Dungeon Crawler Carl Book 2
Page 59
Mordecai’s long-ago advice echoed in my head. Look, kid. I want this to sink deep into your thick skull. You can’t save them all.
Taking that train through the portal seemed like I was abandoning them. I knew that was stupid. Everyone was spread out to the wind. I didn’t even know these people. I told them how to get free. That was all I could do. It had to be enough.
But what if it wasn’t? I’d read something earlier that had stuck with me. It was from the back of the cookbook. It was written by a crawler named York, who’d written the 10th edition. He’d written pages and pages of rambling philosophical essays I could barely understand. But I couldn’t stop thinking about one passage in particular. I wasn’t certain I fully understood exactly what he was trying to say, but it stuck with me. It appeared to be his last entry before he died or lost the book:
Reading the words of those who have come before me, I know them. You, reading this. I know you, too. You are me. That is who this book finds.
I have been alone my whole life. I have been surrounded by my hive, yet I have been alone. That is okay, I now know. It is acceptable to have your own thoughts, your own mind, despite what they say. But it is also acceptable to be alone and want the strength of the hive. There is no shame in that. No contradiction. That is what this book attempts. To make a hive of those who will never cross paths, except in these pages.
Yet sometimes this book is not enough. You sometimes want more. You want to belong. Again, there is no shame. There is no shame in wanting to be alone yet also wanting the comfort and the strength of your brethren. But more importantly, there is no shame in wanting to protect those who are your hive, even if you never knew them. For they are yours, and they are being taken. It is us or it is them. There is consolation in dying in the pursuit of justice, no matter how small or big that death is.
I wasn’t sure I agreed with that last part, but by the time I closed my eyes, I felt resigned to the idea that there was something more to be done for those trapped on the tracks.
But what was it? I had no fucking clue.
A note from DoctorHepa
It's the weekend! Woohoo! But more importantly...
Freddie the double-chapter lab says, "It's beautiful outside. Why are you spending time inside reading a chapter when you could be reading two DCC chapters?"
Chapter 89 incoming in about 20-25 minutes.
Chapter 89
I awakened to find a message from Elle and Imani.
Elle: Hey Hotshot. Your instincts were right. There is a secret way out of the robot rooms. It’s a long tunnel, leading downward at an angle. It doesn’t look like it opens up until after the robots wake. And the robots don’t wake until the monsters start their withdrawal symptoms. Luckily we don’t have to fight the metal bastards. I can’t believe you blew two of them up. We’re following the tunnel right now to see where it goes. It sounds like there’s another train track down there. It’s far. Will update later.
Imani: Beware of the monsters once they transform. They’re much more powerful.
That had only come in about ten minutes earlier, so I wasn’t expecting an answer for a while. I was hopeful for what they’d find. If that secret, down-the-line train existed, people stuck on the tracks could flee to the nearest robot rooms and hitch a ride.
“Carl! Carl! I realized something,” Donut said excitedly as I sat up. I yawned. I still couldn’t get over how perfectly rested I felt after sleeping only two hours.
“What is it,” I said.
“Remember that spell book I got a long time ago? That tome of Minion Army? It wouldn’t let me read it because it costs 50 spell points to cast.”
“I remember,” I said. She’d gotten the spellbook from a “Beguiler Box” way back on the first floor. I started to do the math in my head. Donut’s base intelligence was 40, giving her 40 spell points. But she added one intelligence with her butterfly charm and another three with her new tiara, bringing it up to 44. However, with the Good Rest buff plus the buff from the shower, our stats rose another 20%. The stat increase was calculated before any of our equipment buffs, and it didn’t actually show on the list, either. Mordecai had said it was a persistent bug that had been around for a few seasons now. Nevertheless, we knew the buffs were active because while our intelligence stat said one thing, our spell points reflected the actual number. Mordecai had said he put in a ticket, but we shouldn’t hold our breath on it getting fixed.
Anyway, with the 20% buff, Donut’s 44 in intelligence was now actually 52, giving her a total of 52 spell points.
“I take it it’ll let you read the tome now?”
“Yes! I didn’t think it would because of that bug thing, but I thought of it before we took our nap, and I remembered when I woke up. And I looked.”
“And you read it already, didn’t you? Mordecai said we needed to talk about the spell once you got enough points to use it.”
“Of course I read it, Carl. That’s why I’m telling you this. Mordecai isn’t here, so we’re talking about it now.”
I sighed. “Okay, just don’t go casting it unless you know what you’re doing. Remember what Mordecai said? It takes five minutes to cast, and you get stuck in place while it’s casting.”
The Minion Army spell was simple on the surface, but the spell’s specifics were convoluted. You cast it on a group of enemies, and some of them would turn and fight on your side. Mordecai had said it was a powerful spell, but only in certain circumstances. It was almost impossible to train up because the conditions in which one used it were rare. The mass-charm spell had a casting time of five minutes, which was outrageous. At level one, it also had a cooldown of five hours. Its base area of effect was a thirty-meter diameter circle, though that went up—a lot—based on her Charisma.
It only worked on intelligent mobs. That plus its five-minute casting time made the spell almost useless. At level one, once cast, every mob in the area of effect had a two percent chance to turn and fight against their friends.
All of that for only a two percent chance to turn someone? It didn’t seem right to me. But Mordecai had insisted that it could be a great spell. I took his word for it.
“I can’t wait to try it out,” Donut said.
“Goddamnit, Donut,” I said. “Don’t cast it unless I tell you to. You’ll get frozen in place for five minutes. If we’re in a situation where a two percent chance to turn someone on our side is our only hope, we’ll be running, not waiting five minutes.”
“Don’t be so pessimistic, Carl.”
Our training cooldown hadn’t reset yet, so we decided to head out right away. We left our personal space and entered the food court. I grabbed another corndog before we proceeded outside.
“Stop,” Donut said just before I opened the door to the transit station. “There are mobs out there. Lots of them.”
“What?” I said. My portal skill didn’t work on this door. I didn’t see anything on my map. Monsters weren’t supposed to be in the transit stations. “How big?”
“Human sized,” Donut said. “Maybe a little smaller. There’s dozens of them. They’re bouncing all over the place. I think they’re really fast.”
“That’s new,” I said. We couldn’t use Donut’s Hole spell on saferoom doors. But we were safe while we were inside. “Step back. Let’s see what we’re dealing with.”
I opened the door, but I stayed inside the room.
“What the hell, man,” I said, examining the screeching, frothing bedlam in the small transit station.
The squealing chaos abruptly stopped. About forty pairs of eyes turned to look at me.
“Howdy fellas,” I called. These were baboons with wide, disconcertingly-human faces. The actual features, like the eyes, nose, and mouth were much too small for the broad, fleshy faces. The rest of their bodies were completely simian. I focused on the closest of the creatures. It was wearing a ripped t-shirt with a cobra on it. It had a backwards baseball cap on its head. Another had an equally-ripped shirt with
the phrase, “Welcome to the Gun Show” written on it in English. There were arrows on the shirt, pointing to his arms. A third wore a shirt that read, “It’s not going to suck itself.” That shirt also had an arrow. The mobs all had red exclamation marks over their heads, something I hadn’t seen before. It was some sort of buff indicator.
Babababoon. Level 17.
Warning: This mob is suffering from the DTs. It is in stage two of three.
In stage two, this mob’s strength is doubled. Intelligent mobs lose the ability to speak and reason. They will attack anything that is not also suffering from the same condition.
(I should note that with this particular mob, you probably won’t see much of a difference between a normal one and one suffering the DTs. These guys are something else, even when they’re not suffering from withdrawal.)
The Babababoon is the king of idiotic chaos. This exclusive mob was created by taking a standard earth baboon and crossing it with the population from a Florida jail drunk tank. Not gonna lie. I’m pretty proud of this one. These guys ruin just about anything we put them in.
“If this is stage two, I wonder what stage one is,” I said.
“By god, they look like living Botero paintings,” Katia said.
Some of the mobs were attempting to break into the small general store. I could see the face of the mole man proprietor through the barred window, looking out worriedly. The monsters had vomited and shit all over the place. One of them appeared to be passed out on his back. Another was scratching at his own face while he teabagged his unconscious companion. Half walked on two legs, and the others rushed about on all fours. Their bright-red asses flashed in the light as they jumped about.
They screeched at my appearance at the door. The first one with the cobra shirt lunged at me, barreling into the saferoom. It roared, swinging. Crack. The monster teleported away. A second, then a third rushed into the room, also teleporting away the moment they attacked. They didn’t seem to notice or care that their fellows weren’t able to do any damage.
“Where did they come from?” Katia asked.
“I think they’re from Purple 282,” I said. “But I don’t know why they’re allowed into the transit station. Maybe the ones suffering from withdrawal aren’t blocked the same way the regular mobs are. Or maybe since they walked here, it’s different.”
Another three rushed into the room, screaming and disappearing. From the back, the bopca with the stupid hotdog hat started yelling for us to close the door.
“Come on,” I said, forming a fist. “We need to get them before they all teleport away. And we need to keep them from fucking with the Nightmare.” I’d locked the door on the train, but they could still climb on the engine and get into the cab through the broken window. I punched one in the head just as he lunged at the door. He grunted and barreled back. My stun effect activated, but only for a moment. The mob was dead before he hit the ground. Hell yeah, I thought. My upgraded Powerful Strike absolutely destroyed these things.
Katia returned to her spiked She-Hulk form. It was about as big as she dared go and still be able to—barely—fit through most doors. Donut jumped onto the back of Mongo.
“Ready guys?” I said. I cracked my neck. I cast Bang Bro onto my gauntlet. It hissed with energy. “Let’s do this.”
* * *
Donut cast Second Chance on a dead Babababoon. The thing was wearing a top hat for some inexplicable reason. The zombified creature roared to life and started tearing at his companions climbing up the side of the Nightmare.
It didn’t appear as if any had gotten into the train, but they were crawling all over the outside. A few bounded off down the track, disappearing into the darkness.
At the top of the stairs, the one remaining Clockwork Mongo chomped down on a screeching mob. Donut glowed as she drank a mana potion, and then she fired a three-way laser at a group of mobs at the end of the platform. They all cried out and fell onto their backs. Their health went down, but only about a third. The power just wasn’t there when she split her Magic Missile into three or more beams.
I released my gauntlet and formed my xistera. I hadn’t gotten to use it much this floor because of the close-combat nature of the trains. I called one of my new “Banger Spheres” into my hand, loading it into the curved device. I spun, and the metal ball rocketed away, blasting down the long platform. It hit one of the three recovering Babababoons in the neck with an audible splack. It fell, dead.
“Damnit,” I muttered. I’d been aiming for between the eyes.
The ammo was nothing more than spheres made of a dwarven robot scrap metal, but I’d spent some time at my engineering table making a few hundred of them. I’d made a few different sizes before settling on the baseball-sized ones. The system automatically labeled them Banger Spheres, but only the ones I made at that specific size. I had an idea for a few additional designs, including spiked balls, but I hadn’t had the chance to implement them yet.
Mongo, with Donut still on his back, leaped onto the train engine and lunged at another mob. Donut hissed and jumped off, bounding once before landing on my shoulder. Katia meanwhile had another in a bear hug and was smashing him between her arms as the baboon pummeled at her. Her eyes were clenched tight. I could tell she was terrified, but at least she was actively fighting.
These monsters were exceptionally strong, and they moved fast, but their speed didn’t translate well into precise movement. This buff, or debuff depending on how you looked at it, was similar to being hopped up on PCP. I paused to watch Katia grapple with her opponent. For a moment, it looked as if the mob was about to power his way out of her arms, but her body jerked to the side, twisting at an unnatural angle, taking the babababoon’s top half with her. It cracked and stopped moving. A blood-soaked baseball cap fell to the floor. Satisfied, I returned my attention to the two mobs on the other side of the platform. I tossed two more Banger Spheres, killing them both.
After another minute, the fight was done. Mongo returned, squawking happily.
“I think you need more practice before we battle while you’re mounted,” I said to Donut. If she’d been a human-sized rider, she’d have been brained on the ceiling of the tunnel when Mongo had leaped atop the train.
Katia stood there, looking at her blood-covered hands, breathing heavily. She had an odd expression on her face I couldn’t read.
“You good?” I asked.
“He was hitting me really hard,” she said. “I mean like really hard. But I think I figured out how to move the metal around inside of me. It’s slow still, but it I think it hurt him more than it hurt me. I think… I think I can make traveling spikes, so monsters using their hands will impale themselves on me. I just need to keep practicing. When I do it really fast, it feels like I’m breaking my own bones. It’s hard to explain the sensation.”
“There’s more up in the main area,” Donut said. I started jogging toward the three at the end of the platform, so I could loot their bodies. So far, none had anything of interest except a few handfuls of gold. “They keep coming. There are some on the tracks too. The nightmare tracks. I don’t know where they think they’re going.”
“Let’s get out of here,” I said when I was finished. I took all of their hats, but not their shirts, which I’d have to physically remove. Screw that. “Something tells me we’re going to be seeing more mobs like this from now on.”
* * *
“There’s another one,” I muttered as we barreled down the rails. “He got far.” A moment later, the train gave a barely-perceptible stutter as the cowcatcher crashed into the babababoon on the track. The creature was thrown sideways and was sucked between the train and the wall of the tunnel like he was being eaten by a paper shredder.
As I suspected, my message system was filled with people reporting encounters with mobs suffering from the DTs. All second stage. For whatever reason, once they got sick, the terminals were no longer safe.
Elle and Imani still hadn’t reported back. Bautista woul
d soon arrive at 433, which was called Terminus Station.
It took less than twenty minutes to reach the switching station now that I was more familiar with the trains’ controls. Katia had to remove all of her mass to fit into the cab, and we ended up storing Mongo. I had the key to the passenger car directly behind the engine, but it was filled with the gore of some unknown mob from when I’d blasted the train. We all decided to crowd into the engine cab instead.
Flame Brandy remained in her boiler, not coming out at all. I figured that was a good thing. The less the others knew about the nature of her presence, the better.
I pulled the train to a stop just before the “Station Repair” switch. I wanted to make sure the massive portal was what it claimed. I exited the train and walked right up to the portal so I could examine it. The description was virtually identical to the portals that led off into the abyss, with one difference.
Type: Pass-Through two-way portal. Gated by conveyance type and to key holders.
Can you pass this portal? Yes*
Warning: You must be on a gated conveyance and/or a key must be equipped or held outside of inventory, depending on type. Compatible keys have been marked in your inventory.
Environment on other side of portal: Compatible.
Visual Analysis? Yes/No.
The previous description said they were “One-way” portals. As I stood there examining it, trying to puzzle out the exact definition of “Pass-Through two-way portal” a loud clank, clank, clank noise emanated from the other side of the gateway. I stepped sideways to get a better view of the threshold's flip side, and I realized that the track actually ran through the swirling portal. The track on the far side looked like a root system with dozens of tracks diverging off of the main. That sound I’d heard was track switches activating down the line. They were being controlled from the other side of the portal. And if they were switching now, that meant…
I took a step back as a steam engine rolled out of the portal, screaming loud and faster than I expected. It was a steam engine almost identical to the Nightmare, but painted red. It only towed six cars behind it plus a caboose. The train clunked loudly as it switched off the main track and then onto another, then another, before disappearing into a random tunnel.