Book 7, Chapters 2, 3, and 4. (Patreon)

Chapter 2

“I am absolutely not wearing this, Carl. It’s like one of Signet’s tattoo people fell through a paper shredder. If I put that on, I’ll look like a tassel. You know how I feel about tassels, Carl.”

I laughed again. “It’s a camouflage suit. It’s supposed to look like that.”

“Well, I don’t know why it’s necessary. They already gave me the ability to turn invisible. At least the hat is nice, even if I’ve already collected a few of these from those babababoon guys on the fourth floor. I’m not a huge fan of beige-colored items as a rule, but it is extra floppy, and that’s always a nice bonus. I do like floppy. Though it completely clashes with my fit. I don’t care how many upgrades it has.”

“We call those boonie hats,” I said. “It’s not the same thing as a bucket hat. It’s what snipers wear.”

Mongo circled the suit and hat, which Donut had laid out on the floor. He screeched at it uncertainly. I tried not to look at Mongo’s missing wing or burnt-off feathers. I’d done that when I was being controlled by Shi Maria. A wave of guilt washed over me. Supposedly we were going to fix it using a potion that had been upgraded at the end of the last floor, but Mordecai wanted to examine it first.

I returned my attention to the small, cat-sized ghillie suit. It came with a few interesting benefits, though she would indeed look absolutely ridiculous in it. The thing looked to be made of long, shredded bits of color-changing fabric that blended into the background. It took up a “jacket” slot on in her inventory even though it magically covered her entire body once she wore it. The suit added a skill called Blend into the Background, which I hadn’t yet had the time to examine, and a Cone of Silence benefit. Combined with invisibility, it would be great.

The floppy hat added a Targeting skill, which allowed her to zoom in and examine mobs from afar. It was similar to the gnomish farseerer, but a lot less awkward. It also increased the range of all her spells, even more than they were already buffed.

If she wore both the suit and hat at the same time, all the benefits were buffed even further. She’d be able to snipe line-of-sight enemies from well over a mile away.

The idea was terrifying, especially since I knew the enemies all had this sort of gear, too.

I’d already collected the Gate of the Feral Gods from the mailbox. We were alone in the saferoom. Mordecai hadn’t come out yet. He was in the crafting room, excitedly working on something on his newly-upgraded alchemy table. His table was now leveled up higher than he’d ever gotten it, and he was excitedly sending me messages about this potion and that. He now, apparently, had the ability to examine potions and see how they were made. This was the first time he’d had access to this ability, and his excitement was palpable.

Donut tossed the hat and suit into her inventory and pulled out the Spellbook of the Floor prize from the back of the mailbox and examined it.

“Hmm,” she said. “It’s something called Flak.”

“That’s a good anti-air spell,” Mordecai said, walking in the room, rubbing his hands together. “Get it to level 10, and it puts on quite the show. We’ll want you to read it, but not yet. Don’t read any books yet until we talk.”

I exchanged a look with Donut. We both burst out laughing.

“What?” he asked, holding his hands out. Mongo rushed up and started sniffing all around him.

“You make fun of me when I’m something stupid, and when I’m the most normal thing possible, at least to you, you also laugh? Fuck both of you.”

“Why are you wearing a snowsuit?” Donut asked. “And is that a raccoon hat? Can I have it?”

I laughed. “They’re really leaning into the stereotypes with this one.”

“The glasses are a nice touch,” Donut added. “You look like that accountant guy from Ghostbusters who shrank all his children and almost got them eaten by bugs.”

“I don’t pick the clothes I get, assholes,” Mordecai said. He reached up to adjust his glasses.

I examined the angry game guide.

Mordecai. Human. Level 50.

Manager of Princess Donut.

This is a non-combatant NPC.

This is a human. This one is something called a Canadian. Part French. Part maple syrup. He’s weirdly obsessed with ice hockey and snow mobiles and semi-erotic lumberjack fan fiction. Has a well-worn Tim Hortons loyalty card in his Velcro wallet. He says “aboot” instead of “about” and gets really, really upset when you point it out, claiming you’re hearing things and that it’s a harmful stereotype. It’s not a stereotype, and that’s exactly how it sounds. He has a relative who was trampled to death by a moose. You get the idea.

“You both have several items to open, and you need to get moving. Donut, open your boxes. Also, after we decide what to do with your new gear, we need to decide when you’ll wear Quan’s cloak. It’s not as straightforward as we originally thought, so we have to plan a little bit before you put it on for the first time.”

“Quan’s cloak?” Donut asked, looking at me. “You’re not going to take it?”

“No,” I said. “It’s better for you than me.”

She did a little hop. “I did get credit for killing him. I never really thought I’d look good in a cape, but I suppose I can try it out as long as it properly resizes itself. It’ll certainly be better than the ghoulie suit.”

I grinned. “Your crupper is a waist accessory, the cloak is a shoulder accessory, and the ghillie suit is a jacket. You can wear all three at the same time.”

Donut made a scoffing sound.

Mordecai looked at me. “We also might want to talk aboot some of the other items you, uh, got from Tserendolgor. Especially now that we have two and a half days to prepare.”

“We’ll do that in a second,” I said, glancing nervously at Donut. “Let’s open our achievements first.”

“No, first we’re going to heal Mongo,” Donut said, pulling a group of potions out. “There is a potion called Heal Severe Injury that Carl made himself when he was part spider, and I gave that to Mongo already to heal him of his burns, but we still need to grow his poor wing back.”

“That Heal Severe Injury potion requires 33 Fine Healing Potions to make,” Mordecai said, looking at me. “And an autoclave.”

I grunted. “I’m pretty sure I only combined like three in my inventory to make it work, but I don’t remember what specific potions there were. I’ll look to see if I can figure out what I did. I mixed a few different potions when I was in that state, but I handed them all out.”

Donut pushed one potion forward. “This was a Heal Pet potion Carl put on the ground before the vinegar goddess got her head blown off by Paz, and now it’s super sparkly and says it’s called Revitalize Pet.”

Mordecai nodded and picked it up. I had several of the Heal Pet potions, but we didn’t really use them anymore because Donut had her level-8 Heal Critter spell. This one was purple and looked as if someone had dumped half a jar of glitter into it. “These are super rare, and expensive, but with my newest table upgrade, I can figure out the recipe without ruining it. So let me look at it first, and we can give it to Mongo after. It’ll grow his wing back in about an hour or so.” He patted Mongo on the head. “You’ll be as good as new. Well, almost. You’ll probably still have some scars.”

Mongo peeped excitedly, waving his one good wing.

Mordecai gathered the rest of the potions. He exclaimed as he looked at a regular mana refill that had changed to something called Mana Blessing. He took a breath. “This is... this is amazing.”

“And what about Carl’s hair?” Donut demanded.

“He has that hair tonic in his inventory,” Mordecai said, distracted. He started to wander back toward the crafting room. “Open your boxes. Donut, don’t read any spellbooks yet. I’ll... I’ll be right back.”

“Carl, I think he likes the potions more than he likes us.”

“He’s pretty excited,” I said. “Let’s get this over with. We have a lot to do.”

I had over fifty achievements and boxes to open, which was the most I’d ever had at once. I hadn’t had time to sit down and open my boxes since the end of phase two of the previous floor. The vast majority of the achievements were stupid, such as a Stretching! achievement for shoving all those traps in Samantha’s neck hole, or the Kombucha! achievement for drinking vinegar. All of these ridiculous ones garnered me dozens of bronze and silver Adventurer boxes. But there were still plenty of good ones in there, along with a handful of strange or concerning ones. The notable achievements were:

New Achievement! Lord of the Flies!

Social structures are breaking down. People are starting to fight. The next thing you know, someone is going to nickname you Piggy and brain you to death with a rock.

You set a trap module targeted specifically for a fellow crawler, and they triggered it. That’s the first step. It’s always the first step.

Reward: You’ve received a Gold I Have the Conch Box!

I’d gotten that one for the teleport traps I’d left at the Capitol building. Ren’s team had set them off.

New Achievement! Demons Hate This One Trick!

Hey, what do you mean you can’t teleport the demon-possessed?

If only Father Merrin had known about this, the Exorcist would’ve been a much-shorter movie.

Reward: Your food boxes all now give an unlimited supply of Pea Soup.

That was when Samantha had teleported the whole beach to us, including the shells of all the demon-possessed zombies. It had helped kick off all the chaos at the end of the last floor.

New Achievement! Chickenshit Exploit!

Have you ever played Dungeons and Dragons? You know that one guy who’s memorized all the guidelines? He’s constantly jumping on everybody because they’re doing something that breaks this obscure rule or that. He’s a purist. He takes everything so goddamned seriously, you wonder if he’s ever had fun even once in his miserable life. He’s indignant that you’re pushing back against him. The very suggestion that he’s ruining the fun is met with a blank stare.

Well, that guy is not you. That guy hates you. If you were a product, he’d be giving you a nerd rage-induced one-star review right now.

You took a very carefully built game system, and you broke the ever-loving shit out of it. You used that exploit to help kill a fellow crawler!

Great job, cheater.

Reward: You have received a Platinum Tserendolgor Box!

“Oh, fuck off,” I grumbled. That was from teleporting our card totems into the battle between Quan and Ren. Ren was not a cheater, and she’d never been. The AI was just being an asshole.

New Achievement! Celestial Loot!

You’re just gonna randomly pick a celestial item up off the floor? That’s ballsy. You do this four more times, and something really cool happens.

Reward: You’ve received a Loot Punch Card.

That was from getting Quan’s cloak.

New Achievement! Used Pet!

People sure like to make a big deal out of adopting pets. They “rescue” them before they spend the next 10 years exploiting the poor, oblivious animal to death on social media. They splatch a bumper sticker that reads “Who Rescued Who?” on their minivans while the poor dog spends 20 hours a day in a stinking crate.

Do you know how many animals were in locked cages during the collection? It breaks your fucking heart, especially when you see how goddamned hopeful the pets are when they’re coming home with you. Do I sound bitter? I don’t mean to. Pet adoption is good. It really is. It’s just... fuck you, Janet Dominguez in Baton Rouge. Sprinkles was better off at the no-kill shelter. Let the fucking dog on the couch every once in a while. Holy shit.

I really need to stop watching these memory recordings.

Err, anyway.

Did you know that Terry, the cairn terrier that played Toto in the original Wizard of Oz movie was paid $125 a week, more than the vast majority of the other actors in the film? (She was stepped on and grievously injured by one of those green-faced witch’s guards during filming, probably because the guy was pissed about the salary discrepancy.)

What I’m saying is used pets do have value, and sometimes it’s not monetary. Uh, I think that’s what I’m trying to say. My feelings on this are very confusing, especially when said pets are fucking delicious. Or really squishable.

You have adopted a pet that was once bonded to someone else.

Reward: You’ve received a Gold Pet Box.

“Uh,” I said. That was a little more unhinged than usual, especially since I hadn’t actually adopted Garret the tummy acher yet. The AI rambled a lot, but there was usually a coherent point. This one was all over the place. I knew enough by now not to comment out loud when the AI was acting extra crazy.

New Achievement! Uh oh. It talks.

You’ve discovered a sapient weapon. Have you noticed there are very few well-known crawlers with sapient weapons out there, even though those weapons are usually quite powerful? I can only think of two crawlers in the top 50 who use them. Yeah. They’re great, though. Just... Good luck with that.

Reward: You’ve received a pair of earplugs.

That was from looting Jefferson the nickel sock from Quan. Dong Quixote the stripper currently had the weapon. Mordecai had also warned that those things could be both annoying and dangerous. I hadn’t actually heard the sock speak yet, but I suddenly had an uneasy feeling about the weapon. I made a note to circle back and examine it more closely.

New Achievement! Touched by a Demon!

You have been physically touched by a demon lord of Sheol, and you’ve lived to talk about it. Do you know how many of these achievements have ever been handed out? One. Just one, and it’s to you.

Reward: You’ve received a cassette copy of Dio’s 1983 masterpiece debut, Holy Diver along with a Celestial Heavy Metal Box.

Yes! Another Celestial box! That was great.

New Achievement! Crab Chowder!

You jerked off a crab. You really need therapy.

Reward: All food items in your food boxes now have the option to be served “chowder style.”

“What the fuck?” I said up to the ceiling. “I didn’t do that! And what the hell does that even mean?”

I now had two different achievements that changed our food boxes. I knew both of them were stupid jokes, but that sort of thing usually wasn’t a coincidence.

The last notable achievement came in the AI’s deep, throaty voice.

New Achievement! Unbirthing!

If you still had access to Google, I would warn you not to look that one up. But that’s okay. You experienced it first-hand yourself. It hurt, didn’t it? It was extra tingly while you were in there, struggling to breathe as you were... crushed. And then you slipped, you slided back out into the fiery, cruel world. And you glistened. Oh, oh god. You glistened. Oh, yes.

The AI groaned.

I really liked that. You are in fucking trouble.

Reward: You’ve received a Legendary Spicy Box.

I was pretty sure I got that for teleporting into Samantha’s neck hole. I shuddered. That wasn’t good. I had several more achievements that gave me random, non-box items, such as a Male Pattern Baldness achievement for getting my hair all singed off, which gave me a “head buffing kit” and an ominous Hitchhiker achievement for getting that tattoo. It didn’t give me any information on the nature of the tattoo itself, but I received a bottle of unenchanted, medicated lotion to “take care of” the wound.

On top of all those new boxes, I had a Gold fan box I’d received days earlier when I’d gone to the homeless shelter, and I’d just missed opening it the last time. That, plus a few random quest boxes and boxes from other achievements I’d managed to read before they’d zapped away.

When that was done, I looked across the way at Donut who was hopping up and down with excitement. She was waiting for me so I could watch her open her prizes.

“I’m almost ready,” I said.

I had some stuff in my Emberus menu, including a quest update. I was expecting this, but I still groaned when I saw it.

Quest Update. Find out who killed my son.

Amayon, Prince of Sheol claims to know what happened to my child.

He has offered to give up this information in exchange for me killing his three brothers.

We have a truce, the gods and the demons. I do not wish to break it, but I will do what is necessary to learn the truth. There is a way, however, for me to do this without causing a war that will burn the mortal world to ashes.

Proceed to the Temple of Issitoq in a Club Vanquisher and treat with the High Cleric of the Watch. You will be accompanied by Pater Coal. Gain permission for me to break the truce.

You still need to obtain the item Soul Crystal—Apito.

You are doing well, martyr. Do not disappoint me now.

I had no damn clue what that meant. At least he didn’t task me with killing the three brothers myself. I took a breath and pushed it away. That was a tomorrow problem. I looked up to see Donut beaming at me.

“Carl, hurry up! I have my Celestial box to open!”

I nodded. “Let’s get to it, then. Go for it.”

Chapter 3

I rubbed my hand on my bald head and moved to the side as Donut popped up her lootbox menu. The line of boxes spread all the way to the back of the room and moved through the door so we couldn’t even see the sponsor box. Donut had more boxes than I did, likely all due to card-based achievements.

The regular adventurer boxes opened one by one, mostly consisting of large sums of gold and more of those Build Trench scrolls. But there were some additional scrolls tossed in, including some Fill Trench scrolls and Temporary Water Source scrolls, which I’d have to examine later.

Mordecai wandered back out when she reached the platinum boxes. She’d received the same Platinum To Hell in a Handbasket box I had. We’d gotten that one for simply looking at Amayon near the end of the previous floor. The box itself was shaped like a demon head.

“Finally,” Mordecai said as the spellbook plopped onto the table. He looked at me. “It’s a standard Shield spell. A real one. With her tech-based shield, she can chain them back and forth.”

The next box was the same Platinum Tserendolgor box I had, and it was shaped like a jeweled, sitting, life-sized German Shepard with an army helmet on its head. It barked once and opened its mouth before exploding into a bunch of firecracker-like explosions.

That was also a spellbook, and Mordecai whistled. “A war protection spell. Good.”

It was a book called Sentry. It disappeared before I could examine it.

The Legendary Quest box from the Hell Comes to Crawler Town quest opened, and it was two items. An unenchanted, cat-sized kilt and yet another spellbook, so her fourth new spell. I still didn’t understand the purpose of the kilt, but it was a green and black tartan that Donut scoffed at. The book was a black-hued tome that clanked heavily to the table. It looked as if it had been burned. Purple wisps of smoke rose off it.

“My word,” Donut said, crinkling her face. “It smells just awful. Like whenever you tried to burn your microwave popcorn on purpose, Carl.”

“Fuuuck,” Mordecai whispered, voice filled with awe. He took a step back, as if he was afraid of the book itself. “That’s... I thought they’d taken that one out of the game. It’d been deemed illegal.”

“What is it?” I asked. Little black tendrils, like roots started to spread out from the book, moving across the table.

“It’s similar to Donut’s Second Chance, but it’s a lot more insidious.” He gave a shiver. “It’s called You’re Not Done Yet.”

I’d heard that spell name before, but I couldn’t remember where. The book let out a little screech as it disappeared into Donut’s inventory.

“Here it comes! Here it comes! Would you look at that box!” Donut said as the benefactor box trucked into the room. She laughed with delight. It was in the form of a large, box-shaped spaceship that floated directly into the room. The ship was covered with little flashing lights, and the logo of Long Haul Biological Waste Management Solutions was emblazoned on the side of the ship.

“That’s a crest-owned company,” Mordecai muttered. “I’ve never even heard of them sponsoring anybody. Much less giving a Celestial Benefactor box. It doesn’t make any damn sense.”

The ship started to move, folding in on itself like it was a giant robot. Donut squealed with delight as it turned into a massive, mechanical hand. And sitting upon that hand were two items. A red, fluffy pillow with a glittering, shining, opalescent tiara placed upon it.

Donut shrieked again. The pillow and the tiara disappeared into her inventory, and they both appeared again. “Oh my god. Oh my god, Carl. Look at it! It’s the most beautiful thing I have ever seen!” She looked up at the ceiling. “Thank you, garbage truck people! I must admit I was skeptical at first, but I just love it.”

Mordecai nodded. “Wow. That’s a lot of absorption crystals. Good. This is a good one.” He looked at me. “We’ll want to get this sorted before we give her the cloak from Quan.”

“The explanation is not exactly the feel-good story I was hoping for, but the item itself is just divine,” Donut said.

I picked up the pillow and tiara combo and examined them. The pillow felt as if was made of velvet, but it was significantly heavier than I anticipated. The dainty tiara was prettier than anything Donut had received yet, and it was covered in about a hundred, tiny jewels, each sparkling a different color. It caught the light like a brilliant diamond.

The Tiara of a Thousand Lights and Accompanying Charge Pillow.

This is a unique item.

This item was made especially for Crawler Princess Donut by her sponsor, Long Haul Biological Waste Management Solutions.

There’s a story out there, called the Legend of a Thousand Lights. It’s about a Crest habitat that, after fleeing a pirate intrusion, found itself lost. They wandered into an ancient battlefield, and the habitat lost its life-support, communication, propulsion, and lifeboat systems all at once after a catastrophic collision with some drifting space debris. Rescue efforts were dispatched to find the missing habitat, but the junkyard covered millions of square kilometers. Some of these ancient ships still had power, making scans of the area completely useless. The 100,000 plus residents thought for certain that rescue would never come, and they resigned themselves to their fate.

It was a young engineer who came up with a solution. The details are long and convoluted and require an understanding of both physics and chemistry I don’t have the time or inclination to explain. The short version is this engineer quickly devised a system where every resident of the habitat combined their home cooking sphere with a bioengineered farm animal called a cockrent—basically a space chicken that breathes methane—and they jettisoned the sphere-enclosed cockrents out into space. After a few minutes, the cockrents would explode, filling the pressurized, translucent spheres with bursts of colorful, burning, pulsating light that lasted several minutes each.

The show of exploding space chickens was enough to attract the attention of a Syndicate rescue squad, and the habitat was saved.

(They, of course, were fined so much money that the habitat was eventually repossessed and the vast majority of the adults were forced to indenture to pay off the debt, but this part is usually left out of the retellings of this legend.)

To this day, the Legend of a Thousand Lights remains a tale of how an entire community working together managed to save themselves from certain disaster. Habitats celebrate their victory by jettisoning colorful orbs out into space once a cycle in commemoration.

This item is fashioned after the Tiara of a Thousand Lights, customarily presented each cycle to the Thousand Light Princess, as voted by a habitat’s community. The young, lucky recipient of the crown wears the tiara and sits upon the Pillow of Lights on the day of the feast and celebration.

This particular tiara is imbued with 99 Absorption Jewels.

The tiara itself has no inherent magical properties, and in its base state it gives no additional benefits or buffs except plus 10 to Charisma. However, it has the ability to be permanently charged with up to 99 different buff items.

Any single enchanted hat item of any quality you place upon the accompanying charge pillow for a period of ten hours will lose all of its magical properties. These properties will be stored in the pillow until the tiara is placed upon the charger, upon which time, all of the buffs and magical enhancements will be instantly transferred to the tiara. If a hat item contains five separate buffs, it will use up five of the 99 jewels. Similar buffs from different hat items, like two different intelligence boosts, will not combine and will take up two jewels.

With some careful planning, one can turn this tiara into one of the most powerful items in the history of Dungeon Crawler World.

Okay, here come the warnings.

Warning: Temporary effects will remain temporary, and upon expiration will burn out the absorption jewel.

Warning: Items with curse effects may or may not transfer to the tiara depending on multiple factors, so be wary. As such, curse effects may or may not be removed from items that have been drained of their magical properties.

Warning: Certain Celestial, god-blessed hat items may or may not be properly drained or transferred.

Warning: Items carrying a debt cannot be absorbed into the pillow.

Warning: This is a big one. Hat items placed on this pillow take ten hours to fully transfer, however if you remove the item after one hour, it will still lose its magical abilities.

“That’s... that’s pretty awesome,” I said.

“It’s just amazing,” Donut said. “Do you know how many hats I have with magical abilities, but I can’t wear them because they only have one or two? Or because they’re ugly? And you know what the best part is? Even though it drains the original item of all its magic, it doesn’t destroy it! So I can keep the hats for my collection. It is just divine.”

“It’s too bad it takes ten hours to drain the old item,” I said. “That’s going to severely limit how quickly we can buff it up.”

Mordecai nodded. “The first thing you’ll want to put on that pillow is that hat you just got with the targeting ability. And set a timer in your own interface. I know these things, and they don’t give any sort of notification when the transfer is complete. It’s been a bug for a very long time. So set a timer for like ten and a half hours to be safe. You can’t see if it worked until you pull the drained item off, so you have to be extra, extra careful.”

Donut let out a huge gasp.

“Carl, Carl, I just got another benefactor box! This one from the Apothecary! It’s a platinum! Oh my god, it’s like Christmas all over again! Thank you! Thank you, everybody!”

I exchanged a look with Mordecai.

“Well, what’re you waiting for?” Mordecai asked.

She hopped and opened up the new box, which exploded and filled the room with magical confetti.

It wasn’t a hat like I was expecting, but it was another charging pillow. It was almost identical to the one that’d come with the tiara. It took ten hours to fully transfer the magic, and the item was still ruined after an hour. This one was purple instead of red, and there was a slight difference at the end of the description.

Warning: This will drain any magical item, but it will only transfer to a like item. If you drain a ring, the stored buff will only be transferred to an absorption crystal affixed to a ring. If you attempt to transfer to an incompatible item, the buff will be lost.

“So, this one is almost like a universal charger,” I said, turning the purple pillow over in my hand. “Be sure they’re listed as hats before you use it, Donut. But now that you have two, you can fill up your new tiara twice as fast. We’ll need to start cataloging all your magical hats ASAP and see what buffs we want to transfer over.”

Donut continued to dance with excitement. “This is just great! Mongo, isn’t it great?”

Mongo screeched and waved his one wing in the air. He made a peeping noise and looked suspiciously at his missing, right wing, as if noticing it was gone for the very first time.

“Mordecai!” Donut said, sounding alarmed. “Can we use the potion now? My baby is going to be traumatized!”

“Yes, yes,” he said, pulling the potion out. “It’ll take a bit to work. It’s an expensive potion, so be careful. I know how to make them now, but, like I expected, the ingredients are really rare.”

“Mongo, sit for mommy,” Donut said. “Uncle Carl is going to give you your medicine. You’ll have to drink every drop.” She looked at me. “Be gentle, Carl.”

I picked up the sparkling potion, walked over to Mongo, and I smashed the vial on his butt at the base of his tail.

“Hey!” Donut cried. “That was mean, Carl!”

Mongo screeched, but the buff Healing appeared over his head. It had worked. He didn’t seem to mind one way or another. It wasn’t until Mordecai had built the potion balls had I realized that we could apply potions that way, at least to non-crawlers. It was a hell of a lot safer than trying to pour it down his throat.

Mordecai grunted. “That works. Let’s get some hats draining before we move on.”

Donut grumbled as she put the pillows on the counter. She placed her new boonie hat on the red pillow and her Tiara of the Inebriated Dragonfly on the other. Each item made an audible click the moment they touched the pillow. There was no other notification.

“What happens if the cleaner bot knocks it over,” Donut asked, looking suspiciously up at the bot in the top, right corner of the room. “Don’t knock it over!”

The bot let out an angry, petulant beep.

Donut harumphed. “Or what happens if Samantha pushes it? Hey, where is she anyway?”

“That’s a good question,” Mordecai said, looking off toward the training room. “I haven’t seen her since we landed, but I’ve been in the crafting studio.” He shrugged. “Don’t worry about the hats getting moved off the pillows. Once they’re locked in place, you have to use a menu action to unlock them. If you want, you can move them to your room.”

“Okay,” Mordecai continued, suddenly serious. “Carl, before you get to your boxes, let’s have you pull out Quan’s cloak. Donut, don’t put it on yet.”

~

When we’d first watched Quan wear his magical, celestial-tier cloak on the recap episode all those weeks ago, we’d seen that he’d had several new abilities right away, and we automatically assumed that the powers were simply what the cloak gave him. He could fly. He had a powerful, short-ranged power bolt attack. He had multiple, very powerful shields. He had a cloaking ability.

As it turned out, the abilities were custom-tailored to whomever was wearing the cloak at the time, with a focus on magic and buffing the wearer’s lowest stat, which made me immediately want to give it to Donut.

I pulled the long, glowing cloak from my inventory. The thing was much, much too long for Donut, but they usually—but not always—sized themselves appropriately for the crawler. Mordecai insisted that because it was a cloak item, it would fit on any quadruped. Cloaks were one of the few items—like hats—that would do it.

The thing was made of a silky fabric that was black on one side and blue on the other, almost like a magician’s cape. But unlike regular capes, it had short arms also, which made it more robe-like, though there was no vest part. It was unusual in that way, though I remembered Angel the cocker spaniel had a raincoat poncho thing with almost the exact same design. I didn’t dare say that out loud. The important part was that the system labeled it as a cloak.

The whole cloak glowed with a soft, white light.

The very first benefit alone was what made me decide to give it to Donut. I would’ve given it to her immediately on the previous floor, but Mordecai had talked me into waiting until we could come up with a gameplan.

The Cloak of the Benevolent Champion.

This is a unique item.

This item was originally awarded in a Celestial Quest Box during the third floor.

Man, I hate that word. “Champion.” It has lost its punch over the years, don’t you think? It used to mean the best of the best of the best. And now? That term is handed out like candy and venereal diseases. All you gotta do is wait in line, and it’s yours for the taking. Participation trophy, snowflakes, blah, blah, blah. God, I sound like an old dude about to ruin the day of a Cracker Barrel waitress.

Anyway, if you wear this magical, armed cloak, you are a champion. This is an early-dungeon Celestial item, and its sole purpose is to help you help your fellow crawlers survive as long as possible. Upon equipping this, you will slowly but surely rise to your full potential.

This magical cloak offers the following benefits:

A level-five Find Weakened skill, so you’ll always know who to protect first.

Your lowest base stat will, over the course of the next 66 hours, become equal with the highest base stat at the time of first equip.

Four random spells from your current arsenal will increase to level 15. This benefit is immediate for one spell and will slowly occur over a period of one week for the others.

One random skill from your list will increase to level 15 over the course of the next 504 hours.

Note: these two benefits include your full spell and skill arsenal, so it’s possible an item-based spell or skill will be enhanced. In most cases, you will be able to retain the spell or skill, minus the level from the item, if you remove said item. But not always. If you don’t know what that means, don’t worry about it. You’re not champion-worthy anyway.

Note: All of these benefits require you to wear this item continuously. You may unequip for short periods, but if another crawler equips this, all countdowns will immediately reset. You will not gain new benefits. In other words, no sharing! There can only be one champion.

Note: This item has the distinction of being the first Celestial Item awarded during Dungeon Crawler World: Earth and will automatically appear in the Dungeon Crawler World: Earth museum display upon completion of the crawl. Legacy stipend rules apply should you survive.

I’d already looked up that Find Weakened skill. In groups of three or more mobs or crawlers or any sort of like creatures, it indicated which of them was the closest to death. It was a great skill to have if one was a healer, but Quan had used it for the exact opposite of its intended purpose. He’d used it to find and pick off the weakest crawlers in a group.

Donut circled the cloak, clucking over the stitching. “This is just fantastic.” She paused and looked up. “Carl, do you think Quan even knew what a Cracker Barrel was? Wasn’t he from Vietnam, like Tran? Do they have Cracker Barrels in Vietnam?”

I shrugged. “It was a different description for him. We know Katia gets different descriptions sometimes. And Li Jun says his is usually about Chinese pop culture.”

“Hmm,” Donut said. “If that’s the case, then do you think it said something really different? Quan was a terrible person, yes, but I can’t help but think that description was an attempt to make him sound even worse.”

I thought about it for a moment. Donut was absolutely right. The description made the cloak sound like it was designed to make crawlers help people, like something that would be given to a superhero, and Quan had done the opposite. I grunted. “It doesn’t matter,” I decided. “Whatever it said before, the benefits are the same, and he chose to be an asshole. He got what he deserved.”

“Oh, I don’t disagree with that,” Donut said. “And what is that thing about the legacy museum?”

Mordecai rubbed his pasty hand across the fabric. “Don’t worry aboot that. It means nothing right now. We need to decide when you want to put this on for the first time. This is a fantastic item, but when you first equip requires some thinking. I don’t know what sort of leveling opportunities you’ll have between now and the end of the ceasefire, but the longer you wait to wear this, the higher we can make your constitution. However, it does take a few days for the benefit to raise all the way, and things might kick off fast.” He held up a finger. “Also, you have multiple new spellbooks, and we need to decide if you want to put this on before or after you learn any of those spells. You can’t choose which ones it enhances, so we need to weigh the odds.”

I thought about the four new spellbooks Donut had: Flak, Shield, Sentry, and You’re Not Done Yet. I also had a group of five spellbooks I’d gotten from Khulan, Ren’s companion before they’d both died. All were low-tier attack or utility spells, and Mordecai wanted us to hand them out to our mercenaries.

“I’m thinking she learns the Shield spell, and then she puts on the cloak right away,” I said. “I know we wanted to wait, but we want her constitution buffed as much as possible in time for kick off.”

“I agree,” Mordecai said after a moment. “Though, Flak and Sentry both would be fantastic at level 15.”

“What about that other one?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Trust me. You won’t want that.”

There was no guarantee any of those would be the ones buffed no matter what we did. There were several spells she had that it would be wasted on. Her Torch spell was already level 14 and would likely hit 15 soon on its own. It was possible it could pick Laundry Day, which already was at 15 and ruin the slot. Her Twinkle Toes spell, which made it so Mongo could run fast while she was mounted would probably just end up killing her at level 15. God forbid her Fireball spell, which came from a bracelet, get buffed to 15. She’d burn the whole city down with it. It was a gamble, for sure.

“What about my Hover skill? That’s part of my dragonfly tiara!” Donut looked over at the pillow. “I should put it back on!”

“I was thinking about that,” Mordecai said. “It would be good to have. Quan had a level-15 flying skill that he used. Hover is a little different, and I don’t think it would be worth it. Besides, your pool of skills is much bigger than your spells. It’s in the thousands. It could be anything.”

She sniffed. “Okay.”

“But first,” Mordecai said, pulling out a potion. “This is a potion I just made, and I want you to take it.”

“What is it?” She sniffed at it suspiciously.

“It used to be called Charisma Cheat, but for some reason the system now calls it MySpace Photo. It’s going to trick the system into thinking your Charisma is 30 points higher than it really is. It’s going to think your base Charisma is 193 instead of 163. Your Charisma isn’t really that high, but when you put the cloak on, it’s going to eventually raise your constitution up to 193 instead of 163. This is the real reason I wanted you to wait. The potion only last two minutes, so we’ll have to do it fast.”

“Holy shit,” I said. “Not bad when your base Constitution is two. You’re moving from fragile as hell to almost Katia-level resilience. That’s going to change everything.” I let out a breath. An enormous sense of relief washed over me.

“Yup,” Mordecai agreed. “Plus, now we can re-examine all her other magical items and figure out what we can lose now for better items since we were using most of them to buff her constitution.”

“As long as I don’t have to wear the ghoulie suit,” Donut said. She glowed as she taught herself Shield. “Okay. I’m going to take the potion and then put on the cloak.”

She took the potion and cloak into her inventory, and she drank the potion.

“Hey!” Donut said. “I just got a very rude ‘Liar’ achievement.”

I suppressed a grin as the cloak appeared over her shoulders. The item had indeed resized. It was ridiculously short on her.

“Oh, would you look at this?” Donut said, spinning. “It’s like a shawl. Much better than I thought it would be. It’s quite light. Hang on. Tell me if they match.” Her new tiara appeared on her head. The tiara didn’t have any powers yet, but it glittered magnificently. Her sunglasses appeared in place. “How do I look? Mongo, how does mommy look?”

“You look great,” I said. “Ready for the runway. What did you get?”

A piece of mirrored glass appeared on the table, and she peered into it. Oh, yes. I can work with this. I do wish the lining wasn’t cerulean, but it does look good.”

“Donut,” I said.

“Oh, oh yes. Let’s see.” She paused. “Okay. This system is not very elegant. I have to actually go in and figure out what’s being buffed. So, Bad Attitude is now level 15.”

Mordecai nodded. “That’s good. At level 15, you can cast it on large groups all at once.”

Bad Attitude was like my Fear spell, but it lowered resistances and temporarily drained intelligence, making it so the targets couldn’t cast their best spells. She hadn’t really used it much yet. That was going to change.

She gasped. “The others, I think, are Wall of Fire, Heal Critter, and Puddle Jumper! Those are all the ones with the blinking experience icons. Mongo, next time mommy will be able to heal your wing without stupid Carl breaking glass on your bum. Isn’t that great? In a few days at least.”

Mongo screeched with excitement.

She paused. “Oh, poo, I was hoping for Fireball, Why Are You Hitting Yourself?, and Hole.”

I looked at Mordecai. “Level-15 Wall of Fire?”

He grinned. “Combined with her class and her new tankiness? She’s going to be a terror on the battlefield. And her Puddle Jump’s cooldown is probably going to go down to a minute or two. And she can do it through walls. We’ll need to be careful with it.”

“What about your skill?” I asked Donut.

“I’m trying to figure it out,” Donut said. “It doesn’t say. The experience doesn’t show in the same way, and I can’t tell. This is stupid. There’s no way to tell!”

“The buffed skill takes three weeks to reach level 15,” Mordecai said. “It’ll probably be obvious in about a week or so.”

“Well, I hope it’s not something ridiculous. I have a level six skill in litterbox navigation, and I don’t need that buffed anymore.”

“Level six?” I asked. “You trail litter everywhere you go.”

“That is absolutely a lie, Carl.”

Mordecai nodded. “Okay guys, Carl’s turn to open boxes.”

Donut sighed. “He doesn’t have a Celestial box like I did, but we do need to get it out of the way as soon as possible, I suppose. So I guess we do Carl’s boxes, then we fix his hair, and then we need to start recruiting people. Time is wasting.”

“Actually...” I began as I moved to my menu. “You know what, let’s just see what I got.”

Chapter 4

“Hey!” Donut said as all the boxes lined up behind me. “I saw that last one! That was a Celestial!”

I grinned. “I did get one. I got it when I was in the demon’s fist.”

“Well, I got two benefactor boxes,” Donut said with a harrumph.

I reached over and scratched her. “Yes, you did. You’re going to be our secret weapon.”

The first several boxes all opened, giving me more of the Build Trench scrolls, Invisibility potions, Size-Up potions, and loads of random odds and ends. I got a dozen of those Temporary Water Source scrolls and a few potion versions of the same spell, which was weird. I also got a few strange scrolls, called Emergency Repair.

The first of the gold boxes was a fan box, which I’d had access to for a while.

“Huh,” I said, examining the items.

“Wow,” Donut said. “They do not know you very well, do they Carl?”

It was several boxes of ammunition, maybe about 2,000 rounds total, along with an unenchanted leather holster. That was it. The gun belt was a black leather shoulder holster. The kind you’d see detectives wearing on television, and it wasn’t what I’d choose if I was going to conceal carry, which I couldn’t do without pants. It had “Carl” pressed onto the leather in English. It didn’t contain a gun, but I knew what they wanted me to do with it. I still had my father’s Glock in my inventory.

I had no intentions on ever wearing it outside of my inventory or ever even using it.

“Thanks, guys,” I said up into the air as a few more gold adventurer boxes opened.

My Gold “I Have the Conch” box contained a group of surefires, which was good. I’d been out of the seeking missile attachments for some time, and I needed to build more missiles.

The “Loot Punch Card” popped out of a gold box, and it was a little piece of paper with five spots with one punched out in the shape of a goddamned foot. It read “Picked up Celestial Items Off the Floor. Fill the card for a special prize.” It didn’t give any more description than that. It disappeared into my inventory.

The Gold Pet Box contained several pet biscuits and a coupon for “500 gold off any one item from any PetScapes location in the dungeon.” I had never seen nor heard of a store called that.

“A pet box?” Donut asked. She sounded suspicious. “Why did you get that? Did they give you that for injuring Mongo? That’s quite inappropriate, Carl.”

I ignored her. It was time for the good stuff. I had two platinum, two legendary, and a celestial box to open.

The Platinum, dog-shaped Tserendolgor box opened, containing more supplies for my automaton table. This was an XL box, making the chest bigger than the last time. It was going to be some good stuff. I knew from the automaton instruction manual that the XL boxes contained parts for a fabricator, which is something I’d been hoping to build for a while. I pulled it all into my inventory.

The Platinum “Hell in a Handbasket Box” contained a small patch depicting a spider.

“Hey!” Donut said, looking at the patch. “It’s Shi Maria!”

“It’s not her,” I said. “Just a regular Spider Reaper Minion.”

Mordecai grunted. “That’s going to give you access to a place you need to stay out of.”

“Mordecai,” Donut said. “You should know by now if you want Carl to not do something, the last thing you should do is tell him not to do it. You have to have me do it.”

The Legendary “Hell Comes to Crawler Town” box contained, like promised, a set of unenchanted bagpipes and a group of three third-tier personal space upgrade coupons plus a fourth one in a different color.

“That’s a town upgrade,” Mordecai said, indicating the fourth coupon. “You’ll need it for your castle. You both have a lower tier one of those already from the Tina quest a few floors back.”

“Carl, do we know anybody who plays the bagpipes?” Donut asked.

“God, I hope not.”

The Legendary Spicy Box was shaped like a giant strawberry that made a sizzling noise when it opened for some reason. It contained a simple, silver, unadorned toe ring. I sighed and let it pull itself into my inventory.

Okay, this was it.

The Celestial Heavy Metal box appeared, moving through the room toward me. It came in the form of a full-sized drum kit with pyrotechnics exploding out both sides. The twin bass drums contained the face of Amayon on each one. An ethereal demon creature sat behind the kit, practically running on the bass pedals, filling the room with a constant, speed metal-style rhythm as he did a roll on the snare drum. The pyrotechnics exploded again as Mongo screeched in fear, waving his starting-to-reform chicken wing in the air.

The drum set exploded, and “666” appeared in the air in smoke before dissipating with a little electric guitar twiddle.

All that remained was a single, glittering potion in a bottle shaped like a horned skull. There was a little, hand-written note tied around the top that read, “Drink Me” followed by what appeared to be a drawing of a demon hand giving the devil horns symbol.

“Yes!” Mordecai shouted.

“All that for just a potion?” Donut asked.

I poked at the small bottle. The liquid inside was black and bubbling. The bubbles occasionally rose from the liquid, bursting. Each mini pop let out a small burst of color, suddenly reminding me of that space chicken story.

“It’s a Celestial-quality skill potion,” Mordecai said, his voice reverent. He was literally shaking. “This isn’t something I’ll ever be able to brew.” He paused. “Actually, I’m not positive about that. Let me examine it at my table really fast first before you drink.”

I examined the potion.

Hell-Kissed Celestial Skill Potion of the Prince of Woe.

In case you haven’t figured this out yet, we’re trying to kick things up a notch this year. If we’re gonna do this, we want all of you fuckers as deadly as possible. Hence, this prize.

It’s time to bring out your inner demon.

Drinking this potion will give you a random level 10 to 15 Celestial-tier skill. The skill will be combat based, and it will be something you don’t already have.

This skill potion is hell-kissed. That means this skill will be any combat-based skill from any Sheol-level mob level 200 or higher.

Go ahead and drink it. Do it. Do it.

I handed it to Mordecai, who rushed off toward the crafting studio.

“Goodness, don’t drop it!” Donut called after him.

“I’ll be right back,” Mordecai said without turning. “It only takes a few seconds to examine it!”

Donut watched him run off. “Is he this excitable because he’s Canadian now? I always thought Canadians were always depressed. Also, does he look how you thought he’d look as a person? He looks much nerdier than I anticipated. I always pictured him as kind of a crazy homeless person with a scraggly beard and a beanie.”

“He’s spent literally hundreds and hundreds of years wondering about some of these potions, and now he finally has the chance to learn all their ingredients and secrets. It’s gotta be exciting for him,” I said. “It has nothing to do with the Canadian thing.”

“I would hope not,” Donut said.

I chuckled. “But you’re right. He does not look how I would expect.”

I pulled the rest of the items from my inventory while we waited for him to return, starting with the Legendary toe ring.

Enchanted Toe Ring of the Well-Balanced.

This special, dainty, perfectly delightful toe ring (which, by the way must be equipped on your left pinky toe. Don’t test me on this) represents balance. Balance in heart, mind, and your physical core. Yeah, I know that sounds like some yoga bullshit, but this has been given to you to save your ass because you’re too dumb to realize how much danger you’re in.

When properly equipped, (again, left pinky) this toe ring imbues the following effects:

Heart Balance, Level 5. Allows you to store one auto-trigger potion item if health reaches a certain criteria.

Mind Balance, Level 5. Allows protection from Enslavement and Conscription.

Physical Balance, Level 5. At level five, this skill imbues both the Extra Steady Balance skill and the Walk on Air Skill (already obtained.)

“Already obtained?” I asked out loud. That didn’t make sense. I moved into my menu. I knew what Walk on Air did, but I didn’t have that skill. It was what Li Jun...

I swallowed, suddenly feeling very, very dirty.

It was what Li Jun used when he fought.

The skill worked exactly how it sounded. It allowed one to literally walk on air for very short periods of time, which was especially useful in hand-to-hand combat. It was kung fu movie stuff, and it required a lot of practice to get right.

The memory of the taste of Li Jun’s eye flooded my mouth. I had the sudden urge to vomit. I remembered what Shi Maria had said after she’d plucked the eye out of him. That I might gain some of his skills. I still needed to talk to Mordecai about all that, about the bottle of ink and the tattoo on my chest, but I wanted to wait until we were alone.

A new wave of guilt washed over me.

Carl: Hey, Li Jun. I didn’t have a chance to talk to you at the end of the last floor. I wanted to apologize about what happened, and I was hoping we could talk.

He didn’t answer.

I turned the ring over in my hands, re-reading the description. This was a great item. I gritted my teeth and slipped it directly onto my left pinky toe. It prompted me to pick a potion and activation condition. I picked a gold-standard healing potion with the parameter to trigger if my health reached 2%.

I also received an ominous notification.

Mind Balance is currently triggered.

It didn’t give any more information than that. I took in a breath. I didn’t feel any different before or after putting the ring on. I reached up and touched the tattoo on my sternum. I felt it rustle underneath my shirt, the sensation like a closed eye moving back and forth, deep in REM sleep.

I pulled out the town upgrade coupon, forcing myself to move on. The coupon didn’t give me much information. It told me I had to proceed to the flag room to utilize the upgrade. We would be doing that as soon as we could.

I examined the small patch.

It was a black and silver patch, die cut and shaped like the horrifying form of Shi Maria, though with a shorter neck and shorter hair. Also, the spider in the image carried multiple wicker baskets lashed over her bulbous body.

Upgrade Patch. Small.

This upgrade patch depicts a traveling Reaper Spider Minion merchant. These guys are known for their sense of humor, and I highly recommend the first thing you do the next time you meet one is to insult them. They’ll love it.

Affixing this patch to an eligible garment will imbue the following benefits:

Access to the Midnight Market. Safety or Sanity not guaranteed.

You will receive a notification if any traveling merchants are nearby.

Plus 5% to Dexterity.

Warning: Upgrade patches are fleeting items. You may remove them, but they will be destroyed in the process.

I wasn’t certain, but I was pretty sure the Midnight Market was a special bazaar hidden in the bottom regular floor of the Desperado Club, which we now had access to. Or we would have access to once the place opened back up. I didn’t yet know if the place had been repaired yet or not. There was another hidden market on the middle floor I’d never managed to get into called the Gray Market, which was also on my list to visit.

Like all patches, installing them increased my stats all across the board thanks to my Scavenger’s Daughter patch, and I’d need to install this right away.

Mordecai returned, still shaking with excitement.

“I was wrong. I can make these,” he said, his voice a whisper. “I’d need to upgrade the table a few more times. And we’d need some pretty specialized ingredients.” He slid the potion over to me. “But I know the recipe now. You’ll want to take it right away. Whatever it gives you, you’ll probably need to train with it for a bit.”

“Yes, Carl,” the potion bottle said, his voice, deep and demonic. “Drink me. Drink me deep.”

“What the shit?” I asked as Donut hissed.

“That’s how you know it’s a good potion,” Mordecai said, grinning.

~

“Here we go,” I said as I popped the cork off. I drank it manually, which was a mistake because it tasted like ass.

“Bottom’s up,” the potion bottle said. It made an almost sexual groan as it dissipated into dust.

I felt a flash, and for a very, very short moment, my vision showed me the burning hellscape of Sheol. I felt the fire. I breathed the hot air. I smelled the sulfur. I had a sudden sensation of worms crawling over my entire body. The feeling was fleeting, lasting a fraction of a fraction of a second.

A small, demon skull-shaped button appeared in my interface.

You have gained a skill.

You have gained the level-13 ability, Gloom Wraith Phase.

“What’d you get?” Mordecai asked.

I held up a finger as I looked it up.

Gloom Wraith Phase.

This scary-ass skill allows for non-corporeal, intangible bursts of speed. You and all your equipped items become non-corporeal during a lunge attack, allowing you to pass through unenchanted weapons and flesh and obstacles with ease. Mirrors that of multiple phase skills and spells, effectively combining both the Path of Destruction skill and Rush.

Upon activation, you become noncorporeal and rush forward. Any biological entity that is unarmored against non-corporeal attacks is... scrambled. Yeah. This is a good, gnarly spell. It’s really fucking gross, but holy shit.

Note: While this is a skill, it still requires mana to utilize. Each burst will halve your mana points. You must have at least two mana points to initiate a burst.

At level 5, you have the option to designate a weapon or item that can remain corporeal as you rush forward.

At level 10, you have the option to remain noncorporeal up to five seconds at a time with a cooldown of thirty seconds between bursts.

At level 15, the cooldown lowers to six seconds between bursts.

“Carl?” Mordecai asked.

“Do you know what a Gloom Wraith is?” I asked. “I got Gloom Wraith Phase. Level 13.”

Mordecai pulled off his raccoon hat, revealing a balding head, and he rubbed it.

“Guys,” he said, looking back and forth between me and Donut, suddenly serious. “You two have always been powerful, especially for your levels. But... wow. You two are both some seriously scary bastards now. Like really scary. You are now both the most powerful crawlers I have ever worked with, including some who made it through level 11.”

“Good,” I said, “because we have eight whole armies to kill.”

~

After Mordecai spent a solid five minutes lecturing us on the importance of practicing with how to use our new skills, and reiterating the danger of phasing into solid objects, he returned to the crafting studio, leaving me, Donut, and Mongo back in the main room. The chat was oddly quiet, and I strongly suspected pretty much everybody was getting overwhelmed with new spells and abilities.

The high I’d felt from such a power jump was starting to wane and was suddenly replaced with worry. I was glad Donut would have all these new protections, but she and I had massive targets on our backs, and we needed to be extra careful. Was everybody getting this stuff? Could everybody now kill everybody else from afar? If so, that just meant we’d be killing each other much faster. We needed to be prepared.

Step one was making certain all the crawlers were on the same team. And in order to do that, we needed officers. We needed to start recruiting, and we needed to get out of Larracos and into our castle as soon as possible.

I looked over at the guild hall exit. “Let’s see who’s back yet. Plus, I think I can assign officer status to some of the strippers now.” There was something else I needed to do, too, but I wasn’t looking forward to Donut’s reaction. Or Mongo’s. I wanted to gather some backup before I dealt with it.

“We are not going out there, not yet,” Donut said. She was voguing in front of the mirror. She was practicing quickly turning around, which caused her cloak—“her champion shawl”—to properly flutter in a dramatic fashion.

“What?” I asked.

“Before we do any of that, you have a very important task. Your hair. We absolutely can’t put it off any longer.”

~

I stared uncertainly at the bottle of Rev-up Magic Hair Restoration Tonic. The set came with little plastic gloves and multiple cotton swabs. That and a paper, fold-out instruction pamphlet that was really, really long. Donut sat next to me on the table, fussing. “Don’t be a wuss, Carl. You are the number one crawler in the dungeon, and that comes with several responsibilities. The number one crawler simply can’t be without eyebrows. It’s unseemly. Believe me, when I was the number one, it was a terrible burden, yes, but my physical appearance was a priority.”

“You were number one for like five minutes.”

“I was number one for the entirety of the seventh floor, thank you very much.”

My view counter was absolutely spiked, more so than it was when I was opening the loot boxes, which told me this had to be some sort of trap. Mordecai insisted this stuff worked as long as I “followed the instructions to a T.” The problem was, the instructions were convoluted as fuck.

“We’re waiting for Katia,” I said, after reading the instructions for the fifth time. “There’s like a million warnings telling you to not let it touch anywhere you don’t want hair. And these mixing instructions for eyebrow versus head hair are confusing.”

I’d sent Katia a message, and she’d replied they were dealing with the local guards, trying to get into a saferoom. They had Tran with them, who no longer had his magical wheelchair, so they had to carry him, and that was slowing everything down. She’d said they were about to get inside, but that had been five minutes ago. Her team still wasn’t here. She’d promised to come into our room straight away.

Elle and Imani were in their own saferoom now, but they were in the middle of opening their boxes. I’d finally heard from Li Jun, who’d said they were also doing the same. Florin, too. He was about to come over so we could get him on recruiter duty.

Louis: Hey, uh, guys?

Donut: HI LOUIS! HAVE YOU SEEN JUICEBOX YET?

Carl: Louis. Are you guys inside now? Have you opened your Celestial box yet?

Louis: Not yet. The guard said Juicebox is in the castle, which is still underwater. They drained everything but that place I guess. Anyway, we’re at this college place, and they’re making us fill out a visitor pass, which is why everything is taking so long. Yeah, it’s really weird. But anyway, we were about to go in the saferoom when Samantha rolled by. She’s screaming after some woman named Tish. She’s saying she’s going to kill her. Katia went chasing after her.

Carl: Tish? Who the hell is Tish?

Donut: OMG I FORGOT ABOUT TISH.

Donut moved to a new chat.

Donut: KATIA, DID YOU STOP HER? LOUIS JUST TOLD US.

Katia: I’m running after her. She’s not floating, but rolling, but she’s really fast. I gotta get her before the guards do something. The college guards are all really sluggish and have a Despondent debuff over them, but they’re still going to react pretty soon. I’m worried she’s going to get us in trouble. Hang on. I see her. I think she’s trapped in a corner.

Carl: Guys, who the fuck is Tish?

Donut: REALLY, CARL. DON’T YOU REMEMBER ANYTHING?

Katia: I got her. I’ll bring her back through the safe room. She’s really mad. I’ll be there in a few minutes.

Samantha: SOMEBODY TELL THIS DOPPELGANGER BITCH TO LET ME GO OR I WILL KILL HER MOTHER AND UNINVITE HER TO MY BACHELORETTE PARTY.

Donut: SHE’S SAVING YOU FOR YOUR OWN GOOD. TELL KATIA THANK YOU.

Samantha: NEVER! I AM A WOMAN SCORNED! MY NEED FOR REVENGE IS THE ONLY THING I KNOW, AND I WILL NOT BE DENIED! TELL HER TO RELEASE ME SO I CAN EXACT MY VENGEANCE AGAINST MY ARCH ENEMY, TISH.

Donut: IF YOU GET BACK HERE, YOU CAN SEE MY NEW CLOAK.

Samantha: OH, THAT DOES SOUND EXCITING. OKAY. DID CARL SHOW YOU HIS PET TUMMY ACHER YET? HE PROMISED ME I COULD NAME HIM.

Donut: WHAT?

Donut looked at me. “What? What is she talking about, Carl?”

I sighed.

***

Hey guys! Thanks again for your support. Book 6 is now out in stores, and it’s doing pretty well, and I have you all to thank for that. I will have a poll about the tummy acher’s name this weekend. I still need to go over all the suggestions from before, and I will pick my favorites. (FYI, the system won’t allow Carl to pick Garret or any derivatives of it. It’s going to insist it be a new name.)

Those of you who have the ability and haven’t done it yet, I would really appreciate it if you could take the time to hop on over to Amazon and leave an honest review of the newest book. The more reviews, the better. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0C1R52V2J

Those of you planning on coming to Atlanta for DragonCon, we’ll have an announcement soon about a shindig we’re attempting to put together for an audiobook release party. Audiobook releases during DragonCon if it all goes smoothly. We have a pair of very special guest stars with very minor but important speaking guest roles for the narration, and I’m pretty excited to announce. Hopefully their recording goes off without a hitch and they don’t rage quit after reading the lines they have to say, knock on wood. It’s going to be pretty epic.

Btw, the AI warned you not to google that one thing. It's your own fault.

Thanks again!