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“-ait.” Darryl said, followed by him quickly trying, and failing, to steady his balance.

He fell backwards and found himself leaning against a wall. The rest of the didn’t have that boon to prop them up as the same fate befell them. They were all seated when they were tossed back into the dungeon stasis between floors, so they appeared seated on thin air. Thanks to the boat’s rocking they had also angled a few degrees to the left. All in sudden pitch black darkness, of course.

As Thomas cast the Torch spell and illuminated their direct environment, Darryl saw that the tunnels were different than before. Cosmetically different only, with cinderblock walls instead of the mineshaft that made the dungeon look like it was carved from the earth itself, but different nonetheless.

Darryl got up, checked his surroundings and his minimap for threats and equipped his shield.

“Before you say anything, let me explain.” Elise said, casually getting up and dusting herself off despite there not being a speck of dust on the floor around here.

“No need, I agree with you.” Thomas said.

“I said, let me fucking expl-” Elise said. “Bullshit.”

“No shit, bovine or otherwise.” Thomas said. “If they laid it on any harder that this was a bad deal, then they would’ve outright told us so.”

“I don’t know, it seemed like it was a pretty good one, actually.” Ben said. Darryl nodded.

“Nah, it was utter shit. Bovine and otherwise.” Elise said with a big smile plastered on her face. “Fist bump for agreeing.”

Thomas bumped Elise’s fist and then picked up their little demigriff, which immediately began to squirm and twist trying to bite his hand. “For starters, they tried to make this guy part of the deal after we already earned it during the game show. If Elise signed the contract, they could’ve taken him away if we broke any of their conditions. Could you feed it one of those pet biscuits? The faster we have it trained, the better. And those biscuits they promised us can be found in bronze boxes, meaning that part of their reward was cheap trash anyway.”

Ben took out a biscuit and handed it to Elise, who made cute pet noises trying to get the little bird-calf’s attention and then baby-talked it to calm down and nibble gently. It was of no use, she only succeeded in the pet turning its vicious beak snapping attempts to her fingers.

“Yeah, we can probably get more from those guys if we survive for longer. They made it seem like us still being on the first floor devaluated us, when in reality it means that we will become more valuable the further down we get.” Elise said. “I hadn’t even considered the demigriff bullshit, I just knew that they’d get a real cheap deal if we already agreed now.”

“We shouldn’t wait too long, the deeper we go the more we may need those rewards they promise us to survive.” Darryl said. “Greater rewards on the 6th floor will be worthless if we die on the 5th.”

“True. But we should get them to at least offer us a contract as vassals, not expendable scum.” Elise said. “There were parts that strongly hinted at them planning to use us up and let us die once we ran our course. Like the not being allowed to leave until 6 hours before collapse. If we make it to the 9th floor they have no use for us afterwards, so why care for our continued survival past that point?”

“Yeah, I agree that you’re right about this deal at least.” Darryl said. “Good job thinking fast.”

“But it’s not as if they completely disregarded our worth either.” Darryl said after a moment of contemplation. “Them giving us a price for four good answers doesn’t seem like the show’s usual schtick.”

“I agree. When I whispered the order to you, I assumed they could hear us and act accordingly.” Thomas said. “They could pick scenes that matched our planned answers without the audience catching on.”

“You planned this?” Ben said.

“I suspected something of the like when they showed us the scene with the Frenchmen. As much as it was to show the Woolf and some bloody gore to the audience, them picking that specific moment to freeze essentially gave us two auxiliaries for the fight.” Thomas said. “Combine that with the odd parts in the game’s rules, and The Maestro might’ve secretly helped us prevail.”

“So what you’re saying is that they wanted us to survive and then say no? It was another test, determining our common sense?” Elise said smugly. “Which I totally aced, by the way.”

“Probably not, getting a deal this soon would’ve probably been a better win for them. More likely they wanted us to succeed and then agree to their terms, with refusal being acceptable.” Thomas shrugged. “But they gave us a pet, exposure and the Borough Boss kill.”

“Which is awesome, by the way!” Elise said. “Starting with almost three thousand favourites already and visibly increasing? Nice!”

“Three thousand!? I barely have one thousand…” Ben said.

“Don’t worry about it, Ben. The demographic favoured Elise, while I fall well out of it. I only got twenty favourites myself.” Thomas said.

Darryl chuckled sheepishly, looking at the 0 on his screen. Yeah, he was purely support. Why favour him when they already followed Elise or Ben?

“Enough standing around, let’s go kill some stuff!” Elise said, looking just a bit too much up the ceiling to sell that she was talking to the party.

“Can we go to the Safe Room first, or a Tutorial Guide? We got several achievements from the last battle, including a silver Boss Box.” Thomas said. “And there’s a few things I’d like to ask Volos, if we find the time.”

“I agree. There’s no telling how much more dangerous this floor is, and whether our new loot might save our arses.” Darryl said.

“Eh, fine.” Elise pouted just a little too dramatically for her displeasure to be genuine. “But if we run into any enemies, the first three are mine.”

As they started walking in a random direction, Darryl opened the tab with achievements. Fighting and killing the Woolf yielded a whole slew of them.

New Achievement! Poor time management!

You went down the Stairways well before the floor was six hours from collapsing! The system is pretty straightforward and favourable about this. Don’t. Go. Down. Early. You baka. And yet here we are.

You’ve got a Special Bronze Coward box!

New Achievement! Miraculous second chance!

You somehow went down the Stairways and then came back? How? This isn’t supposed to be possible by normal means. Some show, I guess. Always messing up the system and our intended balance. Well, lucky you.

Reward: You’ve got more time on this floor after going down prematurely. That’s your reward.

New Achievement! Swooping in to save the day!

You jumped in to save a different group of crawlers that would’ve been dead meat without you! How heroic! Don’t expect anyone to show up when you find yourself in their shoes, this kind of relationship is always one-sided in the World Dungeon!

Reward: Your reward has been improved to reflect the threat, granting you a Gold Samaritan Box!

New Achievement! Wade in their blood!

You either heard these common parting words amongst orc warriors and took it a bit too literally, or you have a natural bend to fit in with that mad crowd! You’ve got yourself covered not in the gunk of mobs, a common occurrence, but the blood and gore of a fellow crawler. Brutal! Either you’re a pretty savage player killer or you just lost a teammate, and in both cases you could really use a good reward box!

Reward: Remember when I said you could use a good reward? Never said I was going to give one.

New Achievement! Slipping through the cracks looking for cuddles!

Demigriffs are already some unholy hybrid of two animals you don’t want to envision getting funky together, so I don’t want to imagine what depraved fetishes you guys must have to birth one of these yourselves! Just kidding, I know there’s a more innocent explanation for this pet randomly coming into being. You being a cow-fucker is the version I’ve put on your crawler bio though, and everyone believes information from public pages that anyone can edit. Say goodbye to your reputation, and say hello to your new and eerily numerous fanbase who's into this stuff!

Reward: You’ve got a Bronze Pet Box!

New Achievement! Classic Adventuring party!

You attacked a Borough Boss or greater with only six or fewer crawlers with a reasonable spread of roles. Way to adhere to the classics. You do know that there’s no limit to how many crawlers may group up to get themselves killed fighting these things, right?

Reward: Let’s wait and see if we need to waste a reward on you.

New Achievement! I’m a survivor, I’m going to make it!

You survived being hit by an attack strong enough to kill you twice over! Either you’re smart enough to use a shield, or reckless enough to rely on your Cockroach ability. Don’t get comfortable though, the enemies will only keep hitting harder as you descend!

Reward: You’ve got a Silver Masochist Box!

New Achievement! Helpless little Crawler!

You got stuck in, on or underneath something in the middle of battle, leaving yourself wide open. Please tell me that you at least had the decency to provide a distraction while the rest of your party didn’t suck.

Reward: In case you survive, I just want to remind you how pathetic you were a few minutes ago.

New Achievement! Ice cold!

You attacked an ally under attack by a dangerous foe and below a tenth of their health. That’s terrible, and I love it! Keep doing it, the audience loves these kinds of twists. Do it with a party member next, it rewards even better!

Reward: You’ve got a Silver Arsehole Box!

Darryl had to actually think about that one for a while, before realising that he kicked Raphael away from the Woolf before it could finish him off.

“Damn, I really hope that the AI is joking about changing our wiki page, but considering what we’ve already seen before...” Ben said.

“The gold box is nice, though. Did everyone get one?” Thomas said.

“Yeah, I did.” Elise said. “Anyone get anything not group-related?”

Darryl shared his two unique ones, and the two that yielded no reward at all, Thomas shared one that ridiculed him for giving away a magical item to someone not in his party, and Ben proudly shared the ones he got for killing something more than five levels above his.

As they wandered further into the unexplored depths of the second floor, Ben bragged about his awesome boss kill while Elise baby-talked to the demigriff some more.