“You don’t stand a chance, let him go.”

  “I’m sure you can kill me, but I won’t go down as easy as they did.”

  He shifted me, improving the amount of cover he had between himself and Cascadia as she took a few steps forward.

  “Hey, there’s no need for this to continue. I was just doing a job. Jobs over now.”

  “You’re friends didn’t seem to think so,” I said, squirming uncomfortably.

  “Everyone has to make their own decisions about how to interpret contracts and obligations in a post-apocalyptic world. ….They probably just wanted your gear.”

  “And you don’t?”

  “Sure I do, but I don’t think I’m willing to kill for it.”

  “Your player killer skulls suggest differently.”

  “Remember when we talked about shotcallers? This is why I don’t like being one. I don’t want to work out whether or not I should kill someone who has zero chance of survival to increase my own chances. I know my place in life, I prefer to minimize independent thinking.”

  “And that makes you feel better about what you do?”

  “Kind of, but that’s not really the point.”

  “What is the point then?”

  “I think we’ve talked enough philosophy already. Look, a show of good faith,” he said, lowering the gun and slowly moving back. He pulled the gun into his inventory.

  “It takes fifteen seconds to pull it back out. All of my other abilities are defensive; I’m not interested in fighting you.”

  “Well maybe we are,’ Cascadia said threateningly.

  “Then I will make it as difficult for you as I can. But you don’t strike me as the type.” He raised an eyebrow; “the AI doesn’t think you’ll kill me either it seems, I just got an achievement for being the only person in my party to survive.” He lowered his hands and started to walk towards the body of the boss.

  “I’m just going to loot the map if you don’t mind.”

  “And then what?” I asked him.

  “Unless you’re taking applications, I guess I need to go find another group.”

  “You’re not going to hold a grudge for what happened? We just ruined a good thing for you.”

  “No.”

  I considered him, trying to gauge his sincerity. He was obviously very competent, pretty powerful already, and could be a great asset, especially if he would actually just follow whatever orders we gave him. Cascadia interrupted my ruminations, unilaterally making a decision.

  “There’s only two seats in the speeder. You can reapply on a later floor if we have availability. You can loot one of your companions, we are looting the other one and Patricia. Then make yourself scarce, we’ve got eggs to harvest and I don’t want to be looking over my shoulder.”

  He nodded his assent and quickly looted his companion, taking the weapon, a few explosives, a bundle of consumable items, and the armor.

  “Thank you, for not killing me,” he said as he stood up. He held his hand out. I took it.

  “I’m Taron. I know you can just read it, but still.”

  I shook the hand. He nodded at Cascadia, who gave the slightest inclination of her head in return, and he left, climbing out of the beach pit and disappearing into the water park. We stood in silence for a moment before I turned to Cascadia.

  “What?” she asked. I didn’t say anything; I had a lot of thoughts but I couldn’t put them into words.

  “Oh come on. She was not going to let it go. We were never going to join them and they would have made a move on us sooner or later, guaranteed. I wasn’t going to let them have the initiative. And they had it coming, they were murderers. They killed those two crawlers in cold blood, probably just for experience, and you know they were going to keep killing.”

  “So you’re some sort of white knight justicar now?”

  “Just because I don’t get mopey every time I see or have to do something bad doesn’t mean I’ve abandoned morality. All my kills were in self defense. Admittedly Patricia was a bit preemptive, but she was evil and you know it. She’s the kind of person someone should have killed before the world ended. Are you upset about this or something?”

  “No…I’m not...upset. I don’t think we should make it a habit to try to kill anyone we think deserves it but I’m not going to question the morality of your decision. I just…that was really risky. That last guy, Taron, could have blown my head off. The boss battle had just ended, I was not prepared for another fight. How hard is it to at least send me a message before you go all butcher of the undercity on me?”

  “You’re right, I’m sorry. I didn’t plan it out. I mean, I think as soon as we saw the bodies outside the saferoom I knew that this would happen eventually, but I wasn’t really thinking about it. When I realized Patricia was thirty seconds from deciding to try to kill us, I just reacted. I’ll communicate next time.”

  “Agree to disagree on whether they were going to try to kill us or not, but it’s over now. Man, we are going to have a tough time interacting with other crawlers though. You’ve got five skulls already, and I have one. We look like absolute murderhobos. Fuck, maybe we are murderhobos.”

  “I don’t know what a murderhobo is but everyone we’ve killed had it coming. That’s the opportunity of the dungeon; we don’t have to hold back. The slimeballs, the parasites, the overlords. The people who kill and torture and hide behind a veneer of economic necessity or plausible deniability, we don’t have to let them hide anymore. Now let’s get moving. We’ve got two bodies to loot and a few thousand eggs to gather.”

  I wasn’t sure what I felt about Cascadia implying we play judge and executioner, but that was a problem for another time. And though we did not speak about it, there were some practical considerations; after the borough boss battle and killing three reasonably powerful crawlers, I was level twelve and Cascadia was level thirteen. And there was a lot of loot. We had increased our power significantly but this killing left me a little shaken. I tried not to look at the bodies, particularly the headless one. I could see the appeal in Taron’s approach to life and morality. I shook my head and tried to move on.

  We painfully discovered that the eggs, true to their description, were still activated by crawlers walking on the sand, though they now didn’t hatch unless we stepped quite close to them. The speeder provided a loophole, as it apparently didn’t count as “stepping” on the sand. We drove around with Cascadia leaning out of the speeder, scooping up eggs. There were thousands of unhatched eggs and we collected them until our speeder was packed. The automated repair bay I stowed the speeder in was a dimensional storage space, so we could bypass normal inventory limits by filling the speeder. I convinced Cascadia to not use our own inventories; I considered it dangerous to have a full inventory. Inventory rules changed frequently and this season was using a very limited inventory system. It seemed that we could only add about one and a half times what we could lift off the ground into our inventories, but it was very easy to add. All you had to do was touch an object unopposed and you could add it as long as you had space. I thought it was important to keep our inventory as empty as possible so that we could quickly pull something into it in an emergency. I dumped some of the supplies I had brought in the speeder to make more room, just the food and clothing supplies, which we no longer needed.

  We collected around two thousand eggs before calling it quits. Even though we could probably use the borough field guide to find more eggs or cybernetic juice the speeder was pretty much filled already. Between the morning training, travel to the boss, the boss fight, the drama with Patricia, and the egg collecting, we were well into the day and decided to head back to Parson. I was feeling a little more relaxed about our progress though. Our levels were as high as they needed to be for this floor. One more would be nice, but we were well ahead of the curve, we could certainly afford this trip.

  On the way back we inspected the loot from our most recent conflict. The mercenary had a set of matching vest, pants, boots, and gloves that were all stat enhancing but only the boots, which gave plus two to constitution were an improvement for either of us. I took them. He also had his semi-automatic rifle with an unlimited magazine and three concussion grenades.

  “You should take the rifle, get some practice with firearms. I can’t use it with my prosthesis anyway.”

  It was pretty obvious that handheld firearms would not be my path to success.

  “Guns really aren’t my thing. I am already very competent with melee and thrown weapons, and both seem totally viable so far. Why would I want to start over, training with something I have no experience with?”

  “You can level up really fast. What is your axe handling skill now? Seven? You’ve never touched an axe before in your life and it’s already almost as high as your staff fighting skill was when you came in, after just a few days. You need a better ranged option; you probably won’t always be able to just run up to things and your thrown weapons are pretty limited so far.”

  “That just means I should throw more stuff and try to get better throwing weapons. Plus, I have incredible aim with thrown items, I don’t even know how to aim a gun.”

  “You would learn as you rank up skills. And I bet your ultra high dexterity automatically makes it much easier to aim.”

  “Maybe, but guns are lame. At least this one is. I’ll pass. We can see if Parson wants it.”

  She at least agreed to take the incendiary pistol that Patricia had, which had an interesting description.

  Burn-em Up Pistol

  This revolver style pistol fires bespoke rounds somewhere between a flare and a standard incendiary round. Rounds will burn for 5 seconds after impact, hot enough to melt most non-heat-resistant materials. Holds 7 rounds.

  This went into her left boot sheath along with two, seven-round bullet strips. Another fifty-six rounds went into her inventory. She also accepted a laser cutter grappling hook combo tool that she also insisted on keeping in her inventory due to its low combat utility and bulk. The last item, I took. It was the eye drops Patricia had used.

  Size-Up Eye Drop Jar

  When used in each of your functioning eyes this item allows you to examine a single creature. When you do so a special HUD will appear in front of your eyes, giving you enhanced information about your target. The exact information will depend on multiple factors including your intelligence, target type, level discrepancy, and distance from target.

  This was a great find and it had eight uses left, assuming I kept both of my eyes. When Patricia used it she had learned specific abilities and weaknesses, which would make certain boss fights much easier.

  After we talked through the gear, we just chatted for the rest of the two hour drive. It was a strange but not unpleasant experience. We didn’t talk about fighting mobs, leveling up, my missing hand, the fact that we had just fought and killed three other humans, or the fact that at least three billion people had probably died just days ago. We just talked about what food we wanted to eat when we were done with ration bars, what it felt like to see through the drone camera and my own eyes at the same time, how high her stats would need to be for Cascadia to be able to outrun the speeder, and the like. She avoided talking about what we were doing before the dungeon and any specifics about the dungeon, for which I was grateful. Other than the mass of turtle eggs filling the speeder to the brim, the trip was not that different from the countless drives we had done together before the collapse. It was relaxing, but it felt almost wrong; having such a mundane, familiar experience under these circumstances.

  All vestiges of the familiar were banished as soon as we entered Tabaka’s safe room. Parson was there, still level six and looking much the same as before. The saferoom on the other hand, had transformed. Every single surface was covered in one or multiple experiments. There were six different monsters, they seemed to be at least mostly dead, each of a different variety. They were all being drained, injected, or both. Multi-colored vapors filled the air and we coughed as we stepped into the space.

  I had been thinking about it for some time, but it was at this moment that I decided I absolutely wanted Parson to party with us for the second floor. I had been concerned about pace and experience sharing but his ability to scale operations like this so quickly had incredible potential to enhance my plans for the next floor.

  “What is going on in here?” Cascadia asked. “It smells like rotten ocean.”

  Parson turned to us, holding a bowl of thin, clear noodles in orange sauce.

  “Oh hi. Don’t worry, you get used to the smell really quickly.”

  His eyes glanced at the new skulls next to our names.

  “Ran into some trouble I see.”

  “Yeah. Some crazy lady who wanted to gather the most powerful crawlers and prey on the weak.”

  “Your level got a lot higher though, even with the exponential increases in xp requirement.”

  “Well, we did have to kill a borough boss to get your eggs. Your level hasn’t changed though. Aren’t you worried? You need to get out and level, not do science experiments all day.”

  “You got my eggs! Let’s get them going right away, I might be able to get the juice extracted before the floor collapses,” he said in his excited but relaxed manner. “I’m not too worried about my level, some other crawlers came through here and they were all around my level. I think you two are just over-leveled. Plus, I’m not just making fun stuff, I’m figuring out some really powerful recipes.”

  Cascadia was about to argue but I interjected.

  “Well give you the eggs, but Cascadia is right. We aren’t over-leveled and if you aren’t careful you’ll just get eaten on the second floor and won’t be able to finish your experiments. We met some crawlers in the other borough and a bunch of them were level eight. What are your plans for the next floor? We should go down together, we can help you level safely and figure out what the second floor has to offer.”

  Parson shrugged, “sure, sounds good. How many eggs did you get?”

  We pushed some tables to the side and I pulled out the speeder, filled to the brim.

  “Oh man! This is awesome! I really need to get to work; I don’t have space to bring all these, I need to get the juice extracted and distilled.” He looked around the room before grabbing the body of a squid wolf and throwing it out of the saferoom, attached tubes, beakers, and all, to make space. We helped unload the eggs, which spilled everywhere, rolling all over the room. We organized them into large mounds while Parson set up his extraction station. We decided to find another saferoom with enough space to sit down to open our loot boxes but Parson joined the party before we left. We hoped he might get a little experience if we killed something in the neighborhood.

  Stolen story; please report.

  There was a tutorial guild not far so we went to open our boxes and talk with Jasper. Jasper was, as always, thrilled to see us.

  “Welcome back, welcome back! Please, have a seat! I can see you have a few boxes to open, always exciting, that. Unfortunate business with those other crawlers, couldn’t be helped I suppose. Such conflicts are bound to happen sooner or later, best to get them out of the way quickly. We are going to have to do something about that drone of yours Gel, we are underutilizing that control spike.”

  “Are you OK Jasper?” I asked.

  “Oh yeah, I’m great. Just a bit nervous I suppose, day before the collapse of the first floor and all. There are still quite a few more crawlers than projected for the start of the second floor, I’m worried they will take additional measures to bring the numbers down. Since you two are my only crawlers…,” he glanced up at the ceiling. “I’m just worried something will happen to you. First time game guide nerves is all, I’m sure.”

  He fidgeted uncomfortably before continuing.

  “You…aren’t still thinking about a city boss by chance?”

  “Why?” Cascadia replied “you think the double rewards make it worth the risk?”

  “No! Not at all! Especially not after you….opted to continue with such a small group. Not even with the size-up drops is it worth it.”

  “Hmmm. I hadn’t thought about the size-up drops….but no, I’ve decided against a city boss this floor. I still think we could do it, but I acknowledge the risk is higher. We need to push deeper. I want to explore these abilities and I don’t want to risk letting someone like Patricia get farther than us. If anyone is winning this dungeon, it’s me. We will just work on our skills on low level mobs.”

  Jasper looked relieved, relaxing back into his chair contentedly.

  “You should go down the stairs early as well, in case you get to go onto a show or an interview. You don’t want to have a late start for the second floor if you can help it. Ok, let’s see what’s in your boxes. I almost hope it’s a bust so Gellen has to keep eating ration bars. That plus five increase to a base stat is huge, especially before race and class selection. I’d never heard of anything like that before, I feel like it might unlock some very unique options.”

  I gave him a sidelong glance before pulling up notifications. There was only one achievement of note.

  New Achievement. There’s no turning back now.

  Did you know that game engineers estimate crawler on crawler action ultimately accounts for over 40% of the interest and revenue generated by dungeon crawler world? Well now you do. You have killed another crawler for the first time. Thank you for your contribution. Now that you’ve crossed the line you should find it much easier to keep up the good work.

  Reward: you’ve received a bronze savage box.

  That left me with two boxes to open. The savage box and the silver boss box. Cascadia had the exact same. My boxes opened with the usual fanfare.

  Bronze Savage Box

  Crawler Seeker Drone 5 Pack

  Commonly employed by hunters on the sixth floor, this stealthy little drone will automatically seek out the nearest non-partied crawler. Upon finding a suitable target it will attach to the target and continuously transmit their location and health to you. Can also be programmed to seek a specific, named, crawler.

  Happy hunting

  The drones were tiny, only a few centimeters long. There was no direct control interface, just the option to enter a name when activated. The entire pack weighed almost nothing, so I made an exception to my inventory policy and stored it away. I couldn’t think of any immediate uses, but it could be useful later on.

  Silver Boss Box

  Attack Drone Starter Pack

  A popular gift for aspiring remote killers who are just getting their feet wet, this starter pack is perfect for bagging your first few hundred kills. The enclosed drones have both programmable and direct control modes, and two weapon module slots per drone. Includes multiple controller options, first-person view goggles with quick toggle, spare parts, repair kit, multiple paint and decal options, and a variety of entry level weapon modules.

  I whispered my thanks to the system AI. My build was already very developed and cohesive considering we were on the first floor. I would finally be able to do more in combat than just provide transportation and point defense. I had, unfortunately, overlooked a small rule change to drone modules this season; they could not be removed without a workbench. This meant my premium drone would be relegated to scout and utility duty until the third or fourth floor. Still, the starter pack, which took the form of a very nifty suitcase style box, had two sleek attack drones and six different weapon modules; two disruptors, two sonic lances, and two arc guns, all small-drone sized. The drones were nearly spherical, with a large repulsor unit on the bottom and a camera screen on the front. The weapon modules were located on either side.

  I looked over at Cascadia who had opened her boxes at the same time as me. She was standing there holding a large energy rifle. Jasper was looking at it with what seemed to be adoration.

  “The X10 rotary laser gun with center emitter for armor piercing mode. Commonly upgrades to either the arm mounted heavy cannon or tripod mounted stationary version. Maximum fire rate of three thousand rpms. Toeing the line of heavy arms, it is just small enough to be wielded by a strength enhanced crawler in the standard assault rifle role. It wreaks havoc on light and armored foes alike, transforming battery packs into instruments of destruction.” His voice was soft, almost a whisper.

  “Mmmm…..seems kind of….inelegant.” Cascadia replied.

  “No. It is the most elegant, most magnificent of weapons.”

  Cascadia and I shared a look and I reached for the rifle to examine it.

  X10 Rotary Laser Gun+

  With 8 rotating barrels for standard fire and an oversized central emitter for an armor piercing, continuous beam, this is not the weapon grandma keeps in her closet for self defense. This gun is a tool for battlefield dominance, effective against both infantry and armor. Standard fire mode has a configurable rate of fire from 120 to 3000 shots per minute. Continuous mode utilizes the center emitter to produce an oversized, continuous beam, capable of punching through solid steel. Requires energy source

  *Note: for the wet brained monkeys reading this and thinking to yourselves that the design is not realistic, take a moment to consider that perhaps you don’t understand physics as well as you thought you did. Just wait until one of you gets a ring of fireball in a sponsor box.

  “I don’t think I have the same depth of feeling about the gun as Jasper, But I do think you should use it. The weapon looks really powerful, and you do need better ranged options like we talked about. We have way more tactical flexibility if you and I can both fight from a distance.”

  “Even if it is powerful, it isn’t cool. And we agreed that we need to focus on interviews and sponsorships. People are going to want to see me doing my thing, which is not standing around holding my finger on a trigger.”

  “I don’t believe for a second that you wouldn’t figure out a bunch of absolutely over the top maneuvers to make the gun work with your style. I think you’re just being an elitist. A melee elitist.”

  Cascadia gave me a withering look, but she took the gun back.

  “What’s your deal anyway,” she said to Jasper. “I can’t tell if you want to take the gun out to a candlelight dinner or create a shrine to make your obeisances to it.”

  Jasper shrugged. “I just really like guns. Rifles and rotary guns specifically.”

  “Weren’t you like a bard or something? Doesn’t that mean you just played the bongos and sang?”

  Jasper let out a heavy sigh. “I was a technobard, regretfully. Before the dungeon, I was an industrial chemist. I wasn’t particularly gifted, but my game guide still wanted me to choose a chemical warfare class. I had also been an aspiring, amateur musician and I thought that the dungeon was an opportunity for me to reimagine myself, so I ignored their advice. It wasn’t until later on the third floor that someone in my party got a heavy assault rifle in a loot box and I realized what my true passion is. You should use the gun, its combat rating is higher than anything else you have except for your staff in certain situations. And it is beautiful.”

  I was relieved that we had found such a powerful gun that Cascadia was willing to try. I had been worried that she might get pigeonholed into a powerful but not very flexible build. That might be fine with a larger group, but if we stayed in a smaller group or a duo like I originally planned, it would be dangerous to have such a focused build.

  “What did you get from your savage box?” I asked. She handed me a pair of data goggles.

  Data Goggles - Come Get Some

  When worn, this single-use item will upload the ability Come Get Some to your interface.

  Come Get Some

  This rare and little known ability is for crawlers who are looking for crawler attention. Higher levels support enhanced options to lure unsuspecting crawlers into your deadly embrace.

  Cost: 3 energy

  Cooldown: 30 seconds

  Duration: Instantaneous

  Target: Crawlers within 1 kilometer from the user in all directions.

  This ability immediately alerts all crawlers within range, sends them a customizable message, and marks your location on their minimap. Higher levels of this ability increase radius and can provide misleading information to the targets.

  “Seems kind of stupid,” Cascadia said.

  I shrugged. “If there were somewhere to sell it I’d say sell it, but I don’t think shops appear till the third floor. Might as well use it.”

  She held the goggles up to her eyes, which flashed with energy. She tossed them in a trash bin and headed for the door.

  “Let’s get to it.”

  The first thing I did was set up my new drones. I tossed out the headset and controllers, and stored the extra drone parts in the speeder. I paired the new weapons, installing both disruptors onto one drone and both arc guns onto another. I didn’t really know how sonic weapons worked so I saved them for later. Next, at Cascadia’s request, I got out the dozen drones I had brought with me into the dungeon and flew them around for her to shoot. I had to use the manual controllers which, after four days of nearly continuous direct brain control piloting, felt unbearably clunky. It was adequate for Cascadia’s needs though, and she quickly destroyed all of the drones. She got a bundle of new, related skills, but they all started at one. Even so, with her unnaturally high dexterity, her accuracy and target tracking were good.

  The neighborhood was pretty much empty so we hopped in the speeder and went hunting. We told Parson we would be back tomorrow, ten hours before floor collapse, at which point we would descend and find a saferoom to sleep until the floor fully opened. With the help of the borough field guide we sought out the highest level mobs we could. One of the neighborhoods had a “hard mode” section where the mobs were level seven to ten and the dens were multi-stage, mini dungeons. They were all “supremacy shock troops,” cephalopod-bear hybrids with hammers and grenades. We spent the rest of the day clearing the entire thing.

  Cascadia worked hard with the laser rifle, using it every fight. She complained about the bulk on her back so she often just dropped it on the floor when switching to melee. But she did start every fight with the gun and finished several with it. She learned and leveled several new skills including Ranged Energy Weapons, Point Blank Shot, Sliding Shot, Flipping Shot, Aiming, Laser Rifles, Reloading, and Quick-draw.

  As expected, she quickly started to stylize her fighting style with the weapon, sliding, running on walls, and flipping, all while shooting her weapon. Her accuracy during the maneuvers started out quite poor but improved as her skill level quickly moved up to four. Near the end of the day she earned a bronze style box when she got herself cornered by a cave bear wielding six hammers in its tentacle arms. It chased her to the wall which she ran up, then flipped over the bear, activating the weapons continuous beam mode and vaporizing the creature's spine as she drew a line down its back.

  The continuous beam mode was extremely powerful, shooting out a six centimeter in diameter beam of yellow laser energy, but it consumed a huge amount of energy. Cascadia had twenty five universal batteries and she went through every single one except the one in her personal shield module, even taking the battery out of her vibroaxe to keep practicing with the rifle.

  I practiced with my new drones. They interfaced with my operator’s spike but also had semi-autonomous modes like my turret. I could assign them target types and they would seek them out, though they lacked any ability to strategize or coordinate. I found that if I closed my eyes I could directly control two drones at a time with reasonable competency, but I couldn’t maintain it while also directing the turret or my third drone.

  I had seen crawlers commanding large drone swarms before and I wondered if they were relying on intelligent machines or if their expanded mental capacities were just that much greater than mine.

  For now, I just set my turret to auto target and practiced basic maneuvers with two drones. I would stun or stagger a creature with my arc cannons then send in the disruptor drone to deal heavy damage. My drone related skills all ticked up steadily.

  At the end of the day we got one interesting, but disappointing achievement.

  New Achievement: Hard Mode

  You have found and cleared a “hard mode” section of the dungeon. These uncommon areas are well above the standard power level for the floor and best avoided by most crawlers. But not you, apparently.

  Reward: None! We just put these things in to make sure you don’t get bored. So I guess that’s your reward, not being bored.

  I had never heard of “hard mode” areas and I wondered if they were new this season or just uncommon. They would be useful for staying ahead of the curve. I had caught up to Cascadia at level thirteen and she was nearly to fourteen.

  We found a safe room, washed, put our batteries on chargers, ate our nauseating ration bars, and went to sleep.

  In the morning Cascadia watched intensely as the recap again failed to feature us. The elderly man in the mech suit got a lot of screen time; he had upgraded his suit with a chainsaw sword and skate style feet and was rolling around the dungeon saving crawlers and guiding them to stairwells.

  “You should get a mech suite like that. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about you getting hurt so easily. And your missing hand wouldn’t matter at all.”

  “Well, when you figure out how to make one I’ll be all ears.”

  She watched the mech warrior chainsaw a giant cyber bat in two, collect a wounded crawler and carry him to the nearest safe room.

  “Should we be doing that?” Cascadia asked. “Saving people? We are at least as powerful as that guy, and we have the speeder. We could.”

  I hesitated before answering.

  “I don’t know…The announcements are always mentioning target crawler numbers. Didn’t they say the goal was to half the population to 10 million this floor? They obviously can patch and change the game. I think the same number of people are going to die no matter what so I’m not sure what good it is to try to save people. We would just be choosing who dies, but I don’t know anyone in the dungeon except you. And Parson now I suppose. So why do I care who lives and who dies?”

  “Patricia had a similar outlook.”

  She stared at me, her expression inscrutable.

  “Well I think we should try it,” she said. “Saving people. Just a little, not like the mech warrior. But why shouldn’t we play both sides? I do care who lives and dies, we should save those worth saving.”

  I shrugged uncomfortably. There were implications in her words I had no desire to engage with but I supposed I didn’t care as long as it didn’t interfere with our progress.

  I spent the next hour training my ability to drive and fly multiple drones at the same time while Cascadia practiced her weapon sequencing. Then we went hunting.

  We returned to Tabaka’s saferoom exactly ten hours before floor collapse. The room was completely cleared of experiments and Parson was laying on the ground in the middle of the room. He appeared to be asleep. He had a fifteen minute timer over his head. His body was completely motionless and there was a handwritten note on his chest. It read

  Cascadia, Gel,

  I didn’t sleep yesterday so I am catching up. Fortunately my newest recipe will help. Thanks to the eggs you brought I was able to synthesize something called “golden escape.” It’s dangerous and I wouldn’t recommend trying it without a time delay neutralizing chaser but I was also able to make an improved version. The dungeon called it “Parson’s no strings attached premium sleep aid”. The yield is really low so I didn’t make much but it makes it so that I cannot be woken up by any method for 5 hours. It also removes safe room protections so don’t let anyone kill me. I will wake at exactly 9 hours 45 minutes before floor collapse fully rested with a 10% boost to my highest and lowest stat. I’ll be ready to descend right away. Sorry for being late.

  Tabaka was behind the counter pulling noodles with all six of his arms. He paused to return the wave Cascadia gave him. We took quick showers and Cascadia planted herself at the counter to watch the noodle pulling. I found a cot and laid down to rest, idly tracing patterns in the air with my drones to distract me from thinking about noodles.

  We had made it through the first floor. Not everything had gone quite as I had planned, but the end outcome was pretty much what I had hoped for. We were extremely ahead of the level curve, Cascadia had directed her incredible drive towards beating the dungeon, and I was well on my way to a powerful build that completely circumvented all of my weaknesses. We had run into some trouble with other crawlers, I had nearly died multiple times, and I had lost a hand. But considering our circumstances, things were going very well. I had a sense of satisfaction as I reclined, enjoying the unexpected rest. I wondered if we would get selected for a show. We hadn’t been featured, which was a sure way to get an invite, but there were a lot of programs, and we had accomplished some very noteworthy things. I imagined that our odds were good.

  The timer hit 9:45 and Parson leapt to his feet.

  “Oh good, you guys made it. Let me get my stuff and we can see how these stairwells work.”

  He went behind the counter and pulled out a fist sized cube. He activated it and his squid-horse mount popped out, complete with multiple tech-weave saddle bags. I examined the creature

  Squorse. Level 4

  This is a minion of Crawler Parson V.

  “Dude, you got a buddymon cube. That’s awesome.”

  “Yeah, I have officially captured, tamed, and trained my first official mount. I’m pretty sure if I ever let them get fully sober I’ll lose control, but that’s a problem for later.”

  Cascadia put down the noodles that she had started helping Tabaka with and we headed for the door.

  “I will find you,” Parson said to Tabaka as we left. “I swear it.”

  The trip to the nearest stairwell was relaxed. The path was clear of mobs and we made good time, Parson on his mount and Cascadia and I in the speeder. We arrived and stowed our speeder and mount. We shared one last affirming look and descended the stairs, shoulder to shoulder.