Chapter 200

“Oh man,” I said to Mordecai as we entered the safe room. He sat at the counter with Bomo, the sole remaining member of our four bodyguards. The other three cretins had gone down with the high elf castle to the ninth floor.

Mordecai had been a tiny, cute creature the previous floor. Something called a Pocket Kuma. He was now the same size as the rock bodyguard. He was large, pink, bald, and he had a single, blinking eye in the center of his cone-shaped head.

“A cyclops?” Donut asked, looking him up and down. “You turned into a cyclops? And why are you so chunky? You look like a knock-off version of that starfish guy from that Krusty Krab cartoon, but with only one eye. Great, now I’m going to get the theme song stuck in my head. Do you have any depth perception?”

“Not really,” he said, standing to his full height. He even sounded like Patrick from Spongebob Squarepants when he talked, which made him come across as stupid. He was just as tall as he’d been when he was an incubus, but like Donut said, he now had a wide belly, stretching his white shirt to its limits. His skin was a bright pink, and his bald, cone-shaped, furrowed forehead glinted dully in the light. His single, brown eye was the size of an ostrich egg. A caterpillar-like eyebrow stretched across his head. His fingers looked like wrinkly sausages.

I’d only seen one other cyclops creature before, and that had been a bartender somewhere. Mordecai was a different kind. I examined him.

Mordecai. Hills Cyclops. Level 50.

Manager of Princess Donut.

This is a non-combatant NPC.

Of all the cyclops-style monsters populating the dungeon, the Hills Cyclops are both the weakest and the dumbest of the lot. These shambling pinheads tend to spend their days working as shepherds, herding their sheep and goats. They’re always disheveled because they can’t see their own reflections in mirrors. At night, they can be found at the local drinking establishments, getting into fist fights and drinking contests with their imbecile friends. They’re mostly harmless as long as you don’t mess with their flock and/or their girlfriends. I was going to add a joke about those two being the same thing, but I’m trying to be more mature. Just kidding. These dudes definitely fuck their sheep.

They also get pinkeye a lot.

“It’s better than the form I’d taken for the ten minutes the seventh floor was open,” he said. “I was a slime. I had no goddamned arms.”

“Oh, shit,” I said. “I didn’t know they could do that to you.”

He grunted. “I was a kua-tin once, and I had to spend the floor in a glass pitcher. Another time I was a skreich ghast, and I kept teleporting away against my will.”

“Hey!” Donut shouted from across the room. She’d jumped to the top of the mailbox that sat in the corner. “There’s only one spell book in here! I didn’t get my book-of-the-floor delivery from the seventh floor!”

“Nope,” Mordecai said. “You snooze you lose.”

“This is an outrage! Carl, you need to send a message to your lawyer this instant!”

“What did you get?” I asked as I sat down at the table. Holy cow was I tired. I needed to go into my room and reset my exhaustion level, which would only take a minute thanks to the Instacot 60 bed upgrade from the guild.

“It’s a spellbook for something called Mute. That sounds boring.”

“Good,” Mordecai said. “That’s on our list. You can stop monsters from casting spells. Learn it and practice it. Didn’t you get another, random spellbook at the prize counter?”

“I did, but it’s in a box I haven’t opened yet.” She glowed as she read the new spellbook.

Donut let Mongo out of his box, and he screeched, running about the room. He looked out the door into the main guildhall area. He screeched again.

“Mongo, who are you looking for?” Donut asked. “Mommy is right here!”

Mongo made a sad, little squawk.

“Carl, Carl,” a voice said, rolling in from the training room. “What has taken you so long? We need to go back out there and find a pulpmancer!”

“Samantha!” I said. “You took off! I didn’t know where you went.”

The last time I’d seen her, she’d been blown up and burned to hell multiple times. She appeared to have gone back to normal. Her hair had returned, and her scorched, latex skin appeared clean and shiny.

“She came back to the saferoom,” Mordecai said. “She flew here. Pushed her way through the brambles to get to the door.”

Mordecai: We need to have a talk about her. Something is obviously happening.

Carl: Yeah, no shit. You said she’d never be able to do any of this stuff.

Mordecai: I don’t understand it, which makes it extra dangerous. Withering spirits shouldn’t be able to do this. She won’t shut up about that flesh golem you have in your inventory. Don’t give it to her until we figure out why and how she’s gaining this power.

“My cousin gave you her mother, and we need to find a mage to animate her! I need my body back! Come on. Let’s go right now, Carl!”

“Samantha, we just landed on a new floor. Don’t worry. We’ll figure something out. Let’s get our bearings first.”

“I’m going to kill your mother.”

“And I’m not going to help you if you keep threatening me.”

She started growling. She rolled off to chase Mongo.

Elle: Holy shitballs, guys. Have you opened your boxes and achievements yet?

Donut: NOT YET. THEY DIDN’T GIVE ME MY SPELLBOOK OF THE FLOOR PRIZE, AND I’M QUITE UPSET ABOUT IT.

Elle: That’s some bullshit right there. You should make Carl’s lawyer sue them over it.

Donut: I KNOW, RIGHT?

“Do you think anything is going to happen to Prepotente?” Donut asked as she watched Mongo rush after the doll head. “They got mad at Carl for having the Gate of the Feral Gods because they thought he might break a level, but Prepotente actually did break one.”

“I think he’ll be okay,” Mordecai said. “I was just talking to Mistress Tiatha, and she filled me in on what that crazy goat did. This one is on the engineers. They fashioned that level so it was just like the fairytale. The kid in the story did the exact same thing the goat did, but it took him thousands of years to figure it out. They should never have built it that way. This isn’t the first time a level was doomed from the start. I think I told you about the bacterial infection incident from the previous Borant season. There was another one where the crawlers had to hand-build bridges, but the provided materials made it impossible, and the council had to step in. This was the first time that it failed so quickly, I think. The Valtay are likely irritated with the Borant engineers who designed the level, but it sounds like there’s plenty of blame to go around. The Apothecary and the Plenty are probably on their shitlist for providing the means, not that the showrunners can do anything about that. The whole thing was a political maneuver to make a lot of money for the those two sponsors, all at the cost of the Valtay and the Syndicate as a whole. It’s all a game to them, and it’s nothing new.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “I thought the Apothecary and the Plenty were losing ungodly amounts on benefactor benefits?”

“I’m not even going to pretend to understand most of it, but the sheer amount of money the Syndicate pays just to use the tunnel system to livestream all of this is enormous and paid in advance. If an entire floor is skipped, it’s not refunded. Plus...”

He trailed off. He looked back and forth between me and Donut. He was looking up at the spinning star over Donut’s head.

“You did it?” he asked.

“Oh, yeah,” I said, grinning sheepishly. He’d known that we were talking to my attorney, and he’d known what we were planning. But everything had happened so fast at the end of the last floor, we hadn’t had the chance to tell him it had worked. And this was the first time we were able to talk about it out loud.

“We kickstarted a war!” Donut announced. “Isn’t that great?”

“Who’s your warlord adjutant?” he asked. “Have they assigned him or her yet?”

“Uh,” I said. “I don’t know what that is.”

He grunted and shook his head. “By his left tit. You two... you know what, we’ll talk about it later. Open your damn boxes.”

~

During the Butcher’s Masquerade, I’d stood upon Prepotente’s personal space cube for a minute and opened a few boxes, but I’d deliberately not checked my achievements which would’ve added several boxes to the pile, and I wouldn’t have had time to open them all. We hadn’t been in an actual saferoom since before the party. I had literally dozens of achievements and boxes, including a Legendary boss box and two different quest boxes for the Vengeance of the Daughter and the Recital quest. The vast majority of the achievements were for stupid things, like riding in a elven carriage and using a goodwill ballroom. The notable ones were:

New Achievement! Oh shit! A country boss!

You ever have one of those jobs where there’s a big boss somewhere in the building, but you’ve never actually seen them? There’s rumors that he’s a complete douche with an epic temper, but you’re so far down the totem pole, the very idea of having anything to do with the guy is just ridiculous. People speak about him with frightened whispers, and it’s almost like he’s some invisible, terrifying urban legend. Than BAM! One day you’re coming out of the bathroom, wrestling with a stuck zipper, and he’s right there looking at you like you should be ashamed of yourself just for existing. How dare you throw yourself in his line of sight you worthless piece of shit?

That’s the position you’re in right now.

Second only to the infamous floor boss—which doesn’t show up until the tenth floor—this is the biggest, baddest bitch one can come across in Dungeon Crawler World.

Reward: You know how this goes, you worthless piece of shit.

I’d received that one when Imogen had suddenly appeared in the convoy to the castle.

New Achievement. The Scourge.

The Butcher’s Masquerade has started. You have collected the most hands. You have caused more mothers to cry, more children to hate than any other crawler before you. You are the champion murderer supreme. You are number one. If only your own mother wasn’t already dead so she could see you now.

Reward: You have received a Legendary Hunter Champion Box.

A legendary box!

New Achievement. Marked for Life.

You were marked for death by a god. That god entered your realm, yet you somehow survived. That’s quite the achievement right there. Too bad the god will probably try to kill you even harder next time. You are so fucked.

Reward: You have received a Platinum Apostate Box.

That was great, but my breath caught in my throat the moment I saw the next one.

Finally, I thought. Fucking finally.

New Achievement. Apex Predator.

Holy shit.

They’re dead.

All of them.

Every. Last. One.

Not only did you kill more hunters than everyone else, but you killed the very last one. One could fill a very stinky swimming pool with the blood you spilled on the Hunting Grounds.

You have become a very scary dude. Maybe I should be calling you daddy instead of the other way around.

Reward: Nothing!

...

Just kidding. You have received a Celestial Predator Box.

My hands shook. I could barely pay attention to the next group of achievements.

New Achievement! Ménage à Quatro!

You survived a four-way boss battle! Wow! In addition to the boss box you got from this, not to mention that Apex Predator box you’re still probably freaking out about, you’ve gotten another prize. It’s like Christmas!

Reward: You’ve received a Platinum Orgy Guy Box.

New Achievement! Fuck This Floor.

You went down the stairs less than an hour after you arrived upon the level. Who needs to grind and grow in strength? Let’s see how that works out for you.

Reward: You’ve received a Platinum Here’s-Some-Good-Shit-Because-You’re-Gonna-Need-It-Box

New Achievement! Pacificist!

You survived an entire floor without hurting a single, poor mob.

That’s not how this works. Nobody likes you.

Reward: You’ve received a Gold Pacifist’s Box.

New Achievement! Collective Bargaining!

More than 1,000 crawlers have received the exact same box at the exact same time.

Working together, huh? We don’t know if we like that. Better toughen up the rules a little. Better break a few extra kneecaps. Better bury a few more bodies.

Reward: You’ve received a Gold Scab Box.

~

“Carl, Carl, I got legendary boxes! I got a legendary Beguiler’s Box for charming Ferdinand and a legendary De-sleeving Box for what we did to Diwata! And that’s on top of the legendary boss box. I also got a bunch of boxes for singing! And an orgy box! And a fan box I can open tomorrow! Mongo! Mommy got a bunch of great boxes!”

Mongo made an excited squeak.

“Carl?” Mordecai asked, looking at me.

“I got a celestial,” I said.

Donut stopped dead.

“What?” she asked. “And I didn’t get one? I helped kill a god!”

I reached over and gave her a pat. “It wasn’t for that. It was for killing the last hunter. I got a fan box, too, but it was for getting a bunch of viewers when Britney and I met Queen Imogen. We’ll open them up later together.”

She harrumphed.

“Well, don’t just sit there,” Mordecai said, his voice soft. “Let’s see your prizes.”

And so we did.

Donut went first.

The boxes appeared, a line of them that stretched all the way across the room. The first dozen were bronze and gold adventurer boxes, filled with good healing and mana potions along with a few scrolls of Phase Through Wall, which Mordecai was pretty excited about, along with dozens of junk clothing items and weapons.

Donut hadn’t received a quest box for the Vengeance of the Daughter storyline. It was one of the few quests that had only gone to me. But for the Tina quest, she received a coupon for a free Town Upgrade. That was something we’d be saving for the next floor. I knew I’d be receiving the same thing for that quest.

She received a skill potion from the gold pacifist’s box which was for upgrading her Love Vampire skill. In the Scab box, she received an upgrade to her brush, the Enchanted Fur Brush of the Ecclesiastic, which added an additional ten percent to her constitution on top of the measly two points it normally gave for getting brushed each morning.

The Masquerade prize counter box she’d bought from Chaco opened, revealing a piece of sheet music for a song called Skedaddle and a spellbook. The Platinum good-shit box contained a potion that was pink and frothy. Mordecai whooped.

“Cosmic buff potion!” he said. “Raises a random stat by 10 points.”

He’d mentioned these before. These were a different kind of potion than the standard buff potions that one could only take a limited amount of.

Mordecai: If you get one of these, too, you should allow me to examine it for a bit at my table before you drink it. We’ll want Donut to drink hers straight away.

Carl: Okay.

The Platinum orgy box contained a coupon for a free mercenary purchase. The Legendary boss box contained gold, healing scrolls, and something called a Flawless Jeweler’s Gem.

“Hmm, yellow,” Donut said, examining the large jewel. She did not sound impressed. “Yellow orange, really. I think it’s a citrine. Not exactly my color. It clashes with my fur.”

“Oh, wow. That’s for upgrading your tiara,” Mordecai said. “We can’t just apply it, though. We’ll have to go to a jeweler. They have one in the Desperado.”

I laughed when the Beguiler’s box opened, revealing a single, shining nipple ring. It glowed red.

“This is not funny, Carl,” Donut said, spitting with disgust. It disappeared before I could examine it.

The De-Sleeving box contained 100,000 gold—which was a lot for a box—and a strange type of spellbook I’d never seen before. The book was thick, like a dictionary, with a bumpy, leather cover. It was chained shut with a lock, and it bounced around on its own. Purple wisps of smoke came off it. I was immediately reminded of the book from the Evil Dead movies.

Next to me, Mordecai let out a gasp.

Donut took all the gear out and lined it up on the table. She immediately pushed all the lower tier stuff away. We’d add it to the equipment pile for the next floor. She let me examine a Phase Through Wall scroll, which would allow us to pass through wood, stone, or metal walls, but Mordecai warned that we should only use them in extreme emergencies. They were very dangerous to use, especially if we were fighting someone with any sort of counter to it.

Her Love Vampire skill, which she’d received for reaching 100 in charisma, had never worked really well until she’d used the temporary tiara on the previous floor that had effectively doubled her charisma. It normally allowed her to charm one intelligent opponent, and all damage upon her would be reflected to that opponent. The problem was, the opponent could easily break away. However, when she’d increased her charisma to an epic level, it not only worked much better, it ended up working without her even having to think about it. It just happened automatically, plus it ended up charming up to five mobs at a time.

We probably weren’t going to get it to that level again any time soon, but the skill potion added three levels to the skill, bringing it up from three to six, which would make it more powerful than it had been. But most importantly, it made it so it would cast automatically in certain situations.

The song of Skedaddle was something she’d have to practice. It was an escape spell. It was similar to her Puddle Jump spell, but it sent us back to a random place we’d been in the past hour. She couldn’t steer it, which made it dangerous to use, but it was a short song that she could cast quickly. The thing was, if she sang it poorly, things could go very, very poorly. I told her to not use it until she could sing it cleanly in her vocal studio.

The first spellbook, which we’d also gotten from Chaco’s prize booth, was a strange spell. It was a team buff called Rigorous. It was basically a damage reflect spell, but only for debuffs and afflictions. Similar to my Super Spreader, but it didn’t actively give the target the ailment, just the effect. Mordecai said that was an important distinction. Donut was not impressed, but she read it anyway on the guide’s insistence.

The mercenary coupon was interesting. It was just a piece of paper with a buff, flexed arm on it. I picked it up.

Mercenary coupon! The bearer of this instrument is entitled to 100,000 gold worth of mercenary services at any participating Meat Shields locations.

“Meat Shields?” I asked.

Mordecai shrugged. “Probably the name of the mercenary markets on this floor. There’s one in both the Desperado and Club Vanquisher. And there probably was one in Larracos, too.”

Donut downed the Cosmic Buff potion. Her entire body sparkled with glitter. Then she harumphed. “Dexterity? I was hoping it’d be charisma! Lame.”

“Not bad,” Mordecai said. “I was hoping for Constitution.”

She pulled out the glowing, red nipple ring. She made a little, disgusted sound while Mordecai whistled. “Now that’s an... interesting prize.”

“This is the most sexist description I’ve ever read, Mordecai.”

He grunted. “Just ignore it and look at the stats.”

Donut slid it across the table. I picked it up to examine it.

Enchanted Nipple Ring of the Superior Fire Demon’s Hand Maiden.

This may only be equipped on a quadruped.

This may only be equipped on a female.

Warning: Unless you’re planning on getting a lot of weird and unnecessary surgery, you ain’t equipping this.

All nipple rings must be manually affixed the first time they are equipped.

Oh boy. Let me tell you about Superior fire demons. These bitches are crazy. Worse than the minor demons. I know, I know. That sounds chauvinistic and rude. You can’t get away with saying shit like that anymore. Here’s the thing. These bitches are godsdamned crazy. Full stop. You look that shit up in Wikipedia, and it’ll be the first line. It’ll say, “These bitches are three pugs short of a grumble.” It’s not an opinion, but an absolute fact.

We have a whole matriarchal hierarchy of demons who exist and fight and vie for control of the fifteenth level, and these Superior Demon nutjobs are always causing the most chaos, which is saying a lot.

You got the lesser demons, who are generally normal, though I wouldn’t break up with one over text or call her fat or anything like that. Then you got the more powerful minor demons. Those bitches are something else, but they’re nothing compared to Superior fire demons. These ladies are so batshit, the demon lords and queens require all of them to be “chaperoned” by hellspawn familiars everywhere they go, whose job it is to protect them from each other and themselves. It’s Sheol’s version of a Xanax. Or maybe a restraining order.

These familiars need to be protected from the superior demons. This nipple ring is one of the items they utilize.

Wearing this nipple ring offers the following benefits:

Allows the removal of cursed items.

User is impervious to natural fire.

User is impervious to lava attacks.

User is resistant to fire-based spells.

User will not lose health while inside Sheol.

All spells with a fire attack now deal (Intelligence)% more damage.

All demon worshippers are visible and marked on your map.

User may cast Bitch, What? Once a day.

We’d met two demons so far. Fire Brandy, who’d been giving birth inside the Nightmare Express train on the fourth floor, had been a lesser demon. Slit, the makeup-encrusted kaiju-sized demon who wanted to kill Samantha had been a feral minor demon. I could only begin to imagine what a superior demon looked like.

“Wow,” I said. “We’re putting this on you right away.”

“Errr,” Mordecai said. “It’s great, and I agree she needs to wear it. But we need to talk about that spell it comes with.”

I looked up the Bitch, What? spell.

Bitch, What?

Type: Berserking Spell + partial invulnerability.

Target: Self only

Cost: Item based.

Duration: twenty seconds.

Cooldown: Once every 30 hours.

Effect: You ever seen an angry, on-fire weasel tossed into a room full of chickens?

You catch on fire. You are invulnerable to blunt damage. Then you get really angry and kill every goddamn thing in the room. This is a berserking spell. Don’t cast this inside of a Denny’s. Or anywhere near people you like.

“Wow,” I said again, suddenly feeling uneasy. “Mordecai, have you ever seen that spell in action?”

“I have, and so have you. Remember that rage elemental? They’re perpetually in that state. It’s actually called Fire Berserker. They’ve been changing the names a lot more than usual. Donut, only cast it when you’re by yourself. You have three fire spells now. Fireball, Magic Missile, and Wall of Fire. All three of them are going to be much more intense. So be very careful. It’s good, but it’s still not as good as your spellbook.”

The chained spellbook did a little hop on the table, as if it knew Mordecai was talking about it.

Donut raised her paw and did an uncertain slap onto the book. It was a very cat-like move. “Why is it quivering?” she asked. “You know how I feel about things that quiver.”

“That happens sometimes with the more powerful tomes,” Mordecai said. “Especially summoning ones.”

I picked it up. The book was squishy and warm. It wriggled in my hands, like I was holding a puppy.

Tome of Legionnaires of the Damned.

Type: Summoning Spell.

Cost: 25 mana

Duration: (spell level*2 + intelligence level) seconds.

Cooldown: One minute. May only have one active instance of this spell at a time.

Target: May only be cast on unattended armor or weapons. Total targets allowed varies based on multiple factors.

Effect: There are a lot of angry souls out there. Like, a lot. It’s said if one has the ability to actually see all the wailing souls that filter through the edges of our world, one would go quite insane.

The AI gave an unsettling giggle.

Quite, quite insane, actually. All that death, spiraling down, down, down into the drain. Where do they go? Why are they always screaming?

Uh, anyway. This spell reanimates physical weapons or armor pieces for a period of time with an undead, wailing spirit plucked straight from the river of falling souls. These will be temporary minions of the caster. Strength of the summoned symbiotes varies, depending on multiple factors.

Warning: In most cases, armor and weapons utilized with this spell will disintegrate upon the completion of this spell. Certain cursed and enchanted items may react in an unpredictable manner upon the completion of the spell.

“Remember the swordsmen guards on the third level?” Mordecai asked. “This is kinda like that, but scarier. Wailing spirits are creepy. Now that Donut has level 15 in that Laundry Day spell, she can sow a lot of chaos with just those two spells. If she trains this one up, she can remove all the armor off a group of mobs and then reanimate their own armor with the spirits, and they will tear through the unarmored monsters like wildfire.”

“Holy crap,” I said. I slid the still-wriggling book back to Donut. “You just got a lot more badass.”

She glowed as she applied the book. It let out a little scream as it disappeared in a puff of purple smoke.

“I’ve always been badass, Carl.”

Mordecai nodded in agreement. “All of these loot items are really good. Like, really good.”

“Yeah,” I said. “My whole feed is filled with people who getting some really good shit. Elle got an ice staff she won’t stop talking about. Bautista got a shape-changing ring.”

“Bautista can change shape now, too? I bet he and Katia will be having some really weird sex,” Donut said.

“Part of it is the AI compensating for the skipped floor,” Mordecai said, ignoring Donut’s quip. “But you got some of these boxes before that even happened, so it’s likely in response to the Valtay ramping up the difficulty.”

“My stuff is good, but I didn’t get anything for Mongo,” Donut said. “And I didn’t get a celestial box, either.”

Mongo peeped in sad agreement.

“That nipple ring is practically a celestial. Same with the spell,” Mordecai said. He turned to me. “But now it’s Carl’s turn.”