Chapter 50 (Patreon)

Chapter 50

“This is called the Over City,” Mordecai said as we walked along the wooden street. My minimap was awash in the white dots of NPCs. Mordecai’s dot had turned to a yellow star. A few blue dots of other crawlers were scattered about, but not many. “Where you exited the second floor has no bearing on where you enter this floor. It is completely random. So you will now be mixed in with crawlers from around the world.” 

“So Brandon and crew could be anywhere?” I asked. “How big is this place?” 

Donut sat on my shoulder and Mongo stood on her back, like we were a goddamned circus act. With my increased strength, I barely felt their presence. Many of the NPCs stopped and gawked at us as we passed. Most of the NPCs in this area were humanoid dwarves, but a mix of regular humans and orcs and elf-like creatures also walked about. All wore medieval-style clothing. Larger, armored guards with obscured faces also strolled about. 

“Yes, they could be anywhere,” Mordecai said. “Their location is based on the location of their game guide. You can talk to them directly, but they probably don’t know where they are in relation to you. They had someone called Mistress Tiatha as their guide. I don’t know her that well, but I can try to figure out where she is if you’d like.” 

“So is this one giant city?” 

He nodded. “The Over City levels are a tradition in Dungeon Crawler world. There are hundreds of small, scattered villages surrounded by wide swaths of abandoned city. It’s all connected. As far as you’re concerned, these urban areas appear every three levels.” He stomped his foot on the rickety ground. “Most of this is just window dressing. You’re still below the surface of your planet. That isn’t really the sky of some distant world. Think of this as a stage set for the benefit of the viewers. This and all the following floors will be significantly smaller than the first two, with the exception of the ninth floor. This one is probably about the size of the state of Arizona. About 300,000 square kilometers. Most of that is the ruins.” 

“What about these NPCs?” I asked. 

A pair of dwarven girls, no older than teenagers, were practically swooning at the sight of Mordecai. They said something, trying to get his attention. He growled at them, and they scattered, giggling. 

“Oh, they’re very real. They are living, biological creatures similar to some of the mobs. Most have been engineered by the Borant Corporation, and therefore are owned by the Borant Corporation. This is the only world they know and have ever known.”

“That’s really fucked up. Do they know what they are?” 

“Their minds are altered every time they are regenerated. The next time this floor is formed on some distant planet, these NPCs will wake up like it is just another day. But they will have also been changed, planted with false memories. Inconvenient memories—like some crawler sitting them down and explaining to them that they’re props on an intergalactic television series—will be erased. Take those goblins you told me about, for instance. They were addicted to meth. They were fighting the llamas over it. That storyline didn’t exist in the previous season. That was added for this world and this world only. Next time they’ll be addicted to solar berry extract or something like that. Or they’ll be fanatics of some god. Or something else.” 

“What the hell,” I said. That was just as bad, and in some ways worse, than what they were doing to me and my fellow humans. “But these are still living creatures? How is that legal?” 

“Borant created them, so they own them. One can’t alter the memories of naturals. People who were born in a natural biological process. Not unless they sign away their rights.”

“And people are okay with this?” 

“Most are. The galaxy, as a whole, has plenty of other things to worry about. The rules regarding this stuff is pretty strict, almost as strict as it is regarding AIs. These biologically printed mobs and NPCs are not allowed to exist outside of a Syndicate-monitored production. Using them for any purpose other than sanctioned entertainment is highly illegal. It’s basically considered a war crime.”  

“So there’s no intergalactic brothels filled with genetically-engineered women?” 

Mordecai grimaced. “Not legal ones. But there is one place where such things do exist legally.” He pointed down. 

“But you said…” The realization struck me. “Oh, so the deeper floors?” 

“That’s right,” Mordecai said. “This third floor won’t have any tourists on it. Most of them are on the 18th floor. It’s like a billionaire’s luxury retreat. The galaxy’s rich and elite congregate on the 18th floor to party and gamble and satiate their most base desires.” 

“I don’t understand,” I said. “I assumed the 18th floor would be hell on earth filled with dragons and lightning giants and shit. What would happen if a crawler managed to get there?” 

“Nobody ever has,” Mordecai said. “So I don’t know. The same with the 15th floor. Borant and the system AI are required to have a plan in place, but nobody has ever gotten that deep, so nobody knows. That sort of thing is way above my pay grade.” 

As we walked, we passed multiple shops and guildhalls and inns. The inns were listed as Saferooms on my minimap.

Mordecai spent some time explaining class and skill guildhalls. Donut and I both could train at Rogue guildhalls. Donut also had access to Bard halls. Sometimes there would be special halls for certain races, too. He said he’d never seen a Primal hall, but it was possible it existed. Quadrupeds generally didn’t have halls. 

We reached the end of the street where a small fence had been erected. A pair of the well-armored guards stood by a small gate about as high as my waist. The two guards were head-to-toe in plate mail, and I couldn’t tell what sort of creature they were. Only that they were bulky and tall. Each were armed with long, steel blades. I examined one. 

Village Guard Swordsman – Level 75

Everyone likes the strong, silent type. In order to find out what’s underneath that helmet, you’ll have to first kill the guard. Go ahead and give it a try. I double-dog dare you. 

Village Guards are tasked with protecting the population centers of the third floor from the creatures who roam the Over City Ruins. They are only on duty when the sun is up, so don’t go whining to them for help when it’s dark.

The guard was unmoving. He stood there like a statue. 

“He’s kind of scary,” Donut said as we paused at the gate. 

“Don’t mess with the guards,” Mordecai said. “Don’t attack the NPCs. Don’t try to rob the stores. Don’t get drunk and pass out in the streets. There is no jail here. Only the death penalty. If you run afoul of the guards, don’t try to fight them. They are slow, but there are a lot of them. Run from them and into the ruins. They won’t follow you there. You will never be able to return to that particular village.” 

Beyond the gate were more buildings, but they were decrepit and abandoned, made of crumbling, moss-covered bricks, slumping in on themselves. A rolling fog obscured the distance, but even in the shadows of the fog I could see distant buildings of all shapes and sizes. 

“Okay,” Mordecai said, indicating the area beyond the gate. “The ruins. It’s the same as the dungeon, but it’s all old, rotting buildings, abandoned and overgrown parks and so forth. There’s this whole storyline about the existence of the city. It’s all based on some children’s story that never made it into your earth’s culture. Basically there’s this massive, dormant volcano, and a magical world existed solely inside of the volcano. That world consisted of six layers. The very top layer is where we are now, the Over City. It is where most of the people lived. A great monster lived at the bottom of the volcano and breathed out poison gas one day and killed or transformed 90% of the volcano world. The descendants of the survivors live in these villages. The resulting monsters live in the ruins.” 

“That’s quite morbid,” Donut said.  

“So what’s the next level down?” I asked. 

“For you, the fourth level is just a random dungeon level. Same with the fifth. But the sixth floor is also part of this volcano city storyline. For the NPCs here, it is the next level down. It is called the Hunting Grounds. It’s another urban level with similar villages, though the villages are much bigger, and the original residents were much more wealthy. The ruins are jungle-like and filled with vines. And it’s the first level where brave and insane tourists can go to hunt crawlers. Not too many do it because it’s both expensive and dangerous. There are no protections for the hunters. They’re in real danger from both the mobs and the crawlers, and every season a handful of rich dumbasses get themselves killed.”

“What about gods?” 

“That’s a whole different thing, and those don’t appear until the fourth floor. I’ll explain that later. For now, you need to get to work.” 

“Okay,” I said, turning back to the village. “So there are shops here. Should we go shopping now? And should we open our boxes now?”

“Yes, shopping,” Donut said. “Definitely shopping.”  

“Not here,” Mordecai said. “This is a small village. These shops are overpriced and will gouge you and won’t buy any of your items. You need to get yourself to a larger settlement, and there’s very little time.” He pointed east. “See that wider road there? Follow it for about a half day, and you’ll come across a bigger village. This will have better, richer shops.” 

“How do you know?” I asked.

Mordecai pointed at a discolored rock on the ground just outside the gate. “Focus on that, and select the tooltip that pops up.” 

I did as he asked. “Holy shit,” I said a minute later. 

A holographic sign popped up, growing out of the ground like a tree. It showed arrows with signs and distances in kilometers. Pointing north along the main road it said “Medium Sized Skyfowl Settlement. 25 Kilometers.” There were other signs, too, pointing to saferooms, restrooms, and most importantly, stairs. The closest set of stairs was six kilometers away. 

“So there are saferooms in the ruins? We don’t have to rely on the villages? And do the villages have names?” 

“Yes. The saferooms and restrooms will be scattered the same as before. There will not be tutorial guilds in the ruins. Only in the villages. Not that it matters as I’ll teleport to the saferooms anyway. Also, the villages don’t have names. The system designates them as tiny, small, medium, large, and extra-large. Not very exciting. This one is small. You can actually name them yourself if you manage to kill the mayor. Don’t bother, at least on this floor. You’ll likely end up dead, and it doesn’t come with any real benefits when the timer is only eight days.” 

“Okay,” I said. “So I guess we’ll grind our way to that other village.” 

He nodded. “Make sure you check out the signs every once in a while to make sure you’re still on the correct track. All medium villages on this floor will have a tutorial guild. Meet me there. When you get there, we’ll hit some shops together.” 

“Will the monsters be a lot harder on this floor?” 

“Oh yeah,” Mordecai said, grinning sheepishly. “I should probably tell you this part. It’s hard to remember without my checklist. So there is night and there is day on this floor. There will always be monsters in the ruins. They are more dangerous at night. The daytime ones should be cake for you two, but you might want to keep Mongo back at first. Don’t go out at night until I say you’re ready. The villages will always be safe during the day. At night, only the village main roads are safe. Usually. The alleys will be very dangerous. In some cases, more dangerous than the ruins.” He flapped his incubus wings a few times and looked directly at me. “Stay away from girls with horns on their heads. Your charisma is a lot higher than it was before, and they are attracted to that. They will be coming out of the woodwork at you. Work on your punching skills, and use that new Fear spell every single fight. Remember to stop at a saferoom so Donut can get her next spellbook from the book of the floor club.”

“I forgot about that!” Donut said. 

Mordecai turned and started walking back into the village. He was making a bee-line straight for a pub. He called over his shoulder, “Don’t stop at the first saferoom you find though. Give it at least an hour. Maybe two. And Donut, keep working on that Magic Missile spell. You’re almost at skill level 10. I’ll be on chat if you need me.”

“If I had known he was going to be so bossy, I wouldn’t have picked that Manager benefit,” Donut muttered. 

“Shut up, Donut,” I said under my breath as I lifted the latch to the small gate that led out into the ruins. It opened with a noisy screech. The two guards didn’t move a muscle. We wandered out into the streets, leaving the safety of the village behind.