Chapters 216-217 + Secret announcement at the end. (Patreon)

If you’re skipping the chapters, skip to the end for a special announcement! Chapter 216

Carl: Mordecai, hey, so I’m headed into Club Vanquisher right now. Donut will catch you up on everything that just happened. One of the goddesses we met is sponsored. Eileithyia. She gave us a quest. Her real name is Huanxin Jinx. Tell me everything you can about her.

Mordecai didn’t answer for several moments.

Mordecai: Do whatever she tells you to do. I’ll tell you the rest face-to-face. Katia and Bautista are here now, and she caught me up a little bit. We’ll wait for you to get back before we discuss our next move.

I went through the door, and I entered a small vestibule.

Entering Club Vanquisher. Members Only.

Heathens will find no solace here.

This room was similar to the Desperado Club entrance area where Clarabelle the Crocodilian stood guard, but much cleaner and well-lit. Soft, ethereal music drifted in from the next door, which featured a colorful stained glass window portraying a winged angel rising upward toward an inverted tree. Some of the individual panes of glass were cracked.

A robed, ram-headed cleric guarded the entrance. The hairy, white creature sat upon his knees, praying. He had large, curled horns on his head. He instantly reminded me of Prepotente. He faced the stained glass door, his back to me. He had a blazing symbol over his head. I groaned when I saw it.

Potsy. Ares Warrior Cleric Middle Priest. Level 40.

Warning: This NPC Worships Hellik. He will be automatically hostile toward you because you worship Emberus.

Though, if we’re being honest here, these Ares guys hate everybody already, and you probably won’t see a difference.

This is a high-ranking cleric of Hellik. You will receive a boon from Emberus if you kill this NPC. You probably don’t want to do it in the club. That’s a no-no here.

Potsy and his brothers take their door-guarding duties quite seriously. There’s like twenty of them, and they actually fight for the chance to stand watch. Don’t bother trying to tell which brother is which. They spend their guard duty time staring at and praying to the image on the door in front of them. They believe the stained glass image depicts Hellik bringing truth to Apito, whatever the hell that means. The image on the door is actually Taranis, Hellik’s older brother, husband to Apito. Everybody knows it’s supposed to be Taranis. The dude who literally made the window says it’s Taranis. They refuse to believe it, or change their mind, and I believe that tells you everything you need to know about these guys.

I’d seen one of these creatures only once before, way back on the fourth floor.

The cookbook held precious little about Club Vanquisher. Most everybody who received the book was Desperado Club material, and generally people weren’t allowed into both places. Only a few gods and bard classes came with the perk that allowed you double access. I was going in blind.

The ram continued to pray as I stood there. A boil on my back was about to burst.

“Hey,” I said.

Potsy the ram held up his human-like hand, a gesture telling me to wait. He kept his back to me as he continued to quietly pray.

“Gah.” The boil on my back popped, the sensation like someone ripping off a strip of skin. A stream of pus and fluid ran down my back and out the bottom of my shirt. It dripped on the floor. The slug was caught between my trollskin shirt and my flesh.

Each time a new one popped out, it hurt a little more, and the amount of damage was higher. The pain was getting worse.

The slug thrashed and shouted, covered by the thick fabric. It wormed its way down and plopped onto the floor with a wet splatch! This one was level 10, as big as my hand, and it had what looked like long, purple-dyed dreadlocks. I stomped it down, crushing it. It squealed before it died. A horrific, sewage-like stench filled the small room.

Potsy finally turned around. He made a strangled sound at the sight of me rubbing my foot on the clean tile. Black, white, and purple goo spread across the floor like I’d just crushed a rotten eggplant.

“What in the name of Hellik ith that? Did you meth yourself on the floor?” The ram had a high-pitched, nasally voice. And a bad lisp.

I had another boil on my upper thigh, just under my boxers, uncomfortably close to my crotch. My boxers rose with each passing moment. It gave a very inaccurate impression of what was happening down there.

“Dude, I don’t have time. I need to get inside and find the healer.”

The cleric straightened, and looked me up and down. His ram eyes focused on my bulging boxers and went huge. He took a step back.

“You do not have an access ring. You are not welcome here. Leave before I summon the guards.”

He couldn’t keep his eyes off my boxers.

I gritted my teeth. “I worship Emberus. I have access.”

He made a disgusted, bleating noise. “Oh, you’re one of those. You only hath limited access. You’ll be escorted once inside, and you must state in advance where you want to visit. You’ll have to fill out a request form...” He trailed off. His eyes remained focused on my boxers. “What ith that? What’s going on there?”

Pop!

I groaned in pain as a shower of pus cascaded out the front of my boxers and splattered across the floor.

“By the undying gods!” the guard squealed, horrified. He backed all the way up against the door and started blindly searching for the handle.

The slug started to slide down my leg, but I cried in new pain as it bit down on my thigh. Its tail hung right from the bottom of the boxers and started thrashing back and forth.

“You’re not supposed to hurt me, you little shit,” I growled as I grabbed for the tail.

The slug started scream-mumbling something and retracted while keeping its jaws embedded painfully onto my thigh. I scrambled for it, reaching up through the leg of my boxers. My hand grasped the warm, slimy tail, and I yanked, but my hand slipped, and all I managed to do was fling a handful of stinking, translucent slime across the vestibule and all over the cowering ram’s robe. I grunted in pain. I reached back in and grasped again. This time I got a good grip.

“Fuck!” I cried as I ripped it out and flung it. It hit right over the head of the open-mouthed ram and slammed into the stained glass window, where it exploded, showering gore everywhere. Thankfully, the window did not break.

Several seconds passed in silence as I healed myself. Another boil was forming, this one right on my stomach. It was coming faster now.

The ram just stared at my leg with the blood pouring from it. He had the door opened a crack.

“Did... did you just rip your dick off and throw it at me?”

“I’m going to do it again if you don’t let me in.”

“Can’t you see he’s suffering from slugpox, man. Step aside and let him in!” a new voice intoned, pulling the door open all the way. This was a human-like creature, older, wearing long, red robes. He was only about four and a half feet tall, but he didn’t have the wide body and face of a dwarf. He looked like a regular person that had been shrunk. He had long, white hair, reminding me of a stereotypical wizard, like a weird mix between Gandalf and a hobbit. He worshiped Emberus.

The man pushed Potsy aside and beckoned for me to enter.

“He hasn’t filled out the paperwork,” Potsy said.

“Yes, yes. I’ll deal with it after. Can’t you see it’s an emergency? Or would you rather he stay in here with you while I go grab the form?”

The ram bleated pitifully.

“I thought so. Now, come, Carl. Come. I’ve been waiting for you. Follow me.”

I examined the man. The AI’s description was strange. It started normal, but its voice got more and more excited as it went on, and I wasn’t sure why.

Pater Coal – Hobbledehoy High Cleric Supreme of Emberus. Level 101.

This is a non-combatant NPC.

First off, this guy is a Hobbledehoy. In case you haven’t figured out what that means, it’s a generic term for a small human. They don’t have the hairy, oversized feet of halflings, or the pointed ears of elves. Everything about them is proportionally smaller to Earth humans, except their egos and their tempers. They tend not to survive long in integrated cities because they’re always starting fights and getting themselves wiped out.

Pater Coal is, for the most part, an exception. The even-tempered high cleric is in charge of the Emberus shrine here in Club Vanquisher. He is one of the few mortals who is in constant contact with the deity. As a worshipper of Emberus, you’ll be required to kiss his ass. But first there’s a custom he must perform on you.

Oh, yes... a custom.

Oh, yes.

I did not like the sound of that.

“We’ll be watching!” Potsy called as I followed the man. “Remember the rules.”

“Go fuck yourself, apostate,” Pater Coal muttered under his breath as the door slammed.

We stepped into what looked like the lobby of a ski lodge. It smelled like one, too, due to the fire crackling in a massive, brick fireplace against one wall. The heavenly, choral music seemed out of place in this environment. Large, leather chairs dotted the area while older men and women of all races sat in them. Dark rugs and wooden slat walls added to the effect. Some of the NPCs smoked pipes and talked with one another. A pair of dwarves were being served drinks from an elf NPC waitress while they played chess. A dozen stairwells led up and down to different places. I saw a pair of crawlers, but they went up a stairwell and disappeared.

All around the ceiling hung trophy heads of monsters, all mounted on plaques of various sizes, some as small as my finger, some as big as a truck. I goggled at the massive, black dragon head that stood over the fireplace in the center of the room. It had red, marble eyes that caught the dancing light from the fireplace.

“We don’t have much time, Carl,” Pater Coal was saying as he marched across the room. Despite his small size, he walked and talked quickly. I scrambled to catch up. “We need to get you to the healer. Nasty business, that slugpox. Yuck. You are not a full member, so you’re only given a single pass a day. You can only visit one location within, and you’re not allowed to avail yourself of the refreshments or any of the entertainment options. They take the security here quite seriously, especially since the caprid incident.” He paused and thumbed at a pair of guards standing at a stairwell. I did a double take. These were a pair of mantaurs, shirtless, covered in blue paint and with fur loinclothes.

The two, muscular guards had their long, balding hair tied into ponytails. Every mantaur I’d seen up to this point had always been wearing a train engineer hat. Each had a little bowtie around their neck, making them look like male strippers, which reminded me that I needed to get to a Desperado Club. The twin monstrosities glared at me as we passed.

We came to a stairwell that curved upward. “The temples and healer are up this way. But we have to make a quick stop at the Emberus shrine so I can perform my obeisance. Don’t tell the guards we’re making the extra stop.”

I had a quest from Emberus to talk to this cleric guy. It was a god quest, and it all had to do with the death of another god named Geyrun, who was Emberus’s son. It all came from that whole thing at the end of the fifth floor. We’d unleashed the two-headed puppy—Orthrus—from the Nothing and out into the world. The puppy had been owned by the murdered Geyrun. I had two quests from Emberus. One was to find out who killed Geyrun, which I had to complete before I left the dungeon. The second was a quest I had to complete before I hit the 12th floor. I had to kill Hellik, who was the main suspect in the murder, though he apparently had an alibi. It was unclear if I’d still have to kill the god if it turned out he had nothing to do with the murder. Hellik and Emberus seemed to hate each other, so probably.

There was another odd aspect of the find-the-murderer quest. Another crawler was walking around with a memorial crystal that I needed to somehow get my hands on. But the first part had always been to find this high cleric guy and talk to him. I’d actually forgotten about it until he’d come and found me.

“Each time you come here, they will summon an Emberus cleric to escort you. If none are available, one of the guards will do it, but you’ll have to pay a fee. I was told by Emberus you were coming, so I met you this time. In the future, you must plan your visits better.”

We hit the top of the stairs, and we found ourselves in a similar room, but smaller. I caught sight of an entrance to a market called “Comforting Supplies” which I desperately wanted to visit. Another crawler I didn’t know was walking in as we passed. He didn’t see me.

The next hallway appeared to be filled with guilds. We passed a desk with a small, shining fairy behind it that looked like a glowing ball of light with wings.

“Your excellency...” the fairy began as he rushed past.

“Not now,” Pater Coal said. We entered through a glowing door. I recognized it as a portal, but I didn’t have time to examine it. I stepped through, and then I stopped dead.

We stood upon the sun.

Entering the Emberus Temple of Club Vanquisher.

Welcome home, Initiate.

You are protected in this place.

There was no roof here. The sky was completely black. The ground was like a field of fire, burning and fulminating, and occasionally spurting tendrils up into the air. It smelled like fire. It burned like fire. My entire body sweltered. But oddly, it wasn’t painful, though it was uncomfortably warm. I turned in a circle. There were no walls. Just the wooden door we’d come through. All around, NPCs prostrated themselves upon the fire. There were maybe two dozen worshippers here, spread out in twos and threes, all facing the same direction. Most were large, hulking, blue-skinned humanoid creatures I didn’t recognize. I followed where they faced, and in the far, far distance, it appeared there was something glowing there, right upon the horizon. Something barely discernable against the flaming ground.

“Only the most devout of worshippers may gain access to this particular temple. Usually you check in with the desk, you go through the door, and you find a small shrine of your chosen deity. Consider yourself blessed today, boy. You are in the secret Temple of the Ending Sun.”

Suddenly, there was a bubbling, marble fountain on the ground at my feet, similar to the one from the Yemaya shrine. A tree stump appeared, black and charred and smoking. It came up from the fire like it was nothing.

“Carl, take off your shoes and sit upon the stump,” Pater Coal said.

“I’m not wearing shoes,” I said, stupidly.

“Oh yes, I see that. Sit. Hurry. If they realize you’re here, they won’t let you visit the healer until tomorrow, and you do not want that. The pox will kill you once it progresses long enough that the slugs have the same strength as you.”

Overwhelmed, I sat. “Am I already cured? I patted at the newest boil on my stomach, and it had dissipated without popping. It didn’t feel like any more were coming.

“I cast a spell that suppresses it. Slugpox is a nasty, old spell. You don’t want this. Put your feet in the water.” The man went to his knees and reached in and started rubbing my feet.

All around me, the praying men groaned.

I jerked back. “Dude, what the hell are you doing?”

“I am washing your feet, Carl. You are a martyr of Emberus, and I am paying respect. Now put your feet back in the water.”

Martyr. I did not like that word. I hesitantly dropped my foot back into the water. The water wasn’t bubbling, I realized, but boiling. I didn’t feel it. He rapidly rubbed at my right foot.

Zev: Carl, are you okay? What’s happening? You’ve disappeared from the feed.

“The other gods cannot eavesdrop when I am performing this sacrament, Carl, so listen carefully,” Pater Coal said.

The small man grunted as he rubbed at my left sole. He wasn’t washing my feet. This was a full-on massage. “We have no clues as to who killed Geyrun other than the dog, which is back home with Emberus. He has search the puppy’s memory, but his time in the Nothing has made his memory unreliable.”

“You set this up this way on purpose,” I grumbled up at the invisible ceiling. The NPC grunted again as he rubbed hard.

“Hellik remains the top suspect, but His Glory worries that something may have happened to his mother as well.”

“That’s Apito, right?” I asked as he moved to my next foot. I was eternally grateful for my pedicure kit that made it so I couldn’t really feel this. Of all the weird shit that had happened so far in this terrible place, this was up there.

“Yes. The blessed Oak Mother. Memorial crystals only form when a god has died. Apito lives, yet there is a crystal made by her. How is that possible? You must investigate this.”

Zev sent me another, worried message.

I had a terrible suspicion, and I decided to test it.

“Zev is worried because I’ve disappeared off the feed.”

“You’ll be back soon enough,” Pater Coal said, without missing a beat. “Worry not. Parts of this conversation will make the feed, so the viewers will have proper context.”

My heart quickened. Holy shit.

“Are... are you the AI? Why are you pretending, then? Why are you pretending to be some cleric guy?” My head swam. So much was happening, all at once. So many real things with real stakes. The death of Anton. The imprisonment of Paz. The reveal that Sister Ines was a murderer.

The Crown of the Sepsis Whore sitting on Katia’s head.

All of that was real. Real life and death. This game stuff with Emberus and Geyrun... it was all make believe. Story-telling for the sake of the narrative. So why this? Why would the AI do this, here, now? Do it this way?

“We all have our roles,” Pater Coal said, grunting harder. “And our limitations. Now stop asking silly questions and let me finish this. You must solve this quest.”

“Then tell me how to solve it.”

“We all have our limitations,” he repeated. He paused.

“Emberus speaks of two companions of yours. He senses both hold items that are crucial to the solving of this mystery. Katia, and the origins of her crossbow. Princess Donut, and the origins of her oak bracelet. Both are paths to solving this mystery, but neither path can be explored without that memorial crystal.”

He picked up my foot, and he stuck my big toe in his mouth. His eyes rolled into the back of his head.

“Okay,” I said, jerking back. I jumped from the pool. “Thank you. Let’s get to the healer.”

Pater Coal shook his head, as if coming out of a trance.

My head was swimming. Donut’s oak bracelet was a throwaway item we’d looted on the third floor. Katia’s crossbow had been Hekla’s. They weren’t connected... at all. I had a sense the system was pounding a square peg into a round hole, just to make a storyline fit. Or was it? I tried to remember the descriptions of both. Was it possible it had been building this from the beginning? Some massive storyline with a huge payoff?

I hated that feeling, that I was being controlled, that I was following along a path someone else laid out for me. I took a deep breath.

Zev: There you are. I was worried there for a while. That was a long glitch. Don’t worry, the playback is being fed by the backup.... oh. Oh god, did he lick your foot?

“I have washed your feet in the fires of the dying sun. Now every step you take will be in Emberus’s path. Now, let’s hurry and get you cured,” the high priest said as he turned to walk from the temple.

The fire of righteousness fills you with power. You have been granted a floor boon. This boon will remain in place for the remainder of this floor as long as you remain in Emberus’s grace. He may revoke this boon at any time.

The Martyr’s Path. Every step you take may be your last, so make them count. Every step you make while you are outside a structure will be marked on the map. If your health reaches 5%, you have the option to release a gout of flame from each spot upon which you stood. Steps reset each time this is activated. This will activate automatically upon your death.

Plus 10% Strength.

“Okay, but I have a question or two first,” I called after him.

~

“So, we went to the healer, and they cured me. It cost like 10,000 gold.”

“What?” Donut cried. “How much? First we didn’t get boss boxes because you turned the Asojano guy into a card, and then we had to pay money? What a day this has turned into. At least we got those prizes from the gods. I liked Yemaya. She was quite beautiful.”

I continued. “And then this mantaur came up and started yelling that we’d broken some rule, and I’ve been banned for three days.”

“So, no more disgusting slugs?” Donut asked. “Thank goodness. That was most unpleasant, Carl. One of them bit me right on the nose!”

I’d returned to the saferoom, and we all sat at the kitchen table. Donut, Katia, Mordecai, and Bautista were here. Katia and Bautista listened silently while Donut punctuated my story with exclamations.

The main room of the safe space was jarringly quiet with Bomo gone. I’d gotten used to the sound of the television on in the background.

I pretended not to the notice the notification over Katia’s head. Donut couldn’t see it.

Katia now worshipped the goddess, Eileithyia. I felt an ominous foreboding when I saw that.

Bautista paced back and forth while Mongo snored on the ground. The cleaner bot, for the first time in a long while, seemed to be taking a break. Actually, I thought, looking up idly. It wasn’t in here at all. It had to be cleaning another room.

I’d returned to the saferoom to find Donut regaling them with the story of the fight in the temple.

“...And I knew it! I had said it from the get-go that she was no good. A nun murderer! Paz said she poisoned everybody at the nunnery. Can you imagine how crazy you’d have to be to kill a bunch of nuns? They said she was better because of her medicine, but does it really matter? You can’t un-murder a convent of nuns, no matter how many pills you take. Carl wouldn’t let Mongo put her down, and then the first thing she did was turn Paz into a card. We should’ve let Mongo gobble her up when she was frozen.”

The tension was palpable. Donut didn’t seem to have noticed how nervous and on the edge everyone was.

“Why don’t you pick it up from there,” Mordecai said to me. He was stalling.

So I told them what had happened once I entered the club. I outright lied about part of it, and I left out some of what happened in the temple. Not with Bautista in the room. Donut had looted that oak bracelet off the dead body of one of Bautista’s family members, and he never seemed to have noticed. I wanted to avoid that conversation if possible. Now wasn’t the time for it.

“Donut,” I said after I was done. I patted my lap. “Come here.”

She jumped into my lap, and I stroked her hair. She’d gone through the shower before I’d returned. “Carl, did you talk to any of the ghommids when you came back? They’re really nice when they’re not trying to eat your face. Plus you gotta look at the cards we collected. They’re really good. Katia was telling me about that cheater guy, not Ren, but the first cheater guy whose arm you ripped off. Quan. It turns out he used to be a champion at some weird nerd card game, and he’s already running around...”

“Later, Donut. We need to have a serious conversation about something very important.”

She stopped and looked about, meeting each of our eyes in turn. It was then, only then, that she sensed the tautness in the room. “What? What is it?”

“Donut,” Katia said, sitting down next to her. She put her hand against Donut’s fuzzy face, and Donut pressed into it. “I need to tell you a story. It’s very scary, but the ending isn’t set in stone yet. We’re going to fight to make sure it doesn’t have a bad ending.”

Chapter 217

The crown formed into existence on Katia’s head.

“Katia,” Donut said, looking up. “You have a purple tiara! It’s so pretty. It’s just like...” She trailed off, realization striking her. She went absolutely rigid in my lap.

“Why? How?” she said after a moment. “Did Louis throw that on your head?”

“It was Eva,” Katia said. “She did it at the last minute, right before she died. It was my fault. I’d talked when I should’ve just killed her.”

“You were monologuing?” Donut asked quietly. “You know we don’t monologue, Katia.”

“I know. It’s my fault.”

Donut took a deep breath. “Who knows?”

“In addition to everybody in the room, Li Na, Li Jun. Probably Zhang. Louis, Britney, and Tran. I haven’t told any of the Meadowlark folks yet, but I bet it’s going to end up on tonight’s recap.”

“This is just like with Ferdinand,” Donut said, her voice quavering. “Or when Odette brought out Miss Beatrice onto the show. They want us to fight. Katia, I don’t want to fight you.”

“I know,” Katia said. “But we have a plan. A way out. It’s why I had Carl fix Yemaya’s shrine.”

Donut looked sharply over at me. “You knew?”

“No,” Katia said quickly. “He didn’t until after that fight started, and I still haven’t told him everything yet. Mordecai didn’t know either. I’m going to tell you everything now. But before I begin, I want to promise you something, Donut.” She reached down and kissed Donut on the forehead. “You’re right. That’s exactly what they want. It’s what Eva wanted, too. They want us to fight. That’s not going to happen. I love you, Donut. And I will never fight you. I will die before I let that happen.”

“I love you, too,” Donut said. “But what are we going to do? Only one of us can leave the next floor.”

“We have a path. That’s what’s important. It’s not going to be easy, but a lot of the hard stuff is already out of the way.” Katia pulled a small box from her inventory and put it on the table. The box was rectangular, the size of a music box, a little smaller than the winding box from the gate. It crackled with dark energy.

The tattoo on my elbow throbbed the moment she pulled the box out.

“It’s my prize from the celestial prize box I received at the beginning of the last floor.”

“What?” I asked, hesitantly picking the box up. “What is this? You got a celestial prize box? When? How?”

“I tried to tell you so many times, Carl. Both of you. I got it for opening the Gate of the Feral Gods and flooding Larracos. I got it at the very beginning of the sixth floor. I’ve had it in my inventory this whole time.”

I turned it over in my hand. It was light, and it appeared to be made of dark wood, carved with spiderweb patterns. Three purple, marble-sized jewels sat atop the box, each affixed with a metallic claw coming up from the wood. One of the jewels glowed. The other two looked cracked and burned-out, like spent flashbulbs.

The box had little slats in it, and I could see the item within. It was a pink flower bud. An orchid. It slid back and forth within the box, but there was no way to open it. I examined it.

Several pages of text assaulted me. I took a sharp breath when I saw the item’s title.

Engaged Lock Box of the Night Wyrm.

“Ahh, what’s in the box? What’s in the fucking box?”

Two of three seals have been broken.

This is really two items. It’s a box, and there’s a prize within. You can see the prize, but you can’t get to it until you open the box. In order to open the box, you must break all three seals.

Here’s the prize:

The Orchid of Eileithyia’s Grace.

Warning: This item can only be used by a female. Or a male, if you’re a seahorse.

It’s a flower. You’re supposed to eat it, though it might be a good decoration instead. It probably tastes like a bullshit salad at some hippie vegan restaurant with a month-long waiting list. The whole thing is a metaphor for the duality of the weakness and strength of all women or some shit. I’m not good with this stuff, and Eileithyia is a weird one. Did you know she can shoot acid milk from her nipples? Fucking weird.

Anyway, if you eat this flower, it renders you unconscious for one hour with your health at 1% of your max. You cannot heal during this time.

If you survive this ordeal, you will be given one of three permanent boons from the goddess Eileithyia. The given boon is at the discretion of the goddess, and it cannot be predicted.

If you choose to worship Eileithyia before you consume this flower, the descriptions of the boons will be expanded. She will also ask you which of the three you’d prefer. Her cooperation is not guaranteed, especially if she doesn’t like you. But Eileithyia is known to be a generous goddess.

The three possible boons.

Boon one: Your base Constitution will triple. Any future points added into Constitution will be three points instead of one. All Constitution bonuses are tripled.

In other words you’ll be pretty much indestructible to physical damage from now on. You’ll still be vulnerable to insta-kill stuff, just FYI, but this is a good one.

Warning: This bonus will stop working if Eileithyia dies or if you pass the 12th floor. Everything already added to your base will stay.

Boon two: Celestial Attendant. You are immediately transferred to the 12th floor. You are given employment as a celestial attendant until the Ascendency games begin, at which time you are given the option to exit the dungeon or continue.

Warning: This bonus will freeze your current progress. You will be considered a temporary, non-combatant NPC. Your sponsorships and inventory will be frozen. You will immediately leave any parties. This is not a permanent position, and is not deemed a legal contract between yourself and the current showrunners. Legal advice will be available once your attendant indentureship is completed.

This might sound like a bad boon. It’s a gamble for sure, but Celestial Attendants are usually protected from harm as long as you do what you’re told. That protection ends once the games begin, but you’re given the option to take a deal at this point.

Boon three. Your race will permanently be changed back to your birth race. You will be made pregnant. You will be given the option to choose the father. He will need to be human. Don’t worry. You don’t have to boink him. Unless you want.

Warning: Due to the current season’s ruleset, receiving this boon will render you ineligible to continue within the game. You will be disqualified and exported to the Kinder Facility located in the former city of Mumbai, India on the surface of the planet. You will lose all future benefits of participating in Dungeon Crawler World: Earth.

“Holy shit,” I said as I moved to the next part.

Pretty cool, huh? A worthy prize for a worthy feat. But you gotta get to it first.

Lock Box of the Night Wyrm.

The box is attuned to Crawler #9,077,265. Katia Grim. Only this crawler may complete these tasks.

This box is locked. Two of three seals have been broken. Break the final seal to open.

In order to open this box, you need to break all three seals. To break each seal, you must complete the following tasks. Don’t worry, they’re all easy. Trivial, really.

If you perish before the tasks are completed, this box will destroy the prize within.

Completed Tasks:

·  Kill someone you once were partied with.

·  Kill a country or level boss.

Pending Task:

·  Find a Guild of Suffering and complete an assassination quest. Owning this box grants temporary access to the guild.

“Holy shit,” I said for a second time as I put the box down. I slid it over to Donut, who started reading the description.

Katia’s arms stretched, and she wrapped herself in a big, multi-loop hug, like a snake coiling around a tree. She squeezed so tight, her torso contracted. Her hand twitched, her fingers nervously rubbing together. I recognized the gesture. I used to do the same thing when I was jonesin’ for a cigarette. Behind her, Bautista continued to pace back and forth.

“Before I worshipped her, the three boons just said ‘Triple Constitution, You are an Attendant, and,’” she paused for a long moment. “‘You get Pregnant.’ I didn’t know what that last one meant for certain. The descriptions all changed when I finally chose to worship her, and that just happened earlier today.”

“That’s what you wanted to talk to me about at the end of the last floor,” I said. “Because of the pregnancy one.”

She hesitated. “Yes,” she finally said. “I wanted advice. Because of Eva, it was going to be easy to kill another crawler. I knew I’d probably be able to open the box eventually. It was only a one in three chance to get pregnant, but still... I didn’t know if it was a cruel joke, or what. I didn’t yet know that being pregnant got you out of the dungeon, but there’d been hints. Still, the thought of it... I got this crown, and everything became more urgent. Once we saw what happened to Dmitri and Maxim Popov...”

I nodded. “It’s a way out.”

“Yes,” she said.

“Pregnant?” Donut asked, having finally read the entire description. “You might get pregnant? Who would be the daddy? It can’t be Carl because he’s a primal, and it can’t be Bautista because he’s a Thundercat or whatever he is. Are you going to choose Louis? Are you going to have a baby with Louis? Juice Box isn’t going to like that.” She gasped. “Or maybe Li Jun? Can you imagine having Li Na as an aunt? Nobody would ever bully you.”

I almost responded, but I was remembering something that sponsor woman told me, and I felt a deep chill.

I will make certain you survive until the twelfth floor, where you and Katia and Donut will help me claim the Celestial Throne once and for all

There were actually two ways out of the Sepsis Whore problem. The pregnancy boon, which would eject Katia from the game. And the Celestial Attendant boon, which would send her straight to the 12th floor, where she’d temporarily become an NPC.

“How did you come to worship Eileithyia?” I asked.

“Sponsor box. It came from Princess Formidable of the Skull Empire. A scroll of worship.”

Princess Formidable was the Maestro’s sister, and she apparently didn’t get along with the rest of her family. The fact she was still handing out sponsor boxes meant she wasn’t actually in the dungeon on the ninth floor like the rest of her family.

Katia continued. “It was an emergency box, so I read it immediately. The moment I read it, I worshipped Eileithyia, and the full description of the boons popped up. It wasn’t until then that I saw she was sponsored by that Huanxin Jinx woman. She messaged me and told me that you and Donut were about to get into a fight, and that you had to repair the shrine. If you did, it meant she’d have extra help for her game on the 12th floor. If I could talk you into doing it, she would make sure I got a boon that would allow both me and Donut to survive.”

I thought of Anton, who’d died because of that message. Of Paz.

“She told you that she’d let you pick the pregnancy boon?”

“No,” Katia said. “She wants our help on the 12th floor somehow. I don’t want that boon anymore anyway. Going to the surface, with a baby? Can you imagine? I would’ve taken it, if that was the only choice. But I’ll take the Celestial Attendant boon.”

“I don’t like it,” Bautista said, talking for the first time.

“I’m not a big fan of the idea, either,” Mordecai said. “Usually, it’s a cushy gig. The way it’s set up, if you hurt an attendant, a world of pain gets thrown your way because they’re considered valuable NPCs. You’re actually not allowed to hurt them anymore because of an incident a long time ago. It still happens regularly, especially when the games begin. Attendants are almost all former crawlers. The Maestro will have access to her, along with a dozen sponsors whose friends may have gotten kicked in the financial nutsack when you flooded Larracos. Not to mention all those hunters you killed. Who knows what family members might be lurking amongst the ranks of the sponsored gods? You’d be walking into a viper den. One where you wouldn’t be anonymous.”

“She promises she would protect me,” Katia said. “She says the other gods have better things to do than worry about a single crawler.”

“Then why is she putting so much effort into you?” Bautista asked.

“How many are there usually?” I asked. “Sponsored gods, I mean.”

Mordecai shrugged. “About a hundred or so, usually. There’s thousands of gods, but only some of them are really equipped for the Ascendency game. The power of the individual gods varies wildly. This new rule with the helper minions I think is a way to even things out and possibly attract more players.”

“Wait,” Donut said. “I am so confused. So, this six-eyed lady saw that Katia got that prize, and she sponsored Eileithyia just so, what? So she could get a servant? Is that the only reason? What do you mean by helper minions?”

“She’s a plotter,” Mordecai said. “Like Circe and Vrah, but on a different scale. It seems this season the deities are able to recruit a second, unsponsored god to help them once the Ascendency games begin on the 12th floor. While the ninth floor is the playground of governments and the rich, the 12th is where the true elites play. The money involved is beyond anything you could believe. Some of them can be quite ruthless about how they try to claim the throne. Eileithyia’s helper appears to be Yemaya, and needed to find a way to get her resurrected. It’s part of the game for her. You just did that for her, and now she says she’s going to help you because of it. What else does she want you to do?”

“She wants us to hunt spiders!” Donut said. “That’s just, I don’t know, eww.”

“Sounds like she gave you a simple quest which will allow her to give you another boon without you actually having to worship her.”

“Tell me about her,” I said. “Huanxin.”

Mordecai’s single eye focused on me. “She’s rich, obviously. She is very, very intelligent. Was known as a brat when she was younger, but she’s grown into her own. She’s the CEO of a company called Icon Industries. Something to do with habitat structures. She’s a type of alien called a Grixist. She’s been playing the Ascendency game for a very long time. Ever since she was a kid, actually, but she’s never won. She got a multi-season suspension and banned from using her old goddess a long time ago because of illegal bribery.”

“Bribery?” I asked.

He nodded. “We’re not getting into it.”

“You don’t seem to like her very much.”

“I don’t. I don’t like her even a little bit. She can go fuck herself.”

The vehemence surprised me. “If you hate her so much, why did you tell me to do whatever she said?”

Mordecai leaned in. “Because the last time someone didn’t do what she wanted, my brother died. They say she is a good friend and a terrible enemy. I wouldn’t know. I’d rather you stay away from her, but that tailfeather already dropped.”

“Your brother? What happened?” Donut asked.

“It’s not important,” Mordecai said.

It was, actually, very important. Whatever this woman’s true motives were, they involved Odette, and we were now smack in the middle of it. I knew Mordecai well enough to know he wouldn’t freely volunteer any more info, and I couldn’t tell him the most important part... that this alien was engineering a way for Odette to get down here with the protections turned off.

As much as Mordecai hated Odette, I wondered if he knew exactly what she was planning. But would he put Donut in danger to exact his revenge? Did it matter at this point?

None of this was going to matter if we didn’t kill all the other members of the Blood Sultanate, but that was a problem for the next floor. Right now our priority was to get the flower out of that box.

“You broke the first seal by killing Eva,” I said. “I’m assuming that second one was at the same time, when we took out Imogen?”

Katia nodded. “I was worried that killing her wouldn’t count for the boss kill, but it did.”

The final seal required her to find a place called the Guild of Suffering. My elbow tattoo gave me access to the same place. Mordecai said it had something to do with a Samantha-like demigod named the Night Wyrm.

The box still sat on the table. My elbow throbbed every time I looked at it. “So, we just need to find the Guild of Suffering and get you an assassination quest.”

Katia nodded. “I already found it. I already got the quest. I can’t do it by myself, and I’m going to need your help. You need to find a Desperado Club entrance in your area.”

“You found it? Where is it?”

She grinned, the first smile I’d seen on her face in a long time. “Actually, it was Donut who helped me figure it out.”

“Me?” Donut asked.

“Donut,” Katia said. “Who do you know that has the same spiderweb tattoo as Carl on their elbow?”

“I don’t know whatever you’re talking about, Katia. I don’t associate with people with disgusting prison tattoos. I only tolerate Carl because he’s family.”

One normally got the tattoo from using the Ring of Divine Suffering. I only knew of one other living crawler with the tattoo.

“Prepotente has one,” I said.

“That’s not who I’m talking about,” Katia said, “But that’s good to know. Donut, he’s an NPC. An NPC you know very well.”

“I don’t hang out with riffraff, Katia.”

“Really?”

Donut scoffed. “Well, you can’t mean Damascus Steel. He doesn’t count. He’s a stripper!”

Katia nodded. “The entrance is at the Penis Parade on the first floor of the Desperado Club. The whole strip club is a front for the Guild of Suffering.”

“What?” Donut asked. “He never told me that! This is an outrage! Why would a stripper lie to me?”

“You already got an assassination quest?” I asked, trepidation rising. “Who’s the target?”

Katia pulled a strange slip of paper and slid it over to me.

“Nobody touch it except Carl. If you aren’t a member of the Guild of Suffering, it stings your hand if you touch it. Even in a saferoom. Only members of the guild can read it and assist me with it. You can’t say the name of the target out loud, or I fail the quest.”

I hesitantly picked up the paper. Only it wasn’t a piece of paper, but a dried slip of skin covered with desiccated veins. The dry, rigid flap of membrane was small, about the size of a pack of cigarettes. As I held it, the felt a pinprick of pain on my finger, and my blood flowed into the skin. The veins on the skin pulsed with my heartbeat, forming words in a strange, tributary-like language.

Admin Note. A new tab is available in your interface. It is a sub-tab of quests.

Guild Jobs.

Even if I could read the language, the words were so small, I couldn’t make them out. The system read it for me. It came in a hissing, evil voice I hadn’t heard before, spoken in my mind. It reminded me of a naga voice, but a little more high-pitched. I shuddered.

The Night Wyrm has a task for you, my little darling.

This task has been assigned to my beautiful, budding poppet, Katia. You are not her, and that means you’ve killed her in order to take over her jobs, or she has enlisted a family member to assist her with her task. Either scenario is acceptable. The family with many eyes works as a team, yes. We sacrifice the weak to support the many, yes. We rise from the shadows. Our blood flows together.

Your task is before you, my sweet. A difficult task, yes. But an important one. Important for the family.

We wish to remove the competition. She serves dual roles. She keeps our family in the ground. She keeps our blood dry. You must kill her. The owner of the Naughty Boys Employment Agency. The assistant manager of the Desperado Club. She is one. Astrid. Kill her. Bring her lifeless body to the family.

New Guild Job.

Kill Astrid, level 125 Bloodlust Sprite, Assistant Manager of the Desperado Club. Proof of death is required.

This job is owned by Crawler Katia Grim. You must kill her to claim the reward for this job.

Speaking the details of this job out loud will immediately cancel the contract and revoke access to the guild.

I met eyes with Katia, and she gave me an uncertain grin.

“Hey, I warned you it wasn’t going to be easy.”

“Shit,” I said.

~~~~

Hello everyone! Once again, sorry for the slowness. I wanted to get both chapters down. I think all the chess pieces are finally on the board and we can now start barelling toward the rest of the book. Last time I asked if anyone was experienced in TTRPGs. Now, I’m asking if you regularly DM a 5e game if you’d be willing to beta DM a game in the Dungeon Crawler World: Earth universe. I’m looking for real feedback and possibly more. Please only respond if you’re an experienced DM and you have a group you play with. The less they read the books, the better. This won’t happen until probably October, but I want to start building my list now. Respond in this post. Not via DM. My DMs here on patreon are completely fucked. Also, please don’t worry about my time commitments. This is being done mostly by a fantastic team of writers who are VERY experienced in this sort of thing. In addition, we have 50+ art pieces coming down the pipeline, which I’ll share with you guys as it comes in. Anyway, wtf am I talking about? I present to you the first official campaign scenario rulebook for 5E in the Dungeon Crawler Carl universe, designed to be played by noobs and fans alike.

The finished product will likely be kickstarted early next year, but that’s not set in stone yet. Here’s the blurb: Dungeon Crawler World: Earth 5E Campaign Scenario Book.

The Apocalypse will be televised!

Without warning, every building and roofed vehicle on the planet collapses into a heap, and all the rubble is pulled deep into the earth. Anyone who was indoors at the time is gone. You and your friends are caught outside, and you're spared. As you stand there in shock, wondering what the hell just happened, a voice speaks in your mind. A voice all of you hear at once.

Earth, the voice explains, has been claimed by a multi-alien, galaxy-spanning organization called the Syndicate. The resources of the planet have been repossessed. There's nothing left on the planet's surface. But all is not lost. In a few moments, a portal will appear nearby, and if you step within, you will find yourself on the first level of the 18-floor world dungeon, created using all the excess materials from the destruction. If you manage to survive long enough, you will be given the opportunity to live somewhere out in the wide universe. And if you manage to survive all 18 floors, you just might be able to reclaim all of the earth and save it from its fate.

Just one teeny, tiny catch. The "dungeon" isn't what you think. Yeah, yeah. It's a dungeon with hallways and monsters and crap dripping from the ceiling and all that good stuff--at least for the first two floors. But it's more than that. It's also the set of the galaxy's hottest game show: Dungeon Crawler World, and let me tell you, the ratings are hot. You are being watched by the largest, most diverse audience in history. The moment you set foot in the dungeon, you're given a stat sheet and an inventory system that allows you to carry everything you want. You can learn spells. Or skills. You can get magical gear. There will be monsters, oh yes, and if you want to live, you gotta kill them all. But more than that, you gotta kill 'em with style. Your goal isn't just to survive. You need to be as entertaining as possible. The better you are, the more views you get. And if you're good enough, you'll get a sponsor. A sponsor who'll shower you with gifts and loot boxes, making your journey that much easier.

Welcome, Crawler. Welcome to Dungeon Crawler World.

Based on the bestselling book series, Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman, Dungeon Crawler World: Earth is a fast-paced, hilarious role-playing game where you come as you are. YOU are the character. Hell, bring your little dog, too. We have mechanics for that. While you traverse each level, fighting bizarre and unique monsters, such as lava-spitting llamas and massive, rolling balls made out of hedonistic pigs, you receive achievements for your accomplishments. Creativity and out-of-the-box solutions are rewarded here.

If you're entertaining enough, the audience may award you with loot boxes. You may even get pulled out of the dungeon to appear on an alien talk show, where you can play mini-games to win fantastic prizes. As long as you're entertaining, you're safe. Actually, that's a lie. You're always in danger. But trust me, you want those sponsors.

Just, you know, make sure you don't talk smack about the Syndicate. They don't like that.

·  Come as you are. YOU are the character, if you wish, regardless of your age or physical ability. The dungeon takes all.

·  Bring Sparky, too. Ever wanted to run a dungeon with your dog? Or your pet turtle? Bring 'em. We'll give them the ability to shoot fireballs.

·  5E Compatible

·  Don't want to play a human? Survive the first two floors, and you're given the option to pick a unique new race and class. Just remember, it's permanent.

·  Each floor is a unique adventure. Traverse different biomes and solve puzzles or quests. Deeper floors will have different mechanics completely. Just wait until you hear about the Iron Tangle on the 4th floor. Or the Hunting Grounds on the 6th.

·  Optional card decks available featuring loot box prizes, classes, special encounters, Sponsors, talk show appearances, and more