Dungeon Crawler Carl Book 2

by DoctorHepa

  “Shut the fuck up, Tucker,” Princess D’nadia said. “By the gods, our friend has been murdered.”

  “Wait, did he say the Maestro is dead?” said Donut. “Carl, did you hear that?”

  “I heard, Donut.”

  As Ripper continued to breathlessly repeat everything that had happened, I met eyes with Hekla, who continued to sit quietly across the table, a rock in the storm. She studied me curiously.

  “Is this how it always is with you two, then?” she asked. “What was it he said? Scorched earth?”

  I nodded. I put my hand on Donut.

  “With a little bit of chaos thrown in,” I said.

  A note from DoctorHepa

  Happy Wednesday! Thanks everyone who is still reading and commenting! If we were all in prison together, I would protect each and every one of you in the shower. I went to an honest-to-goodness drive-in theater last night. I hadn't been to one in years, and it was awesome. I also got a new phone (thanks to my old one dying) that takes awesome pictures, as evidenced below.

  Chapter 67

  Ripper Wonton played a video of Manasa singing, her final performance. The large cobra was in an opulent dining room, singing a cappella in a hauntingly sad soprano voice. The entire studio watched in dead silence. It gave me the chills.

  “Wow,” Donut whispered as the song was done.

  The show ended shortly thereafter, and the virtual studio faded away, leaving me and Donut alone in the room. Hekla and the others disappeared before we could say our goodbyes. We got up and returned to the lounge.

  I moved to the small window by the bathroom, and sure enough one of the two trailers floating out there was gone. It was replaced by hundreds of floating probes of all sizes, zipping about, scanning the water. Two of them whizzed toward me the moment I stuck my head in the window, but before they could get too close, the glass snapped shut like a camera shutter.

  My HUD flickered back on.

  Zev: I’ll meet you guys at the saferoom. Prepare to be transported in a few moments.

  Carl: See you there.

  “She was really nice. Manasa, I mean. I liked her,” Donut said as we waited. She released Mongo from his pet carrier, and he hopped up and down with excitement. He rushed into the bathroom and stood upon the cleaning treadmill. He grunted angrily when it didn’t automatically start up.

  “Yeah,” I said. “That was too bad.”

  “Do you really believe all that stuff you just said? About people rising up?” Donut asked.

  I shrugged. “It’s a little naïve. It’s a nice fantasy, but I know the universe doesn’t really work that way. For all we know, that king guy’s people are really happy. Just because people complain about stuff doesn’t mean they have it bad. Besides, I’m a nobody. It’s not like I have the power to change anything. I wasn’t expecting that, though. Jesus.”

  “Yeah, Mordecai is going to be mad. He said you needed to make fun of him a little. Not kill his wife.”

  We still didn’t know all the details as to why Mordecai had suggested we needle at the king if given the opportunity. He never went into detail with this sort of stuff. He was always spouting off things for us to do and keep an eye out for. Monster types. Herbs. Loot. Ways to act if we came across certain types of NPCs. We’d started calling it the daily BOLO. Be on the lookout. Donut had come up with the term. She’d once watched a marathon of Law and Order. I suspected the thing with King Rust was long-term strategy, something to do with the ninth floor if we ever got there. Mordecai wanted us to insult the king so we’d stay on his radar, probably so it’d be easier to bait him later.

  I meant what I said to Donut. I knew a random dude from the crawl spouting off about revolution wasn’t going to spark some great intergalactic crisis. Still, seeds. Mordecai had his plans. I had my own.

  That said, there was something else going on, another, invisible player on the chessboard, so to speak. It’d been bothering me from the moment we listened to Prince Stalwart’s message.

  Carl: We need to be careful. Never even hint of this out loud. I think we were set up.

  Donut: WHAT DO YOU MEAN?

  Carl: That Stalwart dude was too prepared with his statement. They had the camera all ready with the army right outside the window. Stalwart was planning on killing us from the start. I don’t think they were expecting my little speech there, but it played right into their hands.

  Donut: BUT THEY MISSED.

  Carl: Stalwart was being played, too. We were just the pawns, the bait. And so was Manasa. Whoever is orchestrating this knew the orcs planned on killing us. That switcheroo was either on purpose to get them to really kill their ally, or they quickly jumped on the opportunity. It humiliates them and damages their alliance with the Valtay. Who benefits the most from that?

  Donut: MANASA HAD THE VOICE OF AN ANGEL. NOBODY BENEFITS FROM IT.

  Carl: No, that’s not true. Borant benefits. Big time. If Valtay loses a powerful ally, maybe even goes to war with the Skull Empire over this, then they won’t have time to try to take over the Borant system. But I don’t know for sure. We have so little information.

  Donut: OR MAYBE NOBODY ELSE WAS INVOLVED. THE ORCS WERE GOING TO KILL US, YES, BUT WE JUST GOT LUCKY.

  Carl: Maybe. If so, that was really lucky for both us and Borant.

  Donut: DO YOU THINK ZEV IS MAD AT US FOR WHAT YOU SAID?

  Carl: Let’s find out.

  * * *

  “Oh my gods,” Zev said as we returned to the saferoom. She’d returned us to the same one we’d been in when we left, the one near the pool with the exploded boss corpse. She stood there in the middle of the room, wearing her ever-present spacesuit. “That was terrifying. I thought you two were dead for certain.”

  “What happened?” Mordecai asked, looking between us. Donut began to excitedly tell him the story, Donut-style. She started by explaining the cleaning mechanism in the trailer, going into extreme, unnecessary detail.

  “How did they even know what trailer we were in?” I asked Zev as Donut continued to regale Mordecai. “I mean, they were wrong, but only because we switched at the last minute.”

  “That stuff isn’t a secret,” Zev said. “Rental trailers throw their booking schedules out there for anybody to see so they can coordinate availability. Before today, there’s never been a reason to hide who is using what trailer. Nobody has ever attempted to assassinate a crawler outside the dungeon. What a nightmare.”

  “Stop,” Mordecai said, raising a hand to Donut. “What happened.”

  Donut took a deep breath. “Carl called the orc king a pussy, and his son’s spaceship lasered the production trailer from orbit. But we’d switched with Manasa, and she got blown up instead.”

  Mordecai looked at me, horrified.

  “Manasa, the singer? She was killed?”

  “She was so nice,” Donut said. “She said she thought Mongo was adorable.”

  Mordecai: I distinctly remember saying you should be subtle.

  Carl: I may have gone a little overboard. It gets worse.

  “There’s more,” Zev said. “The Valtay responded by blowing the royal yacht out of orbit. The queen consort and Maestro were believed to be on board.”

  “For fuck’s sake,” Mordecai said.

  “Hey, all they asked me for was my opinion. It’s not my fault Prince bitch boy overreacted. It sucks the mom got killed, but if she’s the one who raised those two, it’s probably not a big loss.”

  “The good news is that nobody is saying anything negative about Carl and Donut on the net. Prince Stalwart is the villain. Wow. Rust is gonna have to disown him, too. I hadn’t thought of that. That only leaves the sister as the heir. Our team is fielding a wave of interview requests, but Dungeon Crawler After Hours with Odette has the contract on your next interview.”

  “That’s fine,” I said. “I’m not too keen on going on any new shows right now, anyway.”

  Zev left soon thereafter, leaving us in the empty saferoom. Mordecai indicated for
us to sit down.

  Mordecai: Okay, new rule. We are not meddling with, mentioning, or talking about any other entities outside of the dungeon from now on. We’re not going to mention King Rust or Prince Stalwart until after the sixth floor, if you two idiots make it that far. When Odette asks you about it, you say you have no opinion. You only talk about stuff happening in the dungeon.

  Carl: So no more making fun of King Rust?

  Donut: TALKING SMACK IS MY SPECIAL TALENT. MANASA AND PRINCESS D’NADIA BOTH SAID SO.

  Mordecai: His wife is dead. He’s neck-deep in shit. He’s going to blame you for this. I wanted to make sure the Skull Clan targets the Blood Sultanate once you hit the ninth floor. I don’t think that’s going to be an issue now. Let’s just hope he’s not too mad at you two.

  Carl: Why? What can he do to us here?

  Mordecai: Besides assassinating you while you’re on the surface? Nothing yet. That’s going to change very soon. We’ll deal with it when it happens.

  “Well there’s nothing we can do about any of this now, is there?” I said out loud. “We still have daylight, and we have a ton to do. We need to get back into town. We have a militia to break up and a magistrate’s office to break into.

  * * *

  One of the mysteries of the Sex Worker quest was how the city elves of the 201st Security Group figured in all of this. Assuming this Featherfall guy was the lead baddie, then their presence in conjunction with the random undead monsters made sense. The city elves worshiped the Skyfowl as living angels. And this town’s lead Skyfowl was a dark cleric who commanded the undead. The city elves were basically a free source of enthusiastic labor that Featherfall was using to help corral his undead minions.

  We still didn’t know what the hell was going on with the dead prostitutes. That was okay for now. I didn’t need to know exactly what was happening to know the best way to weaken the head dude’s plans was to first knock out one of his support networks.

  I didn’t like the idea of going full murder hobo on a group of mentally ill elves. Still, if this group was targeting innocent NPCs and killing them, then I didn’t hold much sympathy. Plus they’d tried to kill us twice. If we didn’t take them on now, it was going to just keep happening.

  While we were in the middle of our interview, Mordecai had ventured into town and located their headquarters for us. It wasn’t difficult. They had a sign and a trio of city elves out front attempting to talk those passing by to enter and hear “The good news about Apito the Oak Mother.”

  They were only two blocks away from the Magistrate’s quarters, situated on a mostly-residential street in a poorer section of town.

  When we left the saferoom, a handful of the shambling berserkers remained in the ruins, hanging out nearby. We rushed to the roof of a nearby building to kill them from afar. As long as it wasn’t dark outside, they were slow and underpowered. I didn’t want to waste my hob-lobbers unless I had to, so instead I tried tossing a stick of hobgoblin dynamite. I’d never used the upgraded dynamite before. I was glad I hadn’t tried it while I was on the ground. The sticks were practically mini nukes. I used my upgraded strength to hurl a stick at a shambler a half block away. The resulting explosion almost knocked me off my feet. The front façade of a distant building collapsed, caving in on itself and filling the street with debris.

  I examined the damage, my ears ringing. I’d obliterated the shambler and killed the one behind it. Smoke swirled, dust filling the air.

  Uh-oh, I thought.

  The dynamite’s power was great, but the sticks were utterly impractical to use in regular fights. Even with my strength, I wasn’t so sure I could toss them far enough to be safe when I wasn’t two stories up.

  “My goodness,” Donut said. “You need to be careful with those things, Carl.” She returned to my shoulder. In the distance, a third shambler had turned and was now approaching from another road that wasn’t blocked with rubble.

  I wished I had a method of tossing them further. With my xistera, I could toss a hob-lobber four times the distance, but the sticks weren’t shaped properly for the basket. I pulled another hobgoblin dynamite stick out and looked at it.

  “Wait, are those the same ones you used for the thing?” Donut asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Three of them.”

  “Maybe we should have tested them first,” she said.

  “That’s what they’re gonna put on my tombstone.”

  “Don’t be silly, Carl. They don’t give us tombstones here.”

  I laughed.

  “You know it tells me I can’t touch them,” Donut continued, peering down at the white stick. “It says there’s a 75% chance it’ll explode if I try to.”

  “Really?” I said. The stick’s stability remained at 80+ for me, which meant I could bonk myself on the head with it, and nothing would happen.

  “I don’t think you’re supposed to touch that stuff unless you have the proper skill. Or you’re desperate. And I thought the goblin dynamite was scary. I wonder if there’s something even higher on the list,” she said. “What’s the next step above hobgoblin?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know if there is one.” My explosives handling and dangerous explosives handling skills had both risen to nine. Both of the skills increased the yield of the explosions. As it was now, a single stick of hobgoblin dynamite could kill most anything.

  No, not everything. I thought of the divine guardian. The country boss from the 12th floor that we’d seen on that brief clip on the recap show. That thing wouldn’t even notice if I’d shoved an entire case of the things down its throat.

  Thwump. Donut’s Magic Missile took out the third shambling berserker.

  In the distance, the sun sunk low. We only had a good two hours of sunlight left, and I needed to use them. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s go talk to the elves.”

  * * *

  The sign didn’t announce the building as the headquarters of the 201st Security Group, but as we approached, it was clear that Mordecai’s intelligence was correct. The simple, hand-painted sign over the building held the symbol of a tree with the words Apito Education Center. On my minimap, the building was labeled as a Corrupt Temple. A quick note to Mordecai confirmed that anything labeled “corrupt” meant that mobs could be within.

  Three city elves stood out front, each of them holding a stick with an acorn hanging off the end. They were unsuccessfully attempting to hand the sticks to anyone who passed. None wore the uniform shirt. All three wore simple, unadorned brown robes that appeared dirty, as if they spent most of the day gardening.

  The building, unfortunately, shared a wall with a residence. Fifteen dwarven kids rushed about the street, laughing and play-fighting. They ranged in age from about five to twelve, and based on the similar manner of their dirty, patched clothing, I guessed they were all siblings, including multiple pairs of twins and triplets. One of the older kids held a stick with a small salamander tied to the end, and he was chasing his brothers and sisters about as they all howled. I think it was supposed to be a mockery of the elves. The stick-wielding kid jabbed the poor hissing salamander toward one of the robed figures. The tiny lizard expelled a single spark of flames at the city elf, who cursed and kicked at the child. Another kid picked up a rock and chucked it at the elf, who in turn raised his hand and cast a spell that reflected the rock back at him. The rock bounced off the kid’s head, who started wailing. His siblings surrounded him, and they all piled inside the house next to the temple.

  On the corner at the end of the street stood a pair of stoic village swordsmen guards. They paid no heed to the disturbance. It must be a regular thing. I checked the position of the sun. We still had a good hour before the guards would disappear for the day.

  The stick with the small salamander was left in the middle of the street. The poor lizard was trying to drag himself away. I was going to untie the little guy, but Mongo jumped forward and swallowed the salamander whole, taking half the stick with it.


  “Mongo, gross,” I said. “Stop eating stuff you find on the ground.”

  The raptor made a face, as if it had tasted foul. He made a retching noise.

  “That’s what you get,” I said.

  “You need to chew your food, Mongo,” Donut agreed.

  The three city elf NPCs glared at us as we approached. One of them rushed inside.

  “Hello Carl,” one of them said. He turned to Donut, sneering. “Disgusting, vile blasphemer.”

  “Me?” Donut said. “What did I do?”

  I examined the elf.

  Salvatore. City Elf. Level 16.

  Root Druid.

  Temple Recruitment Wand Bearer.

  The Wand Bearers are the warm and fuzzy faces of the Apito Education Center, which is the outreach department of the 201st Security Group militia. While oftentimes doubling as door guards, the Wand Bearers are some of the most pious, most indoctrinated, and therefore, the most dangerous members of the silly little cult.

  This particular group consists of members of the Magical Ops arm of the 201st. Translation. If you’re gonna dance with these guys, be prepared to deal with all sorts of magical schools.

  The second elf was named Carmine, and his description was almost identical, except instead of a Root Druid, it said he was a Wind Mage.

  “How do you know our names?” I asked.

  Salvatore spit on the ground. “Eat moss and die, apostate. The master told us the Oak Fell and their rotting assistants would come to the city soon, and the final battle for heaven would commence.” He looked down at Donut, snarling. “When you agreed to help that orc, we knew it was you. You even wear the filthy symbol of your blasphemy.”

  “What the flying fuck are you talking about?” I asked.

  Carl: Mordecai. Quick. What the hell is the “Oak Fell?” Also, once again, our charm isn’t working on these guys.

  Mordecai: The Oak Fell is Apito’s version of the antichrist. That’s not stuff one usually contends with until the 12th floor. We need to get you two a Dispel Protections spell, which’ll handle the anti-charm and other security protocols these quest locations usually have. They’re annoyingly common in Skyfowl settlements.