Chapter 36 (Patreon)

All of my menus disappeared. My entire HUD snapped off. It was just like it had been when we’d been transported up to the production boat floating on the surface. 

I just stared at the person, uncomprehending for several seconds. Are you kidding me with this shit? 

It was a kua-tin. A female kua-tin. I remembered the massive carving on the doors, and I compared it to this creature. Before, I’d seen similar sea creatures in the audience at the taping of Odette’s show. I now knew that those were not kua-tin. Those people were very different. And while the gigantic relief carvings on the doors did an adequate job portraying the aquatic race’s features, it left one important detail out. 

This kua-tin stood about two feet tall. She was barely tall enough to reach my knee. I examined the woman’s properties. 

Zev – Borant Corporation Assistant Communications Representative.

This is a Dungeon Admin.  

That was it. No additional information, no snarky AI talking about mudskippers.  

I took me several moments to take in her outfit. 

Zev looked like an astronaut from a 1950’s sci-fi comic. She wore a round, glass helmet filled with water. A pair of tubes snaked from the back of the helmet to a bulky backpack. The water bubbled like she was in a portable fish tank. The rest of her humanoid fish body was hidden inside of a white, mesh spacesuit. The whole getup was half space-age, half old-school deep diving suit.  

“Good evening, ma’am,” Mordecai said, standing straight. 

“Hello, Mordecai,” the fish woman said, her voice amplified through a little speaker on her outfit. 

There was something about the woman that suddenly made Mordecai visibly relax, but I couldn’t see or tell what it was. There might have been an exchange I couldn’t hear. I just didn’t know. Even Donut seemed to notice. The cat kept looking back and forth between the tiny fish and the large guildmaster. 

“Ma’am, I must say. I haven’t seen one of these water suits in centuries,” Mordecai said, walking around the woman. “Most Kua-Tin wear rebreathers around their necks. You can barely see them.” 

“I’ve been assured the armor of this device is second to none. If one of my fellow employees wishes to enter this godsforsaken place without any proper armor, then that is on them.” 

“Ma’am, I don’t want to sound rude. But can you move in that thing?” Mordecai asked.  

“No,” she admitted. “Not really. If you must know, this is my first foray into a dungeon, and I wanted to be safe.” 

“So you’re really here,” I said. I resisted the urge to reach down and tap on the glass. 

“Yes,” she said, looking up at me. “Other corporations may utilize holos for their training guilds and admins, but Borant prefers a more fins-on approach.” 

“You know you’re in no danger while you’re in a safe room,” Mordecai said. “The mobs know not to attack you. And the AI negates all attacks inside of safe areas. Unless you’re planning on going for a stroll, ma’am, I wouldn’t worry about it.” 

“Yeah, well tell that to those twelve workers in Site Prep. Did you see this morning’s update? They were swallowed whole!”

I had no idea what was going on with this exchange, but Zev seemed to realize she was talking in front of a pair of crawlers. She returned her gaze up at us. 

“Anyway, I wanted to talk to you two face to face,” Zev said. “This will only take a quick crutch of your time.”

“I don’t know what that means, but go ahead,” I said.  

“So my name is Zev, and I work within the Borant Corporation’s communications department. I am a liaison between Borant and privately-owned and operated programs who wish to, uh, borrow crawlers for their shows. We have identified several individuals and teams who have gained early popularity. As is probably no surprise to you, you two are on that list.” 

On my shoulder, I felt Donut’s claws sink deep into me. The cat was shuddering with pleasure. 

“We’ve already been on one show,” I said. “Dungeon Crawler After Hours With Odette.” 

“Yes,” she said. “I am aware. Certain production companies are allowed to pluck crawlers away between stairwells. But if they want to transport crawlers to their sets any other time, after boss battles for example, they must arrange it through our office. Usually these requests are granted automatically, but once crawlers reach a certain level of notoriety, the number of requests can become a bit overwhelming. We generally don’t want our crawlers to leave the game more than twice a floor. As you’ve already received over two dozen interview requests from this most recent boss battle alone, you have automatically been entered into the Crawler Assisted Outreach Program. In other words, you’ve been assigned a PR Agent. Me.” 

“You’re our agent? Our PR agent? You get us gigs?” Donut asked, voice full of wonder. 

“That’s right,” Zev said. “From now on, all interview and panel requests will filter through me. I have opened up a special chat channel so I can send you messages through your interface.” Zev looked about distastefully. “Also, they make me come down here and talk to you directly after interviews for a debriefing.” 

“This is absolutely fabulous,” Donut said. “Can we provide advance riders? Like with makeup and green room requirements?” 

“How about a more important question,” I asked. “Can we refuse interviews? Last time we didn’t have much of a choice.” 

She nodded. “I will always ask you before whisking you away. But,” she leaned in, and her entire outfit creaked ominously, “Odette has already contracted with our office. She gets first right of refusal for each floor down. You’re already locked into those interviews, and as long as you keep your numbers up, you will go on her show. That means I’ll try to schedule one additional interview for each floor down. You can refuse what show you go on, but I’m afraid you’ll be obligated to pick something. We might move to three interviews for the lower floors depending on how it’s going and whether or not the party keeps insisting on accelerating the game. And if you survive, of course. But whatever happens, I promise I will do my best to get you quality gigs.”

“What about now?” Donut asked. “Do you have something for us now?” 

“Yes,” she said. “There are a few options, but for this first one, I went ahead and chose a program for you. It’s a little less serious than Odette’s show, but it will hit a demographic that you aren’t yet trending in. Plus it’s a round-table style discussion, and in this program, all crawlers get a parting gift. Sometimes it’s a joke, but it’s usually something useful.” 

“A gift?” Donut said. “Carl, we get a gift!” 

“Wait, are we doing this now?” I said. 

“No,” Zev said. “I’ll ping you when it’s time. It’ll be at minus six plus one full.” 

“Minus what?” I said. I felt a sudden, unexpected wave of rage at the fish woman. It came out of nowhere, and I didn’t know what set it off. She’s just a goddamned pawn like everyone else. It’s not her fault. Still, I couldn’t help it. She was a kua-tin. The enemy. The real enemy. And I couldn’t do anything about it. Take a deep breath. “We don’t understand your time reference.” 

She sighed. “Six hours before the next recap episode. Not the one tonight, but the next one. So in about forty hours. Since you’ll be doing your Odette interviews between floors, I figured it’d be best to schedule your second appearance right in the middle of the floor’s timer. It’ll keep interest up. Also, you should try to line up a major boss battle right as the floor closes like you did last time. That really worked in your favor.” 

That rage, which I thought I had successfully held back, bubbled up and out. “God damnit. God fucking damnit,” I said. Mordecai raised his hands in alarm, rapidly shaking his head. I didn’t care. “We are, quite literally, fighting for our lives here. We are not willing participants, and I am getting sick of pretending we are. We are going on these fucking interviews not because we want to, but because we have to.” The fish looked up at me through her helmet, eyes wide. “Zev, ma’am, whatever the hell I’m supposed to call you so you don’t send a lightning bolt up my ass, I don’t want to get in trouble with you or Borant or the Syndicate or whoever else is running this bullshit. I am doing what you have asked. I am killing monsters, trying to level up, trying to survive. I will smile, and I will joke, and I will put a proper face on when I go on these shows. But, fuck. You have already taken everything from us. Do not ask us to give more than what we have. We are not going to fight, or survive on your schedule.” 

I sat there, my chest heaving, glaring down at the fish. The world seemed frozen. Mordecai looked outright scandalized. 

Donut, who remained on my shoulder, butted her head against the side of my own. She purred, a deep, silent rumbling. Her reaction surprised me.  

But not as much as Zev’s reaction.  

“Look,” she said, after a moment. “I know. Okay? Nobody in this room is an idiot.” She pointed at Mordecai. “The moment I appeared, he was terrified of me. Once he saw I wasn’t wearing a party badge, he relaxed. When I’m done here, I go back down to the production headquarters, and I will have to face my boss who is a member of the party. If I do or say the wrong thing, my entire family will be wiped from the universe. You’re going to go out there and face mobs who know people like you are prowling the halls, trying to find and kill them. They, the sapient ones? They live in constant fear of you guys. We are all parts of the same, inevitable machine. All of us are afraid. Yes, your place in all of this really sucks. You know it. I know it. The cat knows it. But believe it or not, I am on your side. The better you do, the better I do. So when I tell you that you should do something, you better listen because I know what I’m talking about.”

Nobody moved or said anything for several seconds. We just stood there, looking at one another. 

“This is just like that scene in season 3 of Gossip Girl when Chuck and Blair break up over the hotel,” Donut said.  

I turned to regard the cat on my shoulder, and I burst out laughing. I couldn’t help it. It wasn’t funny. I’d never watched that damn show. Yet I laughed, and I had a hard time stopping. 

“No it’s not,” Mordecai said a moment later. “How do you even get that from this?” 

Zev turned her fish gaze to my cat then Mordecai. “I can’t believe it. You two have watched Gossip Girl? Nobody on my team has watched anything, except that old show COPS and Judge Judy. We’ve been stuck here for 15 solars with nothing for entertainment but earth-based programs, and I’ve had nobody to talk to about them.” 

“Oh, Honey,” Donut said, jumping down from my shoulder to sit next to the fish. “I have seen everything. Season five, the car accident?” 

“No, stop, you’re going to make me cry,” Zev said, waving her fish arms. I thought, fish can cry? They started rapidly talking with one another about the show. Bea used to sit up and re-watch the series over and over again. She’d clutch onto Donut and sob every time. 

“That was dangerous,” Mordecai whispered to me as Donut and Zev continued to talk. “She’s about as low-level as you can get and still be an Admin, but you need to control your temper. She has the power to end you. All kua-tin are dangerous, party members or not.”

“What the hell is the party?” I asked, also whispering. We both took a few steps back. He was right about my temper. I rarely lost it. But that didn’t matter right now. This was a rare opportunity, the ability to talk to Mordecai with nobody else listening. 

“It’s a political party. They’re called the Bloom. Ultranationalism. The closest thing you have in your history is maybe Axis Japan with a good splash of Nazi Germany thrown in, but even that’s not quite right,” he said. “When I signed my indentureship contract, the Bloom represented less than 15% of the votes. Now they control the whole kua-tin system government. They’ve run it into the ground. The whole system is bankrupt. They’ve recently started requiring all kua-tin to wear a badge indicating if they’re members or not.” 

“Jesus,” I said.

“Listen carefully,” Mordecai said, looking nervously down at Zev. “We don’t have time to get into the details, but Borant is being forced by their own government to end the game as quickly as possible. You need to be especially careful not to upset them.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, alarm rising. “I thought they started it early to stave off a bankruptcy. Wouldn’t they want to keep it running as long as possible?”

“I see you’ve been talking with Odette. They’re doing a cash grab with the new patron system, but they don’t get that money or any money from the advertising or the tourism funds or anything else until the season is over. They need that cash as soon as possible. But they also first need to raise enough. Their whole system is balancing on a wire. They need the game to be entertaining and profitable, but they also need it to finish much more quickly than usual. The committee has already issued a warning, putting Borant on notice over the ‘bugs’ that keep occurring, like the issue with the bathrooms and the overpowered mobs. One too many violations, and Borant could lose everything. There are protections in place, plus there is push-back within the company itself. But the kua-tin government is working extra hard to get you killed.” 

“That’s just wonderful,” I said. As if we already didn’t have enough issues. Zev looked up at me, as if surprised I was still in the room. Mordecai saw this and took a few steps away from me 

“I think it’s time for us to get back out there,” I said to Donut. “We need to finish clearing this quadrant out, then we need to escort team Meadow Lark to the stairs. I want to get it done before the next recap episode.” 

“We will talk more later,” Donut said to Zev. 

“Or, we can talk over chat!” Zev said. The fish’s demeanor had completely changed. “Tell me you’ve watched Riverdale.” 

Donut gasped.

“Noooo,” I said, reaching down to scoop the cat up. “You two will talk all night.”   

“Wait one crutch. I have to leave before you can,” Zev said as I put my hand on the door handle to the dungeon. “It’s the rules. I’ll ping you regarding the next interview.” And without further fanfare, she disappeared with a pop. Water splashed over my feet as she disappeared.    

“There’s more I want to discuss,” I said to Mordecai. All of our menus snapped back on, the HUD flickering like a booting-up computer. I pulled at the door. “But it is getting late. We’ll be...” I trailed off as I glanced at the minimap. Why had the map changed color? 

The door opened all the way, and a waist-high pile of grubs fell into the room.