The third level of this seemingly endless dungeon was quite a lot more difficult than the original two. First of all, Dane (and he soon learned, Guzman) hated clowns. Like, a deep-seeded fear of clowns that transcended the rational. They’d crept around for the first few minutes in a twisted fantasy version of a funhouse that set Dane’s teeth on edge: the twirly slides, the bouncy castle look and the periodic wavy mirrors. Everyone agreed that this place was creepy as hell, from the stone walls behind the glaring garish colors, to the balloons that exploded with choking poison spores. Niederhauer learned that the hard way.

When they took a huddle, an evil clown sprang out honking a horn that dealt sonic damage to all of them, and stunned Dane. It also stunned him in the typical sense; cold dread washed over him.

The horrific part (as if this wasn’t awful enough already) was that Rivera punched a hole through its body, but it only emitted a whoopie cushion sound, and the clown deflated, except its laughing fucking head. The tattered clown remnants wrapped themselves around Rivera’s arm and the thing started biting him with its gross filed teeth. It was only after some fire breath from Niederhauer that the thing died.

The next one was a zombie clown horde composed of mostly illusions. Guzman was busy throwing up from the balloon spores and the creepy horror of it all, while Daniels stepped forward and blasted the holy light of capital g God, in an attempt to disintegrate them all.

Nothing doing, they were zombies in makeup only. Several latched onto Daniels, laughing and moaning, and it took the combined efforts of the whole squad to beat them off. Then Daniels was forced to use a lot of MP just curing up the spores so no one ended up at zero Endurance. Only then could he heal up the physical injuries.

The mental injuries would stay with Dane forever. Shudder.

And there were traps absolutely everywhere. One of the floor tiles exploded upwards and gave them a jack-in-the-box clown head smashing down toward them on a huge spring. This knocked Pugh a good one, blasting him back more than ten feet. The sound his head made hitting the floor was almost enough to send Dane on the vom train with Guzman.

Immediately afterwards, they passed by two of the wavy mirrors, only to have grossly distorted duplicates of themselves emerge out of the mirrors and come at them. Apparently, they had much the same stats as the Rangers did, only without the best cards. The squat, impossibly wide Niederhauer still had his fire breath, but Niederhauer stood there hacking it apart even while flame washed over him and the whole hallway smelled like a swamp rat’s dead bloated corpse.

From there the clowns came at them in a hall of mirrors area, until Rivera punched all the mirrors to death. And while this meant all the mirror shards only allowed the clowns to poke their fingers or arms through, it was still the creepiest thing Dane had ever suffered through. Pugh and Daniels took to stomping all the illusion arms or teleported clown parts or whatever they really were.

After that was an entire hall of balloon animals, evil balloon animals with choking stink keeping them inflated, or acidic spores, or bright flashes of fiery light. By the end of that one, Daniels called a halt for a rest session, so he could recover MP and they could get healed up. Rivera had had most his left arm torn off fighting a wobbly mirror version of himself, and had been jamming the stump through the mirrors when necessary without complaint, but Dane had watched his HP bar fall and fall toward empty. Now he got to watch as it slowly filled back in with liquid cement-like stuff, before his hand reappeared and the magical glowing lines traced over the newly regenerated limb.

Next they suffered through a big tent, three-ring circus ordeal, where clown cards zipped around everywhere. If you didn’t destroy the car in time, it spat out about fifty of the damn zombie clowns. As many as half could be illusions, and they could take some real damage, so you could spend a good minute or two fighting a clown only to have it poof out of existence in a cloud of fart stink or mocking laughter.

On the other hand, they hit level 8 by the end of the big tent, and halfway to level 9.

At last, they’d found a door with a gigantic, grinning clown face, with shocks of orange hair stabbing outward and filed teeth zig-zagging over its horrendous face. The dabs of rouge on its cheeks looked like blood, and its eyes swirled with toxic green smoke. From inside they could plainly hear the sadistic laughter.

“End boss,” Guzman said, and gagged again for about the hundredth time.

Dane nodded. He had nothing in his stomach, his entire body had broken out in a clammy sweat, and he had to stop his teeth from chattering.

“The loot’s got to be good.”

So far, the loot had all been clown-based: protective greasepaint, floppy shoes, mega whoopie cushion, deafening honky horn, and the like. Dane didn’t want anyone to use any of it, but there was no denying it was higher quality stuff than the first two levels. The protective greasepaint gave 25% resistances to all elemental damage for 5 hits, before the paint needed to be reapplied, and 25% was nothing to sneeze at, but no. He also didn’t want anyone to put on the creepifying wig. Just… no. On the other hand, they also got shrinking car parts from the clown cars, which he could definitely use somehow, and portal shards, which if they weren’t used for anything else, were even better than armor scraps when you shot them out of your big swinging Voluminous Sack repeatedly. His gatling sack had leveled up as well.

They sat in silence and watched their wounds magically vanish with the help of actual God. Even though they’d

“After this boss?” Rivera asked.

“I don’t know if we can get through the next level alive,” Dane said.

“We’re leveling fast,” Pugh offered.

“What about your catgirlfriend?” Niederhauer asked.

“What? She’s not my… I’m not… we’re not going out.”

“Going out?” Pugh asked. “What, are we in middle school?”

“I meant, you think she and her real boyfriend would want to help us get some hot ass loot and level up even more? They’re level 12 and 13, right?”

“Niederhauer, you’re a genius.”

“Fuckin’ A right I am. Somebody’s got to be the brains of this operation.”

***

The boss room reminded him of a bouncy castle, Dane thought as stars swam through his vision. A bouncy castle constructed of pliant concrete. He watched, crumpled, from the corner of the room as Rivera again got slapped into a purple-pink ceiling muttered with childish cloud drawings. The golemite dropped to the floor, bounced head high, then hit the floor again for what he assumed was an amazing amount of damage. And Sir Gigglesworth the Clown Behemoth, as it was named by the system, laughed maniacally and honked his large red rubber nose.

It shouldn’t have happened this way, Dane reflected, thinking back to how they’d descended so carefully into the end portion of this floor of the dungeon, checking for traps, sigils, spells, and making sure no ambush awaited them. Then, through the first door they’d come to, they’d found themselves in a multi-colored kiddie play palace, filled with toys and even a ball pit in the corner. Strange but not exactly scary.

Not until the shrill and insane laughter began.

They’d gone to battle stations, no need to say a word, and backed to the door they’d come through. Except when they opened it in what Dane considered a brilliant tactical maneuver, they’d found it no longer led to where they’d come from. Instead it opened to a freaky 1960s-esque kaleidoscope of wavering colors, with some Joplin jamming along in the background. The floor of the place was covered in humanoid bones, and dancing back and forth in this hellish light was fucking Sir Gigglesworth, level 13. An unnerving level to be if ever there was one.

Dane had been first to the door, so he’d been punted by a giant red clown shoes across the room for 15 points of damage, sproinging off into the ceiling for another 7 points, then bounce-sliding across the floor for a smaller 3 points of damage. Oh, and naturally he’d gained a status debuff. Dazed and winded, essentially stunned. He couldn’t get up and he watched as the clown ducked through the doorway and smashed the LT into the wall. A loud belch attack pushed the rest of the Rangers back into the center of the room, and then Rivera made his ineffective attack.

Dane shook his head. He was finally in charge and the first thing he did with his command was get them killed.

No! Using the wall for support, Dane got to his feet and faced the battle. He saw that Guzman was darting in and out, taking his attention away from the LT and Rivera while the two moved in to do some melee damage. Her speed was incredible. The Clown Behemoth swatted out a hand to smack her and she braced her arms in front of her, crossed into an X. A moment later the clown stopped laughing, staring as he hand popped off of her without having done any damage.

“Sone Pal Hay Do It, motherfucker!” She laughed.

“What’s all of that mean?” Dane asked.

“It’s Korean. Hand, foot, let’s kick some ass, basically.”

The clown fell back again, Rivera smashing it with his shoulder and doubling it over in front of the door. He cried out a berserker shriek. “Death! All who oppose shall die!”

“Damn, that sounds evil. Are we the baddies?” Pugh joked, maneuvering himself carefully to the clown's other flank.

Finding himself with a clear shot, Neiderhauer blasted it with fire. “Course not, man. If we were, we'd be giant clown freaks like him.”

The clown’s eyes were wide and very tempting. But Dane’s increasingly paternal feelings towards his familiar made using it here out of the question. So he did the next best thing. He ran forward to do some melee.

“Hey, small man’s back! Whatcha got for us Dane?” Pugh asked. He darted in with his blade, and stabbed the clown in its foot. It screamed and ducked out the doorway.

“Absolutely nothing, guys. You’re doing awesome.”

All of the party formed a semicircle, weapons ready, waiting for the clown to charge back in.

But instead it gave them a finger, leaned back, made an exaggerated farting sound that lasted a good thirty seconds longer than it should have… and regenerated all of its damage.

“Son of a bitch!” Pugh exclaimed.

“Aye, laddie, insult the bastard’s mother! Surely that’s his weakness,” the LT spouted.

Dane narrowed his eyes. “The kaleidoscope colors, they’re coming from all these balloons on the ceiling. And I’d bet my holy nut that if we attack them, it’ll leave this fast food mascot wannabe drooling in the dirt.”

A slow clap started. Dane jerked his head over to see it was Neiderhauer, his reptilian maw open wide in the scariest damn smile, well, anywhere.

“That was some hard talk, Dane. You’re going places. Can’t wait to see what you say next.”

“Yeah. Damn. Command looks good on you,” Guzman added. Dane grinned. “Well, thanks. Alright, well, let’s do it. Pugh take out those balloons and we’ll keep him occupied.”

The clown frowned when it saw them coming. It hunched at its knees and braced for impact looking so much like a giant NFL center about to hike the ball. Its eyes were fixed on Rivera— of course they were. You always expect to be hit by the big guy. All was going to plan.

And when Rivera pulled up short, the look of shock in the monster’s eye was delicious, a mix of betrayal and unrequited vengeance. In that moment, the rest of them piled onto the clown, stabbing and hacking. Guzman flared, jumped up the side wall, and planted a solid kick into the side of the Clown Behemoth’s red rubber nose. It squeaked mournfully as it fell off the face and to the dungeon floor.

And with several loud cracks, the encounter was over. Pugh downed the first few, and Dane blasted another few with his armor scrap machine gun. And the clown began to both smoke and keen, sounding like the shrill whistle of an incoming artillery shell.

“Run!” Dane shouted. The whole party was back into the crazy multi-colored room in a jiffy. But the clown didn’t explode. Instead it melted into a waxy puddle, a very large one that they would have to tread through to get to part of the dungeon. Also the puddle was laughing, exactly like Jack Nicholson at the end of the first Batman movie.

Shudder times a million.

The news wasn’t all bad though. With it came jester’s gigantic pants, Sir Gigglesworth’s prized joy buzzer, red nose of honking, 300 gold pieces, and a fricking ton of experience points. They were all a sliver of XP away from level 9.

Neiderhauer clapped him on the shoulder and Pugh got the other one a second later. “Good job, man. Way to get er done.”

Dane deflated a bit. “I think we need to call Prissy and get them here.”

***

Dane had had them hold onto their level up information for the time being, until they decided to rest, and decided now was the time. They were going to face their toughest challenge yet now that it was confirmed, and this dungeon really did spiral down all the way–

He smacked himself upside the head. “To hell itself!”

“What are you talking about over there?”

“The dungeon… this is just like the video game, Diabolical I: Dante’s Trail.”

“What kind of psychopath would make that into a video game?” Guzman gestured over to where the puddle of Sir Gigglesworth was still chuckling incessantly.

“Each level had several different kinds of monsters… and they became more demonic as you went down to new levels.”

“More… more demonic,” Pugh said, and waved in the direction of the giggling puddle of boss clown. “Than that.”

“Afraid so,” he said. “Does that mean you want to portal out of here and find levels somewhere else? It’s only going to get harder to level up, or take an inordinately longer amount of time.”

“What level you think we need to be to take on these Five?” Niederhauer asked.

“Four,” Pugh said.

“Level four? Are you insane?” Dane cried.

“No, you idiot… that Corbin guy took care of one of them,” Pugh protested. “There’s only four of them.”

“They’re called The Five, no matter how many there are. Just answer the question.” Niederhauer said.

The puddle of clown just laughed and laughed.

“We’ll need to be at least level 35 each,” he said. “That means finding better cards, leveling those cards, and coming up with a viable strategy to take them down one by one, like we did with that Darryl.”

Rivera piped up of his own accord for the first time in a long time. “Make the call.” His eyes were burning bright, straight at Dane.

“Make the call… to go on or not? Or call Priscilla?”

“Yeah, pick one.”

He gave in to their demand and produced the crystal ball, then concentrated on Priscilla’s gorgeous face once again. It made him uncomfortable doing so, but it needed to be done. They couldn’t go through this dungeon without her and her otherworlder crew, and that meant leveling up would take them absolutely forever.

Niederhauer did his lotus position and his ‘Ohm’ chant business, until the clouds within the ball swirled and gave them another view of Priscilla and the trio of otherworlders with her.

“Priscilla!” Dane shouted.

“Yeesh, lad, no needa scream right in me ear.”

“Sorry. Still getting used to this.” He explained the situation with the endless Diabolical dungeon and the need for their help, telling her that they were okay to take 50% of the dungeon loot even though they were only 40% of the adventuring party, or first pick of any room’s loot drops. The experience was key for Dane’s people now. Their cards were just fine for the moment.

Prissy turned to the others and, without a word, shrugged at them. They shrugged in return, which was apparently enough. She gave him a nod and the thumbs up.

“Okay, we’ll… wait for you here.” He eyed the laughing puddle of clown. “Or we’ll get into the next level and have a break there.”

He gave her the location and disconnected from the magical wifi facetime or however it worked.

“We need an attribute update,” he told them.

They all had four Attribute points to spend, with a cap of +2 in any one Attribute. He immediately gave himself +2 Luck, then one in Intelligence and one in Perception. He was tired of failing luck checks and having the LT nearly killed. Or actually killed.

“Okay, Guzman I think you’re pretty easy… always one point in Agility per level, then your call for Strength or Endurance, and maybe some Luck every once in a while. That sound okay?”

“Two Agility, one Strength, one Luck. You got it, Napoleon.”

“What? Why Napoleon?”

“I thought it was obvious,” Guzman said.

“Never mind. Okay, who’s next? Rivera?”

The robo man stared at him. “Strength and Endurance.”

“Right. That’s right, big guy. Wait, what’s your Luck score?”

“Eleven.”

“How the f… never mind. Okay, you can take a point from Strength and do Luck if you want.”

“No.”

“Also fine.” Rivera’s single-mindedness and lack of reaction was starting to worry Dane. He tried not to let it get to him, but it was an elephant in the room that would have to be dealt with if this mission was going to stretch for months.

“Do me!” Niederhauer said. “Do me next!”

“Bro,” Pugh erupted into laughter.

“You’re going to have to go heavy into Intelligence for the time being.”

“Duuuude… I was rockin’ this lizard brain thing.”

“No more lizard brain. And no more dude. You weren’t born in the 80’s.”

“Harsh, dude.”

Dane shook his head. “Two in Intelligence, the others split between Luck and Strength.”

“What is it with you and Luck?”

“Doesn’t matter. Okay, Lieutenant… how do you feel about your Intelligence and Endurance? As a cleric, you should be the secondary tank. Or take one out of Endurance and put it in Luck.” Daniels agreed, and tapped at his character sheet.

“Great… and now Corporal Pugh.”

“Guard bard, mother fathers!”

Dane resisted the urge to facepalm. “Okay, you’re our Agility and Charm guy. We’re going to need that Charm to extend your bardic inspiration auras and buffs. Eventually you’re going to be our haggler too, when we return back to town to sell off superfluous loot and buy better cards and magic items. Two in Charm, one in Agility, one in Luck?”

“Explain the Luck thing.”

“Never mind then. Two in Charm and Agility.”

Pugh shrugged and got to it.

“How about the loot?” Guzman asked. She had a queasy look about her Dane understood completely.

He sighed. “I don’t… I hate this clown themed stuff. Can we sell it?”

“It’s pretty powerful. This joy buzzer does 10-25 lightning damage on a punch.”

They soon got suited up in all the horrible clown stuff: Rivera in the huge pants that had a hula hoop for a waistline and were only kept up by suspenders, Niederhauer with the big red nose, and Pugh was about to take the squeaky shoes when Dane stuffed them into his Voluminous Sack.

“Now… we sleep here waiting for Prissy and her people to show up, or try to find a place down in the next level to get some rest and recover, with no giggling friggin clown goop staring at us.”

No, that decided it; he wouldn’t have that thing lurking here while they tried to get some sleep. There was no telling whether it would reconstitute or just suddenly spring to life as a clown slime. No way.

“We’re heading down to secure a room on the next floor, get some shut eye, and wait for Priscilla’s party.”