Time to level collapse: 3 days, 12 hours.

Views: 492 Trillion

Followers: 51 Trillion

Favorites: 881 Billion

Surviving Crawlers: 372,813

I had been on duty two hours when the screaming started.

I was on the northwest battlestation, defending against a group of Shattered Reavers. Before going through the third stage of withdrawal they had been monkey-like creatures with six arms ending in literal buzzsaws. Now they had transformed into 2.5 meter long six-legged rhinoceroses wrapped in chitin and blades who sometimes fired explosive pellets out of their horns. They were being ridden by chittering cacti that launched a continual barrage of poison needles and they were very much of the opinion that we should all die.

In counterpoint, I and the other crawlers were of the opinion that our deaths were a very inappropriate thing for the Reavers and their riders to want. We were busily conveying this opinion to them through the medium of blunt force trauma, harmful magic, and one poleaxe that emitted black smoke and the occasional demonic shriek. Lana and Chu Hua, our healer and support specialist respectively, kept their heads down behind the wall and ensured that we stayed topped up on health and buffs. They also picked up the corpses of the dead when someone got insta-killed by catching an explosive pellet to the face. They were each carrying one corpse already, but ten minutes ago Yvette had come by to thicken the walls and widen the ditch. That had taken the pressure off and we were mostly crouched down hurling suppressive attacks over the wall without risking looking over.

Mark Evans 7: Snakes at the 72 maintenance room!

Warning: This message is from a dead crawler.

"Stay here!" I shouted, racing towards the maintenance room.

Each transfer station, including the stairwell stations, had a maintenance room built into the northern wall. Each such room contained a tangle of piping, electrical cables, and cleaning supplies. (Carl had looted the cleaning supplies the moment we arrived.) The largest of the pipes was the coolant inflow to the electrical generator down at the start of the tracks; it was 1.25 meters across and there was an inspection hatch on the top that a person could drop into and be carried along by the current. It was one of the ways that had been discovered for reaching the stairwell stations, although it had the drawback that every so often you would get attacked by snakes clinging to the wall of the pipe. The door to our maintenance room had burst off its hinges and a line of snakes was slithering out while a trio of crawlers tried to hold them back. The snakes were twenty centimeters thick, patterned in blue and red, and they slithered with their front third upright like a cobra.

Pipe Snake. Level 29.

This might look like a beautiful python, but we gave it fangs and put something extra special in the venom. Enjoy!

Nine crawlers were struggling to hold back the tide of snakes. The dead bodies of Sarah Harcort and Roberto Morales were sizzling and slowly dissolving. Esperanza Hernandez was seizing, her heels and head drumming on the floor as the poison coursed through her.

"Move!" I shouted, pulling a hob-lobber fuse out of my inventory with a small prayer. I didn't have any explosive-handling skills, meaning that the things were ridiculously unstable in my hands, often going off the moment I touched them. Fortunately, their blast was small enough not to be much of a threat to my heavily-armored body, which made it worthwhile to have a couple of them on hand for situations exactly like this. Carl hadn't been sanguine about giving them to me, but he relented after I promised not to use them around him or Donut.

I stiffened my arm into a cannon barrel with inventory-supplied cotton wadding, sucked the fuse inside, and aimed at the door. A dotted red line appeared as Albert traced the projected arc of the projectile on my eyes. I shifted my aim until the line turned green, then shapeshifted the padded base of the barrel forward as fast as I could. We had spent a lot of time practicing this in the training room, first with dummy rounds and then the real thing. I'd blown my arm off half a dozen times, but it was only metal and easily replaced. We now had about an 80% success rate of launching the projectile without it exploding.

This time we got lucky. The fuse arced up over Samantha's head, through the door on an angle, and went off when it hit the floor inside the maintenance room. Blood and mangled bits of snake sprayed out and the flow was momentarily interrupted.

"Albert, Sonic," I muttered. Sensation went away as Albert numbed me; I launched myself forward and up, shifting as I did. I arced high, then dropped as Albert cut the gravitic boost. By the time I hit the ground I was a metal cylinder two meters long. I hit Rush and was flung forward.

The numbness went away a moment later and I could feel that I was embedded in a wall and dozens of pairs of fangs were stabbing into my metal surface as though it were butter. My eyes were deep inside my core but I was pretty sure I was inside the maintenance room, so I dumped a Molotov's Delight out of my inventory and shifted back to human form.

The Delight was an incendiary device gifted to me by Petrov, a kindly old man who had been a child in Leningrad when the Germans attacked. When the Collapse came he had been in a park with his grandson and great-grandson. Both the grandson and the great-grandson were dead now, lost to the holocaust of the first two floors, but Petrov had made it down the stairs and his racial transformation ('Human, Olympic Also-Ran') had rendered him young again.

I could tell that the room was an inferno, so I did not give myself eyes or a mouth. Instead, I simply felt my way to the transit pipe and dropped a couple tons of junk metal on top of the opening. With that done, Albert was able to dead-reckon me to the door and out. I gave myself a shiny metal surface and forced myself to stride confidently, hoping that Albert had his directions right and I wasn't going to walk into a wall. It was important to appear confident and unfazed right now, because if I did then maybe—

New Achievement: Terminator Ex Ignis!

You butchered a dozen living things and then strode out of an inferno looking like a liquid-metal Terminator. It was badass! Looks like maybe you aren't a complete loser after all, so have a cookie.

Reward: A Silver Maybe Not a Loser Box!

Only Silver? Eh, I'd take it.

A dozen snakes had emerged from the room before I blew it up and set it on fire, but more crawlers had come running and were dealing with it. There was nothing left to do, so I went back to the wall.

o-o-o-o

Time to level collapse: 3 days, 2 hours.

Views: 628 Trillion

Followers: 89 Trillion

Favorites: 1.4 Trillion

Surviving Crawlers: 332,189

I cautiously peeked over the edge of the barricade and was promptly shot in the forehead with a bone dart.

I ducked back down and looked at my team. "More of those Stinger Sprites," I told them.

"Time for some barbecue," Mandy said, grinning. For someone who had chosen an air-based class, she really liked fire.

"On it," Zach said. The sixty-year-old Retired Action Hero conjured a pair of grenades, pulled the pins with his teeth (apparently that was a requirement of the skill in question), and hurled them over the barricade. A moment later there was a twin whump! as they detonated and sprayed oil everywhere. Zach waited a moment, then pulled a flare gun out from inside his jacket and fired it over the barricade without exposing any part of his body. The oil went up and I could feel the air being dragged past me as it was sucked into the fire.

Mandy Pratt, a Wind Witch, stuck her hand up just far enough to send a torrent of wind over to fan the flames as the mobs screamed and fried.

o-o-o-o

Time to level collapse: 1 day, 12 hours.

Views: 772 Trillion

Followers: 213 Trillion

Favorites: 5 Trillion

Surviving Crawlers: 298,418

"Hey Joseph."

Joseph (never Joe!) Miller glanced over his shoulder. "Hey, Kat. Shift change already?"

I nodded, gesturing to the quartet of crawlers trailing behind me. They were young and low-leveled, here to 'learn from my experience.' Why anyone thought I had anything valuable to teach I had no idea but I had smiled and nodded when Jean gave me the assignment. "Things have been slow, I'm guessing?"

"Yeah, they haven't pushed us for at least thirty minutes. Not sure what's going on."

"Huh. What are you facing?"

"It's a mixed bag. A bunch of Cave Trolls for muscle, whags for ranged, Blood Fiends, and some kind of flying thing that sprays a darkness field. I haven't managed to get a look at their properties to find out the right name. You'll want to target them first."

I frowned. The Whale Hunter Ghouls, whags for short, had been showing up more frequently since yesterday but I hadn't seen them here on the Lemon line before. They were powerful enough before withdrawal and nearly everything we were fighting at this point was in its third-stage transformation.

"Okay, thanks," I said. "We'll take over. Get some sleep."

He yawned. "Will do." He raised a hand to stop me as I opened my mouth. "And yes, mom, I'll make sure I dump my mana into Donut's essential oils." He grinned as he teased me.

"Hmph. The name is 'the Essentialist', not 'essential oils." I looked down my suddenly extra-patrician nose at him, but I couldn't hold the face long before I started laughing.

"Go on, get out of here," I said, waving my hands at him and his team as though I were shooing chickens. They hustled off, raising hands to high-five us on the way.

"Okay, guys," I said to what I was trying to think of as my students. "Let's see if we can get you some levels. Like the man said, shoot the flying ones first."

o-o-o-o

My lower pair of arms were busy holding the Wrath Ghoul's arms down while I repeatedly smashed him in the face with my mohawk. Another Wrath Ghoul tried to come up on my right so I crushed his head with a wide swing of my upper right arm. A Whale Hunter Ghoul threw its harpoon at me; I tried and failed to deflect it with my upper left hand and it went all the way through my head. These mobs were all in third-stage withdrawal and massively powerful. More than powerful enough to rip through our barricades and to throw a harpoon through a solid-steel skull. Fortunately it missed the few squishy bits that were up there.

"On your left!" Michelle said, leaping forward and cleaving through the harpoon's line before the whag could drag me back. Her downward cut flowed directly into a rising slash that took the head off a charging Fire Rhino.

"Clear!" I shouted. My team drew back as I cut loose with the battery, sending a massive electrical blast through my body and down the wire that connected me to the metal grid we had laid out in front of the barricade. Every mob within thirty meters shook and then collapsed, the smell of cooked meat rising up.

Katia: Mordecai, how are you coming with those mana potions? I just exhausted my last battery.

Mordecai: All of you really need to stop being so profligate. Even with all those Mystic Essence pellets and the upgraded table I'm having trouble keeping up with demand. Don't even talk to me about the stat boost potions. I only managed to make a couple hundred of those before I had to switch to mana potions full time. You have no idea how boring this is. Also, someone needs to run over to the Desperado Club and get more star anise.

Katia: As to being profligate: Tell the mobs, not me. If they would stop trying to kill us then we would stop electrocuting them. As to the rest: You were so excited about everyone chipping in to get you a level seven table. Being bored because you're only making mana potions is the payment.

Mordecai: Fine, whatever. I'll send over a couple more batteries but that's all I have for you right now. Section twelve has been going through them like Halloween candy.

Katia: Thanks, Mordecai. You're the best.

"Hey there," Yvette said, popping up just as I closed the line with our manager. "Someone said you needed another wall?"

"Yup," I said, dragging the harpoon out of my skull with one arm as I used another to point at the demolished barrier we had been defending. "Think you can make this one a little stronger?"

"No problem. My Earth Mover skill is up to 12 now."

o-o-o-o

Time to level collapse: 5 minutes, 7 seconds.

Views: 23 Quadrillion

Followers: 821 Trillion

Favorites: 21 Trillion

"Albert, is that everyone?" I asked.

"Yes, Ms Katia. Aside from us and the other rearguard squads, all crawlers from this station have exited the level."

"Great." A massive crash split the air followed by the sound of fire and screaming. "Rats, sounds like they managed to break the barricade on section five. I thought we built it stronger than that." I had been fighting at that barricade thirty minutes ago when our turn to withdraw came up. We had triggered all the remaining fire traps, tack-welded the steel shutters closed over the firing ports, and run. My blood was still fizzing through my veins as I came down from the adrenaline high.

"Ahem. I believe that wins me the bet, ma'am. You owe me three quatloos."

I laughed. "Put it on my tab."

"Sigh. You crawlers. So unreliable. Never paying your debts. Tsk, tsk."

"Are we good to go?" Carl asked, sounding tense as he scanned the courtyard.

"As soon as Donut comes down."

We both glanced up. Donut was sitting on top of one of the gargoyles that stuck out from the side of the gazebo, at least a dozen meters in the air. The 'gazebo' was a massive stone structure at the center of station 72; it covered the five staircases leading down to the fifth floor. The staircases were arranged in a broken pentagon and each of them was wide enough for twenty people to go down side by side, meaning that 'gazebo' was an awfully small word for the reality. There were five entrances into the gazebo, each only four people wide. It seemed weird that only four people could enter at a time through each door while the stairs were sized for twenty, but probably this was intended to give us some chokepoints for a final defense. Instead it gave us a place for five teams to stand around making bets on which of the outer barricades would be broken first. When the stairs had finally opened we had held the line long enough for Yvette to run around doing one final round of reinforcement before everyone had started jogging down and out of the level. It had been a surprisingly bittersweet moment, with people slapping hands and promising to link up again if possible.

"Donut!" Carl shouted. "Get down here, it's time to go!" He glanced over his shoulder to the squads standing ready to hold the other entrances. "Guys, we're clear! Everyone out! See you on the next level!"

"Oorah!" Cliff shouted from across the room. He had turned eighteen two days ago, and had been following Carl around ever since we got together, begging for stories of the military life. He was soaking it all up and doing his best to copy Carl's mannerisms, walk, and speech patterns. It was a little disturbing.

"Oorah, kid," Carl said, tossing him a salute. "Now get off my level!"

Cliff laughed and ran for the stairs, his four-person squad behind him. The other three squads were already halfway down their respective stairs.

"Think the mobs will get here before the level collapses?" I asked idly.

"Doubt it," Carl said. "I heard the fire trap go up, so the entire courtyard is an inferno. Maybe one of the Cave Trolls could make it across but probably not."

Mordecai: I swear by every god I've ever heard of, if the three of you do not get the heck off this level I will make you regret it.

Donut: BUT MORDECAI, IF WE DON'T GET OFF THIS LEVEL THEN WE WOULD BE DEAD. WE COULDN'T REGRET ANYTHING.

Mordecai: GODDAMNIT DONUT, GET OFF THE LEVEL!

Carl: Seriously, Donut, let's go. Three minutes thirty. We're cutting it too close.

Donut: BUT I'M GETTING EASY XP, CARL! THEY KEEP RUNNING INTO THE FIRE AND BURNING UP AND THEN I ZAP THEM FOR THE LAST FEW POINTS AND I GET THE EXPERIENCE! IT'S FUN!

Carl: Goddamnit, Donut! Get down here, we need to go! Everyone else is already gone.

Donut: BUT IT'S EASY XP!

Carl: ...That's it, I'm leaving. See you downstairs. He rolled his eyes at me but didn't move from where he was leaning against the pillar, arms folded and a sour expression on his face.

Donut: CARL, WAIT! WHAT IF THE STAIRS DON'T SEND US TO THE SAME PLACE IF WE DON'T GO DOWN TOGETHER?

Carl: Well, hopefully we manage to link up again. See you soon, I hope.

There was a sound of scrabbling claws as Donut raced down the stone pillar, HIDER giving her speed and the ability to stick to the wall. "Wait! Carl, wait! Don't leave me! Carl! Carl, you—" She came around the corner, bounding along as fast as she could, and zoomed right by us before slamming on the brakes. She pivoted to look at us, all her fur standing on end in anger as we laughed. "You jerks! I thought you were going to abandon me!"

"Never," Carl said, pushing himself off the pillar and walking towards her with his hands extended. "C'mon, partner. Let's do this."

She leaped into his arms and settled there instead of racing up to his shoulder the way she normally did.

"Partner," she purred, bumping her head against his chest. "I like that." She lifted her head, looking around one last time as Carl and I stepped onto the staircase. "Gosh, I sure hope the fifth floor isn't as easy as this one was. I'd like at least a little challenge, you know?"

Donut: WASN'T THAT A GREAT EXIT LINE? MY FANS ARE GOING TO LOVE IT!