The automatic door slammed shut behind us, and the well-lit room turned red.
The familiar music started to play as I pushed my way through the turnstile. The boss battle message blared, almost identical to last time. Our mugshots floated into the air, and we were announced as we rounded the corner. Six of the level-three Troglodyte Bashers filled the room, working the machines. A trio of the Virtuosos stood in the opposite corner.
And then there was the boss.
The monstrosity stood across the room, admiring himself in the mirror as he curled a pair of absurdly large dumbbells. The creature stopped when we entered the room. He dropped the weights. The pair embedded themselves halfway into the floor with a reverberating crash. Wood splintered up all around where they fell. The beast slowly turned in our direction, and the world paused the moment his eyes met mine.
Ah, fuck, I thought as the face of the creature zoomed big on my interface.
Versus…
The Juicer!
Level 9 Neighborhood Boss!
With a body enhanced by the finest anabolic steroids the dark web has to offer, the Juicer spends his days pushing iron, snapping necks, and crying that his pimple-infested sac is a third the size it once was. Having reached a plateau, rage now fills his enlarged heart. All he ever wanted was to gain, but right now he’ll settle on bringing out…
The music hit a crescendo with a dun, dun, dun!
…the paaaaain!
“The cheese factor on some of these descriptions is just horrifying,” Donut muttered. “It’s worse than that Knight Rider show you love so much.”
Once again, this creature was a person from our world, though without the description it wouldn’t be quite as obvious. It was like they’d taken a Troglodyte Basher and merged it with a contestant from a bodybuilding contest. And then inflated his muscles well past what a normal body could sustain. He was a couple of inches taller than me. He still had the lizard head, and a scaled body and tail. He wore little black shorts and nothing else, revealing a preposterously muscled physique, covered in tributaries of bulging veins as thick as my finger. The thing was so shredded, he was like a kid in a snowsuit who couldn’t put his arms down. His trap muscles made him look as if he had tumors sprouting from the edge of his shoulder to halfway up his scaled head. His thighs were the size of beer kegs, forcing him into a ridiculous, wide stance. He waddled when he moved.
“Bro,” the monstrosity croaked. “I need a spot, bro.” He pulled a round, metallic free weight from a rack. The disc was the size of a manhole cover. With a twist of his waist, he threw it right at my head. The giant weight burst into flames as it rocketed toward me.
“Holy fuck!” I cried as I jumped out of the way. Donut leaped in the other direction. The weight crashed into a treadmill and exploded, shattering the mirror behind it.
I activated my scroll of Confusing Fog as the other troglodytes descended on me. The effect was immediate. A thick, wet fog filled the room, temporarily blinding me before it faded before my eyes. Water beaded over everything, making the ground slick. I could still see the outline of the cloud in the room, but the opacity of the effect was halved. I knew the troglodytes couldn’t see a thing. The scroll didn’t say how long the effect lasted, but I suspected it wasn’t long. We had to act fast.
The troglodytes, blinded, started running into each other and the scattered gym equipment. The Juicer picked up another weight and chucked it in a random direction. “Bro,” he groaned. “Bro, I can’t see.”
I rushed toward the group of bashers as yet another weight crashed against the squat rack, knocking it on its side with a mighty clang. We’d decided ahead of time that I’d take out the support creatures first if I could while Donut dealt full-strength headshots to the boss. I leaped over a glute machine, punching down into the wide-eyed, confused face of a Basher. These guys took at least four or five punches to stay down. My fist burned as I tore through them.
I swept the leg out of the final Basher, and he tumbled, hitting his head on the padded chair of a chest press. As I caved in the side of his head with my fist, the fog cleared, just as quickly as it had come.
Damnit. I read my second scroll as I scrambled away from a flaming disk. It smashed into the same chest press, sending flaming hunks of metal in every direction like shrapnel. I cried out as my exposed hip exploded in pain. Blood geysered down my leg. I cast my Heal spell just as the fog re-filled the chamber. The Confusing Fog had lasted barely fifteen or twenty seconds, and I only had one scroll left.
Donut bounced back and forth around the room, launching at the Juicer, who was content to stay where he was and hurl metal at us. The powerful magic missiles were having an obvious effect on the boss monster, but his health bar was still in the green by the time Donut had to drink a mana potion. The Juicer grunted every time the missiles hit his head, followed by a bellow of rage. He’d pick up another weight and toss it in Donut’s general direction. She was smart enough to move after each blast. The weights flew through the mist like comets.
In addition to avoiding the attacks by the boss, Donut had to dodge the random tongue lashes from the Virtuosos. She tried to keep a machine between herself and the poison-dealing monsters. Only I had the anti-poison resistance, and if she got hit, we’d have a hard time keeping her alive until she’d be allowed to drink an antidote potion.
Both my leg and my hand healed as I launched myself toward the other side of the room at the three Virtuosos. One blindly shot his tongue, and it smashed into a chin up bar machine next to me. I grasped the tongue with my left hand before it could recede, and the lizard made a strangled cry as it tried to retract but found he couldn’t.
He retracted anyway, getting dragged across the room toward me. His large mouth clamped down on my fist. I cried out in pain. I banged the head against the side of a machine, but the body remained firmly attached. Its dozens of sharp teeth were embedded in the bones of my arm. The Virtuoso wasn’t dead, but he was literally choking on my fist. He seemed just as desperate to get free of me as I was. His body weighed barely anything, and it flayed desperately as it dangled off my arm.
I reached the other two lizards just as the fog began to clear again.
“I’m almost out,” Donut cried behind me.
I snap kicked one in the stomach, and he doubled over. I smashed down with my foot, breaking his neck as I whirled on the third, hitting him with a right cross. I took my left fist, which was still inside the mouth of the first troglodyte, and I pummeled the third to death.
The lizard affixed to me also died during the beating, and his body broke off at the neck with a disgusting snap. The teeth remained painfully attached to my left wrist, like I was wearing a bizarre boxing glove made of troglodyte head. Bits of gore and bone still hung from the neck hole. I whirled to face the boss.
The Juicer’s health was about 2/3s gone. The entire top half of his body was blackened and scorched. I could no longer see his beady eyes glaring at me.
“Bro,” he said. “Not cool. That was my bro.” He picked up another weight and flung it at me. I dove out of the way. It hit the wall, shattering. Shrapnel cut into me. Burning little pieces of metal peppered the side of my head. I fell backward over another machine, my ankle getting caught in the wire. I read my final scroll of Confusing Fog as I extracted myself. Another weight rocketed toward me, whirring over my head like a buzzsaw. It exploded behind me.
More metal chunks cut into me. My health plummeted into the red. I mentally clicked a health potion from my hotlist as I peeled the skull off my wrist. It was like trying to free a boiled egg from its shell. I had to break the head from the jaw to free my hand. The skull clattered to the ground. After I drank the potion, I noted I had a 15-second cooldown before I could drink another. Donut’s cooldown was much longer, closer to two minutes. I didn’t have time to wonder why we were different.
The fog filled the room, and I rushed at the boss.
This is a terrible idea, I thought as I approached from
behind. The monster was bent over, feeling blindly for another weight from the rack. He’d pulled all the weights off of one pole, but there were more right below it. Blinded, he couldn’t see what to grab.
I grasped at a barbell that appeared to have about 250 pounds on each side. I grasped the stop and ripped half the weights free, which clattered to the ground near my feet. I held onto the barbell before it could tumble forward off the bench. I brandished the lopsided, makeshift weapon like a giant mace. Before, lifting 250 pounds plus the bar would be next to impossible. I normally benched 230 pounds—which was a respectable amount. With my strength now at nine, I could still feel the weight, but I lifted it easily. It was enough to be awkward and maybe too much to just regularly walk around with. But I knew I could easily swing it, and I did, as hard as I could, at the monster’s scaly head.
Crash. My whole body shuddered, as if I’d swung at a solid wall. The boss staggered, falling on his side, dropping the weight he’d managed to pull free. The bar trembled, and the three weights fell off the far end. I smacked him one more time with the much-lighter bar then tossed it. I picked up one of the 100 pound weights at my feet, lifted it over my head in both my hands, and smashed down on the Juicer. I smashed, and I smashed. His health bar slowly descended as he cried out.
“Stop, ow! No, bro! It hurts!”
Just when I thought he was done, about to die, he twisted, his giant arm shot up, fast as a snake strike, and it grasped my wrist. It felt as if a steel shackle had wrapped around me. Oh fuck, I thought as I dropped the bloody, dripping weight—which bounced off the monstrosity’s stomach. He took his other hand and grasped my neck.
“This is gonna hella burn,” he said, sitting up. The fog cleared, and his eyes focused on me. Despite being lizard-faced, a row of pustules circled his eyes, like zits that had grown up through the scales. He stank of sweat and burned flesh and Axe body spray. He started to squeeze, and I knew I was dead. My health bar plummeted.
A magic missile slammed into the Juicer’s back. This was a weak one, and the monster barely acknowledged it with a grunt.
“Hold on, Carl!” Donut cried. She emerged, flying through the air, claws out like a tiger pouncing on unsuspecting prey. She landed directly on the monster’s massive, bulbous shoulder, and she bit down hard on his vein-covered neck as her rear legs scrabbled at his back. Tendrils of green and red tissue went flying, as if she were a potato peeler gone haywire. She bit through one of the veins on his neck, vampire-like. Blood sprayed as if she had struck oil, soaking Donut, who gurgled in response.
The giant hand at my neck went slack, and he slapped backward at Donut. He barely hit her, a glancing blow, but she rocketed off the creature’s back as if she’d been shot out of a cannon. She hit the far wall with a sickening crunch.
“Donut!” I cried. I scrambled to my feet, wheezing for breath as the monster reached for his shredded back in obvious, agonizing pain. Blood sprayed from his neck as if she’d sheared off a water spigot. The blood just kept coming and coming, an impossible amount.
The Juicer looked at me, eyes surprised, as if he hadn’t realized I was still alive.
“I’m proud of you, bro,” he said. “You fought through the pain.”
I hit him with a weak jab, and that’s all it took. The boss, whose health was already all but depleted, crumpled onto his back. I smashed his solid head with my foot. The system seemed to release whatever supernatural protection it gave to bones and flesh once the creature was dead, and his head caved in easily under my heel. It felt as if I’d stepped into a rotten watermelon. I didn’t pause to look at the carnage. I rushed across the room toward Donut.
She lay in a bloodied heap on the floor, her leg bent in the wrong direction. Her health bar held nothing but the barest sliver of red.
“Donut,” I cried, coming to my knees before her. “Goddamnit, Donut. Don’t you do this to me.”
She gasped, not dead. The cat was entirely soaked in blood. But she was alive! I worriedly watched her health, terrified it might go lower. Sometimes when you were injured, it continued to decrease, just like on the surface.
The Winner! graphic appeared on my screen, and the music stopped as I plunged into my inventory. I had to wait 10 frustrating seconds for the bullshit to clear before I could find what I was searching for.
I had a scroll of Heal Critter. I read it, but it didn’t work on her. The scroll evaporated from my menu with an error message. No Valid Target Available. You just wasted a valuable scroll, dumbass.
I couldn’t cast my heal spell on her, even if I did have enough Mana points, which I didn’t. Instead, I pulled a healing potion out of my inventory and uncorked it, ready to pour it into her mouth.
I paused. She’d taken a mana potion just a few minutes earlier. She had a much longer potion countdown than I did. It probably had something to do with our constitution levels. I couldn’t examine her and tell where that countdown was, if it had run out or not. Would it hurt her if I tried to feed the potion to her early? I didn’t know. Any damage now would surely kill her.
I quickly pulled a second healing potion and decided to test it on myself. Using the quick slots, it wouldn’t allow me to take a second potion, but surely the game couldn’t stop me from doing it manually.
I downed one health potion, which brought my health back up. This was my first time actually physically drinking one. It tasted oddly like kiwi juice. The bottle disappeared with a poof. The fifteen second timer appeared, and I drank the second potion before the timer was done.
You have been poisoned!
Poison effect nullified.
“Goddamnit,” I growled. I leaned over Donut, rubbing her soft fur. “Stay with me,” I said.
Crack! The cat murmured in pain as her broken leg magically set itself. The sliver of health grew longer. She was healing. Getting better.
I sighed, relief washing over me. She would heal on her own, but it was going to take a while. I’d wait another five minutes before I risked giving her the potion, which would ease her pain.
“Carl, Carl is that you?” Donut asked after a minute, lifting her head pitifully. “Did we get it?”
“We got it, Donut,” I said. “You got it. Don’t move. Just rest for a minute. You saved my life.”
“I have been grievously injured in battle,” she said. “In saving you, I have made the ultimate sacrifice. I can feel my life fading away, Carl. I’m circling that last bend into the drain. This is the end. I used my claws like you said, and I have perished as a result. Miss Beatrice is going to be most displeased with you.” She coughed twice, two coughs that sounded suspiciously fake. “Tell her I fought bravely. Tell her I fought to the end. Find Ferdinand, tell him I loved him. I loved him ever since I first saw him.”
Her health suddenly rocketed back up on its own. She’d taken one of her own health potions. I sighed, relieved.
“The light, I think I see the light,” she croaked as I sat back and crossed my arms. Her eyes were clenched shut in mock pain. “This mortal coil is shed.”
“Oh, get up,” I said, looking about the room. “Help me loot all this crap.”
25
After snagging the neighborhood map, I spent some time grabbing all the weight equipment I could carry. There was a lot of it. Free weights and dumbbells littered the room. I took them all. I grabbed multiple weight benches, which weighed nothing once I removed the bars. I broke down a door I hadn’t noticed earlier, and within were several mats and heavy medicine balls and various pieces of broken gym equipment along with some wrenches and other tools. All into the inventory, including the broken door. I then took everything off the office counter on the receptionist’s desk, including a laptop computer with a dead battery, and a cabinet filled with paper files.
“Why are you even bothering?” Donut asked, having fully recovered. She frantically attempted to clean the blood off of herself. She was caked. She needed a shower and a brushing. The brushing part was going to be a problem.
&n
bsp; “If we can lift it, then we take it,” I said. “It only takes a second. The system is really good about categorizing it all. For some things, like that cabinet, it’s faster to pick the whole thing up and add everything into the inventory than it is to search it. For example,” I held out my hand, and a half-full bottle of Johnny Walker Black appeared. “This was hidden in that cabinet somewhere. The inventory system lets me keep it all together, and it lets me take things out of it, too. It’s great once you figure out how to work it. We don’t know what will be useful and when, so if it’s not bolted to the ground, it’s going into the bag.”
Our next stop was a nearby training guild. Thanks to the boss being a higher level than expected, we both hit level nine. The wide expanse of experience needed to hit level ten spread before us. We also both had piles of loot boxes to open.
“Three stars I see,” Mordecai said as we entered the training guild. He paused, his eyes going glossy for a moment. “You took out a level nine boss on your own? Most impressive!”
“Yeah, it was a dumb idea,” I said. “Not knowing what we’re going to face really sucks. It’s hard to prepare for fights when you’re going in blind.” I sat heavily in the chair while Donut leaped for the fireplace and paused her manic cleaning to open her boxes.
The rat creature nodded. “Let me examine the fight notes, and I can tell you what you can improve upon.”
He grunted after a moment. “Okay, a couple things are clear. First off, brilliant move killing the goblin boss. Those guys are tough, but they aren’t as hard as that thing you just fought. That’s a new one to me.” He shook his head. “The Juicer.”
“I think it was somebody from our world mixed up with one of those troglodytes,” I said. “He wasn’t as lucid as the Hoarder lady had been. They’d done something to him to make him say all that dumb shit. The bosses are caricatures, exaggerated stereotypes. It’s like they’re being controlled by an AI, but their consciousness is still rattling around in there, too. It’s really bizarre.”
Dungeon Crawler Carl Page 18