Chapter 80 (Patreon)

Chapter 80

Time to Level Collapse: 8 days and 18 hours. 

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The dwarf conductor on the next train was significantly grumpier than Vernon, but by the time we pulled up to station 131, we had the full list of stations all down the yellow line. Mordecai said he thought he might be onto something, but he wasn’t certain yet. Tomorrow we were to attempt to hop over to a line that didn’t intersect yellow and then get the same information. After that we’d start exploring the non-colored lines. 

We didn’t get as much killing done on the train as I’d like, but we did manage to kill a whole mess of monsters called Zlurpies, which were waist-high, semi-intelligent warrior armadillo things. They rolled into armored balls when they started to take damage, but they were small enough to be eaten whole by Mongo, who would pick them up and crunch the armored balls like they were blood-filled hard candies. 

Halfway through the skirmish with the armadillos, Mongo hit level 15.

He would continue to level after this, but he wouldn’t get any bigger. Which was good because he was now huge. He was the height of a pony, coming up to just below my shoulders. From the tip of his beak to the end of his colorful, red and blue feathered tail, he was about 13 feet long, though more than half of that was tail. The individual claws on his feet were now bigger than his entire body had been when we first got him. He still fit in the individual subway cars okay, but if we came across smaller cars with rowed seating, it was going to be a tight squeeze, especially around the poles. I suspected he was going to be spending a lot of time in his carrier.  

“Good boy! Good boy, Mongo! Carl, remember when he was a sweet, tiny, nose-chomping baby?” Donut asked. “He was just a scared little chicken. It seemed like it was just yesterday.”

“It practically was yesterday,” I said. “Look in your pet menu and see if he received any new abilities.” 

A moment later, Donut gasped. “Carl, Carl he has a special attack now! It’s called Earthquake! It’s a jump attack! Each time he leap attacks, there’s a small chance he’ll trigger an earthquake when he lands, which will knock the bad guys off their feet. He’ll get another ability when he hits level 20! What a good boy! Mommy is so proud of you!”

Mongo jumped up and down with excitement, forcing me and Katia to flee. He whipped around in a circle, his long tail twirling around the cabin. He roared, long and loud. 

Christ, I thought. I hope we never have to fight any of his kind. We’d be fucked. 

~

Station 131 was significantly larger than 83. It intersected with the Almond Line and the Jasmine Line. When I first saw those names, I thought neither of them were color lines, but it turned out they both were. Almond was represented as a light brown and Jasmine was a pale yellow. Up in the lobby area there was another general store, called Ford’s Fighting Supplies. It was sandwiched by a pair of training guilds—one for longbow and one called “Druids only.” Next to the druid guild was an Arby’s, which would be the saferoom, and then another store specializing in clothes for elves.

And finally was the Desperado Club, just like Bautista had promised. Unlike the massive, block-sized building from the previous level, the one here looked like a tiny dive bar with a small, neon sign. 

Imani said she’d be there after the recap episode, which would be in a couple of hours. We had just enough time to eat, open our fan boxes, and take a nap. We’d watch the show and head over. 

“Have you ever been to Arby’s?” I asked Katia as we went through the door. 

“No,” she said. “I’ve never heard of it.” 

I realized I knew next to nothing about the woman. “I know you’re from Iceland, but you knew about the Russian subway. Did you spend a lot of time in Russia?” 

“I spent a summer in Moscow when I was a student, working at the Pushkin. It’s a museum. I’ve spent a lot of time on holiday in Europe. We take a student trip to Paris every other year and one to Amsterdam the other years. It’s the only traveling I’ve done recently. How about you? Did you ever leave America?” 

I grunted. “I’ve been to the Arctic Circle. I once went to Costa Rica and got to pet a sloth. I almost went to the Bahamas, but I couldn’t get off of work. Oh, and I’ve been to Canada a bunch of times. But it was just Victoria and Vancouver. I really wanted to visit Japan and the Philippines, but I never got the chance.”

The Bopca glared at us from behind the counter. We ordered some food to go, which he gave us in actual Arby’s bags. We took the food and returned to the personal space. 

Within, we found Mordecai hunched over the alchemy table. The table had transformed. It was three times the size it had been when I’d pulled it out of my inventory earlier. It consisted of multiple layers of items. A small fire burned at one end of the table, heating a glass container filled with black, bubbling liquid. The whole crafting studio stank like burned rubber.

“How did this happen?” I asked, walking up to the table. Off to the side, I noticed a massive piece of paper filled with writing. He’d outgrown the dry erase board and was mapping out the train lines on the paper. I remembered seeing the roll sitting in the corner of his cluttered space. 

“Get back!” Mordecai snapped, not looking up. “I’m almost done. You’ll contaminate it.” 

“He used my two table upgrade coupons on the alchemy table,” Donut said. “He asked me for permission earlier. So the table is now level three.” She made a face. “He didn’t tell me he was making stink bombs.”  

“I’ll be making worse than that if you don’t get out of here. Eat your food. I’ll be out in a minute.” 

We sat at the kitchen counter. I introduced Katia to curly fries. She was not impressed. 

A few minutes later, a triumphant-looking Mordecai entered the room. His arms were full of items. He paused, looking Katia up and down. “You look different.” 

“Donut is helping me,” she replied. 

“I can see that.” 

He piled the items on the counter. There were two pairs of potions and about twenty green-hued balls that looked like perfectly-round avocados. He wrangled the balls into a pile to keep them from rolling away.

“I didn’t have enough time nor enough supplies to make some of the best stuff, but this is a good start,” he said. “You say there’s a Desperado Club out there? Good. We’ll go later and pick up some supplies. Plus the casino will now be open, and you can cash in that chip.” 

“Oh yeah!” Donut said. “I forgot about that!” I’d received the poker chip for surviving Signet’s attack on us. Donut hadn’t received anything because her health had zeroed out. She’d only been saved by her Cockroach skill, which allowed her to survive the first fatal hit of a fight. 

“So what do we have here?” I asked, picking up the first potion.     

Mordecai’s Special Brew

A potion designed by a shifty Changeling who has a tendency to kill those who count on him the most, this special potion combines the effects of a Gold Standard Healing Potion and the Troll’s Second Wind to create a de facto immortality for a period of thirty seconds. It has a few unfortunate side effects. 

“I only had enough materials to make two of these. I need at least four more.” 

“What are the side effects?” I asked. I chose to ignore that first section of the description. I knew how the system labeled items I had created, which meant whatever they said was not entirely accurate. 

“Okay, so what this potion does is create a constant stream of healing mixed with rapid regeneration for thirty seconds. So it’ll heal almost anything and keep that health topped up. But it is not an invulnerability spell. It won’t protect you against blowing yourself up or being decapitated or anything that would normally cause you to die instantaneously. Unfortunately, the side effects are pretty severe. It ups your potion sickness countdown by about ten hours. So you won’t be able to take any potions afterward for that time. Also, you can only take two of these before they stop working all together. I’ve been trying to fix that for ages, but I can never get past it. Maybe if I can manage to get a table higher than level nine, but I’ve never had the chance.”

I picked up the next potion and examined it. It was orange and bubbly. 

“Those are both for Donut,” he said, turning toward the cat. “These are stat potions. Similar deal with that other potion. You can only take two of them. But you can and should take them both now. When I get the ingredients, I’ll make two of these for everybody with all of the stats. If you happen to find more of these potions before I get to it, don’t take them unless they’re labeled Superb. Those are the only ones I can make that might increase it by four. That two potion limit doesn’t care about the quality. They’re easy enough to make once you know the recipe.” 

Superb Constitution Buff Potion. 

Drinking this mixture will permanently increase your Constitution by a random number between one and four. You may only drink two of these during your time in the dungeon. Why? Because drinking more would be cheating. And if anyone is going to cheat, it’s going to be me. 

I slid the potions over to Donut. She pulled them into her inventory. 

“So, are superb the best, then?” I asked. 

“Sort of,” Mordecai said. “There’s another type called a ‘Cosmic Buff’ that raises a random stat by 10 points, but I don’t know the recipe. They’re so rare I’ve only seen them a handful of times. Those aren’t the same type of potion anyway, so they aren’t restricted to the same limits.” 

Donut drank the first buff potion. 

“Well that was a waste,” she said. “It only went up one point! Mordecai, are you sure you made these right?” 

We waited for her potion countdown to wear off while Mordecai rolled his eyes at the cat. The second potion raised it by three, giving her a net gain of four, making her base Constitution eight. With her anklet and the buff from her brush, plus the temporary 10-point boost she got on this floor only from her Hooligan class, she had a Constitution of 21.  

“Four points is good,” Mordecai said. “But we need to keep looking for items that buff it further. It’s still much too low.” Mordecai’s frog tongue darted out, and he stole a curly fry from my bag.

I picked up the final item. It felt like a hardened rubber ball. I squeeze it, and a split in the rubber appeared. 

Fragmenting Potion Ball.                

A full potion vial may be transferred to this ball.

That was the whole description. 

“I need more gossamer thread, but they’ll have some at the Desperado Club. It’s cheap stuff. But I had to upgrade my table to three before I could make these. Once we upgrade the table to five, I’ll have two heating elements, and I can make these twice as fast. At six I’ll have a full autoclave, and I can make 100 at a time. They’re simple enough. You take a potion and pour it into the ball. Then you can throw the ball at an enemy. With your xistera and a few poison and fire water potions, you’ll have a deadly arsenal. In a few floors I’ll be able to make some truly devastating attack potions. I have an idea for a chain lightning potion that is going to be a thing of beauty.” 

“They don’t have to drink the potion?” I asked. I tossed the ball in the air and caught it. 

“Be careful,” Mordecai said. “They’ll break apart if you throw too hard. Don’t be tossing these around once they’re armed unless you’re throwing them at a bad guy. And no, they don’t have to drink it. Potions work on mobs if you throw them at them. It doesn’t make sense, but it works. It’s always been that way. Also, in case you’re wondering, mobs don’t get potion sickness. Not as far as I can tell. NPCs do.” 

“Will it work on party members?” I asked. “Like if Donut is across the room, and she needs a healing potion, and I nail her with one of these, will it work?”

“You will not be lobbing balls at me, Carl,” Donut said. “My word. Do I look like a cocker spaniel to you?”  

Mordecai looked thoughtful. “No, I doubt it. Not on other crawlers. That would work on NPCs, though, now that I think about it. It’d probably work on Mongo.”

Throughout the day, I’d received a handful of achievements, but I’d only been awarded one prize from a Gold Looter box. It ended up being yet another Determine Value skill potion. I drank it and moved to my inventory. Not much had changed. I still couldn’t see an actual monetary value of my items, but I could now see the rarity of items. 

I filtered it so I could only see Unique items. I only had one. It wasn’t Carl’s Doomsday Scenario, the about-to-explode nuke. That was listed under Pretty Damn Rare. The only unique item was that odd, stuffed Kimaris figure on the horse. I knew it was valuable, but I hadn’t realized it was one of a kind. The description didn’t give any information. It read:

Stuffed Kimaris Figure. (With tags)

It’s impossible to accurately portray Kimaris’s usual I-hate-this-and-I-hate-you scowl, but this collectible bean bag makes a valiant effort. 

It was still listed as my most valuable item. The about-to-explode bomb was at the very bottom of my value list.        

A message popped up. Our fan boxes were ready. A few minutes later, Donut received the same message. She started hopping up and down with excitement. “Carl, Carl, hurry up and open yours so I can do mine.” 

“You know what? You go first,” I said. 

“Yes!” Donut said. She was trembling with excitement. 

Mordecai settled next to Katia at the kitchen counter. “When you’re done with this, I want to show you guys what I’ve discovered with the rail system. I’m pretty sure I know how to get to the stairwells. They’ve done this sort of thing before, but on a smaller scale.” 

I braced myself. Donut’s last fan box had been a picture of Bea. Hopefully this would be something better. Mordecai said since this was a Platinum box, people had to actually pay a credit to vote, so the voting was less likely to be trolled. But I wasn’t so sure about that. Now that we had enemies both inside and outside the dungeon, I couldn’t count out the idea we were about to get slammed with something awful. 

She opened the box. She gasped in pleasure. 

“Oh my god, thank you! Thank you everybody! I love you all so much!” 

I exchanged a look with Mordecai. Wonderful, I thought. Just wonderful. 

“Look, Mongo!” Donut said. “Our fans got us a saddle! I can ride you now! It matches your feathers! Carl, put it on Mongo!”

“We’re going to have to rethink some of those battle formations,” Katia said. 

I examined the blue and red, tassel-covered, obscenely garish saddle. It looked like something you’d see on a horse during a Fourth of July parade in the deep south. Mongo sniffed at it and growled. 

“Actually,” Mordecai said. “That’s a really good prize. But you’re gonna need to get Mongo on board. I’ve never seen anybody ride one of those things.”   

Enchanted Mongoliensis Saddle. Adjusted to fit Cat species. 

Magically affixes itself to the dreaded Mongoliensis, turning everyone’s favorite murder chicken into a mount. Riders in the saddle are afforded the following bonuses:

+15% to all offensive spell damage.
Anti-Piercing Resistance. 

In addition, the saddle gives the following bonus to the attached Mongoliensis: 

+20% Constitution.   
+20% melee damage while saddle is occupied.

“So Donut gets bonus damage to her spells, and Mongo gets 20% more Constitution? And 20% more damage as long as Donut’s butt is in that thing? I like the Constitution buff, but I don’t like the idea of Donut sitting on his back while he’s fighting. She’ll be too vulnerable.” 

“Agreed,” Mordecai said. He looked at Donut. “You’re going to need to practice jumping out of the saddle when Mongo attacks. That attack bonus is great, but you’ll be a prime target sitting up there.” 

“Yeah, yeah, put it on him, Carl!”  

There were no straps on the saddle. It looked as if it was missing most of the required saddle parts. It was just a seat and a pommel. And a bunch of tassels. There were no reins. I had no idea how Donut was going to stay on or how she was going to control the dinosaur once she was on. 

“Come here, Mongo,” I said, picking up the saddle. The feathered dinosaur cocked his head to the side and then grunted, backing away. I tossed him a curly fry. He snapped it out of the air. “Come here, you bastard.” 

“Don’t be mean, Carl. Mongo, listen to Uncle Carl,” Donut said. 

He lowered his head and let me approach. I placed the saddle onto his ridged, feathered back, and it clicked in place. It was the same sound as when I placed a table in the crafting room. Mongo howled with displeasure and started bouncing around the room, trying to dislodge it. I had to jump back so I wasn’t whipped in the face with his tail. 

“Uh, maybe you should wait until he gets used to it before attempting to ride him,” I said. 

“Oh all right,” Donut said. “Now open your box up!”

“Okay,” I said. I opened it up. 

For a long moment, nothing happened. 

The lights to the room dimmed. Music started playing. Cheesy, 1970’s-style game show music with trumpets and keyboards and percussion music in a disco beat. Colored lights flashed. Mongo stopped howling and jumping and rushed to Donut’s side. We all stood from the kitchen counter. All except Mordecai whose frog face had suddenly taken on a stony expression. 

“Carl, what’s happening?” Donut asked. 

“Probably something stupid,” I said. 

The announcer’s voice was even cheesier than normal. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s time for your favorite segment of Dungeon Crawler World. The Prize Carousel! 

Just past me, the section of the room with the couches and screens blinked and disappeared. A large, spinning carousel, like a merry-go-round materialized. It spun in a circle, lights up and down blinking in sync with the music. The interior of the large contraption was blocked off by colorful curtains. 

Here’s your host. It’s the dungeon darling, giver-of-prizes, slayer of gods, former Crawler champion, it’s Chaco the Bard! 

With a puff of smoke and the familiar crack of teleportation, a winged, wolf-headed man materialized. He wore a brown and orange, checkered leisure suit and held a microphone. He jogged into the room as if he’d had a running start, waving at nothing. I stared at the creature. He was not listed as a dungeon admin, but as an NPC.    

Chaco. Pterolykos. Song Bard. Level 66.
Host of The Prize Carousel. 

“Well, well, well,” Chaco said, stepping deeper into the room. The wolfman stood about my height. His muscular arms bulged through his suit. Katia, Donut, and I all looked at one another, bewildered. “Welcome everyone. I’m your man, Chaco! We have a great segment for you tonight. We have.” He paused, eyes going glossy. “Crawler Carl joining us! He is the recipient of a Platinum fan box. Oh boy, that’s a good one. You folks at home decided to give Carl the chance to pick his own prize, and you know what that means! We have nine excellent prizes on the carousal, and… Oh shit, Mordecai!”  

“You motherfucker!” Mordecai cried, interrupting. His tongue lashed out, fast as a whip. It attached to a metallic chair by the kitchen counter, and he launched the chair across the room at the newcomer. Chaco squealed and dropped the microphone, ducking as the chair rocketed right at him.

The chair froze in midair, a quarter of an inch from Chaco’s head. It had been flung so hard that it’d surely have broken the guy’s skull open had it been allowed to connect. Chaco whimpered. I scrambled back. Donut hissed, and Mongo growled. For a moment, nobody moved.  

Realizing he’d been saved, Chaco slowly stood to his full height. I could see the large wolf was trembling. The chair remained floating in the air.   

I turned to ask Mordecai what the hell was happening. 

“Oh, shit,” I said. 

Mordecai was frozen in place, his tongue half retracted. He had the word Naughty blazing over his head. The same thing had happened when Maggie My and Frank Q had attacked us in the saferoom long ago. 

Mordecai knew better than that. What had he been thinking? The Naughty blinked twice, and to my horror, Mordecai himself blinked and disappeared. To my right, the room with Manager over it also disappeared. The floating chair because unstuck, and it clattered loudly to the ground.  

The stupid music continued to blare. The carousel twirled and twinkled.  

“Did we just lose Mordecai?” I asked. 

“No,” Donut said. “I just got a notice. It says he’s in a time out for violating the rules. Carl, I don’t understand what’s happening.” 

I let out a stream of breath. I was overwhelmed with relief. I had no idea what the hell just happened either, but whatever this was could’ve been much worse. “How long is the time out?” 

“It’s for the seven days.” 

“Seven days!” I exclaimed. Holy shit. That meant we’d only have a day and a half left on this floor when he came back. “Goddamnit.” 

I whirled on Chaco. The game show host NPC still stood there, looking disoriented, his arms raised as if he feared we’d also attack him. His microphone had bounced away, rolling underneath the prize carousel where he couldn’t reach it. The music continued to play. 

“Who are you?” I demanded. 

“I’m Chaco,” he said. “I’m the host. Now we really need to finish the prize selection.” 

“No, who are you to Mordecai?” 

“I… I don’t think I’m allowed to talk about it. Uh, maybe we should just start this over. The fans voted to allow you to choose your own prize. It doesn’t happen often, but when it happens, we have to do the show. That’s my job. I host the show.” 

“Is it always you?” I asked. 

“What... what do you mean?” 

I was overcome with the urge to pound this guy in the face, but I knew that’d end badly for me. “Are you the only one who hosts this show?” 

“Yeah, I think so. I don’t get out much, so I don’t really know. People don’t usually vote for the let-the-crawler-choose-the-prizes option. It usually only happens a few times a season.” 

“Well they voted for it this time because they knew you and Mordecai would be in the same room,” I said. “Whatever just happened, it happened because they know Mordecai doesn’t like you. So who are you to him?” 

Chaco swallowed. “He sure knows how to hold a grudge, that’s for sure. It’s been hundreds of cycles. I didn’t think he’d still be here. Everyone knows guides get out faster than anybody else. Wait, he shouldn’t even be here. Had he become a manager?” 

“Do you not watch the show?” 

He looked about wildly. “No. No I can’t stomach… No, of course. I just hadn’t…” He trailed off. “Look, we really have to do this. I’ll get in even more trouble if we don’t finish. You have nine prizes to choose from. I’m sorry about your manager, I really am. It was a long time ago, and it wasn’t my fault. I was just doing what his manager told me to do. If I hadn’t done it, he’d have died. And then we’d all have lost her. We’d have lost Odette. When he comes back, tell him I said I’m sorry. Not a day goes by where I don’t regret it.” 

Warning: This isn’t Dr. Phil. Pick your prize. You have ten minutes to choose, or you will forfeit your choice.    

A timer appeared over the carousel, counting down. 

“All right,” I said, gritting my teeth. “Show me the goddamn prizes.” 

~

“Prize number one!” Chaco said. His voice wasn’t nearly as enthusiastic as before. He hadn’t been able to reach his microphone, despite wasting a minute on his hands and knees attempting to retrieve it, and now he didn’t seem to know what to do with his clawed hands. 

The carousel paused, and the curtain fell, revealing a pair of potions sitting on a pedestal. 

“Two potions!” Chaco cried. 

I tried to examine them, but the tooltip wouldn’t pop up. Donut jumped to my shoulder. 

“There’s no description,” she said. “This is a rip off!” 

“What kind of potions are they?” I asked Chaco. 

“All you get is the description, and the description is two potions!” Chaco smiled big, revealing sharp teeth. If I hadn’t just seen him cowering like a child, the look would be downright intimidating. 

I recognized the fizzy, dark blue coloring of the potions as skill potions. This was just like when we had to pick Mongo. Mordecai would be really helpful right about now. 

“Prize two! Bombs! Five-hundred quantity.”

The next curtain dropped, revealing a pyramid of hob-lobbers. These were a kind I hadn’t seen before, but without being able to examine them, I didn’t know what was different. They glistened, as if their exterior was made of tar. I suspected what they were, something I’d been planning on making myself.

“Prize three! Books! Earth books! Quantity 2,000!” 

A pile of books appeared. I could see it was a random collection of English-language books, from Fifty Shades of Grey to what appeared to be a Canadian phonebook. Two-thousand books was a lot of damn reading. It’d take me a long time to get through it all, and I’d have plenty of trading material for the mole men. 

“Prize four! A 1965 Harley Davidson FLH Panhead Electra Glide!”

I felt my heart stop the moment the red and beige motorcycle appeared. My eyes immediately moved to the small dent on the gas tank. That had happened when I’d slipped once coming up the driveway. I’d reached out to steady myself, and I’d accidentally knocked the motorcycle over. 

My father had never been physically abusive, except that day. I’d only been eight years old. He’d beaten me that night so bad I couldn’t see out of my left eye for two weeks. My mother had cried, told him we were going back to Texas, but we never did.

“Carl, with you on the motorcycle and me on Mongo, we would be unstoppable!” 

“Jesus,” I muttered, ignoring Donut’s comment. Was it really his motorcycle? Or just a facsimile? I felt as if I couldn’t breathe.  

“Prize five! Just one book!” 

I leaned in, trying to focus. I couldn’t get my mind off the fucking motorcycle. Pay attention, you idiot! At first I thought this was a magical tome, but it didn’t have the tell-tale glow. It was just a regular book. Small, and leather-bound. It read, Best-Laid Traps on the cover. 

“Is that porn?” Donut asked.     

“Prize six! Another book!” 

This one was similar to the last, but the book was much thicker, about the size of a dictionary. It did not have a title on the cover, but it did have a symbol. It was the familiar A in a circle, signifying anarchy. The book glinted momentarily as the carousel turned away. I couldn’t tell if that was the glow of magic or the glint of light off the gold-leafed pages.  

“Prize seven! Enchanted chaps!” 

“Carl, pick those!” Donut cried. “Chaco, he picks those!” 

“Sorry, but Carl must make the decision,” Chaco said.  

The ass and crotch-less chaps were modeled by a spinning mannequin. They were made of a dark leather that glowed with a greenish aura. 

“Yeah, no,” I said.   

“Prize eight! A single potion!” 

I immediately recognized the potion. It was the same orange, bubbly concoction Donut had just used to raise her Constitution. It was a stat buff potion. This one glowed with a twinkly aura, almost like a strobe. I wondered if maybe this was one of those +10 cosmic potions Mordecai had mentioned. Or maybe that meant it wasn’t as good. I couldn’t be sure. 

“Prize nine! A Craftsman 3000 Series 63-inch rolling tool chest!” 

The dented and well-used tool chest came into view, and I instantly recognized it. This was my tool chest from the shop. My eyes moved to the drawer at the bottom right, where I knew I had a carton of cigarettes, minus one pack. I had dozens of useful tools in there, including my drill and grinder. If I could get one of those dwarven batteries working, I’d probably be able to figure out a way to charge them. 

My gut reaction was to pick the tool box. With my tools, crafting items at that engineering table would be some much easier. But I hesitated. 

When I’d last left it, my box had an entire marine electrical panel sitting on it. We were in the middle of rewiring a 32-foot Trojan from the 70’s. The whole thing had been a mess. There was no sign of the panel now. In fact, there was something odd about the chest, the way it sat on the carousel. My eyes caught the top drawer, the one I could never close properly because I had too much crap in it.  

I think it’s empty.  

I had less than 90 seconds to choose.

“It’s time to make a decision!” Chaco said. “What’ll it be, Carl?” 

“Get the chaps!” Donut said. She looked over at Katia. “Katia, tell Carl to get the chaps.” Katia said nothing. 

The merry-go-round spun, the music getting louder. I had a sudden, irrational urge to pick the motorcycle. Not because I wanted to ride it, but so I could push it out onto the tracks and watch it get hit by a train. 

There were several choices that were probably good choices. I suspected Mordecai would have me pick the two skill potions. But I didn’t have enough information. The trap book, assuming it really was about traps, would probably be filled with useful information. The pile of 2,000 books would also be valuable for multiple reasons. The same with the bombs. 

The chaps might be a good choice. But I already looked enough like an idiot. I really didn’t want to pick them, not when I didn’t know what the enchantment was. They’d obviously added them to the list as a joke, which possibly meant the enchantment would be a joke, too.  

Also, none of that stuff seemed super rare, things I couldn’t find using other methods. The fan boxes were supposed to be about unique items one couldn’t get in the dungeon.  

Thirty seconds.

Light glinted again off that odd book with the anarchy symbol. My class was called a Compensated Anarchist. I remembered the last time my eyes had caught a glint of light. It’d saved my life. Was this the same thing? I doubted it, but I went with it anyway. Why not? It was a free prize. 

“I pick that one. Prize number six.” 

“All righty! A choice has been made!” The carousel poofed away, and the book remained suspended in midair. “This is what you’ve chosen!”

I took a step forward and grabbed the floating book. The dungeon announcer read the description out loud. 

Book. 

The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook by Anonymous.

This is a unique item.

Chicken and Goblin recipes galore! But it’s more than that, too. Each recipe is accompanied by a hilarious tale by the anonymous author, recounting some of the zany and madcap misadventures they experienced gathering these mouth-watering recipes. Fun for the whole family! This book is a real hoot. 

Yep, I thought. You done fucked up. 

“Ohh, too bad. That looks like a stinker of a prize. Better luck next time! That’s our show, everyone!” Chaco cried. He gave me a baleful glance, and he disappeared. The music abruptly stopped. The living area reappeared. The scent of smoke lingered. I stared at the chair on the ground. We just got fucked. 

“Chicken and goblin recipes?” Donut said, incredulous. “We lost Mordecai for a book of recipes? You should have picked the chaps, Carl.” She jumped down and moved to the counter, grumbling. 

I was about to toss the book into my inventory, but instead I flipped to the first page. It read, “Welcome.” 

I felt the haptic buzz of my Escape Plan skill activate. Additional words appeared on the mostly-blank page. 

Hello, Crawler. As you’re about to find, this is a very special book. If you’re reading these words, it means this book has found its way into your hands for one purpose and one purpose only. 

Together, we will burn it all to the ground.

***

Note: To all of you who voted for the fan box, thanks so much for participating. Also, this is all your fault. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

We will have more polls in the near future.