Gamboge Line.

  What on earth is a gamboge? I looked around, but saw the interior of a train, no weird monsters named gamboge.

  Welcome, Crawler to the fourth floor. "The Iron Tangle" Sponsorship bidding initiated on Crawler #9,283,418. Bidding ends in 45 hours.

  Sponsorship? What is going on? I'd gone down fifteen minutes before close, after farming the endless Matroyshka snakes as best I could, eventually getting my nerve up to kill the neighborhood boss snake, which also had horrible aim.

  I'd went to a different town each day, but I never found Lacie, nor even anyone who had seen her.

  New achievement! I'm on a train!

  Choo Choo, Motherfucker.

  Reward: You've received a Train Conductor's Souvenir Hat! Wear it with pride!

  The hat used the same slot as the headband that granted me hearing, so that wasn't happening. As I started to look around, a pop-up covered my vision.

  Your Bo Jackson Wannabe skill is now level 4. You must select a new sports-themed class to focus on during this floor.

  The AI recommended Cirque du Soleil Trapeezist, Renommierschmiss Duelist, and Goon. There were also thirty other options and I only had six minutes to avoid a random class. I skimmed as fast as I could.

  It took me four minutes to glance at everything, after which I was comparing the Cirque du Soleil Trapeezist, the Renommierschmiss Duelist, and the Olympic Archer. Each had some things that were tempting.

  The trapeezist amped up Light on Your Feet and let it level past 15, so if I could earn those skills this floor, it would be an incredible boon later on.

  Renommierschmiss Duelist seemed like it would greatly improve my ability to stab things with my Extremely Sharp Knife, and added something called parrying, which sounded like it would help me avoid attacks, but it included, Gain the Renommierschmiss with no explanation.

  Olympic archer would help with ranged attacks, but I wasn't sure if it would apply to my Fastball and Breaking Ball or if they were fully different attacks I'd just have to level up all over again.

  In the end, as the final seconds were ticking down, I selected Olympic Archer.

  You have selected Olympic Archer. Click confirm to make this choice official.

  "Wait, what?" I clicked as fast as I could.

  You have not selected a class. You have been randomly assigned: Goon.

  "Hey! I picked archer, you dumb machine!" I angrily threw my knife through the wall of the subway car, creating a whining, hissing sound as air rushed into the gap. "This dungeon is— Gah!"

  Goon

  This class is available because you have level five in the Hockey skill.

  Gooners sit in their basement fantasizing about the fact that they'll never get a girlfriend. This class has nothing to do with gooners, gooner. The Goon is a hockey player who specializes in starting brawls and intimidating players. They excel at drawing attention to themselves and dealing damage with charging attacks.

  Level-5 Illegal Checking skill

  Gain access to the skate ability

  Gain the momentum benefit

  Gain access to the rush ability

  This is an Earth Class. As an incentive to choose an Earth Class, you will receive a Silver Earth Box upon choosing this class.

  I didn't get any of the stat bonuses it included, nor the Fuck Around and Find Out ability, which sounded like it could have been excellent. I also didn't get the earth box, but I realized I still hadn't opened my earth box from the previous floor. Still muttering about how the AI sucked, I started testing things out.

  Skate could be activated, making my feet slide around smoothly, so I could glide across the ground like I was on blades. Theoretically, if I had actual bladed skates, I could also attack like that, but I didn't have those yet.

  I skated around the subway car a bit. It was fairly quick, and easy to control once I got the hang of turning it on and off again. Smoother than running, but I didn't feel like I would be able to jump quite as well.

  I looked at the other abilities I'd gained.

  Rush. Move forward in a straight line, dealing damage to everything in front of you based on your constitution. Cooldown 30 hours.

  That was a really big cooldown. I'd probably never use it.

  Before I could look over Illegal Checking, a loudspeaker crackled to life. "Approaching station number 82, home to the Eternal Gourmands. They'll probably enjoy eating the meal more than you enjoy being it."

  The subway stopped. I looked out the window. The massive cavern of this station was packed shoulder-to-shoulder with weird tongue-beasts. Well, what would be shoulder-to-shoulder, if they had shoulders. The top of them had a pair of eyes above a mouth that opened downwards. From the mouth reached a long tongue, about ten feet, which split four feet from the floor, its two ends on the ground like feet.

  Eternal Gourmand. Level 19.

  Taste is everything to the gourmand. The taste of a fine meal, of the floor its walking on, of your flesh before it devours you. Damn, though, the things that tongue do.

  The doors opened and the monsters rushed in, slapping at me with their massive tongues. I ducked and twisted and slashed, getting pushed deeper into the corner as they poured into the car.

  I was used to being able to dodge everything, but this car had too little space for the horde that was entering. It didn't matter how well I dodged if there was nowhere to dodge to.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  They finally started hitting, a slap to the ribs that took a quarter of my life away and left my bra sticky and wet. A lick across the side of my face, huge papillae grinding roughly across my skin.

  With the train unmoving, my constitution was back to 15, and just those two light taps had me under half.

  Certain I was about to die, I prayed that Rush would do something like what it said. The packed mass of red, writhing tongues blurred into a smear of wetness and I was elsewhere, dizzily stumbling, falling to the floor.

  I recovered just in time to hear the subway ding, from a good ways to my left. Instead of going straight down the car, I had ended up on the platform. "Oh no."

  Scrambling aside from the tongue of one caught on the station with me, slipping slightly in the smear of blood I'd created from a crowd of mobs, I got up and started sprinting, then skating even faster, along the platform.

  As the caboose—is the rear car on a subway still a caboose?—came up beside me, I leapt. My hand slid down the back and caught on the hitch of the rearmost car. I managed to land both feet on one track, my skate ability letting me slide smoothly along, away from the monster-station I'd almost gotten stuck at.

  As I slid through the tunnel, I tried to find out where Mom and her party were.

  Maddy: Sandra, are you all together? I'm on the Gamboge line.

  Sandra: Thank goodness. I was just getting ready to message you. We just finished clearing a car on the Cantaloupe line. Something called Razor Foxes. They weren't easy, but we're all alive.

  Maddy: Thank goodness. Oh, I'm slowing for the next stop. Tell me if anyone finds out how to get find each other.

  Sandra: Evelyn is saying a lot more than I can just send your way, but she loves you and she's worried about you.

  I'd gotten enough second-hand messages from Mom to know she had not said that. She'd probably been saying that I was horribly irresponsible for not getting her contact info, and that I needed to take proper care of myself, not being careless like I had been. Something like that.

  Maddy: Stay in touch.

  Stopped again, the train exactly filled the station, leaving me stuck in the tunnel, I waited patiently. Soon enough, we sped onwards. Glancing aside, I saw Transfer Station 83 on a sign, and I could see signage for stores as well, as opposed to the open cavern of the last place.

  Releasing the train, I slid along the rail, then and hopped onto the platform halfway down. Skating smoothly really was quicker than running, and I sped through the space and into a safe room. We'd see if my gamble had paid off.

  This place looked like a White Castle, and there was something called a Bopca behind the counter. An odd little guy. I sat at one of the tables and went through my achievements. I'd looked at these before coming down a floor, so there were only a few new achievements, only two of which were interesting.

  New achievement! Beyond Caffeine.

  240 hours without sleep? Look, meth is a hell of a drug, but I suspect your dealer is cutting it with dandruff from the goddess of manic energy. There is one of those, by the way. Tzu-Tzizam. Very minor goddess. Most of her followers end up going so deep on a conspiracy theory that they die trying to assault some unrelated castle.

  Reward: You've received a Platinum Adventurer Box

  New Achievement! It's Danger Zones All the Way Down.

  Some might say that being forced into a tutorial guild to select a race and class counts as entering a safe room on the third floor. A few days ago, I might have said that. You know what, though? Now that those fucks reversed my decision, I'm feeling charitable to anyone who isn't a fish.

  You didn't choose to enter that tutorial guild, and that's what we're counting, today.

  Reward: You've received a Platinum Adventurer box.

  A day before going down, as I was running low on food and really feeling the strain of going almost two weeks without sleep—seriously, that ignore fatigue skill was incredible—I started to wonder if the AI would reward me for skipping all the safe rooms yet again. It was a risk, as it meant I hadn't been able to spend any of my stat points, but it also meant that I was getting an additional platinum box, and those were supposed to be good.

  Besides, grinding skills on the infinite matroyshka snakes had been incredibly safe.

  Time to open boxes. Mostly, I had useless bronze boxes that added to the pile of potions and torches I never used. Dodging made injuries rare, and blindsight meant I could see in the dark without drawing attention to myself.

  The silver boxes were much the same, except for the earth-box which had a tiny whiteboard, a pack of cigarettes, and a potion that granted me the feng shui skill. Well, that was actually also useless, but it had been interesting.

  On to the good boxes.

  Bronze Boss Box (13/19)

  500 Gold Coins.

  Alarm Trap x10.

  Bronze Boss Box (14/19)

  Ring of +1 Constitution.

  Bronze Boss Box (15/19)

  Heal Scroll x10.

  Silver Quest Box (16/19)

  1,000 Gold Coins.

  Explosive Diarrhea Scroll x2.

  "Bleh. Who decided this stuff should exist?"

  Platinum Adventurer Box (17/19)

  250,000 Gold Coins.

  Platinum Adventurer Box (18/19)

  10,000 Gold Coins.

  Scroll of Upgrade.

  A timer appeared over the scroll

  Scroll of Upgrade!

  Warning: This item has a short shelf life.

  I read the description once and immediately activated it.

  Extremely Sharp Knife

  This item has been Upgraded twice.

  Hey, look at that, it's the only thing you ever use. Don't get boring when we make this even better. It was already:

  +5 to Dexterity when wielded.

  Has the Pierce Through benefit.

  Has the Translucent benefit.

  Has the Returner benefit.

  0.25% chance to cause Bleed debuff per dexterity of the thrower.

  But now we're adding:

  + The Rupture Benefit

  Huh, just one benefit? I bet that isn't a super good benefit or anything.

  Rupture. Fuck those bleed-immune mobs.

  Rupture is identical to bleed, except that creatures aren't immune to it just because they don't bleed, and it's more difficult to heal. Instant heal effects only have a 50% chance to remove each rupture, and regeneration effects only have a 15% chance per tick to remove each rupture.

  Platinum It's Not My Fault You Fish-Headed Assholes Don't Properly Program Your Quests Box (19/19)

  Coupon for a free Personal Space, upgraded to level three.

  Coupon for a free tier one environmental upgrade. (x2)

  Coupon for a free tier one crafting table. (x2)

  Coupon for a table upgrade. (x2)

  Well, after the knife, that seemed like a huge disappointment. And, at long last, time for some stat points. Being as dexterity seemed to improve dodge, light on your feet, and the aim of all my thrown attacks, in addition to the odds of triggering a bleed—now rupture—I poured all 48 points (that rush move got me to level 16) into dexterity.

  My odds of a rupture were now 20% per hit, double what they had been before.

  Feeling plenty smug about my gamble on safe rooms paying off, I sent a message to my list of about sixty contacts to ask if anyone knew where Lacie was, or knew anything about what we were supposed to do on these trains.

  As I was asking that, a screen in the safe room began playing some show. I'd known we were on an insane gameshow for a group of galactic jerks, but I'd not thought about what it would actually be like.

  I got to watch other people kill some monsters on trains, some others die to monsters on trains, and finally got a list of peoples' names with bounties. They really wanted us all to murder each other.

  Then came an announcement, explaining nothing about this new floor of the dungeon, although the announcer made sure to accuse us all of sucking for having so many deaths on the third floor. What an awful place.

  Awful or not, it was time to keep looking for Lacie. I needed to finish that first date.