Chapter 100 (Patreon)

“He ended up being really brave,” Donut said as we lashed the last hand to the pedestal. “Especially for a dog. It’s kind of sad.”  

“Kind of?” I said. “Everything about this sucks.” We really needed duct tape for this. Instead we had to use rope to keep the hands in place. If one of them fell off then all of this would be for nothing. 

Katia, who hadn’t participated in any of this, had returned to her human shape. She was beating herself up over her inability to get the carts started on her own, though in the end it hadn’t mattered. We would’ve needed those hands no matter what. 

Bautista had fought his way up to the correct station, though he’d lost almost fifty guys during the battle. A few of the crawlers could fly short distances, but apparently there was some sort of black hole effect on the pit the closer you got to the middle. They’d flown off the walkway to fire arrows and spells at the lizards—called Wall Monitors—and gotten themselves sucked in. Several more died when one of the gangways collapsed.

Now that we had a portal straight to the abyss, we’d been brainstorming alternate plans in case this didn’t work, but so far everything that seemed viable at first kept fizzling out. None of our plans were feasible, especially since there were so many people trapped there. We couldn’t use a flyer to go through the portal and bring hats. We tried a rope attached to a weight, too, with thoughts maybe we could dangle a bag over the massive hole and Bautista’s crew could try something to get to it. But the moment we started to feed the test rope into the portal, the rope went tight for about a half of a second and then started to tingle. Surprised, I dropped it, and the whole thing disappeared. I was lucky I hadn’t gotten dragged in with it. We decided to stop experimenting after that. 

I announced I needed to use the rest room and went to the personal space and pulled up the chapter on portals in the cookbook. 

<Note added by Crawler Milk. 6th Edition> Portals are hard to understand. It seems like there are dozens of different types that all work in different ways. Sometimes they’re like doors, and you don’t even know they’re there. Sometimes, like the entryways between floors, you just need to touch them and they work. Sometimes you have to put your hand through, and you start to feel like you’re getting dragged. If you let yourself go slack, you get pulled in. But you can still break free. It’s not consistent. Sometimes you have to be big enough to fit through it to work, and sometimes a portal the size of a button will toss you into a monster den. Teleport traps are the worst. 

I added a note about the different brands of portals, but I didn’t have time for writing. I’d add more later. I’d been adding quite a bit lately to the scratchpad, mostly when we were on a train or sitting down to eat. I didn’t know if any of it made sense. I wasn’t a writer, and whenever I started to mentally type my feelings onto the pad, I couldn’t tell if it was coherent or just bullshit. I assumed some future crawler would find my chapter and just think I was being a whiny bitch.   

We had everything lined up and ready to go. If all went as planned, we guesstimated it would take about 8-10 hours for the first three trains to reach the end of the line, but we weren’t sure. The system said these things went five times faster than the normal trains. I really hoped this worked. 

Also, it turned out while every single one of the portals on the rapid-response carts was a two-way switch where one could select the abyss or a trainyard, the trainyards themselves were different on each one. The trainyard number was helpfully painted on the edge of each cart, likely so the workers would know which cart to use when an interdiction was required. I supposed in the end it didn’t really matter which cart we used, though the three separate groups at the end of the line would all be sent off to different instances of the trainyard. We picked three where we knew people were already holed up at the local version of station 36. 

Only one of the carts had a portal that was tuned to trainyard E, the same yard where we had come in earlier, and the same one where we could easily return to the Nightmare if we needed. We’d keep that cart here with us in case we needed it. 

Meanwhile, Imani and Li Jun and everybody else from station 101 were in the process of fortifying station 36. They’d disabled the Vermillion train on the track, blocking any monster coming down the line. I was afraid that’d mean the blister ghouls coming from station 72 would simply turn around and head back toward us at 75, but it appeared they were congregating in front of the train. Not that it mattered much. There were literally dozens of lines that fed into that station, and they were in a constant state of battle, pushing the invaders back. I hoped they’d be able to hold out.   

“Okay, everybody cover your ears,” I said as I finished placing the final trap onto the sixth cart. “I’m putting a delay on all of them, but I’m going to set this one off just to make sure it works like we want.”

“How am I supposed to cover my ears, Carl?” Donut said. 

“Okay, go to the other side of the station then. Remember last time? It’s loud as shit.”  

The regular subway cars were big and heavy and thundered loudly through the tunnels. These carts didn’t appear to make hardly any noise at all. As Katia had pointed out earlier, that’d be a problem for those waiting at the other end of the line. Therefore we needed one last touch so the crawlers could hear the portal coming. 

I reached down and set the one-minute delay on the last of the traps. I had one on all six of the carts. This one would go first. The others all had a 30-minute delay, but I wanted to make double sure that the delay function worked as intended before I sent it through the portal. I engaged the engine, double-checked to make sure the portal was set to the abyss and that the car was dialed to the correct portal. Everything was a go.   

“What do you think it’s going to be?” I called over to Katia, who stood by the side of the tracks, covering her ears. 

“It’ll be ‘Wonderwall!’ I just know it,” Donut shouted from the far side of the platform. “It’s the greatest song of all time!” 

“Wonderwall?” Katia said, turning and laughing. “You mean the song by Oasis?”    

Peaking at Number 1 on Nov 16, 1981, it’s “Physical!”  

The alarm trap activated, and the Olivia Newton John song started playing, so loud I took a small amount of damage. I pushed the throttle of the train and jumped down. I watched as it shot down the track, hit the portal, and disappear.

I rushed forward to get a screenshot so I could see if the train had actually made it, but I could hear it. It was distant, barely audible, and it sounded as if it was far below us, but it was there. The line it had transferred to was physically nearby. I took the screenshot, and I could see the end of the train, already far way. The scoop portal was still intact. 

Holy shit, it worked. 

Carl: Bautista. Sinopia line is on its way. 

Bautista: What was the song?

Carl: “Physical” by Olivia Newton John.  

Bautista: Damn. I had one gold on “Eye of the Tiger.” I don’t think anybody picked that one.  

Carl: There’s no way people are going to guess the song. The trap uses any song that ever charted. There’s gotta be a million choices. I’m going to send the Grullo and Mindaro trains now. Then in fifteen minutes we’ll send the second trains tuned to the yards. Your team will end up at yard Q. There’s already about 400 people guarding station 36 at that one. Remember to take the employee line. It should be clear.  

Bautista: Okay, buddy. Thanks. 

“Monsters! Monsters!” Donut cried, running up just as I saw the wave of red dots on the Vermillion track. There had to be about thirty of them. They were moving fast. 

“Shit,” I said. “Okay, let’s get ready.” 

“Carl, they’re really, really big. I think they’re those stage-3 DT monsters. I don’t think we can handle them!” 

We only had about thirty seconds to decide what to do. If we hid, they’d probably stream around the subway engine car we had parked here and continue down the line, where they’d eventually come to the disabled train on the track right before station 36, mixing in with the blister ghouls. That’d be fine if they stayed put. But I remembered how big those fuckers were, and if they managed to break into the car and open a path down to station 36, it’d be another weight on the shoulder of Imani and Li Jun. Though I strongly suspected they’d be dealing with these guys whether we liked it or not. 

Still, we couldn’t just let that happen. I had an idea. 

“Hide,” I said. I turned toward the Downward Dog and started jogging. “Come on, guys, let them pass. But as soon as they do, we gotta move.” 

~

Katia and Donut sent the last three rapid-response carts through the portals while I attached the explosives to the back of the vermillion train. I needed to get this done quick. I was placing them on the short shelf in front of the door that’d turn into the between-train gangway when it was properly attached to another train. I had to tie everything together with a rope and then use the door to keep it in place.   

“You know,” I said up to the ceiling while I worked, “If any of you guys want to send me duct tape, it’ll make this sort of thing a lot easier. Rope sucks for this stuff, and pus is too expensive to waste. I’d be able to make bigger bombs. Just saying.”  

Even though the battered vermillion engine faced the wrong direction, it did have that half-assed cowcatcher device in the back, which really doubled as the connector mechanism. Still, I was afraid this wasn’t going to work. Either way, it would be spectacular. I warned Li Jun and Imani what I was doing, and they agreed to it. 

Yes, I knew I could probably use one of the interdiction carts, and that’d clear the line much more easily. But I wanted to see if I’d get experience if I did it this way. Plus I really wanted to see if this would work. Other than the landmines I’d used to derail that first train, I hadn’t gotten the opportunity to use much explosives on this floor, so I jumped on the opportunity to sandwich a bunch of ghouls and monsters between two trains. 

Nobody was on the tracks on this line, so the worst that could happen was it went off prematurely. Or it didn’t go off at all. Or I caved in the line. Or I killed myself.  

The plan was to reunite this engine with the rest of its old train.         

Elle: Hey Carl. She’s not here. I did as you asked and went through every single person. No four-armed cobra lady. There are some pretty weird ones, though. There’s a guy here who is a mushroom. Why would you turn yourself into a mushroom? He looks like a penis. Like one of those weird ones that’s really wide and short. My boyfriend before my Barry had a dick like that. It smelled like mushrooms, too.

Carl: Shit. We know she’s alive. Where the hell is she then? Maybe try sidling up with one of the former daughters and asking them. 

Elle: Already did. Talked to that fairy with the two mage daughters. She claims the bitch is not answering anyone. She might have come in with the rest of us, but if she did, she took off, and nobody says they’ve seen her. She’s probably off pouting somewhere.

Carl: Okay. Everything else good? 

Elle: Same ol’ shit. Imani is mother hen-ing every damn person in here, even though they’re all terrified of her. Your friend Li Jun doesn’t know his best friend is in love with his sister even though she’s turned into a demon, and most of those girls from Hekla’s group are as helpless as I was when I was still in the wheelchair. On top of that, some crazy asshole who doesn’t want everybody to think he’s a crazy asshole is throwing a train full of explosives in our direction. So, you know. Typical day. 

I laughed out loud as I tied the last piece of hobgoblin dynamite onto the pile. The train would splatter random ghouls on the way down the track, but I didn’t want the bomb going off until it hit one of the larger stage-3 monsters, who’d hopefully be in the midst of the gathering ghoul horde. The hobgoblin dynamite was much more stable than the regular goblin stuff and would, in theory, survive multiple impacts. Still, the bundle of dynamite was up high and shouldn’t go off until it was triggered. For that, I used a device I’d already built in anticipation for just this sort of thing. It was part of my first prototype for the landmine. A long pole with an impact-detonated hoblobber at the end. The pole was too high to hit the regular blister ghouls, but it would hit one of the giant stage-3 monsters. Or, if it missed, it’d go off when the train crashed into the back of the other train. Or if the whole thing derailed. Hopefully. 

Bautista: The trains are definitely working. It’s raining crashed trains and monsters into the abyss. I haven’t seen any crawlers fall thankfully. But it’s a lot of those giant monsters. Are you getting experience for this? They’re splattering across the bottom of the abyss like hail. 

Carl: No, unfortunately. The system can be damn stingy with experience. You never know what’s going to give it to you.  

Bautista: Yeah. My pets usually give me experience if they kill something, but not as much as if I had done it myself. Sometimes, though, I don’t get any experience at all, and every once in a while I get a big bonus. I don’t know why. 

Carl: Your pets? I didn’t know you had pets. 

Bautista: It’s complicated. Most other crawlers think it’s a spell. I don’t want them to know the truth. It’s kind of embarrassing. I’ll explain it if we ever get together.   

I liked Bautista, I thought as I finished building my train bomb, but his Tigran race made him look like a Lisa Frank notebook had vomited all over him. I didn’t know how anything could embarrass him. 

It took a minute to get the pole positioned correctly, but once it was, I didn’t waste any more time.

“Everybody say goodbye to the vermillion train,” I called over my shoulder as I re-entered the gore-filled engine car. I waded through the starting-to-stink-even-worse entrails and bodies and hit the controls, easing the engine up to full speed. Just as I prepared to jump out the front window of the backward-moving train, I spied something sitting on the floor. It was one of Eva’s two sabers. She’d dropped it when Donut had raised Hekla from the dead. It’d fallen into the gore, and I’d forgotten about it. I grabbed it and pulled it into my inventory as I slid out the front window and jumped heavily to the track below.     

Christ, I thought as I hit the gravel. I need another shower. I turned to watch the train rush backward down the track. It wouldn’t be long before it hit something. 

The ground suddenly shook with a distant explosion. It didn’t come from the train, which I could still see. But the ground rumbled, like distant thunder. Dust fell from the ceiling. 

What the hell was that?

Imani: Carl, are you okay? 

Carl: That wasn’t my bomb. Mine is still on its way.

Imani: I thought you blew yourself up. 

Carl: Not yet. 

Donut, Katia, and Mongo came jogging up as I pulled myself off the track. “What was that?” Katia asked. 

“Carl, what did you do?” Donut asked. “I thought you killed yourself.” 

“I don’t know,” I said. “It sounded far, far away. But it was big.” 

I pulled up my chat to see if anybody knew what it was, and I saw with dismay that a group of four crawlers I’d tossed into a group I’d called “Yard F” were now all dead. For a horrifying minute, I thought maybe this was my fault, that I’d done something because of the portals. But that didn’t make any sense. None of the carts were tuned to that area. 

But then I remembered that those guys weren’t trying to defend their station 36. They were part of a team that was attempting to kill the blister ghoul generator at one of the station 72s. It had to be pretty far away, but it was still loud and powerful enough that we felt it here.  

“Holy crap,” I said. “I think they blew the soul crystal. I warned them that it was dangerous. Goddamnit.” 

That group had been something like 3-400 people. The last I heard they were going to attempt to fight their way to the generator and remove the crystal or disable the generator.

I messaged everybody and told them what I suspected had happened. 

Carl: Imani and Elle, you should get a group together and send them to sixty to see if they can find a platform that’ll take them to that F line. I don’t know what the color was, but somebody else might know. If the generator blew, everything over there will be dead, but the stairwells might still be open. 

Imani: I was just thinking the same thing. If we don’t know the colors attached to the F station, how can we find it though?

Carl: Last time I went through station sixty, there was a dwarf sitting there at the entrance to all the colored-line portals. His name is Tizquick. Seek him out and ask him if he knows.

Elle: I’ll go. I’ll grab a squad and we’ll… holy shit!

The moment she said it, I heard and felt the new explosion. A whole line of experience notifications appeared. This one was my work. Not only had my train bomb gone off, it had killed a bunch of mobs. And I had gotten experience for it. More than I expected. I hit level 35. I didn’t get any achievements, which was kind of irritating, but my explosives handling skill ticked up to 11. 

Elle: Yikes, Carl. That knocked everybody off their feet. You’re lucky I can fly.

Carl: Shit. Sorry about that. Is everyone okay? 

Imani: Carl, let’s not do that again. Okay? I think everybody is fine. People guarding that entrance took some hearing damage, but nothing permanent. I think that line is good and sealed off now.

Elle: I think the mushroom guy shit himself. 

I should have put the bomb bundle together at my sapper’s table. That way I could’ve seen and adjusted the bomb’s total yield. Just the act of putting anything explosive on the table had a tendency to increase its total yield, but I could now easily adjust it up and down. Hobgoblin dynamite was much more powerful than the regular stuff. In fact, next time I went into the crafting room, I’d put together some different-sized bundles so I had everything ready to go.

I sighed, thinking of everything we needed to do. Part of me really wished we had hundred or more of these carts. That way we could strategically park them around the stairwells. But as it was, they had so many entrances that it wasn’t feasible. Plus we only had one Growler Gary. We still didn’t know how long until the portal carts would reach the abyss. The level timer was now at two days and twenty hours. That meant we had just over a day until Mordecai returned. I wondered if we had enough time to go back to the trainyards to build a few more train bombs. That’d be a great way to farm more experience.  

And while we were now seeing mobs suffering stage-3 of the DTs, we still hadn’t seen what happened when the DTs killed them. I had a suspicion of what was going to be, but how that would be implemented, I had no idea. 

“Carl,” Donut called. “You pissed off the ghouls. Now they’re heading toward us!” 

Sure enough, with the tunnel officially sealed off, the ghouls being generated at 72 had stopped heading toward 36 and now were coming this way. I could already see them shuffling up toward us on the edge of my map. 

Shit, I thought, thinking once again of Growler Gary. We’d collected one extra pair of hands from the poor gnoll, but it turned out we were actually one pair short.

I couldn’t use the portal carts to protect the others, but we could certainly use it to protect ourselves right here and right now. 

“Guys,” I said, “help me position one of the carts on the track. Then we gotta go talk to Gary again.”

~

We placed the turned-on portal into the tunnel, blocking it like a cork. The blister ghouls didn’t even pause. They dropped like lemmings right into the abyss. We had the cart parked at the edge of the vermillion line. My explosion appeared to have knocked the power out. We had to run the carts off of battery power, but that was fine. I now had plenty of them. 

We had the second cart, the one with two fresh hands lashed to it, pointed in the other direction on the track. Only a handful of additional stage-three monsters had appeared over the past few hours. According to the prattle on my chat, the stage-three monsters were mostly heading toward station 24. They were running down the tracks, reaching outrageous speeds. But they were also coming up from the trainyards, so they were either riding the rollercoaster line—though I didn’t know how—or they were getting portaled there. I suspected maybe those neighborhood bosses at the Krakaren drug dens had something to do with that. But the monsters weren’t actually entering stop 24. They would stop and camp just outside of the station, oftentimes fighting with one another. 

The few who did come down our track from the north did not voluntarily throw themselves into the pit. Instead, they stood there at the edge, growling and snapping with their round mouths while I observed them through the distorted haze of the tunnel-width portal. 

We’d spent the past few hours grinding against the constant stream of ghouls. I’d turn off the south-facing portal, and we’d advance and kill. I practiced with my xistera some, and Donut was practicing with mounted attacks. Katia practiced with forming spikes on her arms and using them as weapons.

She also spent some time in her smaller form with Eva’s saber. The description said it was part of a set and only magical when the two weapons were together. Otherwise, the enchanted saber, called The Left Fang of the Green Sultan, offered no buffs or powerups. That was good, however, as it meant Eva had also lost her main weapon.    

The level-20 ghouls did not pose a serious challenge, but they were useful for practicing new techniques, if not for experience. 

The stage-three monsters, I knew, would be a much better trial. We had a new technique we needed to try out, and it required a higher-tier, stronger monster to test it on.   

While the DT monsters didn’t voluntarily throw themselves into the portal, I knew I could curate our battle experience on that side easily by hopping onto the cart and pushing it forward, sucking in the stage-three monsters until there was only one left. The portal, when tuned to the abyss, was unforgiving. Like with the rope we tried earlier, if just a tiny portion of the creature touched the edge of the magical gateway, the whole thing was sucked in like a strand of spaghetti. 

Bautista was giving me a running update of all the oddities that were raining into the abyss. We still had an estimated two hours left before the carts would arrive. We didn’t know for certain that all three carts were still moving, but I was hopeful based on the sheer amount of stuff falling into the pit.  

We weren’t ready for how powerful the stage-three monster was. The thing was stronger than a regular neighborhood boss. The system didn’t allow us to properly examine the creatures through the window of the portal’s backside, so I couldn’t read the description until we were ready to fight.  

But one thing was obvious even before I turned off the portal. It didn’t matter what sort of monster was the original source of the creature, whether it be a massive ogre or a tiny, rat-sized mob. By the time they reached stage-three of the DTs, they were all pretty much the same creature: a hippo-sized monstrosity with thrashing tentacles on its back. Instead of a normal face, they held nothing but a round mouth circled with teeth. There was a skull there, visible through its transparent, jelly-like skin, a talisman of the creature it once was. For this one, it was a small skull, much smaller than the bear-like skulls we’d seen before. The creatures looked over-inflated, like they’d explode at any moment. The things bulged with veins, reminding me of the second boss we faced, the Juicer. The tentacles were thick and meaty, with round, thrashing mouths at the end.  

“Okay, get ready,” I said to Katia. Donut stood back with Mongo on the platform while I sat up on the raised cockpit of the rapid-response cart. I was afraid the monster would trash the cart, so the plan was to back it up and out of danger. I’d then leap down to engage while Katia did her thing from the edge of the platform. 

Katia rolled back and formed into the sentinel gun. Three, spider-like legs formed, turning her into a tripod. The flesh-colored shield went up, and the automatic crossbow, which had been sitting in her inventory, appeared, locking into place just behind the shield. A firing slit appeared, which she could open and close like a mouth. 

“I’m ready,” she said. She’d formed a pair of eyes and a mouth just behind and above the lump of flesh that held the crossbow, allowing her to peer down onto her target. The plan was to eventually form eyes strategically on the exterior of the large, half-moon shape shield, but she wasn’t quite ready for that.

“Okay here we go,” I said. 

I pushed forward with the cart, and the single monstrosity scattered back, having seen his friends sucked away earlier. I reversed the throttle and quickly backed up, turning off the portal that blocked the tunnel. I jumped from the cart’s cockpit, crunching onto the gravel. The monster continued to run away for a good ten or twelve more seconds before realizing he’d been bamboozled. Now a distance speck down the track, he stopped and turned back toward us. He howled indignantly, turned, and charged. 

Razor Fox. Level 22.  

Warning: This mob is suffering from the DTs. It is in stage three of three. 

In stage three, this mob’s form has changed, and it bears very little resemblance to its original self. Kind of like how all you humans did after you finally got out of quarantine. It is now covered with multiple tentacles. If this monster has recently fed on another living creature, the contents of its stomach may be quite valuable. Or toxic. Or explosive. Or worse. That’s what makes these guys so fun. 

Unfortunately for them, this form is only temporary. The DTs are always fatal. 

I’d explain to you what a Razor Fox is here, but it’s pointless because this isn’t a Razor Fox anymore. It’s a shame, really. I kinda love those ninja-star-throwing fuckers. But all is not lost. We’ll have normal versions of these guys on the fifth floor, too. Too bad you won’t be seeing them since you’re probably about to get ripped to shreds. 

A moment passed, and then it was in range. Katia opened fire. Thwap, thwap, thwap, thwap. The bolts shot out of the large crossbow, coming at about two a second, which was pretty damn fast, but not nearly as fast as it’d been before when Hekla owned it. The crossbow was auto-loading, cocking, and firing. All she had to do was hold the prod down, and it’d start spamming bolts like one of those tennis ball machines.

Each magical, razor-tipped bolt was about twenty-inches long. The bolts disappeared on their own about a minute after being fired, but that was plenty of time to do some serious damage. The monster bayed as the bolts tore at its face and side, like a nail gun. Each hit knocked its health down, but only a tiny bit.

What the hell? How strong were these assholes? 

One of the side effects of Katia forming into these odd shapes was that it confused monsters. Like when she was the train’s scoop, the mobs hadn’t realized she was living flesh and hadn’t attacked her directly. This mob, despite being riddled with holes, reacted the same way. The only living creature he saw was me. He howled again and charged.

The thing was terrifyingly fast. I loaded a banger and twirled, tossing the metal projectile directly at the round mouth. The ball shattered teeth as I scored a hit. It made a strangled noise and stopped, sliding on the rail. Katia continued to pump it with bolts, and now Donut joined the fray, tossing Magic Missiles into the creature from Mongo’s back. 

The monster whimpered as it tried to dislodge the metal ball in its throat. I loaded another, but this one a half-strength, impact-detonated hob lobber. It was too close for a full strength. I fired again, again getting it into the monster’s giant mouth. I took out another tooth, like I was playing a game at the carnival. One more, and I win a prize. There was a muffled thump. Its tentacles thrashed about, one of them grasping a wooden railroad tie and breaking it in half. The monster was no longer focused on me or anybody else. It was starting to look like a hedgehog from all the bolts. Injury to its body only did minor damage. We had to get inside its mouth. 

I started to shout for everybody to focus on the area when it suddenly exploded. Sizzling gore showered the track. It’d blown from the inside out, like a water balloon filled with Beefaroni.   

The battle was over just as quickly as it started. 

“Jesus,” I said. “I don’t even know how we killed it. Either those bolts suck ass, that thing is tough.” 

“Carl, I didn’t get any experience at all,” Donut said. “These things cheat.” 

Katia returned to her regular form. She wore the backpack to make the sentinel gun, but only had enough metal to form the shield. We’d practice with larger versions. Plus as her crossbow skill increased, we’d try to find another one. She could only “wield” two weapons at a time, but I didn’t know what that really meant. I suspected it’d let her form five or six arms that could shoot five or six bows, but she’d only receive bonuses from two. But I wasn’t certain.

“I don’t think it’s the bolts,” she said. “I think the body might be like living armor. When I hit the tentacles, it did a lot more damage. But they’re hard to hit. My crossbow skill is still only four. 

We’d try again, but these things usually came in groups. It was going to take a lot of practice before I’d be comfortable facing two at a time. 

Donut and Mongo jumped down from the platform. Mongo sniffed at the remains of the exploded monster. He made an odd, whimpering noise. Donut jumped down to inspect. She also sniffed at the remains. She froze.  

“Carl,” Donut said. “Um, I think you might want to see this. It’s quite disturbing.” 

Donita Grace: Holy shit. Holy shit. Guys. Don’t go to stop 24. They’re everywhere. Millions of them. Worse than the grubs. Don’t…

Warning: This message is from a deceased crawler. 

My message screen exploded with people asking what was going on as I jogged up to the corpse of the monster. 

“Well this is unpleasant,” I said as the tiny, little red dots started appearing on my screen. I wasn’t reminded of the grubs. Instead, I thought of the fire ants.  

That explained the lack of experience. We hadn’t killed the monster at all. It’d hatched.

When the creature had exploded, he’d dislodged several thousand teeny-tiny, squirming monsters. 

The AI took on a mock-motherly voice, as if it was trying to emulate a kindergarten teacher.  

Krakaren Crotch Dumpling. Level 1. 

Gather around little crawlers. It’s story time. 

Once upon a time, on a very lively planet, there lived a lonely creature. This planet teemed with flora and fauna, all of them growing and evolving and generally thriving and having a great time as they dashed forward through the eons. This creature also wanted to thrive, she also wanted to have a great time. But there was only one of her. She could not have children of her own. And this made her very angry, very cranky, but also very sad. But more importantly, it made her determined. 

And as Jeff Goldblum once famously said, Life, uh, finds a way. 

The creature had a special ability. Her stomach was like one of those soda machines where you could pick one of a thousand different choices. You could mix and match. She soon discovered if she ate this creature, she could make this substance. And if she ate that creature, she could make a different substance. So she began to experiment. The creatures of her world thought of her as an apothecary. She could cure all ails.    

But what she truly wished for was to create a child of her own. And after a thousand generations, she did just that. Almost. It’s a complicated process that involves a lot of failures. A lot of troublesome ghouls. But as another Earth saying goes, you need to crack a few eggs to make an omelet, no? 

What these wriggling parasites you see really are, are clones. The next part of the Krakaren story, where she discovers the ability to speak to all of clones telepathically, and then eventually form a collective mind, where she starts spreading across the universe and making a general nuisance of herself is for a different time. 

All you need to know now, little crawler, is that you have to kill these things, and you have to kill them fast. I suggest a nice, firm stomp. 

I was already smashing them with my feet before the long-ass description ended. There were thousands of them, all about the size of a grain of rice. But they were already growing. And we were on gravel. 

“Step back,” I said, and we all jumped back, jumping onto the platform. I’d stomped down and killed most of them, but a few red dots remained. I had a half-full jug of moonshine in my inventory, and dumped it onto the track and tossed a torch, lighting the whole area on fire.

“Growler Gary had said they’d turned the whole place into a Krakaren nest,” Donut said. “He wasn’t kidding.” 

“I guess not,” I said.  

“I hope they stay at station 24,” Katia said.    

~~

I hope ya'll had a great weekend. Sorry this is a little later than I anticipated. Toby and I had to deal with a real-life invasion as my Mother in Law visited with her dog, and she slept in my writin' den. But it's all clear now.