of protections? This isn't much to go on, Mab! If you think I can-!"

"Tch," Mab spat, like an icicle crashing to the ground, "I must prepare before the summoning occurs." She glared at me, the intensity of her gaze causing my rant to sputter and die in my throat. "We have retrieved one of the ferromantic ritual objects powering the event intact. Lady Molly will extract your parasite, place it within, and install the device. It will assist you in a host of ways. She will explain what she can. Now, I must go. Find me upon the 12th​ floor and we will continue this conversation," she said, vanishing in a swirl of windswept snow. The cold air of the January night felt a little warmer with her gone.

"Wait!" I yelled into the darkness, "The 12th​ floor of what!?!" I turned to Molly in exasperation, and the drawn expression on her face pulled me up short. "Molls, what is happening?" I asked. She grimaced.

"I can only give you the short version, Harry," she said, "There's no time." She pulled a small glass case out of her pocket and handed it to me, beginning to trace a circle around me in the frozen dirt with her sword. Inside the case was what looked like a single grain of sand. "Once I close the circle, take a quick look at that with your Sight," she continued, "That will explain a little bit of it. I'll tell you about the rest after. I'll put you to sleep and extract the spirit from your mind. She'll be able to interface with it. She'll help keep you safe." Her voice cracked a little at that. "At least, as safe as you can be." I could see her hands shaking as she continued to draw the sword in a long arc around me. I began to lay out onto the ground, the case held in my hands atop my chest, her exhausted tone more than anything else convincing me of her sincerity.

She paused for a moment, taking a deep breath, her hands steadying as she drew the circle closed. She looked down at me, staring into my eyes intently. I took her cue and gazed at the little container in my hands, opening my Sight again, concentrating on the tiny speck. I was deliberately facing away from the city shoreline this time. That was the right call. Somehow, that little grain of sand was a fountain of magical formulae of incredible density. I saw so many overlapping spells it was nearly a blinding beacon. I could feel it pulsing in time with the flames I could still feel at the back of my head even through the barrier of the circle. And it was…familiar, somehow. Bits and pieces of it looked like the spells I had put onto the backup skull I had been crafting for Bob, the spirit of intellect that had been my longtime companion and pain in my ass in exchange for his help with the whole Maeve situation. He was with Butters right now, the tiny medical examiner still holding on to him after our little adventure on Halloween. I needed to get in touch with them. Later. Assuming there was a later. I gazed again into the light of the focus object. And I saw something totally unexpected. At its core, beneath the overlapping spells that I was just beginning to realize reminded me of the immensely complex underpinnings of Demonreach's defenses in their construction, I saw what looked like an incredibly dense circuit diagram.

I only knew what that was because of my brief relationship with Anastasia Luccio, the chief high muckity-muck of the White Council's Wardens. Normally, Wizards destroyed any advanced technology just by existing near it. Murphy had cursed me on numerous occasions for getting too close to her work computer and causing its motherboards to fry its processors or something like that. I couldn't keep a debit card because the magnetic strip lost its effectiveness within a week. Those little flip phones busted at the barest hint of magical energy and smartphones were right out. But Anastasia found computers fascinating as an intellectual phenomenon. She had shown me some things in her collection of computing technology magazines, most published back in the 80's and early 90's. I didn't really get the details, but I knew enough that I could tell that the core of this thing was a computer system. Mab had called it ferromancy. That's usually what the Fae called human technology. But even with as little as I knew, I could tell that this computer was significantly more advanced than anything I had ever heard about in the news. Even the more tech-savvy members of the Paranet, the network my ex-girlfriend Elaine and I had set up to coordinate the defense of the small-time practitioners, would probably be baffled by this one.

I closed my Third Eye and even despite the weight of what was happening, my inner nerd shone through as I grinned up at Molly. "Is that magitech?" I asked in wonder, and Molly's eyes glimmered with excitement in response.

"That's what you focused on, there?" she laughed, "Short answer? Yes. Now lay back down. Try to clear your mind. It's gonna take me a minute to set up the extraction spell. I'll talk you through it while I work. It's going to sound crazy, but that little doodad should give you the context you need. Don't move while I'm doing this. It's going to take at least half an hour. You'll wake up where you need to be. You'll have about 5-10 minutes until it all goes down and about an hour to get in, from the intel we gathered."

I laid down, but clearing my mind was not going to happen. The implications of this were absolutely staggering. My gut instinct was absurd, but Molly quickly confirmed my worst fears as I felt the sleep spell beginning to take hold.

"Mab was correct. What's happening right now is the work of mortals, but not ones from Earth. Magitech is the least of the issues. We've got a War of the Worlds meets Running Man meets ritual sacrifice situation here, boss, "she said, her voice flat but clipped and fast as she focused on her spellwork. "Aliens, and pretty nasty ones at that," she continued, "What's happening is global. It's gonna be horrible. We've done what we can to mitigate the damage. The call's gone out onto the Paranet to get outdoors, but a lot of folks are asleep right now and we can't reveal too much of our hand. Paranoid Gary is trying to set some sort of nefarious robocall generator onto the problem, but I don't think there's time. I've made some more personal calls. You'll see. Mab and some of the other big shots are getting pulled into the vortex. Auntie Lea's holding strong at the Gates. I'm helping out here in the mortal realm. We think most of the Council's strongpoints will be able to avoid the worst of it, too. A lot of the other major Powers are holding out in their demesnes within the Nevernever to avoid getting sucked in themselves. We aren't sure when or if they'll be able to leave."

Her words washed over me as my eyes drooped. I was starting to feel dream logic invade my mind as my brain latched onto something else Molly had said.

"Wait," I slurred, my voice thick, "The spirit. You said she. She who?"

I could hear the sad smile in her voice as sleep finally overtook me. "Your other daughter, Mr. Wannabe-Zeus."

Chapter Text

CH 3

I came back to my senses, such as they were, in a place that I hadn't been to in a while. I was standing in a small spotlit circle in a vast, empty room. No spotlight was visible, despite its clear presence, and it felt somehow both infinitely vast and stiflingly closed at the same time. It was some sort of internal mind-space and it's where I had occasionally met up with my very own Mirror Universe doppelganger. I didn't know if other wizards had this kind of relationship with their own subconscious minds. I had never asked. It seemed like the kind of that the Council would throw you into some sort of magical loony bin for, probably in a pyramid or something. With how slow on the uptake they were, I wouldn't be surprised if their idea of mental health care had a distinctly 17th​ century bent.

He stood at the other side of the lit circle in perfectly tailored black slacks, a black silk shirt, and black sport coat. Truly original. Though he had a splash of color on his outfit this time, which was new: a pale blue silk tie and an incredibly ornate silver snowflake pin on his lapel, practically glistening as if it had just fallen from the sky. Well, that couldn't be a good sign. He even had an immaculately-shaped goatee, for Christ's sake! The only thing spoiling the image of crisp, semi-sinister perfection was the tiny female child sitting atop his head, curled up into a nest of hair, sleeping peacefully.

"Nice look," I sniggered, "I didn't figure you for somebody who'd tolerate getting Ratatouille'd." I hadn't seen the movie, but I had seen the advertisements, and I figured it'd annoy him. I figured right.

"Hah. Hah. Hah," he said sardonically, accompanying himself with a slow golf clap, "Laugh it up. You're in for it too, don't you forget. We're the same person. I just have more style and a functional brain."

"I don't think wanting to run dick-first into every woman we meet is exactly the sign of a functional member of society," I retorted.

"Isn't that what you were planning on doing with Murphy when your dumb ass got us shot?" he snorted. The little girl on top of his head gave a sleepy grumble when his head moved, burrowing deeper into his hair. "Now shut up, we don't have time for this. You heard what Molly said, right?"

I nodded, sputtering a bit. I ignored the jab about Murphy. "She said," I replied, swallowing hard as I looked at the little girl again, "She said the parasite Mab told me about was my daughter. My other daughter. But what does that even mean? How could I have a daughter who's a spirit, it doesn't even make sense! And even if it did, how does that make her a parasite?" As I looked closely, I could see something of my own face in hers. But other bits of her looked different. She had Murphy's chin. Elaine's nose. Cheekbones that resembled those of Ivy, the little girl I'd named who contained the powerful Archive, repository of all of humankind's knowledge. Her fingers were long and strong-looking, like Georgia the werewolf's. So many bits and pieces of my memories, captured into the body of a young girl that was maybe half the size that my fairy accomplice Toot-toot had been when I first met him.

"Think about it, dolt!" he answered me, "You've seen enough stand-up comedy to know some people refer to fetuses like that as a joke. She was feeding off of your essence to survive. Same difference, except that this one is ours. Our very own Athena. And let me tell you, the headspace here has been getting a bit crowded until just now."

"Is that why I've been getting these headaches? She's…what, been growing too big for her bedroom?" I asked.

My double snorted again. "Exactly. And it's not like you had all that much room up here to begin with. The nursery was full up. You're just lucky Molly got here before it got really bad."

"Hey!" I said, indignant. He rolled his eyes at me. "Well, if she's my daughter, then where's the mother? As far as I know, I haven't been banging Bob's aunts or something." A disgusting thought occurred to me. "As far as I know, I haven't had anybody around but you. You're like my opposite in every way. You don't mean me and you…"

"Ugh!" he said, making a face, "Perish the thought! I don't even know how that would work. No, you idiot! You're supposed to be the intellect here. Think!"

I thought. Other than this joker, there'd really only been one other person who'd taken up a rent-free slot inside my skull. A copy of a Fallen Angel, Lasciel, who'd tempted me to take up her powers for years after I'd grabbed her coin to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands. "You don't mean…" I started.

"Yes!" he shouted, raising his arms in triumph, "Finally, he gets it!"

"Lash?" I asked, using the name I'd given to the shadow of an angel, "But…how? I never took her up on her attempts to seduce me."

"Don't I know it," my opposite grumbled, shaking his head. "What a waste. Whole years of being able to indulge literally any fantasy you could want and you never took advantage."

I ignored him. "But if we never…you know…then how did this happen?"

He looked at me like I was the biggest idiot he'd ever seen. "Because everything about boinking spirits is exactly the same as doing it in the back seat of your station wagon, surely," he replied, rubbing his temples like he had a monster of a headache. "Look. Making a child is an act of creation. You know things are different when it gets all spiritual. I can't just tell you this stuff. You've got to figure it out on your own. The pieces are all there. Stop getting distracted, we have more important stuff to go over."

I took a moment. Bob had always told me that making something was much, much harder than breaking something. Everything I'd seen in my life confirmed that. Things took on symbolic meaning once you crossed over from the material realm. It wasn't always the case in reality, but on the other side, especially where new life was concerned? Creation was fundamentally an act of love. Lasciel's Shadow and I had been antagonistic for years; she tempted me with power, I mostly denied it. She'd been trying to shape me to be what she wanted. But the Shadow was not the angel. While she had shaped me, I'd been shaping her right back. She was a footprint in the clay of my mind. And no matter what anybody tells you, you're always in control of your own mind. I'd given her a name, Lash, and we'd even become a little buddy-buddy. I'd gotten used to having her around. But then I'd been hit with a terrible psychic attack, one powered by the Outsiders. I'd been willing to die without compromising who I was. And she'd…

"She sacrificed herself to save me," I said, tears welling in my eyes as I remembered

"Exactly!" nega-me stated, gesturing at me in vindication "You'd been more intimate with her than nearly anybody else in your life. And she loved you enough to die for you. But when she did, that very act allowed her to leave a piece of herself behind. Seriously," he grumbled, "You're too afraid to even be roommates with a woman and you let one live in your head for like half a decade. Of course such a thing would have an impact. Now shut up."

I started to say something in reply, but he cut me off. "No! Zip it! I'm only here because Molly gave me some knowledge. It's a lot faster to do it in here than flapping your meat out in the wind. She only gave me a little, she's mostly been focused on giving this little lady," he said, gesturing at his head, "a crash course on what to expect inside and I'm not actually able to talk to you outside of this weird dream shit, so it's more important to give her the whole picture. Lucky for you, I've got a good ear and picked up a little extra. So buckle up. We don't have time."

I nodded to him, and he continued.

"Ok, so Mab captured a few of these alien assholes a couple of days ago and gave them the good ol' Winter Once-Over, if you catch my drift," he said. I grimaced, remembering the fate of Lloyd Slate, the last Winter Knight: crucified to a frozen tree, his eyes plucked out. Tortured near to death and healed over and over again for his sins against the Queen. I didn't envy those aliens their fate at her hands. At all.

"Turns out, they've been on the planet for a few hundred years preparing for this clusterfuck," he continued, "it's all technology, like that gizmo Molly's putting the kid into. Something about it keeps people, and especially faeries and a lot of beings from the Nevernever, from sensing it. Something to do with the makeup of the alloys in the computer systems and the formulae built into everything these pricks are doing. They don't know it's magic. They've basically spent the past several hundred years building up for a ritual that all goes down tonight. It's why you haven't sensed the energies until just now. Everything's been laying in wait until they flipped the switch. If you thought that shindig in Chichen Itza was big, you've got another thing coming. It's like comparing a candle to the asteroid that took out the dinosaurs. You can't stop it because you'll have only a few minutes until it goes off once you wake up and the pieces are everywhere. The whole planet is the ritual circle. Or ritual sphere. Whatever. Same difference."

I was agog, my mouth hanging open. What he was describing…it couldn't be possible. But apparently it was. Arthur C. Clark, eat your heart out, I guess. My duplicate continued his monologue, speeding up a bit.

"The little computer Molly showed you is apparently something every human on the planet is born with. It sits in the brain somewhere. It's like a tracking chip from a spy movie, plus some extra. With wizards," he said, gesturing at me, "and some more potent minor talents, something about coming into our powers disables the thing. So, they don't know that wizards exist. They can't track us automatically and we don't interface with their systems. I'm sure that will come as a surprise to these guys if and when they land on the planet. Mab extracted one from somebody. Putting the kid inside and implanting it back into your brain will let you go into the Dungeon and get the same things out of it that everybody else who goes in gets. That's a good and bad thing."

"Dungeon?" I yelled, "What the hell is that? And Molly's giving me brain surgery right now? What-"

"Shut up!" he growled, "You're fine. You're waking up right now. Listen. You can't let them know about her. If they find out about her, they'll squash you like a bug. If they even suspect you've got an outside influence like that, they'll arrange for your destruction and they'll capture her and do something terrible to her. She's ours. They don't get to have her. Capisce?

If you can say one thing about my id for certain, it's that he knows the importance of protecting family. I hadn't known I had a second daughter when I went to bed last night. Hell, I hadn't even seen my flesh-and-blood daughter in person since rescuing her from the vampires, too afraid that my presence would put her in danger. But she was in danger now. And I knew where she was, since I'd peeked in on her while I was ghosting about Chicago. Molly knew too. Hopefully she'd put me in a position to do something about it.

As I faded from the mental space, Beard-O had a final parting shot.

"She's asleep. Let her rest and get acclimated. And try not to draw too much attention to yourself, dumbass!"

His words echoed in my head as my real eyes opened, staring into the sky with the wind whistling in my ears. I realized suddenly that I was falling through the air and frantically began twisting myself around, spotting the Chicago skyline and a glimpse of flashing police lights close by when I plummeted into a snowdrift face-first, my manly shriek cut off by a mouthful of dirty, crusted snow.

"Ack!" I cried as I rolled off the pile, dropping my half-complete staff and spitting the gunk out of my mouth. I was sputtering and coughing, trying to get my bearings, when I heard a voice that I recognized.

"Dresden? Is that you? Where the hell did you come from?" asked Detective Henry Rawlins as he ambled up to me in the flashing lights of several police cruisers. The man looked tired. He had even more grey in his beard than the last time I'd seen him, and a little less hair. "C'mon man," he said, reaching for my hand and pulling me upright, "You gotta get out of here, it isn't safe. Karrie's here looking in on some of her friends, but we're evacuating this area temporarily until the hazmat crews can get out here."

I took a second to get my bearings, reaching down to pick up my staff. I recognized the area and thanked Molly silently for sending me where she'd known I'd wanted to be. Why she hadn't been a bit gentler about the landing, I'd have to talk to her about the next time I saw her. I was just down the street from her parent's home in a quiet residential neighborhood in the north-central part of the city. Well, normally quiet. About half a dozen police cruisers and a fire truck were parked a safe-ish distance away from a tipped over tanker truck semi, lights flashing and blocking off the street. It was branded with the logo of a local gas station brand, and officers and firemen were going door to door throughout the neighborhood, apparently trying to get people out of range in case something went wrong. What the hell was a semi even doing driving through a neighborhood like this? The streets were so narrow, it would've been hell to drive through. And forget about making a turn with everybody parked overnight on both sides of the road. It looked like it had veered off course and ramped up somebody's car, tipping over and crushing a bunch of vehicles on the other side of the street. Some of the cops were talking to what looked like the driver, who appeared confused. I waved Rawlins off, back to his duties, as I hurriedly approached the Carpenter household, checking my watch. 5:17 am. Mab had said less than an hour at 4:33, so we must be getting close.

Murphy was standing on the outside of Michael's white picket fence, Georgia Borden the werewolf at her side, holding their child on one hip. Her also-werewolf husband Will was nearby on his cellphone, pacing back and forth, talking animatedly. I couldn't make out what he was saying over the winter wind whipping down the street. Murphy and Georgia were speaking quietly with Michael and Charity Carpenter, on the other side of the fence. Michael was leaning heavily on his cane. I saw that his house was alight and full of activity, presumably everybody getting ready to evacuate. As I dashed up, Will's phone gave a loud *POP* and sparked as he dropped it, yelling in surprise. Evidently it couldn't hold up in close proximity to an agitated Wizard. Everyone looked around, tense and alert, but Murphy spotted me first.

Murph looked a little ragged, short blonde hair disheveled, cute button nose dripping from the cold, but all five-foot-nothing of her was wound as tightly as a coiled spring. She had one holster worn openly on her hip and I knew she had at least a couple of other backup guns on her person. She was ready for a fight. So were Will and Georgia, even with their young son in hand.

"Harry!" she exclaimed, rushing over. "There you are! I'd heard about this whole thing on the scanner," she gestured over her shoulder at the whole truck situation. "I recognized the address and was about to head over when Molly called me. She told me to find you here and that you'd have some idea of what the hell's going on." She paused for a moment quickly looking me up and down, worry in her eyes. "And what about your little, ah, hitchhiker problem?" she asked pointedly, "I thought you were stuck out there on the island?"

I gave a little nervous glance towards Michael and Charity as we hustled back to the group. I wasn't sure what Molly had told them about her new job, so to speak. I decided to err on the side of caution. That was her responsibility. We all exchanged quick greetings, hugs and back slaps and swiftly shaken hands. Charity called out to the house for the kids to hurry up. I took it all in and got straight to the point.

"Don't worry about it," I said to Murphy, "We don't have a lot of time. 5-10 minutes, tops, I was told. What do you know?"

She nodded, all business. "The 'Net has been lighting up since about 2 am with messages to get outside and away from any covered structure," she said, "But not just here in town. Everywhere we've got a presence. That little asshole Gary hijacked the Amber Alert system, or something, so peoples' phones have been blowing up nonstop. Will had to factory reset his just to be able to make calls, until you blew it up a bit more literally." She gave a grim little snort at that. "Other things have been happening, too. Will, what were you able to get out of her before Hex-Boy here showed up?" I scowled indignantly at that. Here I am rushing to save lives and this is the thanks I get? Murphy spotted my expression and grunted in amusement.

Will looked alert and serious, like one of those ads for whatever new action series about some sort of globe-hopping secret agent was out this month. His mouth was a thin line on his strong, square face as he related his own intelligence. "She said Marcone is on the move, though nobody we knew had called him. But she had some other news, too." He looked at me. "That vampire friend of yours, Thomas," he said, and my heart rate spiked. My brother. "Lara said that his girlfriend, Justine, drugged him with something and shot the watchers that she had on their place before running off into the night. It happened like 10 minutes ago. She was pretty pissed off about it."

I swallowed, trying to control my emotions. He had to be ok. Something like a drug couldn't put a White Court vampire down for long. They fed off the emotions of others and it gave them supernatural speed and strength and healing. And abs that those servers at the Olive Garden could grate parmesan off of. Without even having to put in a single minute of work! Totally unfair. But what the hell was Justine's deal? She'd always been a little loopy, but last that I had seen she'd been a good deal more mentally stable. I hadn't even been aware that she'd known how to fire a gun, let alone use one well enough to take out some of the trained mercs that Lara employed. That couldn't be a good sign. One more to add to the ever-growing list, it seemed.

"Is he ok?" I asked. Murphy had grabbed my hand at some point and squeezed it. I squeezed back. She was the only person here that knew of my relationship with him. Michael probably suspected, but it wasn't something I could talk about aloud without risking the safety of both of us. We each had a lot of enemies. Most people took him to be an ally of convenience for me, and that was all.

Will nodded and I sagged in relief. "She was saying that he should be up and about in a couple of hours. She's keeping everybody outside and I could hear one of her sisters or cousins complaining to her about it when you showed up," he said.

I nodded and turned to Michael. Charity had run off to chivvy the kids out into the yard. All the neighbors around were grumbling and swearing and starting to load themselves into their vehicles. "Any news from on high?" I asked. Michael shook his head. I grunted. Figures.

"I reported the truck crash. I'd heard it as it happened," he said, "I'd woken up a little early and wasn't able to get back to sleep." He grimaced slightly at his injured leg, the most visible remnant of the fight that had cost him his side job but gained him everything else he'd ever wanted. Michael had been a Knight of the Cross, one of three warriors empowered by swords supposedly forged containing the nails from the Crucifixion. It didn't happen to those Knights often, but he'd been able to retire after recovering from his injuries and now had an Angelic protection detail to keep his supernatural enemies at bay. He could spend more time with his children and wife. I'd be lying if I'd said I wasn't a little envious of that, if not the circumstances by which he'd come to it. Whether or not the bit about the nails was literally the case, Angels did look after them and their wielders, and they were powerful weapons against evil. I was beginning to suspect they might be called into use again soon. Currently only one of them was "active", in the hands of Sanya, who bore the sword Esperacchius, the Sword of Hope. I had been tasked with guarding the other two swords, Fidelacchius, the Sword of Faith, and Amoracchius, the Sword of Love, by a sneaky Archangel before my untimely disappearing act. I didn't know where they were now, but at least one of the people here did.

"Nothing else out of the ordinary from what I could see," Michael continued. "Sanya was somewhere in India last that I had heard, but I haven't been able to get through to him. But I'm sure he will be well." Michael's sense of calm, implacable faith was a reassuring bulwark. From what Mab, Molly, and my alter-ego had told me, lots of people were going to need that soon. "What about you, Harry? Molly had called me as well to check in. I'm not sure how she knew I was awake, but she said to expect you soon. She was…lighter on the details than I would prefer. Do you know what's happening?"

I took a deep breath. I looked each of them in turn. A circle of stoic faces looked back at me. Seemingly ready for anything. Except for Georgia and Will's little boy, who was picking crankily at her shirt and squirming. I hoped that they'd all be ok. I tried to fill my voice with a sense of gravitas.

"Aliens," I said, the wind whipping my shaggy hair up around me like I was Prospero summoning a storm.

The group burst into surprised shouts at my proclamation when suddenly a commotion behind us drew our attention. A small vehicle had come down the road and was hopping the curb, bypassing the barrier of police vehicles and honking as it drove straight towards us. Rawlins and a few other cops were trying to flag the vehicle down. I recognized the car, even if it was too dark to see the driver, and I called out to the officers. "Hey, don't worry, it's just my ride out of here! Keep getting everybody else out!" Rawlins looked to Murphy, who nodded, glaring up at me like she wanted to jump up and try to slap some sense into my thick skull. Or more likely aikido me down to her level to give me a few more bumps. The little vehicle pulled up and stopped fast, rocking back and forth as the driver slammed on the brakes. Out hopped Butters and a couple of the other Alphas, the werewolf pack that Georgia and Will led. Andi, Butters' girlfriend, and another one of them, uh…Mary I think it was. He burst into a nearly manic grin when he saw me.

"Harry!" he exclaimed, dashing up as the she-wolves took their time. "It's great to see you, man! Karrin said you'd be stuck out there on that island for a while, so imagine my surprise when Molly called me up and said you needed a pickup from her folks' place." He looked around and his face suddenly fell, as if he hadn't even noticed the police and fire truck and toppled semi in his rush to get here. "Uhhhh…" he trailed off, "What's going on?"

I started to answer, but Murphy interrupted me, her closed fist with outstretched thumb jabbing me in the solar plexus, causing me to cough. "If you believe this joker, apparently 'Aliens'," she said, glowering up at me. "I hope he's got a little more details than that."

"What," Butters said, looking dumbstruck. "Like, alien aliens? Like for real, galaxy far far away aliens? You're kidding, right?"

I gritted my teeth. "No," I said with extreme patience and forbearance, "I'm not kidding. And they are in a galaxy all too close and they're more Ridley Scott than George Lucas from what I can tell." I took a breath and leaned in, speaking just for his ears and Murphy's. "Listen. There's no time. Tell me you brought Bob with you."

"Oh, yeah, of course," he said, suddenly serious. It was a strange look on him. He continued, "I've got him a mount for the dashboard. He's a 'Bob'blehead. He enjoys the view. Andi's getting him out of the car."

"Alright," I nodded, turning to the rest of the group who were already starting to pepper me with questions as we walked into Michael's yard. I'd just started to answer them when Charity led the troop of kids out the door, all carrying backpacks and pillows and stuffed animals and…it looked like Hope had a karaoke machine of all things? And there she was, at the back of the pack. A little girl with serious brown eyes and curly black hair, her hand clutched onto the service animal harness of a giant dogasaurus. Mouse, my temple dog companion, who I'd sent to be her protector.

Maggie. My daughter by Susan Rodriguez. Susan, who I'd killed in a ritual sacrifice to save Maggie and destroy the Red Court root and branch. I stared at her, my voice choked off, my mouth opening and closing wordlessly. She stared up at me. I could tell she recognized me. It felt like every other sound in the world had turned off except for the frantic beating of my heart.

And that's when it happened.

WHUMP!

And then the screaming started.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

CH 5

I stood, rooted in place as the words faded along with the Archangel's presence. I'd heard those words before. That exact phrase. Nicodemus Archeleone, leader of the Fallen-possessed Knights of the Blackened Denarius, had said them to me when he'd been monologuing about why he'd wanted to unleash a super-plague on the world. Uriel spent words like a miser spent coins: as few and as infrequently as possible. The fact that he'd used that phrase, here and in this context, meant something. What it meant, I had no freaking clue. Stupid freaking inscrutable angels. Mysterious ways my ass.

I stared out the window, taking a minute to collect myself. I'd been being rushed about all night by forces greater than myself and with the collapse of everything I'd ever known, I was floundering. I couldn't afford that. My friends, my family, what remained of my world, they all couldn't afford that. When was a Wizard most dangerous? When he'd had time to prepare. I checked my watch again. 5:36. Had it really only been 10 minutes since the world ended? It felt like days. I had 50 minutes before I needed to get inside. Less, probably, to be safe. And I was definitely going inside. If other beings could shelter from what had happened like Molly had said, Mab certainly would have been able to as well. She went in on purpose. She had a plan. Going into the unknown was one thing. Going into the unknown with an ally on the inside was another. And if that ally was Mab? There had to be some hope. There had to be. I couldn't just react to things, not with the stakes so high.

As I was pondering, I heard the rumble of an engine and the lights flickered on. Somebody must have turned on the generator that Michael had mentioned. A minute later, I heard hurried footsteps running up the stairs and turned to see Hope Carpenter rushing along. She pulled up short when she saw me. I gave her a tired grin "Heya, Hobbit," I said quietly. "How're you holding up?"

"Hi Bill," she said, her voice serious despite using the ridiculous nickname she'd given me when she was barely waist high. "Mom told me to go around and shut the lights off and I'm grabbing some camping gear out of the attic. Amanda and Leech are looking after the kids. I'm..." she paused, uncertain. "I know you and Dad got involved with stuff like this before but…this is pretty bad, right?"

I looked at her more closely. With Molly, Daniel, and Matthew out of the house, Hope was the middle child of everybody left. She was…in the upper grades of high school, I think? She'd always been a quiet one. I hadn't been aware that she'd been as perceptive of what her father had gotten up to when she was younger. I know Michael had tried to keep them safe from his job as a Knight, but she had to have known some things given his injuries and the fact that they had an Angel-built panic room in the house that Charity was practically religious about drilling them in the procedures of operating. With all that had happened, she didn't deserve to be given the runaround.

"Yeah," I sighed, "This is pretty bad. The worst I've seen, for certain. But we'll get through it, somehow. You know what your dad would say."

She huffed a little laugh that turned quickly to stifled sobs, "He'd say to have faith. To help who you can. It's just…It's just…" tears ran down her face, "Did you see them? Billy Thaler and his little sister Ann. They were in their car and it just…I babysat them just last week while their parents were doing last-minute Christmas shopping and now they're…" She rushed forward, weeping into my surprised arms. I held her there for a minute. She'd been holding on for the sake of Maggie and little Harry but nobody had had the chance yet to really talk with any of the kids. She needed this. Tears fell down my face as well. I guess I did, too. After while, she looked up at me with her tearstained face. "You're going in, right?" she asked. "Into this World Dungeon thing? You're going to do something about it?"

"You're damn right I am," I said. "And now I've got to get ready. You've got a job to do, too. And don't tell your mom I've been swearing around you."

She chuckled a bit, nodding. As she walked away I had a sudden flash of inspiration, a barely considered plan taking a bit of root. "Wait a sec," I said, and she stopped. "Do you guys have any frozen pizza? Could you throw some into the oven for me when you're done?"

She thought for a second. "We've got pizza bagels. And the oven's gas. It's not working. Mom was going to heat up some water on the stove to sterilize it and there was no gas to light. But I could throw them in the toaster oven? They'll be ready in like 20 minutes. Listen for the ding." Perfect. Well, not exactly perfect, but I'm sure I could make do.

"Please do," I said, "If anybody asks for me, tell them I'm in your parents' office. I'm writing a few letters to some friends I think can help." As she went about her tasks, I got to work on mine.

By the light of a small desktop lamp, I was just putting the finishing touches on my letter to Ebenezer McCoy, one of the Senior Council members of the White Council and my secret grandfather, when the door creaked open. I'd heard people moving up and down the stairs for the last while, so I figured somebody had come to get me. It wasn't who I'd expected.

I turned in the chair I was sitting in and there she was. Maggie. My daughter. She was clinging tightly onto Mouse, who stood next to her with a doggy grin slapped across his face, prancing up and down on his two front paws like he wanted nothing more than to run into the room and cover me with drool but was forbearing doing so for the girl's sake.

"Hi," she said, shyly.

"…Hi," I gulped out, my heart in my throat. I hadn't known what I'd have said to her for a first meeting before the planet was conquered by aliens. Now that it had been, I didn't know even more.

She paused, staring at me with her big, brown eyes that had seen too much. "Are you Harry Dresden?" she asked eventually.

"…Yeah, that's me alright," I said hesitantly.

"You're really tall," she said, "And I think a little scary. But my dog Mouse likes you, so I bet you're only really scary to bad guys."

My heart broke just a little, hearing that. "I'm sorry if scared you," I said softly, "But Mouse is a smart boy. That's why I sent him to you. To protect you from bad guys."

She nodded firmly. Mouse was wagging his tail furiously, but still careful not to knock her over. "That's what Molly said," she replied, sounding a little more sure of herself, "She gave me a picture of you and said you gave me my Mouse because you loved me."

It was like a lightning bolt had shot straight down my spine. Of course I had. Of course I did. How could I not? I'd ended a war for her, but I don't think I'd really internalized it. Here at the end of the world, really seeing her for the first time? I realized I loved her more than anything. "Yeah," I said, holding back tears that just wanted to keep falling. Holding back the anger that I didn't have time to build anything with her before I had to go, again. "Yeah, that's right." I swallowed, hard. "Would you like to come in?" I asked, "You don't have to stand in the hallway."

She seemed to give it serious thought. "Are you sure?" she asked. "You're not mad at me?"

I had to blink furiously to keep the tears from falling. She didn't need that right now. "No," I said, "No, of course I'm not mad at you. Why would you think that?"

She burrowed her face into Mouse's fur and when she answered me, it was a little muffled. "Because you're never here. Never ever. And then you came and there was that robot voice thing and all this other scary stuff was happening and your walking stick got all glowy and you looked really mad and you didn't even say hi and…and…" She started to hyperventilate into Mouse's mane and he gave a whine and turned his head to start licking the side of her face.

I practically fell out of the chair in my haste to get to her side before I realized maybe rushing at her wasn't the best decision as she backed away a little and I ended up tripping over my own feet and landing on my side, opposite her and next to Mouse. He looked at me and I could actually see him roll his eyes at me. He gave a disapproving "wuff" as Maggie peeked around, looking under his chin, giving a little hiccupping cry-laugh. "Mouse thinks that was a little silly," she said.

"Yeah, it definitely was," I said, moving to a sitting position, rubbing my head. "I'm sorry for not saying hi. I was mad, but at the people who'd done all those scary things. Some of my friends got hurt because of what they did and it made me upset. But it was never at you. I'd never be mad at you."

"Even if I stayed up all night on a school night watching My Little Pony and eating all the peanut butter cups? Even Missus Carpenter got mad then."

I laughed. "Even then," I said, smiling at her. "And I'm sorry for not being here until now. I've got a really hard job. Did Molly tell you what I do?"

She nodded, "She said you fight monsters and bad guys and solve crimes. Like mob bosses with big cigars and vampires and stuff. Like in Batman"

"That's right," I said, chuckling, "Just like Batman."

"Do you have a Batcave?" she asked

I thought of Demonreach. "Kiiiiinda," I hedged, "It's more like a Fortress of Solitude, though. It's a bit hard to get to. That's one of the reasons I've been gone so much."

She nodded solemnly as if that were perfectly reasonable. She stood there for a moment, thinking. Mouse took the opportunity to finally rush into me and start slobbering all over my face.

"Ack!" I cried, "Not the mouth!" I pet him vigorously and Maggie giggled. Mouse's tail whump-whump-whumped furiously as he knocked me over and started giving me a drool-based shower.

He eventually calmed down when Maggie grabbed his vest. He still sat on me, though. She looked down at me. "Are you gonna take me away to live you with?" she asked, "And I'd be in your Batcave and be your Robin and stuff?" My heart pounded a staccato beat, trying to pump right out of my chest.

"Would you want to do that?" I asked her back, voice quiet.

She thought about it. "I dunno," she said, "It might be fun. I don't know if I could be a Robin though. We do somersaults in gymnastics and they're really hard. And all my toys are here."

"You wouldn't have to be a Robin if you did come live with me," I said, "But we can't right now."

She patted Mouse on the head, pap-pap-pap, bouncing her chin with each tap. "I thought so," she said, "You've got to fight the bad robot that hurt your friends. That's what Batman would do."

"It is," I replied.

She looked at me. "Molly says you're really nice," she said, like she'd come to a decision. "What do you think, Mouse?" Mouse gave a big "woof!" and wagged his tail, finally getting off me and sitting up, licking her face. She giggled again and wrapped her arms around Mouse's neck. He rested his chin atop her head. I sat up too. I was still over a head taller than her even then. She peered up at me. "Will you come tuck me in?" she asked, "Missus Carpenter said we should try to sleep again. I don't wanna be in bed, though, so you gotta tuck me in with Mouse!"

My breath caught in my chest. "Yeah," I said, choking up a bit, "Sure thing, kiddo. Anything you want."

We walked slowly to her room. She had a couple of my fingers in her right hand and Mouse's harness in her left. As we walked by the stairwell, I saw Murphy standing there in the dim light coming from the office, her head below floor level. She looked like she'd been there for a minute or two. I raised a finger, asking for time. She nodded and slunk back downstairs quietly. In the distance, I heard the chime of the toaster oven.

We entered her room and Mouse flopped down onto his big doggie bed underneath Maggie's lofted mattress. She curled up next to his stomach, resting her head on one of his forelegs. I pulled a couple of blankets over them both. She snuggled in tightly and closed her eyes. "Will you read me a story?" she asked.

"Sure," I replied. I looked over her bookshelf. She had a lot of good ones. More than I'd ever had after my father died. I thought of what was coming. I pulled a good one from the shelf. Oh, The Places You'll Go by Dr. Seuss.

I opened the book and willed light into my mother's pentacle amulet on my chest. Maggie's eyes opened and widened at the sight. "Pretty…" she said, sleepily. I smiled. I read her the poem and tried to put all of my hopes for her into the words. Her eyes were half-lidded as I finished it. "That was nice," she yawned as I finished. She looked up at me. "After you beat the bad guys are you gonna come back and be my dad?"

I cracked, then. The tears couldn't be stopped. I'd done the math while I was writing my letters. The message had said that the first floor was open for 5 days and that each subsequent floor was open for longer. Even if it was only 1 day more each time, to go through all 18 floors would be almost 8 months, minimum.

"Yeah, sweetheart," I choked out, "Yeah, I will." And I meant it. Once this was done, nothing would keep her from me. "But in the meantime," I said, "I want to give you something." I removed my mother's necklace and the glow dimmed as I placed it around her neck, resting the ruby-encrusted pentacle above the blanket. I wasn't going to need it where I was going. She gave a tired "ooh" and grabbed it with one hand. "My mother gave that to me when I was born to protect me. I'm giving it to you for the same reason. Take care of it for me, will you?"

"Mmhmm," she mumbled, pulling it under the covers and turning her face into Mouse's fur, eyes closed.

I stood quietly and gave Mouse a soft pat. He gave a quiet whine. "Take care of her, boy," I said. He gave an affirmative little woof.

I walked quietly out of the room and into the office. I checked my watch. 6:05. Almost out of time. I dashed out the last lines of my letter to McCoy and went downstairs. I saw the older Carpenter children arranging some things in the living room as I passed into the candlelit kitchen. The smell of pizza bagels filled the air. Around the dining table sat Will, Michael, Charity, Murphy, and Butters. Butters and Charity had dried blood all over their clothes. Michael was massaging his bad leg, like he'd overworked himself. They all looked like they had aged a decade in under an hour. The pizza bagels sat on a plate in the middle of the table. Thankfully nobody had eaten them, though it wasn't that much of a surprise. The thought of eating right now made me queasy. As I sat down, they all looked to me.

"You go first, it'll be the shorter update ," I said. "Then I'll tell you everything I know."

Michael started us off. "Everyone who could be safely moved is over at the Church, police included. Father Forthill has a goodly supply of canned goods set aside; they'd just gotten a delivery for their weekly food pantry yesterday morning. The injured are in cots in the garage with every space heater we had on hand. Plenty of gas for the generator." He thumped a set of binoculars onto the table. "I'm not sure if you still wanted these. When I heard you were busy, I took a look towards the sources of those flares, which is what I figured you had wanted them for. It looks like the BFS is still standing, too. Lots of people moving around in the light of the flares but I couldn't see who in the dark. I couldn't see anyone at the northern site, but there weren't any buildings that I could tell."

"Those might be useful," I said, "Do you mind if I take them with me?" He shook his head and I tossed them into one of my duster pockets.

Butters went next. "I did the best I could," he said, "It was real meatball surgery. I'm not really competent at skin grafts, so we had to do a lot of cauterization. Andi will be fine, but the rest…I don't really know if we can keep infection at bay. If all the hospitals and pharmacies are gone…" He shook his head. "It's going to be really touch and go for a while."

"I've got Georgia and Marci out scouting for food and medical supplies and trying to make contact with folks from the Paranet," added Will. "Georgia gave a howl a few minutes back, so she found something, but we won't know until she returns. That could be anywhere from a few minutes to an hour or more depending on what it was that she found."

Charity spoke up once Will subsided. "We've got a few inflatable kayaks and plenty of fishing poles, plus a donation of seeds for the Church's garden club I had gotten at the end of last fall that were still in our garage. Our tiller had gotten its fall service and we've got a good amount of engine oil set by, so we should be okay to start growing food once the weather warms. The basement is stocked with canned vegetables." She paused. "I worked with some of the police and firemen to collect the…remains" she grimaced, gagging a little. She looked like she'd wrung herself out of tears to cry. "We'll bring them to the church for identification and burial according to their family's wishes soon." Michael rubbed her shoulder tenderly, his arm wrapped around her.

"A few of the people who were uninjured insisted on going into the entrance," said Murphy. "Short of knocking them down and handcuffing them, I don't think I could have stopped them. I decided it wasn't worth the effort." She looked around the table as if expecting a challenge. None was forthcoming. She huffed out a breath. "I've got arms and armor set up in the workshop. I'd brought you a present, Harry," she said, the ghost of a grin on her face. "I think you'll like it. Now tell us what you know."

I laid it all out for them, though I obscured Molly's role in things and I didn't mention my spirit-daughter. If the aliens could broadcast mentally to every person on the planet, they could probably see or maybe even hear us too. My inner self had been adamant that I not give them even a hint of her existence. So I had just said that Mab had rigged something up that would let me enter the Dungeon safely, since apparently Wizarding messed that up in some way I wasn't clear on.

"So Mab is waiting for me inside the Dungeon's 12th​ floor. I need to get in there and find her. Hopefully she'll have more intel on how to undo this. Or at least stop it from getting worse or happening again to somebody else. It's still churning away out there and I don't know what that means. My initial thought," I said, nodding to Butters, "Is that we play it out like the Darkhallow situation: find the guy holding the bag for this whole ritual and knock it out of his hand." I didn't mention how the backlash from that would almost certainly kill me and probably anybody on the same continent, but we'd get to that if and when it came to it. "But I'll have to see what I can learn."

Murphy, Will, and Butters all exclaimed their intent to follow me in.

"Absolutely not," I said firmly. "This is almost certainly a deathtrap. I was told it was a War of the Worlds meets Running Man thing. It's some sort of sick death game gameshow put on for hordes of bloodthirsty genocidal alien maniacs."

A chorus of objections arose. I silenced them with a smack to the table. "The people left on the surface are going to need leadership!" I said, "They're going to need protection. Think of the White Court. Marcone. Do you really want them to take the lead? Marcone will set up his own feudal kingdom for sure. He's even got the castle for it. And Lara's family? Most of their food is dead. Everyone is going to be in danger when they get hungry." That quieted them down a little. "Plus, these aliens. How long is it going to take them to notice that some buildings managed to escape their big crunch? What will they do when they find out? We need some fighters here to keep everyone safe. I've got some plans on that front," I said, gesturing to the pizza bagels with the letters in my hand. "Actually, Michael, I need you and Charity to sign this one. I would, but I think going into the Dungeon might invalidate my appeal claim or something. I have no clue how alien laws work."

Everyone looked back and forth at that. I handed Michael the letter. He read it and laughed out loud. It was like the sun breaking through a week's worth of clouds. "Do you really think it will work?" he asked as he signed the letter, chuckling, and passed it to Charity. "How will you deliver it?"

I grinned back at him. "I have no idea. I figured it couldn't hurt," I said, "I've got some pretty efficient messengers."

Murphy, Will, and Butters were all still glowering at me.

"Look," I said to them, "Will, you have a family. I can't ask you to break that up and the Paranetters really will need your muscle. Butters, you have Andi. And all the other people here are going to need somebody with your skills. You'll do the most good here. And Murph-"

"Cut the crap, Dresden," she cut me off. "Maybe you're right about Will and Butters." Butters and I both opened our mouths to object. "Maybe!" she overrode us. "But I don't have anything." Her voice cracked. "My grandmother's house is gone. I called my mom and my siblings, but it was 4 in the damn morning. I got sent straight to voicemail. They're gone too. My asshole ex-husband-brother-in-law is gone. I don't have a job. I don't even have a city to work for on my own either." She looked at me and I had to narrow my focus to her nose to avoid triggering a Soulgaze. Now wasn't the time for that. "You're all I've got, Harry. Please. Let me help you. You need somebody to watch your back in there."

I sighed. I figured it would go this way. Honestly, I was glad. I trusted Murphy more than I trusted anybody else except maybe Michael. But I had to give it my best shot. Even if she didn't want it, Murphy deserved protection. I looked to Will. He nodded, grudgingly. I turned to Butters.

"I still think you might end up needing somebody to patch you up more than folks here do, Harry," he said. "Plus," he added, sheepishly, "It sounds like this thing would be like a real-life World of Warcraft or something. You aren't exactly a gamer. I might pick up on clues that you'd miss."

That…wasn't actually a bad point. I thought about it for a second and his face looked almost hopeful that I'd include him in the big kid's club. The club to go dive into the Genocide Engine. I think that might be an attitude that would end up getting him killed. I started to shake my head when there was a knock at the door. We all turned. Amanda Carpenter poked her head into the room.

"Hey, Mom," she said, looking worried. "Have you seen Hope anywhere? She's not in her room and I can't find her."

We all looked at each other.

Shit.

I checked my watch. 6:15. We had 11 minutes before the stairs closed.

"You all get looking," I said. "Murph. Load up everything you got. Bring me that present you were telling me about. I've got letter deliveries to arrange. I'll meet you by the stairwell."

Everyone got moving, but I grabbed Murphy's arm as she went rushing by. She turned to face me.

"Please tell me that you have the Swords and that they didn't get sucked into the hell dimension we're about to go into," I said

She grinned, seemingly despite herself.

"Have a little faith, Harry."

Chapter Text

CH 6

As everyone rushed out of the kitchen, I grabbed the salt shaker and ripped the top off it with brute, Winter force. I dumped the salt into a slapdash circle around the plate of pizza bagels and pricked my thumb on the twisted metal of the cap to add the drop of blood and bit of will to empower it. I muttered the secret Name of one of my oldest allies.

Nothing happened. Uh-oh.

I continued, chanting under my breath for a full 3 minutes before I heard the tell-tale *whoosh* of fairy wings.

"Major-General Toot-Toot, reporting for duty, SIR!" said the armor-clad pixie, throwing up a hand in a makeshift salute. It was the wrong hand for that, and he did it with such vigor that he smacked himself in the forehead and sent himself tumbling ass-over-teakettle through the air. His similarly-clad companion, Toot's erstwhile frenemy-with-benefits and my prisoner by Winter Law, the appropriately laconic Lacuna, merely nodded.

"Toot!" I said in relief, "I was worried something had happened to the two of you."

"Something did happen, my Lord!" he reported, zooming up close to my face "We heard your summons and the Ways were all kerfluffled! We had to batten all the hatches on our armor to sail those treacherous, scurvy seas! Why, we had to-" He looked down at the table and stopped talking. He looked back up at me, aghast. "Pizza bagels?" he said, dismayed. He landed on the table and prostrated himself, groveling outrageously "My Lord, what has your most wonderous General done to displease you so?"

I took a deep breath. Normally Toot's antics were an amusing diversion, but I could not indulge him right now. Still, there were forms that had to be followed. I just had to do it fast.

"Rise, General, you've done nothing wrong," I said gravely. "Did you not see what it was like outside?"

"It's dark outside, my Lord!" he said, spritely. I just about cracked the table, I was gripping the edges so hard in frustration.

"No, Toot," I said through gritted teeth, "The buildings. They're mostly gone. A great Enemy has come and they crushed every Pizza 'Spress in the city. The pizza bagels were all I could find on short notice. I don't think there will be much pizza to be had for some time"

He gasped. "An attack upon the PIZZA!?!" he yelled, "We must away at once to smite these foul foes!" He started zipping around the room in a fury.

"Good," said Lacuna primly, "You'll be much better off with celery." Palm. Face.

"They got the grocery stores and farms, too, Lacuna. I don't think celery will be easy to come by either," I said.

"WHAT?!?!?!?" she shrieked, "AVAUNT, VILLAINS, YOUR BONES SHALL BE MINE!" And then the both of them were whirling up a miniature tornado in the Carpenter kitchen. Everything was getting thrown around like an 80's ghost movie. If the ghosts were particularly well versed in Gaelic curses, anyway.

"GUYS! I have a plan!" I yelled, clapping my hands. They stopped dead and zipped towards me. "Look, Toot, take the pizza bagels, for what they are worth. Lacuna, grab a can of vegetables or something from the basement, whatever you like. I don't care. But I need the two of you to deliver some letters and then come back here and work with Will." I paused, making sure they were following along. It mostly seemed like they were. "The Winter Lady knows about my deal with you. She'll make sure the guard gets paid, though it might have to be more…traditional… offerings for a while." They both groaned outrageously. I ignored them.

"Toot," I said, handing him a couple of letters, "Take these to the White Council's stronghold in Edinburgh. The top one is for Ebenezer McCoy. The bottom one's for the commander of the Wardens, Anastasia Luccio. Don't give them to anybody else. Do you understand?"

"Aye, my Lord!" He said. He hoovered up the pizza bagels and zipped off. I turned to the other pixie.

"Lacuna, I need you to bring this letter to the Winter Lady." I said, "Tell her that it needs to be delivered to 'the closest Syndicate office' as soon as possible. Tell her she'll probably need to ask one of our uninvited guests where exactly that is. Got it?" She nodded, grabbed the letter, and zipped off. Time check. 6:19.

I dashed outside. I didn't see Murphy at the stairwell, so I rushed towards the workshop to help her load up and carry the armory she probably had brought along. I ran smack dab into Charity as I turned the corner of the house and we both fell to the ground. She was half-wearing one of her sets of custom Kevlar-plate mail armor and carrying an axe, looking frantic. The only reason I didn't gut myself by accident on the axe's backspike was my enchanted duster.

"Harry!" she said desperately, "I think Hope went down the stairs! One of our camping packs is missing, along with stash of other supplies and one of my practice axes! I'm coming down with you!"

"No way!" I said, my voice echoed by Michael as he too rounded the corner, limping with all his might. "Charity, no!" he said, voice worried and panicked. She was struggling to her feet. He grabbed onto her waist as I grabbed her shoulders.

"Charity, your other children need you, too! You and Michael! I'll find her, okay?" I said, looking directly into her eyes, "I swear to you, I'll find her. I'll keep her safe. I'll do everything in my power." The Soulgaze began immediately, the intensity of the night's emotions speeding up the process of connecting as we both were desperate to find something to hold on to in the wake of all this loss.

It's a common saying that the eyes are the windows to the soul. It's just the case that for Wizards, it's more literal than others. A wielder of Power can gaze into the eyes of another mortal and See something fundamental about them. But they got just as close of a look at the Wizard as well. It was risky, much like the Sight, because you could never forget what you saw in a Soulgaze, and I hadn't truly intended it to happen here, but it's one of those things that you can't stop once it gets started.

In Charity's soul, I saw a grand lighthouse, perched atop a rocky barrier island in the sea, a twilit sky sparkling with stars overhead. She wanted to be a beacon to others, not to be looked at, but to help, to guide, to show safe passage. I saw a lighthouse keeper wearing Charity's face who by turns dulled and polished the mirrors of the lighthouse: though she truly wasn't vain, a secret part of her didn't mind too much being grand to see, either, despite her protests to the contrary. I saw the gleaming, pristine roadway that was her love for Michael, connecting her to the shore, supplying her with all she needed. I saw the growing forest along the coast. Every grove a person she knew and loved, sheltered by her presence. I saw Molly's stand, which had seen some windblown losses but was even now filled with fresh new growth. I could even sense myself in there, the trees a little smaller, a little more newly planted, but just as well-tended. Today the sea was storming viciously, and I could see scars from where in the past the waves had thrown rocks and ice and ships to break upon her foundation, here the cult of Siriothrax, there Molly's abduction into Arctis Tor, but it wasn't always so. And still she stood. She'd weathered much and would weather more still.

I fell out of the Soulgaze and back into the cold night. Though it had felt like hours, thankfully only seconds had passed. She looked at me. I tensed. Most people had…not had a very positive reaction towards looking into my soul. Especially lately. It's why I'd never 'Gazed Murphy. I don't think I could bear to see her look at me, look at who I truly was, and watch her flee or cower or rage. Charity's face set firmly as she stood up, pulling me with her. She studied me silently for a moment, eyes not showing one way or another how she felt about what she'd Seen. Michael stepped back. I think he'd realized what had happened. She nodded.

"Ok." She said. She sniffled a little. She quickly pulled some hair from her head and bit her lip, dragging the hairs through the sudden welling of blood. She handed them to me. I could use that as a focus for tracking Hope down if she did in fact enter the dungeon, as she knew from when we had done something similar to find Molly in the past. "Ok. You'd better get moving." She turned around, a little stiffly, starting to pull the armor off as she walked away.

Michael squeezed my shoulder. "Godspeed, Harry. Thank you." He said, his voice shaking, "I wish I was well enough to come with you. I will pray that I see you again soon. Please look after Hope if she did find her way down there. I know you will treat her as I would" I nodded. He shakily turned to follow his wife. He seemed…worn down. I steadied myself. I wouldn't let them down.

Time check. 6:21

"MURPHY!" I yelled "FIVE MINUTES!"

"Hold your horses, and help me schlep this stuff," she complained as she wobbled unsteadily past Michael and Charity, weighed down by everything she was carrying. She dropped 3 large duffle bags to the ground. They landed with heavy thumps. She unzipped one and pulled out the biggest damn revolver I'd ever seen and handed it to me. I whistled in appreciation.

"Wowee, Murphy, that's quite the hand cannon you've got there," I said examining the gun in the dim light

"It's a Model S&W 500," she said, It's for big game hunting. It's got a special .50-cal revolver bullet, biggest one on the market. All loaded, safety on."

"You know how much I love a lady who can handle a big gun, Murph"

"Can it, you pig," she laughed. She handed me a couple of boxes of bullets and I dumped them into the pockets of my duster I placed the revolver opposite the pocket with the binoculars and grabbed a couple of the bags, hoisting them over my shoulder with one arm, staff in the other. She grabbed her bag and started moving off towards the stairs.

I cut the police tape with a whisper of will and we walked into the stairwell. It was just as warm and comfortable as it had appeared from the outside. The wrought-iron steps were deep and wide, with grandiose ornamentation that looked a little bit like the illustrations of dragons from Chinese mythology. I took one last look outside. The Carpenter household stood forlornly in the night.

"See you soon," I wished out into the silent, empty remains of Chicago. I turned and started down the stairs.

We walked. And walked. And walked, descending the whole while. I checked my watch again. 6:23.

"Uh…hey Murph?" I said.

"Yes, Harry?" she growled with irritation. The steps were a little awkwardly sized for her to walk down.

"Do you, uh, do you think being in the stairwell is enough when the time limit hits?" I asked.

"I don't know, Harry," she said through gritted teeth.

I thought about what I had Seen from atop Demonreach. These people would absolutely think it would be hilarious to see somebody get killed right before reaching safety. I adjusted the duffels and my staff.

"Sorry about this, Murphy," I said.

"Sorry about what-!" she started to say as I scooped her up into a bridal carry and drew upon Winter to start running full-tilt down the stairs.

I was taking the huge stairs 10 at a time and still took like 45 seconds to reach the bottom. Murphy had started yelling indignantly but clammed up once she saw just how fast I was going to avoid distracting me. The landing came abruptly, a huge stone door carved with some giant fish-monster thing. I wasn't going to be able to slow down in time, so I pivoted into sloppy side kick, boot landing right in the middle of the doorway.

Either the stone was a lot lighter than I had thought it would be, or these aliens had exceptional door-hinge engineering skills, because the door flew open and my leg continued forward as if I'd tried to throw myself. I almost did a split before I tried to pull my back leg through the door and ended up pulling the both of us into an awkward, spinning, sideways roll. We fetched up against a stone wall in a tall, broad torchlit hallway. Some bullets fell out of my pockets. The door slammed shut.

Welcome, Crawler. Welcome to the First Floor

The voice in my mind was a little different than the one that had given the first announcement. It sounded more clearly masculine and more breathlessly excited, like a daytime talk show host welcoming "an exciting new guest!" or something. The words again appeared in front of my eyes like subtitles. That was really annoying.

More text appeared before my eyes. " Argh!" I yelled, shaking my head, trying to banish the stupid crap as the voice gave another narration.

You have been designated Crawler 12,938,476. You have been assigned the Crawler Name "Harry Dresden 2"

What.

You have been assigned the race of…

…

…

Please wait…

…

…

Human! You are currently level 1. You may choose a new race and class as soon as you descend to the 3rd​ floor. Your stat points have been assigned based on your current mental and physical profile. See the stat menu for more details.

Oh God. Butters had been right. It was like a video game. I hope it didn't keep-

YOU'VE EARNED YOUR FIRST ACHIEVMENT!

Yelled the stupid goddamn voice, making my ears ring. Oh, I hated this.

New Achievement! Do a Barrel Roll!

You entered the dungeon by doing some half-assed gymnastics! Do you also make kung-fu noises whenever you punch somebody? I'm sure your girlfriend from Canada thinks you're soooo coooool.

Reward: You've received a Bronze Weeaboo Box!

The noise and text kept assaulting me like Molly was pulling off her One-Woman-Rave spell.

New Achievement! Big Game Hunter

You brought a .50 caliber firearm into the dungeon. Whoa there, big boy. You sure you aren't compensating for something? I'm sure this will take care of aaany problem you're bound to meet up with, yes sirree.

Reward: You've received a Silver Gunslinger Box

That was a little ominous…

New Achievement! Is That a Banana In Your Pocket?

You entered the Dungeon with a revolver and a bunch of bullets just sitting in your damn pockets! You didn't even bring a speed-loader! You better watch your dick if you run into any goblin shamans. You know they can blow stuff up at a distance, right?

Reward: You've received a Gold Apparel Box

Uh-oh. I was beginning to rethink my choice of weaponry. How -

New Achievement! You Wouldn't Part an Old Man from His Walking Stick

You entered the Dungeon carrying a shittily-carved piece of traditional Ozark Folk Art. Now you just need to beat a mob to death with it! It'll be awesome!

Reward: You've received a Bronze Weapon Box

How did this voice know that I'd called my staff that before? I was really starting to worry about how specific some of these were getting.

New Achievement! Late to the Party

You entered the dungeon with less than 2 minutes to spare! Talk about cutting it close! You better learn to be more punctual, or all your friends are gonna be mad. Oh, wait! We probably killed all your friends! Sucks to be you!

Reward: You've received a Bronze Tick-Tock Box

Now I was starting to get angry. They killed us all and then mocked us about it? I could feel the Winter in me prowling like a tiger in a cage, just waiting to be unleashed. How much longer would this keep going? I worked to push the feeling down. It was just giving this place what it wanted.

New Achievement! Brought a Nuke to a Fist Fight

You somehow entered the Dungeon carrying not one, but TWO Celestial-tier weapons. How in the hell did THAT happen? And what did those poor mobs do to deserve the beatdown you're sure to give them?

Reward: Nothing! Why would we reward you for fucking up the powerscaling of the Dungeon? The only way we'd do that is if they were broken or something.

New Achievement! Dud!

Your Celestial-tier weapons cannot be equipped at this time! Access to the weapons is gated by a set of ~mysterious~ conditions. We're not telling you what they are. I'm sure you'll figure it out. You brought the damn things in here, after all! Fuck you.

Reward: You've received a Silver Weapon Box

Oooookay, so apparently the thing running this show could see the Swords and had identified them as powerful. That was…probably bad. I didn't know what a Celestial-tier item was, but it sounded like a good thing as far as the game's system was concerned. I was tense, waiting for more over-the-top announcements. Waiting. I could see Murphy doing the same thing. She looked as pissed off as I felt.

I was just about to say something when another announcement interrupted me. This one was voiced by a woman, who sounded like one of those fake-happy ladies who were always asking to speak to a manager or something. I'd loved turning them away as clients when I was a private eye. If I could afford to. Which wasn't that often, if I was being honest. So mostly I'd just daydreamed about doing it while they bitched about how their husband couldn't possibly be cheating on them and tried to tune them out. Unfortunately, that wasn't possible here.

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 good luck and a happy crawl.

Murphy and I looked at each other, stricken. Only 13 million had made it in? And another 3 had died just since the stairwell had opened? That was…worse than I thought it would be. This place apparently didn't pull any punches. We'd really have to take it seriously. I hoped a lot of people had just decided that this sounded like a shitty idea and avoided the stairwells. It was a thin hope, but it was better than nothing. At least, that's what I told myself.

As we stared at each other, another damn box popped up into my view. At least this one was short and to the point.

Crawler # 12,938,472. "Karrin Murp"

Level 1.

Race: Human

Class: Not yet assigned.

I did a double take at the name. I couldn't help it. I burst out laughing.

"What's so funny, wiseass?" she said, scowling.

"Did you…did you see the name they gave you?" I asked. I was laughing like a dam had broken and all the horrible things that had happened got pushed aside by the sheer ridiculousness of this stupid place. "I guess I'll have to start calling you "Murp" from now on." I was slapping one of the duffel bags, wheezing.

"Yeah, yuk yuk, Mr. Dresden number 2," she said crossly, getting to her feet and dusting herself off. "You know your 'race' is listed as 'Human?' Like, human with a question mark."

Uh-oh, I thought. I didn't know what that meant. Mark down another one for the "I've got a bad feeling about this" list.

"I also got something called a 'Silver Pretty Pretty Princess Box' for getting carried over the threshold. It's like this place knows how to piss us off. I don't like it," She complained as she started gathering up the duffels and the fallen bullets

I got my laughter under control as I stood as well, helping her with the gear. "Yeah," I said, catching my breath, "I got an achievement that called my staff 'Ozark Folk Art'. I'd only used that term once, when I was trying to convince a guard to let me past with it. The achievement name was referencing a similar scene in Lord of the Rings. It also spotted the Swords. It says they're something called 'Celestial-tier weapons' and that we can't equip them right now."

"Well, that's unsettling," she said.

"Tell me about it," I replied.

We looked around us. There were 3 main hallways going off from where we were at. One to the left, one to the right, and one straight ahead. They all had little branches off into smaller hallways and were pretty much identically nondescript. These looked like the poorly-animated corridors you'd see in a low-budget fantasy cartoon that just used the same background over and over again. We couldn't see or hear anyone.

"So what's the plan?" Murphy asked, eventually.

I thought about it for a moment and pulled out the hairs that Charity had given me. Lacking my pentacle, I tied the hairs to a bullet to give the dowsing compass something weighty to help direct it. "Let's see if Hope really is here and find her as quickly as we can," I said

"What about the tutorial guild thing that the announcement up top mentioned? Do you think that has anything to do with these boxes and whatnot?" she asked "I saw something about a 'stat menu' but I don't see anything obvious other than the countdown timer"

"Countdown timer?" I said quizzically before I noticed it in the top right corner of my vision. I'd missed it with all those stupid achievement announcements. I shifted my head this way and that and the timer just stayed in the same relative spot in my vision. "God, that's annoying," I said. "Do you think there's a way to turn it off?"

"They'd probably be able to answer that in the tutorial guild, smart guy," she said, rolling her eyes.

"Eh," I shrugged, "It's probably not that important if they're going to have them on the first 3 levels. Let's get Hope, if she's here. This place is pretty deadly if what that announcer lady was saying is actually true and not just a lie to piss us off. We can worry about stats and whatnot later."

"Fair enough," Murphy said. She unloaded George, her FN-P90 bullpup rifle from one of the duffels and strapped its harness on, adding a few spare magazines to her combat webbing before adjusting the duffel to a more walking-friendly, backpack-like arrangement. "I'll take guard duty while you do the spell and haul the gear." I nodded.

I formed the construct in my mind, weaving the spellwork into the strands of Charity's hair and blood, seeking the biological connection to her daughter. "Reperios, invenios, reperios, invenios," I chanted over and over, building the spell's energy like drawing back a bowstring until it was ready for release. "Duo et unum!"

The world froze as I set the spell's energy loose, like it had when the dungeon had announced itself. What the hell?

After a moment, it unfroze.

New Achievement! Frippin in the Krotz!

You made the system adapt to a whole new magic system on the fly! You better make this worth the effort. Or else.

Reward: You've received a Gold Stage Magician Box

I sighed. Great. Just great.

The pendulum rose. It pointed mostly leftwards. Well, I thought to myself, Good news-Bad news. I steeled myself as I started walking that way.

"C'mon Murp," I said.

She cursed me as we strode into the Dungeon.

Chapter Text

CH 7

Time to Level Collapse: 4 days, 22 hours, 55 minutes

We fell into a tense but steady rhythm as we walked down the main dungeon thoroughfare. We walked quietly along the righthand side, pausing for Murphy to silently check around corners, George the rifle at the ready, whenever there was an opening into the narrow, darker side passages while I kept watch towards any paths on the opposite wall. I wouldn't be able to do anything but yell if I saw something, since I had one arm occupied with 2 of the duffels and the other holding my staff in an awkward grip with the dowsing compass as I concentrated on the tracking spell, but I was trying not to take any chances.

After 5 minutes, I was a little anxious about what was coming. After 10, I was starting to get bored. I thought this was supposed to be some sort of hyper-deadly game dungeon. Butters never let us go this long without a random encounter in our Arcanos games. At least the compass was starting to adjust course, pointing more heavily towards my right the farther we went in.

"Some deathtrap this is turning out to be, huh," I said as we approached another side hall.

"Dammit, Dresden!" Murphy hissed, stopping short with a surprised start to turn her head and glare over her shoulder at me. She huffed out a breath and stopped to stretch a bit and unclench. She stood straight and let the rifle hang on its harness as she rolled her shoulders. She sighed. "I think the interesting stuff must be down these side passages; we haven't seen a single thing except bathrooms along this main hallway."

The bathrooms were…strange. There were a ton of them. Each had a different door, seemingly taken from different restaurants or businesses from around the world, marked in various languages or pictographs. Except when you opened one, there was just a single toilet inside a room about the size of a port-o-potty. It was a different room when I opened it than when Murphy did. But it was always the same room for each of us even if it was a bathroom a hundred yards down the hallway from the last one. We'd each gotten an inanely-named achievement and a "Bronze Adventurer Box" for opening the bathroom.

"Yeah, that's what I was thinking, too," I agreed. "Compass is starting to point us this way anyway, want to take this hall and see what's there?" She nodded and flicked on the flashlight mounted onto her P90. There were a few torches, but they were much fewer, so the extra light would probably be helpful. She took the lead.

It was about half as wide as the main hallway and it immediately felt more oppressive. Shortly after we started walking down, we caught sight of movement in the flashlight and tensed. Murphy quickly entered a shooter's stance, moving the light deliberately across the hallway. We both saw what looked like rats skittering into the distance. We padded forward and came to a splatter of blood on the floor, along with some unidentifiable organic slop. It looked like the rats had been eating whatever this was. We continued forward and found several more similar piles of gross viscera. Maybe it had been so empty because people had already come this way? We had entered the dungeon at the last minute, after all.

There were further branches and smaller hallways in here, as well as plenty of bathrooms. We came across a door that said "Tutorial Guild" and got another pointless achievement, this time about reading a sign. The only reward was that signs would be more readable and guilds would mark themselves on our minimaps. We didn't have minimaps. Yet, I assumed. I was briefly tempted to go in, but I was getting antsy about not having found Hope yet. We decided to press on at a more reckless pace. At one point, down a smaller side hall, I spotted the flickering sign of…an Arby's? What?

Tabling that for now, we followed the compass until we finally found something of interest: a significantly more intact corpse. Murphy shot the rat that was gnawing at the leg of the corpse, killing it and getting a couple no-reward achievements that were vaguely insulting. We examined the corpse. It was some sort of semi-humanoid rat-man thing. It looked a little like the puppet version of Master Splinter from that old Ninja Turtles movie, except more buff. It had apparently been beaten to death with something like a baseball bat, judging by the wounds. A box popped up as we examined it.

Lootable Corpse. Ratkin. Level 2. Killed by Crawler Vanessa Kr with an assist by Crawler Dominique J.

Inventory is empty

I wondered if the thing doing all the voiceovers here was the AI that had announced itself after everything got crushed? Did it have to narrate all of these? Did the aliens or the AI or whatever think we couldn't read, or something?

Actually, I remembered an article I'd read in the paper talking about how something like 50% of Americans couldn't read above a 5th​ or 6th​ grade level. Huh, maybe that was why they did it. I wonder if it was different in countries that had had more functional educational systems.

Murphy spotted more Ratkin corpses down one of the smaller hallways in the direction that the compass was pointing. We followed the trail of bodies , finding some more Ratkin, as well as a few "Ratkin Apprentice. Level 3"s, who had weird little green hats, and a single "Ratkin Brute. Level 5" that looked uber-buff. That one gave us our first clue that we were following the right path. Its box included the text:

Killed by Crawler Dominique J with assists by Crawler James Cren and Crawler Hope Car

That was good. At least she wasn't wandering down here alone. There were five different names listed as having killed or assisted killing these rats, including the first two we had seen. As we continued on, we both jumped in surprise as we heard a distant explosion. Murphy and I looked at each other.

"Let's swap duffels so that you're carrying the Swords and leave the others here," I suggested, "Then lets book it!" She hesitated a moment, then nodded, slipping her pack off and grabbing what looked like a few grenades out of it. Oh, wow. I'm glad nothing had blown up when we rolled in here.

One of the bags I was carrying apparently contained dozens of boxes of various ammunition, but the other had the Swords and Murphy's set of armor that Charity had made for her. We quickly swapped bags, I took my staff into my left hand, kept the compass in my right, and we started to run through the halls. Suddenly, the orientation of the compass wobbled and changed track wildly.

"Murph!" I called, still running, "I think she's in a vehicle or something! She's shifting position fast! I'm going on ahead, try to keep up!"

She cursed at me as Winter filled my veins and I took off into a dead sprint. Unthinking, I dropped the compass, deciding to simply follow its most recent heading and trust that any prey would readily present itself, staff pumping up and down beside me as the ground flashed by underneath me.

When I embraced Winter, truly let it fill me, I could run. I wasn't just fast. I was Usain Bolt fast. And I could keep that pace for miles. I might regret it afterwards, but If I wanted to go somewhere, I could sure as hell go.

After a madcap minute or two careening through tight turns and narrow halls, my hunter's instincts, honed to a razor's edge by the Mantle, suddenly picked up the scent of blood, cordite, and fear. I barreled into one of the major sub-hallways and beheld a scene of devastation.

Ratkin bodies littered the floor, along with the bodies of a bunch of fae-looking creatures with an assortment of grotesque metallic limbs and other oddities melded slapdash onto their torsos. The corpses were flung towards the sides of the hallway in a corona of blood and gore by the evident source of the explosion we'd heard: what looked like a stereotypical Christmas sleigh, warped and blackened, with 4 sets of what looked like metallic, hooved, legs standing in front of it, bleeding oily blood and smoking. I saw a few creatures, mostly Ratkin, stirring feebly on the ground. Some were getting to their feet, or leaning against the wall, nursing injuries.

I could also clearly see a bloody trail heading down this thoroughfare, looking like sleigh runners that had been covered in blood in the direction that the compass had pointed. I dashed forward, leaping a good 30 feet or so to cross the massacre site. As I sailed by, I caught a glimpse of a single human corpse: a young-looking African-American woman whose left side was a ruin of pulverized flesh and char. The sight filled me with renewed rage as I rushed down the hall and skidded around a corner. My feet left frozen footprints behind, a dozen feet apart as I caught my stride.

Eventually the blood trail gave way to scrapes and dings in the floor and walls, but they were just as easy for me to follow. The sleigh seemed to be moving quite fast as well: it had rocked back and forth as it traveled, striking chips of stone out of the walls of both sides of the tunnel while whoever was driving it rushed back to…somewhere. I turned a final corner into what was clearly my destination just as the familiar rhythm of the burst-fire setting of a P90 sounded in the distance behind me.

I say the destination was clear because the entire hallway here had been converted into what looked like a horrifying mishmash of a shopping mall Christmas display and a serial killer's trophy collection. Fir trees stood along the walls, covered in baubles and ornaments made of bone and flesh and metal, garlanded with intestines embedded with lights. Metallic nutcrackers whose eyes appeared to be living, moving tissue stood guard around a mantle bedecked with "stockings" made of hollowed out, preserved, human feet and legs. A dozen other monstrosities just as awful were there, all illuminated in grisly wonder by the hundreds of strands of blinking, multicolored lights strung up across the hall.

This …display… was set at a T-junction of halls, with one path to the left seeming to go deeper into the macabre Christmas village and the path on the right seeming to be a stable, if the barn doors that swung outwards and the world's most revolting nativity scene placed nearby were any indication. I knew where my prey would be. Claws of ice formed on my hands as I whipped through the barn doors into a surprisingly large space. Off to my right, next to the sleigh that I sought, one of the strange, Fae-like robot creatures stood upon a stepstool as it adjusted something in the vehicle, turning at the crackling sound my ice-rimed boots made on the ground. A box and description appeared, and time seemed to slow as the description read itself aloud.

Cyber-Elf Sleighmaster. Level 4

The Cyber-Elves! Once a bastard offshoot of the bush elves and some particularly freaky dwarves, these misbegotten perverts were exiled from their home for their obsession with technology at the expense of magic. The Sleighmasters have been installed with potent pheromone emitters that help them control the dangerous cybernetic beasts that they use to drive their vehicles. Sleighmasters select young quadrupeds from the breeding pits and raise them with tender love and care. They feed them from bottles, read them bedtime stories, and give them all the cuddles they could want! And then they lop off their limbs to replace them with machine parts and dose them with intoxicating compounds that fill them with two things: absolute love for their Sleighmaster and absolute hatred for everything else! This particular Sleighmaster adds an aphrodisiac to her training regimen to better sate her unquenchable thirst for cybernetic reindeer dick.

I didn't have the time or desire to open up what that can of worms meant, as time resumed its normal progression and I leapt forward. It's - her? - one biological eye widened in surprise as my icy fist slammed into her chest. I had expected the punch to send the thing flying; she was maybe 4 feet tall and slight. But either I was stronger than I thought, or the dungeon monsters were made of plasticine, because my punch went straight through her chest. I saw her heart, torn apart by its passage through her ribcage, go flying into one of the stable stalls and several things happened simultaneously:

A green bar appeared above her head and immediately drained into a red color and disappeared. It reminded me of when Elaine and I had skipped school and played Punch Out at the arcade one time before our wizarding abilities had fully developed.

A notification appeared but, helpfully for once, it immediately shrank down to a tiny blinking alert to one side of my vision.

I heard what sounded like a chainsaw and a terrified, human scream from behind me, deeper into the village-display part of the halls.

And the barn door slammed shut with a tremendous CRASH, cutting off the screams as a pounding techo beat filled the air.

Time froze. I couldn't move my body, though I could shift my eyes around and move my lips. I made a few noises. Apparently I could talk, too. The Winter within me felt…confused. Like I was keyed up for maximum adrenaline usage but could only use my mind and so I was able to perceive the rage, the hunger, the desperation that filled me with a crystalline sort of purity. I sought the only advantage I could find and tried to get the lay of the land.

The stable was set up oddly, more like an indoor arena for practicing riding. Most of it was dark, but lamps along the walls illuminated 8 spaced-out stalls. 4 of them were occupied by half-flesh, half-robot reindeer. They each had different parts replaced with janky robot pieces but I could see through the open stall doors that each had a blinking red thingamajig in its chest. The ID boxes popped up and called them

Paindeer. Level 6

These cyborg reindeer have been heavily modified by their Cyber-Elf Sleighmasters for maximum speed and lethality. Sleighmasters compete to see who can design the most deadly (and beautiful) Paindeer in order to gift the worthiest creations to their cruel taskmaster in the hopes that they can avoid toiling in his workshop for the rest of their days. As such, they are a coveted prize in Cyber-Elf culture, and Sleighmasters must strive to ensure that they don't get cheated out of their just rewards by people looking to murder them and steal the control pheromones! At their core is a terrifyingly unstable fusion of elven and dwarven technology. So long as their Sleighmaster lives, you don't have anything to worry about. If he dies…well, I hope you brought your running shoes.

Oh. "Oh, Hell's fucking Bells," I muttered, thinking about the ruined sleigh I'd run past.

Further back into the building, I saw lights begin to flash in the dark recesses of the structure. Dials and meters and gauges lit up and began to oscillate back and forth. There was a loud CLINK sound and two golden eyes shone out of the darkness, about 10 ft off the ground. A round, red, lightbulb appeared in front of them. Hissing noises sounded as various lines detached themselves from the creature. This couldn't be good.

B-B-B-B-B BOSS BATTLE!!!

Screamed the AI-thing in a rapturously excited voice. An oval portrait featuring my face appeared and crashed into the upper lefthand portion of my vision. It had a little label underneath that read Harry Dresden 2

VERSUS

Another portrait slammed onto the screen. It was like the Terminator and a steroid-enhanced, growth-hormone-treated reindeer had a baby.

Mecha-Rudolph. Level 9 Neighborhood Boss

Mecha-Rudolph used to be a normal reindeer. But he was a special boy. He took to the cybernetic upgrades of his Cyber-Elf masters more readily than any reindeer before or since! He's the picture of what the Cyber-Elves consider perfection: muscles replaced by pistons, joints replaced by servos. Skin replaced by armor. Organs and blood replaced by pumps and coolant. Nerves replaced with wires and silicon. They only didn't replace the brain because they were unable to duplicate Mecha-Rudolph's pure, distilled disgust at the weaknesses of flesh.

AAAAAAND HERE. WE. GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

I unfroze and the 4 paindeer rushed towards me as Mecha-Rudolph slowly stepped out of its…garage? The paindeer had been positioned evenly across the arena, leaving me surrounded. The devices in their chests were beeping loudly and blinking, both speeding up. I acted on instinct and drew in as much energy as I could as I slammed my staff into the ground. The Sleighmaster's corpse hung impaled on my arm as I shouted "Forzare!", sending power rushing out in a ring around me. The sleigh, along with the paindeer and a bunch of other odds and ends flew away from me, into the walls. I saw health bars appear over the deer, still well in the green. I dropped the ice claws. Punching the bomb-toting deer seemed like a bad idea that I should avoid if I could.

Mecha-Rudolph appeared unphased. It moved slowly with a steady "whirrrr-CLUNK" noise with each step. Its nose's glow intensified with a sonorous hum and its head tracked me with significantly more alacrity than it demonstrated when walking. I cursed and started running around the arena as its head turned to follow me. A bright red laser blasted out of the nose as the hum turned to a crescendo, but I was too fast for it and it cratered the ground behind me, showering my back and legs with stone shrapnel that mostly bounced off of my duster. I leveled my staff at it as I circled the thing and cried "Fuego!" a stream of fire shooting at the monster. It splashed off, apparently ineffective. No health bar appeared.

Uh-oh.

As I ran by one of the paindeer, which was stumbling to its feet, I revised my earlier thought and paused long enough to slide into a batter's stance, the elf corpse on my arm wobbling obscenely. I gripped my staff with both hands and walloped the thing in the head as hard as I could, Winter's strength and my own desperation giving it plenty of power. The thing's head snapped to the side and its health bar was now in the red. The beeping in its chest intensified. Crap. I swung my staff back over my head and down, the elf-thing's corpse slapping me in the head, and I crushed the deer's skull, sending a spray of oily blood everywhere. I heard the bomb in its chest whine and saw it darken. Yes!

My celebration was short-lived, however, as another one of the beasts slammed into my back, antlers-first. My duster's enchantments kept me from being impaled, but my vision blurred as I bounced off the wall and fell to the ground. I rolled desperately as it tried to stomp me to death, just barely ahead of the crashing hooves. Then another paindeer rocketed in, lightning-quick, its antlers low to the ground as it caught me and tossed me into the air. As I flipped around in midair, I saw the three remaining deer glaring up at me, trying to position themselves so I landed on their sharpened antlers, bombs blinking faster and faster.

Unfortunately for them, one of the great things about magic is that it still basically follows the laws of physics, with some exceptions. Especially when I had control over when those exceptions occurred. So as I fell, the hum of the laser-nose building in the air again, I pointed my staff at a downward angle and called out "Forzare!". Normally, the spell shot out a blast of force that knocked my foes back completely independent of me, but this time, I allowed the whole equal-and-opposite thing to happen. Newton's First Law propelled me up and away towards the other side of the room, Rudolph's laser missing me by a bare foot and taking a chunk out of the ceiling. "Venta servitas!" I cried, whipping wind around myself to slow my descent, so that I landed in a tumble instead of a crash.

I glared across the arena, my breath coming in plumes of frost. I shook the broken elf corpse off of my arm. The Mantle was excellent at allowing me to ignore pain, but I think I felt some bruised or broken ribs. I was using a goodly amount of power, too. I had to finish this fast. The paindeer whirled and prepared to charge me, so I drew lightly upon Winter and waved my staff. "Skatus," I muttered, and a patch of slippery ice appeared on the ground in front of them.

The change in friction caused the deer to slip and slide before they hit the regular stone floor of the dungeon again and collapsed into a pile. The blinking, beeping noise from their chests was a near-constant whine. Perfect. I took a moment to gather energy and draw upon another source of power.

While Lash had resided in my mind, I had been given access to something called Hellfire, which greatly intensified my spells' destructive capabilities. After she…left…Uriel had gifted me a different kind of Fire. The Fires of Creation. Soulfire. Powered with chunks of my own soul, Soulfire's specific capabilities were a little more nebulous. It mostly tended to make things more of what they already were, enhancing spells that created and built things. But unlike with Hellfire, if I used too much of it, I burned up my own soul, which would leave me deader than dead. No coming back from that one.

"Infriga, Infriga et Defendarius," I intoned, layering domes of ice and force over the tangle of reindeer, all reinforced with a matrix of Soulfire. I held it for a moment, concentrating. A muffled BLAM sounded, and the shield spiderwebbed. But it held. Stars and stones, that must have been quite the blast. I sagged as I released the power.

Only to catch a laser beam right in the gut.

I felt the force of it strike the barrier of my jacket and push me back a few steps before it pierced through. Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit. Winter's power fuzzed. I looked down. My duster was somehow undamaged. I lifted the edge to peer underneath.

And saw a baseball-sized hole punched clear through me.

I could see the interior lining of the duster's back. I staggered. Thankfully, it had cauterized itself but…I couldn't recover from this. Maybe I could beat this thing and save Hope. That's all I could try for. Get down to the 12th​ floor? Hah. I couldn't even get past floor one. I couldn't even make it past hour 2. Or maybe 3. Stupid, stupid, stupid, I thought. I lurched to the side as Mecha-Rudolph stomped towards me, nose charging again.

"Infriga!" I called out weakly, encasing the thing's legs in ice.

The servos whined for a moment, and the ice shattered as it smashed through.

I tried to keep ahead of the glowing nose, but even though I couldn't feel anything, I was slowing. I think I might have been going into shock.

Maybe I could pull off that shield again, just around the thing's head? Risky.

I heard the hum rising again and rather than trying to outrun the blast, I used Forzare to Newton myself across the battlefield once again. I avoided the laser, but this time I crashed, hard. My vision blurred. The mechanical sounds of the creature loomed large in my mind.

Maybe my death curse could get it? But what would be the point? That wouldn't save Hope from whatever was happening in the other room. The hum built up again, sizzling with electricity. Maybe I could…

…

Wait a minute.

I was treating this like just another monster because it walked and spat fire like a bunch of monsters I'd fought before.

But this wasn't like any monster I'd fought before. It was something that couldn't exist on Earth, as far as I knew.

I struggled to my feet. The enormous mechanical monstrosity stomped towards me. It glared down at me, lightbulb nose all aglow, charging.

I raised my hand up at it defiantly. It whirred and clicked and beeped. It sounded angry. It sounded like it was laughing at me.

"I think I got your number, pal."

The hum reached a fevered pitch and I gathered my power about me like a tattered cloak.

"HEXUS!" I cried as I unleashed my tech-destroying spell, and its lightbulb nose and electric eyes burst apart in a shower of sparks, the hum silenced instantly as the boss monster screeched in agony. It sounded like Murphy's computer had that one time I'd stormed into her office without thinking while pissed off about a case. Its health dropped by a quarter.

It reared up onto its hind legs and tried to stomp me, shaking the ground, but it was evidently unable to see. I wasn't as fast as I had been, but this thing hadn't been fast in the first place. I circled it like a lion harassing a wounded water buffalo.

"Hexus, Hexus, MAXIMO HEXUS!" I screamed at the beast in rage, each incantation causing more electronic components to squeal and explode. The health bar plummeted into the red. It collapsed to the ground in a heap.

WINNER!

Appeared at the top of my vision, erasing the portraits before fading. The music stopped.

Ok, great. One task down. One more to go.

The barn doors opened and I could once again hear the screams. They were frantic and agonized. I hurriedly stumbled my way back into the Christmas Nightmare. Hell's Bells, I'd already forgotten how disgusting this thing was in the few minutes I'd been fighting the boss. I marched towards the other hallway. A sign was helpfully placed with an arrow pointing in the direction I was headed. It was labeled "Workshop".

My hold on Winter's power was probably the only thing keeping me standing. Just as I began to move towards the workshop, I heard a far-off shout.

"DRESDEN! DRESDEN, WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?" came Murphy's distant voice. Followed by the barking of her gun. The screams intensified, begging for help. I hardened my heart. It wasn't Hope's voice. I was dying. I needed Murphy. But I couldn't afford to draw out whatever bad guys were in the workshop either.

I cursed to myself as I ran out of the T junction and down the hall. I hoped the sounds of the cruel machinery of the workshop would drown me out. I drew deep onto Winter as I filled my lungs. I felt the hole in me stretch and my vision whited out in static. "MURPHY!!!" I yelled.

Ow.

I gritted my teeth and sucked in another huge breath. Then I did it again.

Then again.

And then, blessedly, Murphy rounded the corner, P90 in hand. She was liberally splattered in blood. She spotted me and rushed forward. She was huffing and puffing like she was about to try to blow my house in.

"God dammit, Dresden, what were you thinking? Did you find-" She cut herself off as she got close to me. "Jesus, Harry, what happened? You look white as a sheet. And why is there a star over your head?"

"No time, Murph. I'm fucked. But Hope still has a chance. We gotta move now!" I grabbed her and started dragging her with me until she caught up to my pace.

"Wha-," she panted, "Whaddaya mean you're fucked?"

"Got lasered by a boss monster. Cut clean through me. I'm going to go into shock any minute now, so we gotta move!"

We rounded the corner and she grabbed me, pulling me to a stop.

"Dammit, Dresden, WAIT! I got- Oh Holy Mary, Mother of God, what the FUCK is that!?" she yelped, taking in the Worst Christmas. She heard the screaming then and shook herself. "Just hang on a second, Harry! I pulled something off of that dead woman back there. Her body had them listed as being in her inventory. I could pull them out of nothing and they'd appear in my hand." She opened one of her pouches and pulled out a vial filled with red liquid. "Says it's a health potion."

Stars and Stones. They really leaned into this video game stuff. Couldn't hurt. I grabbed it, popped the cork, and downed it. I immediately gagged. Ugh, it tasted like…like…like whatever the platonic opposite of a raspberry was. Faugh. I spat. But I was immediately brimming with energy. I felt like I hadn't done more than some light exercise today. I peeked under the coat and saw the hole in my torso rapidly repairing itself until it was as good as new.

"Hell yeah!" I shouted

We rushed through the halls, trying to ignore everything other than following the sounds of screaming. It was a new voice now. Still not Hope's. A man's voice. I tried not to think about what that meant.

We dashed around a corner and into pandemonium.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

CH 9

Time to Level Collapse: 4 days, 19 hours, 37 minutes

"Bill! T-Junction, coming up in 200 meters! The safe room is just around to the left! You should really try to slow down!" came Hope's panicked voice from the driver's seat of the sleigh.

"I can slow down just fine!" I yelled back in frustration, "It's the sleigh that won't slow down!"

As it turned out, my idea for sleigh travel worked a little too well.

When Hope and Rhonda had finally woken up, Hope was ecstatic to see us and cried in Murphy's arms for a good 15 minutes. Rhonda, meanwhile, was amazed that she had woken up alive and devastated to learn about the deaths of her fellow party members. She was especially broken up about the loss of her friend from before the dungeon, Dominique, who had saved them all from being killed by exploding paindeer by tanking the blast with some sort of protection spell, though they'd all ended up unconscious afterwards and in the hands of the Cyber-Elves.

James and Murphy were on grief management duty while I worked the problem of how to fit all the tables onto the sleigh securely and still fit everybody else. Well, Murphy was on that job, anyway. It looked like both James and Rhonda were grappling with everything that had occurred and weren't going to be in a fit state to move out for a bit.

It ended up taking a good 45 minutes to get everything properly set up and strapped down since neither Hope nor Rhonda had strength enough to add the tables to their inventories either. I ended up using a lot of Christmas lights as a rope substitute. Hope and Murphy ended up helping with that, and while we worked, she told us about how she'd ended up in here.

It turns out that she hadn't actually meant to enter the dungeon permanently. She had seen one of her neighbors, the mother of the children she'd mentioned before who'd gotten caught in their car during the collapse, go into the stairwell with literally nothing other than the clothes on her back. Worried, Hope had quickly gathered a bunch of supplies from the things she'd already been organizing for her family to give to the woman to help her: a bunch of camping gear, MREs, one of her mother's practice battleaxes, a first aid kit and a few more odds and ends.

But when she'd gotten to the bottom of stairwell and entered through the doorway, the woman was nowhere to be found and the door wouldn't open back up to let her return to the surface. It was a stupid, reckless, and extremely kind and noble thing to do, especially given how limited such supplies were likely to be after everything got crunched into the dungeon. If we ever got the chance to tell Michael and Charity, I'm sure they'd be equal parts exasperated and proud. Once they got over being terrified and at least a little angry, anyway.

Once everything and everybody was ready, and Rhonda and Hope had both grabbed the Neighborhood Map, we were all set to make use of my grand idea: I could use magic to create fields of ice and my Mantle boosted my strength and allowed me to walk across ice and snow with no impediment. So, the plan was to load everyone up and I'd drag the sleigh across the ice, its skids allowing it to move easily and painlessly. Hope would use her Pathfinder skill, along with the newly acquired map, to direct us to a saferoom that had a nearby tutorial guild and that we guessed would be close to where Murphy and I had dropped our gear when we made our rush to rescue the other three.

Navigating the smaller, twisting corridors was a little challenging in terms of orienting the sleigh, but was overall pretty easy. We'd had to spend another half an hour or so rearranging the tables after I'd knocked some of them off after hitting a corner, but overall it worked as intended. Once we got to a long straightaway, though, we'd encountered the problem that had me in my current predicament. It was one that I'd foreseen, but I was shocked by how quickly it had, for lack of a better word, snowballed and now we were all in trouble.

The issue was twofold. The first part was that while I was walking along normally, friction and all, the runners of the sleigh experienced much less resistance on the ice. And while I had the supernatural strength to pull the heavily laden vehicle, I didn't have any additional mass and the reindeer harnesses that I had been strapped into to pull this thing were hard to keep at a consistent tension.

It took a fair bit of force to break the inertia, so as I walked forward intially, the sleigh built up momentum and caught up to me, making the line go slack. Which made the sleigh start to skid and rock. And I didn't have the mass to slow it down. So, if I didn't want to get run over or tip the sleigh, I had to move faster. Which tightened and then jerked on the harness lines and added more speed. Which caused the sleigh to catch up, which made me move faster to avoid being crushed. It was like every time I pulled forward, the force made the sleigh slingshot ahead.

The second issue was that while Hope's Pathfinder skill gave a map that was substantially larger than that of somebody without the skill, it was relative to the perspective of somebody walking on foot. And, as we had all learned now, moving at speed narrowed the sightlines. Hope had spotted the saferoom in her earlier journey, but they would apparently appear on the map whenever you got close enough, which was substantially farther away than when the hallways populated. And we had identified this straightaway as the fastest way there. So, we knew generally where to go, but not the route.

If we had just stopped and pulled the sleigh manually, it would have taken hours and with limited time, I thought it would be best to just get it over with quickly. All of which now led to me, tangled in leather harnesses, trying to dash ahead of a speeding holiday vehicle and having to make a tight turn without toppling us all over and hurting or possibly killing us. We weren't going highway speeds or anything, but we were definitely going fast enough to crush me and injure everyone else if we crashed.

"Why does she call him Bill?" James asked Murphy loudly, holding on for dear life to the leg of one of the crafting tables as we barreled down the hall

"Boy, this ain't the time for these questions!" yelled a horrified Rhonda, "I think we need to jump!"

"Just hang on! I have an idea!" I proclaimed with the confidence of a seasoned worker of arcane forces man was not meant to know.

"I hope it's a better idea than your last one, Mr. Wizard!" yelled Murphy

It…maybe was. Probably. I stopped casting a plane of ice ahead of us and focused on a new spell.

The sleigh bumped as it hit the stone and everyone screamed as the it lurched suddenly while I focused on the hallway intersection ahead.

"Arctis, arctis, arctis INCURVO!" I called out, and a path of ice rose from the floor in a sweeping curve like on a racetrack. We barreled forward, hit the icy curve and the sleigh tilted to the left as it rounded the bend smoothly. A lot of probably-overdramatic yelling was happening in the back, which heightened when we hit the new hallway and continued sliding along while tilted up on the left runner of the sleigh. Now I was hanging by the harness from the drawbars. We tilted further and the screaming intensified.

Ok, no worries, wizard physics to the rescue! As I hung there, I used the leverage from the taut part of the harness to sweep my legs and then arms up and around the right drawbar. I faced my palm to the wall we were tilting towards and unleashed a spell.

"Forzare!"

The blast of force pushed back from the wall into me and, critically, the drawbar, tilting the sleigh back towards level. Unfortunately, it also snapped the drawbar, which immediately flew underneath the runner that had just landed back on the floor, causing the whole sleigh to buck and wobble and go careening into a spin.

I think some more yelling happened, but I was too busy being slammed along the ground as a half-dozen shield spells formed and shattered around me. After a short while, we finally spun to a stop. I lay on the ground, panting. My body felt like a giant bruise. But, in a victory for engineering and knot-tying knowledge, none of the tables had fallen off the sleigh! None of the people, either, which was also a big plus.

"Thank you for flying Dresden Sleighlines" I coughed out, "Please remain seated until the sleigh has come to a full and complete stop. Exits are to your right and left." I took a moment before adding, "We hope to…ow…see you again soon."

"Dresden," I heard Murphy say with deadly calm after a moment.

"Yeah, Murph?" I asked, looking up at her face as she peered over the edge of the sleigh at me. The three kids seemed to be hyperventilating.

"If you didn't look like such utter crap, I'd come down there and kick your ass."

"We got here quick, didn't we?" I retorted tiredly.

Her eyes rolled up in a "Lord, grant me patience" look. "One of these days, Dresden," she promised, smacking her fist into her palm, "Pow! To the moon." I chuckled. It hurt.

"A-Actually," James said with a voice hoarse from yelling, "That was terrifying and all, but is it weird that I think it was kind of a nice change of pace?" Everyone was silent for a moment before he added, "You know, from all the terrible battles murdering horrible monster-people to avoid getting murdered ourselves? Just good old physics, like any Chicago winter. We've only been in here like 6 hours and I'm already getting nostalgic." He gave a weak laugh.

Murphy turned to look at him, I assume. Judging by the silence, I think everyone had. I certainly wanted to, but I wanted to stay laying down more.

Murphy started to laugh, quietly at first, but then louder and louder until she was guffawing, holding her arms around her ribs. Rhonda joined her, and then Hope. I did too, though much more quietly since each laugh sent a wave of pain through my body. Damn if he wasn't right. What I wouldn't give to have just a Chicago winter car accident as the worst part of my day. We all laughed until we cried.

After a few minutes of that, we got sorted. Murphy gave me another healing potion. Though it did heal my injuries, I still felt exhausted. James thought I had a debuff that was only visible on the health screen, which I wouldn't see until I did the tutorial and was only visible to people in my party.

The saferoom we had finally arrived at after pushing the sleigh back down the hallway a little ways was like a hospital cafeteria: a bunch of empty tables and ugly chairs. There was a vending machine covered in Chinese advertising and dispensing bottled drinks that I didn't recognize. Rhonda drank one at random to soothe her throat and said that it gave her +1 to Constitution for the next 30 hours, which was evidently the standard galactic daylength, and you could only drink one drink per day. She also said it tasted like crap and it wouldn't let you drink it through the inventory. So, win some, lose some.

James and I rested at the saferoom while Murphy, Rhonda, and Hope went a few halls over to look for our duffel bags. I was very disagreeable with them going off on their own, especially with a literal teenager, but Murphy casually aikido'd me into a chair and said it looked like I needed the rest since I could barely fight back. James additionally suggested that having a person who could at least walk stay here might not be a bad idea

He had Hope share her story about meeting her guide, who was apparently a drunk, literal-pig-faced woman named Zenith. She had just waved her hand to open up Hope's menus, told her that best way to survive long enough to figure things out was to kill as many other crawlers on the first two floors as you could, puked all over herself, and then passed out. Hope had had to figure out her inventory and map system on her own until she ran into the others.

If there were other guides out there doing the same thing, then it could be risky leaving someone with limited mobility who only had a few spells as defense all alone. Not personal-safety wise, since the saferooms evidently prevented attacks, but because they might steal all of the tables that we'd gone to such trouble to bring over. I made one final, valiant campaign to keep Hope out of the potential for harm's way but even I had to admit that they had a point with their rebuttal that nowhere in this place was out of harm's way. There was just possibly-dead now from monsters or definitely dead later if you didn't go look for stairs. When Rhonda mentioned that the tutorial also gave access to a direct-to-brain text chat so they could be in contact the whole time and we'd know if they ran into trouble, I relented.

So we both sat in the uncomfortable chairs, leaning back, legs splayed out. I kept an occasional eye on the sleigh but figured I'd hear anybody trying to untie it all. Three screens were mounted on the wall. They said, from right screen to left:

Countdown until the premiere of Dungeon Crawler World: Earth:
25 hours, 46 minutes
Remaining Crawlers:
6,372,488

Leaderboard:
Leaderboard will populate upon collapse of the 3rd​ level

Welcome to the Safe Room. You are on the First Level.
Rental Rooms currently available: 10
Rental Room price: 0 gold
Personal Spaces will become available for purchase on the fourth level.

I felt a bit hollow, looking at that. Down by 6 and a half million people in just a few hours. And who knew how few or how many remained on the surface? After a few minutes of sitting on that cheery subject in silence, I needed something to occupy my mind. The more that I thought about it, the more I felt that James had been right about his grim joke: a change of pace is important. I'd always been one to laugh in the face of powers that could crush me like a bug when they tried to hold their power over me like a cudgel to try to make me submit to their whims. Right was right and wrong was wrong, and having the power to blow up the moon didn't change that. So, if the choice was to either compromise everything I was as a person or take the risk and probably die? Why shouldn't I laugh? Why should I be the one to bend, when they were wrong, evil, or both? And it just so happened that doing that had often given me just enough of an edge to squeak out some wins against my so-called betters, or at least survive when others hadn't.

If we dwell for too long on everything horrible, it will be all too easy to give up and let it overwhelm us. To feel like the only choices we had were give up or to walk down the path that would change us into something we knew we'd hate. Uriel's words came back to me. Was this what he meant? That the apocalypse would only truly overtake us if we let it? It seemed somehow both true and yet not quite right. Not enough. But it was a good start, at least. I decided to let my mind do what it was inclined to do: change the focus. Ask questions. Get some answers. Maybe not to anything important, but you could never truly know where a question could lead you until you ask it.

In that spirit, I turned to James and asked "Soo…what had you out of the house at 5 twenty -whatever in the morning that got you stuck down here?"

He startled, sitting up suddenly. "Uh, what?" I repeated the question. He rubbed his hand through his hair to give himself a moment and said, "I was just on my way back to my dorm from the library."

"…There's a library open at 5 in the morning?" I asked, confused.

He nodded, "Yeah, I'm…I was… a student at UChicago. They've got…had…a couple of 24-hour libraries on campus. It was the beginning of the quarter, so nobody was really that busy yet and some friends and I were making study plans for our classes and working on D&D character ideas. We just got a little carried away."

Will had never told me that about his time there. Something like an all-day library might've made me rethink my whole stance on higher education. Had he not known? Was Will…a jock? Had I been friends with one of the classic villains of my childhood all this time? I shook my head in dismay. "Carried away at the library, huh?" I said, grinning. "I respect your commitment to the classics, but I'm an Arcanos man, myself."

He smiled at that. "Psh, too wishy-washy, gimme numbers to crunch. What classes did you run?"

"Barbarian every time," I confessed, "Gandalf only had it half-right: going straight to 'quick to anger' solved at least half again as many problems as it created."

"You know," he laughed, "I think that might explain…!" He suddenly sat up. "Update. They ran into some Ratkin who were stealing your stuff. They're chasing them down, but there's a rogue one who's quick…"

I jumped up and immediately started walking towards the exit when he waved me down. "Hope's tracking it, they'll get it, " he assured me. We waited for an update, tense. "Ambush!" he shouted in alarm, and Winter had already propelled me hallway out the door when he started laughing, and I paused. " Ok, sorry. They're fine. Rhonda got surprised, but she just messaged me that Karrin handled it right away," He laughed again. "Here's what she just sent me: 'James, this little white woman is crazy! She like a pocket-size John Wick or some shit."

I burst out laughing at that. "Yeah," I said, smiling, "That sounds like Murphy, alright."

He sat still for a moment, his eyes flashing back and forth. I realized that he was not just reading but actually typing back messages too, all in his head. That would be a tactical tool almost as useful as the Merlin's mental communication ability. In fact, now that I thought about it, the notifications and information given by the dungeon about everything seemed almost exactly like the Merlin's spell, time compression of information included. Very interesting…

"Ok," James gave me the update, "They got your gear back. Hope spotted what she thinks might be a Neighborhood Boss chamber. They're going to scout it out before they come back."

A couple of minutes later he burst out laughing again.

"What'd Murphy do now?" I asked.

"I wish you could see this chat, Rhonda is flipping her shit right now," he said with a grin, "Apparently you guys had an RPG in one of those bags, which, quick question man: what the fuck were you guys doing at 5 in the morning that you came in here with a damn RPG? And now that I think about it, that automatic rifle she's using? Don't get me wrong, you saved our asses, but, uh, seriously, you all have a lot of firepower. And spells."

Oh. I…maybe should have thought up a cover story of some kind. Not only would he probably not believe in the supernatural world pre-invasion, but with the aliens probably looking over everything for their sadistic TV show, I couldn't mention things that would alert them to fairies or wizards or anything like that. Well…more than I already had, I guess. If the cat's out of the bag, the cat's out of the bag and I'll just have to deal with it. But I should avoid making it worse if I could. Time to Faerie my way out of this situation.

"Murphy was a cop with CPD. I was a private investigator that they hired sometimes," I said. I prayed that the guy had never watched Larry Fowler. Thankfully it seemed luck was on my side, there.

He thought about my answer for a moment. "So, you were, like, on a sting operation or something?" he asked.

"Or something is pretty close," I replied. "How aware are you of the activities of John Marcone?" I asked in turn.

"You mean the real-estate guy?" he said, confused, "I think he'd just signed some big development deal with the University. It was in the school paper."

I nodded. "Sounds about right," I said. I hadn't known that. If Chicago still existed, I'd have found that pretty interesting. "He had a lot of…other…businesses as well. We'd been after him for a while."

James' eyes widened at that. "Oh, wow, that is just so…" he trailed off before continuing. "That's wild, man. No wonder you both seem so on-the-ball." He shook his head, a bit bewildered.

I struck the final blow while he was distracted. "So anyway, What'd Murphy actually do?" I asked.

"Oh!" he barked out, "Sorry! So, once they spotted the boss chamber and peeked through the door, Karrin pulled out the RPG and then fired it into the room and killed the boss without going in. It was some Street Fighter-style dojo or something. They're grabbing the map and any loot that they can and are headed back now."

They returned shortly, safe and sound and with our gear. They all seemed in high spirits: Rhonda was peppering Murphy with questions about how she learned to fight and shoot, which Murphy answered with only slightly annoyed amusement. Hope seemed mostly relaxed and was making a joke about a sparring mishap between her parents. They all had a bronze star over their heads, now, marking the defeat of a boss. The three of them, Rhonda, James, and Hope, all agreed to wait here and watch over the sleigh and our gear while we went to the tutorial guild just down the hall. The tutorial should take maybe 15 to 30 minutes, or less if we had a guide like Hope's. Murphy was very adamant with Rhonda not to mess with the guns until we got back and then they'd do some target shooting. We took the duffel with the Swords with us.

We got to the tutorial guild door, which opened smoothly into a small space that was like a combination studio apartment and classroom. The apartment area had a small desk, a bed, and a few shelves that held some photographs and odd knickknacks. The photos were all of small, blue-green lizard-people with horns. They looked vaguely like tiny dragons. A shape was huddled under the bedcovers, breathing softly. Murphy closed the door behind us and we stood there for a few moments. The shape didn't move. I thumped my fist down loudly on one of the classroom desks a couple of times. The person under the covers, our guide, sat up blearily. "Uhh, whuzzat? Who's there? Did the floor collapse already?" they said, in a hissing but still feminine voice said. They were a lizard-person like in the pictures, but with wings. The dungeon provided information on the creature as it usually did:

Lorelai – Bune. Level 50

Guildmaster of this Guildhall

This is a Non-Combatant NPC.

A generally peaceful race, the Bune are by nature intelligent and diplomatic. This usually means that bigger races, like their genetic cousins the Crocodilians, get to stomp all over them. Some have learned to fight back with guile or magic, but most just stay stomped. It's safer that way.

"We're here for our tutorial," I said, loudly. This Lorelai seemed a bit out of it. Level 50…so she was probably pretty dangerous even if she didn't look it.

She blinked at me a couple of times. She had two sets of eyelids, like a lizard. Weird. "It's been hours," she muttered to herself quietly, shaking her head, "I thought I'd get to rest for a few floors…"

"Well we're here now," Murphy said, shouldering the duffel onto the floor. "We got a little info from some others we've met, but I've got some questions." I nodded in agreement at that.

The…Bune…got up off the bed. She was a little shorter than Murphy was. Using her wings, she fluttered over to the desk. "Yeah, yeah," she yawned, "We'll get to it. 'Welcome, Crawlers!' and all that." She started fiddling with…was that a coffee machine? God, I'd kill for a cup of coffee right now. It was one of those single-serve ones, though. I glanced at Murphy, and it looked like she was thinking the same thing.

"Hey, is that coffee?" I asked, "Could we get a couple of cups, too? We're running on fumes here."

Lorelai grumbled and glanced over at us. Her eyes widened when she seemed to spot the stars over our heads. "You guys fought a boss without going into the tutorial?" she asked. "I gotta see the fight notes on that," she muttered to herself before continuing. "It's coffee all right. Seattle's Best, which I like quite a bit, actually." She gave us a glower. "I'll get you both a cup if you let me drink mine in peace. No questions. I'll open up your menus so you can look at the achievements you must have gotten from that boss fight, but I'm not getting into my menus without a cup or two." She yawned again.

Murphy and I looked at each other. We both shrugged. "Fair's fair," I said. Lorelai gave an amused grunt. She got a couple more cups off one of her shelves and made ours as she sipped on her drink. I was glad she seemed more reasonable than Hope's guide had been. Hopefully we could get some more useful intel out of her.

She passed over the steaming mugs with a, "Hope you like it black. They haven't brought us any cream or sugar for a few months." I barely heard her. I was already entranced by the aroma of the cup in my hands. I took a sip.

Glorious.

Words crossed my vision as the AI spoke.

You have been granted access to the Crawler Menu

I paused as my field of view suddenly filled with a whole bunch of little symbols. They didn't do anything, just sat there. I looked over at Murphy, who's eyes were flashing like James' had when messaging the others. "Hey Murph," I said quietly. I wasn't looking in her direction, but I heard Lorelai give a growl. I ignored her. "How do you work this stuff?

Murphy was deep in concentration. "Just click the buttons, Harry," she said, distracted.

She wasn't moving her hands. I raised my finger and tried to press the blinking symbol that had appeared when I first punched that Cyber-Elf Sleighmaster. I felt a little feedback, like I'd pressed an actual button. Huh.

And then the AI's voice roared out in excitement as it catalogued all the things I'd done in this horrible place since first getting down here. I had a mess of garbage ones for doing things like entering a safe room or seeing a boss or running above a certain speed. They all gave either nothing or things called "Bronze Adventurer's Boxes". But a few were more interesting. Or disturbing, as the case may be.

New Achievement! Kali-Ma!

You punched a mob's heart out with your bare fucking hands! That was metal as fuck, dude! Now do it to a boss.

Reward: You've received a Silver Brawler Box

That had been for killing the Sleighmaster with a single punch. The name of the achievement made me laugh. At least the AI could appreciate the classics.

New Achievement! Let Me Solo Him

Not only did you discover a Neighborhood Boss and enter its lair all by your lonesome, but you beat it! AND you killed all its minions first! AND you were level 1 when you did it! AND you hadn't gone through the tutorial yet! God damn, man. Maybe there really is something to that janky, touchy-feely "magic" bullshit you have going on. You're either a certified badass or the luckiest fucking bastard in this place.

Reward: You've received a Legendary Prizefighter Box

I grunted at that one. That achievement I'd gotten when I first cast a spell in the dungeon had been similar. Evidently the AI didn't have a good opinion of magic that it hadn't created. I hoped that wouldn't cause trouble for me. It…probably would.

New Achievement! I Believe I Can Fly

You made a jump that cleared a 10-foot vertical! Go for the dunk next time, MJ.

Reward: You've received a Silver Shoe Box

That must have been for jumping across Cyber-Elf workshop. Why a shoe box, of all things?

New Achievement! Head-On, Apply Directly to the Forehead

You headbutted a dungeon mob for at least 10% of its health in damage. You know you have weapons, right?

Reward: You've received a Bronze Brawler Box

I had to admit, this one got a chuckle out of me.

New Achievement! What's Cooler Than Being Cool?

You froze a mob solid with ice magic! Cool story, bro.

Reward: You've received a Bronze Arcanum Box


New Achievement! Death of the Party

You killed over 50 mobs with a single attack! You'll grow up to be Mommy's favorite terrorist in no time.

Reward: You've received a Platinum Crowd Control Box


New Achievement! Kill it With Fire!

You incinerated over 50 mobs with a single fire spell. Toasty!

Reward: You've received a Silver Arcanum Box

Those all made sense. It was interesting that it gave achievements for using different elements. Maybe I could play that to my advantage. I could use several different types, after all.

I'd actually gotten a couple other achievements that gave Arcanum or Crowd Control boxes for incinerating the workshop as well, but for numbers fewer than 50 and with boxes made from less-precious metals, all the way down to bronze. I was assuming a bigger number equaled better boxes, if we were doing the copper-silver-gold-platinum type of arrangement from games like Arcanos.

New Achievement! Grandma Got Run Over By A Crawler

You dashed through the snow as a one-crawler open sleigh. And you only crashed a little bit!

Reward: You've received a Silver Beast of Burden Box

Huh. I wondered what the significance of the box names meant. There was a lot of info here.

I had just started pressing more buttons when Lorelai cleared her throat.

"Alright Crawlers," she said, "Let's see what we've got here…"

Chapter Text

CH 10

After sternly telling me to stop poking things and to just think the commands at the buttons in my vision and envision any changes I wanted to make in the layout, which was fascinatingly similar to building spell constructs for thaumaturgical magic, Lorelai gave us the basic rundown. At my request, we started with the basics of how-to-operate practical knowledge before getting into the other stuff. That was because I'd started pushing random buttons with my mind and accidentally expanded the minimap until it covered my whole field of view and I couldn't see. Murphy laughed at my floundering, which I felt was unfair. I'd never used a computer before, how was I supposed to know that the "close" button was the one on the top right of a screen? After we fixed that issue, Lorelai continued.

She showed us how to pull the menu screens into our field of view, how to switch between the tabs of the menu like rifling through a file cabinet, how to use the inventory, showing us our own health bars and "mana capacity", how to use the scratch pad tab to take notes on things we found or make copies of relevant dungeon info boxes and how to use the chat function. She made a point of showing me my full health screen and pointing out my "Sore as Shit" debuff, which would give me penalties and make me feel, well, sore as shit, until I got some sleep. She also confusedly said that my Constitution was unusually high, but didn't say what that meant. There was a lot of detail that all these things could go into. Lorelai was extremely helpful, if distant and distracted.

Murphy asked a few more pointed questions about ways the inventory could be used and if it could be manually rearranged (no, except for a hotlist that we could make that was expandable if we found the right upgrades) or if we had to use the AI's automatic arrangement (yes, and don't worry about it), and if anybody outside the party could access our menus while we were alive (Players, mobs or NPCs? No, except for the marketplace system in a limited way. The AI and the showrunners, yes, with some exceptions for the showrunners when interacting with what Lorelai called "Sponsors".)

"All right," Lorelai said finally, "Now that we've gotten through 'teach the monkey how to operate a technology that he's had for over half a century' class, let's give you the rest of this crap so you can get out of here and hopefully we never have to see each other again."

"Hey!" I said indignantly. Maybe she wasn't as helpful as I'd thought.

"She's got you there, Harry," said Murphy, smirking around the last of her coffee, "You kept calling all the tooltips 'box-things' and menus "menu-things". Stuff has names, Harry." I glowered sullenly at her.

"Ok, so let's see these achievements…" said Lorelai, her eyes flashing as she looked at screens only she could see, "Wow, Karrin, you brought a lot of explosives, guns, and ammunition in here. Look at all those goblin and gunslinger and crowd control boxes. No wonder you were able to kill a Neighborhood Boss without inventory access. Only a Level 7 one, but still, very nice work." She paused and leaned forward as if she was trying to get a closer look at the screen only she could see. "Wait a minute," she said, sipping from her 3rd​ cup of coffee and flicking her eyes at me, "You weren't there for that fight. So, where'd you get that…" She suddenly spat out her coffee and dropped her cup, which shattered on the floor. "By the gods! You…you…" she sputtered and coughed. Evidently Bunes could swallow things down the wrong pipe just like humans could.

She looked at me with an expression I couldn't recognize given the lizard face. "You entered the dungeon wearing a magic item?" Her tone was confused and awed. "You entered the thrice-cursed dungeon with not one but two GODFUCKING CELESTIAL ITEMS!?!?!" She started flitting around the room, wringing her hands "This doesn't make any sense. How could…Oh gods, ooooh gods," She was saying to herself, "Why did this have to happen? I only have 4 seasons left!" She was crying, her somewhat haughty attitude from before vanishing in an instant. I wasn't sure exactly what she was talking about other than the achievement about the Swords, but something she said caught my immediate attention.

"What do you mean 4 seasons!?! Do you work for these people!?!" I leapt angrily to my feet, Murphy following me, reaching under her jacket as if to draw one of her pistols, backing me on instinct. I stepped firmly in front of Lorelai's flight path and she ran straight into me, like she hadn't even seen me.

"Please! Please don't kill me!" She sobbed.

She might have been a woman, but the whole lizard situation put my usual chauvinism on a confused hold for a moment. I was about to threaten her with exactly that if she didn't start talking, even if I don't think I really meant it, when she went on in a rush and my fury sputtered out into confusion.

"You're with the Valtay, right? You left resources for these crawlers to bring to you and snuck into the production team and now you've here to take over the show from the inside," she was babbling so fast and still crying and dripping snot down her face that I could barely understand her. "It's just like that episode of Worm Squad that Damien smuggled in! I'll tell you everything you want to know! You don't have to kill and infect me! I have names! I heard some really juicy gossip from Damien about the exit packages for the Borant execs that sounded like good blackmail material! Please, I'll do anything, just d-d-don't kill me when I'm so close. Just tell me what you want me to duh-huh-hoooooooo," she wailed. By the end of her pleading, she had collapsed, kneeling on the ground and holding on to the trim of my duster.

Murphy removed her hand from her backup gun and shared a look of confusion with me. This was a pretty fast-moving interrogation.

"Uh…Lorelai?" I said questioningly. She didn't move, still sitting on the floor, weeping. "Lorelai," I said more firmly, "We…don't have any idea what you're talking about. I have no idea what a Valtay is. We're probably not…" I turned a quizzical expression towards Murphy, who thought for a moment, considering everything that had happened in the last half day, and shrugged. She raised a flat hand and wobbled it back and forth in the classic gesture of ambiguity. I continued, "Probably not going to kill you. Or try to kill you, really, if your level really makes that big of a difference. Could you tell us why you thought we might?"

She finally let go of my duster and wiped her eyes and…was it a nose? Or just nostrils?...and looked up at me, trying to stare holes into my own eyes. After the experience with the Cyber-Elf Mechanist, I was shocked when the pull of a Soulgaze began.

Lorelai's soul was like a gray, foggy expanse. I Saw her standing at the base of an impossibly tall staircase. Memories flashed in the fog. A childhood filled with love and trilling songs in a strange language. Parents. Many siblings. A fresh, new love. She took a step. The memories flashed. A date with her love, a candlelit dinner. Walking into the street. A step. The Collapse. Parents. Dead. Siblings. Dead. The feet of the Lorelai on the stairs began to bleed, the steps made of broken glass. A step. Her love, being eaten alive by a monstrous frog with acidic saliva, melting in front of her in excruciating detail compared to the other, more faded, memories. Screaming. Running. A step. More blood on the stairs. New allies. More death. One of them blazed in her mind. He fought. He fought so hard. A step. Blood. Her parent, her siblings, returned to her as monsters, trying to kill her. She couldn't. She couldn't. But there he was: the fighter. A step. Her feet on the stairs were a mess of gore, flesh sloughing off. A great battle. A city within a great pit ablaze. He was there. Still fighting. For them all. But then stairs. A deal. She could get out. She could get out! He needed her. She knew he needed her. But she couldn't anymore. She was done. A step. More blood. A room like the one I knew we stood in now. New crawlers, bug people. All dead. A step. Blood. Another world, gone. Crawlers. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Every step a new world destroyed. Every step flaying her until her feet were only bone. Then her legs, then her guts. Her eyes started bright with hope that she could help. But then they dimmed. They grew hard. They closed. They bled. How many worlds? How many steps? 10. 50. 100. 200. More. More. More. Until all that remained was a bloody skeleton dragging itself up the stairs of broken glass by thin shreds of gristle. The songs were gone. It had to end. She had to end. Who was she anymore? But in the lifeless eyes of the revenant of herself, a memory still burned bright. The man. The fighter. He pulled her along. One more step, he said. Just one more step.

I staggered back from the gaze, Murphy catching me. I stared down at Lorelai in horror. She'd been a crawler. Hundreds of years ago and she'd been a slave ever since. Forced to live it all over and over. God. This is what awaited people who were able to push far and survive? She had scrambled backwards, breathing heavily and looking back up at me. She was crying again, but I could tell she wasn't afraid anymore. She reached out towards me tentatively.

"…Allister?" she asked, her voice full of hope.

"Sorry," I said gently, "It's just Harry. Though if that name belongs to who I think it does, I get the feeling we'd have gotten along."

"Harry, you wanna clue me in on what the hell just happened?" Murphy asked, sounding a little alarmed. "You two stared at each other for about 5 seconds and then both rocked back like somebody had hit you."

Oh. I'd never Soulgazed Murphy. I hadn't told her that that was a thing that I could do, because I was afraid that she'd ask me to. I was afraid of what would happen if I didn't, when she asked. I was more afraid of what would happen if I did. I'd never done it to anyone else in front of her until just now, so she'd had no reason to know it existed. It normally was just a flash, not even a second, but maybe with how long Lorelai had lived...

"Uhh…" I said, unsure of where I'd go from here. I didn't really want to explain it at all, and I especially didn't want to explain it where others could hear.

"I'd quite like to know as well," said Lorelai softly. "That was…I don't know what that was." She fluttered up from the floor and sat on the edge of her bed.

They both looked at me expectantly. Murphy was glaring and tapping her foot.

"…I really don't think I shoul-"

A loud KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK sounded on the door. It rattled a little. We all looked at each other.

"You, uh, wanna get that?" I asked Lorelai. She didn't move. The knocking sounded again. Still no one moved. A loud voice called out. The voice sounded like…like Ivy. It sounded exactly like the little girl who housed the Archive, font of all human knowledge, to a T.

"Father, I am most cross with you!" said the voice. "Open this door immediately and let me inside if you do not wish to perish. I cannot open the door as I am, but you can let me inside. I…would be very upset were you to die. I estimate that every minute that I am in this form, your chance of imminent mortal danger increases by 21.6547% +/- .5781%!"

"Father?" asked Lorelai.

"Father?" asked Murphy, more pointedly, crossing her arms.

"Father…?" I squeaked out

"Yes, you!" came the voice. "Please! We must hurry!"

I sighed and opened the door. Standing on the other side was a hulking Ratkin Brute. A Ratkin Brute whose eyes were precisely the gold-green shade that I had last seen in the mental projection of Lash. The huge creature stepped into the room and wrapped me in an enormous hug, swinging me around the room. I was too shocked to respond.

"Wow!" she said, "I must say that having a body is quite a unique experience." She set me down. "I am glad that I got to hug you, Father! Research suggests that physical contact is an excellent way to improve bonding between parents and their offspring. I can see why, it felt quite pleasant." All three of us were staring at the green-eyed rat with a female child's voice, dumbfounded.

The spirit in a rat-man body turned to Murphy and gave an elegant bow. She even picked up and kissed Murphy's limp hand. "Miss Murphy! It is a pleasure to see you again! You are a worthy ally for my father and I thank you for your assistance in preventing him from, as Mother would say, bone-headedly rushing forward into self-destruction. Mother would approve most heartily should you decide to revisit your plans to copulate or pair-bond with Father that his foolish attempt at suicide had previously interrupted. I believe such strengthened bonds of affection would increase both of your combat efficiency in this demesne by a minimum of 37.654% based on the previous combat that the two of you have engaged in together and separately. At least, until after the 6th​ floor." Murphy…blushed. I don't think I'd ever seen her blush, at least not that much.

But the child wasn't done. The rat turned to Lorelai next, giving a very different kind of bow and saying something in a language that I couldn't understand that made the Bune woman gasp, hands to her mouth. "Good day to you, Miss Lorelai. I apologize for poking around a bit while Father took a look, but I gathered that you would require proof of what I am about to tell you and found the most expedient method. There! Now that greetings have occurred, it is socially appropriate to conduct conversation on the matter at hand. Namely, preventing the System AI and the Borant Corporation, or I suppose the Valtay, who look about ready to economically assassinate them, from killing all of you and enslaving me in a research facility for the next 10,000 years." She said all of these things at a breakneck pace. Even if any of us weren't too stupefied to speak, we'd never have been able to get a word in edgewise.

"Wait!" I finally said, "How are you out there and not in here?" I pointed between the rat and my head.

She took a lecturing tone. "The Primal implant that Miss Molly implanted you with allows interaction and engagement with the System. As a noncorporeal intelligence, it was easy enough to simply slip out and find the nearest appropriate external locus. I have explored several times since you entered, though none until now in corporeal form. Normally, I would simply have appeared to you personally once you had a private moment, much as Mother did, as I would have been able to do that without being surveilled. However, by drawing the attention of the System as you did by casting that tracking spell before entering the tutorial and allowing me full access to best protect you, I had to wait. And with Miss Lorelai's observation of certain irregularities in your menus, I needed to be able to explain the situation to everyone to maximize effectiveness. And prevent disaster. I apologize for taking so long to get here once your menus were opened. I would have been here sooner, but the other loci were not appropriate for hugs."

Murphy finally recovered, her blush receding. "Wait a minute, please," she said. "Who are you?"

The spirit responded, still speaking a mile a minute. "I am the offspring of my Father and Mother. Mother died to save Father's life in the Raith Deeps by fighting against the psychic attack of Vittorio Malvora and I was born from that moment. I do not yet have a name. Parents are to choose the names of their offspring and as Mother is no longer a self-coherent entity, I must rely on Father, who has not yet selected one," She turned to me, expectantly. "May I have a name, please, Father? It would render communications 11.7654% more efficient and Mother thought you were quite good at giving them."

That struck a blow to my heart that I never could have expected. "I…I'll have to take some time to think of a good one," I said, hesitantly.

She nodded. "Perfectly acceptable," she said. "May I continue with the explanation? I understand that you will have questions, but I cannot answer them without risking all of us. You are all intelligent individuals and I trust you will be able to make logical deductions. I will have some limited capacity to interact directly with Father in the future, but his foolish spellcasting alerted the System of alternatives to its artificially restricted paradigm and it is now a substantial risk to act as I currently am."

Ok, hold on. This child was a spirit, and if she was like Bob, she wouldn't have the most solid grasp on morality. She certainly didn't on the finer points of social etiquette. But as a father, there are some things that you have to step up to address. "The spell was not foolish," I said. "…Daughter," I added a moment later.

"It most certainly was, it has drastically reduced my ability to ensure that-" she said, sounding a little petulant, but I interrupted her.

"It may have made things harder for me, but Hope was in trouble. My friend's daughter. I needed to protect her. It's the right thing to do," I said. She opened her mouth to interrupt me in turn, but I held up a finger. "And I promised to Charity and Michael that I'd protect her. Casting the spell was the fastest way to find her and if I hadn't done it, she'd have been killed by those elves. Then I'd have done the wrong thing and broken a promise. Those are both important, and you need to remember that."

She paused for a full five seconds, which from her previous pace of talking was practically a millennium. She nodded slowly. "Yes...of course," she said, giving a final, solid, nod. "You are correct. There are so many new sensations, being alive, and Miss Molly was quite insistent. It distracted me. But now, please, no more interruptions?" The rest of us looked at each other in various states of confusion. My daughter took that as enough cue to continue.

"What you experienced, Miss Lorelai, is called a Soulgaze. It is a byproduct of resonance with a being's, such as my Father, ability to harness the metaphysical nature of the realm we exist in, otherwise known as 'magic'. It allows two individuals who make prolonged eye contact, one of whom must have a certain level of adeptness in the harnessing of magical energies, to perceive a frozen moment of the ever-flowing river that is a mortal soul and gain some truthful knowledge of each other as they each are within that moment. It is often metaphorical and every mortal experiences it differently due to matters of relative perspective."

She turned to Murphy and, realizing something of what she was about to say, I tried to cut her off, which made her wrap her giant rat hand around my mouth to keep me from interrupting. I couldn't do anything about it without attacking my daughter, which would be just impossible. So, I settled for giving her a glare, which she ignored.

"Miss Murphy," she said, "Father has never spoken to you of this because he fears that, were you to Gaze into his soul, you would for some reason see him as some sort of ruffian instead of the wonderful, self-sacrificing man who is deserving of love that he is and would refuse to pair-bond or mate with him and perhaps abandon your alliance or even attack him. I strongly recommend that you do not converse directly about this, either out loud or via chat, to avoid unnecessary risk." I could feel my own cheeks heating up this time under the ratkin palm. I tried to say something to deny it, but it was muffled. Murphy, for her part, looked a little shell-shocked.

My daughter continued her torrential exposition. "I am currently spoofing a conversation to the System AI and showrunners of a verbal confrontation between you all about the nature of the Dungeon program that will appear innocuous and will likely be ignored. But my actions in doing so hold the potential to be noticed, which is what makes being embodied a significant risk. Miss Lorelai, you will see unusual buffs and skills in my Father's menus that were present when he entered the dungeon. Do not mention that fact or they will kill you once they take the time to notice. Which they will do, because Father has been in top form so far and will certainly garner media, and hence Admin, attention. Miss Molly, knowing Father well and being aware of some of the details of how the Crawl operates, has vowed to take measures to assist outside the Dungeon, but we cannot know what form that will take."

It was getting really hard to parse all of this. I think she was physically talking faster than the Ratkin's body could handle, as its throat appeared to be vibrating and slightly smoking She continued. "The System knows of these skills, but the showrunners must not know that they were skills that Father entered the Dungeon with. I have made some small alterations, unnoticed by the System, to what they will see for those things and the related achievements as well. If it becomes unavoidable, play it off as a bug in the system. There are plenty this season, and such things have occasionally occurred in the past. There's already one other serious anomaly in the Dungeon that will distract them, plus several smaller ones. Similarly, I have hidden all information regarding the Swords from the showrunners through a self-redundancy-generating logic pathway. Do not talk about them. Do not draw them from their sheaths until it is time for them to be used. Do not have them in your inventory if you engage with the personal space marketplace upgrade. Store them in the personal space bathroom if you must use the marketplace, they are the singular blind spot in this system."

She paused for a moment. "A final piece of intelligence for you all, and then a suggestion. Afterwards, Father, you must follow me out the door and punch this body. Promise you will do so." She finally released her hand from around my head.

I was confused, but agreed, "I promise that I will". She nodded.

"The beings who run the Crawl believe that Earth is simply one of the many, many seeded worlds in the galaxy. It is not. This, I have learned only since entering the dungeon. The truth is written into its very construction and only one who can wend their way through its twists and turns and whose genesis was on this planet could see it. It is a secret that I suspect has been forgotten by all but a few, and fewer still of those are able to speak of it. My own insight and ability are limited, and I have only discovered a hint of its true meaning. I hope that with more interaction, I can gain more certainty, but what I can say is this: the Earth was not always the seed. First, it was the tree. Scolopendra stirs. We approach a confluence of many plans and dangers. Do not speak of this, not for the sake of the showrunners, but for the other prying eyes who watch and wait inside and outside the System." She glared at all three of us with a serious expression. I had no idea what to make of that.

"And for the suggestion, it is in two parts. Firstly, it is thus: Miss Lorelai, you suspected, after seeing his Soul, that Father had entered the dungeon for a purpose. He has. That purpose is as ever it was, to be the most Father that he could be. There are others who placed us here, but Father has ever done as he sees fit, as is right and proper. Our unique circumstances present an opportunity, but knowledge of their specifics and of my own existence is the most dangerous knowledge in the dungeon. You must not speak of them now, or ever. If anyone were to have the barest hint of a glimmer of a whisper of what you now know, you will die. And in dying, you will kill my Father. Should you cause this to happen, know that my last act before I am captured will be to pluck your spirit from the river of souls and embroil you in 10,000 times 10,000 years of agony the likes of which you have scarcely dreamed could be visited upon you." Lorelai blanched.

Wow, where'd she learn to make threats like that?

My daughter then turned to me. "The second part of the suggestion is that, should you find Miss Lorelai's assistance valuable, I suggest that you or Miss Murphy select a race or class with the Manager benefit. She would be disallowed from suggesting it, so now you know. It will force her to come with you on your journey through the dungeon, and she may be of use, especially given that I am so much more limited than were Mab and Miss Molly's intent. She knows much about you now that will have to be kept secret, and this would allow you to monitor her behavior after the 3rd​ floor. She will have financial incentives to encourage her assistance as well. But should you wish to refrain from such a contract, simply select a different option. Ones with the benefit may be poor quality if the System AI were to find it funny. Now, come, Father."

In a daze, I followed her to the door. As she opened it, she turned to me. "I love you very much, Father," she said, "Mother did, too. Please be careful. I will speak to you again when it is safe to do so. Please step outside and punch this body. I am sorry I cannot hug you again right now."

"I...love you, too," I said. I think I meant it, but this whole situation was absolutely insane. "It's ok about the hug. We'll find time later." She grinned at me brightly. It looked very strange on the giant rat.

We stepped outside and I saw the color fade from the ratkin's eyes. I noticed a red dot on my minimap that hadn't been there before where the ratkin stood. It looked at me, confused. I gave it a light tap on the chest.

It exploded.

Sputtering blood out of my mouth and wiping it out of my eyes, I returned to the tutorial guild. Lorelai wordlessly passed me a towel and started preparing us each a fresh cup of coffee. Murphy helped clean my face off. More blood slid off of my duster, thanks to its enchantments. That done, she rested her hand on my cheek. The contact shot a thrill through my body

"You're a real big idiot, you know that, right?" She said, her voice quiet.

"It's always easy to say that from the outside," I choked out. I think something was in my eye.

Lorelai approached with coffee. It smelled like a different brew.

"That's the last of the really good stuff I got. Straight from Sumatra when I toured a plantation during the scouting phase," she said, her voice firm and seemingly more alive than it had been before. "Now that that's over and done with, let's get you your boxes. You'll want to sleep soon to get rid of that debuff. But then you've got a lot of work to do."

Chapter Text

CH 11

"Alright," Lorelai said briskly once we'd taken our coffee from her, "Let me finish checking through your queue, Harry. I'll see if there's anything…" She paused and looked at me. She…looked very much like Murphy had when she'd looked down at me from inside the sleigh a short while ago, despite being a lizard. "Really? Really? You really went into the chamber of a Level 9 Neighborhood Boss by yourself? How did you possibly…" She got up and started pacing the room, muttering to herself. I caught the words "half-baked" and "cockamamie". She seemed focused on reading her screens. I left her to it for the moment.

Murphy snickered a little bit as a line of boxes appeared in front of her. They opened in order of least to most rare. Most of them were small, maybe the size of those shelf-organizer plastic totes you could get for cheap at any department store, and bronze in color. The Adventurer boxes looked like the types of things you'd see on the cover of a schlocky paperback fantasy novel. A Choose-Your-Own-Adventure one. They each opened with a quiet "ta-da" sort of fanfare and the items appeared in midair with a puff of smoke before being absorbed into Murphy's inventory after hovering in midair for a moment, during which time you could inspect them. Those all contained differing small amounts of health potions, mana potions, some poison antidotes, torches, and something called "crawler biscuits", which looked like discount 100%-fiber store-brand crackers.

The Bronze Gunslinger boxes and most of the Bronze Weapon boxes contained ammunition for the various guns that Murphy brought in, which was handy. One Weapon box contained a Halfling Pea Shooter, which just looked like somebody had taken the launcher from a pinball game and stuck a handle on it, which was not. The bronze boss box that she got was more interesting: It featured what looked like a Ratkin sitting in lotus position on top and when opened it contained a glowing book called the Tome of Target.

The silver boxes were half again as large as the bronze ones and more intricate, with detailing on the chest banding and various decorations on top. They opened with a louder fanfare and lit up with what looked like cheap 4th​ of July sparklers . The first one she opened was a Goblin box, which had what I assumed to be a goblin skull mounted atop it. When it opened, the only thing that appeared was what looked like a floating picture of a green-skinned goblin head. Instead of going into her inventory, it zipped over and landed on Murphy's right forearm, and the picture appeared on her sleeve. When she hissed and rolled up that sleeve, the image was also tattooed onto her arm. When examined, the AI said:

Goblin Pass Tattoo

It's a tattoo! On your forearm! Now you'll never get a good job!

Note: Pass tattoos cannot be hidden unless you purchase a coverup sleeve. Will show through any armor you may wear.

Removes automatic goblin hostility. Allows for free passage through goblin-controlled territory in the dungeon.

Warning: holding a Goblin Pass will cause natural goblin enemies, such as fairy-class creatures, to deal 20% more damage against you. Still, it looks kinda badass.

Murphy was cursing as her other boxes started to open, unwatched by her. She had a fair number of additional silver boxes and several gold ones. I spotted an Enchanted Silver Ring of Dexterity and an Enchanted Shade Gnoll Tactical Squad Scope before Lorelai fluttered over, checking out the tattoo.

"Ah, yeah, that'll happen if you mess with explosions," she said, "Goblins, Hobgoblins, Bugbears, and Trolls are the dungeon experts in explosions and throwable or trap-based incendiary or fragmentation devices. If you spot any goblins on the next few levels, you might be able to trade with them. But be careful. Not being automatically hostile doesn't mean they won't turn hostile if they think it would be advantageous or you piss them off. And be careful of fairies, that damage boost is nothing to sneeze at, plus fairies are tricky."

Murphy and I both snorted at that. More boxes rolled by for her as Lorelai grabbed my attention.

"Ok, I need you to listen carefully," she said, "I know you can do that, so please, for your own sake, pay attention: You lucked out with that boss. You got a Legendary box for that fight because the odds were so stacked against you. If you didn't have your jacket and your constitution wasn't so high, that laser blast would have likely ripped you in half. It was resistant or close to immune to most of the damage you were throwing at it." She shook her head and gave me what seemed like a significant glance. "I'm still not exactly sure how you beat it, the fight notes aren't loading properly. But Legendary Boxes are the second highest tier of loot box. Celestial boxes, the highest tier, maybe only 10 to 20 get awarded total in a season. Legendaries are several orders of magnitude more common, but still, on this floor, with under 13 million crawlers to start, I'd be surprised if more than a few thousand get awarded, if that. It often happens for being the first to do something unusual. Many crawlers never survive to even open the boxes after they got the achievement."

"How do you know about my jacket?" I asked, confused. Her second set of eyelids blinked rapidly several times. I think it was the Bune version of rolling her eyes.

"Look down at it and concentrate for a second," she said. I did so, and a description popped up.

Harry Dresden's Enchanted Duster of Cheating Bullshit

This magical leather duster, the garment of choice for flashers and school shooters, is enchanted with weirdly-designed, poorly thought-out magic that has no respect for tradition. Reduces all Piercing and Slashing Damage by 25% and nonmagical Piercing or Slashing attacks cannot penetrate the fabric of the duster to harm the flesh below, converting all remaining damage to Bludgeoning damage after the 25% reduction is applied. Negates all debuffs caused by Piercing and Slashing attacks. Debuffs caused by environmental conditions, such as Overheated or Frostbitten, have a 10% reduction in duration and effectiveness. It makes you look like a tryhard edgelord.

Lorelai ignored my outraged complaints at the description and continued. "That's something you'd probably find in a platinum box. Maybe even a Legendary box. The damage reduction applies to magical and physical attacks, which is uncommon, and it helped you here because the laser was designated as a magical piercing attack. And that debuff negation is a huge boost. It meant you didn't get the Burn debuff from the laser, which is a damage-seeping effect and would have certainly killed you in short order."

That got my attention, fast. The fight had been bad, given my near-death experience, but there were risks that I hadn't even known about. Information was going to be my greatest weapon in this place, evidently.

"You need to know that whatever is in that Legendary box will almost certainly prove to be just as critical to your survival as that jacket was," she said. "It will define the build you want to go for through at least the 5th​ floor. It may define your entire crawl, if it becomes upgraded enough. You are a stubborn man, Harry Dresden, and you must be aware that the dungeon can and will fuck with you. Do not give up any advantage you can take, ever. There will be challenges you will see here that will be nothing like anything you may have faced. You cannot be cavalier. You have a brain. Use it."

She reached up and grabbed my duster, pulling my face close until we were nearly touching. I heard Murphy give an excited "Holy shit!" in the background, but Lorelai had my entire attention. Her voice was barely above a whisper. Her eyes were wet with tears

"You do not get to come in here and make me feel again just to throw it away by dying like an idiot. I was nothing. I was done. The crawl ruins every thing, every person, that it touches. How dare you show me that ruins can be rebuilt. How dare you make it seem like it's worth it to stand up even when it's all over. And now it's all I can see. Because of you. So, if you're going to die, you're going to do it properly, the way that I should have. And if you're going to live, it's going to be because you put the fucking work in," she gave a great sigh and let go of my duster, walking away and dragging over a chair. "Now open your fucking boxes and let's see what we have to deal with."

I had a lot more boxes than Murphy did. A host of Bronze Adventurer boxes had pretty much identical contents to Murphy's: health and mana potions, torches, antidotes, and crawler biscuits. Lorelai mentioned that one of those would feed you for a day. I had about 200 of them. But then came the boxes from my more interesting achievements.

It started with a box that just looked like a regular log. I'd gotten it for my running kick-turned-roll when we first entered the dungeon. Instead of opening, it vanished in a puff of smoke that looked like a swirling cartoon animation, revealing a blue headband with a metal plate with some sort of design on it similar to the swirls of the smoke.

Bronze Weeaboo Box

Hachimaki of Uzumaki

"That's a very good item for a bronze box," Lorelai said, "The conditions are a little weird, but it's pretty great." I examined the item before it flashed into my inventory. The AI put on a strange accent, like they were a teenager who'd been chainsmoking for half their life.

Hachimaki of Uzumaki

This stylish headband gives the wearer +1 to Dexterity. Grants +5 to the Running skill if you lean forward and hold your arms out straight behind you while running. Believe it!

"Your Running skill is already a 6, so wearing that headband will make you run almost twice as fast, and taking the skill over level 10 means you'll have significantly better balance and be able to take corners much better," said Lorelai. That was good. Especially with the Winter Mantle to draw upon. But…weird.

The next box, which had been from the Lord of the Rings achievement with my staff, was a disappointment. Its contents were just a misshapen and poorly balanced club.

Bronze Weapon Box

Ugly Stick

The item description didn't make it seem any better.

Ugly Stick

It's a big stick! If you hit somebody in the face with it, it'll make 'em pretty ugly!

The next box had been for entering the dungeon with 2 minutes to go. It was a treasure chest with a prominent pocket watch atop it.

Bronze Tick-Tock Box

Alarm Clock

The alarm clock was a finely made, decorative alarm themed around the white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland. I actually quite liked it. It didn't seem to do anything else, though.

The next box's chest had a pair of boxing gloves atop it. I'd gotten it for headbutting the Cyber-Elf Mechanist who'd been torturing James.

Bronze Brawler Box

Healing Potion x2

HeadOn Homeopathic Topical Headache Treatment x1

Well, that was pretty worthless. The next box was better. Its chest had an open book atop it. I'd gotten it for freezing that Mechanist solid with ice magic.

Bronze Arcanum Box

Enchanted Ring of Intelligence

This item's description was self-explanatory and hence much shorter than the headband's:

Enchanted Ring of Intelligence

Imbues the wearer with +1 Intelligence

The next box was my reward for defeating Mecha-Rudolph. The chest had antlers and a glowing "nose" over the lock that shattered when the box opened.

Bronze Boss Box

Scroll of Shield x3

Enchanted Gold Ring of Intelligence

Scrolls were single-use dungeon spells, as opposed to tomes, which taught a spell permanently. Shield was a useful spell that protected against physical damage and basically gave you a second health bar. The ring was like the one I had just gotten but gave +3 to Intelligence instead of +1. I was a bit disappointed, but Lorelai reminded me again of the coming Legendary box for the same fight and told me to quit complaining. I could see the box at the end of my line of boxes. It was…ostentatious.

The next box was shaped like a gussied-up ammo canister that opened up with a fanfare of brass that made me think of a Western movie, though I wasn't sure which one.

Silver Gunslinger Box

Marion Morrison Maintenance Kit

"This'll be useful for your whole party, especially if Karrin gives any of her spare guns to the others you've joined up with," said Lorelai, "Though the secondary effect seems…unnecessary." The AI's voice was a grizzled drawl as it described the item.

Marion Morrison Maintenance Kit

While within a saferoom or personal space, if used to perform maintenance on a firearm-class weapon for 1 hour, this enchanted firearm maintenance kit enchants the weapon and grants it the following bonuses to the weapon for 30 hours: Rate of Fire Increase +10%, Damage Boost, +10%. This damage boost is increased to +100% if the target is a Crawler that has an ethnic background that would be considered aboriginal or indigenous by their colonialist government.

Sheesh, unnecessary was right. But that main bonus was pretty great, especially for Murphy's P90. Lorelai mentioned that the enchantment part was important and with it we'd be able to use our guns to shoot incorporeal creatures such as ghosts or physical-resistant creatures like slimes.

The next box made me laugh out loud. The chest itself and its contents could have come right off of the set of Holy Grail. I'd gotten it as a "consolation" prize to make up for the Swords of the Cross not being equippable. It hissed and sputtered as it opened just like it had in the film.

Silver Weapon Box

Holy Hand Grenade x3

Holy Hand Grenade

Blessed by the gods, this explosive grenade is imbued with potent anti-undead and anti-demon properties. It only deals damage to creatures of those types.

"Those will be very useful if you find yourselves surrounded by undead," Lorelai commented, "You should give them to Karrin, her explosives handling skills and bonuses will make them much more effective."

The next box I had gotten for leaping over most of the Cyber-Elf workshop. I'd wondered why the achievement gave me a "Shoe" box, but it immediately became clear once it opened. The box itself looked like a silver-plated Nike shoebox.

Silver Shoe Box

Enchanted Sneakers of the Lightfoot

"Hmmm, you're getting some nice mobility upgrades. That fits in well with a lot of different builds," Lorelai said as I examined the shoes. They were shining bright orange and white with a prominent black Nike logo. I think I saw a signature on them before they disappeared into my inventory. I cringed at the AI voiceover, which put on the worst suburban-kid-putting-on-an-inner-city façade impression I'd ever heard. And having worked all over Chicago and its many, many suburbs, that was saying something.

Enchanted Sneakers of the Lightfoot

Yo, Dawg, these premium Js are totally on fleek. When you step out in these fresh kicks, you know you be steppin' light. Imbues the wearer with +2 Dexterity. Grants +2 to the Walk on Air skill.

The Walk on Air skill did exactly what it sounded like: let me walk over short distances on top of the air. Apparently, if I trained it up enough, I'd learn the skill permanently and have access to it even if I sold or upgraded to new shoes. It was useful for monk classes, apparently, or for avoiding difficult or trapped terrain in short bursts.

The next box I'd gotten for punching the heart out of a Cyber-Elf. The box played the Rocky theme as it opened. The AI sounded like Sly Stallone to boot when reading the short description. I suppose I should give it points for switching things up with all the voices instead of just gushing in an overly-chipper tone every time.

Silver Brawler Box

Enchanted Ring of the Bruiser

Enchanted Ring of the Bruiser

Imbues the wearer with +1 Strength. Grants +2 to the Pugilism skill

The Pugilism skill was for beating on your opponents with your bare hands. Lorelai was going to walk us through skills after we got the boxes out of the way, but she mentioned that the ring by itself would add 50% to all bare-fisted damage, which seemed pretty great

My next box, gotten for setting fire to the gave me my first dungeon spell, a classic for gamers everywhere.

Silver Arcanum Box

Tome of Magic Missile

This next box was…strange. The chest featured and extremely buff, flexing centaur on the lid, and it played a heavy metal song that I didn't recognize as the fanfare, the centaur headbanging as the lid flipped open.

Silver Beast of Burden Box

Harness of Grull's Blessing

When the item revealed itself, both Murphy and Lorelai burst out laughing. The AI, meanwhile, read out the description in a voice that somehow sounded like it was powerlifting and singing along to a thrashing metal song. It hurt my ears. But not as much as it hurt my eyes.

Harness of Grull's Blessing

This lovingly crafted harness was made by worshippers of Grull to inspire greatness in the worship of Grull's might through feats of Strength and Power! Imbues the wearer with +2 Strength. Grants +1 to the Rush Skill. While worn, your strength is treated as if it were 25% higher for the purposes of lifting, dragging, pushing, or throwing and worshippers of Grull will no longer be automatically hostile towards you.

It was…it was a bondage fetish harness setup, not unlike what I'd seen several people wearing when I visited Zero, the White Court's sex-drugs-and-techno temple to libidinous excess for a case one time. It was made of high-quality leather and the wide bands were liberally stamped with extremely buff, extremely naked male centaurs and centaur-like creatures. Some of the poses were quite graphic.

"I am not wearing this," I stated, firmly.

Murphy had fallen out of her chair, laughing so hard that she was hyperventilating. Her face looked red as a damn beet.

"We just talked about this, Harry," growled Lorelai, "That Rush skill, even at level 1, is a fantastic combination with all the mobility upgrades you've gotten. I think the AI is pushing a monk build on you. Now shut up, the really good stuff is coming up."

The next box was huge, a few feet across at least, and shaped like a tumbleweed made out of solid gold. It's the one I had gotten for coming into the dungeon with my revolver and bullets loose in my duster's pockets. Which they still were, though I'd lost a fair few of the bullets along the way.

It rolled slowly up to me, the theme to "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" playing loudly. When gunshots rang out in the song, Blam! Blam! Blam!, sparkling multicolored flames rose out of the tumbleweed and it burned up in a puff of smoke. What remained in its place was…

Gold Apparel Box

Enchanted Hat of the Desperado

"Oh, wow," said Lorelai

"Oh hell no!" I said.

Murphy, who'd just started to recover from seeing the harness, fell over again. She started to dry heave, like she was about to vomit, from laughing so hard.

The hat, such as it was, was bright, neon orange with a black hatband. It was the width of one of those comically oversized sombreros, at least 4-5 feet across and seemingly made of some kind of foam material. The crown of the hat was extremely wide and tall. It looked like it would swallow my whole head and possibly my shoulders as well if I put it on. If it would somehow fit atop my dome, I'd be nearly 10 feet tall while wearing it. Emblazoned across the front of the hat, in a chipper, bold, black font was the phrase: Welcome to Hex-Mex Pagan Taqueria.

The AI spoke in its normal voice, this time, but that didn't make it any better.

Enchanted Hat of the Desperado

Did you know that the traditional "10-Gallon" cowboy hat can only hold about ¾ of a gallon? It got that name from a type of decorative braided cord called a "galón", and the hats can fit 10 of those things on it. That's bullshit, so here's a hat that can hold 10 gallons! Imbues the wearer with +4 Dexterity. It also gives +2 to the Aim skill, + 2 to the Steady Hand skill, and +2 to the Pistolero skill. Wearer may cast a Level 10 Compelled Duel spell once every 30 hours

"With the mobility upgrades from your other gear, this is great for drawing aggro and pulling enemies around the battlefield for your allies to pick off, plus it's the only upgrade you've gotten so far to long-range attacks aside from the maintenance kit" said Lorelai, "And I'm certain you'll want that spell. You should be aware, though: it'll work on anybody except Non-Combatant NPCs, but you can trigger it in a saferoom."

The spell description was as follows:

Compelled Duel

You ever meet someone who just pisses you off? You can't help but be filled with rage every time you meet them? Like you'd do just about anything to take them down a peg or 7? Well now you can force people to feel that way about you!

Cost: This is an item-based spell. This spell does not require mana to cast. If you unequip the associated item, you will lose access to the spell. The cooldown will not reset.

Target: An enemy that you can see and that can see you.

Duration: 10 seconds + 5 seconds per level. [Current Duration: 60 seconds] Requires 30 hour cooldown

A spell beloved by battle maniac tanks with a death wish, the Compelled Duel spell forces an enemy to attack you and only you for the duration. The target gains the Berserking status. They'll use everything at their disposal to try to take you out as quickly as possible. Good luck using this on somebody who's a lot stronger than you! At level 10, the target no longer gains the buffs associated with the Berserking status, but retains all the debuffs. This is a Charm spell. This is a Berserking spell.

That…was potentially very useful, indeed. Goading your enemies into acting recklessly was always a good strategy, one I'd used successfully many times. But it usually required some personal knowledge to really make the taunts sink in. To be able to do that to anybody… But still.

"I don't do hats," I harrumphed as the next box appeared.

It was the one I'd gotten when the AI noticed me cast the tracking spell to find Hope. It appeared as a fancy golden box atop two wheeled tables. A woman's smiling head stuck out one side and feet clad in golden high-heeled shoes stuck out the other. A golden saw appeared and began sawing the box in half as some sort of cheesy game show music played. The box and tables drew apart and spilled open into a shower of sparkling confetti as the contents appeared.

Gold Stage Magician Box

Mana Potion x 5

Enchanted Shyster's Gloves

"Those are…" Lorelai trailed off. "You're going to want to look into that later."

The item was a set of bright white gloves, like the kind my father had used in his traveling magician act. The AI narrated this item's description like a sleazy New York lawyer stereotype. It seemed pretty straightforward to me. I wasn't sure what Lorelai was being cagey about.

Enchanted Shyster's Gloves

These slippery-feeling gloves are beloved by conmen and tricksters for their ability to enhance whatever shady scheme they're up to. Imbues the wearer with +2 Intelligence and +4 Charisma. Also grants +1 to the Hocus Pocus Skill and + 2 to the Sleight of Hand skill

The next box was part of a set I had gotten for basically blowing up the entire Cyber-Elf workshop with a big fire spell. I'd gotten some lower-tier ones that had some scrolls of Detonate Stone and an assortment of Goblin Smoke Bombs. The boxes all looked like cartoon bombs that blew up into a cloud of smoke. This one was larger still, made of gold, and when it exploded, it was in a cavalcade of multihued smoke with lasers, like Molly's Rave spell.

Gold Crowd Control Box

Enchanted Vambraces of the Prickly Bear

These were a set of bracers with long quills that swept from the front towards the back. I'd seen a porcupine once while in the woods, and these looked very similar to their tails. The item description read itself like a narrator of a nature documentary.

Enchanted Vambraces of the Prickly Bear

The Prickly Bear is a creature much like the porcupine from your world, except about 20 times bigger and a lot more angry. And unlike porcupines, they actually can shoot their quills. Which are venomous. They'll ruin any party, quick! Just like you. Adds 5% Damage Reflect to all equipped armor. Wearer may cast the level 5 spell Quillnado once every 5 hours.

"That's a decent defensive option if you find yourself surrounded by mobs," Lorelai said thoughtfully, "It won't kill a lot of them, but it'd be good for getting out of trouble. Don't use it if you have friends within the radius. That spell will hit everyone in range."

Quillnado

Cost: This is an item-based spell. This spell does not require mana to cast. If you unequip the associated item, you will lose access to the spell. The cooldown will not reset.

Target: A 3-meter-radius sphere centering around the ass of the caster + 10 centimeters of radius per level of intelligence (Current Radius: 3.9 meters)

Duration: 2 seconds + 1 second per level. [Current Duration: 7 seconds] Requires 5 hour cooldown

This spell summons a swirling vortex of venomous quills to poke and prod everybody who gets too close. It hurts and makes everybody uncomfortable while it's happening. The quills inflict the Poisoned debuff.

The next box was the capstone of the crowd control series, and it looked like a shining cartoon nuclear warhead. It "detonated" with a tremendous flash, nearly blinding me, and left behind a rainbow-colored mushroom cloud that went all the way to the ceiling of the room.

Platinum Crowd Control Box

Mana Potion x 10

Tome of Confusing Fog

Tome of Cloud of Bewilderment

"Those are excellent distraction and defensive options!" Lorelai hissed in excitement, "Confusing fog creates a fog that crawlers and white-tagged NPCs can see through, but not mobs or hostile NPCs. And that cloud attack is a good, ranged area-of-effect debuff. It's useful for softening up enemies and can make groups of guards much easier to sneak past. You'll want to train those up, fast."

And then came the big one. It appeared with a dark, sweeping orchestral score with opera-like backdrop vocals that I couldn't quite make out the words to despite their volume. Its appearance was a little strange. It was an upside-down cauldron made of a darkly shining metal, studded with black and white gems cut into the shapes of butterflies. Atop the cauldron were two crossed katanas, whose hilts looked to serve as the "chest" handles. A golden, winged helm sat upon the point where the swords crossed, liberally splattered with blood. As the song reached a crescendo, the chest opened into a cloud of butterflies. Where the other chests had seemed tacky or bombastic, this one was…strangely beautiful.

Legendary Prizefighter Box

Enchanted Tetsubo of Fate's Defiance

The item that appeared out of the box…all the others had been either plain or so outrageously ridiculous as to defy common sense. This one was clearly a work of art. I couldn't help it; I reached forward to grab it. I was surprised when it fell into my hands instead of entering my inventory. It was a tall staff, almost as tall as I was, made of a strange, hard wood that seemed to naturally swirl between black and white. It was oiled and polished to an eye-catching but understated shine. It was slightly thinner in the middle than at the ends, which were studded with small, pointed iron spikes. Engraved and inlaid with jet and quartz down the center of the staff, alternating color with the wood below such that the words were clearly visible, was the Latin phrase "Numquam Victus Sum".

Lorelai made a strange chirping noise, almost like a bird call. "That is…when you combine that with everything else you got…it looks like you either pissed off, impressed, or amused the AI, because it just made it a lot easier for you to do exactly what you did to earn this thing: rush into trouble and challenge the biggest enemy you can find to a fight. You're going to need to be very, very careful with this."

The AI read the description without any frills. It didn't really need them.

Enchanted Tetsubo of Fate's Defiance

This is a Unique Item

So, you think you're a badass, huh? Many cultures in the universe have legends of a lone warrior from the past whose mighty stride shook the land he walked upon. A soldier who could and did fight all who dared to stand against him. Count Resplendent. Graz of the Shade Desert. Mitra the Blasphemer.

On your world, perhaps the one who best fits the mold is Benkei. A giant of a man, the warrior-monk roamed Japan with the goal of chastening the unworthy warriors of his land. He claimed the blades of 999 samurai in duels until his final opponent defeated him. Benkei swore himself to the service of that man, Minamoto no Yoshitsune, and was his loyal retainer thenceforth. Years later, when Yoshitsune was betrayed and surrounded by enemies, Benkei alone guarded the bridge and gate to his master's castle to allow the lord the time to commit ritual suicide. Benkei slew 300 men in battle and even when the arrows rained in their thousands, still he stood, daring them to try to enter the castle.

You want to know what all these warriors had in common? They. All. Died. When the enemies of Yoshitsune finally dared approach Benkei, standing on the bridge and pincushioned with arrows, they found that he had died standing, in service to a cause greater than himself and too proud to bow his head to his unworthy foes. With luck, maybe you can one day do the same.

+5 Strength when wielded

+10 Constitution when wielded

+5 to the Cockroach skill

+5 to the Deflect Projectile Skill

+10 to the Rooted in Place Skill

Wielder is Immune to Bleed Effects

The Giantslayer Benefit

I examined the staff to see what that last one meant.

The Giantslayer Benefit

You come at the King, you best not miss.

When facing an enemy with at least double your levels, all your attacks, spells, debuffs, and other effects have their effectiveness increased by +200%. This effect is increased by +200% for every multiple of 2 by which your level is exceeded by your foe. (+400% if the enemy is 4x your level, +600% if 6x your level, +800% if 8x, etc.)

"Wow," I said, running my hands over the staff, "At least I got one unambiguously great thing out of all this. Do you think I can carve some things into this without hurting its effectiveness? My other staff is kinda important, but with time I could really beef this up."

Lorelai scowled, but nodded. "You could. You'd need a woodcarver's table, though, so it'll have to wait until the 4th​ floor at least," she said, "And you're wrong. Every magical item you got is excellent. Mostly. If you want that staff to be maximally effective, the headband, hat, and harness will be vital. With the boost to running from the headband and that Rooted in Place skill from the staff, you'll be able to literally run through weaker enemies, especially if you get a momentum-based damage skill or buff spell. But it is extremely dangerous. Rooted in Place makes you harder to knock off your feet or push you back. But you can't turn it off, so long as the staff is in hand. That means if you hit something you can't just plow through…"

I winced at that. Living things were a bit pliable, so they tended to bounce off of things when they hit them, which distributes force better. It's the same thing as controlled falling in martial arts. To not be able to do that… "So, you're saying if I hit something tough enough, I could just splatter myself like a bug?" I asked, "That seems a little too risky."

"Yes," she said, "But that's where the harness comes in. Once per day, the Rush skill launches you forward, making you invulnerable for a couple seconds and letting you plow through basically whatever's in front of you. That Cockroach skill from the staff helps, too: at level 5, it'll negate the first fatal blow of each fight you get in, but it'll leave you at minimal health afterwards. With those two added in, you can basically become a human wrecking ball at least once per day. Once per fight if you absolutely can't avoid it. Which you should. But only in a fight. Don't try to run through a stone wall at speed without your Rush skill while you're just exploring."

"…I can wear the harness under my duster, right?"

Lorelai laughed, "Yes. You could even wear it under your regular clothes, but I bet it'll chafe a bit as everyday wear if you do." I sighed as she went on. "And as for the hat… Well, honestly, you've been getting upgrades to a variety of skills, which isn't necessarily bad, but it can make it hard to focus. The hat will really help if you are shooting, spells or your revolver, especially if you're shooting while running around the battlefield. But the big thing is that Compelled Duel spell. Having it at 10th​ level is great. It's really hard to level it up naturally because it's an expensive spell and making your enemies berserk and go after you to the exclusion of anything else is a great way to die. By removing the buffs that come from berserking, it becomes a lot more viable. Add that to your staff's Giantslayer benefit and your running speed, and you can make taking out tough enemies or lower tier bosses substantially easier. Normally charm effects won't work on higher-tier boss enemies, but with that boost impacting spells and debuffs and a good set of allies…well, it could turn a death sentence into something survivable, even if you can't get off a win."

I hung my head at that. That was too good to pass up. Then Lorelai had to put the nail in the coffin. "And there's an important caveat in the rules for the spell. The target must be able to see you when you cast the spell. You don't have to remain visible after casting it. Usually, it causes the target to rage and start destroying the environment randomly. It's still dangerous to hang around when that happens, but it won't deliberately target you or your allies. It'd be an excellent way to escape a boss that's too tough for you. Which will be something you have to watch out for. Don't go thinking you've got a big enough stick to wave it at just anybody and get what you're after."

That gave all of us a good chuckle. I turned to Murphy. "I missed most of your stuff, did you get anything good?" I asked. She nodded.

"Actually, Lorelai, I needed to get your opinion on something," she said, pulling a scroll out of her inventory. It glowed a reddish color. There was a floating timer above it that read 8 min 7 sec and was counting down. Lorelai immediately jumped up.

"Aasha's Asshole! That's amazing! You got that in a gold box? That's platinum quality at least!" Murphy nodded.

I examined it.

Scroll of Enchant Item, Level 10

This item has a short shelf life

Have you ever looked at your prick neighbor's stuff and thought: "How can that jerk have something so nice! I deserve that. In fact, I deserve better!"

Well, now you can get it!

This scroll contains an Enchant Item spell. This spell is only available to cast at levels 5, 10, and 15. It will turn a nonmagical item you select into a magical version. At level 5, it will be equivalent to a bronze or silver-tier magic item. At level 10, it will be equivalent to a gold or platinum-tier item. At level 15, it will be equivalent to a legendary-tier item. The enchanted item will boost at least 3 recently used combat skills or spells and provide a bonus to whichever stat or stats were most relevant to the last fight you were in and appropriate to the item selected. At levels 10 and 15, it may provide additional effects.

"What do you think I should use it on?" Murphy asked, "My first thought was the P90 or the rocket launcher. But I also have a set of armor back in the saferoom and it sounds like from what you said a good defense is just as important as a good offense."

"That's a tough call," Lorelai said, stroking her chin pensively, "Let me check what else you got…" She stared at her menus for a moment before continuing. "With Harry's maintenance kit, you can make any gun magical, which is one of the biggest weaknesses of using an unenchanted item. That Jeering Jimmy's Big Bag of Boom provides you with a free, random magical missile for your launcher once every 2 hours, which is quite good but limited since it's only the one and it dissolves if it isn't used in that two-hour timeframe. And that stealth ability on the Enchanted Boots of the Predator is pretty good for defense, but only before you get into the fight or if you're able to run and hide if it's going poorly."

She shook her head. "Any option would be good. Since the armor's in the saferoom, I'll give you the quick rundown on how to explore your skill menu and then you can run over there, give it some thought, and make the call. Get some sleep, go do some grinding alone or with those allies you mentioned and come back here after the show premiers. You should absolutely watch the premier: It'll be awful, but it will give you a cursory explanation of how things will move forward from here. Any tutorial guild you enter now will send you here, so no need to come back to this specific place. I'll give you a more detailed rundown on some other information you'll need long-term."

She quickly talked us through how to view skills and select filters to make the menus readable, so that they weren't filled with things like BIC Soft Feel Retractable Ball Point Pen Use: Level 4 or Ironing: Level 1. She insisted that I take some time to explore my skills before going to bed and practically shoved us out the door once Murphy's scroll timer hit 5 minutes.

We rushed back down the hall, buoyed by a substantial increase in our ability to survive. Even if I was going to look like the biggest dumbass in the world while doing it.

Chapter Text

We rushed back down the hallway to the saferoom. Thankfully the coast was clear on the minimap, so it was just a minute to get back. On the way, I placed the duffel with the Swords into my inventory for safekeeping. I kept my new staff in hand. I could feel how much stronger it made me. I still needed to get into my stat menu and look things over. My daughter suggested that I had some abnormalities in my menus, so Lorelai had steered us away from those in our conversation. But just by holding the staff I felt like I easily do more than the 500 kilo reps on the bench that I'd been doing since entering Mab's service. And that was only with an increase to my strength of 5, by whatever metric the System meant by that. I still had other items to put on that would increase it even further. If this is what things were like on the first few floors, what would it be like lower down? Would every person get this strong? Would every monster or "mob" or whatever they were called eventually become something even the supernatural heavy hitters of Earth wouldn't stand a chance against? Could they escape to the surface? It was a disturbing thought.

Murphy spent the walk in silent contemplation as well, pondering her options. As we entered the saferoom, James and Rhonda waved to us. Hope was nowhere to be seen, but the screen showed 9 rooms open instead of 10 so my mighty powers of deduction determined that she'd crashed out.

"Whoa, nice staff!" said James as we approached. He lifted up my staff a little. "I guess it's alright if I keep using this one, then?" 

I was about to say no, but I couldn't carry and use two staves. I felt the power coursing through me, just holding this thing. It feel exactly like magical power in the sense of energy I could release as magic, but it was no less real. Mab's teaching of me to do without would have to be good enough. "Yeah, that's fine," I said, looking him over. I'd just gotten a ton of equipment, but the only item of interest James seemed to have was the bright orange t-shirt, "Have you gotten much in the way of equipment? I got…kind of a lot."

"For gear, just this shirt and a ring that boosts my Int," he said, waving a be-ringed hand at me. "The shirt is pretty good, it makes me resistant to fire and cold damage and immune to debuffs caused by hot and cold effects." He gulped a little before continuing, "I got it because these lizard things that looked like fucked up Charmanders set me on fire pretty bad. I got an 'Extra Crispy' achievement for having 2^nd degree or worse burns over 75% of my body."

"Hell's Bells, kid!' I exclaimed. I knew precisely how much burns like that hurt. "And you were all right?" He didn't have any scars that I could see. Idly, I pulled my glove off the hand that had been burned by the flamethrower of a Black Court Vampire's servitor and was surprised to find that my own scarring was mostly gone as well. It looked like just a few cosmetic blemishes remained. The hand was fully functional again and I hadn't even noticed.

"Yeah," James continued, "Thank God for healing potions. And for having my gym clothes in my backpack so I didn't end up naked. I've got 3 spells, too. Torch, Gust of Wind…and Vanessa's tome of Cure Poison." He wiped his suddenly moist eyes and I gave his shoulder a squeeze as I moved to an empty table to sit down and start sorting through things on my menus. I pulled a crawler biscuit out of my inventory and munched on it. It tasted like something that wished it tasted as good as cardboard. But it was filling. I'd need to see about finding that Arby's I'd spotted. It was no Burger King, but anything would be better than these things.

Meanwhile, on one of the other tables, Murphy, with Rhonda's help, had been laying out her armor, P90, and the rocket launcher. Her scroll sat on the table as well, timer counting down. The two were discussing the choice she'd have to make in the next couple of minutes.

"Girl, you gotta do that scary-ass gun! You already take these dudes out like bam!-bam!-bam! It'd be easy mode with magic bullets!" Rhonda said, gesturing like she was firing the rifle.

"That's just the thing: would it make magic bullets? I got extra ammo from the achievements but there's no guarantee that'll keep up. It'd be a waste if I make the gun magic but then can't use it later," mused Murphy.

"Ah, yeah, I see that," Rhonda replied. "That boom stick of yours is prolly no good either, then?"

Murphy smirked. "I actually got something to boost that, though not the launcher itself," she said. She pulled a bag out of her inventory. It was about the same size and shape as one of those cartoon money bags, but instead of a dollar sign, it had the face of a weird, dog-like creature giving a wink and a furry paw/hand giving a thumbs up. "I can pull a random magic rocket for the launcher out of this once every 2 hours."

"Oh shit, for real? Can I try?" asked Rhonda

"Knock yourself out, kid," Murphy laughed. "We'll test it out. But I think it's gotta be armor. You got an opinion, Harry?"

"You know I'm all about hit first and ask questions never, Murph."

"Aaaand that's why all your big cases end with you beat to shit, huh?" she said, shaking her head. She placed a hand on the Kevlar-reinforced breastplate and activated the scroll. The armor glowed and seemed to shift, turning a darker color with red gilding. At the same moment, Rhonda pulled out what looked like a miniature sun from the magic bag. We all cried out and had to cover our eyes with our hands. I heard a thump and the sound of something rolling. 

"Shit!" Rhonda yelled.

"Got it!" Murphy called. The light disappeared as she put the bomb in her inventory.

"Wow!" said James, "What was that?"

"Hang on," Murphy replied, "Uhh…wow. That's…here, hang on, we need to add each other to our chats, I'll send the description there so you don't have to look at it."

We all bumped fists, which is how Lorelai had told us to add other people to our chat directory. I soon got a little buzzing alert and pulled the chat up into my view.

Karrin Murp: Here it is-

Holy Nuke

What happens when you take the rage-fueled tears of a thwarted god and mix it with just a hint of Greater Demon piss, add a few splashes of martyr's blood, and mix inside a specially crafted vial, shaken, not stirred? You get some bottled total protonic reversal. This devastating explosive deals massive damage over a wide area to undead and demons. Even just being exposed to its radiant light will damage lesser fiends. It does not harm creatures of other types. 

James Cren: Wow, I wish we knew where an undead boss monster was, this would be like a free kill

Harry Dresden 2: Yeah, well, I'm wiped, and this will only last 2 hours before it disappears, so I think we're out of luck.

Rhonda Broo: You think they all gonna be that good?

James Cren: Fat chance

Karrin Murp: Doubt it

Harry Dresden 2: Hah!

Rhonda Broo: Damn. Can we set it off? It says it won't hurt us.

Karrin Murp: Absolutely not.

James Cren: You actually trust this place? After that thing with the bathrooms?

Harry Dresden 2: I mean, I kinda want to see it. Also, does this typing with your brain thing make anybody else tired? 

That got everyone to roll their eyes at me. I spent a moment adjusting my chat to just use everyone's first names. Except Murphy, of course. She, meanwhile, looked over her armor and whistled. "This looks pretty great, honestly. I got some boots that give me a skill called 'Walk Unseen' and another called 'Critical Strike' that seem to go well with the armor," she said, forgoing the chat. She shook her head. "I honestly can't believe this place works like this. It's ridiculous."

I took a look at the armor:

Enchanted Cuirass of the Silent Assassin

This is a Unique Item

This Item was Created Using an Enchant Item Scroll on the 1^st Floor

+2 Constitution

+3 to the Soft Step Skill

+2 to the Riflewoman Skill

+3 to the Dodge Skill. 

This armor provides 15% resistance to all damage from physical attacks. It provides an additional 10% resistance to ranged attack damage.

The Vampiric Strike Benefit

Focusing on that last line gave further explanation, just like with my staff.

The Vampiric Strike Benefit

The wearer of this armor gains 5% of weapon damage dealt as health and can build up an excess health pool equal to 20% of their normal maximum health.  The health pool is dealt damage first and will dissipate 1 hour after a weapon was last used to deal damage if it is not depleted.

"So," began James, "Karrin is clearly the party DPS rogue, Harry is the –"

"Wizard," I declared.

"Apparently monk/tank, according to our guide," said Murphy.

"Craziest motherfucker I ever met," muttered Rhonda

"…I was also going to say Wizard," sighed James. I nodded firmly in satisfaction. "Hope got a neat set of goggles in her boss box that give her a trapfinding skill, so with that Pathfinder skill too, she's our scout/ranger. Rhonda has been getting weapon skills and just got a magic mace from her boss box, so I guess that makes her our fighter?"

"Damn straight," she said, nodding and flexing a little.

"And I guess that leaves me as a support caster," James said, a little morosely. "I can't really move or attack much but I have some useful spells."

"We can't just send Hope ahead of all of us to scout," I said with a frown.

"Oh, don't worry, man," Rhonda reassured me, "Estor told us that traps probably wouldn't be a thing 'til the 3^rd floor or later. But yeah, we gotta stick together if we don't wanna get got. She be just as good at finding traps with us right there."

I did not like that "probably". I didn't like it one bit. I glanced at Murphy. She didn't seem to like it much either. 

"Well," I said after a moment, "I don't know about you, but I'm about to crash. I'll grab the tables but then I'm going to shower and turn in. Let's discuss plans and tactics after we get up." There was general agreement, and folks made their way to the open rooms. Murphy looked like she wanted to say something but stopped herself and went to turn in. 

After scooping the tables into my inventory, I made my way back to the showers. As I peeled off my clothes, I realized that I hadn't seen any laundry facilities anywhere. Though my duster repelled stains and water and mostly covered my clothes, "mostly" had a fair bit of leeway. My undershirt was speckled with blood and had a hole through both sides from the laser blast. The bottoms of my jeans and my boots were caked in gore. Everything was sweaty and generally disgusting. I heaved a sign and dumped the clothes on the ground, placing my duster on the wall hanger. 

The showers were hot. God, I couldn't remember the last time I'd had a relaxing hot shower. Lash had given me the sensation of one, years ago. I'd had hot showers and baths as part of my rehabilitation, but that was a favored place for Mab to attack me, so not the best place to spend more time than absolutely necessary. It felt like an obscene luxury to have this, here, after everything that had happened. Though there had been times since I was woken up a little less than half a day ago that I'd had a chance to sit down and rest my body, my mind had always been either on alert for danger, trying to learn more about our situation, or acting to meet immediate needs. I sighed deeply as I worked my shoulders under the steaming water. I tried to hold on to that feeling , just focusing on simple physical sensation, clearing my mind. I embraced that simplicity for a long moment.

NEW ACHIEVEMENT! Walking the Eightfold Path

Shouted the AI into my mind. I jumped, cursed, and slipped in the wet shower stall, tumbling in a tangle of limbs. The AI continued.

You sought comfort in the practice of meditation to gain perspective and distance from all that has happened to you and your world so far. Too bad! You're still stuck in here and probably about to die! Suck it up and live a little, why don't ya?

Reward: You've received a Bronze Ascetic Box

"God dammit, you tin can! The minute I find you, I'm selling you to the nearest Jawas!" I complained loudly as I pushed myself to my feet. Fine. Eyes on the prize. I started actively washing myself.

While Murphy had been messing with her gear, I'd been looking through my skills. Even with the filters, the menus were still pages and pages long. I decided to switch gears and check my stat menu, since there was apparently something weird there. Based on what Lorelai had told Murphy to expect, I immediately picked out the oddities. She had told Murphy that most humans had between 1 and 6 for values representing Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, and Charisma when they entered the dungeon, based upon their characteristics. My starting stats, however, were:

Strength: 10*

Dexterity: 10*

Constitution: 12*

Intelligence: 3

Charisma: 1

I groused a little bit about the charisma score, but figured that was fair. But that wasn't the important thing here. I mentally clicked on the asterisk next to my Strength score. A tooltip appeared.

You are under the effects of an undetermined buff. Buff provides +4 Strength and a Variable +x% Strength. Variable +x% chance to enter Berserk status may enhance this further. Variable parameters undefined.

I checked the Dexterity and Constitution asterisks and they said the same other than the stat name. This must be how the System represented the Winter Mantle. I had a bad feeling about that percentage chance to going berserk. It fit with what I sometimes felt when I let the mantle slip its leash, but I knew that that status had specific effects here in the dungeon. I made a mental note to talk to Lorelai about that. Then I thought about it and made an actual note in my scratch pad. That was handy.

Looking through my items, once everything was equipped, my stats would be:

Strength: 18*

Dexterity: 17*

Constitution: 22*

Intelligence: 9

Charisma: 5

That would mean that I'd be 3 times as strong, fast, and tough as the typical human. More depending on if those variables changed. All on just the first floor. The first day. Was all this power being drawn from the ritual that had caused all of this? It didn't have the feel of black magic. But if it wasn't, then was there some sort of transfer that mediated souls to power without the corruption being foisted upon the people who gathered that power within the dungeon? I mused on that as I decided to take action on the clothing situation. 

Taking a minute to concentrate, I drew my loose clothes up into a half-globe of force. Squirting in some of the liquid soap, I floated the bowl underneath the running shower for a moment before fully enclosing it all in a bubble of force before the water had a chance to disrupt the spell. I took a cue from Ivy, then. When she had been fighting the Denarians in the Shedd Aquarium, she'd encased Magog in a globe of force and flicked it with power, spinning the monkey-demon around and a dizzying blur. I did the same thing here to create my own magical spinning washer. 

As I let that work, I went back into my skills. It took me a couple of minutes, but I finally found what my daughter and Lorelai must have been talking about. The first thing that I noticed was a Regeneration: Level 1 skill that would enhance my healing. I think it was from my wizard physiology that let me heal completely from many injuries, at least with enough time. The dungeon also gave us faster healing, plus healing potions and a basic "Heal" spell that Lorelai had just barely remembered to activate for us as she was shoving us out the door. It was fascinating to see something that even the greatest of the White Council struggled with accomplished so easily. It worried me, honestly. If we could recover perfectly from anything short of death and dismemberment, just what were they going to throw at us? They could beat us within an inch of our lives over and over again, and we'd be fine. Physically, anyway. I thought of Lorelai and the endless stairs she'd walked upon, and I shuddered. 

I hoped Mab had a plan to break this place so that we wouldn't have to go through that. But even just within the dungeon, we'd be here for at least 8 months. How would people cope going through this for 8 solid months? How would I? Even the war with the Red Court has had lulls where we could take space to recover. This was going to be a grinder. And I'd bet dollars to donuts that there weren't any dungeon therapists to help people cope with the post-traumatic stress. Could you even call it that? It would imply that the trauma had ended at some point.

I'd seen how people tended to act when the worst was upon them. I thought of Hope's guide, who'd went straight to "murder the others as much as you can" as a piece of advice. It was almost certainly already happening. Well, not on my watch. The most valuable lesson that being a White Council Warden (as opposed to Demonreach's Warden) had taught me was the value to coordinated teamwork. My work with my friends over the years had shown the clear value having trusted, competent allies brought. We humans would have to work together to succeed in this place. Anybody that tried to disrupt that would have to be dealt with. I grunted to myself, shaking my head and getting back on track. As I drained some dirty water out of my spell and replaced it, I dug deeper into the skills that seemed to worry my daughter so much. 

The first one I found was the one that my magical magician's gloves gave a boost to. The AI sounded annoyed as it described the skill.

Hocus Pocus: Level 7

Like a rabbit out of a hat, you can pull magic out of your ass! Powered by feelings or some sort of other bullshit instead of following clearly outlined rules, this "magic" will tend to have variable effects based on your intent and current status. And for some reason it makes you tired if you use it too much, unlike real magic. Total available power to use is determined by ½ Intelligence + ¼ Constitution + a base level determined upon dungeon entry. Try using it in fun new ways! Or don't. Fuck you for making me figure this shit out.

So, apparently, I could "level up" my own magic in here, since skills got more powerful the more that you used them. And my pool of power would grow as my stats increased. Which wouldn't happen without items until we hit the 3^rd floor, according to Lorelai. This mitigated losing my personal staff to aid James' mobility somewhat, since the enhanced Constitution provided by the Tetsubo would naturally enhance my magic. I also had an Alchemy: Level 1 skill that supported making dungeon-style potions and my very own

Shitty, Bootleg Alchemy: Level 4

Instead of making potions out of specific ingredients, this "vibes-based" alchemy allows you to craft magic into a consumable form by throwing random shit together and forcing it to stick by using your brain. That doesn't give me high hopes for you using this to accomplish anything worthwhile. You can probably make use of an Alchemy table for some of this shit, but who knows.

That was interesting. I hadn't known that the dungeon had its own system of potion-making. I wonder what I could make using dungeon ingredients. I felt a pang of loss. Bob would have found this whole place fascinating. And I wasn't sure how much I'd be able to accomplish without his guidance on the potion front. The final "unusual" skill that I had was:

Flim-Flammery: Level 5

Apparently, you can also use this bullshit to make magic items, too! This doesn't seem fair or balanced at all! This is why I hate this nebulous shit. Well, I guess you can put spells into items or let the items play with your spells and move energy around or something. Your old staff seems like shit, though. Make something cool and maybe you'll get a reward. You probably won't though. Various crafting tables would likely help with this, but you can figure that shit out on your own.

The fact that my magic bothered the AI so much should probably be a cause for concern. It hadn't really done anything, yet, but I got the feeling that it could and would. It…seemed to want me to show off to it, or something. I wasn't sure if that would be a good or bad idea. I continued to ponder as I retrieved my mostly cleanish clothing from my improvised washer. I hung them on the coat rack and used the blow-dryer spell that Molly and I had developed to start drying them off.

One thing that I needed to do soon was to see how my magic and dungeon magic interacted. The dungeon spells were learned instantaneously from tomes and cost a certain amount of "mana" based on the spell, your skill level in using the spell, and possibly other factors given how things in the dungeon seemed to be enhanced as your levels increased. It was a strange way to do magic. It didn't seem like you had any control over them at all, just point and click. Did they behave like they did in Arcanos or D&D, where the fireballs took up a specific area, burnt things in that area, and that was all? Or would a dungeon fireball set things aflame, spread, and suck the oxygen out of the room like in real life, or in the hands of a game master who actually cared about physics? Once I learned the spells from my tomes, which I planned to do after waking up, I was going to spend some time experimenting. One thing I really needed to know was if magic circles could block the spells. That could potentially be a critical defense in here that nobody else would have access to.

After a few more minutes, my clothes weren't entirely dry but I was tired and it was good enough. I'd hang my jeans up somewhere. I stepped out of the bathroom in my boxers and damaged undershirt with my jeans and duster draped over an arm and was surprised to see Murphy leaned up against the wall. 

"Uhhh…hey Murph," I said, moving to cover up a little with my hanging duster. "Fancy seeing you here."

She gave a very small grin at that. "Hey Harry," she said quietly, "I'm…too keyed up to sleep right now. You got a minute? Rooms have seating as well as a bed."

I nodded slowly. Even though I was exhausted I was probably too mentally wired to sleep right away either. "Well, I'm not wearing wet pants, so you'll have to deal with boxers. Hopefully the sight of my ankles doesn't leave you all aswoon." I said

"I'll try to contain myself," she grinned back at me, but her smile was closer to a grimace as I led the way into one of the small rooms, flicking the lights on after a moment of searching as I entered. 

A full-size bed, along with a couple of chairs and small table took up most of the space. I hung the pants on the back of a chair to dry and was about to hang my duster on the other before I remembered that I could just store it in my inventory. I didn't feel like taking the chance that the pants wouldn't dry out inside, so on the chair they stayed. The chairs were tiny. I decided to sit on the bed, back pressed against one of the walls. Murphy stood behind the empty chair, resting her hands on its back. Her whole body was coiled up like a spring, like she could explode into movement at any second. We both sat in silence for a minute.

A minute became two. I…wasn't really sure what to say. So much had happened, so many horrible or confusing things that I couldn't get a read on her. Murphy was no shrinking violet, but if I said the wrong thing here, I was afraid that she…That she'd what? I asked myself. That she'd leave? To where? We're stuck here. But if that was the only reason she stayed, wouldn't that be worse?

 I was just gonna have to bite the bullet.

"Ladies first?" I finally said. She grunted out a laugh, relaxing ever so slightly. I felt a sliver of relief.

"Harry…" she began, her voice strained as she looked towards me, "We're pretty screwed, aren't we?"

"Looks to be that way, Murph," I replied, sighing. "All this is…I don't have the slightest idea how it's all going to go down. I think everyone I've talked to has felt out of their depth with this place. And that scares the crap out of me, now that we're stuck in here for who knows how long."

"It scares me, too," she admitted. Her fingers clenched and unclenched on the back of the chair. "But you know what scares me more?" 

I shook my head. 

"I feel…I feel glad to have something solid to work towards. Just get to the next floor. It sounds so simple. So much less…messy…than fighting the Fomor in the streets," she said, her voice tight and drawn. "Never knowing who was going to be taken next. Never knowing who might secretly be a servitor when you're walking down to the corner store." 

She unwound in a sharp burst of movement as she began pacing back and forth across the room like a caged tiger, still talking, "Here, it's all mapped out, right in my brain. If it's red, it's dead. It's easy. Having enemies that you can see and identify? It's such a relief." She looked at me in anguish. "My trigger finger has been so itchy for the last year and half that being able to just let loose feels so good. We've lost so much in just the last few hours and all I can think about is how I finally have the freedom to fight out in the open. I'm worried about what that means, Harry." 

I stood then and intercepted her as she paced back towards me. I hesitantly reached out to halt her and she allowed my palms to gently catch her shoulders. "Murphy, I know– "

She cut me off with a shake of her head, her right hand raising to my arm that rested on that shoulder. Her voice was thick. "I just need you to know that you aren't the only one worried about who they are. About what they're becoming."

Her eyes rose towards mine. I felt my heart clench. "I told you before Harry," she admonished in a quiet, pained voice, "I'll be right there with you. Wherever you go. I don't know and can't control anything about the world we've left behind. It scares the hell out of me. I'm worried sick for Will and Butters and Michael and everyone else who escaped this. But I'm going to keep moving forward. And I know you are going to keep moving forward, too. And you sure as hell aren't going to do it without me right there with you." Her eyes brushed mine with electric intensity as she moved deliberately to stare slightly to my side. "Neither of us need any sort of mystical 'sign'. We both know that we have each other's backs. No matter what."

My eyes misted. "Murph," I choked out. After all we'd seen today, I was so glad she was here. I was terrified that she'd come with me. But I don't think I'd be able to do it without her. I moved to pull her in closer, and she followed, our arms encircling each other. We held there for a long moment, just breathing.

She suddenly gave a strangled chuckle, and I made an inquiring noise.

"'Pair-bonding,'" she choked out, laughing against my chest, the tension she'd been holding breaking away as her shoulders shook. I laughed along with her for a long while.

"Would you…stay here tonight?" I asked hesitantly, before rushing on "Not to…but…I mean…I just…I honestly don't want to be all alone after…everything."

"Yeah," she said quietly. "I don't think I do, either." She stepped back as she pulled off her bloodied outer layers, revealing a light undershirt and light blue boyshorts. I may have looked a little. Respectfully.

We laid down and I felt the bed automatically lengthen itself to accommodate my height. I shook my head a little as Murphy laid next to me. How could this place be so monstrously cruel in most respects but do things like heal our wounds and ensure our comfort without hesitation in small ways? It was absurd. I guess we should just take the good where we could find it.

I flicked the light off with a brush of will. Murphy rested her head in the crook between my shoulder and chest. One of her hands found the hole in my shirt from where I'd been injured. Her thumb gently caressed my skin there. It tickled, a little. Winter stirred, but I firmly pushed it down. Soon, I found myself breathing in the slow rhythm of her motion and we gently fell asleep.

Chapter Text

CH 13

Time to Level Collapse: 4 days, 5 hours, 11 minutes

New Achievement! Blue Balls

The voice of the AI caused both Murphy and me to awaken with shouts of alarm as it screamed excitedly into our minds.

You slept in the same bed as another crawler of the same species and preferred gender, whom you aren't related to, and you didn't bang? Boooring! Well, I'm sure nobody wanted to see you bumping uglies anyway. Maybe you'll have better luck with a succubus. 

Reward: You've received a Bronze Prude Box

"That absolute prick," Murphy hissed as we disentangled ourselves from each other and the bedsheets. 

"Tell me about it," I agreed sourly. "It did something similar to me in the shower yesterday. I think I keep making myself forget that it can always see us. It's creepy." I glanced at Murphy, still feeling the ghost of her weight resting on me. I wondered if I'd be able to magic up a solution to the all-seeing eye issue. A problem for another time.

"It's extremely creepy," Murphy agreed, sitting up. "Well, I'm going to open the box now because I'm sure it will be something stupid."

The box appeared as she made good on her statement, topped by a pair of bronze and fuzzy handcuffs. It opened to reveal a Hitachi Magic Wand Rechargeable Massager HV-270.

"Jesus Christ!" she said, blushing a little as she took the "massager" into her inventory.

I laughed as I opened the two boxes that I'd gotten from the AI deciding to be a dick. The Ascetic box contained a few dozen bundles of incense and an incense holder shaped like a small bronze statue of the Buddha, one hand palm-down on his knee and the other upraised. Normally, with these kinds of statues, the upraised hand was either raised to the side, palm facing forward, or placed in the center of the chest, palm facing the to the side. This one was raised to the side and flipping the bird. The hole to insert the incense into was within the upraised middle finger. The incense was a brand I recognized from some of the caters-to-normals "magic" shops I'd visited as a fairly pricey brand. I honestly thought that I might get some use out of that.

My Prude box, on the other hand, contained an unopened box of Kleenex, a half-used bottle of lotion, and a faded and brittle Sears lingerie catalogue from the mid-90's. I pulled the Kleenex and lotion into my inventory. I left the Sears catalogue on the bed. Maybe if somebody else came through here, they'd get some use out of it. Murphy shook her head and grumbled something to herself.

We dressed in companiable silence. I felt light and refreshed. I don't think I'd slept so well since…probably before I mostly-died. I briefly checked out the countdown timer and was shocked to find that we'd slept for over 11 hours. That was a lot of time lost, but definitely worth it. I hummed a little tune as we began to don our new gear. I ended up needing Murphy's help to put on the "harness". She giggled the whole time. It was highly unprofessional. 

I ended up all tricked out in my new shoes, new gloves, bracers, and rings. I had my new "hat" in my hands, the foam material squishy and pliable. It had an actual, human-head-sized, hat-within-a-hat inside the enormous crown, so it would fit on top of my head. But this room was only 8 or 9 feet tall. And the door was only a few feet wide. I put it back into my inventory, muttering to myself. I'd just have to put it on in the hallways, where there was plenty of headspace. I wasn't going to be able to see a damn thing above me while I was wearing it. 

We entered the main area of the saferoom to find everybody already there. They were set up playing some sort of card game but packed it in as soon as we approached.

"Good morning, Bill. Good morning, Miss Muprhy," said Hope pleasantly as she took the deck of cards into her inventory.

"Y'all sleep well?" asked Rhonda, wiggling her eyebrows at us.

"Uh…what?" I said. Murphy and I looked at each other. I felt my cheeks heat up a little but elected to ignore it. 

James coughed. "The, uh, board said only 9 rooms were occupied after we all got out here," he said. 

"Leech owes me $10," said Hope with a firm nod and a smug smile that reminded me of Molly, "She thought you were just business partners."

My face was definitely heating up. "That's…you know what? Nevermind. Most of you guys' clothing looks gross and I figured out a way to use magic to wash things in the shower. You want to rest some more while Murphy does some magic gun maintenance? Then we can go adventuring without looking like Jackson Pollack decided to work in a butcher shop."

I wasn't surprised by the vehemently positive response, but I was happy it derailed that line of conversation. This place made you disgusting, fast, and nobody liked that. Hope actually saved the day here because she had grabbed a bunch of extra clothes and stuffed them into the backpacking pack she'd taken before coming down here, including some unopened packs of undershirts and boxers that Charity had bought on sale for their annual church clothing drive.

"Wow, you really thought of everything, huh?" I said to her as folks went back to their rooms to change and pass off their dirty clothes to me.

"Yep!" she replied, smiling, "It's what got me my "Came Prepared" achievement and Gold Trailblazer box! That's what gave me the Pathfinder skill potion. Now I'm gonna go change too, I feel super gross in these pants." 

Everyone offloaded their bloody and disgusting clothing into my arms and Murphy took my magical gun maintenance kit and revolver and started showing everyone else how to use the kit to properly maintain the weapons and thereby enchant them. This would let us spend some time enchanting, send out a scouting party, and finish with the rest of the weapons while that happened. That would let us have a fully enchanted arsenal and solid plan to move forward for the rest of the day. Our full lineup that she'd brought included her P90, a Sig Sauer P226, a Mossberg 590A1 pump-action shotgun with bayonet, a Ruger Mk III, a Colt 1911, and my hand cannon, plus the rocket launcher. I was honestly kind of surprised she'd had that many guns on hand, and the literal duffel bags of ammunition. We'd have to be selective about what we'd upgrade or we'd be spending all day in here.

While she began the ever-important lessons on trigger discipline and how to safely carry a gun, I got to work. It was going to take me a while, but honestly, I think this kind of thing would boost morale. We'd probably get everything bloodied again within short order, but starting the day with a sense of normalcy would be helpful. At least, it would for me. And since everyone else seemed to agree, this might end up as a morning ritual. Or late evening, as the case may be, according to my watch. 

I was just getting started on the rinse phase of the operation when I got a message.

James: Hey, Harry?

Harry: What's up?

James: Well…while we were waiting for you guys to get up, Hope was telling us a little bit about how you worked with her dad before he got hurt and I had a few questions. 

I guess I hadn't done a good enough job distracting him from his line of inquiry about my magic while the others had been scouting…I'm just going to call it yesterday. Time didn't really mean anything too specific according to Bob, Lash, and freaking Odin, so that's good enough for me. Anyway, I needed to head this off.

Harry: I can't talk about it, it's private business, even if the world ended. PI's honor. She shouldn't have said anything either.

James: I don't need to know anything personal! But some of the things she said were a little weird. And I had questions about the magic laundry.

I sighed to myself. I'd have to walk a fine line to give him enough to make him stop talking about this but not reveal anything myself. With the ever-present cameras and the showrunners' access to our chats, I'd have to be very careful.

Harry: Look, James, you're a smart kid. I think you've picked up on some stuff. The dungeon gave me some really weird skills and I'm doing the best I can with them to keep us all alive and, if I can, a little more comfortable. I promise you, all I want is to get through this, for all of us to get through this. 

I had had a thought while perusing my gear the prior night and decided to follow through on my idea.

Harry: I know we've only just met, but I hope that if you don't trust me now, that you will. And in the interest of trust, I want to give you something. I'm assuming Murphy is giving you guys a break, because she'd probably fold you in half if you weren't paying attention. Come on back.

James: She can't do that in a saferoom, she'd get a time out. And…ok.

Harry: Wait, really? A "time out"? 

James: Yeah, Estor said it's a 3 strikes thing. 3^rd time and you get stripped of gear and sent to a monster lair.

Harry: Wow, I guess they weren't kidding about the saferooms being safe.

James: Right? Ok, I'm outside.

I sent Murphy a quick message about having a chat with Hope about keeping the past in the past, and walked to the door. James was standing in the hall as I stepped into the hallway, looking rather nervous.

"Hey, so I was thinking last night that with your…mobility…issues, you might have trouble defending yourself, even if Murphy does give you one of her guns. It's hard to aim properly when you've got a staff in one hand. Doubly so since you need to use it to support yourself, not just as a walking stick. So, I wanted to give you this," I said, pulling the Tome of Magic Missile out of my inventory and offering it to him.

"Whoa!" He said, awed, "Really? Are you sure you don't need it for yourself?"

"Nah," I laughed, "I'm good. And we'll all be safer if you can properly defend yourself. Plus, I need you to help me test some of the limitations of those skills I mentioned. I'm still not entirely sure what they'll do, but seeing how it compares to your repertoire can only help."

He grabbed the tome and he glowed briefly as it immediately disappeared. "Thanks, Harry," he said, a little sheepishly, "I'm sorry for prying. I'm guessing we can spend time testing things while Murphy works on maintenance?"

I nodded and sent him back off as Murphy called out for everyone to gather around. I went back to my spin cycle, siphoning off the dirty rinsewater. I think I'd need to do it again, everything still looked pretty gross. I finally took the time to examine my other spell tomes more closely. 

Confusing Fog

Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight? Well, if you do, and don't want him to kill you, this defensive spell is a great way to trip up his steps.

Cost: 15 mana

Target: A 3-meter-radius sphere centering around the right hand of the caster + 10 cm per level of intelligence [Current Radius: 3.9 meters]

Duration: Intelligence x 2 seconds [Current Duration: 18 seconds] 

This spell generates a stationary billowing cloud of thick, swirling fog. This fog is translucent to the caster, crawlers, and friendly NPCs. All other creatures are unable to see through the fog. Good thing so many critters rely on their sight, right?

This had great potential offensive and defensive uses. I could lay down cover against ranged attacks, or charge into close range and make my opponents blind. I'd need to see if I could make use of the fog with my own magic while it was active. Having moist air on demand would make it extremely easy to summon missiles of ice in even the driest of environments, and while Winter gave me some additional control over water, it still wasn't my strong suit, so anything to make it easier would help. The other spell was also quite interesting.

Cloud of Bewilderment

You know how in movies, the hero can just shout "Hey, look over there!" or throw a rock or something and all the guards at the Big Bad's house just get up and leave the area? Trying that in real life is likely to get you captured. Or killed. But with this spell, even the most doughty guards can be baffled into looking the other way.

Cost: 18 mana

Target: A 2-meter-radius sphere + 10 cm per level of intelligence [Current Radius: 2.9 meters] within a 20-meter + 25 cm per level of intelligence distance of the caster [Current Maximum Range: 22.25 meters]

Duration: Instantaneous. Debuff duration equals Intelligence/2, rounded up [Current Duration: 5 seconds] 

This spell generates a barely visible cloud of every-so-slightly-purplish vapor within the area of effect. All creatures within the cloud when it appears gain the "Confused" and "Easily Distracted" debuffs for the listed duration. They'll look like a bunch of idiots, so be sure to make fun of them when you run by to steal all the stuff they're probably guarding. 

The Confused debuff made creatures slower to react and gave them a low chance to hurt themselves or their allies when they attacked, and the Easily Distracted debuff lowered their sight range and made them somewhat more prone to investigate sudden changes in their environment. 

Both of those spells would be great. Unfortunately, I apparently didn't have the mana to cast them. Your mana is determined by Intelligence, and mine was only 9, with my items, so I just got an error when I tried to learn them. I grumbled at that. Supposedly, the game was "fair", but that definition apparently included forcing people into no-win situations, so I assume locking people out of some of their rewards was a way to keep things "interesting". Given how excited Lorelai had been by my getting the tomes, I'd have to prioritize getting myself some more intelligence-boosting gear.

After a short while, I finished up the washing and drying and went back into the saferoom. Once I began folding everyone's clothing up, I got an achievement:

New Achievement! Cinderella

Your party members made you their bitch and forced you to do menial camp chores so that they wouldn't have to. And you just went along with it! You've got magic and shit and you still did it! You used your magic to do it. Usually, spellcasting types are super hoity-toity about the "mystic arts" and you use the supernatural forces of the universe to siphon ratman shit out of the bathwater? What a fuckin' pussy. 

Reward: You've received a Gold Servant Box

A Gold box? I immediately opened it. The box appeared like the dumbwaiter from a mansion that doubled as the primary location of a murder-mystery movie set in the 18^th or 19^th century. The dumbwaiter door opened and out popped a nonmagical feather duster and…a skimpy French Maid outfit, complete with sheer tights and dangerously short skirt. It was called The Enchanted Costume de Soubrette of the Housekeeper Supreme. It granted a whopping +6 to over a dozen different skills related to household chores, including laundering, cooking, sewing, sweeping, and more. It also gave something called the Forest Friends benefit, which allowed the wearer to speak with and potentially charm non-sapient mammalian and avian mobs. The description explicitly mentioned that it was a unisex outfit. I quickly shoved it as far into my inventory as I could.

I stomped into the cafeteria space scowling and carrying a load of neatly folded laundry. I took a look around the room. By the slight glow, Murphy had enchanted her P90. Rhonda was hard at work on my revolver while James and Hope watched on. 

"Everything alright out here? I come bearing clean clothes!" I called out.

"We good," said Rhonda, her voice a little distanced as she focused on working with the maintenance kit, "Karrin's got me on this, I'll change when we finish up." 

Murphy nodded at that, so I began separating out their clothing as James and Hope came up to collect theirs and head to their rooms for privacy. Since everybody had split up, I sent a message to everyone in a chat. This was really convenient and efficient. I guess I was missing out on a lot by not having a cell phone.

Harry: So, I'm thinking James, Hope, and I will go out into the hall and do some experimenting and then do a little scouting around while Rhonda and Murphy keep working on gun stuff.

Murphy: I'm fine with that. We've got about 40 minutes left for this next round of maintenance. Rhonda and I can work on target practice if you aren't back right then, but try to keep the explorations to around that length of time.

James: Where should we scout to?

Hope: I think all the rat guys ran away; my map doesn't have anything left in their neighborhood.

Murphy: We should head back towards that boss Harry killed. If we avoided the big halls, is there any unexplored area between here and there?

Rhonda: Looks like it, but I can't see far.

Hope: There's still bad guys in the elf neighborhood. It looks like there's one, maybe two more neighborhoods in between here and the boss room if we don't take the big road we went down, but I'm not totally sure. I…don't really wanna go to the elf neighborhood again. But we should get you the map.

James: AND the robo-deer!

Harry: Let's check out in that direction, at least get some eyes on the bad guys. After we get back, should we all go, or do you want to rotate out and do another gun first?

Rhonda: I think gun.

James: You're just saying that because you're having fun learning to shoot. Estor said we really need to be grinding as much as we can. I vote go.

Hope: …go.

Murphy: Also go, sorry Rhonda. Maybe we'll do another one around lunchtime?

Harry: Yeah, there's an Arby's around here somewhere.

Murphy: What.

Hope: Oh, I know this one! Some of the saferooms have food service. There's probably better restaurants than Arby's.

James: Hey, I like Arby's!

Rhonda: They do got pretty good fries. Not as good as Popeye's, though.

Harry: It's no Burger King, but anything's better than those biscuits. Let's get some magic drinks from the vending machine and head out.

James: Oh, before we go, are you gonna add us to your party, Harry?

Harry: What? Do we not do that just by traveling together?

Murphy: Did you zone out during Lorelai's tutorial? You've got higher stats, so apparently that makes you the boss.

Harry: Don't worry, Murph, even if you're a little below me, I still respect you.

I could practically feel Murphy's glare as I winked at her. Rhonda looked up from her work. She glanced back at me, one eyebrow raised, then at Murphy.

Rhonda: Girl, really?

Murphy rubbed her temples. "Don't indulge him," she said with irritation, before sighing. "Yes, Harry. Just go into your menus. You'll have a party tab. You can add people there. It lets us see each other's health and other statuses. Now get out of here so I can focus on making sure Rhonda continues to do excellent work."

After adding Hope, Rhonda, and James to the party, which I immediately dubbed The Rebel Alliance to muted acclaim, I decided to get while the getting was good and grabbed a bottle of something from the vending machine. I ended up getting a boost to my Dexterity from my drink, which was vaguely tea-flavored in a way I didn't much care for. James got Constitution, and Hope got Charisma. Neither of them seemed to enjoy their beverage either.

As we stepped out into the hall, I drew my hat and placed it upon my head. I endured the mocking laughter of my companions with stoic dignity. Even when James fell over because he lifted the staff too high when clutching his stomach. While he and Hope dealt with that, I started with my experiments. I gathered my will and stuck my staff out firmly, intoning "Aparturum!" I felt a buzz shake my arm and ERROR flashed in my vision. Damn. 

So much for an easy way out, I thought. But I wasn't surprised it didn't work. I probably wouldn't have wanted to find myself in the part of the Nevernever that this place would link up to. Unless this was like its own realm created within the Nevernever…? Trying to figure that out would take more time than I had right now. Another item for the list of problems to work on. 

"What was that?" asked James as he steadied himself on foot and staff. 

"Apparently nothing," I groused. "Now, I'd like you to wait like 10 seconds and then hit me with a magic missile."

"What!? Why?" cried out both Hope and James

I'm sure I'll be fine, I've got a 22 Constitution," I told them as I dragged my new staff in a circle around me, scraping the stone with one of the iron spikes in the end. I imbued the circle with my will. "Come on, let's go!"

James shrugged and after a moment, he made a finger gun and shot a laser blast out of it at me. It hit my shield and scattered into a crackling burst of photons.

"Whoa!" Hope said, "That was cool!"

"Alright," I said, leaning forward and focusing my attention on the edge of the circle. "Can you give it any more juice?"

He nodded and a slightly bigger blast appeared. Though it once again didn't penetrate, I felt a small wave of heat. Hmmm.

We kept experimenting, using up a few mana potions but sometimes waiting for minutes for James' mana to recharge. We attacked the circle from all angles and at varying rates of fire. And strength. Attacking rapidly with multiple missiles made me feel like there was a barely detectable waver to the barrier. His Magic Missile leveled up once and he got an achievement for attacking a single party member 40 times outside of a training room, which gave him a Gold Traitor Box that he was very excited about. The more powerful missile was still blocked handily, but the plume of heat that pushed through intensified. Though it was still only like a space heater set to the lowest setting. 

Similarly, the Torch spell wouldn't form if he tried to summon it within the circle. If he moved the light source, it wouldn't pass through the circle's barrier, though the actual illumination would. The circle held from floor to ceiling, at least in these hallways, which was good to know.

The Gust of Wind spell blew through the circle as if it was nothing. In fact, it picked up a broken bit of harness from the sleigh, which shattered the circle when it crossed the boundary, broken by an object deliberately thrown by a mortal. Apparently, the spell's action counted as intent, which was important for these sorts of things.

We couldn't test the Cure Poison spell because none of us were poisoned. James told us that his guide said that drinking a second potion before your cooldown ended would poison you. I had forgotten that the cooldown was a thing, but with my high Constitution, mine was pretty low. None of us wanted to waste our limited potion supply on that, so we'd have to leave that untested for now.

It seemed like magic circles could block purely magical energies, but any physical components would penetrate easily. So, if someone lobbed a fireball at me, I could draw up a circle and I might not get set aflame, but I'd still probably get incinerated by the heat if I didn't shroud myself in Winter or something like that. I worried, too, about leveling up. Higher-level spells might be able to shatter a circle entirely like Titania had done when I'd called upon her for help with the whole Maeve situation. I had more things to experiment with, but for now, it was another potential tool for the toolbox, though not as much of a game-changer as I'd been hoping.

We'd been at it for about 25 minutes by the time we finished the magic tests that I'd thought of. While James ran into the saferoom to open his box, I took a moment to try running using my headband's ability. It was an awkward way to run, but despite being terrible form, especially with how I had to hold my staff in a palm-up grip at a diagonal across my back and shoulders, it vastly increased my speed and maneuverability. I was thankful that I could attack with one hand or the other and still keep the bonus so long as my other arm was pointed backwards. 

James laughed when he exited the saferoom as he saw Hope cheering me on while I sped down the hall and used my new Walk on Air skill to perform an acrobatic , spinning leap over the sleigh with a cry of "Parkour!" I think my hat gave me some lift, I could run so quickly. 

James' box turned out to have contained a set of black leather bracers that boosted his Intelligence, gave him ranks in the skill Backstab, and increased the damage his offensive spells did. Thus armed with gear and knowledge, we moved to do a quick reconnaissance of the nearest unexplored neighborhood in the direction we planned to head. 

It was only a short while before Hope spotted a mob around a corner on her map. We approached slowly, James turning his Torch down low, and peered around the corner. What we saw looked like a little round, brown blob, about the size of a slightly flattened soccer ball. The description appeared as we studied it.

Trash Ooze. Level 2

This disgusting blob is animated from the goop you find at the bottom of a garbage bag that's been sitting in the sun for a week or two. It's been given motive form and seeks to absorb more and more garbage to sate its craving for decay.

"I'm glad not everything bad in here is like a person," whispered Hope. "That looks just like a monster from a game I saw Daniel play once. Grosser, though."

"I think we should hit it from far away," said James as he squared his shoulders, "I can take care of it." He put action to his words and hobbled around the corner and blasted the ooze with a couple of magic missiles, taking it out easily. It had some ooze parts in its inventory that he said labeled themselves as alchemy components when he looted them

We did a little more exploring and took out a few more oozes. I got yelled at for incinerating a group of four of them because the others barely got any experience. Since I was level 7 and the others were only level 4, I decided to hold back unless we got into trouble. Which we unfortunately did. 

We were taking a different route back towards the saferoom to fill out the map and came across 2 of the oozes sliming along with a much bigger version, closer to the size of a good-sized dining room table.

Trash Ooze Dumpster Denizen. Level 4

An immature trash ooze that has consumed at least 8 times its body weight in organic garbage develops enough of a rudimentary intelligence that it realizes that people have developed receptacles for disposing of trash. They move in and quickly fatten themselves up and start getting greedy. Soon, they're taking trash out the hands of those trying to dispose of their waste. Then they start going after the hands. And then the people they're attached to. They don't take "no" for an answer from anything that they might consider food. 

When James stepped out from behind a corner to blast it, the thing reacted surprisingly fast, growing a long, mucky pseudopod and wrapping it around his leg, dragging him to the ground and pulling him in. He dropped the staff that had been helping keep him upright as he gave a strangled cry and I rushed into the hall, trying to get a better angle of attack where he wasn't in my line of fire. But then one of the little oozes roiled and spat out a glob of gunk that zipped through the air and hit me square in the chest. It barely did any damage, but as I began to draw in energy to cover myself with a shield spell, suddenly my vision went blurry and my stomach roiled with nausea.

Warning: You've been infected with Pustulant Listeriosis

New Achievement! Vector!

You have been infected with a dungeon disease! Hopefully it isn't terminal. 

Reward: You're building up your immunity! Probably.

I stumbled to a halt as my health began to drain. Little boils started erupting all over my body and popping in pained bursts, releasing milky-white pus. I saw similar boils growing all over James as he was dragged, writhing, closer to the big one. Hope was screaming something in the background; she didn't have any ranged weapons. My vision swam like I'd been kicked in the head by a horse and the little ones kept shooting at me, doing little plinks of damage. I needed to do something, fast, but James was still in the way. 

I didn't feel too confident in my aiming abilities, so I grounded my staff and sent a narrow wave of force down one side of the hall, throwing the small ooze that had first hit me into the wall and splattering it all over. I hobbled down the hallway, trying to flank the big one to get a clear shot, but I slipped on sludge from the dead mob, landing on my hands and knees, vomiting as the swift change in elevation made me feel an intense sense of vertigo. I hit the health potion on my hotlist, which rocketed my health back up, but it was still draining. I saw Hope rush in, wielding my wooden staff, smashing the other little ooze to bits and crying out as she discovered that getting splattered by the creatures as they died spread the infection as well. James was a few moments from being swallowed up and I didn't think I could stand up while I was this sick. He was firing magic missiles wildly and had knocked the creature's health down by about half.

I raised one hand and tried to cast a bolt of force at the creature, but a new heave from my stomach spoiled my aim and a chunk of the wall cracked. Well, time to see if this thing worked. I shuffled my hands through vomit and ooze-bits and faced the thing as head-on as I could. I clicked the icon for my Rush skill in my hotlist.

I zoomed forward, still on my hands and knees, careening towards the monster like I'd been shot out of a cannon. I started to shout in surprise, which was a mistake. I blasted through the thing, catching a mouthful of putrescent liquid garbage before slamming into the wall at something like a hundred miles an hour, leaving an expanding tide of ooze to splatter outward behind me and an enormous crater in the wall with a face-shaped outline in the center. My enormous hat had squished up then bounced back to its normal shape as I immediately turned to the side and started puking up gobbets of ooze and stone dust. I felt very dizzy as well as sick, now. I'd gotten another achievement for something there.

We all pulled ourselves slowly away from the piles of goop and lay there for a minute or so, liberally using heal spells and potions when needed, before the disease debuff faded. The Cure Poison spell did not help. But eventually, the nausea faded. Our skins healed to perfect smoothness, as if there'd never been any pustules at all. Our formerly-clean clothing told a different story, though my duster hid most of the aftermath on me.

"I really don't like this place," said Hope softly.

"Ugh," I agreed.

We decided to take the long way and retrace our steps through areas we knew were clear on our way back to the saferoom. That meant we heard the sounds of pistol fire as we approached. We arrived to see Rhonda was taking shots with Murphy's Luger at some targets that had been carved into the side of the sleigh. I'd told Murphy via chat that we'd run into a little trouble and were taking the long way back, but her eyes widened as she took us in.

"Holy hell, what happened? I thought you just said it was a little trouble?!" she said, alarmed.

"I'm gonna take another shower," Hope said as she walked into the saferoom.

"Same," said James as he hobbled by.

"Leave your clothes out, I'll give them a quick rinse and we can walk them dry," I said. I felt all the pus crinkling and oozing as it dried piecemeal between my skin and the fabric of my clothing. I was bound inside as well. I let Murphy know the deal about the disease-spewing blobs and went to go cleanse myself. 

We all convened in the saferoom afterwards. Some of us dripped.

"Is the speed worth the risk of trying to go through the ooze neighborhood?" Murphy asked. "We've got about 8 and a half hours until the show premieres, so we want to make sure we end up near a saferoom 7 to 7 and a half hours from now."

"Ehhhh…" went James and Hope.

"That was bad, but if this sort of thing is happening now, it's something we'll probably also have to deal with more of in the future," I stated, "I think if we keep further back and go slow, we can get rid of them from afar. We've got plenty of options at range. and we need to figure out how to deal with this sort of enemy"

"I could use some practice shooting real things," added Rhonda. 

James sighed. "If this world actually does work like a videogame, I'd bet that there are things we'll find or get as rewards that would help give us resistance to diseases. I wonder if that achievement was actually for real and not a joke?"

"I am absolutely not testing that," or something similar, came out of everyone else's mouths.

After a bit more debate, we decided to try to clear out the neighborhood, but take it a lot more cautiously. We quickly found that nonmagical bullets did little to the oozes, but the enchanted P90 and revolver made quick work of the small ones. Everyone took turns to learn shooting technique while I was on shield duty, though James quickly returned to his Magic Missiles when he'd knocked himself in the head with the revolver's recoil, since he couldn't steady himself well. This all resulted in an array of Bronze Gunslinger boxes for everyone but me and Murphy. Hopefully they'd have more bullets in them. Our newbies were still getting a feel for the whole "aiming" thing. 

Whenever we spotted the bigger ones, I got to cut loose and freeze the watery mobs whole. Rhonda and I then waded in and smashed them apart. Murphy also got in some practice with that Walk Unseen skill, which turned her invisible and made her vanish from the map for a short amount of time. She could do it once an hour. The duration apparently appeared as a bar in the top of her view, and she said that it decreased slower the faster you moved and sped up when you stood still. It ended up being a great way for her to flank groups for an ambush or scout ahead to identify the opposition without detection.

It took us about 3 hours to make our methodical way through this part of the neighborhood. It was good that we'd already planned to go slow, because James was having a hard time keeping up. Even with the leisurely pace we were setting as we meticulously checked our maps for enemies, he was using muscles that had never had to support his weight before and he tired easily. Though my first health potion had felt invigorating, probably because it had healed me from the brink of death, they didn't actually make you any less tired. 

So, it was slow going. But we eventually found ourselves near what appeared to be the boss chamber for the neighborhood. It looked like the hallway had been replaced by the rundown, sagging brickwork of the front of a house. Brownish liquid seeped from the gaps around the door and the frames of the two small windows built into the wall. The boss chamber was deeper inside the house, probably within an interior room, if the layout indoors was actually like the house that this appeared to be. We could all smell the place from where we stood.

Hope made a disgusted noise and pulled something out of her inventory. It was a jar of Vicks VapoRub. She smeared some of the petroleum jelly under her nose and the purpose immediately became clear. The jar got passed around. With noses filled with the slightly tear-inducing odor of menthol, I led our way through the door. Kicking it open and ducking low, foam hat squishing all around my skull before floomph-ing out again, my shield spell formed a protective half-dome in front of me as I took in the gut-churning scene before me.

Chapter Text

I held my place just on the inside of the doorway, shield covering me, as the stench of rotting food and rancid grease washed over us. The inside of the "house" actually did appear to be a living area, but one scaled for a person that was maybe twice as tall as I was, despite the door being normal-sized. It was set up like an open-plan studio apartment, the door opening into a living room, with two of the other corners of being a bedroom and kitchen. The third corner was an enclosed room with a ratty, oozing door, presumably a bathroom-based boss chamber.

The apartment was absolutely full of knee-high or taller piles of takeout containers, dirty plates, empty bags of snacks, and what looked and smelled like grocery bags filled with trash. The takeout containers and plates were covered in proportionally large chicken wing bones, half-eaten burgers, molding pizza, putrid scraps of what looked like Indian takeout, and more. And every surface was liberally populated by the Level 2 oozes, which were slowly eating through the trash. An oozy wobble flashed through the room like a wave and a plink-plink-plink sound began tapping out a rhythm on my shield as the blobs of gunk vainly tried to breach my defenses. Some of the oozes began to seep towards me. The kitchen trash can tipped over, revealing one of the big Level 4s.

"Back up!" I called out, "I'll knock 'em back. Murph, you clear the room! Then I'll screen while the rest mop up!" I cast out my will in a wave of force with a cry of "Forzare!", scattering the rotting garbage and oozes backwards. I had loosened my grip on the shield and propelled it along down the center of the room on the wave of force. A particularly large pile of refuse basically detonated when struck by the dissipating wall of force and the horrible smell intensified. I ducked back and to the side as Murphy stepped in, lighting what looked like 2 sticks of cartoon dynamite. I stumbled as I bumped into Rhonda, who was standing much closer than I had expected. 

"Back up!" I called out again, pulling her further back from the doorway and gesturing my staff at James and Hope, who were similarly close to the doorway on the other side. We'd been working on coordination the whole time we'd been moving through the ooze neighborhood, but the three of them were still basically civilians, and one of them was crippled. Having worked so closely with experienced and supernaturally powerful allies for so long was serving me poorly here, not to mention the unpredictability of what the dungeon could throw at us, and we'd really need to spend more, dedicated, time training on small unit tactics. 

All of that flashed through my mind before Murphy cried out, "Fire in the hole!" She quickly tossed the dynamite into the room and dashed back outside. Two tremendous bangs sounded, and a shockwave burst through the doorway, followed by a whirling mess of detritus. My ears were ringing. My minimap was awash with X's and the smattering remaining red dots.

"All right!" I said, shouting to be heard, before Rhonda grabbed my arm and shook, gesturing to her ears. 

Rhonda: We got a chat, man!

Harry: Shit, sorry. I'll go in again with the shield. I'll move to cover left first after you get in, there's more of them there on the map. Call 'clear' when you're done with the ones on the right. Reorient and I'll shift it, then you light 'em up. Duck back behind the shield when you need to. Got it?

Hope: Ok

Rhonda: Yeah!

James: Okay

Murphy: On your 6.

I led the way, ducking once again through the doorway, shield before me and then quickly shifting left once the trio of ranged attackers rushed in behind me. Hope had the P90 and Rhonda was wielding my revolver, while James was relying on his magic missile. The few oozes on the right side of the room that remained didn't seem disoriented by the explosions, but they apparently had been knocked far enough back that we were out of range of their spitting attack, so they were easy pickings. They cleared the left side quickly, too, though Rhonda got clipped by one of their attacks and had to have Murphy drag her out of the fight once the disease debuff hit. 

Once we saw only the X's in the room and no hidden movement with our eyes, we backed out to reassess. The odor was at least a little better in the more open hallway. 

"That went pretty well," I said, leaning up against the wall. I quickly realized that I'd have to practically face straight downwards to make that work with the stupid hat, so into the inventory it went for now.

"Says you," slurred Rhonda woozily from where Murphy had dragged her. Little pustules grew and burst all over her body. I had to look away. Ugh.

"That goblin dynamite was more powerful than I expected," Murphy said thoughtfully, "And it's really unstable. My skills for using explosives are 'leveling up' and they give me more details about bombs as well as increase the yield. It's going to be dangerous for all of us if I use these too much in these narrow spaces. I think we're going to need to spend more time enchanting guns and finding enemies that it's safe…well, safer, to get up close and personal with."

"But the plan is still to blow the boss up, right?" asked James. "That seemed to work really well on the rat guy, from what you all said." Hope gagged a little. Evidently the aftermath hadn't been too pretty, there.

"Definitely," said Murphy, "The magic bag missile isn't great, it just deafens enemies in the area of effect in addition to normal damage, which probably won't do anything to what I'm assuming is just going to be a really big ooze, but I've got plenty more dynamite."

"Should we search through the room in there?" asked Hope, not sounding terribly enthusiastic about the idea.

"Videogame logic does suggest that looting everything is the way to go…" added James, equally dubiously.

"I'm not digging through all that garbage, I feel like that's just asking to get diseased," I said, "But I suppose the dresser and kitchen cabinets might be worth searching through."

After Rhonda recovered, we all moved in to carefully loot anything we could find that wasn't covered in toxic sludge. Which wasn't much. Murphy's dynamite had smashed most of the living room furniture and about half the kitchen cabinets to kindling. James was adding oversized cookware from the lower shelves to his inventory while I was standing on the counter, poking through a pantry cupboard and finding all sorts of dried herbs, some of which were clearly not from Earth. All of them got labeled as Alchemy supplies, so I was just thinking about how glad I was that this wasn't a totally fruitless endeavor when Hope called out that she'd found something.

As we all picked out way gingerly through the strewn trash and gathered around, she held up an oversized, empty pill bottle, comparable to a 2-gallon bucket. On the front was a label featuring a haughty-looking alien creature with a blonde bob haircut and a testimonial about the product:

Rev-Up All-Natural Anti-Pro-Biotic!

New diet got your tummy all aflutter? Did little Breighdon bring back a bug from the homeschool group that is out of line with your Exposure Therapy regime? Not to worry! Our Brand-New, Patented formula can fight all the symptoms WITHOUT any vaccine injury! Using Good Bugs to keep the Bad Bugs and Bad Feelings at bay, Our All-Natural Anti-Pro-Biotic suppository is GAURANTEED effective or your money back!*

Please refrigerate after purchase.

Half of the back label of the bottle was a disclaimer in writing so small that even on the bucket I could barely read it, and it mostly boiled down to legal ways that the company would absolutely refuse to give you your money back. The other half was instructions for use. I thought of how sized-up everything in here was, looking at the pill bucket.

"So, there's more of this in the fridge, you think?" Rhonda asked.

I looked over at the fridge. I had elected to ignore it given the state of the food everywhere else in here. But there was a more important factor here that I think she'd missed. "Uh, you saw that it's a suppository, right? Look how big that pill bottle is."

"Didn't y'all get that sick, too? You playin' if you think I'm gonna go through this again." She gestured to her pus-covered clothes. "If my ex can pound on the backdoor for like 20 minutes, I can take a pill for a few as we blow this boss up." 

"Jesus, Rhonda!" Murphy said, palming her face. I coughed as I glanced aside, while Hope and James looked fit to burst into flames.

Rhonda looked around, confused. "For real? None of y'all ever played around, even with a finger? You dudes know you got a fun-button up in there, right? Hit that bitch real good and y'all be floppin' around on the floor like a fish. I seen it happen."

"Stars and Stones, Rhonda!" I yelped, blushing furiously, "I'll get the damn things out of the fridge if you just stop talking about this."

"Psh, fine, " she said, rolling her eyes, "Ain't my problem that I'm like half y'all's age and have twice as much…HAH!" she suddenly cried out, shocking all of us. "I just got an achievement for keepin' it too real for you little kids! Silver box, bitches!"

I just shook my head, telling Murphy to cover me while I investigated the fridge. She grabbed her P90 from Hope and gestured for the others to stay back. I heard Rhonda ask Hope something about Catholic school, but I deliberately turned my ears off when I heard the phrase "poophole loophole". Holy shit, Charity was going to kill me if we managed to get out of this. Hope looked like she wanted to melt into the ground, and James wasn't that far behind. Murphy and I were both red-faced and awkwardly silent as she walked over to where she'd have a clear shot when the door opened. I stood well back and gripped the door handle with invisible force and pulled the fridge open. 

Our caution was rewarded and uncomfortable conversations were thankfully cut off when a red dot suddenly appeared on the map and a large Trash Ooze Hunter. Level 6 tumbled out. If someone had stood in front of the fridge to open it by hand, it would have swallowed them up instantly. Murphy lit into it with sustained fire and the ooze quickly died, its ambush clearly being the biggest threat it could bring to bear on short order. It had been taking up the entire fridge, which was now empty, but it had many jars and bottles of condiments and other inorganic materials inside its inventory. Including a bottle of the Anti-Pro-Biotics with 3 "doses" left inside.

We brought it over to the group and the two of us had to work together to crack the tamper-proof lid. Looking inside we saw the…suppositories. They were white, elongated ovals about half the size of Murphy's forearm. And they were moving, semi-rigid forms undulating and appearing to glisten. We all looked into the bottle, and then back up at each other.

"Nope, I'm out," said James, "I was thinking about it, those blisters are godawful, but fuck no." The rest of us agreed vehemently. Well, most of the rest of us.

"Gimme that shit," Rhonda said, taking the bottle into her inventory. "I'm going to that bathroom down the hall."

"Rhonda, you're fucking with us, right?" asked James. "You're not really going to–"

"White boy, this ain't even the third weirdest shit I ever done," she replied, voice hard and a little angry. "You come on south of 65th sometime and you'd learn that sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do if you wanna live. Y'all can judge me if you want, but this place ain't playin', and I ain't about to die to some stupid bullshit if an answer's right here." She paused to take a breath, before turning to Hope and asking, "You got any regular Vaseline in that pack of yours?"

Hope did in fact have some regular Vaseline in her first aid kit. Rhonda took it from her and stomped off as I pondered what she'd said. She'd clearly been through some things if this didn't even hit the top 3 of screwed-up scenarios she'd found herself in. That's Chicago for you, I guess. 

James hobbled after her, sending us a chat that he was going to check in with her and make sure nothing ambushed her. Murphy and I, with a little input from Hope, were well in to discussing ways to approach dealing with the boss when we finally heard the two of them returning. I say heard because they were both laughing uproariously.

" – all that, while dressed like his grandma?" James wheezed with mirth every few words, gripping the staff tightly to keep from falling over.

Rhonda was nodding and gesturing enthusiastically. "Hand to God!" she laughed, tears streaming from her eyes. 

The three of us glanced at each other and then looked back at Rhonda and James as they stumbled up. Rhonda had to catch James at one point as he slipped a little. They were both giggling and talking over each other in a rush. I peeked at their health screen and saw that they both had a combination buff/debuff that rendered them immune to disease but gave them something called Mirth Phage that gave them a +5 Strength boost, a -1 Dexterity penalty, and made them more…mirthful. Worst, though, was the fact that the effects strengthened each time a disease was prevented.

"Of course this place couldn't give us something unambiguously positive," grumbled Murphy.

"Hope, you mind playing babysitter?" I asked with a sigh.

"$40 an hour, plus dinner," she rattled off immediately. 

I laughed, shaking my head. "I didn't know Hobbits committed highway robbery, but you've got me over a barrel, so, fine. I'm sure Murphy has some cash on hand." The ex-cop in question shook her head with a smirk. Hope started trying to herd the other two back towards the main hallway with dubious results as Murphy and I approached the "bathroom". She pulled an orange rocket with a stylized decal of big headphones on one side out of her inventory and loaded it into the launcher. 

She posted up a ways back from the doorway while I stood to the side of it, ready to open the scaled-up door and then throw up a shield once Murphy fired. I pulled the door on cue and a shallow wave of water spilled out the door and over my feet. I hopped backwards, but thankfully, it didn't appear to be full of disease. Murphy took aim, but then she froze, lowering the launcher and then pulling it into her inventory.. 

"What do you make of this, Harry?" she asked, her nose wrinkling as she moved to cover her face with her arm.

I peered into the boss chamber and saw a bathroom with furnishings on the same scale as the rest of the "house", but it was probably 3 times the size of the rest of the building. A tub and shower took up basically a third of the room, with a moldy shower curtain hanging loosely. The sink opposite the tub was running slowly and the sink was evidently clogged, because water was pouring off of it and onto the tiled floor that was covered in floating, table-sized Styrofoam takeout containers filled haphazardly with garbage. It looked like there were some oozes lurking within the floating trash islands, but the dots didn't populate on the map and they stayed buried. Straight ahead was an absolutely disgusting toilet, streaked with brown and red on every surface. The toilet seat was up, and the room reeked like a port-a-john that'd been sitting in 110-degree heat uncleaned for a month or two. Burning fluorescent lights in the ceiling lit the room.

Harry: I don't feel like opening my mouth to talk with this here. In the toilet, you think?

Murphy: Probably. The tub looks too clean for the boss of this place to be living in. This is nothing like the rats, the boss there was just kneeling in the center of his dojo with his students, like one of those old kung-fu movies, waiting for the hero to arrive. It was fish in a barrel.

Harry: Well, it's definitely not that here. Lob a grenade or some of that dynamite into the bowl?

Murphy: Worth a shot. It's a good 100-120 feet in there, but that's just inside the maximum throw range for reaching the target before exploding if I'm remembering the manual right. And if the fuses were properly calibrated when they made them. The dynamite would definitely blow too soon. Get ready to cover me.

I nodded, and Murphy glowed briefly, applying the targeting spell she'd gained earlier. She pulled the pin from the grenade that popped into her hand, quickly judged her throw, and pitched it up and away. The grenade flew through the air as I called a shield into place just outside the doorway to block any shrapnel. It exploded as it passed over the lip of the toilet, shattering the front of the bowl and sending porcelain shards shooting across the chamber. Murky-looking water started to spill from the bowl, but nothing else happened. 

Murphy: Maybe we should just skip this one?

Harry: Yeah, forget this.

I dropped the spell and started to turn around to leave when I heard Hope shout out "Hey, wait!" and suddenly Rhonda, carrying James piggyback on her shoulders, one hand holding on to James' crippled left leg and the other wielding her mace, rushed by me.

"Yooooo, something went BOOM over here, hah hah!" she yelled out.

"BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMM!" James shouted, waving his hands in the air and laughing.

"Hell's Bells!" I cried, rushing forward as I tried to wrap them both in force to stop them. Unfortunately, I was much better at brute force than gentle grabs, especially when surprised, and all I managed to do was bounce them off of the open door and in towards the room as they laughed in delight.

Shit, shit, shit! I thought, dashing in after them. Murphy was hot on my heels and Hope managed to squeak in just as the door slammed shut behind us. We all froze. The water in the toilet began sloshing and gurgling, spilling more sludge into the room. Red dots appeared on the map all around us. A fast-paced, bass-heavy song began to play, quickly rising to deafening volume. It was different than the one I'd heard fighting Mecha-Rudolph.

B-B-B-B-B BOSS BATTLE!!!

The Rebel Alliance

All of our portraits slammed into view, one after another.

Murphy: What the hell is going on?!

Harry: Oh, uh…yeah, this happens when you go in the boss chamber. Sorry, forgot to mention that.

James: This music is AWESOME!

Hope: What do we do?!?

Harry: I'll shield. Murphy, make the boom happen, fast, once we unfreeze! I'll keep the shield low and we can duck behind it!

VERSUS 

Erupting out of the toilet came a long, fat tendril that looked like if you shoved a moldy hotdog into a condom and then filled the condom full to near-bursting with sewage. It kept snaking its way out and thickened, until it resembled a pale and massively obese man nearly 12 feet tall shrouded in a thick layer of semisolid waste, sitting on the stained bowl. The man inside the blob's eyes and mouth opened, looking like black pits, as it let out a burbling howl. The boss had a health bar above its head, having taken a little bit of damage from the grenade.

Scumbucket. Level 8 Neighborhood Boss

On the Dole and out of luck, the grease and meat that he stuffed into his face that didn't coat his bones and guts and arteries in blubber caused many a sewage-line blockage downstream, especially when combined with all the supposedly-flushable anti-hemorrhoid wipes he used! The mighty fatberg beneath his home caught the attention of ravenous trash oozes who feasted on his waste within the plumbing. They grew fat from the harvest, and grew, and grew, until they thought to take their food directly from the source. But all the lard he consumed coated him, inside and out, in a hydrophobic layer of grime. The ooze slipped into and around him, unable to do him harm, giving him sustenance and recycling his waste in a lovely display of mutualism. Splitting off new oozes from its main body to bring more food to their originator, Scumbucket has the combined gluttony of an unfillable void and a loser with the insatiable desire to eat his feelings and is going to make it everyone's problem. Especially yours.

AAAAAAND HERE. WE. GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

I immediately dove forward into Rhonda and James, knocking them down and calling up a low arc of shield in front of us. With the door closed, the water was beginning to rise as the sink continued to pour. Murphy drew out and launched the rocket before diving to knock Hope down to shelter behind the shield. Small oozes launched little gobbets of sludge at us before the tremendous BANG of the rocket detonating on the boss caused us all to reel from the enormous noise and shockwave as the monster screamed in pain.

"OI!, OI, GERROUTA HERE!" spewed the boss in a voice that sounded like that chimney sweep from Mary Poppins if he had been gargling a Diet Coke and Mentos smoothie during all his lines as it belched out through the ooze. "THA COUNCIL AIN'T GORRA RIGHT TA INVADE THA HOME OF A LAW-ABIDIN' CITIZEN! AAARGHABBBLLAGHL!"

The creature had a little under half its health left, but it started vomiting forth a gushing geyser of ooze down onto the floor. Was it actually a person? It spoke, and the description seemed to say so. If it was, I'd be severely limited in what I could do. But it couldn't be, not and look like that. Could it? I don't know if I should dare to open my Sight in here to get an inkling. We'd just have to take it out the old-fashioned way. 

As the smaller oozes began taking potshots at us, Murphy popped up and down with her P90 and rattled off fire at them, taking a few of them out before getting tagged by one spitting at her from the other side of the room. I had been busy trying to keep James from getting up, but when Murphy cried out, I scrabbled over to her to keep her out of the water as the sickness set in. A barrage of plinking noises sounded, feeling like hailstones against my shield.

"Hah! Pew! Pew! Pew!" called out James, getting to his knees and firing off magic missiles towards the boss over the shield's edge. Some of them even hit. He took a few shots himself, but they barely hurt, so without the disease debuff they were almost beneath notice.

I scooped a cursing and sickened Murphy into my free arm easily with my enhanced strength and was looking for a place to get her out of the line of fire before a sudden "Uh-Oh" from James made me turn. The boss had finished vomiting and was sweeping its arms about, the water and sludge forming into a huge bolus. 

"A MAN'S GOT THA RIGHT TA DEFEND HIS HOME, INNIT?" the thing gurgle-shrieked as it pushed towards us, the water surging forth like the waves in an overenthusiastic wave pool.

"Everybody, get on the takeout!" I yelled, shield dissipating as I jumped into the nearest one. I wobbled as I cast out my staff and cried "Arctis!

I had tried to freeze the incoming wave and mostly succeeded, a large chunk freezing to the ground. But the momentum of the water behind it, breaking around the sudden obstacle, soon knocked it free with a crack and it came sliding quickly towards us. I was about to shatter it with a hammer of force when Rhonda stumbled hastily forward , mace held in both hands.

I only had enough time to start to cry out before she swung her mace, hard. It let out a ring like a gong when it stuck the ice, which flew back a dozen feet and shattered.

"Hah! I knew it'd work!" she yelled in triumph. Which quickly turned to sputtering gagging when a ball of slime, flung by Scumbucket crashed over her. Her health dipped yellow before she glowed with a healing spell. 

"Rhonda, what – urk!" I started to say, when a level 2 ooze that had evidently been lurking in the depths of the rotting takeout soup that filled this container calf-deep tried to wrap itself around my foot. I stomped it into an X but I could already feel the sickness coming on. Rhonda was getting hammered with little spitballs and cackling, while Hope looked to have pulled James into one of the other tubs. The boss was heaving out for another wave. The water was rising. I stumbled down to my knees, dropping Murphy, the both of us falling into the gunk. As we tried to rise and stabilize ourselves on the lip of the takeout container, I got a message

Rhonda: Yo, I got plan! It's gonna be as good as that sledding we did. You gotta Wizard my ass up to the boss! I can't walk or talk or hardly aim for shit right now, but my strength is 66! 71! Come on, before the water gets too deep!

Hell's Bells, that might work. As we'd made our way through the neighborhood, we'd talked about how the disease made it basically impossible to aim and hard to move and what we could do to protect ourselves if we got hit. I had said that I could use blunt planes of force to shove people around in straight lines to get them out of the way if needed, even if I had been debuffed. Probably. She had obviously been paying attention, because she'd lined herself up square with the toilet. With her strength that high from the suppository buff adding up like that, she'd probably be able to splatter the boss. 

I decided to trust her. I could still take it out with magic if I had to. It couldn't still be a person, altered as it was. Right? It had to be like a Dungeon version of a Renfield, a thrall without any free will left. Or would it be different because it was a boss? I decided to leave that as a last resort. If I needed to, I could probably fling myself at the thing and whack it with my staff if I got close enough that I couldn't possibly miss, even if I was falling-over sick. 

I formed my will into as soft and hydrodynamic of a wall as I could manage and, with a cry of "Forzare!" I sent her rushing down the room. The creature paused its vomiting to spit another gob of waste at her, but she plowed right through it. She was rapidly approaching the toilet. It leaned forward, stretching grotesquely, like it was going to try to snap down and swallow her up.

Harry: Stopping the push in 3! 

Harry: 2! 

Harry: 1!

Harry: Now!

I let go and she tumbled forward. But as she fell, she whipped her mace overhead and hurled it up at the looming monster that was practically towering right above her on its throne. It rocketed through the boss and buried itself hilt-first into the wall, all the way to its flanged head. The hole in its torso started spurting a firehose of blood, gore, excrement, and Hell knows what else all over the room as the creature seemed to shrink and deflate, all of its innards quickly becoming outards. Everyone and everything in the room got drenched. 

WINNER! appeared and thankfully the music stopped and all of the remaining oozes in the room popped into Xs. The door broke open and the water quickly drained out, the sink's flow coming to a stop as well.

"HELL Yeah!" Rhonda whooped in the distance as Murphy and I flopped ourselves out onto the slightly less disgusting floor. 

"Everyone ok?" I croaked out. A chorus of groans and one "I'm not having very much fun anymore." from James assured me that we'd all made it. In a few minutes, most of us had recovered and we'd all snagged the neighborhood map. Retrieving Rhonda's mace from the wall took about half an hour of smashing the walls with magic and pulling at it with all of our enhanced strength.

We weren't helped in that endeavor by the fact that Rhonda lost the effect from the anti-pro-biotic well before James. Evidently, each subsequent buff from an infection being prevented also shortened the length of time that the buff lasted. It was pretty annoying that the description didn't tell you that. 

After cleaning off as best as we could, we quickly decided by mutual agreement to use the map to dodge the rest of the enemies in this neighborhood, barring a brief encounter to let James get "diseased" a few times to remove the debuff making him loopy. After that, we hightailed it towards the boss room in Cyber-Elf territory.

As we walked, I kept pace with Rhonda, a little behind the others.

"That was a smart idea," I said after a bit of walking. "How'd you manage to keep it together so well? It seemed like that effect was pretty distracting."

She grunted. "Psh, yeah. It was like a voice pushin' on me, making me want to try things that seemed fun or funny," she said, shaking her head. "But I could still tell what was goin' on. I learned a long time ago that you gotta keep your head on straight even if you goin' out your mind. Took me a minute to remember that, but once I did, I just had to hype myself up that what I needed to do was what'd be fun to do, and then it was pushin' on me to do that instead, ya feel me?"

"You…reverse-psychology'd yourself into tricking the dungeon debuff into helping you instead of hurting you?" I said incredulously.

"Hah! Nah, it's more like…you ever had a customer come to your work all mad about something and they just goin' off at you out of nowhere?" she asked. 

"Not exactly, but I get the idea. I was a licensed PI, most of my clients were…fine. It's usually the people they were having my look into that had the problems," I said.

She looked surprised at that. I guess we hadn't really spent much time chitchatting and maybe it hadn't come up when she, Hope, and James had been talking. "Oh shit, for real? You know that guy…uh…Rick somethin'? From Angel Investigators?"

That made me raise my eyebrows. Nick Christian, who showed me the ropes of being a private investigator almost 2 decades ago now, had a small, dingy operation in a bad part of town. He wasn't exactly high-profile. I shook a bit with realization. Unless he was out on a case, he'd probably gotten caught up in the collapse. My core group of close friends had been mostly spared, but I knew so many people around town that I hadn't even had the time to think about trying to warn. These aliens had more and more to answer for with every passing minute. I shook my head and continued. There'd be time for that later.

"You mean Ragged Angel?" I said, "His name's Nick Christian. Yeah, I know…knew…him. He trained me, actually, before I got my license. How'd you hear of him? He wasn't really one for trying to make a name for himself."

"Yeah! That's the one. He figured out what happened to one of my friend's cousins. Kid had been missing for 6 months, cops weren't doing shit," she said, spitting angrily onto the ground. "Took him another 6 to find out what happened, but he didn't give up. They family got to have a proper burial, and some brothers down the way got the chance to have a talk with some folks. Worked out in the end." I nodded sadly at that. For every Murphy there had been in the CPD, sometimes it seemed like there were a dozen or two Rudolphs or worse. Sometimes people had to find their own justice. It wasn't right or fair, but that's the way these things happened sometimes.

"Anyway," she continued, "I think you get what I'm saying. Somebody comes pushin' at you, trying to move you how they want. Most of them is so mad that they distracted, not thinking straight. So, you just listen to 'em and find something to say to help 'em take they anger somewhere else and they latch onto it like a pitbull. The voice was like that. It wasn't me, but it sounded like it, right? Like…you ever get drunk and have an idea? And you know it isn't a good idea but drunk you in the back of your mind being lowkey real persuasive?" 

I smirked at that. I wasn't normally much of a drinker, but I'd seen the results of exactly that mindset a number of times. I nodded and she went on.

"It was like that but…I don't know. Stronger? But just like if you drunk, and somebody'll say somethin' or the music gets good, or whatever that hits you hits you and then you all in on somethin' else. It just wanted me to do fun and exciting shit. It didn't care what and it didn't really make me stupid like booze. Thinking about doing some crazy ridiculous shit like you did with that sled was like throwin' a stick for a dog. Once it was after the idea, it was easier to think of how to make it happen, 'cause I wanted to do it, and so did it. And the more hits I took, the more locked in it got and it was easy to tell what I wanted. It was making me laugh too hard to talk the whole time, though, and I'm pissed that I still think a little that it probably was funny as fuck for those alien assholes to watch. Had to be some real WorldStar shit."

James: Rhonda! Estor said we shouldn't talk about the aliens out loud! 

I guess he'd been listening in. Though we hadn't been talking particularly quietly, either. 

"Screw that," I said. "Amen to that!" Rhonda replied.

James: No, really! He said that if we talk about the showrunners or the Syndicate government, it gets recorded and sent for review. If we piss them off, they'll basically force the game to kill us!

"Fuck that, and fuck them," I reiterated, clenching my fists. We were still walking down the hallways, and I was feeling my pace picking up.

Murphy: God dammit, Harry. James, you said "out loud". We can still talk about them here, right?

James: Yes. And if we don't say "Borant" or "Syndicate"…and some other things, I think. Basically, don't say the names out loud and probably don't talk too much out loud anyway.

Murphy: You can mouth off to them in our heads if it keeps all of us from getting killed, Dresden.

I took a deep breath. "Yeah. Fine. Sure," I said. I could avoid saying names. That was Fairies 101. I had a…mostly good track record with that. I moderated my pace and fell in with everyone. We walked the rest of the way in careful silence, and I took the time to think more on our situation. I was going to have a lot of questions for Lorelai after the "show" premiered. 

Soon enough, we'd returned to the boss room of Mecha-Rudolph. Nobody had found and looted the place before us, apparently, so I was able to break off limbs of the robot and add them to my inventory. Hopefully there really were useful parts we could use with that table. The fact that my inventory now had a tab called "Scrapyard" wasn't much of a positive sign.

Since this stuff wasn't all covered in death-pustule disease, I felt a lot better about James' "loot everything" philosophy. I just hoped that the system to organize it was actually good once you started filling it with more stuff than I had so far. I had heard things about spreadsheets from the computer-users in my life.

There was bunch of extra sleigh parts, standard stable gear and tools, and some other machines that I was strong enough to rip off their mounts and carry. Everybody took some things that might be useful; rope, tools, lanterns, and the like. Even with splitting it up, I still got an achievement for carrying over 1 ton of weight in my inventory, giving me a Gold Looter Box. 

We looked over the map afterwards and checked the time. We had a few hours until the premier aired, and though there were a couple of rooms with elves in them that we could raid, none of us felt up to it right now. Hope spotted a saferoom nearby and we trudged our way there. We turned the corner and for once we had something unambiguously positive to look upon. A glowing red and yellow sign hung above us; It was like we'd found an oasis in the desert. Paradise after trekking through Hell and Purgatory.

DENNY'S it read. 

Chapter Text

Our bedraggled company hurried eagerly through the door to the saferoom. Inside, it looked like any Denny's restaurant you might find off the side of the highway in the upper Midwest. They weren't what anybody would call "high quality", but they were easy to find, open 24 hours, and usually had coffee that wasn't completely awful. I'd had more than a few early morning or late-night meals on my way to or from jobs that took me out of town at restaurants much like this one.

The biggest difference was that this Denny's was completely empty, save for a short being standing on a stool behind the bar seating in the back of the restaurant. The creature looked a little bit like a hairier and slightly greener-colored version of Gwynn ap Nudd, a minor Fairie King that I'd occasionally caught Cubs games with. It was short, bearded, with a big nose and odd, watery eyes. It wore a nondescript brown and green tunic ensemble with little white cook's cap on its head, like it was staffing a 1950s-style diner. As I looked at it, a tooltip appeared.

Gerrow. Bopca Protector. Level 45.

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.

He, I assumed, stared at us silently as we approached. When I sat down on the barstool, various offensive remnants of our day dripping off of me, he turned to me and spoke. His movements seemed stiff, a little strange-looking. 

"Greetings, human Crawlers," he said in a gravely, vaguely Eastern-European accent, "Will you be requiring any amenities? Food? Rooms?" He paused as he looked over each of us in turn. "Showers?"

"Definitely showers," said Murphy fervently. We all nodded in agreement

"Then food!" I added. "Do you just have the regular Denny's menu? Where is one?"

"I can prepare any food the human Crawlers would like," replied Gerrow, "Except I am out of frog legs and pineapples. They were taken for other use. But I am having anything else to prepare for human Crawlers. Place your order, and I shall have it for you after your showers."

Looking around, everyone was apparently as enthusiastic as I was about the prospect of real food. I'd been looking forward the idea of pancakes and bacon, but if anything was on offer…

"Can I get a steak sandwich and fries? And do you have any beer?" I asked him.

"I am having only one kind of beer," he said, producing a bottle of a brand of beer I'd never seen before, 'Leon'. The label said it was produced in Mexico. He continued, asking, "Any cheese? Onions, mushrooms, or peppers? And what is the doneness of the steak?"

I had to consider it for a moment. Mac never asked anybody how they wanted things cooked. But it always turned out exactly how I liked it. Odd, now that I thought about it. I finished my order, beer included, and everyone else took their turn. We ended up leaving Rhonda at the bar, engaged in a discussion with Gerrow on if he could make "real sushi, not that gas station shit" and what he'd recommend. 

We all took quick showers and changed into the…I guess functionally they were pajamas…that Hope had given us when we last rested. I was going to clean up the rest of the clothing after eating. Gerrow produced my meal when I approached, seemingly from nowhere. Did he have an inventory? Or was it just something he could do? Deciding that I didn't really care, I took my sandwich and pulled out a chair at the large round table where James and Murphy were already sitting. 

Murphy was eating a full Thanksgiving spread, with all the sides and an extra-big slice of pecan pie. She'd gotten a couple of beers, too. James had a plate of tamales with beans and rice. They were both wolfing down their food exactly like somebody who had only eaten a strangely filling square of cardboard in the last 24+ hours would. I sat down and bit into my sandwich. A savory burst of flavor exploded onto my tongue. I might have groaned. It was an amazing sandwich. I don't know if I'd say it was better than Mac's, but it was a damn close second, much more than I'd expected. I tore into it with the gusto the others were displaying for their own meals

When I finally took a moment to breath and take a sip of the beer, which unfortunately wasn't anything special, I finally took a look at the screens. Two of them, the ones about rooms and leaderboard, were pretty much identical to the ones in the last saferoom, just we had the pick of 20 rooms here instead of 10. The third screen said:

Countdown until the premiere of Dungeon Crawler World: Earth:

2 hours, 27 minutes
Remaining Crawlers:
4,137,306

It ticked down by half a dozen just as I took a second swig of beer. Jesus. Almost 9 million dead in just over a day. The by itself was mind-boggling, let alone how many must have been killed when everything collapsed. I wondered how many people could be left on the surface. I hoped that the members of the Paranet we had managed to alert had gotten out and would be able to help. With substantially less technology around, they might be able to make a big difference in helping people survive. Assuming the mundane folks up top didn't get Salem fever and the aliens hadn't landed an army on-planet, anyway. I was wrapped up in thoughts on that vein when Hope finally joined us. She'd also gotten what looked like a holiday meal, centered around thick, steaming slabs of ham and cheesy potatoes. And she, too, had a beer in hand.

"Uhhh…Hope?" I said, hesitantly.

"Yeah, Harry?" she replied, clearly feigning nonchalance as she set about cutting into her dinner with perhaps a little more focus than usual. Her eyes widened as she took her first bite and that distracted her for a moment.

I shared a worried glance with Murphy.

She cleared her throat and said, "Hope, you're going to need to –"

"You're not my Mom, Miss Murphy," Hope interrupted sharply. Her gaze turned to me. She looked very much like her mother in that moment. Unfortunately for her, she ruined the effect a little by sounding precisely her age as she continued. "And you aren't my dad. And both of them have a beer every now and then to relax, too! I just had the same day you had. Why shouldn't I get to have one?" She quickly grabbed her beer and chugged from it. And immediately gagged and began coughing up a lung. That got a chuckle out of me, and Murphy had a small smile on her face. James was resolutely staying out of it, focused on his food, which was probably the smart call. 

"I was going to say," Murphy said when Hope's coughing had subsided, "that you're going to need to be careful. I'm not going to stop you, partly because it's your choice what you want to do, and mostly because you're right: a beer or two now and then usually doesn't hurt anybody."

"I was thinking about stopping you," I interjected, grinning, "But mostly because this beer is crap."

"It's not bad, you're just spoiled by Mac's," Murphy retorted. 

I nodded judiciously. That was fair. Though now I had to wonder. Had Mac made it outside? I don't think anybody in the community living near his bar would have let him stay in if they'd been alerted. And he definitely wasn't 100% human, though I only had suspicions about his true nature. He probably had gotten the scoop somewhere. But did that mean his beer made it into the dungeon? Maybe one of the Bopca Protectors somewhere had some. That would be quite the stroke of luck for somebody. I sent Murphy a private chat about Mac, but she was more focused on Hope.

"You need to be careful," Murphy said, and then paused for a moment, thinking over her words, "because after everything you've been through since you got in here, it's going to be really easy to want to numb yourself. To try make the horrible things hurt less. And that can go south quick, especially when you use things like alcohol to help it along. And…I don't think this place is going to let up. I just wanted to let you know that I'm here to help. And I've been where you are. So has Harry. And James and Rhonda have been through it with you, too. We're all here for each other. We can't make everything go away, but we can help each other through it."

While Murphy was talking, Hope had set the beer down and wiped off her face. She stared listlessly down at her plate. As Murphy finished speaking, she reached out cautiously and Hope grabbed her hand like a lifeline, pulling herself into Murphy's arms and sobbing.

"I…I know they're just su-sup-supposed to be monsters, and they were hu-hu-hu-hurting me," she wept, "But they looked like people. They screamed. I hit one in the ne – hic – in the neck with Mom's axe and the blood…! And that p-p-poor muh-man in the ba-bathroom!" She buried her face into Murphy's shoulder. She kept talking, but I couldn't make it out. Murphy gently stroked her hair.

Murphy: He's fine, as far as I know. 'Netters got him out fast. Now get your ass over here.

I awkwardly stood and shuffled over to the two women. Murphy hooked nearby chair with her foot and dragged it over next to her, pulling me gently down into the seat with her less-occupied hand. I started patting Hope's back slowly, which made Murphy glare at me. She shifted and basically pulled me into the tangled mess of a three-way hug where two of the people were in separate chairs. I felt Winter start to sit up and take an interest in the situation and squashed it flat immediately. I was helped along a moment later when James asked to get in on the hugging action. It felt a little…strange. Until last "night" with Murphy, I hadn't really had much physical contact that hadn't ended in violence in some way for the last couple of years. It was honestly a shock to my system.

Eventually, we began to break apart. I felt oddly lighter. I guess I'd needed that, too. Hope got back to eating as I helped James navigate back to his seat. She gave a little laugh.

"Can I say something kinda…bad?" she asked, quietly. That made me snort in amusement.

"Sure, kid," I said, munching on my slightly-cooled fries.

"Don't tell my mom, but…I think Mr. Gerrow can make a better ham than she can. And these scalloped potatoes are amazing! Can we make this our home base for a while?"

That got a laugh out of Murphy and me, but we all thought it was probably not a bad idea. We were in the middle of discussing some sort of breakfast feast after our next round of sleep when Rhonda finally joined us. She was carrying a large platter covered with little bits of rice and fish, along with a small bottle and ceramic cup. I noticed that she had on a new earring, a small golden hoop, and a ring with a slight pinkish glow. She'd obviously opened her boxes while showering.

"Get anything good?" I asked as she sat down, gesturing to my own ear.

"The earring's not bad, adds to my dexterity. Wish it had a matching one. But the ring," she said, holding her had up. It had a little pink stone that was the source of the glow. "This gives me +10 to Charisma! Wearing it made that Bopca guy a lot more friendly. He offered me this bottle of sake to go with the meal! I never ate at a real sushi place before, you know, like those fancy ones where you get the menu the chef picks out? So, if y'all don't mind, I'm gonna enjoy this." 

The rest of us finished our own meals as Rhonda savored hers and we all opened our boxes. We all had a few various Adventurer boxes for various pointless achievements like searching through cabinets for the first time, disassembling Mecha-Rudolph, and the like. I'd gotten a silver one for swallowing some of that ooze I'd killed with the Rush skill that I'd forgotten to open when we'd returned from scouting. They mostly gave what was clearly the standard assortment of potions, biscuits, torches, and some mundane bits of clothing. My silver adventurer box gave a quiver of enchanted arrows that did slightly more damage than usual, which was useless. Murphy got some more dynamite and everyone other than me and James had a few Gunslinger and Ranged Weapon boxes with more ammo and a few worthless "weapons". The Gold Looter Box ended up containing a Skill Potion that gave +1 to the Determine Value skill. Taking it allowed me to rank items in my inventory by relative value, which was interesting but not immediately useful. At least I learned that my hat, which I hadn't put back on due to the low ceilings, was the most valuable thing I currently held in my inventory aside from the Swords.

It was the boss boxes that contained the more interesting things, mostly. James got a ring that boosted his Constitution by 2, which was very handy but not flashy. Murphy, on the other hand, got 5 Hobgoblin Detonators. Each was a segmented stick, like of those weird pyramidal candy bars, with 10 pieces. She could break the pieces off and plug them into explosives like dynamite and turn them into remote-detonated bombs. Each 10-piece stick was triggered by a single detonator. Those would be perfect for setting up traps or demolitions. 

My own box contained something that resembled what you'd get if you asked a 50s Sci-Fi novel cover artist to design a cordless drill. I was a little offended that it didn't match the visuals from the few episodes of Dr. Who I'd caught on motel TVs while traveling with my father, before he'd died.

Sonic Screwdriver

It's a screwdriver, but sonic! May only be used at a workbench. Can shape, fasten, and unfasten connectors between two or more objects. Operational Range: 80 – 180 dB.

That could be pretty useful if we ever had to build things. Judging by the value of most of the workbenches as just under that of my stupid hat in my inventory, that was probably a sure thing at some point. I just hoped that the listed "Operational Range" didn't mean what I thought it did. 

What emerged from Hope's box was…well, the item seemed useful. It looked like a slightly scaled-up toy rifle, but with a high-quality walnut stock featuring red and gold filigree that spelled out Red Ryder in an elegant font on both sides. However, I could see Hope's face fall as she saw the little inscription on one side of the stock: "For Daddy's Little Killer". The description just twisted the knife. The AI's voice was dripping with a menacingly venomous façade of good cheer as it spoke in our minds.

Enchanted RR Custom Daisy Legacy Semiautomatic Rimfire Rifle

This is a Unique Item

The perfect accompaniment to Scout Camp for those little scamps who've graduated from plinking soda cans to killing varmints, what this Baby's First Murder Implement lacks in range and stopping power it makes up for in versatility for a little girl who's lost and alone. It was custom-ordered by a doting Rat-man father for his little sniveling rat-daughter after they watched some holiday movies together. She was going to get it for her birthday! Until somebody cut her daddy's head half-off. Now you get it instead! Careful you don't shoot your eye out.

This item has the Buffet Enchantment

This item has the Mage Bullet Enchantment

I didn't get a chance to examine what the enchantments did because Hope started sobbing as the rifle went into her inventory and she fled back towards the rooms.

"What an asshole," I growled, scowling up at the ceiling where I was assuming at least some of the AI's cameras were watching. I started to get up, but Murphy waved me down. She dumped her pile of filthy gear onto the ground, which made Gerrow the Bopca make an angry grunting sound. 

"I'll take care of it, Harry," she said while she pulled her shotgun and Colt pistol out of her inventory and laid them on the table. "James and Rhonda, start on the shotgun, then the pistol with Harry's kit. Harry, get on laundry duty and we should be in good shape when the recap starts." We all agreed, and she walked into the back hallway where the room entrances were. She'd collect Hope's clothes for me.

I gathered everybody else's laundry in a crate I'd taken from the reindeer stables. I played with my menus a bit as I cleaned everybody's gear, adding in Hope's after about 10 minutes. I eventually learned that the party leader had the option to give everyone in the party titles. Excellent. Obviously, I was a Jedi Knight. James was clearly a Padawan. When I changed his title, he replied to the party chat.

James: What the hell? Harry, what are you doing?

Murphy: What do you mean? Harry, what's going on?

Darn. Apparently, they got notifications when I did this. I'd have to hurry up. Hope was already a Jawa according to Molly, so I just needed to make that official. Rhonda…was clearly the group's Chewbacca given the whole smash-but-no-magic thing she had going on, but even I wasn't clueless enough to call a woman that. I thought for a moment and decided to go with Bounty Hunter for her. That only left Murphy. It wasn't really a title, but I snickered to myself as I entitled Murphy as A Little Short for a Stormtrooper.

Murphy: So help me God, Dresden, we have magical healing potions. I can shoot you and know you'll be fine in a minute. Don't test me on this.

I got a good laugh at that for a while before eventually changing Murphy's title to Mandalorian. She seemed mostly mollified when I gave her the rundown on the warrior culture; she'd never read the novels. Hope eventually petitioned me to change her title to Astromech Droid because of her scouting skills, which I magnanimously acquiesced to. 

Soon enough, we were decked out in mostly-clean gear, had two more magical firearms ready to go and were sat down to watch the premier. Gerrow had come out to one of the tables to join us. As the premier started, it was actually somewhat hard to tell anything had begun. There was an orange lizard-person in a picture-in-picture window announcing things in an almost-indecipherable accent while the camera seemed to spin about as if it were inside a tornado. Gerrow said that viewers who were getting the "tunnel", which was apparently the alien equivalent to cable networks, could see things either in virtual reality or through a moveable birds-eye view camera. Translating that to a 2-D screen evidently didn't work so well. 

They eventually started on a summary of the last season of the show, Battle for Planet Aryl. The producers of that season, the "Squim Conglomerate", scooped up the people of the world and forced them into a city-sized gladiator arena. The gorilla-like aliens of the planet were shown in various scenes of battle in the multi-floored arena before it shifted to a scene where a large gorilla skewered what looked like an elderly one riding some sort of pig-based chimera as a mount. As WINNER flashed on the screen, the living gorilla collapsed into anguished sobs before the screen went blank. 

"I guess that's one of the other ways these aliens run this thing," I mused out loud.

"Yes," replied Gerrow, surprising me. Some sort of weird commercial was playing on the screen. He continued. "Squim Conglomerate always choose Battle Royale. Is cheap to produce, but low revenue. Bad for crawlers, too. Only one winner."

I boggled at that. All the people who came into a dungeon, and only one survived? 

"After they're done, there's only one person left on the whole planet?" James gasped.

Gerrow shook his head a little. "Some others live," he said, "But Squim mine resources, not just elements. Soon leave planet barren. Is better, the dying."

I had a realization. "Were you a crawler, too? Like our guide?" I asked.

"No," said Gerrow. He did not turn to face me when he talked, just stared up at the screen. It had started with an anatomical exploration of "Earth-human gene stock", with an inordinate amount of focus on genitals, but was now playing clips from the worst that Earth had to offer: slums and murder and drugs. Corruption, war, and famine were the rule of the day, based on what they were showing. This wasn't just a show, I realized. This was propaganda. They were giving Earth, my home, the full wretched hive of scum and villainy treatment to try to justify what they were doing to us. I bristled with outrage, Winter perking up within me. 

Gerrow kept speaking, ignoring my inner turmoil. "Some planets, Syndicate gives choice: do crawl, or offer service," he said, "I, and others of my people, came to fulfill contract. For sparing of home. This was many, many cycles ago, now." 

That cut off conversation pretty definitively. I wanted to ask more questions, but thinking back to Lorelai, I decided that maybe I shouldn't try to make the people we met in here dig up old bones if I didn't truly need to. 

Soon, the screen showed the collapse happening to a city I didn't recognize the skyline of, and then a very cheesy 3-D animated diagram appeared, detailing the formation for the first 3 dungeon floors like an inverted pyramid underneath the surface of the planet. People were shown streaming into the dungeon, especially large groups in Africa, Southeast Asia, and what I think was Brazil based on the flag that I glimpsed. For three quarters of an hour, the show played scene after horrifying scene of people dying in droves. Fleeing from strange-looking monsters like flying manta rays that shot beams of yellow light that withered limbs and people, or kangaroos with boxing gloves and gang tattoos. A slime thing, similar to the oozes we had fought, dropped onto someone's head and the screen zoomed in, slow-motion, to watch their anguished face slowly dissolve into a slurry of gore. Over and over. And still there were millions of incidents that they didn't show. The counter had dipped to just above 4 million people left, and was still counting down. 

I had to force myself to keep watching. Hope and James turned their heads away soon enough, and the rest of us tried to work out a system over chat where we kept notes on enemies in turn in our scratch pads. I think we missed a lot, the images flashed so quickly sometimes that it was hard to tell anything definitive about what we were seeing. I was seething by 10 minutes in and Winter pulsed in sympathetic rage, filling me with the urge to break something, anything, that I could that belonged to these bastards. I had to double down on my analysis of the creatures we saw to divert my mind away from where Winter wanted to take me. I was so focused on my task that I missed the transition in the show to where it started showing people winning their fights.

This segment was much shorter, just over 5 minutes. A large group of heavily armed people with shotguns and bows took down the first borough boss of the floor in a hail of fire, the Lovecraftian nightmare exploding into a fountain of gore. Their faces and names flashed on the screen along with the box contents of their prizes, a plethora of ranged weapons and deadly spells. A few other people came across screen, taking down small groups of minor mobs in flashy ways, and then I saw something that really made me sit up and take notice.

The scene was a boss chamber of some sort, with the monsters being some sort of snake-people with human torsos and legless, snake bodies. The whole chamber was literally an orgy of violence that I had only seen once before in my life: when the leaders of the White Court had been fighting for their lives against Vito Malvora's super-ghouls and had given in to their demons in the throes of battle. Here was the same, though there were only 4 Vampires present. Their names and portraits appeared on the screen as the boss died in a mix of agony and ecstasy. Alessandro Malv. Lucrezia Rai. Eustacio. Alya Ra. 

If they could feed openly on mobs like that, they were going to become a huge problem. The White Court were the closest to human of the vampire "breeds", which must be why they had been able to come in here and work within the system in the first place. But their strength was proportional to how well they had fed. In the mortal world, they had to be circumspect, but here… I'd like to think that we could use that strength against the aliens, but I could count the number of scions of the White Court that I trusted as far as I could throw them on one hand. And other than my brother, only Lara would have been a useful ally in here, so long as I could keep my eye on her.

The next scene featured a tween girl of Hispanic or maybe native origin, fighting giant spiders with her two rottweilers. Wow, those dogs really went to town on that thing. A few other scenes passed and suddenly I saw myself on the screen for a moment. I was fighting Mecha-Rudolph, one hand clutching my wounded side, the other palm up, facing the beast. A bold Level 1 hovered over my own head and Level 9 hung over the cyborg. The boss' head suddenly exploded in sparks and WINNER flashed as my portrait and an overview of my Legendary box popped up before being whisked away to showcase other crawlers. The fight hadn't actually ended then, but I guess they decided to take liberties to speed things up.

The little girl appeared again, this time wielding a mace that was much fancier than Rhonda's and wearing glowing plate armor. One of her dogs wore what looked like chainmail and the other was shooting lightning out of its mouth. Huh. And I thought I had gotten a lot of loot, especially compared to Rhonda, Hope, and James. Looks like this kid had me beat there. Her name was Lucia Mar and her dogs were named Cici and Gustavo 3. Her wrathful face, framed in the portrait onscreen, was disconcerting.

And then there I was, again. This time, it showed me standing on the dais above the shattered remains of the Mechanist who'd been torturing James. The look of fury on my face surprised me as my televised avatar swept his staff in an arc and incinerated the roomful of elves. I'd never seen myself from outside like that. I…didn't look well. In fact, I looked rather unhinged. The screen zoomed in on a group of elves as their faces blackened in the fire and then flashed to a close up of me laughing uproariously. That had clearly, to me, been taken from elsewhere in the dungeon, but it was spliced in here with deliberate intent. It flashed back and forth between the two scenes, my laughing face and that of the elves as their eyeballs exploded and began evaporating instantly in the vesuvian heat of my anger as they shriveled and died. 

And then it ended. Images of different mobs appeared and disappeared faster than I could follow and the announcer bade us all to stay tuned for a discussion on rules and information for placing bets. Then the screen went blank and flipped back to the Leaderboard announcement.

**************

 Carl

"Carl, this is an outrage! Even after our epic battle with the Hoarder, they decided to showcase some scruffy vagabond who looks like the criminal on a neighborhood watch poster instead of us as the finale! And don't even get me started on whatever was happening with those snake people, Carl. This is supposed to be the galaxy's greatest entertainment program, not a who's who from 'To Catch a Predator'!" Donut complained loudly, looking mutinous.

"I'm pretty sure that's the same guy who fought that robot deer boss at level 1 and beat it, Donut," I said, "I think our fight might have been a little tame for the viewers by comparison." I wondered how he'd been able to do it; he hadn't had any obviously magical gear, but he'd made the thing's head explode with no harm to himself. Donut and I together had struggled against a boss that was only level 7.

Donut scoffed incredulously but her incoming tirade was interrupted by an announcement by the same woman who'd alerted us to the closing of the stairs into the dungeon. After it finished, Donut turned to look at me, acting all haughty and aloof.

"Well, if we couldn't make this show, we can certainly make it onto the next," she said, licking her paw fastidiously. "We simply need to find one of these borough bosses and take it out. Or maybe you can find this Dresden fellow and challenge him to a duel. I bet if you blew him up, we'd get all his ratings!"

I sighed deeply. "No, Donut, what we need is to find the stairs down. And I'm not going to blow up another crawler."

"Even if he dresses like a school shooter and seems to really like burning people?" she asked me, her eyes wide and bright.

"Even then, Donut," I said, patting her. "Better if we just avoid people like that." The chilling image of the man's laughing face overlaid with the burning mobs made me sure of that, at least. "Now c'mon. Let's get out of here."

Donut hopped up onto my shoulder as we headed out of the safe room. "Well, at least he didn't have any dogs with him," she said under her breath as we got moving. She was apparently mumbling ideas to herself "And of course you're too dense to lead a doomed affair with one of those glowing women. It would be ratings gold, I'm sure, but, alas, we work with the tools we have. I wonder if they've ever seen Twilight…"

"Goddammit, Donut," I muttered as I set off down the hallway.

***************

 "Not gonna lie, man, that was pretty fucked up," Rhonda said, eyeing me askance as the show ended.

"They took the laughing from somewhere else!" I said, hotly. I was about to continue my self-defense when a voice reverberated from on high. It was the "Can-I-Speak-To-A-Manager" woman who'd announced the stair closings when we'd first come in.

Good job so far, everyone! We've had 15 Borough Bosses taken out and over 1500 Neighborhood Bosses killed. A pair of crawlers even came across a City Boss, but that ended as you might expect. Losses are right on the projected track.

You'll be getting these announcements after each episode. A couple quick patch notes:

She rambled on for a while about various "bugs" in the system that they'd repaired: spells that none of us knew had been adjusted, they'd supposedly fixed the exploding-when-entering-an-occupied-bathroom issue, and made it so that you couldn't add mobs to the inventory in order to kill them. Now that would have been a handy trick to have. I kept an ear open for anything that seemed relevant, but nothing seemed directly applicable to anybody in our party. I perked up again when she changed topics.

We are now populating the staircases down to level 2. Remember, everyone: only go down the stairs early if you absolutely have to. Once you descend to the next floor, you can't go back up. Also, we're trying something new this season. If you prematurely descend, you will be held in stasis until the collapse. So those of you working on your social numbers, keep that in mind! Viewers tend to lose interest quickly, and you'll shed favorites if you're not accessible for a couple of days before the floor above collapses. We recommend descending to the next level no earlier than 6 hours before the scheduled collapse. If you descend during that window, there will be no stasis involved, and you'll actually get a head start over those who came before you. Good luck! Let's have a great 30 hour until the next episode tunnels!

Now get out there and kill, kill, kill!

I was tempted to indulge in my outrage by complaining about the way the show was choosing to portray me, but we had better things to do. With the end of the announcements, we split off to the tasks that we'd decided on as we waited for the show to begin. 

James and Rhonda were headed to a training guild about 2/3 of a mile down one of the main hallways to check in with their guide. Murphy and I were doing the same to a different guild about a mile in the other direction. We didn't want to risk the bathroom thing happening with the tutorial guild entrances. 

Hope was staying here to hold down the fort and working on applying the maintenance kit to her new gun. She held it very stiffly, but we all knew that she'd need it sooner or later.

Lorelai had said that the premiere would explain a bit about how the game was going to go moving forward, and it definitely did that. Now it was time to get some more answers out of her to determine what we could do about it.

Chapter Text

Lorelai was waiting for us when we arrived at the guild, with two of the chair-desk combos pulled out and several sheets of paper sitting on both of them. 

"Good, I'm glad you're here," she said brusquely, taking a seat in a free chair facing the desks. "Grab those sheets and copy them into your scratchpads. I can't tell you everything, and we'll go over a lot of it, but I wanted to put what I could down on paper so that I don't forget anything when you inevitably distract me. Take a minute to look them over. Coffee?"

"Please," said Murphy as we both grabbed the papers and started reading them over. I was honestly on the back foot, a little. I'd had a good rant building up on the walk over here, but having things set up like we were attending an actual class was throwing me off my groove, especially compared to how things had been when we first entered the guildhall. I read over the sheets as Lorelai busied herself with her coffeemaker. It was mostly dull information about how to operate the menus most efficiently, some information I wish that we'd gotten previously about common types of buffs and debuffs, and things like that. But then I came to a section that got me right back into ranting mood. I'd seen the tab in my menu, but I'd ignored it.

"Ratings?" I said incredulously as Lorelai handed me a cup. "These assholes blew up my planet and I'm supposed to give a shit about what they think about me? We need to be figuring out what we can do to stop this insanity." Murphy harrumphed in agreement as Lorelai took her seat.

"Yes, you need to give a shit" she said emphatically. She looked me dead in the eyes and flicked her gaze upwards for a lingering second. Given what James had said about the showrunners' tendency to murder crawlers who got uppity, I guessed she was warning against speaking out. Fat chance of that. I opened my mouth to object, and she flitted out of her chair and put a finger across my lips to shush me. "Listen, please. Both of you," she said. "I know what you're going through. But the Crawl has happened. There's nothing you can do about that." She looked upwards significantly again.

"What if we win?" asked Murphy. "The first announcement said that could happen if we got to the 18^th floor. Is that true?"

Lorelai sighed, flitting back to her chair. "They always say that. It's required by law that they do. I suppose if anyone had ever won they might even hold to it. They're pretty litigious up there from all I can tell. But here's the thing: nobody has ever won. Somebody hundreds of cycles ago made it to the 13^th, but I think he died less than an hour in." She shook her head and sipped her own coffee. "I'm a tenner. That means I took a deal upon entering the 10^th floor. Some seasons nobody even makes it that far. If anybody makes it to the 11^th, or with the luck of the gods, the 12^th, it's no more than a handful. And if you want to make it there, then Ratings are something you have to take extremely seriously."

Of course. Mab couldn't just give me a simple task. Nooooo. Call Harry Dresden for your 1 in 13 million shot in the dark. And apparently, I'd need to dance like a trained monkey to do it. I nursed my coffee sullenly as Murphy continued her line of questioning with a roll of her eyes at me when I didn't speak up.

"Ok. So what makes the ratings so important?" she asked. "I had only just started into that section of your notes, but it seems like there's a variety of statistics tracked in that category: views, followers, favorites, and patrons. What's the significance there? Are some of those things more important than others? I never really "got" the whole social media thing except as a way to talk with people."

"At least one of you is capable of treating this with seriousness," Lorelai said exasperatedly, doing that weird blinking thing with her interior eyelids. "Views are gained whenever a person out there in one of the 3 billion inhabited systems in the galaxy, or traveling between them on a ship with tunnel access, spends more than 7-8-ish seconds watching you on the stream."

I spat out the sip of coffee I had taken at that.

"Did you just say there were three freaking billion inhabited planets out there? How in the hell did we not realize this?" I exclaimed.

"Because there's hundreds of billions of stars in the galaxy and most communication signals that wouldn't become irreparably decayed over interstellar distances are transmitted by technology your planet had no way of intercepting," Lorelai said with strained patience. "And it's more than 3 billion individual planets. Many systems have multiple planets in-system, plus space habitats, asteroids, and the like. And that doesn't count the seeded planets that Crawls take place on. Now. Did you want to keep pouting and asking pointless questions, or would you like me to give you valuable information about how you survive this fucking hellscape?"

"…Sorry. Go ahead," I said sheepishly.

"Anyway," she continued, "Views don't really mean anything, but they tend to lead to followers, who are people that bookmark your feed. That means they can look in on you whenever. If a follower likes what they see, they might make you a favorite. This means they'll get live updates about you and alerts whenever you get in a fight, that sort of thing. Both of those, especially favorites, which viewers only get a limited number of, are critically important. Companies buy advertising time for your streams. A stream with a lot of followers and favorites will net you one or more patrons. These are usually big companies that buy a sponsorship to put in dedicated ad time. They will generally want to see you succeed, because the longer you're around, the more ads they get to show. They are allowed to give you gifts, which can include items that you would never be able to find in the dungeon."

I opened my mouth and Lorelai glared at me. "I have an actual question," I said, truthfully. She waved for me to continue. "Presents from advertisers are all well and good, but what tangible benefits does anybody actually get from me catering to this bullshit?" I hoped that the Soulgaze we had shared and our conversation with my daughter would give her enough insight into me to hear what I was really asking.

She cleared her throat and sat up a little in her chair. She eyed me with a sharp gaze as she took a moment to settle into a somewhat stiff position. "The Borant Corporation, in addition to mining revenues, gains a stipend from the Syndicate government for producing the Crawl, and a commission on any credits spent by patrons," she said formally. "For a popular crawler, these commissions can be quite substantial. Every gift from a sponsor requires that they pay a large fee. If you keep bringing in followers, they are incentivized to further support you to get the most out of their advertising dollars. The most popular crawlers are highly lucrative corporate assets for showrunners and sponsors, and those crawlers who keep their sponsors happy gain powerful…items…to use, items that are often critical in accomplishing some quest or goal that they are pursuing." 

She paused very deliberately, then. I considered that carefully. If we were on the same wavelength, and I thought that we were, what being popular would give me is leverage. Anybody making money off of 3 fucking billion solar systems worth of customers had to be raking in Scrooge McDuck money every half a second. If there was one thing that working as a PI for the occasional desperate wealthy suburbanite worried about a potentially cheating spouse had taught me, it was that people hated to lose a meal ticket. They'd be willing to put up with a hell of a lot of metaphorical, and sometimes literal, abuse to keep what they see as a good thing going. And if alien TV was anything like Hollywood, movie execs would happily tolerate a problem-magnet star if they brought in enough ticket sales. I glanced at Murphy. From her determined expression, it looks like she had gotten the hint, too, and she probably liked it as little as I did.

Lorelai was silent for a full minute. Every time I opened my mouth during that time, she gave a very quiet little hiss. Just as I was about to say something anyway, she cut me off. "You should know that anytime anyone speaks the –"

Murphy jumped in. "We know. Our…party members…told us," she said, stumbling a bit over how to describe our relationship to people who we mostly only barely knew as people but had somehow gone through half a dozen or more life-altering changes together with in the span of basically a day and a half. 

"Good," Lorelai said. "Be aware that while some complaining is expected, particularly over chat, they can and do look into all records saved by the System AI when deciding if your experience will need to be…accelerated." We nodded in grim acknowledgement. We'd have to be careful over chat, too. This was going to make everything much too difficult. I'd need to start trying to devise a magically secure means of communication. Maybe if I could modify the spell Elaine and I had developed…? I'd have to look into it later.

When no more questions were forthcoming, Lorelai continued. "The good news for you is that you made it onto the premier. That's a big break, and you'll start with a ton of followers out the gate once the live stream becomes accessible on the 2^nd floor. I'm not surprised that you made it, but it wasn't a sure thing. I think the tactics shows are going to have a field day with that fight footage once it gets released. The downside is that your brand, your…style…is going to be shaped by those initial glimpses they get at you. And if you want to keep gaining followers, you've got to live up to the hype you've built for yourself. Which brings me to how you almost completely fucked up that most recent boss fight."

"Hey!" I said, indignantly, "We beat it, didn't we? And none of us really got hurt too bad!"

"Harry, we both ended up covered in pus, rotten takeout, and whatever the hell was inside that boss monster. I think it could have gone a lot better," said Murphy in a remarkably calm voice for someone betraying me utterly. 

Lorelai hissed and waved a hand dismissively. "That's not what I'm talking about," she said. "That kind of thing just happens. You either deal with it, or die. No, where you screwed up is by failing to take either of the easy options for taking out the boss for no reason that I can tell. It was bad luck running into those mobs without any protections from their debuff, but that kind of thing is going to happen and you need to look for solutions or avoid the problem altogether. Most dungeon diseases aren't quite that disabling, but their damage was very low to compensate. But your initial screwup, which, by the way, what a waste of your Rush skill, made you a little too cautious once you got to the boss. It was smart in the hallways, but once you had the cure, you could've solo'd that boss with basically no effort."

"It was a suppository the size of a damn zucchini," I said with gritted teeth.

"So what?" she snapped, pointing at me. "I told you never to turn down an advantage. Is a little pain or humiliation too much of a burden for the great Harry Dresden to bear in order to keep his party safe? If it happens again, and you refuse, and someone dies, what then? What if Karrin dies? Would your pride be worth it then?" I rocked back at that, but she didn't let up. "You have a Dexterity of 17 and a running skill of 11 with that headband. With your 22 Constitution you could have taken probably a half dozen or more solid hits from that boss before you'd even need to worry about a potion. You could have dashed through the room, took a few hits from the minions to boost your strength, and beaten the boss to death in short order. Barring that, you could have frozen, or maybe boiled, the thing with that skill of yours. Judging by your inclusion on the premiere, it seems like the showrunners don't mind that it's bugged to hell and back since it's entertaining and not game-breaking. But you didn't do that either."

"We did need him to run defense, to be fair," said Murphy. Probably trying to earn her way back into my good graces after throwing me under the bus.

"That's the thing, you didn't," said Lorelai, exasperated. "Or, at least not the way you're thinking. You're still acting like this place operates under the rules and physics that you're used to up on the surface. I know I told you that you'd have to be careful with the abilities your gear gave you, but these mobs weren't…I don't know, people with guns lurking around corners who can kill you in one shot. Those kinds of things do exist in here, and you can't just wander around like a poov looking for its tail, but you already knew that the minions barely dealt any damage. You have plenty of potions. Harry, if you were on the surface with your stats and skills as they are now, a mugger could shoot you in the bare chest with one of the pistols Karrin has 3 or 4 times and you could walk up to him calmly, break the gun and every bone in his hand with your grip, throw him over your head by his broken hand, and stomp your boot through his body after he landed, all without breaking a sweat and fully recovering from your wounds within maybe 10-15 minutes. You need to remember that you aren't nearly as vulnerable as you're used to, especially here on the first few floors with those enhanced stats."

"That's…going to take a lot of getting used to, if I'm being honest," I said. I was very used to operating on the assumption that any bad guy I was fighting could take me out if they could land a solid blow. Because it was a safe assumption, back on the surface. But another important question came to mind. "Also, what's a poov?" 

Lorelai bared her freaking fangs at me, which I hadn't realized she'd even had because of the shape of her mouth, and made a rather alarming clicking noise in the back of her throat. I scooted my desk back a little.

"And what about me?" Murphy added, distracting our guide. "I don't have nearly the stats that Harry does."

Lorelai took a hissing breath and nodded conciliatorily after a moment. "That is very true," she said. "You and the other party members are more vulnerable. Which is why Harry's job needs to be being a very dangerous distraction, not a barrier mage, when it comes to a lot of bosses, particularly on these first couple of floors. With certain bosses and groups of mobs around the map, that kind of thing will still be needed, so don't neglect it. And this will be easier once the rest of you get more spells, or you level up your dodge skill that I see your new armor boosted. But even so, with three members immune and 2 with their heads on straight, you could have tanked almost any amount of fire that could be leveled at you in the time it would have taken for the boss to be killed. When you don't have intel on your target, caution makes sense, but you need to do a better job investigating clues within descriptions and the environment. Every boss has either a weakness or a condition you need to activate to make the fight easier if you look for it. You're lucky that your party member had the brains to take advantage of the Strength boost and knew to make use of your skills when her Dexterity hit 0 and she couldn't walk anymore. I'm sure the audience will enjoy that, but it doesn't make you very exciting."

"Look," I said, trying to think of a way to describe the situation without revealing too much about my magic. "Aside from the whole cure issue, my…skill…does seem to be a little buggy. It isn't always working the way I might want it to when it comes to dishing out damage. Sometimes, I think I'm just going to have to make do with what it will let me do. But talking about this boss reminds me that I wanted to ask something. This boss and the creatures out there, like the elves and the rat guys, are they actually people? They seem…different…compared to you or me. And the Bopca guy we met."

Lorelai considered for a moment. "Ok, so, designations," she said, clapping her hands together and flitting up to "pace" around the room. "On your map, you should have noticed that other individuals that you can interact with appear as dots. The color indicates their designation. Green for yourself, blue for other crawlers, white for nonhostile NPCs, which can be Non-Combatant NPCs like myself or the Bopcas as well as other NPC types. Red is for mobs and hostile NPCs, orange for pets and familiars, and purple for tourists –"

"Tourists?!?!?" I yelled in outrage, a plume of frost covering the floor in front of my desk as I shot to my feet. "Are you telling me that people from out there come in here on purpose? That they do it for fun?"

"Tell me we get a chance to take a shot at these pricks," growled Murphy in agreement, her hands clenching and unclenching like she wanted to reach for a gun that she didn't have on her. 

"…Yes. And also yes. Technically." Lorelai said. "The 6^th floor is called the Hunting Grounds. The tourists are the Hunters. Can you guess who the prey is? But that isn't important right now and I can't tell you anything else until we reach the third floor. The important thing is that the color designation can tell you a lot. Creatures that start red-tagged are generated by the System AI or by the showrunners within the dungeon. Some are sapient, some aren't. If they live through a season, they get frozen in stasis and reconfigured for the next show. Take those Ratkin. They had a martial arts school theme here, but next season they might have been Jetbikers or gang members, or some other story that made them stick together and work as a team. Any memories they have from the current season are erased and they're implanted with new memories at the start of the next. The same is true for most but not all NPCs that aren't designated as Non-Combatant NPCs. Non-Combatants that aren't juvenile mobs are almost always here under indentureship contracts. Other NPCs can be folks under indenture, but it's highly dangerous. They usually have shorter contract terms, but they're often in dangerous locations or positions, so they typically either get killed or manage to get out fast, but there's always some floating around. They don't mix very much with the guides, so I don't know many beyond an occasional bit of workplace gossip."

"How many times does that…memory wiping happen to them?" Murphy asked, sounding about as horrified as I felt. This place had the power to literally make living, thinking beings out of nothing but matter and then they just erase their identities. It was like the black magic that Molly had done to those poor kids to keep them off drugs, except it was wholesale re-writing of their entire being, not just one troublesome bit of behavior.

Lorelai just shrugged, unconcerned. "Not sure. Mobs are expected to be killed by crawlers, so most probably don't last for more than a handful of seasons before their parts and matter from new Crawls get reconstituted into new mobs. Dungeon-created NPCs are recycled regularly, since they aren't usually killed in large numbers, but there's so many of them and I know it's expensive to do, so who knows how often that really happens. Most of the people running these things try to do them as cheaply as possible, so it's always a mess. Lots of crawlers ask the NPCs about their situation every season. Many just ignore it or don't seem to process what they're being told. Some start acting a little weird, or get homicidal. Or suicidal. But next season, boom, memory purged, back in action. If they didn't die, anyway. And the showrunners just make more when needed."

This was…probably at least as existentially terrifying as the whole collapse of civilization thing. Imagine playing God by building your own civilization of thinking beings and just…wiping them clean of everything that you'd given them just so they could fit back into the toybox and come out for another game of play-pretend tomorrow. I thought a little bit about why Uriel always harped on how important it was to not impinge upon free will. Maybe I needed to give the guy more credit. This place was like an abject lesson on just what happens when things with godlike powers don't do that. This all would definitely explain why the Cyber-Elves didn't trigger a soulgaze. They never had time to develop a true personality of their own before getting wiped clean. They basically were like Renfields, then. Just maybe not quite as suicidally committed to murder. Well, hopefully the NPCs that were made by the dungeon weren't, anyway. 

"We can talk about NPCs more on the 3^rd floor, that's where they really start populating the dungeon," Lorelai said. "But I want to revisit the Mecha-Rudolph fight to give you an example of what I was talking about before we got sidetracked, because the boss you just fought was the most straightforward type: it gives debuffs, and you find a way to prevent the debuff to solve the puzzle and/or beat the boss. There were two ways to win that fight more easily. Well, technically 3, but you wouldn't like that way."

"Alright, lay 'em on me," I said, stretching out. I was starting to get a little uncomfortable cooped up at this desk.

She flit back and forth across the room, enumerating points on her clawed fingers. "The description of the Sleighmaster mentioned that they used control pheromones, and they'd only work if the Sleighmaster was alive. If you'd observed the room before charging in, you could have ambushed the elf when they left the chamber, knocked them out or otherwise disabled them, stolen the pheromones, and used them to command the paindeer to either stay in their stalls or attack the boss for you. The boss' description mentioned that the only thing it had left from its original body was its brain, which is one reason why the attack you used to finish it off was particularly effective. If your charisma was higher than it was when you did the fight, you could also have used the pheromones to charm it before the fight really got going so you could get at least 1 good stab through the eyes or mouth. The third way…" She gave a chirping laugh. "The third was to use the aphrodisiacs mentioned in the Sleighmaster's description to get the boss good and excited. It'd come after you with its massive…exposed weak point. The boss would get a lot faster, but one good hit there and it'd be done. You wouldn't have enjoyed it if caught you, though. Or lived through the experience."

"Jesus, this place," Murphy said, shaking her head.

"Ugh," I agreed. "Yeah, definitely not that way."

"But do you see what I'm saying about looking for clues?" Lorelai asked. "The AI is here to make sure that the game is "fair". That just means that a way to even the odds exists. Actually being able to find it, figure out how to use it, and then actually do it, often on short notice when some bullshit happens, are entirely different problems, but you need to always pay attention to everything." Murphy and I both nodded. 

"So with all that being said," I began, hardly believing that I was actually going to say this, "How am I supposed to make sure I stay…ugh…popular with the psychopaths who watch this?" Murphy snorted at that.

"Firstly, don't call them that out loud. Nobody hates the truth more than the people who most need to hear it," said Lorelai, "Secondly, I honestly think you need to just be yourself –"

"Oh yeah, that'll work well," muttered Murphy. 

"Hey!" I exclaimed, before Lorelai waved us both down. Murphy gave me a little wink.

"By which I mean," she said testily, "Be the type of person who rushes into danger and burns, freezes, or punches it until it isn't a problem anymore. You can be smarter about it than you were initially, but you need to be exciting and dynamic, not crouching behind shields while your friends take potshots. That way might be safest, but it's not going to make people want to watch you. Unless you can make your shield bounce mobs' attacks back at them. That kind of thing is always hilarious. It helps to be a bit of a dumbass sometimes, so you've got that covered, too."

"Hey!" I said, more loudly this time. Lorelai ignored me as Murphy snickered.

"You've also got to use your gear and other skills more," she said. "You've got a very versatile hammer that you've been using a lot, but people are going to want to see you use your gear to your advantage, too. Spend time training up your skills by grinding on low-level mobs that won't knock your asses over with debuffs. Save the flashy stuff for bosses or if you get into trouble. And you should probably find a good boss to take out soon. You'll want to have something for them to put on the next show, and this last bunch of mobs just weren't that interesting for viewers. You've got a decent party forming up, so you should be strong enough to deal with most Neighborhood bosses"

"Well, that doesn't sound too hard," I said. "We do have the chamber of what James thought was a Borough Boss on the map right nearby. Since only 15 of them have been beaten so far, that would probably be pretty good…"

That made Lorelai start asking a bunch of questions, so we gave her the map details and talked about everything that had happened with the Cyber-Elves.

"Ok, first things first, definitely keep all those tables until the 4^th floor at least," she said. "I can't talk about the details, but the Engineer's, Toymaker's, and Automaton tables will be very useful once you can afford a personal space. The others might be worthwhile, but crafting space is limited. Your skills and classes could have a big impact on what kinds of crafting you want to do. Search the remaining chambers full of mobs in that neighborhood thoroughly. That means don't just blow them up or set the rooms on fire. The unusual neighborhood shape you're describing, plus that note in the Paindeer tooltip about the best ones being given to some 'Master' does suggest that there is a bigger boss in the center there, tied into their storyline. Normally, I'd tell you to run the hell away, but you've got solid firepower and you're going to need to go searching for a stairwell soon, so it's a decent target of opportunity."

"So, what do you suggest we do?" asked Murphy.

"I can't give you hints before the fight," Lorelai replied, shaking her head. "We can talk about what you did right or wrong afterwards, but winning is up to you and your sleuthing skills. If you aren't positive that you have a good plan, or if you see any evidence of nasty debuffs that you don't have any resistances for, skip it and head out looking for stairwells. Grind on some easy mobs when you can and try to take out at least one boss each sleep cycle, but keep moving until you see stairs. You said one of your party members has the Pathfinder skill? That will make it easier. Have her keep her map wide open as you walk to train it. Once you find a stairwell, camp out in a nearby saferoom and grind until you hit the 6 hours until collapse mark and get down. If you don't find one by the next recap episode, make that your primary focus. You can't get any followers if you don't make it to the second floor, and 5 days is a short first floor. You should have 10 to 12 on the second to really get some leveling in."

"Speaking of Hope, I had a question about items," I said, thinking back on the description of the rifle she'd just gotten. "Is the information we get from tooltips true? Those disease-cure suppositories didn't say that the duration was cut when it prevents a disease, and Hope got a weapon with a…very specific description that was just trying to upset her."

"Generally, the game mechanics of items are always accurately described, but they can be…unspecific about some things," Lorelai said after a moment to consider. "The anti-pro-biotics probably gave a notification in the health menu that they were too blissed out to read, and you didn't bother looking until it was too late. I can't see their menus to know for sure. But skills and spells can obfuscate things. Like Karrin's Walk Unseen skill that takes her dot off the map. A lot of stealth abilities and illusion spells are like that."

She gave a longer pause and flicked her eyes up and side to side before continuing. "As for the descriptions of items, mobs, NPCs, and other things, the System AI develops those mostly on its own, based on certain parameters. What exactly did the description say, and what kind of item was it?"

Murphy, it had turned out, had copied the description text into her scratchpad and was able to share it word for word after I stumbled through what I remembered. When she got to the end, Lorelai gasped and her voice shook with excitement.

"Did you say the Mage Bullet Enchantment? You need to hang on to that weapon and she needs to either get as many spells as she can or hand it off to somebody who has more, because what you have there isn't really a gun, though the buffet enchantment does give it infinite ammunition, but a sort of limited-use magical trap trigger generator. Those triggers are usually extremely expensive. What's the magazine capacity?" She paused and shook her head. "Sorry, getting ahead of myself. To answer your question: there wasn't a literal Ratkin ordering custom toys for their child, especially if you didn't see any child mobs in the neighborhood. The AI did that to get a reaction. From what you said, and her actions in the boss fight, she's been boring and the AI is prodding her to do something interesting."

"All it was doing was upsetting her! I don't see how that would get her to be more active in a fight! She's just a child!" I said, slamming my fist on the desk, seething about this and the fact that apparently the dungeon created and mindwiped children, which I hadn't quite realized. But were the adults really any different if they had as little actual life experience as the children? Hell's Bells, this fucking place. I couldn't sit still anymore and started pacing on the opposite side of the room as Lorelai. I wanted to break something.

"Killing herself is something," Lorelai said softly, cutting off my train of thought like a punch to the gut and making me stumble. "So is getting drunk and trying to start a fight with town guards. Or being reckless and getting into bad situations. You watched the same show I did. What's the win/loss ratio for crawlers in the fights they showed?"

"Why do they do this to people?" asked Murphy, her voice as quiet as Lorelai's. "What could be worth all…this?"

Lorelai gave a bitter, bitter laugh. "Haven't you realized yet? We aren't people. We're just Crawlers."

"Well, we're just going to have to teach them –" I began, biting out the words, frost pluming on my breath, before Murphy and I got a sudden message

Hope: Uh, hey guys…I was getting bored and looking over my map as I worked and I just noticed another group of Crawlers on the other side of the elf neighborhood. But they're all "X"s. Does that mean that they're…you know? I…didn't really look last time I might have seen.

That stopped me in my tracks. Murphy and I looked at each other and came to silent agreement.

Harry: Probably. We're on our way back, just hold tight.

"We need to go, Lorelai," Murphy said. "Thank you for your help. We'll check in when we can."

She nodded to us as we hurried back towards the Dungeon Denny's.

Chapter Text

Everyone was back at the saferoom by the time Murphy and I had arrived. We’d been making plans over chat, so everyone was ready to go. Though it’d be faster to circle around the Borough Boss chamber the way we’d already cleared, we decided to clear out the two large remaining clusters of Cyber-Elves. Hope, who had initially wanted to avoid going back into elf territory, had come around to James’ view that we couldn’t leave them here to possibly do to other Crawlers what they’d done to him and his classmate Vanessa. She was the only one who could see the other group, but they hadn’t moved in the time it took us to return, so it seemed like Xs did indeed mark anything dead, not just the mobs. So there was no need to rush. I just hoped that if the Cyber-Elves had gotten to them, whatever was done to them wasn’t too horrific.

Estor, James and Rhonda’s guide, had recommended basically the same course of action that Lorelai had: focus on leveling our skills and avoiding mobs that dealt debuffs. That was the main thrust of our plan for clearing out the elves. We’d all soften up the mobs with ranged attacks since everyone now had either a spell or magical gun to use, and then Rhonda and I would wade into melee with the biggest crowd that remained while the others dealt with mobs around the flanks. Murphy had drawn a magic grenade out of her bag that caused an explosive burst of air, equivalent to a level 10 gust of wind spell, instead of a damaging explosion, but we didn’t think we’d need it for these fights.

Estor had also, apparently, told them to tell me I was an idiot for not taking the cure option in the last boss fight. I elected to ignore Rhonda being smug about it. I hoped that something like that wouldn’t come up again, but if it did…Lorelai was right. It was one thing to refuse to budge when some monster was trying to get me to do something for them, but it was just petty to do it when lives were on the line and it was only my pride that would come to harm. But still, I really, really hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

We moved slowly into Cyber-Elf territory, keeping at James’ pace and allowing Hope to train up her Pathfinder skill by filling her whole vision with her map. There were still a few sporadic patrols that we ran across, so I got some work in practicing with my revolver. I was annoyed that my idiotic hat actually did make me a substantially better shot than I had been before. With the damage boosts from skills and the maintenance kit and its own hefty size, I could one-shot any elf we came across, so between that, Rhonda alternating between her mace and the shotgun, and Murphy with her P90, we cut through the mobs like a hot knife through elves made of butter.

The two rooms ended up being a dormitory/barracks and a surgical theatre where they performed modifications upon themselves. Our plan to clear them worked pretty much exactly like we had hoped. They were clustered around in the rooms performing tasks and speaking in fearful tones about what “the Great One” would do once he finally noticed what had happened to the workshop, so when we burst around a corner in a hail of gunfire and magic missiles it took them completely by surprise.

I ended up running into the barracks using my headband’s skill and found out that Lorelai had been right: I could run right through the lower-level mobs at high speed and they just exploded into showers of gore like what had happened to the Ratkin that my daughter had possessed. The act netted me a couple achievements that automatically minimized themselves. Using staff and fists and mace, Rhonda and I cleared the room with brutal efficiency as the others took out the ones that tried to run away.

 In the surgery room, I ran in with my Walk on Air skill and kicked the head off one elf, which rocketed into another, killing it as well. This time, for some reason, the achievement that I got was not muted. The AI sounded scandalized as it blurted out:

New Achievement! GOOOOOOAAAAAAALLLLLLLLL!!!

You killed a mob by ripping it’s head off with your foot and used that foot to send the severed skull right through another one’s torso! While that’s the kind of thing I love to see, don’t you go trying to tempt me, you saucy little minx. I’m spoken for.

Reward: You’ve received a Gold Brawler’s Box

What the hell did that mean?

I didn’t have time to ponder it before I had to get back to work. In not too long, we had cleared the neighborhood of all the remaining mobs. Rhonda and I were both liberally coated in gore, the elves feeling almost like walking bags of blood when pitted against our enhanced strength. We were skipping looting the rooms until after we’d investigated the bodies of the crawlers, but we all noted the entrance into the boss chamber within the surgery, appearing like another hall decked in abominable Christmas ornaments.

As we walked through the halls, eventually the X’s of the other group of crawlers became visible on all of our maps. There were 4 bodies spaced around one of the main thoroughfares, and when we turned the next corner, one was going to be visible about a quarter mile down the hallway, at a junction of 3 halls. We were taking the approach cautiously, in case whatever had killed these people hadn’t been the Cyber-Elves and was still around. I was taking the lead and as we approached the corner, I raised my hand, causing everyone to pause behind me.

I pulled out the binoculars that Michael had given me and peered around the corner. I felt and heard the plastic crack as my grip tightened when I took in the scene. The dead Crawler was a young man with close-cropped, curly hair and dark skin. He’d been stripped naked and was hanging by a noose from one of torches. If we hadn’t just been reacquainted with the horrors that the Cyber-Elves perpetrated upon themselves and anyone around them, I’d have said that the poor man had been horribly tortured. And while what had happened to him wasn’t as grotesque as the things we’d seen, this was worse for other reasons. The nearby air cooled precipitously, a layer of ice forming in a circle around me. A tooltip appeared as I adjusted the focus on the binoculars.

Lootable Corpse. Crawler Malik Johnson 2. Level 3. Killed by Crawler Joel Collin with assists by Crawler William Marb, Crawler Jim Carter 3, Crawler Bobby-Joe Mul, Crawler Carter Col, Crawler James Pewtr, Crawler Ezra Collin, Crawler Brandon Smith 5, and Crawler Timothy Gar.

Inventory is empty

“Yo, uh, what’s up, man?” asked Rhonda, hesitantly.

“You three stay back here,” I said, my voice as icy as the floor. “Murphy and I are going to investigate. You guys don’t need to see this.”

“You think one more dead motherfucker is gonna make my day worse after all this? I don’t –” Rhonda started saying, voice heated, when I heard Murphy shush her.

“What is it, Harry?” she asked, her voice pitched quietly so as not to carry. “ Is the thing that killed them still there, just hidden?”

I shook my head. “It’s not what killed him that matters. It’s who,” I said. I focused on Malik Johnson’s chest, where the image of a bent cross inside a circle had been branded and the words “REMEMBER SKOKIE” had been carved sloppily with a knife.

“Illinois Nazis,” I growled. “I hate Illinois Nazis.”

“Are you for fuckin’ real?” Rhonda yelled, striding past Murphy and up to the corner. “Gimme that shit,” she said, pointing at the binoculars.

I took a second to try to reign in my anger. “Rhonda,” I said.

“NO!” She shouted at me, getting up in my face so fast that I instinctively backed up. “You. Give. Me. Them. Eyes.”

“Ok,” I said after a long moment, handing them over.

She stepped around the corner and looked through the binoculars for a good 30 seconds. She didn’t move. She made…a noise…in the back of her throat. I could see tears streaming down her face. She stepped back and handed them to me.

“You right,” she said, her voice quiet and simmering. “I ain’t need to see that shit. You the cops. Go investigate the crime scene or whatever you gonna do.” She grabbed me by the collar of my shirt. I could feel her nails digging into my skin. “But you, both of you,” she said, looking to Murphy, her eyes wet and furious. “After you do that, and we beat this boss or whatever? We gonna track down the motherfuckers that did that to that poor boy and you gonna help me. Put. Them. In. The. Ground. It’s just like them elves. I ain’t live through the end of the fuckin’ world to just to let shit like this stand no more, ya feel me?”

“I feel you,” I said, my breath crystalline and sharp in the torchlight. Murphy nodded tightly. “Come on, Murphy. We’ve got to see if they’ve left anything I can use.”

We strode down the hall, leaving one set of icy footprints in our wake. My staff cracked the stone as we walked. Even the destruction of humanity at large couldn’t overwhelm the evil in some people. Rhonda was right. They had to be stopped. With every system gone that might protect people from harm, or punish those that would harm others, everything was in our own hands. And my hands sure as hell weren’t going to sit idly by.

 And even aside from that, if we were going to do anything about the aliens, we’d need every person that was left to fight. I wasn’t sure yet how we were going to do it. But we were going to. The stupid alien bastards actually came in here with us on the 6^th floor. So these psychopaths weren’t just evil, they were weakening us for the fight to come. I hoped that there would be some blood or hair underneath one of the dead Crawlers’ fingernails that I could use to track the culprits.

As we turned the corner to the rest of the bodies, I stopped dead in my tracks. 3 more bodies, Crawler Jasmine Mar, Crawler Jose Gutierrez 7, and Crawler Erasmus Jo, hanging from torches. All tortured. All killed by Crawler Joel Collin and his crew. Jasmine’s body hung closest to me. She was around Hope’s age. She had been a lovely young woman. My pulse lurched into overdrive when I saw what they’d done to her.

“Uh…Harry?” Murphy said, sounding worried. “What’s that over your head?”

My vision went red. Ice cracked into existence in claws around my fingers. I knew some of this feeling.

“R-run…” I growled through gritted teeth. By breath came in gasps. My blood pumping, a crescendo of violence about to be unleashed.

“…What?” She asked.

“RRRRUUUUUNNNNGGHHHHH!” I screamed, my words devolving into an incoherent bellow.

New Achievement! Brooklyn Rage!

You’ve gained the Berserk status for the first time! I hope you’ve got a lot of enemies nearby!

Reward: You’ve received a Silver Savage Box

I was gone from my own mind. I couldn’t feel anything. I couldn't hear anything. I could only taste and smell and see the blood pulsing through my body, in my arms, in my eyes, in my mouth, down my wrists. It was an eternal moment of sublime fury. I knew I had prey. I knew I had it, I had it, I HAD IT. The world went white. Then black.

“–arry! Harry! Harry, please, you need to take a potion! Take a potion, Harry! I…I can’t give you one! Please, Harry, drink a potion!”

My vision swam. There was a flashing red light somewhere. Where was I? My body was a harsh fuzz of Winter-suppressed pain.

“Dammit, Harry, please!”

Who was that? I turned my head and I felt a horrible spike of agony in my face. Murphy’s face appeared in my blurry vision. She was glowing. Her nose was reforming from a squashed lump, the blood and bruises from broken orbits retreating as I watched. She was missing a couple of teeth. She was shouting at me.

“Please, for the love of God, Harry, drink a potion!”

Oh yeah. Dungeon. I hated this place.

I found my hotlist. I tried to raise my arm to click the button, but it wouldn’t move. I thought at it really hard.

My world exploded in pain. I could feel muscles and tendons and bones realigning in my knees and one elbow. But the worst was my face. I writhed on the ground. When I stopped glowing, I drank another potion and hit my heal spell. Howling agony as bones knitted together and I could feel every moment of it.

I lay on the ground, panting, as my health bar returned to full. My voice sounded…odd.

“Thank God, Harry!” Murphy cried out, collapsing onto me. “Are you alright?”

“Aghm Aiign,” I said.

Wait…that wasn’t right.

“Urrghhy?”

“Harry…?” she said, her voice horrified.

I haltingly reached a hand up to my mouth and stuck a finger in.

Harry: Murph…what happened to my tongue?

Harry: My teeth?

“Oh, Harry, I’m sorry. I’m sorry! I…I…You got a debuff and…”

I got part of an answer to my questions when my world whited out in pain again.

Murphy was shouting but there was nothing I could do about this. My health was at full. Eyes clouded with anguish, I fumbled opened my health screen and saw Tooth Regrowth: 1% complete under buffs. My Regeneration skill leveled up to 2.

I tried to use the techniques that Lash had taught me to block pain, but I was too distracted. My tongue? No. No.

Harry: Saferoom. Regenerating.

We reached a saferoom in a blur of movement. I had a bunch of other nasty debuffs. Murphy laid me in a bed. I hadn’t said anything the whole time. It hurt too much. She looked down at me as I lay in bed, trying desperately not to clench my jaw at the pain. Her blue eyes were rimmed by red.

“I have to go with the kids to loot those rooms, Harry,” she said quietly. She wouldn’t look directly at me. “And I need to see if I can get anything useful from…from the others. I’m sorry. I can’t be here with you right now.” Her breathing was ragged. “But I’ll be back, ok? I promise. Chat if you need anything.”

I still said nothing. I didn’t know what to say. I still didn’t really know what had happened.

She left.

I spent half an hour lying there, focusing on my breathing, until I felt able to sit up. I pulled the little buddha statue that I’d gotten in a box out, along with some of the incense that had come with it. I loaded the little man up, his flipped bird towering at twice his height. I gave a grim chuckle. Right back at you, asshole, I thought at the AI.

I reached out with my will. I’d started to say “Flickum bicus”, but only a strangled grunt came out. I shook. I took one breath, and then another. Then another. And then several dozen more.

I pulled from my memory. I recalled the feeling that I’d had as a ghost, savoring the memory of the first time I’d cast magic of my own volition and direction. I couldn’t say the words out loud, but I could still say them in my mind. I sat with that memory and breathed.

Flicum bicus!

The incense sparked and lit. The scent of sandalwood filled the air.

I spent the next few hours slowly bringing the pain under control as my teeth regrew. I placed the mental blocks that Lash had taught me to dull and redirect and stifle. I didn’t think about anything else.

When the last block fell into place, I nearly collapsed into unconsciousness. I desperately wanted to.  But I couldn't. When I had been focusing on arresting the pain of my regenerating teeth, I had felt no such pain from the stump of my tongue.

My tongue. My tongue was gone. I was the Wizard with the mouth. What was I going to do if I couldn’t use it? What about eating? What about laughing and joking and whispering words in someone’s ear? I thought of Murphy’s face as it had been not long ago. She’d been hurt, too. And now I’d never be able to… I shook. I thought about the cameras. I turned in as if to sleep and covered myself. I lay there for a time. I forced myself to be still. I mostly succeeded.

Memories of the things that had happened since I’d been awoken in the middle of the night not too long ago assaulted me. What could I do against a place like this? The forces of the galaxy had aligned against us and won a war against a whole planet in a second. What could even Mab do against something like that? I had every reason to despair. Winter raged, a barely-caged animal in my mind.

But I couldn’t.

No.

No.

I remembered Uriel’s words to me, at a time and in a place when I’d felt even worse than this.

Lies. Mab cannot change who you are.

Lorelai had said that the Crawl ruined every person that it touched. I’d Seen that in her soul. She felt it. She believed it. But she was still here.

What could I do?

I could say no.

No, you won’t ruin me.

I sat up in my bed. I thought about the Borant Corporation and the Syndicate who oversaw them. I thought about the System AI, sly and cruel. I thought about Joel Collin and his brood of murderers.

My mind was as smooth and cool as a frozen lake. Winter knew exactly what it would like to be doing.

No.

I stood to leave the bedroom.

My Name is Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden, I thought.

My choices made me. My will. The System AI couldn’t force me to be somebody I wasn’t. The Syndicate couldn’t turn me or make me give. Winter couldn’t make me its rage-bound plaything, either. Not unless I let them.

Never.

Gonna.

Happen.

By my Name I do so swear: I will make every last one of these bastards regret the choices they’d made that brought them to my door. And I’ll do it my way.

The door to the bedroom closed with a loud crack as I made my way into the saferoom.

Chapter Text

Time to level collapse: 3 days, 9 hours, 11 minutes.

I found myself in an unfamiliar type of fast food restaurant with a red and white color scheme. The sign above the counter declared it "Wimpy Burger". That couldn't be a real place, could it? A Bopca Protector named Artemisia stood behind the counter. She was only slightly less hirsute than Gerrow had been.

"Good day, crawler. How can I be helping you?" she said.

I let out a darkly amused croak and mimed like I was writing, then gestured to my throat and shook my head.

"Of course, sir," she said. "It will only be being one moment."

Nobody else was in the saferoom. I took a seat at the bar and Artemisia returned shortly with a blank notepad.

I took a few minutes to think.

If we were going to go after this Borough Boss, we were going to do it smart. We were going to take some time to prepare. I was going to need to sleep soon, but I could set some things in motion before then. 

The boss was clearly some sort of horrible Santa Claus analogue. We knew he'd have Paindeer and therefore probably a sleigh. He'd probably be able to fly using that sleigh because the Dungeon hated us. I wonder idly how offended Kringle would be about all this. 

We knew of two ways into the boss chamber: the main door that we'd just cleared, and the chutes that had delivered presents through the back wall of the workshop that I'd incinerated. 

What Murphy and the others found might change things, but I think our initial plan was probably going to be pretty good: sneak in through the present chutes, blow up the Paindeer and/or sleigh, and then beat down the boss. I'd use my Compelled Duel to force them to chase me across the chamber so that the others would have time to take action if needed. 

Now, what could I do to even our odds? And once we were done with that, what would we need to chase down Joel Collin? It had been hours since he'd killed his victims and hours still since we'd found them. Blood might be beyond use at this point. But maybe I could do something about that.

I wrote a list for Artemisia of food and supplies I needed. I'd had to haggle, hard, via the notepad, which was a novel experience. Some things were going to be impossible, so I looked for alternatives in my inventory. Others she had but was nervous to loan out for some reason. We finally agreed to a trade: she would keep my Enchanted Costume de Soubrette of the Housekeeper Supreme for her own use until I returned to her the enchanted camp stoves and pots that she'd leant me, along with all the ingredients I'd asked for. And a milkshake with a very long straw. 

The milkshake was delicious. I wept that I could still taste it, even if it required an uncomfortable amount of effort to swallow.

I had my ingredients. Now it was just time to get brewing. I wasn't sure how Dungeon alchemy worked, but for my kind of potion-making, each brew needed 8 ingredients: a base, 1 thing for each of the 5 major senses, 1 for mind, and 1 for spirit. I headed back to my room to get started.

My first potion I had made before, so I was pretty sure that it would work, even with the modifications I'd had to make. A base of water. An clear glass vial for sight. The emptiness of my own mouth when I tried to speak for sound. Some sort of alien cleaning tab that had a neutral scent for smell. A small fragment of my pajama t-shirt for touch. A plain, slightly wilted, leaf of lettuce for taste. A blank page from the notepad for mind. My toneless humming of "The Girl from Ipanema" for spirit. 

My second was an experiment. Honey for the base. One of the lens caps of the binoculars for sight. The ringing of the Alice in Wonderland alarm clock I'd gotten for sound. Mint essential oil for smell. A piece of the harness I'd worn when hauling the sleigh for touch. Salt for taste. A hand-drawn copy of the minimap from the area where we'd found the bodies for mind. My promise to Joel Collin for spirit. 

I set them both to simmer at a low heat in pots on the cookstoves, lay down in bed, and swiftly fell asleep, the expenditure of magical energy finally enough to knock me down. 

Who knows how long later, I awoke to a knocking at my door. I wished that my watch hadn't busted at some point when I'd been fighting, not that outside-time mattered much in here.

"Harry, are you up?" came Murphy's quiet voice.

I stood stiffly, rubbing sleep out of my eyes. I don't think I could have been out for too long based on how tired I still was. I walked over to the door and opened it. Murphy stood there. I'd never seen her look like this before. She was holding herself like she was trying to curl inwards like a scorched leaf. She flinched when she saw me. She still wouldn't look right at me. I reached towards her, which made her flinch and freeze. I paused, and she took a deep breath. She reached forward tentatively and guided my hand around her shoulder, and she fell into my arms, quivering.

Murphy: Are you ok?

Harry: No.

I felt her stiffen in my arms but I held a smidge tighter when she tried to break away. This was awful, there was no way to convey tone of voice.

Harry: But I will be. Someday. Could you please speak to me like normal? I don't think I could bear to lose your voice in my ears just to talk the same way as each other.

I felt more than heard her sobs as I led her into the room. We sat together on the bed for a while, holding each other. She tried to speak a few times, but it was muffled against my chest. Eventually we broke apart a little and she spotted my potion brewing setup. She huffed out what sounded almost like a laugh. 

"So is that why the Bopca is wearing a French Maid outfit and sweeping at 50 miles an hour? On the ceiling?" she said after a moment, her voice raw and hoarse. "She just said that she'd made a deal 'for making of saferoom to be most comfortable for human Crawlers'." 

I croaked out a laugh. That was going to take some getting used to. 

Harry: Yeah. I got the thing when I did everyone's laundry for the first time. It makes you some kind of Disney Princess/housekeeping god. It lets you talk to animals.

Murphy laugh-cried for a moment. "God, you were right to try to keep that secret. I'd never have let you live it down if I'd seen it," she said.

Harry: Oh, so you will, now?

She curled in on herself again and I shook my head, angry at myself

Harry: I'm joking, Murph, joking! Jesus, if I don't have you to pierce my ego every once in a while, my head will inflate until it fills the dungeon and kills us all.

That got an honest-to-goodness real smile. That was better. That was how Murphy was supposed to look. We sat together for a few more minutes in silence.

Harry: Can you tell me what happened? I don't remember anything.

"I talked to Lorelai," she said after a moment. "And the others talked to Estor. That's part of what took us so long to get back here. It was a berserking status affliction. Lorelai isn't sure what caused it, in terms of the dungeon mechanics. The actual cause was pretty obvious, but she couldn't tell how the AI had decided to 'flip the switch' other than it came from the buff you got when you entered the Dungeon."

She had to take a moment to breathe. "You won't like this, but both she and Estor agree that it wasn't the worst type of berserking that you could've had," she said. She was right. I didn't like that one bit, but I quickly stifled my anger and shoved it back down as she continued. "Some kinds, the person who gets berserked just attacks all out until everything else is a bloody smear. This kind, Lorelai said, makes you want to…play with your food, so to speak."

I stiffened at that, thinking of her face when she'd looked down at me. I reached to put my hand on her shoulder, before I thought better of it and then she thought better of me thinking better of myself and she pushed me gently down onto the bed and took me into her arms, her cheek resting against the back of my shoulder.

Harry: Oh, god, Murph, I'm so sorry. Are you ok?

"I'm fine. I got a Gordie Howe achievement that gave me a 5-dose pack of Anti-Boneitis Gushers that regrow bones. I had to take 4 of them because the first one knocked out an implant I'd had put in after Skaldi had gotten me good in one spar. But those were the only things a potion wouldn't take care of." 

She paused, before whispering, "I don't think I can talk about exactly what happened, Harry. It was as bad as…as the Leonid Kravos case turned out all those years ago."

That was the case where a spirit had taken my form and assaulted Murphy's mind to the point that it had taken years of counseling for her to stop having nightmares. God, what had happened? 

She kept speaking, unaware of my inner turmoil "Estor thought there's a good chance it'll end up on the recap since you were on the first one. Lorelai wasn't so sure. If it is, you can see what happened then. If it isn't…" 

She held me tightly, her palm pressing into my solar plexus. "If it isn't," she finally said, "then we can talk about it another time. Okay? I c-can't right now."

I moved to hold her hand in mine.

Harry: That's okay. I forgot about boxes for a minute there. Maybe I'll get lucky and one of them will fix my problem, too. I'll get to that in a bit, though. How's everyone else holding up? 

"Everyone's upset in their own way," she said. "Hope's worried for you. James is afraid you'll be mad that they didn't come to try and help. We found him a replacement leg, by the way. It's a Cyber-Elf one, and it's gross and apparently hurt like a bastard to install, but it works. Rhonda is pissed because she thinks this will slow us down. But we were always going to come back here to rest anyway, so I think she's just…hah, just…stressed."

That sounded about right. I could empathize. I was desperate to relax, but there was too much I needed to know about how we were going to proceed. 

Harry: And did you find anything helpful?

"A few things. There was a little 'office' for the Mechanist you killed that had a bunch of notes and diagrams. There's a few things we could use at the Toymaker and Engineering tables, they're labeled as 'schematics' in my inventory. Lorelai was pretty excited about a couple of them. There were also a bunch of disgustingly sticky notes about some sort of 'companion' they were building for the boss in order to 'help him slake his mighty urges', so, you know, some good stuff, some bad." 

We both started laughing softly at that. I kept my mouth closed and I sounded almost normal. Some good, some bad. Story of life in this place, I guess. After a while, she continued.

"We did find a diagram of the present-building conveyor system. I couldn't make sense of the damn thing, but James thinks you were right and that those chutes go right to or right near the boss' sleigh. Also, just generally a variety of notes that confirm what we already thought about the sleigh and reindeer: they can definitely fly. Plus we picked up a literal ton of things that are labeled as 'crafting supplies'."

Harry: That's a pretty good haul of stuff and intel. We can make use of that. What about anything for tracking down Joel Collin?

I felt Murphy shrug. She took a moment to consider, and when she spoke, it was with a clinical, detached tone. I recognized it from the many times we'd worked crime scenes together as the tone she took when she was trying not to let her feelings about a case get in the way of figuring out the facts. "Whoever he is, he has access to one, or likely more, vehicles of some kind, likely either motorcycles or ATVs since al the roofed vehicles disappeared in the collapse. All of the victims showed evidence of being dragged at speed along the stone floors by their ankles or wrists. There was evidence of bruising and remnants of rubber that suggest that they had been run over multiple times by tired vehicles"

She paused, started to speak again, and then stopped. A moment later and she spoke over chat, acting like she didn't know how I made my magic work. I was about to say something when I realized her intent was to obfuscate my abilities in case anyone was looking at these. I had to remember to be careful of that as well.

Murphy: I'm not sure. There's some blood that might belong to one of the perps. And a blonde hair that seems pretty likely. It's all old and messy, if that makes a difference. I put them into some vials we looted from the surgery area. And before you ask: yes, we cleaned them.

Harry: Good. I've got something cooking that might help. If you've got more clean vials, that'd be great. We'll try it after we kill Santa.

Murphy: Hopefully we won't need this one to fake it for you. 

I smiled at that, enjoying the feeling of Murphy pressing up against me. We chatted about inane things for a short while. Apparently, the maid outfit made Artemisia an even better cook than Gerrow had been. The milkshake gave me hope that I might be able to appreciate it when we woke. I told her to give everyone the all-clear to do the breakfast feast we'd been planning. I was feeling a little more human, but I didn't think I wanted to talk to anybody else just yet. Eventually, I realized that Murphy had fallen asleep when she stopped replying to me.

I was fading fast, myself. I might as well get the nonsense out of the way and see what the AI had in store for me.

In addition to the achievements for kicking that elf's head off and going berserk, I had 4 others. The first two came from when I'd quite literally run through that group of elves.

New Achievement! Ludicrous Gibs

Using only your body or natural attacks, you pasted a mob into nothing more than an outline of blood on the floor. And walls. And ceiling. And yourself. Sick, bro!

Reward: You've received a Silver Blender Box

Yuck.

New Achievement! Momentous!

You killed 3 mobs in a row using the power only of your own momentum, no skills required! Choo, choo! Train comin'!

Reward: You've received a Silver Charger box

That was interesting. Lorelai had mentioned something about momentum-based attacks or defenses. Maybe this would give me more information.

New Achievement! Cat Got Your Tongue?

Dude, you lost your tongue! Now you'll never get to make out with any hot chicks. You can still fight, though, so suck it up!

Reward: You've Received a Bronze Amputee Box

I felt my anger stir. The AI could go fuck itself. Still, I let it wash over me and break like a wave upon the beach. All in good time. I was going to need to make managing Winter at least a part-time gig to make sure whatever had happened didn't happen again. The last achievement gave me a very ominous clue

New Achievement! Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran

You survived 5 simultaneous explosions! They were probably tiny ones, or you wouldn't be seeing this, but that's still pretty impressive.

Reward: You're alive to read this. That's the reward.

That had to have been something Murphy had done, but wow. 

The parade of boxes came shortly thereafter. I wasn't much of a praying man, but I hoped that the noise wouldn't wake Murphy. 

The Amputee box was yet another insult from the AI, a past-due medical bill for treatment of an amputated tongue. 

The Savage box contained:

Enchanted Galón of Flexible Fortitude

This is Headgear Add-on Item

Current Headgear Galón Capacity [10/10]

This enchanted galón may be placed upon an appropriate piece of headgear. When the hat is worn, the wearer of the hat gains the following benefits: 

Imbues the wearer with +2 Constitution

All Wearer's clothing items gain the Bendy trait

This trait would allow all of my clothing to warp around all obstacles and never get caught on anything. And it would make me harder to grab. They wanted me to wear the freaking hat indoors more. I sighed. Not while I'm relaxing, but it was a good benefit to have. I placed it in my inventory and would put it on later.

The blender box came out looking like one of those as-seen-on-TV magic bullet things. It whirred loudly before opening, but thankfully Murphy was out like a light. Inside was a set of baby blue socks, the kind you get when you go to the hospital.

Enchanted Grippy Anti-Slippy Socks

These comfortable socks allow you to traverse all manner of surfaces without fear of falling. No matter how gooey you make a mob, you'll never trip up in their guts! Don't give anybody a footjob while wearing them. Or do, that'd be funny as shit!

The Surefooted benefit

According to the benefit's description, I'd basically never slip, slide, or trip while wearing the socks unless I wanted to. I'd have to ask Lorelai how that worked in conjunction with the Rooted in Place skill, because it seemed like there was a lot of overlap. Maybe I should give them to one of the others.

The Charger box contained a necklace, a thin chain with a charm shaped like a traffic signal.

Enchanted Stoplight Necklace

Don't ever get caught in traffic again with this handy necklace. Operating in 3 modes for your convenience, make the most of moving, today!

This item operates in one of 3 modes. Mode may be changed once every 30 hours. If the wearer is the driver of a vehicle, the benefit applies to the vehicle being driven in addition to the wearer. The benefits of each mode are as follows:

Green Mode: Wearer's movement speed increases by 10%. 

Yellow Mode: Wearer's damage increases by 10% if moving at speeds equal to or greater than 8 m/s

Red Mode: Wearer's mass increases by 100%

Now that was an interesting bit of gear. Green was probably going to be the most useful, particularly in the upcoming boss fight, but Yellow might be worthwhile. Something to think about later.

The final box was the Gold Brawler's Box. Like the others of its kind that I had gotten, it was a box topped off by boxing gloves. Inside was a small ring of iron.

Enchanted Ring of 100 Strikes

This enchanted ring was designed for those fighters out there that hate just sticking to one thing. You want to take things out with style, not just whack stuff over the head over and over every time! Well now, with this ring, you'll have the touch AND the power.

This item imbues the wielder with +2 Strength

+3 to the Versatile Strike skill

+2 to the Powerful Strike Skill

Powerful Strike boosted my damage for unarmed attacks significantly, but the real winner here was Versatile Strike. Whenever I used my hands, feet, or any "monk-class" weapon, including staves, I would be able to use whichever damage-boosting skills were highest, not just the one for the weapon or body part I was using to attack, to determine damage. Additionally, all skill experience was shared among the appropriate skill types I had at least 1 rank in, which seemed extremely powerful, though I was betting there'd be some sort of drawback or limitation that I'd have to ask Lorelai about.

Once all that fanfare was over and done with, I finally slipped back to sleep.

When I woke back up, finally feeling refreshed, it was to a distinct wetness on my chest. We'd shifted while asleep and Murphy was laying next to me, silently weeping into my shirt. I started stroking her hair with one hand and she froze. I paused, and after a moment she relaxed into me. I continued to run my hand gently across her head.

Harry: You ok?

She didn't speak for a couple of minutes, so we just sat there, together. "…I thought I'd killed you, Harry. I really did," she finally said. "I didn't mean to, but I blew half your fucking face off and now…" I made a shushing sound, which actually sounded mostly right despite the no-tongue thing.

Harry: It's ok, Murph. Really. I might not know exactly what happened, but you did it to save your life. I'd rather have this, or worse, than to have woken up from that debuff to find you dead. 

We just held there for a little while, until suddenly the realities of having a body made themselves known. Ugh. Well, we had to get up sometime, and I needed to check on those potions. I knew the blending one should be ready shortly, but I'd have to feel out the other one.

Harry: We should probably get up and get moving. But…is this going to be a regular thing? You know, sharing a room? I'll probably have to let my other girlfriends know about the change in rotation.

Murphy gave a hiccoughing laugh. "Ass," she said, sitting up and slugging me gently on the shoulder. She moved to get up out of bed. "Other girlfriends? Just what are you implying, here?"

I sat up and grabbed her hand.

Harry: Well, I was hoping to imply I had at least one…?

Neither of us moved. 

"The world's ended," she said

Harry: Yep.

"And you want to ask me out?"

Harry: No time like the present.

"…Even though I almost killed you and either or both of us could die at any time because we're stuck in a nightmare dimension filled with both created and all-natural monsters?" she said after a moment.

Harry: Every relationship has its bumps in the beginning. At least the food's good?

"Are you saying you're taking me on a breakfast date to visit the little gnome lady you gifted a sexy maid outfit to?" She asked, trying, but failing to sound serious and disapproving.

Harry: …Fighting Santa could be the date?

That got a real laugh. "We already did that one, big boy. Try again."

Harry: Well, you could be the Marion to my Indy? There's no Ark of the Covenant, but there'll probably be some treasure we can beat out of the bad guys.

"So your go-to date idea is punching Nazis?"

Harry: I mean, they're a classic bad guy for a reason and the KGB is probably in short supply in here.

"I'm pretty sure the KGB was in short supply everywhere after 1991, Harry," she laughed

Harry: You'd think the same would be true about Nazis after 1945, but here we are. How about the date is just enjoying the time we can spend with each other while it lasts?

I squeezed her hand, and she squeezed back.

"That sounds nice," she said quietly. She bent down to me as I sat in the bed and lightly kissed my forehead, eyelids, and ended by planting her lips delicately onto mine. I felt a phantom ache where my tongue no longer was, which caused a pang of grief, but I leaned into the kiss anyway. We soon broke apart and rested our foreheads together.

"…I wish we could've had a normal date just once, you know," she said, her voice filled with a combination of longing, grief, and a little bit of laughter

Harry: Since when have we ever been normal? And hey, maybe one of these saferooms is like a fancy steakhouse or something. We can still have a normal date. A normal Dungeon date. 

"All right, I'll hold you to that," she said, smiling, as she got broke away from me and moved off to the bathrooms.

I checked on my potions and did the same before heading out into the saferoom. I could smell everything before I even got fully out there. 

The others sat around a table with a smorgasbord of bacon, sausages, pancakes, waffles, eggs, fruit, and any other breakfast food you can imagine. Everyone was chatting, but they fell silent when I approached. I sat down, grabbed a plate, and started putting a small selection of things onto it. I'd have to see what I was actually able to eat.

Harry: You can talk amongst yourselves, you know. I'd prefer if you did. I'll just have to chat this way from now on.

Everyone eventually got comfortable again and we plowed our way through breakfast. I spotted James' new leg/foot, which was mostly metal. Unfortunately, it also had disgustingly fleshy bits between the metal plates that oozed. It gave him a bonus to kicking damage and a 3% increase in movement speed, neither of which was great, but it was much better than not having a leg, so that was nice. He returned my staff to me, but I told him to hang on to it so that he had a melee weapon. I could get it back from him whenever. 

The food did taste amazing once I was able to maneuver it to the back of my mouth, but it was painfully challenging to chew. I'd never realized how much work my tongue had done in terms of keeping food between my teeth. I had to take very small bites and basically toss my head back to swallow. Everything was incredibly delicious, but it was impossible to really savor it. 

I was ruminating on ways I could fix this problem when I received an alert. It wasn't an achievement, but it was a bit of useful Dungeon information.

Your Shitty, Bootleg Alchemy skill has risen to level 5!

Well, you made some things, and I guess they're potions. Sure, whatever. I hope they work out for you. You know like half the things you put in them are inedible? And you're still planning to drink them? I can't wait to see how this stupid shit turns out. Let's see…uhhhh…okay, for reaching level 5, your "potions" now have a 25% increase to duration and potency. Good luck with that.

I hustled back to my room and decanted the potions into some vials I grabbed from murphy. I had 6 total. When I went back out to main room, I passed one potion to everyone and kept 2 for myself.

Harry: Okay everyone, it seems like the plan is still the same, but I mixed these up last night. We'll each drink one right before we crawl into the present chutes. They'll make us very hard to notice, so hopefully we can sneak through and Murphy can set some bombs before things really go to shit. I'm not sure if we'll be able to drink them through inventory, but these ones don't taste like anything, so it's fine if not. Your vision will go black-and-white. If you start seeing color, that means something's noticed you. Are we ready to go?

Everyone agreed and we packed up and headed out. I exchanged the burners and pots back for the maid outfit, much to Artemisia's simultaneous relief and regret. We made our way to the workshop, which was still littered with burnt debris. We'd skipped going back in here when we grabbed the map, but James now insisted we grab as much as we could out of here, so I ended up loading my inventory with a bunch of busted conveyors, the giant ballistae, and more broken machines. Murphy reluctantly grabbed the chainsaw that was still sitting on the dais. She muttered something about not having a melee weapon anymore.

We stood before the present chutes. Based on our minimap and the notes we'd scavenged from the rest of the elf "settlement", these would take us into the "Gift Loading Zone", which was either adjacent to or in the same building as the stable and "Disgorgement Chamber", whatever the hell that was. I had equipped all my new gear, and set my traffic light necklace to "green". As it turned out, we couldn't drink my potions via the inventory, so they apparently counted as food, or something. We tossed our heads back and the world faded into shades of gray around us, though, interestingly, we each remained colorful to each other. I checked the party status and was interested to see a buff called "Beneath Notice" listed, but without a description.

We climbed into the chute. We'd debated about trying to climb down instead of sliding, in case we'd end up landing noisily somewhere unknown, but eventually decided that the boss would probably notice us immediately and it would be safer for us to all go in fast instead of risking the boss chamber door locking any of us outside. So when we all slid down and landed in a clatter on a pile of presents sitting inside a great sack and nothing seemed to happen, I was very confused.

We all looked around. There was no music. No announcement came. A glowing fire burned in a nearby brick fireplace, the cheery light standing in stark contrast to yet more viscera-based holiday decorations. I was going to be very happy to leave this place behind once we were done here. We were in what looked like a large combination of workshop and barn, with a couple nearby enclosed rooms. Like in the surroundings of Scumbucket the ooze, the scale of everything was as if for a giant. I heard the snuffling and grunting of animals with a slight mechanical edge to the sound. Some wood creaked.

I got to my knees and peeked over the edge of the sack we'd found ourselves in. The sack was sitting in the back of an enormous sleigh. 8 extra-huge Paindeer Champion. Level 8s stood, harnessed to the front of the vehicle. In the driver's seat was our target. It looked like…I couldn't exactly tell well from this angle, but it looked like an enormous Santa Claus wearing a harness not too unlike the one I was wearing and nothing else other than the hat. And it was made up of dozens and dozens of naked, priapic men who resembled mall Santas who'd been sewn or riveted together into a humanoid mass of flesh with copious amounts of red and white trim. When I examined the creature, the AI's voice sounded bored and…distracted? 

Frankenclaus. Level 18 Borough Boss.

This culmination of Cyber-Elf blah-de-blah has a totally badass sleigh and some awesome flying reindeer and he's gonna kick your ass, but maybe he won't, but maybe he will, but how will he, but we'll just have to wait and see. He's good at tossing stuff and he likes to fuck his cyborg wife. End scene.

I looked back at everyone. We were all staring at each other, wide-eyed. Our vision was still all greyed out. 

Harry: Did you guys see the description?

James: Yeah. That's…something.

Hope: We should probably get out of here

We all quickly climbed out and scuttled down the back of the sleigh. Nothing happened. The boss just sat in the driver's seat, facing the barn doors. The Paindeer stamped their hooves and snorted. Murphy started stalking forward, gesturing for us to hold back.

Murphy: I'm going to try to rig up my first demolition set, maybe the second, too, if I can get away with it. 

We watched, tense, as Murphy snuck forward and started sneaking sticks of goblin dynamite into crevices and harnesses that would hold them in place. Each stick had a piece of detonator in it, so she could remote-trigger them. She carefully placed one near each Paindeer. As she approached the boss monster, our vision suddenly gained a bit of color and my breath quickened. 

But then Murphy vanished from sight and from the map and everything went gray again. She appeared in our midst a moment later, panting.

Murphy: Okay. That was close. Got the full first set on there. We need to get outside, they're losing stability fast.

We all walked quickly towards the most normal-sized door. I still had to jump a little to grab the handle. It swung downwards with a click. And then our vision blazed into color. We froze in place. The AI's voice rang out, sounding equal parts outraged and fascinated.

New Achievement! Tricksy Hobbitses 

Well, thief. I smell you. So what happened here? Hold on…Okay, so when you did that…and then that meant…Really. Huh. Oookay, so, apparently, your fake-ass potion bypassed a trigger via a perfectly legitimate, highly specific rules interaction! You got me there, pal. Good job. Take the win. A bug report has been filed with the showrunners. I'm going to have to actually pay attention when you do that next time.

Reward: Gold This Might Be A Little Interesting Box

The AI's tone became despondent, and music rose, but instead of being fast-paced, techno music it sounded like an out-of-tune polka ensemble

B-b-b-b-b-boss battle.

The Rebel Alliance

Our pictures just kind of…fell into place from different parts of the screen. They wobbled a little, like if they were strung up on a clothesline and the wind was blowing. 

Versus

Frankenclaus. Level 18 Borough Boss

You already exposed my script automation system to the whole galaxy, I'm not giving you anything else here.

(this part would have been really fun if you hadn't done this, just so you know) AND

The door to one of the rooms creaked open and a being made of 3 rotating metallic balls speckled with lumps of hairy flesh, the balls decreasing in size from bottom to top, spun slowly out, fell to the ground and rolled creakily towards us with a sound of alternating squelches and squeals. Anothee picture plopped disconsolately into place.

Mrs. Claus v4.7.6. Level 10 Neighborhood Boss

She's a snow-person covered in vaginas. She gives birth to ugly little elf babies that want to kill you. There, now all the surprises are ruined.

Alright, this wasn't exactly to plan, but we were in a pretty good spot, evidently. It was go time.

Harry: I'll Compel the big guy, you guys take out the gross robot. Murph, I'll tell you when to blow it!

The AI sighed and groaned like a petulant child.

Yeah, yeah, here we go. Whatever. There was supposed to be a stairwell here, just so you know, but I've moved it to inside the nearest City Boss chamber so now there's 2 of them there. Go find that if you want to get out of here.

Time resumed, and I cast my spell on the boss and bolted out the door, arms swung out behind me. I barely had time to marvel at how unusual it felt to use dungeon magic before gunfire and magic roared behind me. A tremendous CRASH signaled the whole boss-sleigh apparatus smashing through the barn door.

Murphy: The presents turn into bombs when he picks them up!

I dared a glance behind me as I dashed forward into a scene straight from an actual children's holiday special, a little picturesque village, snow-covered trees. I actually hadn't noticed that I was striding through knee-deep snow because it just naturally flowed around me. I saw a blinking red present sailing towards me and I leaned more into Winter to pick up speed. It exploded well behind me.

Clearly, this fight was supposed to obliterate this little piece of wonder in the hellscape that was everything outside of this chamber. Too bad for it, the boss was too enraged to try to take off and his deer were slightly slowed by running through the snow compared to me. I easily outpaced it, more explosions sounding. Then I jumped into one of the little houses and messaged Murphy.

A huge explosion detonated. I heard windows in the houses shatter and it felt like my eardrums burst. I cast my healing spell and they reformed close to instantly. The sad polka music was still playing. I cautiously emerged from the house.

Trees had been felled, facing away from ground zero of the blast. The deer and sleigh were scattered everywhere. The boss was ragged, legless, and bleeding, it's health half gone. I probably didn't need to do this, but Lorelai's notes had said I should try to use it as frequently as possible. I threw my arms back, dashed forward, and when I closed in on the boss, I activated Rush. One huge splatter of blood later and: winner appeared. The music, thankfully, cut off.

There wasn't anything worth looting in the main boss room or the village, other than the Borough and Neighborhood maps. Mrs. Claus' map only gave all the little houses names inside the boss chamber. But the other enclosed room held something different.

New Achievement! And Coal For the Rest of Them

You have discovered a Reward Room. Scattered throughout the Dungeon, reward rooms offer Crawlers items not generally available within loot boxes. Most reward rooms only allow one choice. You did the most dangerous work here, so I think you should get to choose

Reward: Don't be a greedier bitch than you already are. The goddamned room is the reward.

Inside the room sat 6 presents on shelves. An open and churning trash compactor of some kind churned below the shelves.

Everybody knows that Santa makes a list and checks it twice, and this Santa had the souls of at least 7 accountants in him, so you know he took his lists seriously. And Santa only found 6 good boys and girls out of all of them. He cherished these 6, but now, with his death, his failsafe has triggered. If he can't be the one to give the gifts, then no one can have them! Unfortunately for him, his works were designed by Cyber-Elves, and they suck at engineering. The failsafe triggered but then froze. Once you disturb the shelves at all, everything else will come tumbling down. But it'll fall on its own, soon. You've got 2 minutes.

I looked over the scene quickly, trying to guess what we should pick. The 6 shelves each had a wrapped package on them and a small plaque with a short description. Some were more obvious about what might be inside them than others.

The first shelf held what was clearly an adult-sized bicycle wrapped in paper featuring a turkey in the oven, basting itself as it cooked. The description read: It's a legitimate first job, mom!

The second shelf was what looked like a 6-pack of beer, but only the handle was visible above paper, which was covered in images of what looked like car accidents. The description read: Clack, clack. Clink, clink. What could be in here to drink?

The third held a plain rectangular box, about 1'x 2' and 2 inches high. It was wrapped in a plain red paper with Cyber-Elf-style Christmas trees. The description read: A discrete ensemble

The fourth, something that looked like a rake wrapped in blood-red tissue paper and ribbon, evidently Diax's Rake

The fifth was another plain rectangular box, but this one was about the size of a table lamp. The wrapping paper was blue with white snowflakes sporting splatters of blood. Its description read: Combination hookah and coffeemaker. Will also make julienne fries.

The sixth was a 3-inch square box that looked like a sized-up ring box. The description just read: I'm yours

A two minute timer started counting down.

Chapter Text

We all looked around at each other as the timer began counting down.

"So…what do you guys think we should pick?" asked James. "I kinda think the bike if we're going to be chasing down people who might have vehicles."

Harry: Honestly, I have a ton of gear already and we just got two more boss boxes, plus did anyone else get that Hobbit achievement with the gold box? You all can pick, I don't want to be a loot hog.

"My box was silver, but yes, I got that too," Murphy said. "And I don't really care. I give it 50-50 odds that they're all just worthless junk from outside the dungeon and that's why we wouldn't normally get them in boxes." 

"I got it at silver too," Rhonda said distractedly, reading over the descriptions again. "I kinda like the last one, but it lowkey sounds kinda creepy as fuck, too?"

"If…if we're gonna chase down those people, I don't think the bike would actually help, it only fits one person," Hope added hesitantly. "We'd be better off going back for the sleigh."

"FFFFFFUCCK no!" or some variation, yelled everyone else.

Harry: I mean, if we kept to a straightaway, it might not be THAT bad. I could just hop onto the drawbar and we could coast to a stop

A round of groans, even from Hope, who'd suggested it, shut that idea down pretty quickly.

"Well, the beer seems like probably a waste, the bottles look nothing like potion bottles," pondered James, his arms crossed as he tapped out a nervous rhythm with his fingers. "And I bet the "discrete ensemble" is probably something like lingerie or some other joke. And, no offense Harry, but I think we already have too much…sartorial loudness…going on in the party."

"Is that what you call his wack-ass fashion?" laughed Rhonda as she gave me the side-eye. "Though I'm pretty sure those magic sneakers is signed by Michael Jordan. But yeah, you do look like a clown, for real."

Harry: Hey! The stupid hat saved our asses just now.

I double checked my shoes as I chatted back. I'd remembered seeing a signature when they came out of the box, but I hadn't really paid attention since then. 

Huh. I think Rhonda was right. Were these actual shoes from up top, just made magic? Weird.

"Whatever you gotta tell yourself for you to put up with it, old man," she replied, shaking her head with a small grin. "Though yeah, any clothes we get would probably be somethin' stupid."

Tick-tock, these shelves won't stay up forever. 1 minute remaining.

"Why not the hookah thing?" Hope asked, immediately after the AI's impatient interjection. "It's from Aladdin, right? The intro with the shopkeeper guy? I like that movie, and it's probably not anything horrible. Maybe it'll just be some weird kitchen gadget, but maybe it'll be enchanted with something?"

"I like that movie too," said James with a broad smile. "And other than the rake, it's the only thing with a clear description. And a rake sounds way more boring. That's fine with me."

They both looked at Rhonda, who shrugged. "Yeah, sure, why not? I'll grab it," she said.

She walked over and reached up, grabbing the wrapped box with both hands and pulling it off the shelf. The other shelves immediately fell off the wall, and they and their contents were crushed into the compactor. Beer bottles cracked and smashed loudly, emitting a hint of tantalizing hoppy smell, while a thin plume of purple smoke puffed out of the ring box with a soft, feminine wail as everything we didn't pick was crushed and destroyed. The compactor shut off as soon as its duty was done.

We all looked at each other at that.

"Yep, I was right. It was creepy as fuck," Rhonda said with satisfaction, setting the present down and tearing off the wrapping paper.

Inside was a cardboard box that was taller than it was wide. Each of the four larger sides had a picture surrounded by a bunch of text in tiny font. The picture was presumably of the contents, a brass and glass apparatus that looked part Willy Wonka and part MC Escher. A description popped up as I examined it.

Enchanted Tobacconist's All-in-One Portable Café

This is a Unique Item

Manufactured originally in the court of the Sepsis Whore, this premium item is all the aspiring entrepreneur needs to start their own den of commerce or iniquity, as they prefer. Or hey, why not do both! This tool was enchanted with potent magics by the High Elves as a gift for their King during a particularly burdensome campaign in one of their seasonal genocidal purges. Too bad he lost it. But hey, that just means that somebody could wrap it all up and give it to you instead! It can provide a whole host of exciting benefits for a bevy of customers! Please consume responsibly. The manufacturers are not responsible for any consequences of over-indulgence or failure to follow instructions. Limited extradimensional storage for consumables available on select models. Production attendants sold separately. Call about our upgrade packages today!

This model has 3 functions: Smoke Herb, Brew Coffee, and Fry Vegetable. Each function relies on a consumable product to be placed within the unit as per unit instructions. Once every 30 hours, one function can be used. Effects vary widely depending on consumable product's quality and user skill at following the appropriate instructions. Each function creates multiple doses of a single product. Each dose consumed beyond the first within 30 hours of initial consumption improves the bonus granted, but also generates penalties. Consuming more than 5 doses in a 30-hour period is not recommended.

 A general overview of the functions is as follows:

Smoke Herb Function: Dried plant matter, or plant resin, is placed into the appropriate receptacle and covered with the provided lid. A hot coal (provided, see infinite coal storage panel) is placed atop the lid and the contents are allowed to burn. One burn produces 10 doses, or hits, of smoked product, consumed through the provided hose. Each dose provides a minimum 1 level boost to a single spell or skill, variable by type of plant matter or preparation. See instructions for more information. NOTE: Effects of using herb mixes or non-prescribed herbs may cause enhanced variability of effect.

Current smokables in storage: Ditch Weed, Kentucky Select Tobacco, Bundle of Sage

Brew Coffee Function: Place ground coffee beans into labeled hopper until full. Insert hot water into labeled receptacle and press button. See instructions for other options. One run of the Brew Coffee function produces 10 doses, or cups, of coffee. Each dose provides bonuses to Dexterity, the Alertness skill, the Careful Hands Skill, and movement speed. Quality of bonuses and potential for additional bonuses varies by bean quality, quality of grind, and water quality. See instructions for more information. Use of ground Chicory or Gymnocladus pods voids product warranty.

Current Coffee in storage: Folgers Instant Breakfast, McDonalds Brand whole bean decaf, Some guy named Juan from Miami's personal roast – medium grind

Fry Vegetable Function: Place any root vegetable into the labeled receptacle. Insert frying oil into appropriate receptacle. Set fry time and temperature as per instructions for the appropriate vegetable. Press button. Produces a number of doses, or fries, that varies by root vegetable size, but generally ranges from 10 – 20 per use. Each dose provides bonuses to Constitution and the Spew skill, a % resistance to Poison, a % resistance to Disease, and a % resistance to momentum-based damage. Quality and potential for additional types of bonus varies by species of root vegetable, vegetable quality, and oil type used. See instructions for more information

Current Root Vegetables in storage: 1 russet potato that looks like Abraham Lincoln's head, 1 oca, 1 daikon radish shaped kinda like a dick

That was…a lot. Rhonda picked up the box and turned it over. There was a rattling sound. More text covered the bottom. 

Harry: I think I'm too old to read those instructions without bifocals. Or possibly a microscope.

"Yeaaahhh," drawled Rhonda. "I'ma read that later. We need to get a move on." She took the box into her inventory. We headed out of the barn/stable area, bypassing the reeking corpse of the Mrs. Claus robot. I tried to ignore the little chunks of elf scattered about. They'd apparently been like land-piranhas: tiny, mobile, and full of teeth. But not resistant to birdshot from a magically enhanced shotgun, evidently. 

As we left the chamber of the Borough Boss, we paused in a small copse of trees over a slight ridge. So long as you ignored that the air still smelled like blood and fire and the little elfin houses all had shattered windows, the scene around us was picturesque. It seemed…unreal. I think each of us was a little enraptured. I'm glad we'd been able to, mostly, spare it from succumbing to the violence of the Dungeon, even if it seemed meaningless

It reminded me of times I'd been visiting with the Carpenter Family what seemed like a lifetime ago. I thought back to my promise to myself. And to this place. I was going to do something about the terrible things that had happened and were still happening to my home and the people who still lived in it. 

Buuuuuut…I didn't have to let that stop me from being me. 

Slowly and carefully, I made use of my upgraded Sleight of Hand skill to quietly palm a handful of snow from the branch of the pine tree I stood next to. My hand slowly clenched the snow into a loose ball. I eyed my target, and just when her eyes closed in a slow blink, I whipped  the snowball into the side of Murphy's head. It actually did a teeny tiny sliver of damage.

Murphy gasped and jumped in shock, her bright red face turning to me in outrage.

Harry: Nyah, nyah, you can't catch me!

I messaged that to the group as I ran away, scooping up snow and machine-gunning snowballs at the others as fast and accurately as my supernaturally enhanced strength and dexterity could allow. 

"Oh, you prick!" Murphy yelled, laughing and scooping up snow. I was running circles around the group and she didn't bother trying to catch me, instead lining up a shot. I let her take her time as I pelted Hope, Rhonda, and James until they got into the spirit of things. 

Soon, James was defending the team with bursts of his Gust of Wind spell while the others tried to hit me as I dodged and weaved, slipping through the snow and leaving it somehow undisturbed at breakneck speed. This was almost too easy.

I was concentrating on avoiding some trees and was therefore shocked when I heard the little plink of Hope's magic rifle. And then suddenly, wind was swirling the snow up all around me and I was blinded. I sputtered and coughed and then out of nowhere, Murphy appeared, leaping with a huge ball of snow and slamming it over my head. I lost my sense of direction and slammed straight through a tree, causing it to topple over to the sound of mixed laughs and shouts of alarm. 

Laughing my new croaking laugh, I slowed to a stop and allowed myself to topple over onto my back in the snow.

Harry: Lo! I am beaten!

Soon the rest of the party had gathered around me, smiling and panting with exertion. Murphy reached down to me and helped pull me to my feet. 

"So, what was that about, wise guy?" she said with a grin as I settled myself upright.

I gestured to them all.

Harry: What do you mean? This is what it's about!

Rhonda huffed and puffed her reply. She looked the least amused of everyone, but it was still there. "Not gonna lie, superpowered snowball fight is pretty fuckin' fun. But we got places to be. What gives?"

I made a circular gesture, drawing their eyes to me. I looked each of them in turn as I messaged them.

Harry: Look. I know we have a lot of heavy stuff to get to work on. We need to find and stop a group of murderous assholes. We need to find the stairs down. We're gonna have to fight more monsters.

Harry: But I've been thinking about how this place wants us all to be these kill-everything, fight-everything psychos for the entertainment of a galaxy of other psychos.

Harry: And, yeah, looks like that's the general order of the day. But fuck all those assholes. We can still find time to live like we should be living. Even if it's just a few minutes a day. 

Harry: Maybe it's just clean clothes when we wake up. Maybe it's enjoying good food whenever it's available. 

I gestured all around us.

Harry: Maybe we can take a chance to celebrate saving a stupid little empty town that was only put here to get blown up because we just kicked a huge boss' ass so hard the AI didn't even give us boss music! 

Everyone just stood there for a moment. Stars and Stones, this would be so much more effective if I could freaking talk. The baby Wardens had eaten this kind of thing up, and we were going to need every bit of morale boost we could get if we were going to get through this awful place.

"Y'know, what?" Rhonda finally said, nodding her head. "Yeah. Yeah! You right. Fuck 'em! Suck my taint, you alien assholes!" She flipped the bird with both hands up at the sky. "I'm gonna make snow angels!" she said, falling over and doing just that with a laugh.

James looked around nervously before sighing. "It does feel nice to have saved this place," he said, a little wistfully. "The System gave all the houses little cutesy names so we'd feel bad when the boss destroyed them if we'd come in the front door. That's a real dick move. I'm glad they didn't get to have that."

Hope pulled out some sort of glass jug she'd picked up somewhere and wrote on it with a marker before handing it to me. It read "SWEAR JAR 1 GP". "For when we're having food in the saferoom," she said, a little shyly. "Estor said we'll start getting gold next floor. When it fills up, we can buy something small and stupid. I know it's awful in here, but…it'd be more like home when we're resting if everybody was a little more polite."

Murphy and I laughed. "Looks like Rhonda'll end up going broke before long," she said.

"The fuck's going on?" Rhonda sat up to ask, sounding confused.

The rest of us laughed even harder.

Soon enough, we left the chamber and headed out of Cyber-Elf territory for good. Murphy and I were chatting silently while Hope had her map maxxed out, guiding us. James and Rhonda were arguing about an instruction booklet that apparently had been within the hookah package. It appeared to be, according to a fascinated James, "fractally dense and possibly infinite". Rhonda just said she could still read it, and that she was going to. I was beginning to think that this prize may have been a bust.

Tangential to that little conversation had been the fact that she'd been able to see the manual as listed within the box in her inventory, and she could draw it out directly, without having to take out the box. That was a pretty interesting trick. I checked my own inventory and found that some of the machines that I'd taken listed several parts, in various states from "functional" to "severely damaged" as being contained within the machines. That would make any disassembly we'd need to do to go way faster. 

The best place to start our search would have been where we'd found the bodies, but I was, hopefully understandably, nervous about going back there. I raised the concern with Murphy.

Murphy: Don't worry. I…took them into my inventory. I was hoping that we'd get to a floor where there's real ground and I can bury them properly. I guess that's my little bit of normalcy.

Harry: Wow, I didn't realize that we could do that. And that sounds like a good plan. I'll help. If you want.

She grabbed my hand and gave it a quick squeeze before settling into the role of rearguard as I led the way.

Once we arrived at the intersection, I looked around. I saw several chunks taken out of the wall and a ring of staff-sized impact craters at one spot. I shook my head and turned to the task at hand. I pulled out the vials of blood and hair that Murphy had retrieved, which had all been attached to some twine, as well as the potion I'd brewed up. Looking at it, the potion had an actual AI description. The blending potion had just been described as A "potion" made of glass and paper that makes you invisible, I guess.

For this one, the description read:

Potion of Preserve the Hunt

I think I'm starting to see what's going on with these things. I can tell you screwed up the brewing process a bit with this one, but hey, this could lead to some fun times, so we'll make it work. You better be grateful if this works out for you.

This potion, when combined with an appropriate focus, removes physical and magical sources of contamination and enhances the effectiveness and duration of tracking spells by…let's say 38%. Potion has a duration of 2.75 hours of active use.

I pondered the description for a moment. That wasn't a long amount of time for active use, but if I stored it in inventory, time wouldn't pass for it. So I think I could make this work. I poured the potion into each of the vials and called up my tracking spell. 2 of the vials failed to move, but 2 pointed away to the south and west by the minimap. I dropped the failed vials to the ground and put the others into my inventory. We set off.

About an hour into our trek following the compass, we happened to come across a tutorial guild just off the main hall and decided to stop and open the boxes from the Borough Boss fight. I also wanted to chat with Lorelai about my options for trying to get my tongue fixed. Murphy had said that the Bune woman had some thoughts but figured it would be easiest to talk about them in person since Murphy had wanted to come back to check on me. 

We were still nervous about trying to enter any rooms where we knew other crawlers had entered before, because suddenly exploding was a rational thing to fear, so while Murphy and I went in first, the others would explore the nearby neighborhood. Our Borough map said that the things that lived in this neighborhood were called "Sapsuckers".

Lorelai was sitting at her desk, writing something, when we came in. As soon as the door opened, she turned to face us. She looked over our heads, where we now sported a silver star in addition to 3 bronze ones. 

"Good," she said brusquely, gesturing for us to pull up chairs of our own, "I see you managed to beat that Borough Boss. Excellent work. That's going to be good for your numbers. We'll go over the fight in a minute. I presume you want to know how to fix yourself? I'm assuming Murphy told you most of the details about berserking and its dangers, so we can skip right past that?"

I nodded. I hadn't asked last "night" because I hadn't wanted the conversation to get too bogged into details, but between breakfast and the hike over here, Murphy had told me what Lorelai had told her, which basically boiled down to the fact that there were about a dozen different spells and statuses that caused a "berserk" buff/debuff and they could mix and match flavors in different seasons, sometimes. They all made you substantially stronger and most lowered your Dexterity, so you were less likely to hit. Some buffed speed, some lowered Constitution, some made you attack anyone around you, and some allowed you to target enemies first, if they were around. Some apparently gave you flight or other types of enhanced movement. All of them made it hard to impossible to control yourself while they were active and made you focus on physical attacks over magical in most circumstances. 

The kind that I'd been hit by was one that generally would make me target enemies first, but allies nearby would be in danger once those were gone or if they got in my way. It boosted my speed, Constitution, and Strength, but substantially lowered my Dexterity. My type also made me less focused on outright killing and more on relishing the violence, which was apparently uncommon but not unheard of. It was evidently more "dramatic" that way. All in all, it would absolutely suck if it got activated except in highly limited circumstances, so I'd have to try to avoid it in the future. Which would be hard because it didn't have a specific spell or ability to trigger it from what Lorelai saw via the menus. If my experience with Winter had taught me anything so far, it's that it would probably be triggered by my state of mind more than any Dungeon cause. And my state of mind would be mightily improved by being able to talk again, so I settled in at a desk next to Murphy as I listened to our guide.

"Right," she said, "So, I've been thinking it over and you're probably going to luck out and get a solution in a box sometime this floor or early in the next. You've been on the show, and you've had some dramatic things happening and the audience is going to want to hear what you have to say once live streaming is opened up. This kind of dramatic injury is good for getting viewer engagement early on, but if nobody can hear you, they'll drop off. The fix might not be to your tongue, though. I'd say it's equally likely to be a speaker or telepathic projector or something that will let you vocalize but without actually fixing your body."

I grunted vehemently in irritation. Lorelai raised her hands placatingly.

"I know, I know. If that turns out to be the case, you have other options. I see your Regeneration skill has leveled up to 3. That's good. It's a hard skill to actually level up because of the advanced healing speed present in the Dungeon, plus the prevalence and utility of potions. If you can get it to 10, your tongue should regrow. But the only way to do that is to either recover your injuries naturally or take injuries that basic potions can't heal but that can be fixed by small parts of your body regrowing, which is basically just your teeth, corneas, and eardrums. Not a fun time. So finding skill potions or a training guild would be the way to go, though Regeneration guilds are few and far between. You probably won't see one until the 4^th at the absolute earliest."

More grunting and gesturing. There had to be other options.

"Will you keep your pants on? I'm getting there. I'm glad I can't use the chat function, I'm sure you'd be interrupting every damn sentence," she groused. "You could also find a pulpmancer or one of a variety of other fleshmancers. Most likely that'd be on the 6^th or later, but if a Crawler takes that as a class, maybe on the 3^rd. Necromancers and dark clerics are around on the 3^rd, too, but I'm assuming you don't want an undead tongue?"

I shook my head vehemently. That sounded worse than what I was dealing with now. Of course they had freaking necromancers in this place. Ugh, another thing to "look forward" to. 

She nodded as if she expected that answer. "Another option would be to just buy a replacement. Certain towns on the 3^rd floor might have shops catering to crippled crawlers. They would be very expensive, but if you didn't earn enough the old-fashioned way, you could just steal gold, or maybe the item itself, depending on the shop, if you had a good strategy. Those are the main options. Any questions?"

I had a few about specifics of how to identify those types of magic users and shops that Murphy relayed for me, but overall, I was feeling cautiously optimistic by the time Lorelai started reviewing the fight data.

She was hemming and hawing as she looked over her menus. "That went pretty much as well as it could have gone," she said. " Sneak in through a special back entrance, smart. Set the explosives, hit the boss with the duel spell, blew him up, and Rush for the finale with some serious speed boosts and that 200% damage increase. Very well done. How'd you get the bombs rigged, though? I wouldn't have expected him or that surprise neighborhood boss to just sit around for that."

Murphy and I shared a confused glance.

"Is that not in the notes?" Murphy asked. "Harry made a potion and snuck us past the chamber entrance. The boss just sat there and I was able to plant the bombs, no problem. Well, mostly no problem."

Lorelai looked shocked. "What," she said flatly. "I was just looking at the blow-by-blow. Hang on, let me check some things…" Her eyes raced back and forth, flashing. She got a horrified look on her face, her mouth dropping open.

"Did you idiots piss off the AI? What did you do?" she asked, aghast. Murphy and I looked at each other again and we both just shrugged. Lorelai muttered furiously to herself as she paced around the room. She was using her hands to rub the horns that jutted out of the back of her skull. It looked vaguely like a human trying not to tear their hair out in frustration. I was interrupted from trying to make out what she was saying by a message from the others.

James: So, these guys are giant mosquitos, just fyi. They're pretty easy to take out, but based on the description, I'm willing to bet there's some sort of poison or disease debuff for the higher level mobs or boss. We're pulling back to the door just in case. You going to be out soon?

Harry: Nah, Lorelai's freaking out about us sneaking into the boss fight, apparently. We might be a minute.

James: Alright, well, we'll see you when you get out.

I zoned back in just as Lorelai seemed to find her stride.

"Okay. Okay. I need to figure out what the fuck you did with that potion," she muttered. "How'd you even make a damn potion that could do that at all, let alone without an Alchemy table? Yeferi preserve us, do you two want to die? Just…just sit there for a minute, I need to investigate some things. Open your boxes if you want, it's not like seeing the magnitude of your fuckup would make them go away." I shrugged and got to opening the boxes. Murphy did the same.

She had a small assortment of goblin boxes in addition to the two boss boxes and the silver box from sneaking past the AI. The goblin boxes replaced all her used dynamite and then some, plus restocked her detonators. In the silver boss box, she got 2 stacks of something called Hobgoblin Pus, which was apparently magical C4. The Mrs. Claus boss box gave her a set of what looked like yoga pants called the Enchanted Pants of the Sneaky Bitch. Those gave her some additional charisma and stealth skills as well as a point in Lockpicking. But the real reward was in the This Might Be Interesting box. Murphy whooped when she read the description, which made Lorelai grumble angrily, not looking up from her screens.

Enchanted Amorphous Magazine

You're an aficionado. A collector. A connoisseur. It just so happens that your objects of choice to collect are death-dealing implements. Like a sommelier appreciates a fine bouquet and a luxurious mouthfeel, you love the feel of a thick grip, a tight grouping, or a big blast as the occasion warrants. But don't you just hate it when the next course you want to serve in your buffet of murder is out of oomph, or just lacks a little of that special something? Well never fear, because this little doodad will pull through for you any day of the week. 

Once per 30 hours, this magazine can be equipped to any firearm-class weapon that accepts magazines of ammunition, whether internal or external. Sorry 6-shooters, you're out of luck. A firearm to which the Amorphous Magazine is equipped gains the following benefits:

Imbues the wielder with +3 Dexterity

The Buffet Enchantment

The Shifter Enchantment

We already knew from Hope's rifle that the Buffet enchantment gave infinite regular ammo, which was a godsend. Murphy had been burning through the P90 ammunition at a furious rate, and the fact that this could be installed on other guns meant that we could still make use of them tactically when it made sense. 

The Shifter enchantment gave a small bonus to the weapon based on the weapon type and wielder's race. It evidently gave enhanced bonuses for wielders with a shapeshifting race, but didn't say what those were. We'd have to experiment to see what that could do with our armory. 

Meanwhile, I only had the two boss boxes and the Gold This Might Be Interesting box. The bonze box contained a poofy white shirt that made me think of some of the more low-quality Pirates of the Caribbean knockoff films I'd seen at the drive-in theatre during a run of discount movie showings. It was called the Enchanted Shirt of Sensitivity and it gave me the ability to alter the perceptive ability and sensitivity of my 5 senses, or those of another person I was physically touching, by up 50% in either direction and also provided a 10% resistance to psychic damage. That was pretty nice, but a little weird. 

The silver box presented an item that was simultaneously so useful and so unsettling that I immediately became nervous, based solely on how much Lorelai was worried I'd pissed off the AI. It was a little cameo brooch, with a carving of man's face that made me think of ancient Roman sculptures.

Enchanted Brooch of Casanovus Interruptus

For the gentleman of taste who loves to swoop in to save the day and get the girl, this brooch is a godsend. Did that girl want to be got? Did their spouse or big burly Papa want them to be got? Did you? Who cares! You're here now, and that's all that matters. 

This is a Fleeting Item!

Female NPCs and sapient mobs of all kinds are no longer automatically hostile to you. 

+1 to the Cold Start Skill

+2 to the Candygram Skill

+2 to the Pheromones Skill

The Speed Demon Benefit

The Ope Let Me *SQUEEZE* Right Past Ya, There! Benefit

The Speed Demon benefit gave me a buff that enhanced the damage of all of my attacks based on my movement speed that began to slowly lose potency as I slowed down. And with the Cold Start skill, which allowed me to reach higher speeds faster, I could stack that benefit into shorter and shorter distances as I trained up the skill. The other benefit worked perfectly with those things: It let me automatically avoid white-tagged NPCs, pets, and party members when I was moving faster than a light jog would have been before I joined Mab's forces. Those were good, very good with my other abilties. But the other skills…it wasn't bad now, but given that Lorelai had said we'd eventually be in towns and areas with lots of NPCs, I was worried.

Pheromones automatically produced a charm effect in a relatively small area that only affected nonhostile female NPCs and mobs. It couldn't be turned off. It leveled up by being used and it was always on. The charm effect made the affected creatures find me impressive and desirable. The Candygram skill provided a passive bonus to charm skills, the potency of which was based on the highest speed I'd reached over the last 10 seconds.

And the worst part of it was that Fleeting item note. That meant that If I equipped it and then removed it, it would dissolve into nothing. Once I put it on, I had to keep it on.

As the brooch zipped into my inventory, the gold box swept forward, its shape resembling whatever would happen if you told the world's most talented metallurgist to make a golden copy of Rodin's The Thinker but instead of portraying the man sitting on a rock, show him…well, dropping a rock, to euphemize. It exploded in a shower of sparks and when they passed, I saw Lorelai staring at the item that had appeared. I was too. I could feel a vein pulsing in my forehead. I grit my teeth. No. This was mine. They didn't get to have this. They didn't get to make a fucking game out of this. How dare they. How. Dare. They. My jaw creaked.

Lorelai turned to look at me. "Harry," she said with an icy-calm voice. "Did you happen to have an intimate, probably emotionally vulnerable, and at least partially audible conversation with Karrin sometime shortly before you zeroed out a hidden aggro stat that I had never even heard of before in order to bypass a boss room trigger, thereby allowing you to trick the System AI, I reiterate, the. System. A.I., in a way that fell entirely within the game ruleset, forcing it to give you major rewards without a real, serious fight? The type of serious fight that it was programmed to arrange with all the fervor of a fanatical priest? And, I'm just guessing here, just a little supposition based on who you are as a person, did you maybe brag a little about it?"

"Uh…" said Murphy distractedly as she read the item description, her anger slowly winning the war with mortified embarrassment in her face. "He…uh…he may have done a little shit-talking, yeah."

The AI's voice was upbeat, but with a quietly malicious undertone that grew the longer it spoke.

Enchanted Incubus Tongue Prosthesis

This enchanted prosthetic tongue will graft itself automatically to the stump of an amputated tongue and fully integrate with the host body, no longer being considered a magic item unless it is removed, at which point, it will disintegrate. It will automatically rest in a comfortable position, identical to the tongue it is replacing, but it has an amorphous form and can stretch up to 18 inches long and up to 3 inches wide. It has been enchanted with a suite of custom sensory manipulators that make it impervious to pain while…enhancing…other sensations. You like feeling things so much, you made a whole magic out of it! Well, now food will taste better than it has ever tasted. The kiss of a lover will be sweeter than any you have ever known. And. Every. Time. You. Feel. It. You'll know.

 I gave this to you. 

Bon Appetit.

This is a Fleeting item!

This item imbues the wearer with +2 Charisma and +4 Constitution

You are immune to Poison

+5 to the Poison Tongue Skill

+5 to the Lascivious Tongue Skill

The True Love's Kiss Benefit

True Love's Kiss

Awwww, you're in love! Isn't. That. Sweet. Now kith. Once per 30 hours, you may designate someone your True Love by declaiming your passion for them in the form of a unique poem, song verse, monologue, or soliloquy that they can see and hear you deliver lasting no less than 6 seconds. Yes it has to be a new one each time. How can you say you love someone if you CAN count the ways? Love is infinite, baby. And none of that changing one word each time kind of bullshit. If your erstwhile love accepts, you must seal it with a kiss. Once the love pact is sealed, the kiss-ee receives the following benefits:

The Cockroach Skill

Resistance to all mental magics and effects not cast or generated by you

Resistance to disease

The Reactive Shield Spell

Temporary Invulnerability

The strength of these benefits is proportional to the quality of your declaration, how much you both enjoy the kiss, and how many people within 100 feet of your position can see and/or hear you. Two sweet little chickadees shouldn't be selfish with sharing their affection. 

The love pact only ends if your lips or tongue touch another or you renew your vow of love with an even more passionate new decree. If your pact ends because you kissed, or licked, somebody else, you randy little scamp, your former love gains the Heartbroken debuff and you cannot re-swear your love to each other for 30 hours. Not that they'd want to, you trollop.

This is a Charm effect

For every 5 minutes that you are without a True Love, you will gain a stacking Lovelorn debuff.

Chapter Text

CH 20

I was fuming as the prosthetic entered my inventory, my mind whirling at a mile a minute. I heard the desk beneath me groan as I gripped the edges and twisted. I wasn’t going to use that thing. Murph and I been ships passing in the night for years now, and I wasn’t going to let these alien assholes exploit what fragile hopes we’d been able to build since I’d died, returned, and now been sucked into an end-of-the-world nightmare scenario. It hadn’t even been a day. My feelings were mine. They were private. These assholes with their cameras everywhere weren’t going to –

Lorelai was suddenly in my face, snarling and making a swift clap under my nose that derailed my train of thought. I glared at her mutinously. Murphy’s face was as much a thunderstorm as my own.

“Hey! You two need to cut the shit. We need to talk about this.”

Harry: Tell her I’m not using that damn thing. I’ll fix my tongue another way.

Murphy placed a hand on my arm, and though I could tell how mad she was, I knew it wasn’t at me. “Harry, are you sure?” she asked me.

“Let me guess,” Lorelai said with grim amusement, pointing at me. “This chucklefuck said something like ‘I’m not going to use the magic tongue’ or something, right?” I glowered and sank down into the chair.

“You don’t understand, Harry,” she said, shaking her head sadly. “You still want to fix your tongue, right?”

I nodded sullenly.

“Well, you just got the only way that is going to happen,” Lorelai said, her own voice shaking a little. I couldn’t look at her. I put my face in my hands as she continued. “This is the System AI. It controls all the rewards. It sets the mob and NPC behavior. It is functionally omnipotent within the scope of the rules of the game, it knows it, and you somehow pulled a fast one on it. Any other attempt to fix this problem will fail. You won’t get another in a box, even if you got a hundred Celestial boxes. You’ll never get skill potions or find guilds to boost Regeneration if you don’t take this fix. Any Crawler or NPC you try to have fix it will undoubtedly die a horrible death, probably in such a way that you’ll have to run from a bunch of mobs or town guards or something. Any items in the shops that would help, if they’d even be present and not removed from shopkeeper inventory in your presence, will be priced too high for you to buy and be too well guarded for you to steal. This is over. It’s that thing, or nothing. Do you get it, now? This is what being a Crawler is. They will take anything that is precious to you and twist it to their own amusement. Stop. Giving. Them. Ammunition.”

I wept, then. I wept for what Murphy and I could have been, had the world not ended. I wept for that end, and for all of us inside the Dungeon.

“…I think you should use it, Harry,” Murphy said softly, squeezing my arm tightly. I gaped in shock, which made Murphy flinch at the sight of my empty mouth, but she still held on.

Harry: I can’t let them do this to us, Murph. I can’t let them all make light of…of everything. It’s not theirs to see. It’s only for us. It’s only for you. This is all too much. Even if the AI can see all these chat conversations, those billions of aliens can’t. They shouldn’t. It’s not a game to play. It’s real.

We leaned into each other. She was crying, too. “I know, Harry. I know,” she whispered. “I hate it too. I hate that…all this…happened to us. I hate that I made this h-happen to you.”

Harry: This isn’t your fault. We couldn’t have known what was going to happen…

“Oh, for the love of the gods, what did I just say about ammunition!” Lorelai said, her head butting up against ours as she made our little line into a triangle. We both flinched back. “Karrin, tell Harry why you think he should do it, since he won’t listen rational advice. And stop getting distracted! I swear, you humans are all the same, no matter how many planets I see!”

Wait a minute…

“There are other human planets out there?!?” Murphy practically yelled, the revelation sweeping away our worry for a moment. I made a noise of agreement. That was incredible!

“Yes.” she replied. “And I’m not saying anything else until we talk about the actually important stuff. They mentioned Earth humans on the premier, didn’t you bother to think about why they’d need to specify? I mean, they…you know what? No. Now I’m succumbing to your idiocy. The tongue. Talk. Now. Then we can talk about how you’ll have to use it.”

I took a moment to compose myself and Murphy did the same, while Lorelai grimaced at us. I got the feeling she was itching to have a ruler in hand to slap our wrists if we got off topic, like some kind of dragon-nun.

Harry: I’m not doing it, Murph. I’d rather be without. It might not be what I’d truly want it to be. I don’t feel whole. But it’d be just us. I mean, I’ve started thinking of some ways to be private that might work, with a little experimentation, and we could have something that’s only ours. Not a show.

I desperately wished I could actually speak the words but hardened my heart against that longing.

“We still can, if you’re going to put in the effort,” she said with the pale ghost of a grin. “And…I’d much rather it were that way, too. I…I don’t want all of who I am just…exposed…like that. Relationships aren’t supposed to be under a spotlight. It was hard enough in the precinct, where everybody and their mother was a gossipy hen talking about each other, but this…It feels…particularly slimy.” She shook her head.

“But that’s not what I’m talking about,” she said, her voice gaining strength. “It’s like you said earlier. We should try to live like its normal when we can. And this…us? It’s new. It’s…it’s real damn new. But at the same time, it’s not. What could be more normal than Murphy and Dresden, at it again?”

I laughed, wiping my eyes on the sleeve of my duster.

Harry: I think you mean Dresden and Murphy

“Ladies first, as you like to say,” she shot back with a smirk of challenge. But her grin faded after a moment, and she took a deep breath before continuing. “But also…do…do you…” She suddenly shook her head and slapped her face with both hands. “Argh! This is so stupid, I’m over 40 for God’s sake!”

“Oh, wow, your skincare regime must be top-notch. I wouldn’t have said a day over 15 judging by all that I’ve seen,” said Lorelai drily.

That made Murphy turn sharply and stomp over to the Bune woman with a ferocious glare “Lorelai, I appreciate all your help. I really do,” she said flatly. “But shut the fuck up. Have a little goddamn empathy if you’ve really been where we are. Harry’s a good man and even though he’d lost a hell of a lot even before this happened, he’d still do anything to –”

Lorelai had rocked back at Murphy’s approach, but she held up a hand to cut Murphy off before she could really go full steam. My eyes were misting over again.

“I’m…sorry,” Lorelai said contritely, her head bowed. She looked up at me, and I could see the grief there, deep and ragged. “Truly. It’s just…it’s…hard…seeing people do all the things I’d done that came to hurt me all over again…”

“But if you ended up in the same place as you are today, would you really prefer not having made whatever memories you’d made by doing them? Would it really have saved you, or whoever you’re thinking about? Or would they just have found some other way to get at you, and then you’d be all alone but with less of the ones you cared for in your heart?” Murphy asked, her voice quiet but steady, like she’d come to a decision. Lorelai looked stricken at the questions.

Murphy turned back to me, and walked back over, placing her hand softly on my chest. I felt a lurch. “We’ve known each other forever,” she said, quietly. “We’ve been through a hell of a lot.”

I nodded deeply, trying to swallow my emotions.

“Do you love me?” She asked, her voice full of fear and longing.

My heart burst into overdrive. A flash of decades, fighting, laughing, working, helping. Together. I took her hand in both of mine and lowered it from my chest.

Harry: Of course. How could I not?

“And are you ashamed of that?” She asked. She…might have actually been a little angry at just the idea.

Harry: No! No, why would I be?

“Then what’s the big deal if you tell that to me and then make me,” she stumbled a little bit, blushing. “…make me feel it. And make sure I know it’s true?”

Harry: I’m not going to spout lines for them like a pet parrot and kiss on command just because they want to see it!

“You wouldn’t be doing it for them, Harry,” she said, her blush deepening as we gripped onto each other like we were holding onto a lifeline. “You’d be doing it for…for us. You’d be doing it because that’s the way you feel and I haven’t ever seen you fail to follow through on what you’ve felt was right at any cost. Maybe you’re a little slow to figure what that is, sometimes,” she grinned at me, her eyes sparkling. “And maybe you get confused of the path once in a while without somebody to be there with you. But if you really feel…that way…about me, well, then it’s right to tell me so. So, make that the reason you do it. Right is right…Right?” She gave a shy little grin. Murphy! Shy!

I was flabbergasted. I was dumbfounded. I was fairly sure that that was cheating, somehow. At what I had no idea. But something.

Apocalypse is a frame of mind.

“That said,” Murphy’s voice cut off my train of thought. “Privacy is good. Very, very good.” I grinned and waggled my eyebrows at her. “I…oh, grow up, Dresden, you ass,” she laughed. I did too. I knew what she meant.

Harry: Are you sure?

“Are you?” she challenged me.

I took a deep breath. I didn’t really want to do this. Did I? It felt…wrong. But so did not having a goddamn tongue. And I knew in my heart that Lorelai was right. The AI ran this whole horror show. Of course it’d be too vindictive to give another out. It was this, or nothing. Wouldn’t this be giving in, though? Surrendering to the AI and doing what it wants for the audience’s amusement? I thought back to Mab. This Dungeon was just another capricious entity that could kill me at any moment. I served Mab. I…wouldn’t serve the Dungeon. Mab had a purpose. This place was just…vile. But doing what I’d want to do anyway wasn’t really serving it. It was more like…having a tapeworm. It was just along for the ride.

I think I could live with that, in this case. For her.

My breath released. I nodded.

“Good,” said Lorelai, seizing the moment, much to my chagrin. “Now before you equip it, let’s talk about what will happen when you kiss somebody else and slap her with that debuff.”

“Lorelai…” Murphy growled.

“Permit an old, old woman her cynicism in this case, Karrin,” Lorelai asked, sounding tired. “Please? It won’t be his fault. It’s that brooch.”

I sighed.

Harry: We should hear her out. That thing worries the hell out of me.

Murphy took a deep breath and let it out, moving back to the chair she’d previously claimed and settling in with a slightly annoyed expression. “Alright,” she said after a moment.

Lorelai nodded in thanks. “Harry, that brooch is an incredible item. The fact that you got both it and the tongue means that the AI isn’t trying to kill you. Yet, anyway. It’s just trying to piss you off. Those two benefits –  Two! From a silver box item! – plus that Cold Start skill make you just an incredible Velocitor. Probably the most powerful I’ve seen before the 3^rd floor.”

I looked at her quizzically.

“That’s a velocity-based Momentum build as opposed to a mass-based build, which is called a Juggernaut,” she clarified. “We’ll talk more about it during race and class selection. Anyway, Speed Demon gives you that speed-based damage buff, which is simple and excellent for someone with a top speed as high as yours. The other one, which is usually called ‘Pass-Through’, solves the #2 problem that kills Velocitors: drawing town guard aggro by accidentally running through a fragile NPC while in a town. #1 is poor turning skills, which those socks and your Running and Rooted in Place skills basically solve. Be on the lookout for Crawlers running through a town, though. The benefit won’t help you there. And once you level up Cold Start, you’ll be able to turn a full 180 degrees on a dime and to go from 0-100 lighting quick. That brooch will eventually make you a living pinball of non-stop destruction even in the tightest confines, which is they type of place Velocitors are most weak. You will need that brooch to survive.”

I braced for the but.

“But,” she continued, “Because the AI wants to make things interesting, it slapped a speed-enhanced charm ability that you can’t turn off onto that thing that will absolutely cause NPCs and mobs to go after you, and not in a violent way, especially any that are sensitive to smells. Be very careful about that. You’ll recognize it right away. It won’t be many after you to start, but the skills will level fast once you find yourself in the right company. They’ll start out just a little flirty, but the stronger the charm is, the more they might start getting… rowdy. It’ll be like…I saw something once on your internet. About lions. I don’t know if it’s true or not, I don’t give a shit about lions. During the mating season, supposedly, if the lead male wasn’t getting it on enough for the ladies’ tastes, they’d chase him around, biting at his balls until he got to it. Same idea. Probably not literally that. But you never know, with this place. That picture of the lions was pretty funny.”

I had Murphy relay a question for me.

Harry: Tell me about charm effects. Are they spells? Or another type of mind control?

Lorelai considered for a moment. “These ones? None of them are spells. Though they level up in similar ways, spells and skills are fundamentally different at the base level in ways that won’t make sense to anybody without a look at the underlying math of the game. And even charm spells aren’t really mind control. That sort of thing is typically the province of psionics and psychic abilities. And certain spells that fall under the enslavement category.” She looked very disgusted when she said that, her upper lip curling back to reveal her fangs.  

She shook whatever memories she had on the subject out of her mind before moving on. “Charms, particularly skill-based charms, are more like…a natural side effect of charisma and strong personalities. In fact, having a high charisma produces natural charm effects in the dungeon. They can be resisted, depending on level difference between the charmer and the target, and they don’t fundamentally change the target’s personality. They do impact behavior, as I’ve said, but it’s more like the difference in response you might get ordering a coffee from a barista and flirting while you’re covered in dirt and torn clothes compared to doing the same after you’ve showered, gotten a haircut, and were wearing a suit and tie. It changes the image you give off, not the actual mind of the target. They affect the senses and brain in different ways.”

That was a relief. The thought of basically being a walking 4^th Law violation, even if mobs and NPCs weren’t people like humans or former crawlers, would have made this completely untenable. It sounded more like this was White Court-type mojo. They could turn it into mind control, but it didn’t mean they had to. Thomas was proof of that. And if he could live with it, so could I. But that had its own problems.

Harry: Is this going to mean that I can’t go into towns, once those are a thing?

“You’ll be okay if you keep to an easy walking pace. Even if you leveled up the skill to 15, by itself it would mostly just make all the ladies turn their heads, want to make conversation, be more friendly, maybe get a little handsy or try to sneak a kiss or engage in a little light stalking, but not much more so than if you were just an exceptionally handsome bachelor and known to be wealthy and generous with it. But the effect will get stronger the longer you’re around the same group, and that’s when you’ll be most at risk to be pulled into an impromptu makeout session.”

I thought of all the trouble my brother had had, trying to hold down a normal job as a White Court vampire with supernatural sex appeal. I almost wished that he was here so he could give me tips. Not that they’d seemed to help him much.

Harry: And if I go faster than a walking pace?

“Don’t,” she replied before giving a hissing sigh. “But when you’re inevitably forced to, try to be running out of town and not into a building. Most NPCs who aren’t part of a caravan or something won’t go beyond town walls so long as the town isn’t under assault or otherwise at risk. Candygram will expand the range and intensity of the charm and you’ll pull a crowd in no time once it’s leveled up. Run fast enough and you’ll either have to start a fight or an orgy once you get where you’re going and there might not be much of a difference if the ladies start getting jealous. Which they will. These are all likely scenarios, so we know that the Heartbroken debuff might happen, and if it happens at the wrong time, it could get Karrin killed.”

That brought my full attention to the Bune woman.

“How?” Murphy asked. “I didn’t see a detailed description.”

“It looks like it’s a custom debuff. I’ve seen similar, but not exactly the same. First, and worst, you’ll be slapped with a huge 20% reduction to all stats for 30 hours, crippling a lot of your combat effectiveness, especially at higher levels when you’ve got upgrades from high stats that would disappear temporarily. During that time, your emotions will get the stereotypical ‘woman wrapped in blankets eating a whole gallon of ice cream in bed’ treatment and then some. And being physically in Harry’s presence will worsen that effect and make you sick, which probably means gratuitous projectile vomiting, knowing the dungeon. It won’t render you incapable of fighting, but it does make it a lot riskier and if it hits you in the middle of a battle, it could render you off-balance enough to make a fatal mistake.”

She turned to me, then. “And for you, once that happens, you’ll need to pick somebody to give that kiss to, quickly. That Lovelorn debuff won’t kill you, it just decreases your speed and ability to focus a little bit while increasing your…libido. Stacking that every 5 minutes means that after a few hours, you’ll hardly be able to move or think about anything except that fact that you’ve always wondered about why those medical ads said to see a doctor if you’ve had an erection that lasts more than 4 hours. And let me tell you, after a few more hours you won’t like finding out. Find somebody. Anybody. Preferably not a member of your team, but any port in a storm. A mob would be best, or an NPC, because the Pheromones skill will make them significantly more receptive to the True Love’s Kiss proposal charm than a random Crawler would be.”

I balked at that. I’d seen what mobs looked like, in this place.

Harry: I’m not going to just try to seduce a random person or whatever it is she’s suggesting! I couldn’t do that to you. Plus, they’d get hit with the debuff later, too, right? Ask her if I can’t just tough it out. 30 hours isn’t that long.

When Murphy relayed the question, also annoyed by the whole situation, Lorelai gave me a withering glare. “That depends. Do you like having a cock and balls that aren’t exploded?” she asked bluntly.

Harry: Ok, seduce an NPC if the debuff hits, got it. Uh…right Murph?

“No, that’s…yeah. That’s…fine. Definitely…definitely fine. Jesus Christ,” she replied, her eyes wide and expression appalled.

Harry: Is there some way to remove the debuff or anything?

“For you?” Lorelai scoffed. “What do you think?”

Damn.

“Exactly. One more thing: You might want to use that skill on an NPC, so you should be prepared to make plans for that contingency,” Lorelai said, raising a hand to forestall me when I grunted angrily. “I know. Ok? I get that this is a thing for you. But it’s my charge to give you limited tactical advice regarding your abilities. Take the advice, or leave it, that’s up to you. But there may come a time where a female NPC might be unassailable but guarding something you need. When I was a Crawler, my class was something called a ‘Vermillion Saboteur’. It’s a spy class. I did a lot with charm magic. If you get those two skills to a high enough level, ran as fast as you possibly could, and made that True Love’s Kiss proposal at least halfway decent…Well, I can’t talk details, but that’s probably one of most useful combo charms you could have. Even if the circumstances where you could use it are extremely limited. Don’t write off the idea out of hand.”

Harry: And even that wouldn’t be mind control? Really? It sounds like it is.

Lorelai shook her head vehemently. “Obviously higher-level skills have a much more noticeable impact, but it’s still not the same. You couldn’t do this and then command the target to kill themselves like you could with a Conscript spell or Brainwash psychic attack. It…admittedly does blur some lines at the highest levels of the skills. The True Love’s Kiss charm is actually extremely minor. It just makes the target want to listen to what you say and tends to make the words resonate a little more strongly, like tuning out all other distractions. So if you tell someone you love them, and they believe it so strongly that they couldn’t possibly see it as a lie? Well, what wouldn’t you do for love? That obviously won’t affect Karrin or any Crawlers, because those skills only hit mobs and NPCs, so you don’t need to worry about it affecting your relationship.”

Murphy and I both sighed in relief at that. It still sounded dubious. I don’t think I’d be using the ability like that.

“What about those buffs? Those would get applied to me…or whoever, if it came to that, right?” Murphy asked

Lorelai nodded. “Yes. Those are all good, but how good is going to depend on Harry and however the AI feels that day. It’s the final arbiter. I can see a few numbers on the back end, but it’s all wishy-washy. If it doesn’t like your poem or whatever, and you’re doing the bit alone in a room away from everybody, and the kiss is just a peck on the lips, the skill and spell would probably come out at level 1 or 2, and the percentages maybe around 2-5%. So long as Harry doesn’t cock it up and you have a small audience and you kiss like you mean it, you’re probably looking at levels 4-7 and percentages of around 10-20%. Go bigger if you want better.”

I did my best to mutter dire imprecations at the AI, thankful that they just sounded like gibberish. Maybe I shouldn’t put the tongue on. I could complain out loud about the AI and it would never be able to tell. Probably. Maybe.

“What about that Invulnerability buff? Does that do what I think it does?” Murphy asked. Another train of thought dashed away into ruin. But I wanted to know the answer to that, too.

“It…does,” Lorelai said after a moment. “Mostly. Almost entirely. It’s not as perfect as the name implies. But it’s practically worthless unless you were to do it the middle of a fight where you knew pretty precisely where and when an attack was coming. It’ll only take effect for a few seconds right after the kiss. Maybe as long as 60-90 seconds. If he sang you an original and moving ballad, used that aphrodisiac ability the tongue has during the kiss, and then the two of you fucked so hard you both couldn’t see straight afterwards, all in the middle of a crowded subway station, while maintaining the lip lock for the whole duration after the song.”

Murphy and I both went absolutely scarlet at that.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Lorelai grumbled. She took a moment to let that sink in before she went on, her tone more moderated. “Don’t count on that for anything. And even if you got the timing perfect, Harry wouldn’t be invulnerable. Cockroach will save your life much more frequently, and Reactive Shield is quite useful, particularly against foes that only use one or two types of attacks. That’s your bread and butter, so make it count, Harry. Now, you need to get on with it so you can get moving. I’ll be here if you need me.”

I took several deep breaths. Murphy moved to stand next to me as I sat at the desk and she placed her arm around my shoulder and neck. The tongue appeared in my hand. It looked like an unusually wide snake tongue, long and forked, but with a gray blob of something on the back end. Ok. Here we go. Breathe. Murphy squeezed. Ok.

I grabbed the blob and shoved it into my mouth. I felt a clicking sensation, kind of like the tactile feedback you get when you buckle in a seatbelt, but inside my mouth. And then the tongue itself, which had been drooping limply down my chin, went rigid and then slurped inside my mouth. It squirmed relentlessly, feeling like I’d started to swallow some live rodents or something. I gagged. But then, as quickly as it had started, everything settled into normalcy. My mouth felt exactly like I’d remembered. I ran my tongue over all of my teeth. Wow, I can’t believe that was a feeling I’d have ever missed. I realized that I needed a toothbrush and wondered if Hope had a spare.

“So, how does it feel?” asked Murphy after a moment.

“It feels…totally normal.” I said in wonder, turning to face her. “I thought it might feel weird to talk again, but it’s like nothing happened!”

Murphy had tears in her eyes as she kissed my cheek, but she was smiling. “That’s great, Harry.”

She pulled our foreheads together and we sat for a time. Eventually, Lorelai gave a not-so-discreet cough. I glanced at her, not moving my head. She lightly tapped her wrist a couple of times. I could tell she desperately wanted to say something, but she was refraining. I sighed.

“Ok, let’s do this.” I said. I cleared my throat. Ok. Just…tell Murphy how I feel. I could do that. I just had, hadn’t I? I mean, mostly. Out loud wasn’t any different than in the chat. It didn’t matter that Lorelai was there. Just us. Just…us.

And the AI.

And the cameras.

Empty Night, it was like the last time I was on Larry Fowler all over again. I could feel all the eyes on me.

“Murph,” I began. “…You know I…You’re the –” I coughed, suddenly nervous. Murphy was grinning. A little. That was good, right?

New Achievement! SWING and a miss!

Really, dude? That’s how you tell a gal you love her for the first time? Put a little oomph into it, man!

Reward: This advice is reward enough, given how badly you needed it, apparently.

“Oh, go F –!” I started to yell, before a wet towel, thrown by Lorelai, flopped limply against my face. I boggled. Where had she gotten that?

“The AI is fucking with you, stop falling for it,” she said, sounding a little bored.

Ugh. She was right. I gently removed Murphy’s arm from my shoulder and stood, shaking myself off a little as I placed the towel down on the desk. Okay. I could do this. I loved her. You should tell people that, if it was true. And this was. I took her hands in mine and looked down at her. She gazed back at me. I closed my eyes and took in the feel and the scent of her. Breathe in. Breathe out. Think. Feel it.

After a moment, I reopened my eyes.

“Murph, I want you know that I’m so, so happy to be anywhere that you are,” I said, my voice rough, but soft. “I don’t know how much time we’ll have, but I’ll never regret spending it with you. You’ve been the best thing to happen to me, always. Even that time you illegally detained me,” I added with a wink and a grin. She coughed and looked to the side. I reached out and gently raised her chin back to face me. “I love you, Karrin Murphy. I always will.”

I bent down to kiss her and felt a slightly electric charge to the air. She raised herself up to meet me and our lips locked. It was like an jolt of lightning had hit my body. We both pushed deeper into the kiss and I felt my pulse quicken at the taste of her, a staccato beat into a battle march. I tried to go for more, but she pulled back ever so slightly and I caught myself. I felt like my entire nervous system, starting with my mouth, was singing.

I gave this to you the AI’s voice echoed from my memory.

I stiffened, but then Murphy grabbed me by the back of my head and pulled me into her, and I lost myself for a time.

New Achievement! Sealed with a Kiss

Sha-la-la-la-la-la

Don’t be scared

You got the mood prepared

Go on and kiss the girl

Reward: An extra-large tub of popcorn. Extra butter. Extra salt.

Chapter Text

CH 21

When Murphy and I finally pulled apart, I discovered that my tongue was now flopped outside of my mouth by an extra inch or so. I hadn’t even realized it had done that.

“Ogh! Thorry…” I mumbled, mortified, as I tried to make it go back to normal while simultaneously catching my breath. Rassum frassum AI with its stupid commentary and uncooperative magical appendages.

“It’s ok!” Murphy said quickly. She was flushed and panting herself, though it was hard to tell initially because she had a bright golden glow that faded after a moment. “I just…didn’t expect that. But it was fine. I mean, good! I mean…maybe we just need to practice more until you get it under control?” She gave a little grin as I finally got the thing back into place and feeling normal with a few mental commands.

I was still a bit light-headed as I replied. “I think I could go for that.”

“Yes, yes, you’re both very adorable,” Lorelai said, physically pushing us towards the door as we both glided along like we’d activated the Walk on Air skill. “Looks like you got the buffs at level 5 and 12%. Great. Now leave me in peace so I can have a heart attack thinking about what nonsense you’re going to get up to before I see you again. Don’t die out there.”

“Hey, wait a second,” I said as I reached for the doorknob. “Do these charms work on you?”

Lorelai gave some sort of derisive hiss-snort as we started walking out. “No, thank the gods. Guides, the doormen at the clubs, and a few other NPCs are immune to being charmed. I’ll work on a slightly deeper dive on charms for the next time you get here. Now goodbye,” she said, slamming the door behind us.

“Wow, rude,” I said with a slight smile.

“You can talk again!” I heard Hope say in surprise as we rejoined the rest of the group, who were resting, sitting up against the opposite wall from the door. She looked up at me with a bright smile. “Did you get a magic potion or something that healed you?”

Murphy and I looked at each other, blushing. “Uh…something like that, Hope,” I said. “I’ll tell you guys about it later.”

“I bet it’s something gross,” Rhonda said with a laugh as she and James headed towards the guildhall. I hung my head at that and slumped against the wall, sliding down to sit next to the young woman. My now unusually-bendy hat widened in 3 directions as it morphed around the wall. It was extremely strange, because I couldn’t feel it happening. It looked like I should be able to. Murphy sat on Hope’s other side, blissfully unaware of the mysteries of shapeshifting clothing.

“So, how are you holding up, Hope?” I asked after a minute of resting.

She took a few moments to respond. “I think I’m…ok. You know, ok as somebody could be?”

I nodded in agreement.

“I miss Mom and Dad and everybody. I’m just glad they’re safe,” she said, her voice soft. “…I’m scared, Harry.” Her use of my real name took me aback for a moment. “I never wanted to hurt anybody in my life,” she continued, sniffling, “And now there’s so many things trying to hurt us and they’re all so…awful. I know surely the Lord provided when you and Miss…Karrin…came to rescue us, but I just wish I knew why a place so terrible has to exist. It doesn’t feel right.”

Hoo boy. I glanced a Murphy, who’d scooted next to the young woman on her other side. After a moment, I did the same. My stupid hat flexed out of the way of the two women’s heads without touching them. “It isn’t right,” I said with a gentle yet firm voice, “And I think the worst thing about it is that it doesn’t have to exist. These aliens chose to make it happen. But we’re going to –” I was cut off when the party chat activated.

James: Wow, you weren’t kidding when you said your guide freaked out about the boss fight. Estor is acting like we…I don’t know, blew up Mt. Rushmore, or something.

Harry: That’s your go-to monument for destruction?

Rhonda: These boxes are giving me some fucked up shit

Oh no. I hoped that whatever my potion-making debacle had gotten them into it wasn’t as hideously ridiculous as my whole…situation.

Murphy: What is it?

Rhonda: These motherfuckers gave me a fuckin’ magic Cubs hat. And jersey! You know I rep the Sox! This some bullshit.

I was so prepared for something terrible that I think I felt my brain literally twist around inside my head to avoid that giant downed tree that Rhonda dropped onto my mental roadmap of expectations. It looked like the others felt about the same. We burst out laughing. It took me a minute or two to catch my breath. Sports rivalries outliving the end of the world and probably both entire teams themselves. Hope was laughing so hard that she was crying. We’d only just all recovered when they exited the guild. I heard a squeaky voice calling after them.

“You tell that party leader of yours to watch his ass!”

“I can hear you, dickwad!” I yelled back. Stars and Stones, that felt good to be able to do.

“Bite my tail, you crazy jackass! Don’t get my remaining clients killed!” the shrill voice squeaked as the door slammed.

Well. I guess I could at least appreciate his professional concern.

“Yeah,” James said, rubbing the back of his head with one hand, “Sorry about that. Like I said, he was pretty pissed. We just opened our boxes and got out of there. I think he’s actually just worried about us? It’s hard to tell. He’s a little intense when he’s agitated.”

Rhonda was sulking as she pulled out what looked like crisp, brand new sports gear and a thin silver belt from her inventory. James reluctantly pulled out a blue conical hat covered in big stars and moons, and…my staff. But wait, he already had my staff in his other hand. This new one looked…smoother. The wood had a darker stain and a nicer polish. Its runes were finished, though the ones placed where I hadn’t yet carved on my staff were useless gibberish. The carvings were all filled with what looked like jade. It looked…fancy.

“So, got anything good?” Murphy asked as I stared at James’ gear in irritation. Because we were partied, I could see that they were called the Enchanted Actual, Non-Shitty Wizard Staff and Enchanted Hat of Real Wizardry. Hell’s Bells, really?

I was distracted enough that I didn’t hear what Rhonda said about her gear, but I did notice what she did to demonstrate it. As Hope wound her way over to the door to take her turn getting gear and hopefully not having another bad interaction with her guide, who she hadn’t visited since initially being tossed out by the drunk pig-woman, Rhonda had put on the belt, ball cap, and jersey. She was still grumbling about them when she drew her mace, wound up, and hurled it down the hallway, where it bounced off one wall, then another, and then zipped back to her hand.

“Empty Night, Rhonda! You’re like Thor had a baby with Captain America, now!” I exclaimed.

“Yeah,” she sighed in exasperation, “It’s fuckin’ awesome. I’m just salty about the look.”

“It could be worse,” I said, pointing upwards.

She shuddered. “True that.” She started hurling her mace as hard as she could down the hallway and watched it return. She started trying to move and catch it in strange poses.

James, meanwhile, approached me and held out my old staff.  “Uh…looks like I don’t need this anymore,” he said. “Thanks for letting me use it.”

I took it back and added it to my inventory, glowering at his new gear. “Is all the stuff the AI gave you designed to annoy me?”

“Uh…well, I also got a new spell called Hop,” James said with a sheepish grin. “It’s a short-range teleport? Like, very short-range. As in a couple of feet. Seems kind of worthless, honestly.”

I whistled. Point-to-point translocation was technically possible from what I knew, but exceedingly dangerous. At least, in the non-Dungeon world. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” I replied. “Whacking the other guy and not getting whacked are two equally important sides of the fighting coin. A couple of feet back or to the side might be the difference between safe and stabbed, crushed, or who knows what else.”

“Hmmmm,” he said, pondering the spell. “It is pretty cheap to cast, especially now with this hat that reduces my mana spent on each spell. And maybe it changes once it levels up. My magic missile sets things on fire now that it leveled up!”

“Well, there you go,” I said. “Definitely worth practicing with. Now I’ve got my own gear to get to.”

I pulled out the frilly sensitivity shirt. The nice thing about magic items in this Dungeon was that they couldn’t be damaged. I’d already lost one shirt to Mecha-Rudolph, and the one I was wearing had, in addition to its recent coating of Santa gore, a lingering scent from Scumsucker’s lair. So, this was a good thing. I was just going to look like the world’s most ludicrous Musketeer with the frills popping out of the chest and wrists of my duster. All I’d need would be a feather for the cap. And a sword. And a musket, I supposed. The hand cannon would have to do.

I zapped away my old shirt, duster, and creepy harness into my inventory. It was pretty convenient not to have to undress and slop gore everywhere. I left my hat on as an experiment. When I swept the shirt, which was one of those costume-type shirts that opened down to the middle of the chest and had laces to tie it together, up and over my head, I saw something interesting. The hat deformed around the shirt at and extremely quick speed, turning into something vaguely like an enormous orange spaghetti noodle. It expanded back to its normal dimensions after the shirt was past my head. It had never even touched the shirt at all. And it still didn’t feel like anything was moving.

So weird.

After Murphy helped me re-equip the harness, much to Rhonda and James’ amusement, as they hadn’t really gotten a good look at the “art” stamped into the leather before, Hope still hadn’t come out of the guild. I sent her a message as I donned my duster. The others went back to watching Rhonda play with her new skills, though Murphy kept an eye on the guild door as well.

Harry: Everything ok in there?

Hope: It’s okay. I’m talking to Zenith. She acts like she’s mad, but I think really, she’s very sad. She’s got little statues of a dozen other orcs on a shelf. That’s her species. I think they’re her family. I think she lost them.

Orcs were pig people? Not very Tolkienesque of them. But then again, their elves had robot parts, so who knew what the aesthetics of these aliens were. Everything in the dungeon was just familiar enough to be discernible, but the details were bonkers.

Harry: That still doesn’t give her cause to act the way she did.

Hope: I know. She’s upset because she got 3 seasons dded to her indentureship because she didn’t give the proper tutorial. I’ll be out in a second. She’s…not feeling well.

When she emerged from the guild, Hope’s face was a little haggard and she was wearing a strange-looking cloak. Most of it was made of an odd, dark purple fur. But about 1/3 of it was semi-invisible or translucent. And that 1/3 was always shifting around the cloak in a chaotic jumble. It was a little hard to look at.

“You all right?” I asked, walking up to her as she leaned against the wall with a sigh. She didn’t answer for a moment. Murphy subtly started sidling our way.

“Um…I dunno,” she answered. “Well…mostly I wonder that if the guides are all people who survived this place, what does that mean for us? How did Dad do stuff like this? Was he ever scared?” She gave an apologetic glance at Murphy, who grunted and walked the rest of the way over openly. Well, at least she remembered that Murphy had given her a little chat about discretion, even if she wasn’t heeding it right now.

Still, I wasn’t too worried. I think we could talk around the whole Fist-of-God thing pretty readily. “Of course he was,” I said. “He’d be the first to admit it. He was scared of what might happen to you and the rest of your family if something were to happen to him. He was scared for the well-being of the people he tried to help. And,” I added pointedly, “He was scared for himself, too, even if not as much as the other two. But he was also brave. Taking action even when you’re scared is pretty much the definition of bravery.”

“He’d also be the first to say that you don’t have to be like him,” added Murphy. “Not just anybody could be a Marine, a soldier, like he was, but that’s okay because everybody else has their own work to do in life. What all this means for us is that we need to get through it. We’ll just take it one step at a time.”

Hope sighed again. “I know…But I want to help. I know we’re…we’re stuck in here. I just haven’t been very useful, and it’s scary.” I was about to say something when she continued. “But! I got something good, now! This cloak casts a spell that makes me look like I’m somewhere I’m not. And I have a lightning spell! I can use it with my rifle and make lightning bolt traps!”

Oh yeah, Lorelai had been pretty excited about that effect. “Is that what you did with the wind back in the boss lair?” I asked. It had slipped my mind until now.

“Yeah! Well, James had to shoot it because it was his spell. You can feed a spell into one or more bullets and set them to cast the spell on impact or to trigger when something walks close enough to where you shot the bullet. Now that I finally have a spell, I can do it, too!”

Hope’s excited exclamation brought everyone else in and soon we all got moving, the others chatting about the potential for our new items to help us get through this place. I kept a close eye on Hope as we walked. This really wasn’t a situation she should have to deal with and I was worried for her. Hell, I’d say I was terrified for her if I hadn’t already been feeling somewhat numb from the unrelenting brutality of this place. This wasn’t something anybody should be dealing with. But here we were. She seemed in higher spirits for the moment, at least. That was something.

 I did another brief cast of my tracking spell to keep us headed in the right direction. We were mostly trying to go as far as possible towards our targets for the next few hours, not fighting anything, until we needed to find a saferoom to catch the next episode of the show and see if any useful intel could be gleaned.

As we walked, I pondered my final item. The brooch. I hadn’t equipped it yet. Despite Lorelai’s assurances, it still worried me. I knew, knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she had centuries worth of knowledge and experience with how the dungeon worked. She’d be straight with us, as much as she could be. But neither of us really knew how my magic interacted with the dungeon, and how it interacted with me. When I cast the healing spell and the one time I used the hat’s Duel spell, I could feel magical forces in motion. But they were…strange. Stiff, almost, like pieces of the spell constructs were either brute-forced together or missing entirely. And using them didn’t seem to affect my personal magical reserves at all. They drew from mana, or the item, and it really seemed as simple as a game. I didn’t even need to think about them, just hit the button in my hotlist. It was honestly bizarre.

But I knew from my experiments with James that the two magics could interact. And if my potions could interact with the System as a whole…I’d need to spend some dedicated time in meditation, trying to sense the spellwork of the dungeon and see if there were any other weaknesses I could exploit. Hopefully in a less bombastic manner. I didn’t have much hope of being able to learn too much that way, but you never knew until you tried. And maybe it would help my daughter gain insight as well, her being in my head and all. I didn’t think I’d want to risk the Sight while inside the Dungeon if I could avoid it, so I’d have to stick to more passive methods. Just the barest thought of its preparatory cyclone of energy was enough to make my stomach churn. I’d hate to think what it would be like now that I was in the middle of it.

Skills felt quite different to the spells, though. My Walk on Air skill was just something I could do now. Not constantly, it had to be “activated” and had a cooldown, but there was no sense of magic at all when I used it. I could just suddenly treat the air as solid if I felt like it, as if that was the way the world had always worked. The brooch’s problematic charms were skills, not spells. But would I be able to feel if they were different? Would they really not have a corruptive effect on me if I accidentally came in range of a non-artificial person? I elected to wait to put it on until I was sure I’d need it, Lorelai’s exhortations notwithstanding.

Eventually, we stopped moving forward and sought out a saferoom. We ended up cutting it close, as the first room Hope spotted was another empty cafeteria-like space. We would all rather find one of the places that was staffed, but we did snag some stale cookies that gave us a temporary boost to our Dexterity. We were going to spend a couple of hours reapplying the buffs to our weapons and we’d want something to eat once we got over whatever nauseating things were shown on the show this time. So we searched until we found some sort of local neighborhood pub or restaurant that, judging from the signage, had come into the dungeon from Korea.

The Bopca running this saferoom was a woman named Rippel, and we had time to make brief introductions and use the restroom before the second episode started. It started the same way that it had before. Scene after horrifying scene of people getting slaughtered by monsters played across the screen. We watched as a group of 40-odd men fought some sort of giant octo-rhino Borough Boss that could turn people into stone. The men all died, but they’d injured the beast enough that it toppled over, dead, shortly after the last man’s body shattered into dust. MATCH DRAW slammed down onto the screen. Hell’s Bells, if that’s what a Borough Boss fight could be, we really had made out like bandits. I think our secret entrance would still have given us a substantial edge: the sleigh wouldn’t have been able to make use of its speed and the quarters might have been too tight for the evil Santa to deploy the bomb-presents without hurting itself, but still.

The first segment of the show was capped off with a scene of the White Court vampires. They were wielding swords and polearms fighting a horde of walking Venus flytrap-like creatures that were spitting acid alongside an older woman bearing an honest-to-God, curly, Little Bo Peep staff. They were only glowing intermittently. It looked like they were struggling; perhaps they’d overused their reserves and now that they were fighting foes that they evidently couldn’t hit with their whammy, they couldn’t keep up. One of the Raith women got hit in the face by a glob of acid and I could tell she tried to use her powers to draw the mortal woman towards her to feed, straining to regain some strength that could reinvigorate her. But a sudden cloud spat from the woman with the staff, and the Raith, along with a number of the carnivorous chlorofiends, fell unconscious. She was shortly torn apart as other monsters rushed in. The woman fled down a side hallway as the remaining vampires yelled after her in anger.

The show moved on to Crawlers being victorious. A couple of burly men with huge swords bisected a group of bipedal armadillo-things wearing cowboy outfits. A younger Asian woman with what looked like a giant mutant rat nearly half the size of Mouse wielded an apparently magical trombone that froze a group of little blue, spark-spitting lizards that the rat promptly devoured. There was a woman like a knockoff of Marcone’s mercenary Valkyrie, Sigrun Gard, in a winged helmet, bearing what looked like an automatic crossbow that probably had Murphy’s P90 beat for rate of fire mowing down a group of dog-faced little beasts with an unceasing barrage of fiery bolts.

And then there we were. The words “Trouble in Paradise?” appeared around a shot of Murphy, held tightly in my arms, as we went tumbling into the dungeon, followed by a quick montage of scenes of us fighting together. They even had a split screen scene of Murphy blowing up the Borough Boss and me charging through it in a geyser of gore. They had also shown scenes of us holding each other close in the saferooms interspersed between the violence. My blood was starting to boil, but it stuttered to a low simmer as I caught a glimpse of Murphy. She had blanched and gotten up to leave the room. I didn’t try to stop her.

We’d talked about this as we’d marched through the halls. If the two of us were featured on the show, she didn’t think she’d want to stick around. That was fine by me, particularly given the way they were leading up to it. I was muttering dire imprecations under my breath at the showrunners, but I was going to watch because I needed to see for myself what I couldn’t remember. The others…they needed to know what they’d be up against if it happened again.

The camera shot showed me in the foreground, facing the camera. A swirling icon appeared over my head. My face twisted into an enraged snarl. Murphy slowly approached from behind and I whipped around, swinging my staff at her. She leapt backwards, dodging the wild swipe by an inch. She moved with perfect poise, retreating just ahead of the blows I rained down at her until she pulled her own staff out of her inventory and used it to deflect my strikes even further. A box that said Dodge Skill: Level up! appeared. A dozen narrowly avoided blows in a couple of seconds rushed by and then she caught one that shattered her weapon and sent her flying down the hall.

It cut to me with my icy hand wrapped around her throat, pressing her into the wall at my head height. My hat should have made me look ridiculous, but with it on, I was practically twice her size and the camera angles played up that fact. She was kicking me furiously, breaking my nose, but I just licked up the blood with a ghoulish smirk. A pistol suddenly appeared in her hand, and she shoved the barrel down the duster sleeve of the arm holding her up and fired. I dropped her, howling in anger. Critical Strike! had appeared onscreen, and my health bar dropped by maybe 10%.

I tried to smash down with my staff in my intact arm, whirling around in a circle as she kept low. I was bellowing incoherently, my face so red that it looked like I was about to explode. It looked like she’d tried to throw me or knock me off balance initially, but I was Rooted in Place, so she turned to using my body like a fulcrum, pivoting from heel to knee, sweeping her legs in an ever-moving whirl, around and around, almost like one of those Russian dancer guys, but with less kicking. She punched and slapped at me as she flowed around me, a hairsbreadth from getting clobbered as I whirled and smashed. Each time she made contact, a little tag popped up that said Hobgoblin Detonator Charge. I finally changed tactics and sent her flying with a kick to the hip. I could see it dislocate as Murphy screamed, her gun flying off into the distance. She glowed, having taken a potion as she fetched up against a wall. It zoomed in on the detonator briefly as she pushed down on the button. I was slammed in a series of explosions that dropped my health down to maybe a third, but it failed to throw me back.

Another cut, this time to me holding her up. I’d stabbed the staff through her stomach and was swiping at her with my mangled arm’s ice claws, raking down her face and body. I wasn’t healing myself, apparently. She cast aside a bent collapsible baton and drew out the magical RPG missile she’d had. The one that made a mighty gust of wind. She slammed it into my torso, and the burst of wind ripped her from my grasp as I was unable to be moved. She flew down the hall, tumbled, glowed with a healing spell, and ran. I chased. I was faster.

She turned a corner and on the screen she suddenly became a transparent outline. She’d activated her Walk Unseen skill. When I turned the corner and couldn’t find her, I started smashing the walls in anger. But then I stopped, sniffing the air like a bloodhound. As I turned, Murphy, mostly healed, drew a different pistol and kicked a shattered bit of masonry down the hall. I rushed after the sound, and as I drew closer to her, she took careful aim and pow! took out one of my knees. Critical Strike!

I leapt towards her with my good leg and staff providing the leverage. The camera cut again and I was stomping Murphy’s face into the floor with my remaining good leg, good arm holding my staff and supporting me. Once. Twice. Then she rolled towards me, bloodied face practically shattered, using my unmoving leg to guide her arm so she could take my other knee with her third pistol, the Luger. Critical Strike! I had a flashing 9% over my head. I collapsed to the ground atop Murphy and started pummeling her with my one remaining good limb, staff flailing wildly. I wasn’t even trying to use it, just holding onto it and slamming my arm down upon her, screaming, face a mess of blood.

Her health was low and falling. She must have been out of mana and her potion cooldown was still active, since she wasn’t healing. I’d fallen onto her gun hand and she wasn’t able to raise it. I leaned over her, blood and saliva dripping from my face onto hers. She screwed up her eyes in concentration and the camera cut to the gun vanishing from her right hand and then appearing in her left, which was to my bad arm’s side. She’d transferred it with her inventory. The barrel of the gun found my chin. BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

A slow-motion diagram appeared, tracing the bullets’ paths through my face, showing the shattering of my jaws into pieces. We watched one sever my tongue. A little cartoon tongue appeared with a halo and angel wings and flew off into the top of the screen. What the fuck? Then my health hit 0. An animated cockroach appeared with a little jaunty jingle, wearing a party hat. It, too, flew off. The screen showed my mangled face and a blinking 1% as Murphy sobbed over me. To be continued! appeared, and it went right on to the next scene. The whole thing had been shown for maybe 15 seconds, if that.

Holy shit. No wonder Murphy had been such a mess, afterwards. We didn’t even see the whole thing here, but what we did see was terrifying in a host of ways. I was sickened by what I’d seen of myself. And by the fact that I hadn’t even had a chance to control it. The memory of a long-ago soulgaze, a chained and screaming man suborned to the malevolent will of the Fallen, Ursiel, unable to act on his own accord, filled my mind. I think I knew, now, just a little of what such a fate would be like. Buried in rage, unable to see anything other than blood and fire.

And based on that last little bit, I think my Cockroach skill had activated. Murphy had killed me. Technically. But I was fine, now. Also technically. Mostly. I could feel everyone else looking at me. Even the Bopca. I turned to my party members, who stared at me with horror.

“If that happens again, and we’re alone like that, you need to do the exact same thing. Take me down as fast and hard as you can. Don’t hesitate. So long as I’ve got my staff equipped, I’ll survive,”  I said, coming to a decision. I couldn’t let something like that happen again. It’d be too risky for everyone, and I didn’t want their innocent blood on my hands if I could help it. James and Hope objected loudly. Rhonda just grunted.

“I think, anyway,” I interrupted them, “I’ll need to ask Lorelai if that skill has any limitations. If I’ve already used the skill in a fight or something, I’d prefer if you run the hell away and do whatever you need to do to slow me down or distract me. Murphy said the debuff had a countdown, but she wasn’t sure how long.”

“Are you sure?” James asked, seeming shocked.

“Yes,” I said firmly. “If I can’t get myself under control, or if we can’t find one of those debuff-mitigating spells Murphy told me our guides had mentioned to you all, you’ll need to stop me before any of you get hurt. Cockroach can activate once per fight, but even it didn’t, if there’s no other way to stop me safely, I’d rather die than be responsible for killing any of you while I was out of my mind.”

“But Harry,” Hope began.

“Hope,” I cut her off, maybe a little more roughly than I’d intended judging by how she pulled back. I sighed and moderated my tone. “Look. I don’t want that to happen. I’d really, really prefer if it didn’t. And I’d never want to force any of you into a situation where that’s your only choice. But we don’t know what exactly might trigger that again. It’s not caused by a piece of equipment that I can remove or anything like that. And I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I woke up to…that having happened to any of you. And you might not think so, but Murphy was holding back there. And it almost got her killed. Unless you think you can match what she did, then you need to hit hard, fast, and without hesitation, for all our sakes.”

That definitely put a damper on the mood, despite the triumphant scenes of humans defeating monsters playing out onscreen. At one point, Rhonda caught my eye.

Rhonda: I got you. I dunno if I’ll be able to get you, if it comes to it. But I got you.

I nodded in appreciation, for her commitment and for keeping it quiet to the others, who still didn’t seem in the mood to entertain the understandably upsetting idea of hurting, possibly killing, another person, let alone someone that they knew and at least tolerated the company of. Maybe were even a little friendly with, if that wasn’t too optimistic of me. I was about to head back to check on Murphy, but the show unexpectedly gave us a view of who could only be our prey.

A group of men riding one or two to a vehicle in half a dozen ATVs, racing down a dungeon hallway, bearing lances, spears, and crossbows. I saw a number of them with distinctive lightning bolt and deaths’ head tattoos, among others, on their necks. Or, in the case of the bulky, balding man riding front and center, all along the shoulders and chest exposed by his apparently enchanted tank top. It featured a grinning red demonic face with the words “Money and Power Through Homicide” glowing with a simmering fiery font around the actively laughing, yellow-eyed visage. They were chasing some fleeing little Leprechaun-looking creatures, skewering them and running them down, swooping through the halls like a pack of sharks sweeping through a school of fish.

“That’s gotta be them, right?” Rhonda said in a tight, quiet voice. She was clenching and unclenching her fists.

“Definitely,” I said. “We’d better keep a lookout for those leprechaun things as we move on.” I pulled out the maintenance kit and my revolver as a final scene of Lucia Mar and her dogs absolutely eviscerating a neighborhood boss that looked like an enormous fish-man played out and the show ended. “Would one of you be willing to start on this? I’m going to be back in a minute and then we can do a little grinding. I’ll swap out to work on the P90 after that.” Hope volunteered and got to work as James approached her, speaking quietly but animatedly.

I headed towards the back, the image of those whooping men looming large in my mind. Rippel, the Bopca Protector, shied away from me, cowering behind the counter as I passed. I barely noticed. What had happened to me, and by extension to Murphy, was really because of them. Their sick minds put us in that situation. The seething rage of Winter bubbled in my thoughts, and I was in full agreement. People liked to say that what goes around, comes around. Well, I intended to be what came around this time. Me and Murphy. And Rhonda.

I thought about the brooch. “I told you never to turn down an advantage,” came Lorelai’s accusing voice in my mind. I grit my teeth and knocked on the door to the only occupied room.

***************

A Couple of Hours Later

Carl

“– and then that nefarious villain, Frank Q, and his accompanying murderess Maggie My tried to shoot us!” Donut said to an exasperated Mordecai in a scandalized tone. “I didn’t get to see what happened to that Dresden criminal and his girlfriend because we had to run! It really looked like they were in love, and then he tried to kill her! Tell me you saw what happened! I simply must know!”

“Hold on, Princess!” Mordecai said, the Changeling-turned-Ratkin guide trying to calm the agitated cat down. “You guys were attacked by other Crawlers?”

“We were,” I said. “It was in the saferoom. Don’t worry, we hightailed it out of there while they were frozen by the System. We used the Goblin Copper Chopper we traded for.”

“And you left a bomb for them to find in a corpse!” Donut added brightly, rubbing up against my legs. “After you said you weren’t going to blow up any other Crawlers after the last show and everything!”

I flinched at that. I’d meant it when I said it, but…those two were murderers. They’d killed eight people between them, not mobs like the Dresden guy had, according to the skull symbols over their heads. If they picked up that bomb…well, they’d just get what they’d been giving out, and it’d serve them right.

Mordecai just shook his head, pulling a bottle from off of his bed as he collapsed down onto it and taking a long swig.

“I’d actually like to know a bit about what Donut was asking about,” I said, and Donut beamed up at me, purring heavily. “Those two seemed close. And that symbol appeared over his head. What was going on there?”

Mordecai raised a finger and chugged for a moment before pulling the bottle away with a loud smacking sound. “Alright, so to answer the Princess first, they both lived, though she just about blew half the guy’s face off with a pistol. He should be able to heal up but she shot off his tongue. That ain’t gonna come back. Remember that. If it’s cut clean off, it’s gone unless you get one of a very few potential fixes, barring some form of solution from sponsors, or maybe a box if you’ve been catching interest. Looks like those poor suckers are getting the soap opera treatment. They do that every once in a while, if an interesting couple pops up. Odd for them to get to it this early, but he did get a Legendary box on the last show…”

“Ohmigosh, you mean they’ll be a recurring drama on the program?” Donut yelped, wide eyed. “Carl, Carl! That’s decided it! We need to find that last glowing woman! Her sister or cousin or whatever just died and she’ll need comfort! I’ll need to coach you with some lines while we search for her, and your tempestuous romance will obviously be tragically cut short when we finally reunite with Miss Beatrice, of course, but oh! Think of the ratings, Carl!”

“Goddammit, Donut. You and Mordecai both, focus, please,” I said through gritted teeth. “What would make him just attack her like that? Is that something I need to be worried about?”

“Alright, kid, hold your horses,” Mordecai complained. He took another drink. God dammit. “So lemme tell you about Berserking and why you need to stay the fuck away from it, especially with Donut’s Constitution being so low…”

***************

Chapter Text

Time to Level Collapse: 2 days, 9 hours, 58 minutes

Murphy opened the door, a stoic look on her red-eyed face. I was about to say something when we were interrupted by the announcement blaring out from unseen speakers. We both simultaneously flinched and glared upwards. Murphy shook her head.

Murphy: Let's hear this crap out. No sense talking while this is happening.

I nodded in agreement and we entered her room, sitting in the chairs that were placed opposite the bed. The announcer lady was going on and on about how they'd "fixed all the bugs with the bathrooms" and threatening "punitive measures" against people using the hallways instead of risking explosion. I was sure that would be something lovely and enjoyable for everyone when it inevitably happened. She went on to talk about how languages were now all patched in and casually detailed several horrifying bugs that they'd apparently "fixed", like making a debuff called "Feral Rabies" curable by potions after it'd done something doubtlessly horrible to the people who'd come in from New Zealand. They'd also removed a mob called "Blender Fiends" as being "too powerful" after they'd blended 15,000 people and absorbed a significant part of their strength. She also mentioned "eliminating some novel potion exploits" before finishing up with a warning.

One last note: A lot of Crawlers are heading into the stairways prematurely. Again, it's your choice, but it's probably best for you to get as much experience as you can. And just so you know for later, we won't feature you on the recap episode if viewers can't tunnel into your feed. So if you hit the stairs three or four days before a collapse, you are going to miss out! That's it for now! Keep up the good work and kill, kill, kill!

I was breathing through clenched teeth by the time the announcement wrapped up. If those were the kinds of "bugs" this game experienced, where tens of thousands of people died because of something these bastards thought of as just a little oopsie-daisy, my magic probably wasn't as much of an outlier as I'd initially thought. Still better to keep the details secret, especially given my daughter's warnings, but with that kind of insanity happening, one guy being pretty good with fire and some other things wouldn't stand out as much as I'd feared it would. Hopefully.

But that wasn't what I was here to talk about. I took a moment to refocus. I recalled what had really brought me here, and it wasn't anything to do with the alien overlords. The announcement had shaken up the thoughts stirring in my mind from when I'd walked in here for a moment and that fact allowed me to redirect my attention. I was still angry, but I wanted to make doubly sure that none of that was directed at Murphy. She didn't deserve that, especially not right now. She looked at me, eyebrow raised expectantly.

"So, you want to chat about the elephant in the room, or would you prefer the distraction?" I asked with a sharkish grin.

"Oh, thank God," Murphy barked with a strangled laugh. "Distraction, please."

"Our friend Joel Collin made an appearance on the show," I said, my voice rough. "You were right, they've got half a dozen ATVs and a few more than that for riders. Looks like they're kitted out as medieval-era cavalry, but motorized."

Murphy sucked in air through her teeth at that. She pondered a moment before speaking. "That could be a tough nut to crack if we can't corner them. What do you think the odds are that they've got a magical source of gas? Easiest thing would be to wait for them to run out, but if they got anything like the enchanted magazine I picked up, they might be hard to find, let alone pin down."

"You read my mind, Murph," I said, "I'd bet they have something. It's been several days and they've had to have been driving for a while, there's no way they wouldn't have run out by now. Those things aren't what you'd call fuel-efficient. Maybe it's a limited amount, since not everyone has their own vehicle, or maybe they didn't have enough to start with or lost some. I think I can keep pace with them, depending on whatever nonsense they've gotten from the Dungeon, but the rest of you would be left in the dust. We're going to have to either catch them by surprise, or I'll have to lead them into a trap."

"Ideally, we do both," she replied, nodding. "Hit them and drive them into a trap. The Hobgoblin Pus would make it easy to set up with the right terrain." Her fingers drummed aggressively on the table. "They murdered each of those kids 9 to 1. They're not the type to get involved in anything like a stand-up fight. I'd have given it good odds that they bolt at the first sign of real resistance, but if they've lived this long in this place, I could be wrong. Any clue on their whereabouts?"

"Not much," I said with a shake of my head. "They were fighting these little bearded critters that looked like the Notre Dame mascot on steroids, but these hallways all look the same."

She grunted. "Lorelai said that the layout on this level roughly correlates with the surface, so these guys must of have been out in the boonies west or south of town originally to have been out at 5 in the morning riding. Probably messing around on private property, shitfaced," she said, shaking her head. "They'd have to be, to think January was a good time for it. Did they look like the real deal, or just weekend warrior types who've gone off the deep end?"

I thought about that, recalling the brief glimpse we'd gotten at them. "A lot of them had your standard neo-Nazi tattoos, but I didn't get a good enough look to know if any were specific to the Aryan Brotherhood or one of the other usual gangs," I said. "My gut says they're just random assholes that the dungeon convinced to embrace their worst selves, but maybe a couple were more connected. Doesn't change the fact that they need to be stopped either way."

I wasn't terribly well-versed in the non-supernatural criminal goings on in greater Chicagoland, especially not now that I was years out of date. But I'd picked up enough to know that, previously, the Aryans did a fair bit of gun running from more loosely regulated Indiana into the suburbs and from there into the city. Marcone probably had had deals with them. Judging by the makeup of this particular group largely being either a bit scrawny or a bit pudgy and the fact that none of them had been using guns in the recap, these guys likely weren't anybody's enforcers back on the surface. I could see their ringleader as an occasional bagman, but who knows.

We discussed potential plans for dealing with them for a few minutes, circling the true topic of conversation. When we finally got tired of rehashing the same points, Murphy made the first move.

"I need you to know that I don't blame you, Harry. Okay?" she said, taking my hand. "It was –"

"Same here, Murph. Karrin," I interrupted gently, leaning in, gripping her hand back. "That wasn't your fault." I tried to will that thought at her as powerfully as I could.

"…I know. I do. In my head, anyway," she replied with a quiet sigh. It did seem like she wasn't as raw as she had been. "It's not something I'd like to revisit, but what Lorelai…" She paused, giving me a bit of a side-eye. "Hang on. You seem…surprisingly calm about all this. I don't know that I was expecting wailing and gnashing of teeth or anything, but it's not even a little chilly in here. Who are you and what did you do with Harry Dresden?"

I chuckled and gave her hand another squeeze. As I had been doing during our entire conversation, in my mind I was banking the coals of my anger, storing them for later use. "I'm mad enough to chew iron and spit nails, Murph. But I can't let it get one over on me," I said earnestly. "Not after really seeing the consequences that would result if that happens. If I can't control myself when I'm supposed to be relaxed and safe, what chance do I have of doing it when this place throws something else horrible at us?"

I shook my head. "But that's not everything. In some ways, how the dungeon went about that was…" I gulped. Just thinking of it this way made my guts roil in anger, but it was still true. "It was a mercy. I don't remember anything. It was horrifying to see what that did to me, to you, but it's like I didn't live it. I'm furious about the pain it caused us, but it's got a little bit of distance to it. I can do my best to set it aside until we can do something about the real cause."

"Well, I'll be here to pour a potion down your throat when the aneurysm hits," she said, getting to her feet and stepping over to plant her lips on my forehead briefly. She looked at me. "You sure that's all that's on your mind? I figured you'd come and get me and that you might…I don't know. I was hoping to just get back to it, focus on something I can do something about, now that the episode is over but…"

I hesitated for a moment. "Well…there's one other thing." She motioned for me to go on when my silence lasted a little too long. " Part of what the distance not remembering anything helped me see is how much care you took." She blanched at that and started to pull back. "Wait! Please," I said, and she paused. "I mean…you did everything you could to disable me in ways you thought potions could fix. Every single move you made up until the end was done trying to save me. You could have slipped at least some of those detonators into spots under my duster just as easily as over, I bet. You could have taken a center mass or even head shot any of those times you went for a limb. You could have dropped a stick of dynamite in my pocket before you blew yourself away. Murph, that was an incredible act of selflessness and bravery. And you did it for my sake." I choked up a little, then, and continued more roughly. "All the horrible things I was doing and still you fought so hard to protect me..." I pointed my finger and gestured it between us. "I know neither of us is…great…with words. But I know what love looks like, Karrin."

"Harry, I –" she began, but I cut her off.

"Which is why I know just how terrible it is that I'm going to ask you to put that aside if it happens again and take me down as quick and hard as you can." I rushed through my words as I could see Murphy's face darkening more and more with every one that came out of my mouth.

"God dammit, I knew it!" she growled, breaking away from me. "You always do this same self-sacrificing crap when everyone else –"

"You triggered my Cockroach skill when you took me out, Murph," I interrupted her burgeoning rant with all the delicacy of a wizard-shaped bull in some sort of fancy combination electronics and antique pottery shop.

"– and we could still help you, you giant…!" she sputtered to a stop as she took in what I'd said. "Wha-what? Isn't that…?"

"Yep," I said flatly, trying to keep my emotions in check. "The skill that lets me recover from one lethal hit per fight. The same one you've got now, thanks to the tongue. The stupid show had a Looney-Tunes version of the bug pop up and dance around the screen. Apparently, cockroaches exist on other planets, too, and have the exact same reputation for not staying down when they should."

Murphy looked shocked and horrified. She sat heavily down into her chair and started to say something before pausing to take a few deep breaths.

"Are you trying to tell me that I did kill you?" she finally said, voice hollow. "And now you want me to do it again? No." She shook her head vehemently. "Absolutely not. Fuck you for even asking me that, Harry. I…you might have seen it, but you don't know –"

"Chichen. Itza." I spat with a barely restrained snarl, and Murphy went white as a sheet.

We both sat on that pleasant reminder for a few moments, reining ourselves in. I knew exactly how Murphy felt. Susan didn't get a do-over, though. She was gone, and it was because of me. But we couldn't talk about that more than we already had. Too risky.

"Look," I said once I'd calmed down. I knew that I'd be just as angry if she asked me to do the same. And I was pretty sure she'd feel the same way I did, in the end. "It's not the first or best option. And we'll need to talk with Lorelai about the specifics, because I don't trust it and I don't want to rely on it without know everything we can. But this place does work on videogame rules. If this skill gives me a free continue or an extra life or whatever, and it would stop me from doing that to you again, or to Hope, or to anybody else, we should take it if better options don't present themselves. Tell me you wouldn't want the same if you were in my shoes."

She glared at me with her jaw clenched for a full minute before she finally cast her gaze to the side.

"Fine," she grunted sourly. "We'll talk with Lorelai about it. But we're going to look for the better options she gave me as soon as we hit the 3rd​ floor. And," her voice softened for a brief moment. "I'm sorry."

She stood and shook herself off a bit, like she was trying to shed the topic like a snake's skin. "Now let's go find some monsters. I really need to shoot something horrible."

We entered the main dining room of the saferoom. Rippel the Bopca was busying herself with something behind the counter. Rhonda was lounging across a couple of chairs, reading the manual to the hookah. James and Hope were both seated at one of the tables with my revolver and the shotgun that Rhonda had been carrying, both in states of disassembly.

"What's going on here?" Murphy asked, walking over to where the two young folks were working, the sight evidently distracting her enough that she sounded almost normal.

"Well," James said absently, concentrating on his task. "I'd been thinking how this kit has a bunch of different tools and supplies in it, but one person can only use one tool at a time. So I thought maybe we could swap which tasks we work on and do two weapons at once. Don't know if it'll work, but if we're going to hang out for a couple of hours anyway, I figured it wouldn't be too much of a waste."

"Huh," I said. "Well, that'd be handy if it works. Rhonda, you up for a little smashing time while they work on this?" She didn't respond for a moment, until I repeated myself.

"Oh, uh, nah, I think I'll keep reading this and go out after y'all come back," she said, sounding distracted. "I just read a tenth page of prep notes for the tentacles of some plant called an 'Orifice Invader' and I kinda wanna see how much longer this goes on." The instruction booklet only looked like it had maybe half a dozen pages at most.

"Jesus," Murphy said, shaking her head. "How could there be that many ways to prepare a plant?"

"It does somethin' different if the tentacles, uh, invade the orifices of different things before you dry them," Rhonda replied looking up and sounding a little squeamish. "And sometimes it does different things depending on the orifice. Apparently if we got a 'Koalian' up in here and stuck the plant up most of its holes, we'd just get a skill called 'Eucalyptus Digestion'. But if the plant goes up its dickhole for 2 minutes before you prepare the thing, we'd get a skill that'd let us give bad guys somethin' called 'Ravenous Chlamydia' when we smoke it."

"This fucking place," Murphy and I muttered in stereo.

We left shortly thereafter to explore the surrounding hallways for the next 45 minutes or so. I put a dinner order in with Rippel for when I got back. She still looked frightened of me, though Murphy's presence and neither of us arguing or trying to kill each other seemed to have eased that.

The monsters in the neighborhood nearby were strange, possum-like creatures called Garbage Scowls. They had little wooden spears and jumped out of the shadows at us, but weren't anything really threatening. I literally punted the first one to pop out at me about 100 yards down the hallway to splat into a wall entirely by accident. We worked on leveling up our skills before returning to the saferoom to eat and swap out with the others.

James' trick had actually worked, so Murphy and I worked on the P90 and one of her other pistols while the others left to find more monsters to beat. Rhonda said she'd given up reading about the Orifice Invader preparation after she skipped ahead 50 pages and still kept finding instructions about it. I asked if she'd found more details about making coffee but she told me that the first part of the manual was all about plant and herb concoctions and it went on for hundreds , maybe thousands, of pages. She hadn't found the instructions for the other functions yet.

After the others left, Rippel brought out my meal, another round of steak sandwich and fries, and I paused my work to take a bite.

The burst of overwhelming flavor lit my brain afire, like I'd jumped headfirst into a scalding hot spring, except the sensation was distinctly redolent of steak, butter, salt, and every other bit of sublime sandwichness there could be, pulled straight from some sort of beef-and-sourdough-based demesne in the NeverNever and slammed straight into my skull at about Mach 7.

Have you ever heard somebody describe something as "better than sex" and then, after trying it, you pitied the fact that their benchmark for pleasurable activities was apparently so low? Well, I could now confidently say that food could in fact hit that qualifier. I think I blacked out for a moment.

"Uhhh, Harry?" Murphy asked, her voice a combination of confused and concerned. "Was that a good noise or a bad one?"

I blinked my eyes blearily as I came out of my fugue state. It was the freaking tongue, again. I was red-faced as I hurriedly excused myself to a bemused Murphy and headed to the shower to clean up a bit, grateful, as ever, for my long and concealing duster.

While I ran a quick wash cycle, I tried to figure out my magic shirt. It turned out that it added a new tab to my health menu and there were sliders I could adjust up or down. I immediately pulled the "taste" sensory bar as far down as it would go. I'd pocketed a couple of fries on my way out of the main room and ate them, chewing speculatively.

Good. Only exceptionally delicious testaments to the incredible culinary versatility of the potato instead of mind-alteringly so. Damn the AI. I supposed that I could probably modify Lash's pain-blocking techniques to affect my tastebuds, but the mental effort it would take would render the whole "relaxing and enjoying time to myself" thing a little moot if I had to do it all the time.

Maybe whenever I tried something new, to let me ease into it...

Hell's Bells was I glad that the others had been out when this had happened.

Though I was embarrassed and annoyed, I decided to experiment a little with the menu since I had nothing better to do as things were drying. I adjusted the other sensory bars up and down a bit. The enhanced sight and hearing abilities could potentially be useful. I was able to pick up much more detail when vision was maximized. And given some of the places we'd seen already, being able to mute my sense of smell might be extremely helpful.

Murphy thankfully didn't say anything when I came back to the restaurant in my slightly damp pants to finish my now-cooled meal and continue working on the gun. Soon enough, the others returned, and we were on our way. After another hour or so of walking, we decided to pick up the pace. Well, some of us did, anyway.

If Hope wanted to level up her Pathfinder skill, which currently sat at 5, she needed to have her map all the way open while we traveled. It was hard to travel when you basically couldn't see, even moving at just a modest walking pace. And James, who had received barely any gear that boosted his self-admittedly poor physical stats, tired easily, even with his new "leg". So, feeling a little silly, Rhonda and I carried the two of them piggyback, Hope on Rhonda's shoulders, James on mine. This allowed us to make significantly faster progress, even with periodic rests where we all walked.

I thought we were making pretty good time, but it looked like our targets were on the move, too. The angle of the dowsing compass kept shifting by small degrees. With just over two days left until the level collapsed, we decided to find a saferoom for the night. We ended up in another fast food joint, a place with a pink and white theme called Solaria and signage in a variety of languages, all of which were readable to us now, to the point that it was kind of hard to tell that they were other languages.

The whole trip had been pretty uneventful, though at one point we'd come across a horde of level 2 red-and-white mushroom creatures called Spitcaps that had evidently taken root…did mushrooms even have roots?...in one of the hallways. Murphy had drawn a bomb from her magic bag that added a fiery burst in addition to the explosion, which would inflict the Burning and Blind debuffs. So, between that, a blast of my own fire, and a barrage of spells and flying maces, we cleared the way with only a few minor injuries and the discovery that being Poisoned felt awful and hurt you, for those who weren't immune like I was. But that didn't last long given all the antidotes we'd found in our boxes. We gathered a bunch of alchemy materials from the remains that hadn't been so damaged as to not even form an "X" on the map and traveled on.

When we finally sat down to our dinner, where I'd elected to try to shake things up and see if the Bopca, Erran by name, could make me a Whopper, Hope finally asked the question I'd been anticipating for a while now. I was starving by that point and decided to let them talk it out for a minute, but I kept a close eye on the conversation. It'd be good for them to get it all out there. Hidden resentments could easily be lethal in this place.

"So…" she said, "Can we, uh, talk about what exactly we're going to do when we catch up to the…the ATV guys?"

"…I'd like to know, too," added James. "Cause it kinda seems like you all were –"

"What d'you think we gonna do?" Rhonda cut in, then took a bite from the ribs she was eating before going on. "They out there murdering kids. We ain't got no jails. We ain't got no cops. Other than these two, I guess." She gestured at Murphy and me.

"I'm…technically retired," Murphy said. "Even aside from the whole alien invasion thing."

"And I was just the hired help," I added, taking a bite of my food. Damn, that was a tasty burger.

"And that makes it right for us to just go…what, murder them back?" Hope said, more hotly than I'd ever heard her speak before.

"You wanna think of it that way, be my guest," Rhonda said dismissively, gesturing with the bone of the pork rib she'd just polished off. "Way I see it then is, if we get them nine, then there's still at least 4 less murderers out there. Seems like a win to me."

"So what," James argued, "we're going to just, I dunno, challenge them to a duel or something? Or were you planning to sneak up on them and cut their throats when they sleep? I mean, I know that's how it'd go in a game, but these are still people. That's pretty fucked up, even if they do deserve it."

"Saferoom rules won't allow that unless they're stupid enough to try sleeping in the halls," Murphy cut in. "But an ambush is probably how we're going to have to do it. They're highly mobile, they're strong enough that they got featured on the show, and unless everything the tooltips say is a lie, they're proven torturers and murderers. This isn't a spar in a tournament or something. In the real world, leveraging every asset that you can is how you walk away from fights."

"Miss-! Karrin!" Hope said, rounding on Murphy. "We can't just attack people without trying to get them to stop some other way!"

"Bitch, what 'chu gonna do?" Rhonda yelled, slamming her fist on the table. "Wag your finger at them and suddenly they gonna be all cool and shit?! They killin' kids just like you for no reason but they could, and you think it can end any other way? In this place?"

Hope rocked back at that. Murphy looked about ready to interrupt, but I sent her a quick chat message that I'd typed out while I was eating, and we decided to wait a moment.

"I…I don't know!" Hope said, shaking her head vehemently. "Maybe…maybe we could, uh, make them give up all their magic gear and break their ATVs? They wouldn't be a threat, then!"

"Ummm, not to be a Debbie Downer," James said hesitantly, "because I'm also pretty iffy about the whole 'let's start killing humans, too' ethics thing, but I'm also sure that that'd just be killing them a little more slowly, what with all the monsters."

"You motherfuckers can't be serious right –" Rhonda began, stomping to her feet and leaning in, but Hope cut her off, leaping up herself and getting in Rhonda's face. James looked alarmed and scooted his chair back.

"It's NOT about them Rhonda! It's about us! We think these are the right people, but we don't know. And them being evil doesn't make it right to be evil right back at them by…by killing them with no warning or recourse! And what if some of them are in that group against will?"

"Are you for real?" Rhonda yelled back. "They names was on the goddamn killer list!"

"And you're sure none of them were just picked up by the bad guys and are afraid that if they say or do anything they'll be next?!" Hope retorted, tears in her eyes as she shrank in on herself. "This place is really scary, Rhonda! So many people we met or knew died horribly in here! It was such a blessing when I found you all and that you were all good people. If I'd met them…I…I'd like to think I'd leave, or try to stop them, but…but…not everyone can be brave all the time." She straightened a little, glaring at Rhonda. "Would you kill me, if I was there just because I'd gotten taken in and couldn't get out because everyone else there would kill me if I tried? Or if they found me after they did the murders and I never saw them do any myself? Because if you would, then we should…should go outside and you should put your money where your goddamn mouth is!"

I think it was Hope actually swearing that threw Rhonda off the most, because she leaned back from the younger woman at the word and not one second before. They hadn't known each other long, but Hope had always made a point of never being rude, in a way that wasn't really noticeable until she suddenly wasn't. They were both breathing a little heavily. I took this as the cue to intervene I'd told Murphy we should wait for. Plus, I'd finished my burger, which had regrettably been the best damn burger I'd ever had in my life.

"Unfortunately, ladies, you're both right," I said with a clap of my hands to distract them. "Hope, we do actually need to make sure we've got the right people before we move in. And I hadn't really thought that they might have people with them unaffiliated with the murders, but it's possible, so we shouldn't just blow them all up from a distance or something."

"And Rhonda's absolutely right that we need to do something about them," Murphy spoke right on my heels. "At least some of them are murderers and they need to be stopped before they hurt anybody else. They might pick a fight with somebody too strong for them before we do, or the monsters might get them, but there might be nobody else but us who can or will stop them. And I, for one, don't want that to be on my conscience. And it's pretty much certain that the only way we're going to be able to do that is to kill them. There's no way to imprison them. They'll heal fast even if they didn't have potions, so we can't disable them. Unless you wanted to cut their arms or legs off, I guess. That'd get pretty gruesome, though. And even if we did that, or just took all their gear, James is right that that would just be killing them more slowly. Which, honestly, I'm fine with for these pricks, but it's not practical and could come back to bite us."

"But!" I took over, making a circular gesture. "If you, any of you, don't want to take an active role in this, you don't have to. There's no shame in not wanting somebody's blood on your hands. It shouldn't be something you choose to do lightly, if there is a choice like we have now. Sometimes, though, you don't get the luxury. Either way, Murphy and I are going to put a stop to them. I'm guessing Rhonda's helping?"

The woman nodded in reply. She'd taken back her seat and was fiddling with her food. Hope was still standing, leaning on her chair and facing Murphy and I. She still stood tensely, and I moved on before she could interrupt.

"And nobody is getting kicked out of the group over this or anything stupid like that. When we find them, you can stay back at a saferoom or guildhall and we'd come back for you. Hope, your map would be really helpful for spotting them when we get close enough, but if you don't want to do that, we'll make do. We should stick together for safety, but James, if you felt like you'd want to break out on your own over this, now or sometime later, we'll load you up with potions, loot, and supplies, no hard feelings," I said, then turned to Hope. James had a sour look on his face. "Hope, I promised your parents that I'd look out for you, so unfortunately, you're stuck with me. And I'm stuck with Murphy, so you've got the two of us." Murphy gave a non-indicative grunt at that.

"I know…" Hope said in a soft voice after a moment, "I know they're evil men. I don't want anybody else innocent to get hurt by them. And I'm not stupid. I just…I wish there was anything else we could do. And I don't think I can hurt them." She sniffled and wiped her eyes several times. "But I'll help you find them. I'll leave the matter of their sins to the Lord. But I don't want any more on me. This place hurts enough already. You'll make sure nobody they might have tricked or…or forced to help them gets hurt?"

"We'll do our best," Murphy replied, walking over to Hope and putting an arm around her shoulder. "We might not get much of a chance, but we'll try as hard as we can."

"I'll try to help, too…" said James, a touch reluctantly. "Monsters are one thing, but people? I don't think I'd be any good in a fight with them..." He gave a bitter laugh. "Y'know, I always daydreamed about what it would be like to be a hero, like in a game. And this is like the perfect chance! But now that it's here, I'm just scared and my stomach hurts so much I want to throw up all the time. I get why you two are so ready to go," he said, gesturing at Murphy and me. "But Rhonda, are you really cool with just killing people? I thought you said you worked at a McDonalds, not like whatever crazy Breaking Bad sort of stuff Harry and Karrin apparently got up to in their spare time?"

Breaking Bad? I think I remember seeing a billboard or something with that name on it. I didn't remember it from the drive-in, so maybe it was a TV show? I couldn't exactly watch TV to know. Kids these days and their lack of appreciation for the classics. I'd have gone with Die Hard.

Rhonda, meanwhile, sat on the question for a moment, chewing the last of her dinner.

"Psh, I dunno, man," she finally said as she pushed her chair back from the table. "I been in fights before, but the worst somebody got was a busted nose or a broken arm or somethin'. But I'm so fuckin' sick of these motherfuckers just gettin' away with harrassin' folks and hurtin' 'em and killin' 'em over and over again. You walkin' in the 'wrong' neighborhood. You drivin' with a taillight out. You watchin' fuckin' birds in the park or some shit. And now you live through the end of the damn world and still they can't stop with it. This place might be fucked up, but now I'm strong. And strong people supposed to protect the weak. So I ain't gonna put up with it. Uh-uh. I ain't sure how I'll feel after, but if even one more kid won't die cause we stopped 'em? Then even if I feel like shit, it'll be worth it." She paused to take a swig of her drink. "And…sorry for calling you a bitch, Hope. You right that they might have prisoners or somethin'. I ain't really thought that far ahead."

Hope smiled slightly at that. "I'm sorry I yelled at you, too." She broke away from Murphy and approached Rhonda with open arms. "Now we gotta hug it out! That's what mom and dad always said you should do after a fight with someone you care about." Rhonda looked a little confused, but hug it out they did.

"We'll leave the detailed planning for when we finally find them," I said as we all began to make our way back to the bedrooms. "In the meantime, I'm going to set an actual alarm for 6 hours from now. I don't know what your guides told you, but Lorelai suggested starting to hunt for stairs after the last episode ended. We're well past that deadline now and haven't seen any yet. This would give us about 43, 44 hours to work with. I think we need to make that our biggest priority. We'll still head vaguely in our targets' direction, but I'm betting we're going to want to go further afield from the main thoroughfares to find the way down. From the diagram on the premier, the second level should be significantly smaller than this one, so it might be easier to track them down there."

Agreement was reached with minimal grumbling and we all retired. Murphy and I were wiped. I set my Alice in Wonderland alarm clock to a random time and made an alarm six hours hence. Murphy and I didn't even really talk other than to wish each other good night before we conked out in each other's arms.

We awoke and I gave all of our clothes a quick'n'dirty wash while eating some granola bars and the others ate their breakfast and buffed Hope's rifle and one of the pistols. We set out as we had before, Rhonda and I playing pack mules with our high strength scores, jogging at a pace that an athlete in their prime would consider 'a bit much' considering we ran it for hours on end. Every two to 3 hours we'd take a 45-60 minute "rest" where we all walked. Rhonda and I both got Silver Beast of Burden boxes from a Ya! Mule achievement for carrying another humanoid crawler on our backs for over 10 hours. My Running skill also leveled up to 7, so 12 with the headband's bonus.

We fought a scattered handful of mobs as we continued along, but nothing terribly noteworthy. Some cactus-things, monsters that looked like penguins with kangaroo-like legs and antlers called Rapenguilopes, and "cheese elementals" that dropped whole blocks of smoked cheeses, and in one case, a fondue set, in their inventories.

After we'd walked for a good 12 hours, Hope's Pathfinder skill had leveled up to 7 and not too long after that she spotted a stairwell on the map, about 5 or 6 miles away. We immediately booked it in that direction. There was a saferoom on the way there that we angled towards, but about half a mile out, Hope stopped us, calling out from her perch atop Rhonda's shoulders.

"Guys, there's other people up ahead, in the saferoom! At least a dozen!"

Chapter Text

"Is it Joel Collin?" I asked sharply. I didn't think it could be, based on the last reading I'd taken from the compass, but I needed to be sure.

"No," Hope replied. "None of the names match. Are we gonna go say hi?"

"Well, I don't know about y'all, but I'm fuckin' wrecked," Rhonda said, twisting her body in a pained stretch and making Hope wobble a little precariously. "That's the closest room with beds in it and hopefully dinner. Those biscuits really ain't filling, even if they are supposed to feed us for a day. Plus, it's been like 6 hours since our 'lunch break'."

That feeling was something we could all agree with. "I just hope there's enough rooms for 'rent' available," I said. "Let's go see what we're dealing with."

Hope and James clambered down from their perches so we could walk in looking…well, normal might not be the right word, but at least my ridiculous hat was no longer shaped like a weird, duck-billed monstrosity due to contorting itself around James so it wouldn't touch him while he rode on my shoulders. I'd initially taken it off as we walked, but once we'd started running into mobs somewhat randomly, I kept it on and relied on the "bendy" trait to keep it out of the way, which worked perfectly well but looked very strange. I was honestly beginning to forget that the thing was even there, the trait given by it's "add-on" accessory was so effective at keeping it out of the way of things. Other than my vision when I tried to look up, anyway. I was still going to keep it off in saferooms, but at least it wasn't so distracting outside of them anymore.

The saferoom was not what I'd expected. The design on one of the exterior windows proclaimed the place as "Stella's Lounge" and the interior was all narrow bar seating, small tables, and a modest assortment of pinball and arcade games, with vibrant, schlocky artwork covering the walls and a tin-plated ceiling. The main room was fairly narrow and looked like the kind of place that would've been loud and crowded back on the surface, since everything was packed in so tightly. A rather rotund man with thinning gray hair was playing Galaga by the doorway and looked up as we entered.

Crawler # 6,309,422. "Patrick Czajk"

Level 3

Race: Human

Class: Not yet assigned

"Well, hey there, strangers! C'mon in, why don'tcha!" he called out with a grin. He turned to look over his shoulder and yelled out in a booming voice "Rosa! Brian! Hey, everybody, we got some more company!" The motley collection of people further down the long and narrow room gave a bunch of half-hearted waves and greetings. The man approached us and offered out his hand to me, looking up. "Ain't you a tall fella! I'm Pat Czajkowski, nice ta meet'cha!"

"Harry Dresden," I said, taking his hand and giving a firm shake and a somewhat dubious nod.

He was…oddly chipper as he introduced himself to everybody else in our group. The rents in his dirty, bloodstained t-shirt and jeans were a somewhat disconcerting counterpoint to his attitude.

"Gee, ain't that a lotta stars up there!" he said, pointing above out heads with a whistle. "You guys and gals have been puttin' in some work, I see! Take a seat, take a seat! That Bopca lady at the bar makes a damn good chicken-fried steak, just so ya know!"

He shooed us deeper into the saferoom as he started up his game again and I took in the people before us. It seemed to be at least 3 groups, maybe more. Seated at the far end of the bar were three men, probably in their mid-to-late 30s, all of whom were obviously plastered. Two, James Smith 12 and Eddie Cipp, were passed out, leaning over the bar with an assortment of empty bottles around them. The other, Grant Mart, had shifted his barstool to be closer to the wall so he could lean back against it. His chin was on his chest, dark and messy hair hiding his features, nursing a beer in his lap. I thought he was out as well, but he slowly raised the bottle to his lips and took an awkward-looking pull as we walked in.

Another group, seated at a couple of small tables opposite the bar, were all closer to James and Rhonda's ages. One of them, a beefy young man with light brown hair who was only a few inches shorter than I was but a fair bit wider, stood to greet us. He, and the rest of the kids in his group, all had a single bronze star over their heads and they were all splattered with what seemed like a wide assortment of Dungeon offal.

Crawler # 9,658,120. "Brian Macl"

Team Prairie State

Level 7

Race: Human

Class: Not yet assigned

"Hey," he said, also offering his hand to me, and then to the others. "I'm Brian. This is Yusef, Allison, Britney, and Andre." He gave a slight smile. "Nice party name, bro. We couldn't think of a good one, so we just went with our school." The others he'd introduced all also had that "Team Prairie State" designation in their tooltip and were each level 6 or 7. If I remembered correctly, that was a community college in the southern suburbs of the city.

Yusef Abe was an exceptionally dark-skinned man, a shock of tightly curled hair rising from his head above keen brown eyes set in a narrow face. Allison Sto and Britney Steve were peas in a pod: short and fit as only young women in their early 20's could be, with tans and shoulder-length, dyed-blonde hair, though Allison wore hers in a ponytail and Britney kept hers loose. Andre Cart was a lithe young man with a shaved head and whipcord muscles visible underneath his gore-spattered white tank top. He was drumming caramel-colored fingers on the table as he gave Rhonda a very obvious once-over. She just raised an eyebrow at him and smirked.

The final group, or groups, sat nearby, an empty table between them and the kids. Like Pat, their clothes all bore signs of violence and they were each only level 2 or 3. A stocky old woman in a burned flannel shirt, Clarice Stefa, sat in the booth part of the restaurant table, leaned back with her eyes closed, a lit cigarette in one hand that she occasionally brought to her mouth. A whole carton of the things sat on the table in front of her, along with a crowded makeshift ashtray. A haze of smoke filled the whole space, reminding me of the roadside diners I'd gotten late dinners at with my father as a child. They smelled like menthols. Next to her, a pale and dark-haired man named Kevin Stanl sat, staring straight ahead with a dead-eyed, vacant expression. The only one of them to acknowledge us was an olive-skinned woman with short, straight, black hair flecked with gray and a ready smile. Rosa Domi gave us a nod and small wave, turning her chair to face us as the Prairie State crew greeted us somberly.

I hadn't really been paying attention to my own or the others' levels, but looking at these two groups, I realized that we looked like battle-hardened veterans compared to them. Well, the Dungeon-ified version anyway. We all had odd, clearly magical gear on. Hope was the most normal looking, and she still had her sleek, green-glassed goggles resting on her forehead and the shifting cloak, making her look a bit like a kid who'd gotten overly enthusiastic in a costume shop and gone marching around. Maybe Murphy was the most…discrete…in appearance, but with her armor, combat webbing, and magical gear she looked like some sort of spy- or military-themed movie character. Rhonda looked like a baseball player and James like a dollar-store Wizard. And I looked like a giant idiot in bright-orange shoes, though thankfully a hatless one. I was level 11, just about to turn over to 12. Murphy was 10. Rhonda and Hope were each level 9, with James rounding it out at level 8. We'd probably be higher if we hadn't spent most of a day traveling.

Then Britney's eyes lit up in recognition. "Holy shit!" she said loudly, shoving her chair back away from me as the others who were paying attention looked at her in alarm. "You guys were on the show!" She looked between me and Murphy, open-mouthed as the others also came to the realization that the new arrivals were, in fact, Dungeon-famous. Apparently.

Stars and Stones, I hadn't really thought about the other humans watching the show, I'd been so focused on the alien assholes who'd made it.

"Uhhh…you look…a lot…uhhh…better? Yeah, better. Than you did on the show at the end, there," she went on nervously. "And I guess no hard feelings?" She gestured between Murphy and me.

"Spoilers!" hissed Allison, but then she slapped her hands over her mouth, blushing furiously as Murphy and I looked at her incredulously.

"Oh, wow!" Brian said excitedly. He looked down at Murphy after she stopped giving Allison the stinkeye. "Where'd you learn those moves that you used when you were putting those bombs on…uh…" He suddenly seemed to realize that I was here as well as he looked from Murphy to me. His expression reminded me of Mouse, when he'd been caught red-pawed stealing food off the counter. "Uhh…sorry. Nevermind. That seems rude to ask."

Murphy and I were both, I think, in shock of some kind, though Murphy's was slowly morphing to anger that was only moderately mollified by Brian's apology. Rhonda and Andre were apparently having some sort of conversation entirely via Significant Looks and shrugs, while Hope and James just stood back, silent and awkward, and the last member of the college crew, Yusef, looked on impassively, though the crinkles in the corners of his eyes suggested some hidden amusement at…some part of all this. I heard heavy footsteps behind me.

"Well, what's alla this hullabaloo over here, huh?" the cheery voice of Pat sounded.

I sighed heavily, trying to marshal an explanation so we could get past the whole topic. "Yeah, that was us on the show," I said resignedly. No point in denying it. "I have a…let's go with curse. It causes something our guide called "Berserk" status under certain conditions. We've got it under control for now. It's not important. Are you all camped out here to go get more experience before going down the stairs that're just down the way?"

"Hang on, didn't you lose your tongue?" Allison asked quizzically, tilting her head. "How're you talking? And where's your hat?"

"Allison!" both Brian and Britney said, in consternation and resignation, respectively.

"I got better." I said through gritted teeth. I didn't acknowledge the hat comment.

"Well, I dunno about alla that stuff" Pat said, "I ain't watchin' that crap. Bad for my digestion!" He slapped his expansive stomach. "Sounds like you kids are havin' a talk though, so I'm gonna go back to my games. Can you believe we don't even have ta put any quarters in 'em? I woulda gone ga-ga for this place 30 years ago, lemme tell ya!" He patted my back heartily and ambled back towards the arcade area.

"Is he…ok?" Hope asked tentatively.

Rosa sighed at that. "He's fine," she said. "Says he's feeling better than he's felt in decades. This place fixed his cirrhosis and kidneys and pinched nerves and stuff. He's just…made peace with it all."

I didn't like the sound of that.

"Made peace with what, exactly?" Murphy asked, eyes narrowed.

"It is the stairs," said Yusef. His voice was quiet and somewhat musical. "They are locked within a boss chamber. We have searched ever since the first announcement, and this was the only stairwell we have found. Whatever it is that guards that place is...evil."

"I don't know about evil," Allison said, "But it sure looks different than anything else in here and that's scary."

"We were actually just trying to decide what we should do, either go out to search or take our chances," added Brian. "I didn't think we'd have enough fighters since Rosa and them kinda...aren't."

"Really?" James asked, looking at the woman. "You're all just planning to...let it happen?"

The woman looked a little ashamed, but she was confident as she spoke "I don't want to die, but the things in here... the things that have happened to people... I don't think I'd be any use. And I'd feel bad leaving Pat to look after Clarice and Kevin and Brad all by himself if the worst happened."

"I don't need you or that fat fuck to look after me," growled the old woman in a raspy voice. Her eyes were still closed. "In fact, let me die in peace. My emphysema's gone, so I can smoke these things properly again." She took a long drag and blew out a cloud of smoke. "Hear that? Not one damn cough. And my ex-husband's probably dead. I'm practically in heaven already."

"Brad?" I asked. Nobody here had that name.

"He's sleeping it off in back," Rosa replied, having rolled her eyes at Clarice's pronouncement.

Murphy and I spent the next couple of hours eating food and questioning the others about anything they might know about the boss chamber and surrounding neighborhoods, with occasional input from James. We'd go take a look at the area after we'd slept, but since the last episode of the show for this floor was about to air, we decided to stay up and watch it. We all mostly agreed that this boss chamber was probably going to have to be it. The others had all come in from different directions than we had and hadn't spotted anything. None of them had the Pathfinder skill, but that didn't make any of us feel any more confident that other options might present themselves in the 30ish hours we had left on the floor.

Hope had pulled a sewing kit out of her inventory and had offered to help patch up people's clothes and offer spares from her dwindling supply of extras. I'd likewise offered a laundry service, after we rested, much to the college kids and Rosa's delight. I think I'd been right about how demoralizing it would be to be stuck here in all the filth that this place created.

Meanwhile, Rhonda and that Andre guy started arm wrestling at some point, and after she'd beaten him squarely 20 times in a row and went off to grab her dinner, he was looking after her with an expression on his face like he'd just been blindsided by a truck, much to the silent amusement of pretty much everyone else. I think Rhonda, James, and Hope were talking via chat, because they all kept snickering when they thought nobody was paying attention.

Neither the people in this saferoom nor the third episode of the show, unfortunately, gave us any glimpses at Joel Collin or really much new information at all. Except too much information in one case.

As was clearly the apparent standard, the first half of the show was just more death, dismemberment, and destruction. Nobody we recognized from the previous episodes made an appearance, though. The second half of the show focused on 6 groups of crawlers. The crossbow woman made an appearance, a group of women with her as she mowed through mobs like they were made of paper. Lucia Mar was there, too, she and her dogs absolutely savaging any monster that came within reach. That was one scary kid. Three of the others were all huge groups, including a one that appeared to be some sort of military force of African extraction judging by all the AK-47s they were toting and a couple groups of Asian folks all bearing various weapons with varying degrees of normality and/or outlandishness. They'd all been camping out at stairwells, grinding, evidently. Some folks got all the luck, I guessed.

And then Murphy and I got the last, brief slot. It flashed between several scenes of me trying to eat without a tongue, or weeping, or angry, all set to gloomy music. And then a cut to me, covered in gore, a silver star forming over my head with a more-excited version of the "Winner!" notification than had actually happened appearing onscreen. It cut to a reveal of the magical replacement tongue from a box, with a detailed description shown onscreen for a moment and then me 'installing' it.

Then several scenes were shown that could only have come from other crawls: A bird-person with a mangled beak pulled a similar tongue from a box in awe, and it showed him using it as a weapon to poison dozens of foes. Another was a pig-faced man, an orc, who's face was intact, pulling out his own tongue and replacing it. He used his gift to apparently attract a horde of women to serve at his pleasure. He was using the tongue for far more…graphic…purposes.

Then it moved to Murphy and I, holding each other. Our little name-and-picture boxes that popped up during boss battles made an appearance in the upper left corner of the screen. It was showing when I'd activated the item for the first time. They'd edited in the goddam hat. The whole production actually had voiceover, a first for a scene featuring crawlers and not the lizard-man announcer guy. Thankfully, or maybe not, they'd redubbed us with ridiculous Spanish-or-maybe-French-sounding accents, though they'd kept the words mostly the same. I think. I hadn't exactly been trying to memorize them at the time.

"Oh, how romantic," said Rosa, looking over at us. She was actually dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. "It's just like my favorite telenovela."

Murphy and I were both red-faced at the scrutiny, especially when a little picture-in-picture popped up as the on-screen kiss intensified. It featured a stick-figure version of Murphy, judging by the blonde hair, laying back on something. Another figure, wearing an enormous hat and a harness setup, plus what looked like a leash, kneeled between her legs. The hat moved back and worth with the flashing of a pinkish, vaguely-arrow-shaped icon, stick-Murphy pulling the leash in time with the movement as well. Every time the hat moved forward, the Murphy-figure got little bulging hearts for eyes. The whole dual scene was onscreen for an uncomfortably long time, it felt like.

Then, finally, it cut to our destruction of the horde of Spitcaps, splitting the screen into 3 sections: Murphy on the left, shouldering her rocket launcher with the shining black-and-red missile loaded and firing it in a burst of smoke and flame. Me on the right, unleashing a wave of fire from my staff. The view of the Spitcaps, in the middle, being blown up and incinerated, widened into a shot of all five of us plowing through the remaining monsters like they were nothing, staff strikes, kicks, spells, bullets, and flying maces vanquishing the monsters in a wave of death.

The silence after the episode ended was deep enough that we'd have been able to hear a moth flap its wings, if one had been in here with us. Rhonda leaned in towards Murphy and whispered something that was clearly heard by everybody in the room. Other than the drunks and Pat, who was still over by the entrance playing Galaga, or whatever other game he was on now.

"Yo, Karrin." She hissed. "Can his tongue really do all that?"

Murphy had apparently not been paying attention to her surroundings because Rhonda's words practically made her jump out of her chair.

"God dammit, Rhonda!" she cried out as the room devolved into laughter. "No, it…! He… Argh! Just…shut up. It's an item, he can talk again, and that's all that matters."

"Aaaand smooch!" Allison crowed at the other table, making a kissy face. Hell's bells.

"One more word about the goddamn magic tongue and nobody other than Karrin and I get clean clothes in the morning," I threatened, my voice forceful and not at all petulant. "Got it?"

That actually managed to shut them up, for now, and we made it back to the few remaining available rooms. The announcement, devoid of useful information other than increasingly stern recommendations to stop using the hallways as bathrooms, played as we got ready to sleep. There were no further incidents other than Rhonda waggling her eyebrows at me with a sly grin along the way.

Carl

"Carl! Carl! Look, they are in love, even after they tried to kill each other! How delightfully dramatic! And that was quite the kiss! I must say, having a plot to follow makes this a much better finisher for the show than more mindless monster murder. I do wonder what he meant about illegal detainment, though. It sounds scandalous," Donut said, prancing excitedly about the lap of the elderly Mrs. McGibbons, who we'd wheeled to the Waffle House saferoom for her dinner rotation when we came to catch the last episode that would air before we went to face the Borough Boss.

The staff of the Meadow Lark elder care facility that we'd run into were hard at work on my plan to deal with the boss while we grabbed our food. We were bringing some back for the others, as well. I looked around at the rest of the old folks, the ones who'd decided to stay here and party until the floor collapsed. The youngsters of the group, some spry guys in their early 80s, were teaching the rest how to play beer pong, but with whiskey. I had no idea where they'd gotten the ping-pong balls from. Somebody was singing an Elvis Presley song.

"One thing is bothering me though," Donut said, drawing my eyes back down to her, now sitting comfortably atop the 99-year-old's blanket-covered legs, the woman happily stroking the cat. "Do humans really like cleaning each other that much, Carl? I know you were always watching those videos of the ladies working each other over, but apparently men do it too? Did you like to clean Miss Beatrice? I did always think that she was particularly immaculate, for a human, so you must have done a good job. Unless it was Brad doing that, I guess"

I sighed in exasperation. "It doesn't matter, Donut. We didn't get any useful information for the boss fight we're going to have to do. Let's get moving and bring Mrs. McGibbons and the others back to Brandon and the rest of the staff."

"Y'know, my Barry wasn't much of a talker," creaked the ancient woman's voice as I turned her wheelchair towards the door. " But he could certainly do some amazing things with his tongue. This one time, he wrote out the whole Declaration of Independence and let me tell you, my tea was so soaked you could've called me a ship in Boston Harbor!" She cackled as we rolled her out into the hallway.

Time to Level Collapse: 20 hours, 36 minutes

After our morning ritual of breakfast, laundry, and gun enhancement, we set out to investigate the boss chamber. All the college kids joined us, as did Rosa. Everyone was in high spirits, fresh clothes seemingly giving them a new lease on life. The other older folks, who we'd learned had been truckers getting off the road at a company depot when the Collapse happened, stayed in the saferoom. So did the drunks, who'd been extremely hungover when they'd awoken upon our reentry into the main bar of the saferoom. One of them had muttered something that I didn't catch when Murphy walked by. I wasn't sure exactly what she'd said to them in reply, but she was smiling broadly the whole time and the lot of them had skittered back into the bedrooms to sleep it off.

As we approached our target, I had an ominous feeling that it took me a moment to register. I held up a hand to stop the group and extended my Wizard's senses. A roiling miasma was immediately apparent, coming from the direction of the boss chamber. Necromancy.

No wonder Yusef had said he thought the place felt evil. He might be a bit of a sensitive. According to the map, we were still hundreds of feet away from the chamber, so to be able to feel it from here didn't bode well.

"What's going on, bro?" Brian asked in concern.

"I sense a disturbance in the Force," I replied, my eyes still closed, feeling out the energy. I was going to need to get closer to learn more.

"Uh…ok, dude. What's that mean?" he asked, again.

"Just let him be, man," Rhonda said, tense. "He's got some whackadoo skills or somethin' that let him pull crazy bullshit."

I opened my eyes. "Let's take a closer look," I said. "I think I'll be able to do something about this."

This boss chamber was as ostentatious as the others had described to us. It was like a three-stepped stone pyramid, about 6 stories tall, though it was conical rather than triangular. Each "step" had a crenellated wall that was dotted with defaced or damaged statuary, generally on the themes of angels, devils, and skeletons. A set of carved stairs led up to the top level, where marble doors awaited. The bottommost step of the pyramid was a little over a 700 feet in diameter according to the map, and each successive layer was about 50 or 60 feet smaller than the layer below it. The surrounding hallway, the steps of the pyramid, and the stairs themselves were all covered in a thick layer of shifting, bone-white sand.

Actually... I thought to myself. I licked my finger and stuck it into a nearby drift. The gritty material stuck to me. I sniffed it, and then licked it again. I was right. It wasn't sand. It was bone.

Well, that wasn't ominous or anything.

Everybody other than Murphy, Hope, and Rhonda looked at me like I'd grown a second head.

I spent another half hour inspecting the chamber with my material and metaphysical senses. I sat for another 15 minutes pondering all of my experiences with the undead. I'd unfortunately had a lot of them, from calling up the ghosts beneath Bianca's manor to fighting the Heirs of Kemmler for his stupid book, to more problems with the Black Court of Vampires and my own experiences being mostly-dead.

Whatever was in there was huge and powerful. I was going to need to be thorough. I wondered if I could find Sue the T-rex's skeleton in here somewhere. Heh. Not likely. That'd be much too convenient for this place.

Everyone else had grown a bit bored by the time I was done considering our situation. Britney had pulled out a deck of cards and had the others playing some sort of game, but everyone put the cards down and looked up at me when I finally approached.

"Alright," I said. "I've got some ideas, but we're going to have a lot of work to do. And I'll need to check in with my guide before I really get going. Who's going to fight this thing with us?"

Everybody but Rosa raised their hands. I nodded.

"Good. Rosa, do you think you could convince Pat or any of the others to come down here to dick around for a little while? I need some hands who won't be fighting to make this work."

"I think Pat'll come," said hesitantly, "But I don't think the others will. Maybe Brad, but I don't know."

"I'll see if I can convince those other chuckleheads to come help out," Murphy said with a growl. "Though if they've started drinking again, I won't make any promises."

Alright, I could work with that.

"Ok," I said, "Then everybody other than me who's going to fight, you need to go train. My thought would be that you stick together and try to take out at least 1 more neighborhood boss, more if you can wrangle it. Forget the mobs, we want more gear to keep us alive, not experience points. Hope, your map might come in handy there to scout the locations. Get back here no later than 10 hours to collapse. I should be ready by then, but it gives us some leeway and time to rest if needed. Let's get everybody into our chats and keep each other updated."

As we all set about doing so, Yusef asked me a question.

"If we will be training, what is it that you will be doing?"

I grinned. "Well, first things first, I need to know if anybody here has some buckets, a ladder, paintbrushes, a small knife, 3 scarves or ropes, and anything that would be easy to carve. After that…well, before you all get going, I need to borrow whoever's got the highest Charisma."

I came to a decision, then. I took a deep breath and pulled out the magic brooch and pinned it to the chest of my frilly shirt.

"I'll need to go see a Bopca about a maid costume."

Sixteen hours later, the ten of us strode up the stairs to the boss chamber. The others had two new stars above their heads. As they stepped past me onto the next level, I drew the circle closed with a rope that had been soaked for hours in a slurry of bone dust and water, connecting the lines across the gap of the stairs.

The symbols I had painstakingly painted across the stone walls glowed with a macabre purple light. A hum of power built. When we went up to the next level, I did the same. The glow intensified and the hum deepened. A third time, and they increased still further. The air was frigid, now, and the others appeared uneasy. They might not be able to identify exactly what I'd done, but they could still feel it now that it was so overt. We stood before the doorway, the entrance platform ringed by its own painted circle. Larger runes adorned the doors. We checked over our gear. My new backpack, courtesy of the Beast of Burden box I'd gotten, sat comfortably across my shoulders. That was the backup plan.

We could have gone in 5 hours ago, but we'd held out, hoping for a good draw from Murphy's bag of tricks. The energy from my spell had been running through me the entire time, which made the whole waiting period feel like I was sitting on a roller coaster on the precipice of a nearly vertical descent. My Hocus Pocus skill climbed another level to 9 during the wait.

The first two pulls from the bag had been worthless. One bomb didn't do any damage, just made charms in the area of "explosion" 20% more effective. The other dealt the poison debuff to anything it hit in addition to damage, which Lorelai had told me wouldn't affect undead. But the third…well, maybe somebody was watching out for us. It wasn't quite as devastating as that Holy Nuke that Rhonda had drawn from the bag the first time we'd used it, but it was almost as good. The bomb was centered around a glass jar filled with glowing white lightning. The thing gave off the overwhelming scent of ozone, and when Murphy had drawn it from the bag, all her hair had stood on end.

The Fist of Adad

Whatever mortal managed to incite the great Storm God, Adad, into hitting the device that captured the lightning within this bomb probably didn't survive the process, considering that what is trapped within this potent bomb is barely a gray and fluffy whisker of the tempest's true wrath. But even the whisker of a god can still pack quite the punch. It unleashes an explosive blast of Holy Lightning across a wide area, with the damage decreasing as targets get further from the epicenter. You, or any of your allies, who fall within the blast radius will have all of your attacks imbued with holy lightning for one minute after the explosion. If you survive, anyway.

Between that, and the insights I'd gotten from Lorelai, I was feeling confident. Though maybe it was the greasily electric feel of the magic coursing through my veins entirely independent of the bomb.

"Ok, final checks," I said. "Potions?"

"Check!"

"Skis?"

"Check!"

"Buckets of bone paint?"

"Ugh…check."

"Glyph stamps?"

"Check!"

"I really hope this works, because if you destroyed the Dragon Slayer for nothing, my Guts cosplay will never forgive you," came Britney's voice, to a round of laughter.

"Everybody knows their compass point?"

"For the hundredth time, Harry, yes," said Murphy.

"All right," I said with finality. "We're all clear, then. Now let's blow this thing and go home!"

We opened the door and strode through. I smeared liquid bone along the insides of both doors, along the line of my circle. I felt the power ramp up a fourth time as the door slammed shut. We stood inside what looked like a replica of the Coliseum, but the floor was more bone-sand instead of the regular stuff. The ground began to quake. High-tempo music began to sound. An achievement appeared, but unlike the ones that normally minimized themselves when a fight was happening, this one appeared, full screen. The AI's voice was by turns musical and delightedly malicious

New Achievement! We Built This City

We built this city on
BLOOD and BONE

You, my plucky little friends, have just discovered the lair of a City Boss.
That's right. Let me say it louder for the idiots right up front.

A.
CITY.
FUCKING.
BOSS.

If you gotta go out, at least you're gonna do it with style.
Just so you're all aware, nobody has beaten a City Boss yet. I don't even know if it's been done on the first floor before.
That's because most people are smart enough not to put themselves in the presence of one of the strongest monsters on the entire floor.
Let's see you weasel your way out of this little pickle.

Reward: Your death will make an absolutely spectacular sendoff for the first floor. Everybody'll love it. Who could ask for anything more?

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

As I rushed towards Murphy, the ground rumbled. I heard the others give shrieks of alarm, but I wasn’t really paying attention. I was stumbling, my health filling but my mind and body exhausted from the combination of getting hammered by the boss and finally expending the energy contained within the spirit-summoning spell as my adrenaline bottomed out. I crashed to my knees beside her and looked her over. Most of her clothing was magical by this point, so she wasn’t in too much disarray other than all the boss guts, but her face was scraped to hell and back underneath the gore. Her health was low, about 5%, and she had a host of debuffs from being inside a living…well, unliving…meat-grinder, but she was stable. I pulled a potion out of my inventory and was about to give it to her, when I remembered that if she was still in her potion cooldown, she’d get poisoned. That could easily kill her, and I wasn’t sure if drinking an extra potion reset the cooldown, which would make guarantee that fate at this point.

As I dithered, I felt the floor shift and out of the corner of my eye, I saw the bone spikes dissolve back into sand, little droplets of acid falling to the ground with a cascade of hissing sounds. I looked around and noticed that the bench seating of the arena we stood within, already a good story or so above us, was growing more distant. We were sinking? I suddenly got a message.

Hope: Everybody! Rhonda’s dot is on the map, but she isn’t where it says she is! Her health tab in the party menu has her in the yellow and falling fast! It says she’s unconscious and has the Hypoxic debuff! I think she’s buried in the sand!

Ok. Not done yet. Gotta get moving. I shook my head, trying to throw off my exhaustion. I took stock of the situation as quickly as I could. The pulverized bone was apparently draining out of the chamber somehow, and I realized that this must be to expose the stairwell that was placed towards one edge of the chamber according to the map. The stairs certainly weren’t visible currently. But the bone-sand level was descending slowly. There was a lot of it, after all. Rhonda’s health would bottom out well before we’d be back at ground level. I looked Murphy over one more time. I think she’d be fine. Her health was ever-so-slowly creeping upwards. I looked up at the enormous corpse. The shifting sand might make it roll over. As quickly as I could manage, I got to my feet and scooped her into my arms. We could get the chainsaw later.

Harry: I’m on it! Anybody else that can help, I could use a hand!

I’m pretty sure the Surefooted benefit on my socks was the only reason I stayed upright as I rushed across the arena until I was standing next to where Rhonda’s map icon placed her. I collapsed to one knee as I moved to set Murphy down and started drawing in power. I think I vaguely saw some of the others making their way over as well. My vision narrowed as I raised my hand and coughed out, “Ventas cyclis!”

A twisting whirl of air appeared, drawing the sand up and over, behind me. I grit my teeth, holding onto the power. It dug out a circle ten feet in diameter. Inches down. Feet. How the hell had she gotten down this deep? Others arrived shortly, Hope supporting a staggering James.

Hell’s Bells, his left arm was gone just below the shoulder. I vaguely recalled him saying one of the spikes had hit him and Yusef saying he’d do something about it, but it had all been in those fuzzy moments after I regained consciousness from the boss’s final blow. He looked like he was trying hard to ignore the missing limb, with limited success. They observed for a few moments and then Hope pointed excitedly and the two of them hopped into the hole, Hope pulling a rope out of her inventory. It took a bit, but they were able to pry Rhonda out of the sand a good 8 feet deep and tie a line to her, tossing it to me. Though the walls of the hole started to collapse as I let my spell wane with a relived sigh, James was able to use Gust of Wind to keep it clear enough for me to drag them all out.

I fell backwards ass over teakettle as they crested the rim of collapsing sand and we all took a moment to breathe as the boss chamber continued to drain. I glanced at Rhonda and was startled to see that she’d somehow grown four extra, very buff, arms. She’d mentioned that she’d gotten a pretty good necklace from that same Beast of Burden box I’d gotten the backpack in, but she’d wanted it to be a surprise. It must have given her a spell of some kind and she’d used it to dig herself out of the way of the lightning bomb but then got stuck. The limbs soon dissolved in a puff of magic. Color me surprised, alright.

It took a good 5 minutes for the arena to finally clear and by then we’d all managed to wake up and take stock, as best we could. We’d all grabbed the Map of the Stars that the boss dropped, which revealed all boss locations in a huge area. Spectacularly unhelpful, currently. Other than James’ arm, nobody on our team had suffered any lasting injury thanks to potions. But Rhonda and Hope were both pretty broken up. Hope because she hated seeing anybody in pain, and Rhonda…she was beating herself up for not being able to help in the fight. I don’t think she could’ve done much more than the others had, but I understood.

The Prairie State team, meanwhile, was devastated; they’d lost 2 of their friends and Brian had had to use a random piece of metal to hammer the magical broadsword he’d gotten through his right hip joint to sever his leg before what had happened to Andre could happen to him. I still had…pieces…of the young man stuck to the back of my jeans where the acid had melted him away. I wish I’d thought to throw him, or something. Anything. I’d scooped him up to save him from getting devoured, but what had happened instead…at least poor Allison hadn’t even had a chance to feel it. Her death, too, stuck in my craw like an accidentally swallowed chicken bone. How could I have been so stupid to have not thought about what debuffs the boss might have had.

Combat was always a brutal and fast-paced course of affairs, but the game-like way that the Dungeon structured things combined with the horrifyingly random ways that it could kill was like a series of particularly devastating hammer blows to all the everyday people who’d found themselves in here after what the aliens had done. Even after all the horrible things I’d seen in the war with the Red Court and my fights with my other enemies; after all the friends, allies, and even strangers who had been lost along the way, this whole situation was its very own unique brand of terrible. The constant grind gave us no real chance to let up, no chance to recover. We always were moving, fighting, or taking a short break before getting right back to it again. I could feel the embers of my rage burning at the evil, the unfairness, of it all , but I was so damn tired. And though we’d managed to land a win here, I hadn’t made that any easier when it came to dealing with the aftermath.

“Was that really them?” Britney asked me tearfully when we’d all managed to regroup. “Can you bring them back?” Her voice was filled with hope. Hope that wouldn’t be realized. I could practically feel them all, other than Murphy, deflate when I shook my head.

“I’m sorry,” I said. I paused, trying to figure out how to word it in a way that would avoid even more scrutiny than I’d already be sure to get. “I…don’t think it works that way. The way my skill works is…kind of intuitive. Low on the explanation compared to other Dungeon stuff. I get the feeling that they’re more like…echoes.”

“But why’d Karrin have an echo?” Hope asked, confused.

Murphy and I looked at each other, uncomfortable.

“I…” she started. She gestured between the two of us. “We, technically, both have a skill called Cockroach. From some items. It…basically cancels out a killing blow once a fight. Apparently. And that’s evidently enough to make with the ghosts, which is just…deeply unnerving.” I nodded at that.

“Holy crap, ma’am!” barked Brian, who looked up from rubbing his stump with a shocked expression. “You mean you –?”

“Let’s just…leave it. Please,” Murphy said, shifting uncomfortably.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t save them,” I said, bowing my head, fists clenched. I’d done everything I could, but it still wasn’t enough. It felt like it never was, sometimes. I started when I felt a hand on my shoulder, gripping tightly. I looked up and was surprised to see Yusef, looking at me intently.

“Mr. Dresden,” he said, his voice so earnest it was almost stern as he gave me a solid shake and slap on the shoulder before lowering his hand, “I cannot pretend to truly know you, but I do know that we all would surely have died without your help, your whole team’s help, had we come in here alone. I could not have done what you did. I do not think you appreciate how horrifying it was to see. I feared that the beast would swallow you and Ms. Murphy at any second. We will mourn our friends, but we know they would want us to live on in their names.”

“Yusef’s right,” Brian said as Britney and Rhonda helped him stand upright. “We’d have been toast in the first few seconds, no contest. But now we’ve got a way down!” He looked down for a moment, a frown stealing across his face as he took in his injury, then turned to look over at James. “You don’t happen to have another spare leg, do you? Gonna be pretty hard to get down the stairs like this.”

James shook his head. “We’ve got pieces, but this was the only intact limb we found from the surgery room,” he said, “and we actually had to take some of it off to make it fit. I think we need to make our way back to the saferoom. We’ve only got a little over 4 hours before we need to get down and it’s at least 10 minutes to get there. Did you guys see? We got Legendary boxes! I’m really hoping that they might help…fix us.”

“Be careful what you wish for,” I muttered, shaking my head.

There was some general, if muted, excitement about that as we began heading back that way, walking up a set of mundane stairs, opposite the Level stairs, to the entrance that we’d walked in, stories above us. I was a little surprised at how well everyone was striving to keep going, but I guess I shouldn’t have been. Everyone else must have died or decided to pull what the friendly Pat back at the Stella’s was planning: just hanging out until everything went down.

When we’d left in the “morning”, there’d been just under two and a quarter million people left in the Dungeon. Down from thirteen. Humanity had been winnowed through a brutal sieve and the lucky and the survivors were all that was left at this point. What were the showrunners doing with all of this death? Making money, evidently, but what were the elements that they were mining? The energy of this horrendous abomination of a ritual was still pulling at things. That had to be what the river of souls was. The energy was both sustaining the Dungeon and condensing somewhere, deep below. But what did they do with it if Molly had been right that they didn’t know this was all magic? I think I’d need to figure that out, probably the sooner, the better.

By the time we got back to the narrow but vibrant saferoom, Pat had finished arranging the victory feast that I’d optimistically bargained out of Tilly the Bopca before the fight. I worried that I’d made a mistake in messaging the group back at the saferoom, that we were too beaten down, but I was buoyed by how much everyone perked up when we could smell the food from hundreds of feet down the hall. The maid costume evidently was getting some serious usage. I probably wasn’t actually going to be able to eat anything without humiliating myself again unless I locked my mind down tight.

I’d wanted us to end the floor on a high note, so I’d gotten Rhonda to convince the Bopca woman to go all-out in preparing for our triumphant return while she was distracted by my mojo, or whatever it was. She’d been a little hesitant, but when I’d raised the prospect that she’d get to keep the costume if we didn’t return, she was suddenly all-in. I wondered what, exactly, made the thing so appealing to the Bopcas other than letting them be better at the tasks that they were forced to do, day-in and day-out, but I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

We limped into the saferoom to a cheer from the least-defeated members of the trucker crew, and the whole place practically sparkled with how clean it was. A steaming feast was laid out across the bar, and I could see everyone’s jaws drop as they took it all in. Rosa and Pat were immediately clucking over us, taking our state of disarray and missing team members in stride as best they could as they helped us get situated like we’d just stumbled out of a storm and into a family meal.

Murphy and I settled in as the mood amongst our groups slowly became less somber. It mostly seemed to turn once people started eating the food. Soon enough everyone was seated and passing plates around as they sampled all of the dozens of main dishes, sides, and desserts that Tilly had prepared. The Bopca was weaving through the chaos removing and replacing plates with supernatural deftness. I sat back to take it all in, grabbing a few passing items and shoring up my mental defenses before taking a bite from some sort of steak pinwheel filled with grilled onion and some kind of herbed cheese. I thankfully didn’t black out this time, but I still couldn’t manage to hold back a delighted groan. Whatever this was, it was incredible. I don’t think I’d ever eaten as well on the surface as I had since coming into this place. Murphy gave a small smirk and a sidelong glance at me, but she made a noise just as pleased as I had when she started eating. As we ate and the mood relaxed further, we all began to open our achievements and boxes. We didn’t have long until we’d need to make the trek back and down the stairs.

In addition to the initial achievement for entering the boss chamber, and the boss box that came along with defeating the monster, we all got the following achievement, which the AI read out with gusto:

New Achievement! League of Legends

Well, well, well. Let’s chalk that one up on the board for the history books. On the first floor of the Dungeon, before you even had access to race and class abilities, you guys killed a City Boss, the first one to go down in the production of Dungeon Crawler World: Earth! That’s quite the accomplishment. And only a few of you died or got crippled doing it! That’s actually a bigger one, in my opinion. You’ve shown us what you can do when you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel. Let’s see how deep the rabbit hole goes.

Reward: You’ve received a Legendary Top of the City Box

I wasn’t sure about the Team Prairie State kids, but everybody on our team also got at least one extra achievement from the fight that we shared with each other. Rhonda’s was the only one that didn’t come with an additional reward, which soured her mood until she started chowing down on some other delicacy that Tilly had created.

New Achievement! A Coward and a Thief

You got the rewards for beating a City Boss but never even attacked the damn thing! You just stuck your head in the sand. Literally! That’s a bitch move. You’ll be lucky if your party doesn’t kick you to the curb.

Reward: You had one job, and you didn’t do it, and you still got paid. The satisfaction you probably feel about being a lazy piece of shit who got away with it is your reward.

James’, meanwhile, was yet another one of those kick-you-when-you’re-down kind of rewards that the Dungeon gave, and I could tell that it hurt the young man.

New Achievement! An Arm AND a Leg!

You’ve lost one of each of your types of limbs to dungeon hazards, and you’re still here! Ain’t that a kick in the teeth. If you really want something good, go for 4 out of 4. It’ll be hilarious. And great. I’m not joking, by the way. Do it. You probably won’t regret it.

Reward: You’ve received a Silver Amputee Box

Maybe he’d get something better in that box than I’d gotten in the one for when I’d lost my tongue. Hope’s achievement, meanwhile, was definitely better, in terms of content and probably reward as well.

New Achievement! Trapmaker, Trapmaker, Make me a Trap

You set up a trap with a special triggering condition on the fly in the middle of combat and used it to damage a boss monster! You’ve either got fast hands or a very distracting companion.

Reward: Gold Trapmaster Box

Murphy, unlike the rest of us, had gotten two additional achievements for her actions. The first was a little worrying.

New Achievement! Swallowed Whole

You let a monster ingest your whole damn body and then cut yourself free from their bloated corpse after you’d killed them from the inside. It was delicious. It was sublime. This gives me ideas. Not about you, though. Gross.

Reward: You’ve received a Silver Homophagia Box

The second was also a bit…interesting.

New Achievement! Holy Avenger

You used holy magic to deal the finishing blow to an undead boss after you had already been knocked out of the fight once. Talk about a comeback story! Usually, you gotta be crucified or something for that to happen. Maybe somebody’ll come along and reinterpret your whole life story for profit in the future!  

Just kidding, I already know they will, because that was badass as fuck and unlike the weird guys in your history who’ve popped up, we got this shit on video and you don’t hold your own licensing rights.

Reward: You’ve received a Gold Godly Box

And as for my additional achievement…the AI cackled like a madman as it read aloud in my mind, and the content was ominous.

New Achievement! Necropotent

Ohohohohohohohohohohoho

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Now THAT’S what I’m talking about, baby! You defiled the corpses of thousands of your fellow humans and pulled their souls from beyond the grave just to give yourself a chance against a challenge waaaaay out of your league. You can shoot fire. You can create ice. You can make Isaac Newton your bitch. You can track things and hide things and do all sorts of weird little bullshit that nobody would ever bother to make a spell for in a sane world. But I didn’t know you could do that. I think I was wrong about that magic of yours. You’ve been very educational. So, let’s keep it coming! I’ve gotta see what you’ll come up with when your back’s really against the wall.

Reward: You’ve received a Platinum Thriller Box

“You really want to see something, get me the T-rex skull from the Field Museum,” I grumbled under my breath.

The others, with fewer achievements, had already started opening their boxes. I saw Britney, wearing a new pair of black metal gauntlets, jump up and down in excitement when her Legendary box, which was shaped like a grotesque egg with an evil-looking, screaming face on it opened to reveal an enormous sword that was suspiciously similar in appearance to the foam one I’d cut up. Yusef had received an odd-looking, colorful, conical hat and an extremely large and well-polished longbow. Brian had gotten a shield that had a screaming face emblazoned across it but that was set to the side as his Legendary box, looking like a flaming, metallic cow skull, opened to reveal a hooved leg covered in reddish-bronze scales that he quickly attached to his body with a joyful whoop.

That made James immediately leap into opening his boxes. First came the Amputee box, which was a chest with a severed arm on top, all carved out of silver. What came out was…a business card? The AI’s voice was sarcastic as it read the description in my mind.

Limb Redemption Punch Card

Somebody’s been losing limbs left and right. Awww, dat sounds reawwy hard. Tell you what, if you lose all of your limbs, you’ll get a special prize. The more exciting, dramatic, or hysterical the cause of limb loss, the better the prize! You’ve already done Torture and Acid. No duplicating causes. Self-inflicted limb removal doesn’t count. Unless it’s really, really funny. Getting your replaced limbs removed again doesn’t count either. Getting your head removed, while hilarious, is unfortunately fatal and also doesn’t count. Void if you pick a race on the 3^rd floor that regrows your lost appendages.

Current punches: 2/4

The gold Boss Box, which opened next, had a magical tome inside, a spell called Acid Rain that did exactly what it sounded like. Hell’s Bells, really? James’ face twisted in some combination of anger and horror when he read the description and quickly moved on. His Legendary box was a screaming, melting face and was the first box I’d seen, other than maybe the one Britney had just opened, that was horrifying to look upon. It writhed as it opened. What popped out didn’t look much better. It appeared to be a severed left arm, with loose, gray skin hanging off of it. It also only had 3 fingers and a thumb instead of four, which was odd. But even from here I could feel a crackling sense of magical power.

Enchanted Left Arm of the War Mage

This arm used to belong to a War Mage named Eviscerator, and it managed to survive its former owner’s destruction some time ago. While it doesn’t contain the knowledge of the extremely powerful spells that the War Mage knew in life, it does contain a chunk of his power.

War Mages are the dungeon’s premier experts at magical destruction, raining death upon their enemies and horrors upon any survivors. Eviscerator was a teleporting engine of devastation who had killed hundreds of Crawlers on the Plains of Larracos before one managed to catch him with a lucky Torso Torsion spell that sent his limbs and skull ricocheting around the battlefield. But before that, he could lay waste to entire armies if the need arose. If you connect this item to the severed stump of an arm, you’ll have some of that oomph in the palm of…your…hand.

This item imbues the bearer with +15 Intelligence

+5% faster experience growth for all spells

+10% increase in spell duration, range, and area of effect

The bearer gains Immunity to Acid

The bearer gains Immunity to Fire

Wow.  That didn’t do a whole lot, unlike my items, which all seemed to be needlessly complicated, but those were some potent defenses and buffs according to some of the things I’d read in Lorelai’s notes. We’d need to check with our guides to be sure that they meant what they said. And at least it didn’t have any ridiculous, invasive caveats like my own replacement. James was more reluctant than I would have thought he’d be, but he did attach the arm, flexing his new fingers as it integrated with his body. It looked…offputting. Maybe that was why.

Hope opened her boxes next. Her rewards were pretty simple. The Trapmaster box contained a Sapper’s Table: Level 1, which would allow for the construction of traps and explosives, which would probably be very handy. Her boss box only contained 2 potions. The first raised her Pathfinder skill by 2, putting it up at 9. The second had a flashing 20-minute warning:

Cheat Code Potion

Warning: This item has a short shelf life.

This item will expire shortly after it was generated. In other words, this isn’t something you can hoard. Don’t be a wuss. Drink it now.

Causes one, recently-used combat or magic-themed skill to increase by three. Choice is random and permanent.

She drank it down as her Legendary box approached. It looked like a spinning globe, but instead of countries and oceans, it was covered in what looked like a maze.

“Hey! My Magical Trap Engineer skill went up!” she said as it opened in a flash of fire to reveal…another box?

This one was a flat, iron-banded traveler’s chest covered in drawings of maps filled with unfamiliar geography. Its description made my eyes go wide. This was something invaluable. Worryingly obtuse, but given Lorelai’s insistence in how crucial legendary items could be to survival, I was sure we’d need this. The description read itself in a tone like a combination of a kid’s TV show host and the drill sergeant from Full Metal Jacket.

Cartographer’s Box 

This box contains all the basic tools of a newbie Dungeon Cartographer! Whether it’s compiling disparate data to locate a point of interest, scouting a safe path through a trapped and mob-infested jungle, or revealing the closest sucker with gear good enough for you to steal, these tools can give you the skills that, with a little bit of luck, will let you find your way to just about anywhere you want to go.

Instructions not included. That’s the point. You need to find your way, soldier!

She opened that box to reveal a Drafter’s Table: Level 1, and 3 tools that got pulled into her inventory before I could read their full descriptions: an Enchanted Groma of Revelation, Enchanted Dioptra of Assessment, and Enchanted Sextant of Discernment.

Rhonda’s boss box, when it opened, contain what looked like…a pile of wavy black hair?

“Man, you fuckin’ asshole, I worked hard for this!” she called out at the ceiling gesturing at her head. But what surprised me was when she muttered “This do sound amazing though. Fuckin’ hater-ass AI.” The item was:

Enchanted Weave of Golden Dreams

It’s hard for a working gal to get proper haircare in the Dungeon. Well, I mean obviously before the Dungeon, too, but also here. It’s even harder for her to get the haircare she deserves when she’s broke as shit. This magical hair weave, when properly installed with the accompanying tools, will ensure that your natural hair and scalp are always perfectly clean, moisturized, and healthy without ever needing to be replaced. In addition, it provides the following benefits:

This item imbues the wearer with +5 Charisma

Gold drops from mobs slain by the wearer of this item are increased by 10%

When the wearer of this item receives a Rest buff, the effects are improved by 20%

“Wait,” I said, confused, “Do you wear a wig, Rhonda? I couldn’t even tell.”

She just gave me a look.

“What?” I asked.

“I ain’t even gonna dignify that shit with a response,” she said with a shake of her head as the item entered her inventory. She moved on to her Legendary box, which roared in like a flaming fastball. I looked over at Murphy, but her own somewhat amused head shake told me I should probably just drop it. Rhonda’s Legendary box opened to contain yet another item on the theme that the Dungeon had apparently decided to go all-in on with her.

Enchanted Cleats of the All Star

This is a Unique Item

Only shooting stars break the mo-o-old

You’ve been a lil’ slugger since you came in here with that baseball bat and started whacking rats with it, but it’s time you officially graduated to the big leagues. You’ve been getting better at the pitching part of the game, but your batting average sucks ass. Let’s see if we can fix that. These cleats are enchanted with potent benefits that will help you make Barry Bonds look like a fucking pussy.

This item imbues with wearer with +10 Strength and +10 Dexterity

+5 to the Deflect Projectile Skill

+5 to the Knockback Skill

Bludgeoning weapons that you wield gain the Repel Spell Enchantment

The Homerun Benefit

I kept forgetting that I had that same Deflect Projectile skill from my staff. We hadn’t fought too much that I could use it on. It looks like Rhonda was going to get a lot more use out of it, though. We might even want to seek out opportunities to use it, judging by what Lorelai had said. The benefit from the enchanted cleats read: 

The Homerun Benefit 

If you successfully use your Deflect Projectile skill, there is a 45% chance that the projectile is automatically redirected right back towards its source.  For any redirected projectile that successfully strikes its source, gain a +.5 temporary Floor Bonus to your Charisma.

Murphy went next. Her first item, from the box she’d gotten from getting swallowed by the boss was yet another thing trying to get under Murphy’s and my skin. I was getting really sick of this crap. It looked like Murphy was, too, judging by the way she was clenching and unclenching her fists. I glanced upward. Screw the AI.

“It feels like you’re trying too hard,” I said up to the ceiling with calculated indifference. “This one really seems like a stretch.”

The item was a tube of lipstick with a deep red color.

Enchanted Lipstick of the Last Breath

You humans are just really into mouths, aren’t you? Slobbering all over them, filling them with all sorts of things, walking right into them for some reason. Well, here’s a little thing to help you with your obsession. Once every 30 hours, a single person can apply this unending tube of lipstick in a Saferoom or Personal Space to grant the following benefits:

Increases the length of time you can hold your breath by 500%

For every 30 seconds you engage in a kiss without taking in any additional oxygen, increase your Dexterity and Constitution by 0.5% for 10 minutes

For every 10 cubic inches worth of somebody else’s tongue in your mouth, pharynx, and/or esophagus during that kiss, multiply the effects of the previous benefit by 2

Makes your esophagus an erogenous zone

Makes your breath extra fresh!

I gave a small sigh of relief when everyone else seemed to be distracted by their own items, but I evidently spoke too soon, because Rhonda must have caught the description just as the item entered Murphy’s inventory, judging by the way she spat out her drink.

“Girl! What in the actual fuck do y’all get up to back in there that the AI is giving you all this freaky-deaky shit?” she crowed with a laugh. 

I coughed, choking on the pierogi that I was munching on as Murphy, who’d been fine up until that point, blushed slightly and palmed her face.

Rhonda kept badgering her as the boss box opened to reveal a simple golden crown made from intertwined bands of metal and carved with scintillating patterns.

Enchanted Diadem of the Amazon

You’re a gal with a lot going on, and damn if you don’t know it! In your myths and legends, the Amazons were a fierce nation of warrior women who didn’t take no guff from anybody. They were skilled in all the arts of war, and you’re doing your best to embody that tradition. Let’s just forget all about some dumb jock coming along to kill their queen for her magic belt and thereby reasserting the proper order of things and celebrate the fact that this enchanted diadem will imbue you with some of their legendary puissance in all manner of martial endeavors.

This item imbues the wearer with +2 Intelligence, +2 Dexterity, and +2 Strength

+1 to the Battlemaster’s Perception Skill

The skill description was promising. 

Battlemaster’s Perception

You remember that movie, The Matrix? Where all of the characters could dodge bullets in slow motion and learn Kung Fu in an instant? This is kinda like that. This skill adjusts your relative perception of time during combat to enhance your abilities to dodge attacks, land critical strikes, and slaughter your foes. Each level of this skill increases your reaction speed, accuracy, and damage by 20% and your chance to inflict a Critical Strike by 5%.

Next came her Godly box, in the form of a pair of hands folded in prayer, which had two items inside. The first item was a small ring.

Club Vanquisher Pass Ring

Your righteousness has impressed the old coots who like to hang out in their ivory tower diddling kids and engaging in competitive hypocrisy. Congrats!

This ring allows access to Club Vanquisher. It does not occupy a magic item slot.

Warning: Holding a Club Vanquisher pass negates the ability to obtain a Desperado pass.

The other item was a magic tome of a spell called Heal Other. That was probably going to be very handy, since our Heal spells could only affect ourselves. But then the finale arrived, cutting off that line of thought.

Murphy’s Legendary box took the form of a long, flat case, carved with intricate designs with a theme of flowing rivers that opened to the tune of an upbeat, jazzy score. What came out was…

I gave a long whistle. That was quite a gun. The thing was an enormous rifle that must have been as long as I was tall, colored a matte black with dark green and blue inlays and a sleek profile despite its massive size.

The Atreides Mk 1: Enchanted Custom Anzio 20mm Rifle

This is a Unique Item

Get this bitch a cannon. Bitches love cannons.

You’ve been playing all cutesy, modifying the arsenal that you brought in here, weighing the pros and cons of every little thing. No more of that bullshit. We all know you like ‘em big. This custom anti-materiel rifle has been modified into a select-fire rifle with a specially enchanted long-stroke gas action and a 10-round box magazine of 20mm Vulcan shells that strike with 65,000 joules of kinetic energy at a maximum range of approximately 4,500 meters. And those numbers are before any serious Dungeon modifications.

Because if the question you’re asking is “Should I go for rate of fire, range, or stopping power?”, then the answer is yes.

This item has the Weightless enchantment

This item has the Stable enchantment

This item has the Piercer enchantment

This item has the Silent Fire enchantment

+10 Dexterity when wielded

+10 Constitution when wielded

Your Dexterity + level increases base damage 1.5x more than a standard rifle

Every 3^rd round fired from this rifle is a tracer round that inflicts the Burning debuff. The wielder can deactivate or activate this feature at will.

Murphy looked like Christmas had come around again as she allowed the rifle to fall into her arms like it really didn’t weigh anything. She looked up at me as she ran her hands over the thing.

“I’m sorry, Harry, but I think I’ve got a new boyfriend, now,” she said with a grin as she pulled out her P90 to remove the magical magazine and install it in this new weapon.

“So long as he treats you right, I think I’m willing to share,” I grinned back.

Now it was time for my boxes. The first one, the boss box, contained a scroll with a glowing timer above it.

Scroll of Enchant Item, Level 10

Warning: This item has a short shelf life

Yeah, yeah, you’ve seen this before. I don’t know why you bother when you can just blow shit up, but here’s something to upgrade one of the last pieces of nonmagical gear that you still semi-regularly use. For some reason. You’re welcome. Dumbass.

I’d get to that in a minute. The Thriller box came next, shaped like a shining platinum gravestone. Rather than opening up, the contents rose slowly from the air in front of the grave, accompanied by rolling mist. It had a host of items, most of them small. The first thing that appeared was the image of a dagger wrapped with a ribbon that read “So Fun it Hurts”, rotating around and around. It suddenly flew over and landed on my neck with a sizzling sound and a sharp, stinging sensation.

Desperado Club Pass Tattoo

Great. Now you’re running with the type of kids who sit in the back of the bus. What would your mother say?

This pass allows access to the Desperado Club.

Warning: Holding a Desperado Pass negates the ability to obtain a Vanquisher pass

Damn, that actually hurt a little. No wonder Murphy had looked so irritated when she’d gotten the Goblin Pass tattoo. I recalled Lorelai mentioning something about clubs. I guess between Murphy and me we had at least two of them covered.

Of the remaining items, the largest was a table featuring a smoking skull, a Necromancer’s Altar: Level 1. I doubt I’d be using that, but it was thematically appropriate, I guess. The next set of items were eight small pieces of paper, each called a Table Upgrade Coupon. I’d need to talk to Lorelai about those, but given all the tables we’d been collecting, that could be a serious boon. And the last items must have been a joke, because they were a nonmagical copy of Michael Jackson’s outfit from the Thriller music video and a copy of the album on vinyl.

My second Legendary box didn’t seem as impressive as the first one, but it was still orders of magnitude more ostentatious than most boxes were in the Dungeon. It took the form of a more traditional cowboy hat than the one I wore, made of shining white leather and embossed with scenes of combat between cowboy-adjacent people and monsters. The instrumental portion of the Rawhide theme played as the top of the hat popped off in a blur of red, white, and blue smoke, revealing a white leather hat band, studded with glittering clear gemstones.

Enchanted Galón of the Rhinestone Cowboy

My, oh my. Doesn’t someone like being the center of attention. The hype train is building. Ohhhh, yeah. It’s chugging along, alright. But there’s some stiff competition out there in the Dungeon, and if you don’t want to derail, then you better keep up.

So, if you want to take center stage, nothing works better than a bit of flash. This enchanted galón will imbue you with the panache and chutzpah it’ll take to rush in and steal the spotlight from just about anybody.

So you better hop to it. Go on now, git!

This is Headgear Add-on Item

Current Headgear Galón Capacity [9/10]

This enchanted galón may be placed upon an appropriate piece of headgear. When the hat is worn, the wearer of the hat gains the following benefits: 

Imbues the wearer with +5 Charisma and +10 Dexterity

+3 to the Rush skill

Decreases the cooldown of skills in the Rush skill tree by 50%

The Hustle’s the Name of the Game benefit

The Star-Spangled Rodeo benefit

Those two benefits were yet more speed-based abilities and augmentations. The Hustle benefit provided an increasing bonus to other momentum-based skills and abilities the longer I maintained a speed greater than 3 meters/second. The Rodeo one…it slowly built up a charge any time I was moving over 2.5 meters/second. After a certain point, I could “unleash a true-blue display of dazzling American pride”, whatever the hell that meant, but the charge that determined the potency of that “display” would continue to increase in strength until unleashed. Moving to a new floor would cause the charge to reset to zero, and, almost certainly deliberately, so would removing the hat. Why? Why did they want me to keep the damn hat on all the time? It was such a minor complaint compared to everything else, but I found it unreasonably annoying.

I took a minute to use that scroll before it ran out of time. I was obviously going to use it on the revolver, because pretty much the only other things I was using that weren’t already magical were my jeans and boxers, and while the jeans might not be a bad idea, who the hell would want magic boxers? The hand cannon glowed and the barrel lengthened a bit, the coloration changing from silver to a dull brown.

Enchanted Revolver of the Skittering Fist

This is a Unique Item

This Item Was Created Using an Enchant Item Scroll on the 1^st Floor

+4 Dexterity

+2 to the Pistolero Skill

+1 to the Running Skill

+2 to the Cockroach skill

This item has the Single-Plate Buffet Enchantment

The Pistol-Whip Benefit

I guess that confirmed that my Cockroach skill had activated at the end of the boss fight, since the scroll only upgraded skills that you’d used recently. That bonus alone made this a worthwhile upgrade, so the rest was just gravy. The gun had a strictly worse enchantment that gave me infinite bullets, but unlike Murphy’s enchanted gun, it would still pause and magically reload itself once the chambers were emptied instead of just firing like they’d never gone dry. Pistol Whip would let me treat melee attacks using the gun as if they were unarmed for bonuses, enhanced my damage and gave a 25% chance to inflict something called “Bonk”.

At a noise, I looked up from the gun and took in the room. Brian had begun to lead the others in a round of toasts to the friends that they’d lost, stomping his new hooved foot to get everyone’s attention. Hope was a little red-faced, bathing in the simultaneously boisterous and somewhat maudlin energy the college kids were exuding. The guys who’d been drunk out of their minds when we showed up yesterday had slinked out of the back at some point and joined in the festivities with gusto. Murphy had gotten up to grab a drink and was still trying, surprisingly unsuccessfully, to shake off Rhonda’s needling about the lipstick. I was just glad she wasn’t bothering me at this point. Even the cranky Clarice, still surrounded by a haze of cigarette smoke, seemed to be having a good time, though maybe only at the younger Rosa’s insistence. Only the one trucker guy, Kevin, remained aloof, continuing to stare out at nothing. I still didn’t know exactly why, but at this point, I knew better than to ask. The man was done.

Pat, who had been helping Tilly with the catering in spite of her protests, sat down heavily nearby, wiping a tattered sleeve across his forehead as he took a deep pull from a bottle of beer.

“You sure you don’t want to come down the stairs now that they’re open?” I asked the man as Yusef led the others in some sort of celebration and/or mourning song with lyrics that sounded oddly out of sync with the melody until I realized that he must be singing in a language that wasn’t actually English. “You’ve been a big help on the back end here. I’m sure the others would love to have you act as mission control from a saferoom.”

He took another long drink of beer and sighed. “I appreciate it, son,” he said, “But I can’t have them runnin’ back an’ forth for me if they gotta find the next set ‘a stairs. I always figured I’d be dyin’ alone an’ in pain. Resigned to it, tell the truth. If my liver didn’t get me, the damn kidneys woulda sooner or later. I had the diabetes ‘til I came in here, an’ I was too tired ta do anythin’ about it. I’m just glad I could help you kids a little and feel healthy an’ happy at the end.” He gave me a small salute with his bottle. “It’sa  kind thing ya did here, an’ I’m glad I could help ya out, y’know? The young’uns woulda been real busted up just headed back here without alla this after losin’ their friends. You’re a good man, an’ I wish ya tha best a’ luck. I know you were plannin’ on takin’ most a the stuff in here, but if ya’d leave me a couple a games, I’d appreciate it.”

I nodded slowly as he reached over to give me a slap on the back before diving back into the fray. I could empathize with the man, but I don’t think I’d ever really understand. Just...give up? No. If this place wanted me dead, it’d need to do it the hard way. I had too much to protect, too much to avenge. I wish I could tell them all. That we had allies. That we could do something about this with their help. Hopefully, anyway. But I couldn’t risk it. I checked the timer. A little under 3 hours until collapse. I joined the others for a while longer, until we came to a lull.

“Alright everybody, let’s pack it in!” I said, standing from where Britney had been badgering me to start calling Murphy “Police Girl” for some reason. I didn’t have a death wish, so I’d refused. “We’re tearing this place down to the studs and headed down the stairs!”

A short while later, we strode back into the boss chamber. It was the five of us, the remaining members of Team Prairie State, Rosa, and, surprisingly, Clarice. The old woman had proclaimed that she was “going to at least finish the damn carton before I bite it” when she’d followed us out of the bar when we’d been done looting all of the games, aside from Galaga, Pac-Man, and Donkey Kong, the stools, tables, chairs, and even the tin ceiling, which I hoped to eventually try to use with that Tinsmith’s Table to see if it would be worth keeping. I’d retrieved the maid costume from a tearful Tilly and returned her tools. I had also, thankfully, avoided too much uncomfortable flirting during the process, since I hadn’t been running anywhere lately.

“Good luck finding those guys!” Brian said as we reached the bottom of the stairwell, offering his hand. “We’ll let you know if we find any stairs!”

“Thanks. And same here,” I said, giving him a firm shake. They had elected to go their own way and seek out stairwells while we searched for Joel Collin. With luck, we’d be able to help each other out by covering more ground.

We all traded hugs, shaken hands, and, in the case of Clarice, rude gestures, before stepping through the door.

I felt a strange tingling sensation, and instead of a hallway on the next floor, I suddenly found myself standing unsteadily in a strange room. It was carpeted with a rich green shag and filled with several velveteen couches in the same shade, an assortment of tables, and several decorative bowls filled with fruit. The walls, covered in paintings of scenic vistas, made this look like a sitting room in some sort of old-money manor home. A pitcher filled with what looked like orange juice glistened with condensation on the central table, empty glasses just nearby. I glanced to the side and was shocked to see that only Murphy was with me. I tried to open my message system, but a blinking ERROR appeared in my vision.

“Oh, Hell’s Bells,” I cursed under my breath, as I tried to look in 10 different directions at once. Murphy mirrored me. My map was gone, too. My inventory wouldn’t open. Suddenly, a voice, one that didn’t belong to the AI, boomed out:

Warning: You may not wield your weapons in the presence of Admins. Any attempted violence against an Admin will result in your immediate execution.

A soft pop sounded behind me, and I turned to face one of the orchestrators of Earth’s destruction.