Chapter 79 (Patreon)

Banshee Station 116. Yellow Line. 

Unlike the previous platform, this one held multiple exits. The moment the train pulled away, more red dots appeared, shuffling up toward the station. These were more monsters getting ready for the next train, which would be here in about ten minutes. 

“I can see the whole area on the map,” Katia said. “It’s not too big. There are a lot of twisting tunnels and four big rooms. One is what looks like a boss room like the ones on the first floor. There aren’t any safe rooms. I see a pair of the bathrooms, though. Weird. There aren’t any on the trains.” 

“This tunnel,” Donut said, pointing to one near the end of the platform. “I don’t see any monsters in that one.” 

We jogged toward the passageway, which was nothing more than a low, rocky cave. Water dripped from the ceiling. Donut activated her Torch. 

We waited for a minute, catching our breath. Behind us, several of the skinless rabbits filled the station. Even from around the corner, I could hear them. They made an odd humming noise. 

“There has to be a shitload of these Cornets here,” I said. “If monsters get on at every train, every ten minutes, all day long, then there has to be a constant stream of them.”  

“This station is big, but it’s not huge,” Katia said. 

“Then they’re either somehow getting back here after they get off at station 120—like how Vernon was getting back to the yard—or the system is creating more of them.” I remembered the Brindle Grubs from the second floor. Those had been created on demand. But from what Mordecai said, they only did that with the janitor mobs. There was usually a finite amount of the other mobs. Once you killed them, they would not be replenished. 

“Poor Vernon,” Katia said. “That was horrible. He was saving up money to buy his wife a new house.” 

“Yeah. Plus those bugs burned up my prize,” Donut said. “It’s not fair.” 

“There is no wife,” I said. “And there was no prize. The ants were your prize, Donut. I guess we need to be more vigilant about traps from now on. I need to figure out how to train my Find Traps skill. It warned me, but much too late. My pedicure buff gives me a few extra seconds if the trap is foot triggered, but obviously there are other types of traps too.” 

“What do you mean there is no wife?” Katia said. “He was lying?” 

“No,” I said. “He believes, or I guess believed, he had a wife. This floor has only been open for a day. Before this, he was probably a dwarf doing something else. Whatever the fourth floor theme was the last time they ran the dungeon. When these floors are generated, the NPCs are given artificial memories. It’s all part of the story. This entire floor is probably just the trains. He says he can go home, but where’s that? There is no home. No wife. It’s really fucked up because these aren’t computer programs. These are actual, living creatures who believe this is the real world.” 

“I never really thought of it that way,” Katia said. “That’s… that’s horrible.” 

I nodded. “It’s just as bad as what they’ve done to us.” 

“So what’s the plan?” Donut asked. From my shoulder, she reached out and put her paw against the side of the cave wall. It came away slimy. She frowned. “This place is disgusting.” 

I thought for a moment. “Since we’re here, we should hit the boss room if we can. Maybe we can figure out why they’re always getting on the train. Like with the NPCs, they can create them, give them a story, and set them free, but they’re not robots. There has to be a reason why they’re getting on the train and getting off. The more we know about this place, the better our chances of figuring out how to get the hell out of here.” 

We needed to first figure out what we were facing at this station. I had Donut scout out a tunnel with a single Cornet, so we could fight it. They supposedly used an aural attack. We needed to figure out what that meant. 

The monsters were constantly moving from the deeper rooms to the platform. Donut’s newly-enhanced ability to see mobs on the map worked well, but it didn’t extend that far. I wished there was a way to combine Katia’s larger map, Donut’s ability to see mobs at a greater distance, and my ability to hunt down traps all into a single interface. 

“There’s one, moving down the tunnel by itself,” Donut said. “It’s a couple of turns that way.” 

We headed toward the monster. 

Zev: Hey guys! Long time no talk. 

Donut: HI ZEV! 

Zev: I know you’re busy, but I wanted to check in. I’m still working on your mid-floor appearance. A lot of it is going to depend on what happens with the sponsorship bidding. Things are getting a little intense out there. The same with the two fan boxes you guys have coming.

Donut: DID YOU SEE WE ARE ON THE TOP 10 LIST?

Zev: Of course I saw. Actually, I wanted to bring something up really quick while I can. 

Carl: Out with it. 

Zev: It’s about Katia. 

I stopped moving through the passageway. I held up my hand for the others to halt. 

“What is it?” Katia asked. 

“Just a minute,” I said. “We’re talking to our PR agent about something.” 

“Now?” 

I could now see the monster’s dot on the map. It was just around the corner. It had paused in the middle of the tunnel. I could hear the creature’s odd humming, but there was another noise, too. A clink, clink, clink. I couldn’t tell what it was. 

Donut: WHAT ABOUT KATIA? 

Zev: She’s boring. People don’t like her. Odette complained about her lackluster participation in the interview, and the tunnel is filled with people hoping she gets wasted just so it can be you two again. You either need to ditch her or make her more interesting. Tell her to spice it up. Maybe grow a mohawk. I’m not allowed to message her directly, but I can talk to her face-to-face after your next interview if you want.  

Carl: Are you fucking kidding me?  

Donut: MAYBE IF SHE MAKES HERSELF MORE SEXY LOOKING THAT WILL WORK. MAYBE MAKE HER BOOBS BIGGER LIKE ODETTE DID. 

Zev: Well you need to do something. What’s the point of adding a new character if she sucks? It’s like when they added April to Gilmore Girls. But worse. 

Donut: OH NO. I WILL HELP HER. 

Carl: She’s an art history professor, not a circus poodle. If people don’t like her, they can suck it.

Zev: If they don’t like her, they’ll stop watching. If they stop watching, you’ll get less views. If you get less views, you’ll get less prizes from the fan boxes and sponsors. And we’re just getting started with fan and sponsor prizes. 

Carl: She’s shy, and she’s overwhelmed like the rest of us. You can’t just expect someone to change like that.

Donut: SURE WE CAN. WATCH. 

“You need to grow a mohawk,” Donut said to Katia. “And maybe get a catchphrase. That really worked for Carl.”

“Goddamnit, Donut,” I said. I regretted it the moment the phrase came out of my mouth. 

“What do you mean?” Katia asked. She reached up and touched her blonde hair. She’d managed to make it look much more natural. Before, the hairs were too thick, almost like doll hair. Her face was also more natural-looking than before. She no longer looked like a burn victim and now just looked like someone who’d had too much cosmetic surgery. Like Bea’s mom. 

“She doesn’t mean anything,” I said. “It’s not important right now.” 

“It is important, Carl. We shouldn’t avoid conversations just because they’re uncomfortable. Zev thinks since you’re hanging with us, you need to be more vibrant.” 

“More vibrant?” she asked. “Is she saying I’m boring?” 

“No,” Donut lied. “She just thinks you’ll get more followers if you give the viewers something to latch onto. It’s not a bad thing. But people need to know who you are. You have to give them something to root for.” 

“My views have never been higher. I have almost ten billion followers. It was almost nothing until I joined your team.” 

“Oh you precious thing,” Donut said. “It’s great, it really is, but those are rookie numbers. I have over 700 trillion.”   

I sighed. At least Donut was being diplomatic. “Look, now is not the time… Oh, fuck.”

The rabbit monster must have heard us speaking. It started moving in our direction. Mongo growled. 

“All right, we’re shelving this. Formation two.” 

The tunnel was wide enough that we could stand side-by-side. Formation two was similar to formation one, but with me in the center. Donut remained on my shoulder, but she would jump down the moment I approached the monster. Mongo, Katia, and I would all charge at the same time while Donut remained in the rear. Mongo stood to my left, and Katia would take up a blocking formation on my right. 

The tall creature turned the corner. It walked on two legs, but it was hunched forward. Its red, skinless body seemed wet. The rabbit ears were absurdly long, reaching the ceiling. The thing had no eyes. Just a massive mouth with teeth. Its entire body hummed. The sound grew louder. 

“Jesus,” I said. The thing was hard to look at. It had arms with human-like fingers. It was holding an empty potion vial in its hand, and it dropped it on the ground with a clink. 

“It just took a potion,” I said. “Watch out!” 

Red Cornet. Level 21. 

Well, what did you expect in an opera? A happy ending?

The Cornet is a devolved form of the more common Lepus, one of the most widespread, semi-intelligent species across the known universe. During the early years of the Skull Empire’s expansion, a system warlord developed a taste for a dish called Lepus hasenpfeffer, which caused the Lepus on that planet to be hunted to near extinction. A band of the hunted fled to the extensive, lightless caves of the planet and disappeared for several thousand years.

The devolved Lepus lost its sight, but it developed its rudimentary echolocation skills into an impressive attack. They don’t normally run around without skin. We just added that part because it makes them scary as shit. 

Donut nailed the creature with two missiles, bowling it over. The rabbit screamed, and the humming noise increased. The creature scrambled back, almost dead. Its two ears flattened backward, and I suddenly felt a wave of nausea wash over me. My vision went double. My ears rang. I was abruptly on my knees, and I didn’t know why. I couldn’t move. I vomited my hamburger and French fries on the ground. 

You’ve been rendered Queasy! 

A moment later, the feeling ceased. I groaned, looking up. The Cornet was dead with Mongo on top of the creature, ripping it to pieces. Donut and Katia had also grown ill. It didn’t seem to have an affect on Mongo. 

I groaned again, as groaning seemed the most appropriate response after being suddenly and violently ill, and I rolled away from the puddle of vomit. I looked up at the dinosaur who was happily devouring the skinless creature. It had dropped a few gold coins, and that was it. Mongo grunted happily as he ate.

“How is it you’re okay when everything else makes you sick?” I grumbled. Jesus. I hated throwing up. 

Carl: Mordecai. We’re fighting walking rabbits that make us puke. The debuff is called Queasy. How do we fight it?  

Mordecai: That’s usually from an auditory attack. Putting in earplugs won’t help. I can whip you up a potion that’ll negate it, but that won’t do you any good right now. Were Donut and Mongo affected? 

I looked over at the cat, who had vomit running down her face. She was rapidly licking her paw and cleaning it off. 

Carl: Donut, yes. Mongo, no. 

Mordecai: Okay. I honestly don’t know how these attacks work. They’re not magical. It’s a physical thing, but it only works on certain anatomies. You’re going to have to lead with Mongo. The good news is your body quickly builds up a natural resistance to this sort of attack. This is a real thing that exists outside the dungeon, designed to incapacitate prey. My advice is to fight a few more of these guys in as small groups as possible until it no longer affects you. You’ll probably get a skill notification called Queasy Resistance or something.  

“Ugh,” I said. “This is going to suck.” 

“What do you make of this?” Katia asked. She picked up the potion vial the monster had dropped. 

“Toss it here,” I said. 

It wasn’t a normal potion vial, as those usually puffed away into smoke. Still, it was the same size and shape. There was a tiny amount of golden liquid at the bottom, less than half a bead. I flipped the vial over, and the liquid didn’t come out, like it was honey.   

Used vial. 

I knew if I could get that liquid closer to the edge of the bottle I might be able to get the system to give me a description. I pulled it in and then out of my inventory. That didn’t work. I tapped the glass against the rock wall in an attempt to dislodge the liquid. Clink.

That was the sound I’d heard earlier. That Red Cornet had been trying to do the same thing, I realized. Weird. Now I really wanted to know what this stuff was. 

I smashed the vial hard enough to break the glass. Crunch. The moment the glass broke, the whole thing puffed away like it normally did with a potion. There was no sign of the liquid. 

“Damn,” I said. 

For the next few hours, we trained our queasy resistance skill all the while creeping toward the boss room at the back of the tunnel system. Mongo managed to hit level 14, which caused him to grow about six inches taller and a foot longer. One more level before he was full size. Katia hit 22. Donut and I both were on the precipice of leveling up as well, though it was slow going when we were only killing lower level monsters.

I also spent the time training my neglected Fear spell and casting the fire and electric-enhancing Bang Bro on my gauntlet, though I didn’t get to actually use it. Meanwhile, Donut trained her Second Chance, her Clockwork Triplicate, and her new Hole spell, which currently did absolutely nothing but put a circular, temporary, one-inch dimple into walls. It did not work on mobs directly.  

Mongo was getting proficient at killing them on his own, despite being a much lower level. The Cornets were slow to react once we turned the corner, and when they did fight back in time, they usually moved straight to their nausea attack. By the time they realized the dinosaur was immune, they were already on their backs, being ripped to pieces. If I hit them with the Fear spell, they’d turn to run, but Mongo was faster.

As for loot, these monsters were mostly a bust. Most dropped a few coins and sometimes Cornet meat or random organs, which we’d add to the alchemy table’s supplies. Mordecai once said most monsters wouldn’t directly drop good loot on the first several floors. The worthy stuff would come from loot boxes and not the mob corpses. That’d change around the sixth floor when we’d start facing better-equipped opponents. 

All three of us received the notification we were now resistant to the Queasy debuff at the same time, after getting hit with it for what had to be the dozenth time in an hour. I’d long since puked out every last drop of my own stomach’s contents. 

The Red Cornets were moving in a predictable pattern. They seemed to all be coming from one dead-end section of the tunnel. From there they’d move into one of three larger rooms. An equal number would leave these and head for the train station. 

What we thought was the likely boss room was in a separate area at the other end of the tunnels. This room was bigger yet and only had one approach which made me nervous. Donut’s ability to see distant mobs—which I’d started calling her “monster vision” didn’t work in the closed-off area, which further added to my hesitation. I prepared a few smoke bombs and other explosives in case we needed to make a hasty retreat. 

“Here we go,” I said as we entered the long hallway to the back room. The cave system gave way to a regular, long hallway made of rough and unfinished concrete blocks. The floor was made of smooth concrete. 

We slowly approached the chamber, seeing or hearing no sign of the Cornets. The large, metallic double doors reminded me of similar entrances we’d seen in other parts of the dungeon, most notably the entrance to the kobold fighting pits. These were barn-style doors designed to allow something large to get through. 

There were no signs or other indicators about what we were approaching, which was unusual for boss rooms. I put my ear to the door and heard nothing inside. I was afraid we’d slide the doors open, and we’d get rushed by something. I prepared to jump aside. 

I felt a familiar, haptic buzz and looked down, surprised to see a glowing circle right underneath my feet. 

“Back up, back up,” I said, leaping off the symbol as if I’d just touched a hot stove.

“What is it?” Donut hissed, looking wildly about. 

Nothing happened. I inspected the glowing circle, but there was no tooltip. It looked like something used in a Satanic ritual mixed with the text from Frodo’s One Ring. It was a circle with odd writing within, ringing the inside edge, with a large triangle symbol in the center. The symbol pulsed blue. 

“What is that thing?” I asked. I hesitantly reached forward and hovered my hand over it. I was afraid it was a trap, but it didn’t set off any of my trap warnings. I couldn’t get any info out of it at all. It had only appeared once I’d stared at it. 

“What?” Katia asked, looking down.  

“You don’t see it?” 

“There’s nothing there, Carl,” said Donut. 

I sent a message to Mordecai, describing the symbol. 

Mordecai: That’s a control sigil. Only you can see it because of your Escape Plan skill. They’re mostly used by secondary programs, like Vengeance of the Daughter. But they’re sometimes used by the dungeon creators, too. I don’t know too much about this stuff, but I know their use is considered sloppy programming because they’re easy to break. Sigils have all sorts of uses, but they’re mostly for controlled gating. They can stop a specific type of mob from passing the symbol. They can be turned off and on by the showrunners, not the dungeon AI, which is why they use them. If it’s blue, it means the symbol is turned on. It will have no direct effect on you. 

Carl: Is there a way for Crawlers to make these things?

Mordecai: No. Not directly. There’s another type of sigil that looks similar and mostly acts the same way, but it’s a type of magic you’ll never have enough mana to do. Donut might. 

After waiting a few more minutes, we decided to proceed into the room. We slid open the doors, revealing a large warehouse. We jumped in, weapons at the ready. No red dots appeared. No boss music started. The doors did not magically close behind us. 

I looked about the mostly-empty room, lowering my fist. In the middle of the space sat an empty, metal bin with chain-link walls, like a dumpster-sized shopping cart. The cart appeared brand new and untouched. I stepped toward it to examine it further. 

Wire Cage Materials Cart. Wheeled. It’d probably be fun to roll down a hill in this thing.  

“Well this is disappointing,” said Donut. 

“Uh, guys?” I said, pointing at the shadowy far end of the room. Two bulldozer-sized contraptions sat against the far wall. I’d first thought they were indentations on the wall. The air just above the pair of black and silver apparatuses distorted, indicating the machines were turned on and venting hot exhaust. At first look, they looked like lumpy blocks of metal, but I could see the distinct break outlines along the edges. Their true shape came into focus. I played with enough Transformers toys as a kid to immediately recognize what I was looking at. The blocks had arms and legs. 

These were a pair of robots, sitting down and turned off. They did not have dots on the map at all. That’s how the inactive swordsmen guards had appeared on the previous floor. 

Dwarven Industrial Light-Duty Automaton. Contraption. 

This contraption is in Sleep Mode.   

These smaller-sized, industrial workhorses are used to complete simple tasks, such as pushing bins full of ore up from the depths. They are not designed or commonly used for fighting or defense, but who are we kidding? Like you’d have a chance against these things if they wanted to smush you.     

“These are the small ones?” I asked 

I was starting to realize that this was not a boss room. I had no idea what this was. It didn’t appear the Cornets used this room. So why was it here? At first I assumed that control sigil was for these two robots, as they were the only two things in here. But the more I thought about it, the less sense it made. Would they really need control sigils for something mechanical? But if not them, then who? I asked Katia and Donut if they had any ideas. 

“Maybe it’s not to keep something in the room, but to keep it out. Maybe it’s to keep the Cornets away.” 

“Maybe,” I said. “It’s odd.” 

“It gets weirder,” Katia said. “I’ve been talking to Hekla and Eva—she’s another one of the daughters. My friend from before—and they just found a similar room in another warren. She says it’s the same thing. Two robots.” 

“Odd,” I said. I put my hand against the chain link cart. It rolled easily. There was a door on the side, designed so one could easily load something into it. I wondered if I could lift it. I wrapped my fingers into the chain links and heaved. It was heavy and awkward, but I easily lifted the wheels off the ground. I stuck it into my inventory. 

“Let’s blow up the robots,” Donut said. 

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Katia replied, eyes going wide. 

Donut: Remember what I said about being more vibrant? You should agree with me. People love it when Carl blows stuff up. 

Katia did not appear impressed with Donut’s reasoning. I was about to agree with the woman, when I had a thought. I looked over my shoulder. The long, concrete hallway appeared designed to handle the robots, but there was no way they’d fit in the tunnels beyond.

“Actually,” I said. “Let’s do it. You know, for training. And science.”

“Are you serious?” she asked. 

I laughed. “The truth is, I need more materials for the crafting bench. There’s only so much you can do with weight equipment. If we kill these guys, I’ll have enough material to build better train defenses.”

“All right, I guess,” she said. “But if we do this, maybe we should kill the rest of the Cornets first, too. Clear the whole place out.” She gave me a wink. “You know, for science.” 

Donut: That’s the way to do it. Now we just need to work on the mohawk and catchphrase.  

~

We killed the Cornets first. Now that we were immune to their one and only attack, it was pretty easy. I tested rolling a hob-lobber down one of the cave hallways to make sure the place wouldn’t collapse, and it didn’t. We roamed the halls, killing every one we came across. From there, we returned to the train landing and worked our way toward the gathering rooms.  

Donut and I both leveled. Katia also leveled a second time. Donut raised her Second Chance resurrection spell to level seven. The spell cost ten mana. Each monster stayed animated for 14 minutes. She currently had a pool of 41 mana points at her disposal, so she could raise four of the rabbit monsters, take a potion and raise four more, which was a pretty formidable group. 

We used this method to storm the three collective rooms. We sent seven in to fight, and in the midst of the chaos, we sent the eighth in holding a fused hob-lobber. After, I tossed in a smoke curtain, and we mopped up. 

The rooms were nothing more than a filthy waiting area. The rabbits were mostly sleeping in clusters or leaning against the walls. They barely fought back. There was no sense of community here, like with the goblins. This wasn’t an established settlement at all, which was odd. Up until this point, the game had made an attempt to add purpose and a reason for a mob’s presence. It was usually a stupid reason, but it was there. 

Thinking of the goblins reminded me of something else. A realization was starting to form. By the time we killed the ones in the third room and finished collecting all the dropped coins, I had a growing sense of unease. 

“I think they’re all stoned,” I said. 

“More meth?” Donut asked. 

“Not meth. Something different.”

We’d killed all of them except the ones emerging from the long, dark hallway, though none had appeared in a while now. We proceeded carefully down the hall, but nothing came. As we walked, my feet crunched. The floor here was littered with empty vials. If I didn’t have that buff, my feet would be torn up by the glass. The far wall was blackened and scorched, like it’d been hit with a fireball. We waited, but nothing happened. No more Cornets came. We’d cleared the area.  

“I think they’re going to that fifth stop to get these vials, getting their fix, and teleporting back here,” I said. “When they start to come down from their high, they get back on the train.”   

“What does that have to do with the robot room?” Donut asked. 

“I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense, especially if there’s a robot room in all of these landings.” 

For the two robots, I utilized three sticks of hobgoblin dynamite and a detonator. I set the charges without incident, moved all the way back to the platform and set them off. 

We returned to find both of the robots turned to scrap metal. The hobgoblin dynamite was especially good at tearing stuff up. The bottom half of both robots remained mostly intact, but there were hunks of metal everywhere. The automatons hadn’t turned on or fought back at all. The description changed to Destroyed on each one. After waiting for the gnarled metal to cool down, I spent some time collecting everything I could, including several fried and broken cogs and wheels. I found two dwarven batteries, both of them “damaged” according to the menu. It all went into the inventory. 

Donut was giving fashion tips to Katia while we worked. Mongo spent the time running back and forth across the room practicing jump attacks. The dinosaur chicken moved like a cheetah and was terrifying to behold. Just a few more kills, and he’d hit level 15.  

Just before we finished, I received a message. 

Daniel: Hey man, you free? I got a message for you.

Carl: Bautista. How are you doing? 

Daniel: Surviving. Hey, so I’m at the Desperado Club. I just met a guy here who says he’s in contact with someone else you know. A woman named Imani. She needs to talk to you. Says it’s super important. It’s something about two other guys. A Brandon and Chris or something like that. She says she’ll try to be at the bar of the Desperado Club each night after the recap.

Carl: Okay, thanks man. We should really start meeting up regularly like that. 

Daniel: Yeah, I think that’s a good idea. I need to talk to you too about something else, but it’s too complicated over chat. I hate this mental typing shit. But you gotta be careful, man. I heard a few guys talking about hunting down the leaderboard for the bounty. I don’t know if they’re serious, but I don’t think this bar is a saferoom. 

Carl: It’s not. Thanks for the head’s up. So how’d you find the club? We haven’t come across any yet.

Daniel: There’s a trick. It turns out if it’s a transfer station, and the station’s number ends in the number one, there’ll be a Desperado Club. If it ends in number nine, it’s that other place. Club Vanquisher. Anyway, talk to you later. 

Imani probably wanted to make sure that I knew Brandon was dead. 

I  pulled the last free hunk of metal into my inventory. I received another weight-based achievement. I now had enough scrap metal to build a decent-sized boat. I’d collected almost 15 tons of materials from the two robots, and it was less than half of their mass.  

“What do you think, Carl? Boots or no?” Donut asked. 

I looked up to see Katia’s tracksuit had changed to a slick, black bodysuit. She wore poorly-shaped, knee-high boots. She also now had a purple mohawk. She looked ridiculous. The woman had an odd expression on her face, one I was having a hard time reading. It seemed like a mix of exasperation, despair, and desperation.    

Whatever it was, it was clear she did not want to be doing this. 

“Just be yourself,” I said. 

“That’s terrible advice, Carl,” Donut said. “She’s a doppelganger. It’s her job to be someone else.”

“I don’t know what that means anyway,” she said, shrugging. “I never really did.” 

I sighed. “Okay, guys. This has been a long day. The next transfer station is 127, but I want to go to the one after that, which is station 131. Let’s get on the train, get to the employee breakroom, and if the conductor is in there, make him finish giving the list of stations to Mordecai. I know you and Vernon got interrupted. On the way there, we can do some more grinding if there are monsters we can handle. We’ll ride all the way to 131, which’ll supposedly have a Desperado Club. Plus, by the time we get there, we’ll be able to open our fan boxes. Sound like a plan?”  

Donut beamed. “Fan boxes! And dancing! Katia! We’re going dancing tonight! Have you ever had a dirty Shirley?”