Chapter 61 (Patreon)

The moment we stepped outside of Mordecai’s guild room, I pulled up the town’s map, and I looked for the smallest pub I could find. I found one a few blocks away that didn’t appear to be along any main roads, so we headed toward it. I had been so desperate to find other people when we first got into the dungeon, but for now I just wanted to sleep. The way the other crawlers pointed and gasped when they saw us, it wasn’t something I could deal with. Not tonight.   

Mongo kept biting at the air. Getting the two chompers on him had been easier than I had expected. The way the system had described it, I’d have thought it would be a difficult procedure. But both of the golden fangs resized themselves and snapped easily into his mouth, clicking into place like they were Legos. He’d patiently allowed me to do it, whimpering, like a dog getting his nails clipped. It’d only taken about five seconds. Now when he snapped his teeth, little tendrils of electricity exploded from his mouth. It’d scared him so much at first he’d actually peed himself, which had caused Mordecai to devolve into a torrent of arm-waving shouts and swears. But once Mongo realized the electric bites didn’t hurt him, he spent every moment afterward chomping the air and grunting with excitement at the little sparks. 

It wasn’t quite dark yet, but we stuck to the center of the street. Skyfowls continued to sweep through the air above us. Most of the buildings in town were at least two levels, and many featured large, open windows so the fliers could come and go as they pleased. In fact, some buildings appeared to be completely empty on the first floor while businesses and restaurants filled the higher levels, all catering to the eagle folk. 

Most of the shops were now closed, curtains tight, so we couldn’t even window shop. Before we left, Mordecai reiterated his warning to stay out of the alleys when it was dark. The guards remained on patrol, but I knew they would soon disappear. The city became a free-for-all at night. I wanted to be settled well before then. I could only handle so much drama and violence a day.   

The pub was called The One-Eyed Narwhal, but the logo was of a fat, bald human unzipping his pants, grinning lewdly. 

“Carl, this place looks disgusting,” said Donut. Most of the buildings on this street were in various stages of disrepair. I didn’t see any eagles here, either. It was mostly orcs, ogres, and humans. “There was a place back there called the Hot Schnitzel. It looked much more inviting. It had flowers out front.” 

“This place will be fine,” I said as I opened the door, looking about. The pub was almost empty. A single orc NPC sat in one corner, drinking. The place was set up similarly to the last pub. There was a bar and the three televisions. It smelled of beer and grease. My eyes caught the player countdown, and I sighed. 

649,433. 

That was tens of thousands of people dead since the last I’d looked. But at the same time, that number had slowed profoundly. The people who’ve made it this far mostly know what they’re doing now. 

The pub only had four rooms available, and they cost 20 gold each, much more expensive than the last place. But we had plenty to spare, I still had no idea whether or not we were being ripped off. 

To my surprise, the proprietor wasn’t a Bopca, but a human. It was a large, bald level-30 man named “Fitz.” He was the person depicted on the exterior sign, though the real-life version was twice as fat.

“Your majesty,” Fitz said as we approached the counter. “What a pleasure. What an absolute pleasure. I’ve never had royalty in the Narwhal. Not once. Are you just dining tonight, or will you require a room as well?” 

“Why hello, Fitz,” Donut said, jumping on the counter. “We require two rooms. One for Carl and myself, and one for…” Mordecai popped into the room, right on cue. The incubus said nothing and immediately moved to the bar. He leaned over to gaze at the line of bottles. “And one for this gentleman. What are your fish selections this evening?” 

As Donut and the human discussed our dinner, I sat down at a table. I watched Mordecai as he waited to order his drink. We couldn’t get away from him, and he couldn’t get away from us. I hadn’t really thought too much on the implications of the manager benefit from that angle. That was going to get really old really fast. 

I’d thrown ten of my stat points into strength and two into constitution. My strength without the gauntlet was now 30. I was literally as strong as six regular humans, and that really had a way of messing with your mind. I grasped the edge of the thick, wooden table. It felt solid, like any normal hunk of aged wood. I squeezed, and I felt the possibility there. I could rip a hunk of wood off the edge if I wanted to. I felt the potential of my power. The whole thing was just so surreal.

“Now don’t be giving this guy any of your potions,” Donut was saying at they came to sit at the table. Mongo ran across the room and started sniffing at the orc in the corner, but the large creature—a woman orc, actually—ignored the dinosaur. He grunted indignantly and returned to us.

The recap show came on just as our food was delivered. Donut received some sort of halibut thing, Mordecai a bowl of soup, Mongo a plate filled with raw meat, and I got a hamburger that tasted suspiciously like it came from Burger King. 

The recap didn’t show anything too interesting, though they were now focusing on a few crawlers I hadn’t seen before. One was a guy with an alligator head and what looked like a Mossberg mag-fed shotgun. He never seemed to run out of shells, and I wondered what the story was there. 

“I’m more concerned with how he gets that T-shirt on and off with such a giant head,” Donut said.   

They also showed the goat lady that Mordecai had told us about a while back. She’d entered the dungeon with 15 goats and managed to keep them all alive for a while. Now it looked as if she only had five left. She remained human, and she’d clearly chosen some sort of mage class. Three of the burly, brown and white goats remained unchanged. In my late teens before I’d joined the military, the home had made us all get jobs, and I’d spent the summer working on a small farm who had multiple types of goats, including these guys. Boer goats. They were bred for meat, not dairy, I remembered. The bucks were heavy fuckers, heavier than they looked. It took three of us to lift one of them. 

The other two remaining goats had changed. 

“It looks like she got two of those enhanced pet biscuits,” I said. I remembered the description had said that eating the biscuit could have varied results. 

“Three, actually,” Mordecai said. “They showed what happened last night. The third biscuit didn’t go so well for her. Or several of her goats.”   

One of the goats was decked out in armor and walked on two legs alongside her. It appeared the goat had undergone a similar transformation as Donut, though I wasn’t sure if it talked or not. It wielded a double-headed axe and occasionally screamed for no reason. 

The last goat had transformed into a satanic monstrosity straight from the depths of a nightmare. 

“My word,” Donut said. “I could’ve turned into one of those?” 

Mordecai grunted. “That’s a hellspawn familiar. Carl probably would’ve been better off if you had.” 

I laughed and Donut made an indignant cat sound. 

The thing was a horse-sized, multi-breasted, pitch black goat monster that looked like it belonged on the cover of one of those 1980’s heavy metal album covers, one where if you played it backwards, the words would tell you to murder your grandma. The face still had the distinctive shape and horns of a male, boer goat. It continued to walk on all four legs, but the thing was huge, and a group of six, human-like breasts grew down the front of the creature. The entire thing had turned black, except the eyes, which glowed red. A constant wave of steam rose off of it. 

We watched as the hellspawn charged at a group of hyena-faced creatures and trampled them to death. 

“Hellspawns are some of the best, most powerful pets in the game,” Mordecai said. He looked down at Mongo. “No offense. But if she can keep that thing alive, she’s gotten it early enough that it’ll level pretty high. It’ll eventually grow wings and will be the size of a damn dragon.”

“Holy shit,” I said. “Is it too late to get another one of those biscuits and give it to Donut?” 

Mordecai laughed. 

I watched in awe as the show showed a quick, fifteen-second montage of Mongo defending Donut. The dinosaur had killed dozens of the things. 

“Good boy. Look, Mongo! You’re on TV!” Donut said. The pet jumped up and down. He no longer squeaked. Now he grunted. The amount of enthusiasm he showed was the same, but it no longer had the same effect as before. Having a kitten-sized dinosaur bouncing around you with enthusiasm is cute. Having a tiger-sized one do the same is not. 

I was shown, but only for a few seconds. The show didn’t really explain how I’d escaped.

“Don’t worry about that, lad,” Mordecai said. “Based on your numbers, everyone knows. The actual scene is the property of the Vengeance of the Daughter production, which is why they didn’t show much.” 

“I was asleep the whole time,” Donut pouted. “They barely showed me at all.”

“Sometimes even the side characters need their own episodes,” I said. 

That seemed to mollify her.  

While Donut still had many more followers than me, my view count had actually caught up with hers. I wasn’t sure which one of us hit one quadrillion first. I didn’t know if she’d noticed this or not. I hoped not. 

The announcement wasn’t too exciting. Just more of the same old stuff. There seemed to be as many bugs on this floor as they had when the dungeon first opened. 

“Just wait until you get to the themed floors,” Mordecai said. “It’s the equivalent of opening an entire theme park filled with rides and roller coasters without ever having tested a single one of them. Last Borant season, the entire fourth floor was inside of some unseen, living creature. So the crawlers were moving around intestines and whatnot. The floor was open for 20 days, and the creature they created for the level ended up with some sort of fast-moving bacterial infection that spread over the entire dungeon. The walls started caving in on themselves, filling with gore, all unintentional. That didn’t play so well with the viewers, so they probably won’t do that again.”

The woman orc who’d been drinking alone approached our table. She was an older woman, and she swayed on her feet. She instantly reminded me of an orcish, well-muscled version of Agatha. Her medieval-style shirt was stained red with blood, making her look like a butcher who’d forgotten to wear her apron to work. She wasn’t the same skin tone as the Maestro. The tooltip simply called her a Level-5 Orc NPC. Her name was GumGum.  

“I see you’re adventurers,” GumGum said, leaning in. “I really need your help.”

“No. Fuck off,” Mordecai said. “Not tonight.” 

“Well you don’t have to be rude about it,” the woman said, and she turned away. She staggered back toward her table. 

“What was that?” I asked.

“A quest,” he said. “Pubs like these will always be filled with people giving garbage quests. And we’re not doing any more quests on this floor. If you look on your minimap, there’s probably a little star on top of her icon.”

“There’s not,” I said. “It’s just a white dot.” 

“Well, not all quests show up on the map. Now we’re all going to go to bed.” 

“Fine,” I said, watching the woman settle back into her chair. The orc hung her head low, and she put her face into her hands, and she began to weep. 

~

At this point, you’re probably suspecting that I waited for Mordecai to go to bed, and then I sneaked out of my room, went to GumGum the orc, and asked her what she needed help with.

You’re almost right. The moment we went to our room, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. It was stupid, especially after Mordecai had explicitly told us to just leave it, but I couldn’t get the sight of the woman crying out of my mind. I’d told Donut I needed to use the restroom. So I went back out there. 

Mordecai sat at the bar, drinking and chatting with Fitz the barkeep. GumGum was gone. 

“She left already,” Mordecai said after I returned from the restroom, having pretended I used it. “Look, kid. Let me give you some advice. You can’t save them all. The people running this, they know who you are. They will always be baiting you. Worry about yourself first. If you truly want to help others, your best bet is to get as strong as possible, and get deep as possible.” 

I didn’t respond. I returned to the room. Donut peered down at me from the top of the cat tree. 

“Did you get the quest?” she asked.

“Holy shit, am I that predictable?” I asked. 

“Sometimes,” she said. And we went to sleep. 

~  

The first thing we did the next day was—finally—start to check out some of the town’s shops. 

“Here’s today’s plan,” Mordecai said. “You shop. Then you spend the day grinding. You find a neighborhood boss. You kill it. You get back here before dark. Afterward, if you’re not too tired, then we go to the club. You do not go to the Desperado Club without an escort.” 

“Yay!” Donut said. “Today is going to be the best day ever. Shopping and clubbing! And then tomorrow we go on another interview.” 

“One thing at a time, Donut,” I said as we opened the door of the shop. This place was called Lucky’s General Goods. A bell tinkled as I pushed the door. Dust swirled, and I sneezed. 

Entering Shop. 

Mostly-empty shelves spread along the walls. Behind the counter stood a Skyfowl. The level-30’s name was Edge Dancer. He clicked his beak at us, blinking rapidly. 

“Okay,” Mordecai said. “This is a general store, and it’s the most common kind of shop you’ll find. The more specialized type shops, like the armorers and potion shops are usually only found in settlements. You will find random shops such as this one scattered around the dungeons from now on. Carl, your Charisma is pretty good, and you will usually get a good price. But you are no Donut. Always leave the negotiations to her. She will get you the best prices, and she will sell your items for the most.” 

“That is because I am a master shopper,” Donut said, strolling into the shop. She looked about with disdain. “This place doesn’t have the greatest selection, does it?” 

“You’ve never been in a store before in your life,” I said. I picked up a familiar item off the shelf. It was a coconut. A tooltip popped up, though it was shaped differently than usual. 

Coconut.
21 Gold.
This is food. I think. Humans do something with it. Dunno, really. 

“So this is important,” Mordecai said. “As you can see, the descriptions of the items in the shops are not provided by the system AI. The shopkeepers are responsible for labeling everything. The rules state that they can’t lie. So they can’t sell you something labeled as a health potion when it’s really poison. But they are allowed to exaggerate. And they will. Luckily for you, Donut, you will usually be able to get an accurate description out of the shopkeeper as long as your Charisma is higher than their level. You’ll want to practice your haggling and negotiation skills each time you enter a shop. Once you train it enough, most items will give you a warning if the description is too overstated.” 

“I take offense, demon,” Edge Dancer said. The eagle glared at Mordecai. “If you knew the SkyFowl people, you would know we never cheat our customers.”

Mordecai laughed. “SkyFowl merchants will always try to cheat those without wings,” he said. “My people can be a bit xenophobic. And they’ll act indignant when you call them out on it.” 

Edge Dancer started to say something, but he abruptly snapped his beak shut when Donut jumped on the counter. “You are a handsome fellow,” Donut said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bird as strong-looking as you.”

The eagle stood straighter. “Thank you, your majesty. Is there anything I can help you with today?” 

From there, we proceeded to sell a handful of the non-magical, useless crap from our inventory. These guys didn’t have unlimited money like some merchants did in games. We had to move to five different general stores to get rid of most of our stuff. Mordecai told us to hold onto the jugs of moonshine, but all the weapons and random items all went to the merchants. Donut was, indeed, a master negotiator. While she ordered the pub owners around like indentured servants, she treated the shopkeepers with pure sweetness and sugar, and they loved her for it.

“Is that the best we can do today, Sweetie?” she asked yet another SkyFowl proprietor. This one’s name was Talon Strong. He looked thoughtful as he considered buying a pile of spears we’d looted on the first floor from the raccoon-headed scat thugs. 

When Donut had used her Character Actor skill to choose the Artist Alley Merchant class as the one to emulate on this floor, it had come with multiple skills and benefits, including a huge discount for buying items. Unfortunately, because of the way the Character Actor skill worked, she hadn’t received the extra discount. She did, however, receive the extra 15% one received from selling items. And she flexed that skill to the best of her ability. She was in her element. 

“I can give you an extra five for the lot,” Talon Strong said. 

“You’re the best!” Donut said, and the eagle preened. 

“I’m starting to think you actually had this all planned out when you picked that class,” I whispered as we walked from the store. 

“Of course I did,” Donut said. “I knew we’d be selling everything on this floor, so I picked that merchant class. Miss Beatrice didn’t call me Princess Money Bags for nothing.” 

“I’m pretty sure it was ‘Princess Money Pit.’ She called you that because we spent more on you than we did for our rent.” 

“Well obviously that investment paid off, didn’t it Carl?”  

“Think of general stores like 7-11s,” Mordecai said, interrupting. We now had a pool of about 50,000 gold, which apparently was pretty good. “They’re convenience stores. You buy from them as a last resort. They’re fine to sell stuff to because they’ll take almost anything, but even with your discounts, you’ll pay three times as much for the basics. So if you want potions, go to a potion store. You want spells, go to a spell store. If you can find one. Also, some guilds will sell stuff, too.”

This particular town didn’t have a spell store. There were dozens and dozens of places, but most of it was useless to us. We needed magical gear and items to increase Donut’s Constitution, but there just wasn’t any of that here. There were several potion stores, however, and Mordecai made me purchase 10K gold worth of alchemical supplies. 

We bought one additional item. We spent 15,000 gold on a magical pet carrier for Mongo. Neither Donut nor Mongo were too hot on the idea, but Mordecai pointed out that her pet wasn’t properly resting at night. It appeared the dinosaur now felt obligated to protect us in our sleep, despite being a safe room, and it was negatively affecting his stats. The carrier would allow him to rest. Plus, Mordecai added, no pets were allowed in the Desperado Club. They had a “play room” for familiars, but their safety wasn’t guaranteed. Donut finally relented. 

The device was actually kind of cool. It was a square, brown box the size of a Rubik’s Cube. It had a symbol etched on the outside that looked like a fire hydrant. When Donut pulled it from her inventory, she could activate it, and Mongo would get zapped in there. He’d sleep and regain his strength while he was in the cube. She could call him back out with a press of the button.

“Later, you may get a mount that works in a similar fashion,” Mordecai said. “There aren’t any stables here, so when merchants sell mounts, they usually come with a rudimentary pet carrier.”  

“What’s the difference between a mount and a pet?” I asked. 

“Some pets can be both, but plain mounts tend to have low life points and little to no personality,” Mordecai said. “You can have as many mounts as you want, though they’re usually expensive. And you have to feed them. Mounts don’t level or grow stronger.”    

After we shopped, Mordecai walked us to the edge of town. “No quests. No elites. Kill mobs. When you find a boss, make sure it’s a neighborhood boss and nothing bigger. Keep in touch. Get back here before dark.” 

“Easy,” Donut said. 

~

And believe it or not, the next several hours were relatively uneventful. We found a cluster of these creatures that looked like a cross between floating squids and umbrellas. They had a psionic attack, but because of our high charisma, we weren’t effected. These were called Brain Boilers, and they were upgraded versions of the Mind Horrors we’d briefly faced on the second floor. They moved slowly and were easy to kill. A few of them dropped ink pouches as loot, which Mordecai got pretty excited about. 

I alternated between punching and kicking attacks. Mostly punching with these guys. Mongo easily ripped them to shreds, and we had to hold him back as he’d become a serious experience hog. 

Donut alternated between her Magic Missile attacks, her Second Chance, and her Clockwork Triplicate. I would also cast Fear, but the spell wasn’t too effective against them.  

But I did manage to level my Iron Punch skill up to ten with the gauntlet bonus. The tenth level of the skill added something called the Breadbasket effect. Basically if I landed a solid blow to the mob, there was a 10% chance to stun it for several seconds. 

The neighborhood boss fight could’ve gone south pretty quickly, but thanks to Donut’s new Acute Ears skill, we knew it was lurking around the corner when we approached. The monster was called the Dispenser, and it looked like a giant manta ray thing. It blended in with the entire side of a building and tried to drop on us as we passed. But we’d been ready, and Donut attacked with two reanimated Brain Boilers, and once it’d peeled itself off the wall, we had a clockwork Mongo run at it with a stick of dynamite in each hand. The whole fight lasted less than a minute. 

The real Mongo screamed in dismay at the suicide attack, but Donut managed to keep the pet under control. We added that move to our playbook. We called it, “The Boomy Boy.” 

As long as I could keep my supply of dynamite healthy, it was a super-effective anti-boss attack. 

By the end of the fight, Donut had leveled up to 16. I was still at 18, but teetering on 19. Mongo hit level 11. We’d all nudged a few of our skills up as well. 

As we turned back toward the town, I spied a single white dot of an NPC and a large group of X’s on the map one block over. This was just outside of town, right past the wall. As I watched, the white dot disappeared into town and then returned a few moments later. A new X appeared next to the NPC. Just on the other side of the fence, within the city limits, stood a pair of guards. So whatever this was, it couldn’t be something too untoward. 

“Let’s go check that out,” I said. 

“It smells really bad,” Donut said. Mongo grunted in agreement. We turned down the street and edged our way toward the NPC. 

“Oh, Carl,” Donut said as we got closer. “Did you know she would be here?”

“No,” I said. “But the game knew that we would be.”    

It was GumGum the orc. I watched as the large woman easily tossed a dead body onto a pile of other bodies in the middle of the street. This was a mix of humans, orcs, and dwarves. There was about fifteen of them, all piled on top of one another. 

I tried examine one of the dead NPCs, but the system helpfully grouped them all together for me.   

Pile of Dead Hookers.
Well isn’t this awkward? 

Sure enough, all of the corpses appeared to be female. All of them wore provocative clothing. They were all contorted and bent in odd ways, as if the manner of death was by a giant picking them up and twisting them like dish rags. One of them, a dwarf, didn’t appear to have a head at all. 

“So,” I said, stepping forward. GumGum startled and whirled on me. “This isn’t something you see every day.”

“Adventurer,” she said. She wiped her hand on her shirt. “I was hoping to catch you on your return today. I spied your party leaving this morning.” 

“And you thought to greet us with a mountain of rotting prostitutes?” Donut asked. “I’m not sure where you’re from, but the cultured amongst us no longer use corpses as conversation starters. Next time maybe just bring Carl a milkshake. He likes milkshakes.” 

“These are the women I’ve found today,” GumGum said. “There is something killing them, and we don’t know what it is. And we don’t know who these women are, either. They’re not from this town. We find them in the alleys, scattered throughout every morning. We pile them up outside the gates, and the Street Urchins take care of them. But we find new ones every day. Sometimes it’s just one or two, but sometimes, like last night, it’s a lot.” GumGum took a deep breath, and I realized she was holding back tears. “It’s not right. The SkyFowl don’t seem to care as long we move the bodies out. The guards don’t work at night. But these were people, and they’re just dead. And I don’t know why. Can you help me?”

“Uh oh,” Donut said just before the notification came.   

New Quest. The Sex Workers Who Fell From the Heavens. 

Prostitutes. Escorts. Street Walkers. Ladies of the Night. 

It doesn’t matter how you describe them because these chicks are dead. Very dead. And every morning, several of them appear scattered throughout the village. Find out why.  

Reward: You will receive a Silver Quest Box.   

“Silver?” Donut said. “The last quest was a gold box.” 

“The last one involved a couple elites and a city boss. This one must be easier,” I said. I leaned in and examined one of the dead women. This one was a human. She had distinctive wounds on her shoulders. I’d almost missed it because her entire body had been twisted so her pelvis faced the wrong way. The orc next to her held the same injuries. All of the pale bodies seemed to glow in the dying light of the day. 

“Well, Mordecai is going to be upset,” Donut said. 

“We’ll see what we can do,” I said to GumGum before we turned back into town. After we passed through the gates, I thought of what Mordecai had said the previous evening. You can’t save them all. 

“Don’t worry,” I said to Donut once GumGum was out of earshot. “We had a good day today. I’m not going to let it get derailed by a quest.” 

“That’s what you said last time,” said Donut.