He made me try it, even though my health was already at the top. I cast the spell, and my whole body glowed red, my magic bar went down by 2/3s, and nothing else happened.
“If you were injured or sick, you’d feel much better after that,” Mordecai said.
A voice boomed, interrupting the tutorial. This was yet another speaker. Not the game show host that usually spoke, but a distinctly female voice. She spoke almost casually, like a manager addressing a store filled with employees just before they opened for business.
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 all good luck and a happy crawl.
Ten million people. It was more than I expected. But still, three million additional people dead in a matter of minutes. The number was so huge, it lost meaning.
The announcement made me think of the way the dungeon was set up. The 5-day countdown timer continued to tick away.
“Do we get five days before they destroy each floor?”
Mordecai shook his head. “No,” he said. “It’s usually more each floor down. Later on, it’ll depend on a lot of factors, such as ratings, how many crawlers are left, etcetera. But they usually add about five days each time. So you’ll probably have ten days for the second floor and then fifteen for the third. The countdown doesn’t start until the previous floor collapses.”
“How hard is it to find the staircases?”
“It can be tricky. It’s not too difficult for the first few levels, but you’ll want to focus on finding items or skills that’ll help you find the next entrance down. This first floor is huge, as you can imagine. It’s almost the size of the surface of your planet. They won’t tell you this, but it’s not all connected. It’s not like you can wander about and run into someone from China. That’ll change once you hit the third floor. You’ll see if you survive that long. Starting on the fourth floor, each level will have a random theme and will encompass significantly less area. Entrances will stop populating in random places. They’ll be guarded. You’ll have to complete quests or defeat bosses to get to them. I had barely made it to floor 11. And when I saw what guarded the entrances to level 12… I knew it wouldn’t be worth it.”
“What was it?” I asked.
He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. It’ll be different here. It’s different every time.”
From there we resumed the tutorial. We went over the Party menu. If I had been accompanied by a group of people, we could manage our party in this menu. Party members shared experience and were able to access a group chat feature. Anyone who entered the dungeon at the same time as anyone else was automatically grouped together, and as a result, I had a party of two. Me and Donut.
The cat continued to lounge in front of the fire. It appeared she’d fallen asleep.
“So, my cat,” I said. “The system has given her a crawler name and designator. Does that mean she’s getting all these special achievements and loot boxes too?”
“Yes. Any biological creature above a certain weight who enters the dungeon is assigned a crawler ID. But one needs at least an intelligence of two to qualify for training, and if you can’t do training, your inventory doesn’t get turned on, which allows you to access your boxes. Otherwise, they’re designated as pets. All the other ones, like wild animals who happen to make it inside very rarely make it past the first floor. We’ll get to the pet menu after we open up your inventory, which is the next step.”
Now that we’d put about twenty minutes between my earlier mention of Borant, I wanted to continue our previous conversation.
“Before we do that, I have a couple questions about the people running the show.”
He paused. “What is it?”
“Are they always listening?”
“Listening, yes. Paying attention, not necessarily. They expect a certain amount of …gnashing of teeth… amongst the crawlers. And we NPCs are required to say the name of the organizers multiple times during the training, so we’re mostly ignored. Mostly. You really need to be careful once you start collecting followers. They know they’re sadistic assholes, but they don’t want you saying it on camera. They take their image quite seriously.”
“I’m no math expert, but when the dungeon opened, there were tons of the glowing entrances in my city. They said there were only 150,000 of them seeded around the world. It seemed like… too many for my area.”
“They have certain benchmarks they try to reach. The AI closely monitors the launch of the game, but there are loopholes. The entrances are rarely distributed equally. Ten million crawlers upon the sealing of the dungeon is pretty typical. So however it happened, it wasn’t on accident. Like I said, they spend a lot of time preparing for each dungeon.”
“Yeah, you mentioned that,” I said. “You’ve been here for decades. Does this show really only air once every 90 years or so?”
“No, not at all,” Mordecai said. “Different corporations run each season, which appear about every two and a quarter of your years. My employer usually has about five forward teams working at any given time, and they get chosen to run a season about one in fifteen.”
“So with different corporations running each season and different worlds, uh, crawling, then is every season vastly different?”
“Oh yes. The Squim Conglomerate chooses a different game completely, for example. It’s a battle royale-style fight. An entire world, and it all comes down to one champion. It’s good for ratings, but it doesn’t make them much money from what I understand. My company is known for making the most elaborate, most entertaining dungeons.”
Wonderful. “And you?” I asked. “Are you stuck here for the rest of your life?”
“No,” Mordecai said, smiling sadly. He looked down at the framed picture of the eagle creature I had placed on the floor. “This is my last tour. Once this nightmare is over, I become a full citizen, I receive a moderate stipend, and I am free to make my way into the universe.”
“Will you go back to your home planet?”
“No,” he said. “It’s not open to me.”
“What about the people who didn’t go into the dungeon on your world?”
He paused. “We really need to get back to the tutorial.”
“Okay, but what if someone won the dungeon, made it past level 18. The message said if that happens, they gain control of the world. Maybe your world is under control of one of your people.”
The rat creature grunted. “Remember how I said I made it down to the 11th floor?”
“Yeah.”
“A handful of crawlers over the centuries have made it that far. One once made it down to 13. One. He died within a half-hour of hitting the floor. He was a human, like you. But from another human world. That’s the deepest anyone has ever delved, kid. Level 13.”
5
“I’ve just activated your inventory,” Mordecai said, waving a hand. “This season Borant is trying something a little different.”
“Different good or different bad?” I asked, pulling up the menu.
The only thing listed was a handful of loot boxes with Ready to Open next to them.
“Last season, it was a slot-based system. It allowed one to carry multiple items, but it was limited in capacity and had standard weight limits. This season, each crawler is given a dimensional inventory and AI cataloging system.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s a good thing. Basically, unlimited storage. And if you can physically lift it off
the ground by yourself for about four seconds, you can put it in your space, no matter how big it is. The only rule is you can’t store living creatures. They will immediately die. Also, the storage is time-locked, so food doesn’t go bad. That’s a big one. We had an issue last season with crawlers starving to death. Watching thousands of lethargic, unmoving players as they waited the timer to run out… Yeah. It was no good, so Borant fixed it. Disease and starvation doesn’t make for compelling drama.”
He produced a single, glass bottle. It was small, like a third the size of a coke bottle. It was red with a cork in it.
“Pick it up and place it in your inventory. A gift from me to you.”
I picked it up and examined the item’s properties.
Standard Healing Potion.
Increases your health by at least 50%. Doesn’t cure poison or other health-seeping conditions such as succubus-inflicted gonorrhea. So remember to wrap it up, bucko.
I pulled up my inventory menu, and an Add Item to Inventory button appeared. I clicked it, and the potion vanished. It appeared in my inventory list, which now had both a Potions and Healing submenu. I mentally clicked on it, and the potion reappeared in my hand.
“Good, good. If you add the potion to your hotlist, you’ll drink it without having to actually drink. Remember this, because some of these potions taste like shit. If you straight pull it from the normal inventory, you’ll have to pop the cork and swallow. Potions and other like items stack up to 999 a slot, so it’s best to stick them in your hotlist. And that’s pretty much it. There are a few other quirks regarding inventory, but you’ll figure them out along the way.”
I put the potion back and then added it to the hotlist next to my healing spell.
“Okay,” Mordecai said. “Let’s take a look at your current notifications… holy tits!”
“What? What?” I said, alarmed, looking around. Donut looked up from her spot by the fire and yawned.
“You have a Legendary Pet Box! Why didn’t you say so?”
I just looked at him. The urge to punch him in the face returned.
Mordecai shook his head. “Legendary right when he walks in,” he grumbled. “Okay. Yes, yes you do have a lot of boxes. Okay, now that inventory is active, you can pop up your missed notifications. Let’s take look.”
I had a line of the notifications. I clicked on the first one.
New achievement! You’ve inflicted damage on a mob.
Hopefully it won’t hit back!
Reward: It’s probably going to hit back.
New achievement! You’ve killed a mob!
You’re a murderer! He probably had a family!
Reward: You can now gain experience. Get enough of it, and you might even go up a level.
New achievement! You’ve killed an armed mob with your bare fucking hands!
Holy crap, dude. That’s kinda fucked up.
Reward: You’ve received a Bronze Weapon Box!
New achievement! You’ve killed a mob a higher level than yourself!
You’re getting the hang of this. Don’t let it get to your head.
Reward: You’ve received a Bronze Adventurer Box!
New achievement! You’ve entered a guildhall!
Congratulations. You know how to open doors.
Reward: That sense of fulfillment you feel? That’s reward enough.
New achievement! Podophilia!
You’ve used your bare feet to crush and kill an opponent! Hey! That’s my fetish! Seriously. Keep doing it, and you’ll be rewarded. This will help.
Reward: You’ve received a Gold Shoe Box!
New achievement! Boom!
You’ve caused a wall-shaking explosion within the dungeon! The last time the walls shook like this was when your mom came over for a visit.
Reward: You’ve received a Silver Goblin Box!
New achievement! Level-Up, Baby!
You’ve received enough experience to gain a level.
Reward: Leveling up is your job. You don’t get rewards for doing your job.
Underneath those were a few additional notifications:
You’ve gained a skill level!
Pugilism Level 4.
The art of beating the shit out of your opponents with closed fists.
Each level of this skill increases your bare-knuckle damage by 25%.
Level Up! You are now level 2.
Three stat points gained.
Several other skill-based notifications flashed and disappeared before I could read them, likely thanks to my tinkering with the menu earlier. My inventory glowed, and I clicked on it. Several additional loot boxes now appeared on my list.
“You may only open boxes in safe areas,” Mordecai said. “All guildhalls are safe areas, but not all safe areas are guildhalls.”
“Will they be hard to find? The safe areas, I mean?”
“The safe rooms will always appear on your map, even if they’re within the fog of war.”
“Fog of war?”
“If you haven’t visited an area, it won’t show the specifics of the hallways, even if it’s in the range of your minimap. The fog of war covers places you haven’t yet visited. The safe rooms will have restrooms, sleeping cubicles, and some will even have food and fountains with healing potions. Getting to them might be hard, but you’ll always know where they are if you get close enough.”
“Is there a time limit for staying in one?”
“Nope. But don’t forget the level itself is going to collapse in on your head after a certain amount of time. The only way to survive is to keep moving deeper.”
“Okay,” I said, rubbing my hands together. “Hopefully there are some pants in one of these things. Let’s start cracking them open.”
“Okay,” Mordecai said. “You have 10 loot boxes. That’s a lot, but not a crazy amount. Usually people come into the tutorial with two or three. You can hoard them, but when you do decide to open them, you can’t pick and choose which ones to open. It’s an all or nothing thing. There’s no real tactical reason to hold onto them since you can’t sell or transfer unopened boxes. Also it’s important to note that while it’s possible to receive unstable or damaged loot, you’ll never receive outright cursed loot in a box. But that doesn’t mean everything is safe to try on. Always read the descriptions before you activate or wear something. Always, always. No exceptions. Okay here we go. It’s going to open them by tier.”
The ten boxes all popped out of my inventory and appeared floating in front of me single file. The first few boxes were about half the size of a military footlocker. Each box had a label floating over it. The first to appear was bronze-colored and had a strange, hedgehog-like animal stenciled on the top.
Bronze Pet Box. (1/10)
The top popped open on its own. The box disappeared in a puff of smoke, and a single rolled-up piece of paper and a small pile of what looked like dry cat food appeared on the floor. Text appeared above each item.
Scroll of Heal Critter.
Pet Biscuit X 10.
The items disappeared and entered my inventory. Before I could open the inventory box to read the description of the scroll, the next box appeared.
Bronze Adventurer Box. (2/10)
Potion of Healing X 2.
Common Fingerless Gloves.
After that was
Bronze Weapon Box. (3/10)
Toad Cudgel.
The “toad cudgel” was a stick. It looked like a 3/4's length baseball bat shaped by someone who only had a vague idea of what baseball was.
Bronze Weapon Box. (4/10)
Poker.
This wasn’t much better. It was literally a fireplace poker. A wrought iron stick with a screw-on point at the end.
Bronze Adventurer Box. (5/10)
Potion of Healing.
Potion of Mana.
These next two boxes were slightly larger and made of silver.
Silver Adventurer Box. (6/10)
Poison Antidote X 2
Crawler B
iscuit X 100
Torch X 20
This next silver box looked distinctively different than the last. Like the goblin murder dozer, it appeared hobbled together with random hunks of silver-colored metal. A goblin skull was etched onto the lid.
Silver Goblin Box (7/10)
Dynamite X 5
Lighter
Goblin Pass
The Goblin Pass took the form of the same goblin-shaped skull from the top of the box. The symbol appeared floating in the air. Instead of adding itself to my inventory, it flew and smacked up against my left inner forearm. I was still wearing my leather jacket, but I could feel it burning against my skin, like I was being branded. The brand also appeared on the exterior of the jacket. The pain quickly abated, and my jacket was otherwise undamaged.
It was time for the good stuff. These next two boxes were bigger yet and glowed with a golden light.
Gold Apparel Box (8/10)
Enchanted Nightgaunt Cloak of Stoutness.
Enchanted Trollskin Shirt of Pummeling.
Beside me, Mordecai gasped the moment the two items appeared. I hoped that was a good thing.
Gold Shoe Box (9/10)
Enchanted Toe Ring of the Splatter Skunk.
A toe ring? A goddamned toe ring? I needed shoes, damnit! Not a toe ring!
I was so irritated by this prize, I almost missed the opening of the final box. The Legendary Pet Box had the same symbol etched on it as the Bronze Pet Box, but this thing was three times the size. It was made of alternating, intricately carved silver and gold patterns. Clockwork gears spun with a ratcheting click click click as the box opened. A musical fanfare sounded.
Legendary Pet Box (10/10)
Pet Biscuit X 500
Enhanced Pet Biscuit
“That’s it?” I said as the final prizes poofed back into my inventory. “What the hell is an enhanced pet biscuit?”
Dungeon Crawler Carl Page 5