Chapter 39 (Patreon)

The recap episode started with a close-up shot of Jack’s purple, veined, and uncircumcised dick, huge on the screen. The headline screamed, “Trapped! Meadow Lark and The Royal Court of Princess Donut in Peril!” 

“Wow,” Donut said. “Yours isn’t nearly that big. Or oily looking. And it doesn’t have that hat thing.”

If looks could kill, the glare Imani shot at the cat would’ve ripped her in two.

“Goddamnit, Donut,” I muttered before realizing I’d said it. “Not now.”   

The screen showed, in slow motion, Jack pulling it out, turning to the wall, and peeing. It switched to Yolanda’s horrified face, then Donut leaping for him, claws out. It showed the arrow piercing him right in the temple, of the player-killer skull icon slowly starting to form over Yolanda’s head, and then the man falling from the platform.

“I can’t watch this,” Imani said, getting up and turning away. 

A “See what happens next?” appeared on the screen. Then the show started. As promised, it was a compilation of people getting surprised by bosses leaving their rooms. I noted two different scenes with Krakaren bosses. The shots kept coming and coming, of people getting slaughtered.

I eased back in the chair and took a bite of fried chicken. It was actually pretty good. Donut sat at the table being lovingly groomed with her new brush by the Bopca Protector. The constitution buff had activated many minutes earlier, but she demanded he keep brushing.  

This safe room, like the first one we’d visited, had 20 rooms for rent. They were still free on the second level. People slept in all twenty of them. 

Outside, the rage demon continued to scream and smash at the door. It hadn’t let up, not for one second. The thing seemed to have an endless supply of energy. 

I already had a plan on how to deal with it. I discussed it over chat with Donut. I’d have to wait at least a full day—another 28 hours—before we’d be able to do it. That was how long the cooldown for my Protective Shell spell was. 

The problem was, this plan required us to abandon team Meadow Lark. Not just the elderly folks. All of them. I sighed, unable to concentrate on the show.   

Zev disappeared off the chat after the skirmish in the hallway. Donut, who’d apparently been chatting with her non-stop, was worried about her. I didn’t care. I was dreading our obligation to go on this talk show. We’d have to go onto the show before we left here. 

A wave of grubs descended upon us. I didn’t know what was going to happen once they reached the hall with the rage elemental. I was hoping perhaps they’d distract the creature, cause it to wander off. I suspected we wouldn’t get that lucky, but I had hope. Looking at the map, I guessed we’d find out just as the show ended.   

Donut and I both received a pair of achievements after our fight with the rage elemental. 

New achievement! What goes up...

You have been struck with and survived the dreaded Reverse Gravity Spell. Well, you fared better than Albert II, the first earth mammal to reach space alive. He was a rhesus monkey, in case you’re wondering. He went up just fine. He didn’t stick the landing.  

Reward: You can now tell people you’re more durable than a monkey named Albert.  

New achievement! Like a Moth to the Flame.

You attacked and caused damage to a mob that is more than 75 levels above your own. The fact that you’re reading this suggests you’re the luckiest fucker in the dungeon. Just remember, luck goes both ways, like your mom.  

Reward: You’ve received a Platinum Lucky Bastard Box! 

Both of us received a similar item in the platinum box. It was a lottery scratch-off ticket, just like any scratcher ticket one could buy at a gas station or a liquor store. The tickets themselves were different. Donut’s was red and green and had a small graphic of a troll-like creature throwing gold coins in the air. It was called Dungeon Gold Rush. She had six spots to scratch off. She immediately moved to scratch it, but received an error message telling her she couldn’t use the ticket in a saferoom. I made her hand it over so I could read the description. 

Dungeon Gold Rush!

Scratch off one spot, and depending on the symbol revealed, your next attack against a mob will have varying effects! Guaranteed laughs! One hour cooldown between scratches. 

I flipped the little cardboard ticket over, and it revealed about twenty different symbols. Most of the results were good, like Mob drops 5,000 coins or Damage against Mob is doubled. But a few of the symbols offered some not-so-good choices. Like Mob splits in two. Or Mob is invulnerable for 30 seconds. 

“Yeah, don’t use this,” I said. “Not until we talk about it some. The last thing we need is you scratching off a symbol that’ll quadruple the next mob’s strength.” 

The cat sighed. “Or, I can scratch off a symbol, and I will get 5,000 coins, Carl. Why must you always be so pessimistic?” 

“Donut. Like it said, luck goes both ways. We’ll talk about it later.” 

“Fine,” she said. I placed the ticket in front of her, and she huffed, it disappearing into her inventory. “What does yours do?”  

My ticket was the same size, but it only had five spots to scratch off. It was red on one side and pink on the other. A small, cartoon dragon sat in the corner, holding a spoon. The dragon’s tongue was out, licking its lips. I read the description. 

Fireball or Custard? 

Scratch off a spot in the midst of battle, and this zany ticket casts a spell at the closest red-tagged mob! Each spot has a 50/50 chance. Will it cast a level-15 Fireball? Will it cast a glob of delicious, healing Strawberry Custard? Who knows! Either way, the results will be a hoot! Thirty minute cooldown between scratches.     

“I love custard!” Donut cried after I showed her the ticket. She looked up at the Bopca Protector, whose name was Qwist. “Get me custard.” 

“Yes Princess. Right away, Princess. What flavor?” the Bopca asked. 

Donut had finished the custard by the time the show premiered. She’d chosen strawberry, turned her nose up at it, and went with a vanilla. We watched now as the disaster porno half of the show ended and the next part started. It was nothing new. The African warriors had finally run out of ammo. Several were using their AK-47s as clubs, but a few now had bows and arrows or swords. Lucia Mar was tearing her way through the dungeon. She had four player-killer skulls by name now, but they didn’t show why or how that happened. 

Interestingly, I noticed for the first time that neither of her rottweilers had any skulls or stars by their names. It was because they were pets, I realized. Donut had originally been listed as a pet, but she’d transformed into a crawler early on. Weird. 

The crossbow-firing Valkyrie woman and her ever-growing crowd of female warriors were also killing their way through the dungeon. They’d named their group Brynhild’s Daughters. The woman’s name was Hekla, and the announcer gave a short history of her home country of Iceland. The AI was throwing loot at her to emphasize the Nordic shieldmaiden persona she was forming, including a ridiculous, glittering breastplate that seemed more apt for the cover of a harem fantasy novel than appropriate dungeon armor. 

“She’s amazing,” Donut whispered. “We should hook up with her group.”

“Something tells me I wouldn’t be too welcome,” I said. 

The show ended with a short description of the issues with the bathrooms and some bullshit explanation why they had been forced to implement the rage elemental trap. 

“It’s not like everyone is spilling every possible bodily fluid by the gallon in the dungeon,” I said. 

It replayed the scene from the beginning of the episode with Jack whipping it out. It continued, showing Yolanda’s death in gruesome, slow-motion detail. It showed me flying up to the ceiling, Matrix-style, and then hopping to my feet and running upside-down, picking Mrs. McGibbons up and making it into the room with a millisecond to spare. I jumped out of the room brandishing the boom jug. 

The show paused, showing the recipe of the Carl’s Jug O’ Boom. My mugshot appeared briefly with Added to the Dungeon Codex stamped over it. 

The scene resumed, showing me tossing the jug at the back of the monster before slamming the door. Its health plummeted almost 25%. The six-legged, black badger thing screamed, momentarily stunned by the attack. It took a good ten seconds before it recovered, jumping up and resuming its attack against the door. It shrieked in ear-splitting fury as it healed itself. The healing moved much more slowly, I noted, thanks to the napalm-like effect of the boom jug. 

It ended with Donut saying, “Do you think it’s gonna leave?” 

The show snapped off, and nobody said anything. 

“He really did have a weird-looking dick,” Chris said after a moment. 

Imani walked up to him, wrapped her arms against the large man and started laughing and crying at the same time. 

Hello Crawlers, 

Short message today. The dungeon is humming along nicely. Thanks again for your support. We have a lot of interest already in the new patron-bidding program. So please keep up the good work! 

We have a few changes to announce. 

If you’ve watched the recap episode that just aired, you can see our penalties regarding the bathrooms have been a rousing success. The penalties will remain in place for the remainder of this floor, but I’m happy to announce they will be removed upon the collapse of this floor. Thank you everyone for your cooperation. 

The Satan’s Lil Hedgehogs mob have been removed and placed on a deeper floor. Their armor-piercing quill attack has been deemed too strong for this floor by the system AI. Apologies to all those affected. We’ve had a few complaints about the proliferation of the grub mobs. This is not a bug and is by design.

Finally, due to the abundance of Crawlers camping in safe rooms upon the collapse of the first floor, we’ve been forced to make a difficult decision. From now on, all safe rooms and safe areas will close one hour prior to floor collapse. Any Crawler who is in a designated safe area will be teleported to just outside that area at one hour prior. 

As always, kill, kill, kill! 

On the message board, a new timer appeared, just below the Time to Level Collapse timer. 

Time to Safe Room Closure. It was one hour faster than the level timer. 

I met eyes with Brandon, who looked stricken. At that moment I knew he’d been thinking the same thing as me, that it was time to just give it up. 

Donut: Our views! Carl, our views! 

Outside, the door stopped bashing itself in. It was oddly quiet. I looked up at the minimap. The mass of grubs had reached the hallway, and the elemental finally noticed them. It left the door and tore through them as I watched. It followed the line of red dots around the corner and disappeared down the hallway. I had a moment to think, shit, we should’ve been ready to run, but it was over in less than a minute. The thousands of red dots were just gone. 

The description stated the elemental dissipated after it claimed 666 souls, whatever that meant. I was hoping that the grubs counted toward that number. 

They didn’t. 

The elemental returned to the door, thrashing and smashing, trying to get back in. 

If we had run, it’d have followed us. Even if we used the Chopper, there was no way we’d have gotten away. Not unless we’d split up and gone in different directions. And even then, it probably would’ve gotten us.  

The map seemed to flicker for a moment, and a long line of Xs appeared where the grubs had all died. Already more red dots appeared, moving toward their fallen brothers and sisters. 

On the map, near the stairs, just a quarter mile away a group of fifteen red dots sat. I hadn’t noticed them before. I hovered over the icons, and the finicky map was happy to tell me what they were. 

Grub – Pupa Stage.  

A counter, currently at just under 10 hours, was ticking away next to their names. 

I remembered the scene from the recap episode. The level 93 mob, after sliding down the hall, had been hurt by my boom jug. It’d taken almost a quarter of its life away before it healed itself. 

Then, I remembered something else. It was something Rory the shamanka, the one with all the piercings on her face, had told us. I hadn’t thought much about it at the time.  

Carl: The plan has changed. We can’t wait for my shield to cooldown. 

“Come on, Donut,” I said out loud, pushing a table away in the corner of the restaurant. We were going to need a lot of space. 

“What’re you doing?” Brandon asked, standing from his table.

“Do you know what MOAB stands for?” I asked.