It was barely two minutes before the message came in over the party chat.

Carl: Not a lich, Mordecai. Not a fucking lich!

Not a lich? What did that mean? Worse? Better?

"Step back, please," I said, shooing a mother and her two young boys along. I had managed to get everyone most of a block down from where the giant explosion might happen, but the boys kept wanting to slip away from their mother so they could run back and poke at the dynamite because boys are big dopes. (I forced myself not to think of all the times I'd picked Berghreinn up after he fell off of a wall, tree, boulder, building, or something else that he shouldn't have been trying to climb in the first place. He was always a daredevil and this was not the time to be thinking of him and keep your mind on the job, Katia.)

Carl: What the hell is a bereft minion?

Mordecai: It's a minion who is still alive after their controller is dead. It looks like you killed the head bad guy when you blew up Miss Quill. It happens. Quests sometimes look bigger than they really are. I should have known since it was only a silver quest. Sorry about making you waste all that dynamite. Get the information out of him, put him out of his misery, and then get back here before the swordsmen wake up. Otherwise you'll be stuck in that warehouse all day.

I looked over to where the sun was starting to peek over the horizon. There weren't more than a few minutes before the swordsmen woke up.

Donut: Carl. Something is happening. Something weird. The counter is being slow as usual, but I think our views are going really high. I keep getting achievements for views and followers. You probably are too. I don't understand why.

Katia: Mordecai? Do you know what's going on?

I sent it over a private channel, not the party chat, so as not to distract Carl or Donut. Moments later he replied the same way.

Mordecai: Miss Quill was the secretary to the mayor but it sounds like she might have been the big boss with him as a puppet. The views spiking says that something big is about to happen. Get ready to fight or run.

Oh, trust me, I was more than ready. I was already herding people off of the eastern sidewalk so as to leave a clearer route for me and the others to run through. What were the likely threats? Whatever Carl and Donut were talking to, but I didn't know what that was. What else? The swordsmen, obviously. Hm...

Katia: The swordsmen. They're level 75 so we can't beat them hand-to-hand. Are they fast? Can we stay away from them while Carl throws explosives and Donut shoots them with Magic Missile?

Mordecai: I don't know and no, respectively. The AI wouldn't leave such a glaringly obvious weakness. If it did then you could just kite them and chip away until they were dead. Too easy to farm XP that way so they'll have some counter to it. Besides, 'death by town guard' isn't exciting enough to draw a view spike like Donut is describing. I wish they would loop me in on what's happening.

Loop me in. Not 'loop us in.' Well, it was fair. I'd spent less than twelve hours with Mordecai so far and I hadn't shown him anything valuable yet.

Mordecai: You guys are running low on time. Finish this and get out of there.

Carl: Almost done.

The NPCs were far enough back and staying where they were so I didn't have to keep my eye on them. I turned to stare at the building where my theoretical teammates were in some sort of mysterious danger. There was obviously going to be some explosion, or swarm of flesh-eating ghosts, or blue sky beam, or something. The road was clear to escape through, I had my axe in my hand. There was nothing to do but wait.

And wait.

And wait.

Carl's definition of 'almost done' was different from mine. If they didn't wrap up soon the sun would be fully above the—

New Quest. The Fools Who Broke the Glass.

I groaned as the AI's chipper voice appeared, speaking out loud this time instead of just in my head.

THIS IS A GROUP QUEST. All Crawlers currently within the 45 square kilometer blast radius will receive this quest.

Your party has been designated Host of this Group Quest. As hosts, you will not be allowed to opt-out from this quest.

What the hell is going on? Am I glad you asked!

A while back a certain NPC started casting a very powerful spell, a spell so potent that it had to be completed by a future generation.

Here's the thing with old spells. They're like trees. They grow. They get big. Sometimes huge. Bad shit happens when they get screwed up. The bigger the spell, the badder the shit. And boy was this spell big. Not gonna lie. Your favorite AI was looking forward to it going off.

Oh well. This will be almost as good.

Shit is about to go down. For example, you may have noticed every Skyfowl and Chickadee NPC in the area has fallen ill. Most of them have already plunged into a coma, or death. It's not their fault, but they were tied to the spell, and that's just the way it is.

Just like it's not your fault that you happen to be within 45 kilometers of the fallout from this failed spell. Again, not your fault. (Well, unless you're Crawlers Carl, Princess Donut, or Katia Grim. Then it's your fault.) That's just the way it is. Sucks to be you.

Hey, leave me out of this! I didn't do anything!

There's going to be an explosion. The epicenter of the blast is marked on your map. Every crawler within the designated blast area is fucked.

The object of this quest is simple. Unfuck yourself. Don't die.

Warning: This is an event quest. If you do not wish to participate in this quest, you will have sixty seconds from the end of this message to get yourselves into a saferoom. After that, all access to saferooms within the quest zone will be shut off until the event quest is concluded. All NPCs who remain indoors, saferoom or not, will remain safe. All mobs and neighborhood-level boss monsters within the blast radius subject to both physical and magical explosions will be killed.

Reward: All participants who survive will receive a Platinum Quest Box.

Oh, by the way. The explosion is coming in seven minutes.

Run.

I should have done something. Started running, probably. My feet wouldn't move and my thoughts were stuck. I couldn't breathe and my whole body felt like I'd jumped in the fjord—icy pins and needles and bone-deep shivers.

Mordecai: Run. Desperado Club. It's not a saferoom, but the second room is out of the blast radius.

The message coming over party chat was enough to jolt me out of my paralysis but it didn't help with the fear.

Katia: I don't have access to the club! And I can't go to a saferoom because I'm a quest host!

Carl: Protective Shell?

Mordecai: Won't work. Magical blast. Go.

Quan Ch: Thanks a lot Carl and Donut you fucking assholes.

Quan Ch? Who was Quan Ch?

It wasn't the most important thing right now but I couldn't help but go into my menus to see who that was. Under my Chat menu there was an entirely new chat channel labeled 'Quest Chat', with about eighty names in it. Carl, Donut, and I all had a star next to our names to indicate that we were moderators.

A little paw icon swirled up and out of Donut's name and over to Quan's, booting it aside and out of the list.

Quan Ch has been kickbanned by moderator Princess Donut the Queen Anne Chonk! Reason: Calling her a bad name.

I chuckled. I couldn't help it, and it honestly felt good. The fear was draining away, leaving me feeling surprisingly light and relaxed. There was nothing more to worry about now. The explosion would happen in a few minutes, there was nowhere to hide, and I couldn't escape the blast radius in time. I didn't need to be afraid anymore.

I looked around, trying to think if there was anything useful I could do before I died...? Ah, yes.

"Okay, everyone," I said as loudly as I could without actually shouting. "Into your houses, please! You'll be safe as long as you're indoors! It's only crawlers who are in danger, and people who are outside. Go on! Indoors, now!"

People started to move, some of them ducking into nearby houses and others hurrying off towards wherever they lived in the town. I hoped they would make it in time.

Carl: Mordecai, the soul gem is the epicenter. Not Remex. If I break the gem, will that cancel the explosion?

Mordecai: I don't know. I don't think it will stop it. Probably make it blow early. The quest is called The Fools Who Broke the Glass for a reason. They want you to do that. Get the hell out of there.

Donut: WE CAN'T ABANDON KATIA!

Donut really was a very sweet kitty. She would have made a great teammate.

Katia: It's okay. Thank you, Donut. I understand. I'm getting the NPCs back into their homes. Run, guys. Go.

Donut: WHAT ABOUT YOU, MORDECAI?

Mordecai: I'm in my room. I'm safe. Hurry the hell up!

I continued chivying townsfolk back into their houses for another minute, and then suddenly a ripple of heat shimmer went past me like the skin of an expanding bubble. In its wake I suddenly felt tired and weaker than I should. Moments later a fanfare erupted from invisible trumpets and the AI's voice was booming from thin air once more.

You've probably noticed you're not dead. Everybody say, "Thank you Crawler Carl." I'll give you a second to luxuriate in your victory.

That's the good news. You might want to sit down for this next part.

The bad news is there's still an explosion coming. A bigger bang, actually, but the area of effect will be similar. I won't bore you guys with the technical details, but what you just felt is called a precursor burst. It's a foreshock. The first of four before the big show. The one you just felt temporarily removed the magical properties of all your equipped gear. The next one will do something different.

All of this will culminate with a burst of pure, wild magic much more potent than the magically-infused chemical explosion from which you guys were just spared. Less physical damage to the environment. More face melting. I prefer this, if we're being honest. Have you ever put a marshmallow in a microwave? Imagine your head as the marshmallow. It'll be kinda like that. Prepare your defenses accordingly.

You now have twenty minutes to save yourselves.

The voice disappeared on a falling note of laughter that really added insult to injury.

There was a loud whump from behind me. I looked back to find that the Swordsmen barracks had mostly collapsed and a plume of smoke and dust was billowing up around it. On my minimap, two blue dots showed Carl and Donut on the far side of the building, running east as fast as they could go. I smiled sadly and gave a small wave in their direction.

Carl: Listen up everyone. You can survive this if you move fast.

Carl's words came over the Quest Chat to me and all the other scores of crawlers who had been caught in this net; I read them and the ones that followed with widening eyes. Suddenly my fatalistic calm was gone as fear and hope in equal measure warred for control. I pushed them both to the back of my mind and started sprinting.

Mordecai: Take off every magical item you have and put it in your inventory. Stop whatever you're doing and do it now. It'll be safe in your inventory but not on your skin. I don't know what the hell you just did, but your current situation is only barely better.

Carl: I don't have any clothes that aren't magical except my jacket. Even my underwear is magic now.

Mordecai: Goddamnit, Carl. No time to argue. Nobody is going to care about your trunk swinging in the air.

Donut: What about my crown?

Katia: What about me? All of my equipment is absorbed into my body.

Mordecai: Katia, inventory it. Donut, you better leave it on, but there's a chance you might lose it. It's possible one of those bursts is going to have a negative effect on your stats permanently. You might get hit with Sepsis, too. The poison effect will be negated, but it'll still stagger you. Wild soul magic is unpredictable. It turns your own magical items against you. Keep Mongo locked up.

The edge of town was visible on my Pathfinder-expanded map. Carl and Donut were ahead and somewhat to my right, stopped in the middle of the street. (Waiting for me???) Six more crawlers were vectoring towards them from all directions.

I reached them at about the same time as the other crawlers did. Carl greeted us all with a curt nod which would have looked much more authoritative if he hadn't been wearing nothing except a ripped leather jacket with one arm burned off.

"Dude, what's with the winky wagging?" asked one of the other crawlers, a human teenager labeled 'Crawler #11,385,253. Ivan Gre.'

"Okay guys," Carl said, ignoring the question and the fact that not all of us were male. "If you haven't already, magical gear off. We have sixteen minutes, and we need to run at full speed. We're out of time."

"But—

"You heard him!" Donut snapped. "Magic items off!"

Somehow, the talking cat got compliance where the large naked man could not. Seconds later there were far fewer pieces of clothing on view and we were all running east as fast as we could go.

We made it six blocks without incident. We had acquired more crawlers as we ran; there were eighteen of us now, and more joining by the moment. Seven were barefoot, having needed to put their magical shoes away. Unlike Carl, who had magical assistance in going barefoot across rough ground without pain or injury, these seven were having trouble. No one even suggested leaving them behind; three of them were given extra pairs of shoes from other people's inventories, two of them got piggyback rides, and the last two found themselves with each arm draped over the shoulders of another crawler who took some of their weight. I had to blink away tears at the sight of it; in our finest moments, this was what humanity was.

The next pulse occurred just as we left town. A Russian man near the back of the group exploded, just like that. His name had been Conrad E and he had been a level-12 Ranger.

"What the hell was that?" Carl asked as he ran.

The explosion had drawn attention from the residents of the ruins. Three avian heads popped up, immediately followed by emu-like bodies. Ruin Flocker. Level 11. Donut promptly headshotted the two on the right with Magic Missile and a mage named Sylvie F fried the last one with a bolt of lightning. It fell to the ground, spasming uncontrollably until Carl stomped its neck in passing. We kept running without slowing down.

"His quiver," I said. "All of his arrows blew up, I think. He'd put his bow away, but he'd forgotten about his arrows."

Carl frowned. "Donut," he said to the fuzzy blob who was sitting on his shoulder, one paw on his head for balance as he ran across the uneven ground. "I don't like this. I think you should take it off."

"We've got another Flocker back here!" someone shouted from behind me.

"Leave it," Carl yelled.

"I don't want to take it off!" Donut whined. "I'll lose five intelligence! And my Sepsis debuff. And I really like it."

"These bursts are attacking our magical gear," Carl said.

"But if I lose it, somebody else will get it and put it on. We'll have to fight them. I don't want to hurt a person."

Honestly, it didn't seem likely to me. Or, at least, not unless the stat bonuses were much better than Mordecai had implied. Who would put that thing on after reading the description and finding out the drawbacks?

With half my mind I noticed that more and more crawlers were joining us. There was a group of four coming up from the left, six more a short ways behind them, and a group of three behind us and to the right. Only eighty crawlers had gotten caught in this quest, and there was another group like ours headed south while we went east. If it was anything like the size of our group then we were going to save nearly all of those eighty crawlers.

"I know," Carl said to Donut. "I wouldn't worry about it."

Donut huffed. "Well, I'm not taking it off."

"That dude blew up, Donut," he said.

"Are we sure it's there?" yelled one of the new arrivals. He had the body of a powerlifter and the head of a shark and he was gasping for breath.

"It's there," another yelled back. "I can see it on my map already."

So could I, which was why I'd been feeling steadily more optimistic for the last few minutes. Speaking of which, the next burst was due at any moment.

"What's going to happen if you permanently lose five intelligence, and then you lose the tiara anyway?" Carl asked, his attempt at a reasonable tone failing to completely cover his frustration with Donut's stubbornness. "Then you'll be down ten instead of five."

"But it was my first item," she said.

I didn't say anything because it wasn't my place, but in my head I was screaming: Damnit, Donut! Take the tiara off!

"It also might catch your damn head on fire. Besides, remember the description? You'll still be an official princess."

"But—"

I couldn't stand it anymore. "Donut, he's right. You better take it off," I said. Immediately I regretted opening my mouth. What if she got angry and started yelling at me instead of actually doing it?

Amazingly, it worked. "Oh, all right," Donut grumbled. Her tiara vanished, crumbling into dust that trickled to the ground behind her.

"Hey!" Donut yelled. "It disappeared before I could remove it!" the cat complained. "Stupid Fleeting items."

The fourth pulse hit just as we reached our destination: A small, decrepit building that looked like a large wooden garden shed, maybe four meters on a side, which had survived the long-ago city-destroying disaster with only moderate damage. The walls were sun-baked and paint-peeling, the boards were cracked and bowed with age, and the door sagged on its hinges like a man stumbling out of a bar.

The pulse's heat-shimmer effect flitted across me and my body glowed, hurling itself forward and to the side. I clipped Carl with my elbow; he went flying and then I was smashing into the wall of the building and straight through it, boards exploding out of the way.

I stumbled to my feet and limped back around the twin holes in the building. I had gone through the west and south walls at an angle leaving shattered gashes in the sides.

"That really hurt," I said, rubbing my head. I had not lost any health but I still felt the full experience of smashing face-first through two walls. The leftmost slot on my hotlist, the one that contained my Rush ability, now had a countdown timer on it: 29:58:49.

Well, at least I knew what to expect.

Another group joined us, this one consisting of a tiger-man, an emaciated woman with bone-white skin and snakes for hair, and a flitting Tinkerbell-style fairy with a bristly black beard who trailed silver glitter behind himself.

The tiger-man walked up to Carl and shook his hand. "I told you it was here," he said, pointing at the buidling.

The building that housed a stairway to the fourth floor. A stairway that led out of the blast radius of the explosion that was coming in far too few minutes.

"Go," Carl said. "Everybody down the stairs."

No one needed to be told twice. They lined up and they went, with only a minimum of pushing or shoving.

Carl: Mordecai, are you in your room?

Mordecai: I'm safe.

Carl: What's going to happen to us when we go down early? Or you?

Mordecai: I am going to sit here and twiddle my thumbs for three days. You guys won't notice a time difference. I'll see you on the other side. Also, I just peeked out the door. The NPCs are all safe, all that I can see. Nobody is on the street except the guards, who reactivated with that second burst. They all only have a single life point. It's too bad you're not here, otherwise I'd have you kill as many as you can. It wouldn't be as much experience when you're just finishing them off, but it would still be quite a bit.

I was standing at the mouth of the stairway, trying not to look impatient. Carl glanced over at me and raised one finger in a 'hold on' gesture.

Carl: Are there any guards still in the warehouse?

Mordecai: I don't know. Probably a few. They're still moving out to their regular positions. I'm not going over there to look. Now get your asses into that stairwell.

Carl: Okay. Oh, and Mordecai?

Mordecai: What?

Carl: Congratulations.

Donut gasped. "That's right," she said. "He's free now, isn't he? We make it to the fourth floor, and he gets to go home once the dungeon is over."

That was wonderful, Donut, and I was really happy for Mordecai. Could we go now, please?

Carl looked out over the ruins that were the third floor of the world dungeon. I wasn't sure what he was looking for...more crawlers, perhaps? I could have told him that my Pathfinder-enhanced map confirmed that there was no one anywhere nearby. Perhaps it wasn't that. Perhaps he was regretting the three days of killing that we weren't going to have time for? I really wished I had a better read on who he was.

Finally he nodded to himself and turned for the stairs. Still on his shoulder, Donut pulled a sphere the size of a grapefruit out of her inventory and cracked it open. There was a brief flash of light and suddenly Mongo was there. The dinosaur glared around and growled in annoyance...whether at being cooped up or at being brought forth, I wasn't sure.

"Guys?" I asked tentatively. They really were not moving fast enough and we had less than two minutes left.

"We're coming," Carl said gruffly. He started down the stairs and I followed gratefully after.

At the bottom were the enormous doors with the Kua-Tin carved on them. I examined it curiously.

Entrance to the fourth floor.

This is where the real fun begins.

Mind the gap.

"What does that mean?" Carl muttered.

I was shifting back and forth from foot to foot, watching the timer tick down and struggling not to seem pushy. We couldn't afford any distractions right now, so I didn't want to risk causing an argument by making Carl feel that I was criticizing him or pushing him. Please, please, please let him move it! There was only a minute and a half left!

"Katia," he said. "Pull out that detonator I gave you earlier. It has a ten second delay. Wait until the timer is at about 15 seconds, and push it. Then we'll go in before it goes off."

"Why?" I asked, pulling out the detonator and praying that it wouldn't self-detonate thanks to my lack of bomb-handling skills. "Won't that make the bomb go off faster?"

"Yes, but only by a couple seconds," he said. "If people aren't safe by now, they're already dead. I doubt it's going to work, since the detonators are magical. They probably got ruined in that first burst. But if it does, I set the dynamite, I let Donut smush a few of the detonator blobs onto the wall, and you're triggering it. If we get any experience for it, we'll all share in the spoils."

"Okay." I mentally shrugged, and when the timer hit twenty seconds I hit the button. It was easier to go along with Carl's orders so that we could get through the door instead of wasting time arguing. Immediately upon pressing it, I dropped the detonator on the ground and opened the door, not wanting to give Carl any excuse to wait even longer. Just as we started to blip away, Donut spoke.

"Hey, Carl," she said. "You probably should have put your pants back on when we still could get into our inventory, don't you think? Aren't we going straight to Odette's show?" She cackled with laughter.

"Goddamnit, Donut," Carl said, horrified.