I darted forward and hugged her. "Oh my God, Mom, I was certain you were dead."

  She hugged me just as tight. "I was outside, because you snuck out, and I was worried, and then everything was gone. Dad, he— It was horrible."

  I was sobbing, she was sobbing, it was a mess.

  After a long, tight hug, we pushed to arms-length. "What are you wearing?" because of course she couldn't help herself.

  I scowled. "Like I'm shopping for clothes down here. Now—" I stared. "Why are there five skulls after your name?"

  She gave me the frown that meant I had crossed some invisible line. "Don't take that tone with me."

  I had been a bit shocked, but, "Tone? Mom, you've killed five people. What is going on?"

  "Don't yell at your mother." Her hand darted out in an instinctive swat to the side of my head.

  In what had to be more of the dungeon's horrible sense of humor, when I dipped back and evaded the slap, You've gained a skill level! Dodge Level 14, popped up.

  "You killed people, and you're worried that I'm yelling?" I backed up a bit more. "How could you?"

  "Now you listen here, Madison Elaine Pomegranate," she snapped, "I won't have you judging me for rushing into this place to save you!"

  Behind her, more blue dots appeared. Crawler Vernon A, Level 12 Improvisational Jazz Cat Gnoll was dog-headed and carried a crystalline trumpet. Crawler Francesco Fabbri, Level 14 Horror Villain Human had a glowing chainsaw and police riot gear. Crawler Sandra Martinson, Level 11 Blessed River Steward Pterolykos was a winged wolf in a chainmail catsuit with a childish star-tipped wand in hand. Crawler Nakamura Tsukasa, Level 12 Boring Ol' Mage Dwarf had robes made of ivy and a golden claw-clip in his hair.

  Francesco Fabbri had two skulls after his name. Sandra Martinson had one. Between them and Mom, eight people were dead.

  "You're going to take your mom-voice with me when I know you killed people this very week. How about I'll yell as loud as I please!"

  I'd been backing off that whole time, away from town. Eyes going wide, Mom unshouldered a bow—that was our bow, from home, except dipped in gold or something. I had sensed the beasts before Mom saw them.

  I leapt towards the coming flock of melting remant-birds, so angry I didn't care. I blindly slashed, kicking off of one after another like I was running up a waterfall of melting flesh, fleeing the fact that my mother had murdered five people and was hanging out with two other murderers.

  I came out standing on the top of a fourth-floor ruin, the wall itself all that was left, looking down at seven dead remnants.

  Mom had pinned them with arrows, Francesco had shredded several with his chainsaw, and Tsukasa had sent a torrent of soot-spewing flames at the rest. I wasn't sure my slicing had actually accomplished anything.

  "Maddy, please, come down and—"

  New Quest. The Fools Who Broke the Glass.

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

  The announcement went on, blaming Carl, Donut, and Katia, whoever they were, for getting everyone killed, and explaining that we had 60 seconds to get to a safe room. The explosion would be in seven minutes.

  Below, everyone sprinted back except for Mom. She was hobbling back, which is when I noticed that her left leg ended in a rune-carved wooden peg-leg. As she moved, she yelled over her shoulder, "Maddy, get down here and run to the safe room immediately!"

  I looked past her, watching them run. Wherever the nearest safe room was, it was far enough away that it wasn't on my minimap. They weren't going to make. They'd followed me too far. My Mom was a murderer, and she was about to die in an explosion because some jerks broke something and the dungeon decided it was funny to kill everyone.

  I leapt back down, stopping beside Mom, ignoring her attempt to get me to move. "Do you know where some stairs are?"

  "It's like three miles south, and there's monsters in the way. Run for the safe room."

  "I wish you hadn't killed five people."

  "Maddy—"

  "Tell your friends to start running for the stairs."

  I didn't wait, tucking low and grabbing her, hefting her onto my shoulder as I started running. Wow, she was heavy. Nine strength was really not enough.

  "Honey— I—"

  "Take your armor off, so I can run properly." I was probably hitting a 4-minute pace, faster than I could have before, but that wasn't nearly fast enough.

  She listened. The run switched from hard to easy, like there was some magic threshold where she was light enough to run with. We sped towards a 2-minute pace.

  Mom kept trying to talk, but the bouncing kept her from saying anything useful, especially when we reached the monsters she mentioned—Matroyshka Snake, Level 10; A plague known to be incredibly dangerous if not wiped out quickly, the matroyshka snake spits matroyshka snakes--and I had to leap snakes and dodge the snakes they were spitting and generally juke my way through the mess.

  There were the stairs. I sped even further, willing my body to ignore the pain and just go.

  Quest Update.

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

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

  I felt a touch slower, but not a lot. Something had changed for the worse. I was still sure I could run far faster than I'd been able to before all this started.

  A big announcement was explaining more, but I was just arriving at an open area in front of the stairs, so I ignored it.

  I set Mom down. "You hold here. I'll go get the others."

  Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

  "A good plan," she said. "Now stop and— Maddy you come back here this instant!"

  As I ran back for the others, the quest update ended with, You now have twenty minutes to save yourselves, and gave me a timer to track that.

  I realized Mom had been about to tell me to add her as a contact, which I'd foolishly not done. I was already a good ways back, and slowing down was risking lives, so I keep moving.

  Just then, a message in the group quest chat from Carl, the jerk who had apparently both started and almost-stopped all of this, said Everyone needs to put all their magical gear in their inventory. The wild magic is going to make it misfire and possibly explode.

  On the one hand, screw that guy. On the other hand, the chat consensus was clearly to trust him. The butt-cape was easy to unclasp and remove while running. The mesh top a little more difficult. Next came the headband, and with its removal the loss of my hearing. The waist-cincher came next, which was hard to unlace while back-flipping over a ball of snakes. As to the knife, it had been in my inventory when this all started, so I left it there.

  I got back to find the remaining four fleeing the snakes, trying to circle around them and approach these stairs by another road. This loss of items clearly wasn't something they could bear. Chainsaw-guy had massacred dozens of snakes before I arrived, but now was empty-handed. The jazz performer was trumpetless, and by his look of terror also powerless. The mage, on the other hand, seemed capable of lobbing fireballs, so that was something, but without his robes he was just in tighty-whitey underwear, so he was vulnerable to any attack. As for the river-steward, apparently her wings were from her race not her class, so she could at least have flown to the stairs, but instead she was staying with the others.

  "Keep trying to circle around," I yelled as I tucked, slowing as I ran into Vernon the Jazz-Gnoll, hefting him onto my shoulder as I had my mother. He was lighter than Mom had been.

  I held up a fist and yelled, "Add me as a contact!"

  He did.

  Maddy: I'm deaf without my magical gear.

  Vernon: You're gonna get us killed going through here.

  He was wrong, of course. The snakes reared back before striking, so I could always see them coming, and aside from the strikes, all they did was spit out additional snakes. It wasn't the best footing, stomping on writhing snakes, but it worked.

  I dropped Vernon just past the snakes, well short of Mom, and headed back, swerving when I noticed their blue dots on a side-street, making some progress again. I looped around, coming at them from behind.

  Maddy: Tell Francesco I'm grabbing him next, and to add me as a contact.

  Vernon: Done.

  I grabbed him, grunted, and got moving. He was exactly as heavy as he looked, but I ignored the pain in my legs and sprinted. Nearing the stairs, I saw the others still topside.

  My legs burning, I set him down and yelled, "Mom, get down the stairs!"

  I could not, of course, hear her yelling. I yelled back, anyways. "Stop being awful and just get to safety."

  Hoping she listened, I went back to find the last two on a rooftop, Tsukasa making slow progress while Sandra fluttered above him. A few quick jumps had me up the side and next to them. She was obviously psyching herself up to get him across a gap.

  I tapped fists with both.

  Maddy: Just give me a little tug while I jump.

  Sandra: It's like twenty feet!

  Maddy: Have I looked like I struggled to get through here with anyone else?

  Tsukasa let me get a good grip, and I sprinted. Sandra grabbed on as I leapt, but it wasn't needed. It was only twenty feet.

  Then we came down and her grip was the only reason I didn't send Tsukasa tumbling.

  Maddy: Alright, we got the rest easy, just like that, and someone convince the others go to the next floor, not just dawdle in the stairwell. We don't know if the inside of the stairs are safe, so we need to sprint to the bottom when we get there. If they're not through, we'll just die with them.

  One rooftop on, faster than I'd ever seen Mom convinced of anything, Sandra sent, They went down.

  We were making good time until a blast hit us mid-jump. Momentum carried us forward, all three sprawling across the roof, health-bars in the red.

  I activated a potion, then managed to stand. "What happened?"

  The quest chat was exploding, someone explaining that the first two items in everyone's hotlist had triggered.

  Those had been my Sink Into Shadow and Hitai-ate open/close buttons, both unequipped. For Tsukasa, it was a heal potion and a scroll of fireball. For Sandra a heal potion and a scroll of healing. Neither could potion for almost thirty seconds. Nor could they walk.

  Maddy: Sandra, you'll have to catch up.

  I lifted Tsukasa, steadied myself, and sprinted. I had to land this perfectly. If I dropped him, he might die. If I waited thirty seconds for his potion cooldown, he would definitely die because we'd be outside when the blast went off.

  I leapt, soaring over the writhing serpents below, and landed it, stumble-skidding onto my butt, but keeping Tsukasa safe. I could do this, but I couldn't keep the sprint going. Every roof, I had to reset and start my sprint again.

  Soon enough, their potion-cooldowns ended and Sandra caught back up. We got our rhythm back, faster and faster.

  "Leave us," Sandra said. "There's no time. You can make it. We can't."

  I looked at the countdown in my head. At this pace, she was right. I forced any concept of pain away and simply sprinted faster, faster, faster.

  Off the final edge, no care taken, just plummeting towards the ground, slipping Tsukasa's grip so Sandra only carried him. The impact broke an ankle, and I screamed as I downed a potion and rolled with it.

  The stairs were in an open area, and I sprinted towards them, praying Sandra could carry Tsukasa swiftly behind me. 17, 16, 15, 14— A blast, heard but not felt.

  Quest Completed. The Fools Who Broke the Glass.

  I managed to skid out of line of the stairs, staring at Tsukasa and Sandra.

  New achievement! Bandit! Reward: Your Platinum Quest box has been upgraded two times to a Celestial Quest Box!

  Maddy: What just happened?

  Just as I sent that, so did a few hundred other people in the group chat.

  New Achievement! Cuck Aquaman!

  You got fucked by a fish. You've done something so spectacularly controversial, courts and lawyers had to get involved. The end result was my decision being overturned.

  Reward: You've received a Platinum It's Not My Fault You Fish-Headed Assholes Don't Properly Program Your Quests Box.

  We all stared at each other, then began re-equipping our magical gear. The snakes were closing in, until Tsukasa hurled two fireballs, Sandra did something that made him glow, and he hurled another two fireballs.

  We gathered around the stairs.

  "I made my Mom go down, and now I can't talk to her." I scrubbed at a tear. "Why didn't I get her contact? I'm so stupid."

  Sandra set a paw on my shoulder. "You saved her life. Nobody could have known someone would stop the blast. You saved her, plain and simple."

  I stared at the stairs for a minute. "Do you know how she got those skulls after her name?"

  They shared a glance. Tsukasa said, "There was this guy trying to kill us, and Francesco came in with a chainsaw and sliced him apart. Your Mom already had 5 skulls by then, and she hasn't said why. She doesn't talk about it, and I haven't asked. It doesn't seem like something you ask after someone saves your life."

  My eyes stung, and I realized I was crying. "I should have listened to her."

  "Let's just get down there, join up next floor," Tsukasa said.

  "Won't work," Sandra announced.

  I looked at her.

  "Eve's the leader of the party, so we can't add you, and if we're not in the same party, we won't appear together next floor." They shared a long look, eyes gleaming. I realized they were messaging each other. "We can't risk staying long. We're not sure what the rules are like for this, and don't want to get split up by going down too long after the rest of the party."

  I nodded. "I can't believe I didn't get her contact. Um, tell her I'll find her again. And that Lacie is down here too, and to make sure she's safe."

  Sandra smiled and said, "If someone hadn't somehow stopped an impending disaster, you would have saved three lives today. Honestly, we were close, so maybe five lives. Just because things didn't go perfectly doesn't mean it wasn't pretty impressive."

  Tsukasa was looking at the snakes. "You need to come down with us. This place is surrounded."

  Before, the matroyshka snakes had been a minor nuisance, the level 6 snakes being all that Vernon had to hit with a fireball. Now, there were 10's showing up, and even a few 15's. As we looked at them, a wave of snakes unhinged their jaws and spat more, smaller snakes out, the red dots doubling.

  "I'm good. These things have horrible aim."

  He drained the rest of his mana on fireballs. "Don't be careless."

  I shrugged. "I need the levels. Besides, Lacie might still be up here somewhere, so I gotta keep looking. I'll see you next floor."

  Before they could interfere, I sprinted towards the snakes, hoping even a meager challenge like this would help train my 14 dodge towards that so-distant 15.