Christ, another thing to worry about. A crazy asshole with a gun.
I was suddenly, inexplicably reminded of that day. The last day I ever saw my father.
You’re a bully. You’re a bully and nobody likes you. It’s why mom left.
I was expecting him to get angry, to hit me. But he never hit me, not once. The man just laughed and laughed, and that was enough. I don’t need you to like me. But you will respect me.
The memory came quickly, out of nowhere. I didn’t know why. Nobody had died that day. Nobody had been hurt at all, not physically.
“Maybe Frank Q isn’t a human,” Donut was saying. “Maybe he’s one of those cocker spaniels.” She sniffed at the corpse. “Yes, this is definitely the work of a cocker spaniel.”
I sighed. “She’s been shot,” I said. “Look. That’s from a gun.”
“Maybe the dog had a gun. If I had a gun in my inventory, I could shoot it.”
“No, you couldn’t. It wasn’t a dog.”
One of our neighbors in the apartment had a dog named Angel. A cocker spaniel. I couldn’t remember the woman’s name, but her dog was always barking her head off. Bea was friendly with the owner, and they were always chatting in the hallway. Every once in a while Angel would burst into our apartment, barking, running in circles. She’d pee on the floor and shriek-bark at Donut, who would sit atop her cat tree and hiss and spit and poof all her hair out.
“We need to be careful,” I said. “Keep on the lookout for other players. If we come across any, don’t tell them what gear we have. They can’t examine it if they’re not in our party.”
“We are in a dungeon filled with killer cockroaches and drug-dealing llamas. Some imbecile with a gun doesn’t scare me,” Donut announced. “And they shouldn’t scare you, either. We should hunt this vile killer down and bring him to justice.”
“Weren’t we just talking about this? And this guy doesn’t scare me,” I said. I looked down at the dead woman. I wondered who she was, why someone like her was outside at 2:30 in the morning on such a night. I’m never going to know her story. Nobody is ever going to know it. I wondered how scared she’d been. Only to be killed by a fellow human. He’d looted her corpse, taking everything, leaving only an apple core. It made me irrationally angry. “In fact, I think you’re right. I want to find him if we can.”
I thought for a moment. “Okay,” I said. “Let’s stick to the neighborhood for right now since we have the map. We’ll hunt down the remaining red dots. We need all the easy experience we can get. Then we’ll go back to the safe room and watch the premiere.” Mordecai had said the show would air on the screens in the safe room. “After that, the stairs will open up. We’ll go hunting for both the stairs and this guy.”
“You’re not scared of that guy? Really?” Donut asked, looking between me and the corpse.
“No,” I said. “Not at all.”
“Well then, you’re crazy. I don’t like you being crazy. I’m scared of him. We need to stay away from him. What if he’s like one of those murder hobos you hear so much about?”
“Just two seconds ago you said, and I quote, ‘Some imbecile with a gun doesn’t scare me!’”
“Yeah, that’s when I thought you were being a pussy. I didn’t realize you were getting all Charles Bronson Death Wish on me!”
“How do you even know what that is?”
“You two always leave the TV on when you go to work. I absorbed all that stuff. Miss Beatrice always leaves it on Lifetime and HGTV, and you leave it on that channel that plays the A-Team and Charles Bronson movies all day.”
“We’ll be careful,” I said. “Don’t worry.”
Nearby, a group of three red dots was steadily moving through a hallway. The map didn’t say what they were, but based on our earlier encounters, I guessed them to be more of the rats. I suspected we wouldn’t see any more Scatterers in this neighborhood.
“Come on, Donut. Let’s hunt.”
14
The premiere of Dungeon Crawler World: Earth was easily the most bizarre thing I’d ever witnessed in my life.
Apparently, alien television shows were presented in a completely different way than a standard, 2D television screen. Viewers were virtually placed within actual scenes, as they happened. This virtual rendition and recap of the moments presented on the show was fully experienced by the viewers, including the smells and physical sensations just short of feeling the actual pain.
However, Tally explained, many viewers didn’t like the VR version of the action, so they watched using a method where they had a bird’s eye view, and they could zoom in and out and switch angles at a whim.
We didn’t have any of that. The show streamed on the center of the three televisions over the fast food counter. Tally came out from around the back to sit with us at the booth to watch.
4,006,002. That’s how many people were left when the show premiered. The number continued to steadily tick down while the show aired. It made me sick to look at it, so I tried to tune it out.
“This is not good way to watch show,” Tally announced as the title appeared on the screen. The screen jerked around, like I was watching someone play a game on Twitch. The view kept randomly zooming in and out, sometimes focusing on nothing in particular. Sometimes lights flashed for no reason.
It started with a commentator in the top right of the screen. I stared at the orange-hued, four-eyed lizard-like creature as he-she-it, I couldn’t tell, breathlessly gave a recap of last season. The sound kept cutting in and out, and I couldn’t tell why. The creature sounded like it had gravel in their mouth when they spoke anyway, and even though it was speaking in Syndicate standard, I could barely make out what they were saying. It started with a shot of a planet that looked remarkably like Earth, but with the continents all jumbled up. It zoomed in on the planet, showing buildings that appeared to almost be made of plastic, all on stilts with round, pod-like mechanisms zipping about underneath. The collapse came, but instead of the buildings all sinking into the ground, they swept away, rolling to the side like they’d been sucked up by an invisible vacuum.
Next came a view of a building that looked similar to the Roman Coliseum, only bigger. The arena had multiple floors, mazes, and a level filled entirely with water. On the exterior of the building, which appeared to be the size of an entire city, was written The Squim Conglomerate Presents, Battle for the Planet Aryl.
Next showed thousands of furry, gorilla-like creatures screaming and rushing into battle against another group of similar creatures. Later, it showed a single, heavily armored gorilla stick a spear into the throat of a smaller, gray-colored gorilla riding a massive pig thing. The word WINNER appeared on the screen.
The winning gorilla fell to his knees and appeared to start sobbing before the screen cut away. A round metal tube that looked like a barrel appeared on the screen for 15 seconds straight. There was no sound. Tally said it was a commercial.
“I do not like last season’s version of game,” Tally said, shaking his furry head. “They break the people into groups, tell them their loved ones will be safe if they kill others. Then everybody kill one another.”
“Are they?” I asked.
“Are they what?” Tally asked.
“Are their loved ones safe if they win?”
“Aye, they are safe, but they are not safe. Is better dead. Squim saps the planet dry. It leaves planet, moves on. No more atmosphere. People live after the big fight, but they don’t live. Not really. Borant at least gives people a chance. Tally’s people had chance.”
“So, you were a crawler, then?”
“No,” Tally said. “Not all worlds are mined or picked for the show. Sometimes they come and offer to take people in exchange for not mining world. They came, and I went. This was very long ago.”
“Shush,” Donut said. “They’re introducing us now.”
Next came a view of Earth. Music swelled, sounding almost like mariachi with an EDM beat. Three lines of text scrolled a
cross the bottom of the screen, all in different languages I couldn’t read. Another two lines, one going up, one going down scrolled on the right side, shrinking the viewing area. A generic, naked human male and female appeared on the screen, and the next 10 minutes was a discussion of human anatomy with an inordinate amount of time spent discussing male testicles and female ovaries. I still couldn’t understand most of what the commentator was saying. Next came a long line of shots of earth, focusing mostly on urban areas. It quickly became clear that the show was cherry-picking the shittier parts of the planet, showing shanty towns and garbage dumps. Bubbling pits of mud, and abandoned buildings. They were throwing in scenes from disaster films. I recognized a shot from the latest Godzilla movie. They were going out of their way to make earth look like a nightmare.
Then came the people. They were showing people shooting up drugs, killing each other, a group of kids beating the crap out of another kid, a scene from the movie Basket Case, a dead horse for some reason, a scene from that serial killer movie that won Best Picture last year, an elderly woman crying, the kid from the “Charlie bit My Finger” Youtube video.
“Wow,” Donut said, shaking her head sadly. “I didn’t realize Earth sucked so badly. Disgusting.”
“That’s not how it really is,” I said. I paused. Not is. Was. The world is gone. “They’re making it look like they’re the good guys, saving us from ourselves.”
Next came a sky-view version of the collapse, over a dense city I didn’t recognize. Next was what appeared to be a CGI rendition of the dungeon forming below the Earth’s crust. It only showed the first three levels, which was like an upside down, tiered pyramid.
The next forty minutes was nothing but scenes of people getting killed over and over.
The vast majority of people who entered the dungeon appeared to be from India and Africa and South America. Some of them were in massive groups of 1,000 plus people. I watched them trample each other as they ran from mobs I’d never seen, from spine-covered wolves to shapeless blobs of fire to floating, stingray-like creatures which shot magic missiles from eye stalks, like the alien ships from War of the Worlds.
“Why did so many enter the dungeon?” I asked. I had entered because I didn’t have a choice. Was it the same for the others?
Eventually, they started showing people surviving their encounters. A man with a broadsword cut through a group of floating eyeball things. A group of 10 people, armed with shotguns and bows and arrows, took down a nightmare pile of mouths and eyeballs and flesh. A Borough Boss, the screen said, the first one defeated. It quickly showed all 10 of their mugshots and listed the contents of their Silver Boss Boxes and their Platinum Weapons Boxes they’d received for the achievement. They’d all received magic tomes and enchanted ranged weapons.
Next, they showed a girl about 13 years old with a pair of rottweilers. I guessed she might be from South America somewhere. She wore an oversized soccer jersey that was yellow with a thick blue stripe running across it. The girl wore an angry, determined expression on her face
The dogs ripped a cow-sized spider to shreds. Later, the same girl held a mace in her hand and had a full set of glowing, silver armor. She’d kept the soccer jersey, wearing it over the armor like a tabard. One of the dogs wore what appeared to be a chainmail sweater. The other had gained the ability to shoot lightning when it barked.
We were shown her mugshot and both of the dogs. Her name was Lucia Mar. The dogs were Cici and Gustavo 3.
I still wasn’t sure about the naming conventions. I guessed since I was the first Carl in the dungeon, I didn’t have my last initial after my official name. And since this Gustavo was a dog without a last name, he had the three because he was the third Gustavo to enter the dungeon without a surname.
After that, it showed a quick rundown of several of the mobs, the images flashing by so quickly I could barely see any of them. I recognized goblins, scatterers, rats, and dozens of the monsters shown in the earlier scenes.
And that was it. The announcer said something about staying tuned for a rundown of this season’s rules and surprises and then something else about placing bets, but the screen snapped off and returned to the leaderboard image.
We just stared at the board for several moments.
“That’s it?” Donut demanded, breaking the silence. She looked at me, incredulous. “After that epic battle with Hoarder, we received no screen time. This is unacceptable!”
Before she could rant further, an announcement came. It was the same woman who spoke when the gates first closed.
Good job so far everyone. We had 15 borough bosses taken out and over 1,500 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. The Fire Fingers spell should be safe to cast now. We’ve fixed the hallway bathroom bug. So, if you open the door, and someone else enters, they will no longer explode. Sorry about that. Reminder, however, hallway bathrooms are personal spaces, and they can’t be shared. We also fixed the unlimited toilet paper bug. Now you’re only getting one roll per floor, so if you waste it, you’re on your own. We have a long list of fixes with the new inventory system that we’re working on. For right now, the two big ones we’ve already patched are that you can no longer transport mobs to your inventory in order to kill them. Also, any momentum an item might have while it entered inventory will no longer be preserved. It’s now safe to extract items you put into inventory while moving at a high rate of speed. Remember, this inventory system is a privilege, and it’s not meant to be used as a weapon. While we love and admire your creativity, any unintentional exploits will be patched, so if you find something that has an unintended feature, don’t get too comfortable using it.
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 are 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 days before the floor above collapses. We recommend descending to the next level no earlier than six 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 hours until the next episode tunnels!
Now get out there and kill, kill, kill!
“Obviously we need to find one of these city bosses,” Donut said. “That’ll guarantee a feature the next episode. That’s what we need to focus on.”
I remembered the borough boss from the show. It had taken a group of ten well-armed crawlers to take it down.
“No,” I said. “We need to find an exit.”
I pulled up my map, hoping to see a stairwell appear somewhere in the neighborhood. There was nothing. I remembered reading once that the earth was just under 200 million square miles. There would be 75,000 entrances down to the second floor. If these staircases were distributed randomly, we were fucked. Even if the first floor was just underneath the landmasses, and not the entire planet, we were still screwed. I was no math wizard, but I knew that meant the stairs would be hard to find.
Mordecai had said the staircase, like a safe room, would appear on the mini map, even if we hadn’t explored that area yet. But even zoomed out, the map only encompassed a little more than a square mile. And when it was in normal mode, down in the corner of my vision, the map was a fourth of that. I couldn’t just walk around with it zoomed out because I wouldn’t be able to see anything.
We had three and a half days to find the staircase. We needed to cover a lot of ground.
15
Time to Level Collapse: Three Days and Two Hours
“We’ve been here before,” Donut said as we turned down the main corridor. “This is where we came into the dungeon.”
After having explored much of the area, I was starting to see a distinctive pattern to the hallways. My apartment had been a little more than a half mile from the coast of the Puget Sound. The entrance I’d gone through appeared to be the very western edge of the map. The whole area was a giant grid of equal-sized squares, with the large, wide passages acting as the borders. While the interior halls and tunnels were twisty and maze-like, each section was still a perfect, giant square. And within each square, there appeared to be four neighborhoods.
The Hoarder neighborhood was in the southeast corner of one of those squares. Directly west of that was the goblin neighborhood, right where we’d entered the dungeon. Across the hall was the domain of the llamas. Mordecai had said these first few floors weren’t really covering the entire planet, and I could see now that he was correct, at least here. The dungeon was really just a condensed version of the city directly above, but more organized. I wondered what it was like in the more rural areas, if there were any entrances at all.
It appeared mobs didn’t respawn in a particular neighborhood once you killed the boss, though mobs from adjacent neighborhoods had started to creep their way in. Also, the level two rats were just everywhere, though I never saw one in the main hall. They were nothing but a nuisance now. They’d see us, charge, and I’d either kick them or stomp them, killing them with a single blow.
Near the northern edge of the Hoarder’s neighborhood, we started to run across a new type of mob: slimes.
After our first encounter with those things, we had to turn back. I couldn’t fight them, not without any sort of protection for my hands. The first one we came across was a simple level two green slime. Donut and I had both already hit level seven by this point, and I figured it’d be simple as killing the bugs.
Dungeon Crawler Carl Page 11