Of the three I could easily examine, two were human and one was a large, tree-like creature. I’d had that on my list, but I couldn’t remember the name. When I examined the corpse, it didn’t tell us their new races. All three were women.
Corpse of Crawler Grace Bautista 3. Level 8. Killed by Former Circus Lemur.
All of them appeared Asian, maybe Filipino. All had the same last name. All were level 8. All killed by lemurs. Grace, Nica, and Lea. None of them had any inventory, meaning some of their group were probably still alive.
“That one, the tree lady is wearing an anklet,” Donut said. “And this one has two rings.”
Sure enough, as I examined the corpses more closely, I could tell they’d been looted hastily. Their inventory was gone, and their weapons and armor appeared to have been removed, leaving them in regular street clothes—all except the tree woman, who was naked save for the anklet. Whatever had transpired here had happened quickly. These three were sisters or close family members, and all three had died at the same time. I shook my head. Fuck this game.
The tree creature was humanoid but with a badly misshapen body. She was closer to an Ent from Lord of the Rings than Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy. But even that comparison wasn’t correct. Her facial features remained human, but she’d been bent over and hunchbacked with an extra set of limbs erupting from her back.
It took a few minutes to pry the anklet from her ankle, which is likely why they’d abandoned it. I also pulled the two rings off the fingers of the second one, the human named Nica.
Both of the rings were +2 to strength. Since Donut couldn’t wear them, I rubbed the blood off and put them on myself, giving me a total of four rings. And just like that, my strength was back to an acceptable level. I didn’t take any joy from looting the corpses of fellow crawlers, but I now realized how much of an advantage it was to be in an area where other crawlers existed. I could see the allure of being a player killer. This game gave a lot of loot.
I examined the simple anklet. It appeared to be made of wood. It had three little beads attached to it that clicked when I shook it, like seed pods. It wasn’t nearly as loud as Donut’s charm, but anything that made noise was a distraction.
Enchanted Anklet of the Fallen Oak.
Imbues wearer with +1 Dexterity, +1 Constitution, and gives +3 to the skill Double Tap. It’s also an anklet. One would think anklets enhance the beauty of feet like toe rings do, but they are excessive, jangly distractions that make you look too garish.
“Let’s see if it’ll let you wear this,” I said. I suspected it would. She already had one bracelet wrapped around her forward leg. I could barely see it through all the fur.
Donut looked at the anklet with distaste. “Wood?” she said. “What is this, the 70s? Anklets are for the foot model, not me.”
The AI clearly didn’t want me wearing this thing, but I wasn’t going to say that out loud. “It has a constitution buff. You need it.”
She sighed and pulled it into her inventory. “I’ll put it on my back leg so nobody will see it.”
It appeared in a blink, forming around her rear left ankle. It was a fourth the size as it was before, and it remained hidden in the tufts of fur. She shook her leg a few times with distaste. Thankfully the little beads barely made any noise. If we kept her hairbrush buff active, her Constitution was now seven. It was still much too low for my tastes.
“Read the description of that Double Tap skill and tell me what it does” I said.
She shrugged. “It says if I hit the monster twice in a row with the same attack there’s a chance the second hit does critical damage.”
“Okay, good,” I said. “Now let’s get out of the street.”
The closer we came to the edge of the circus, the louder the calliope music. The music didn’t change. It was a slow, haunting oom-pah-pah, oom-pah-pah of a polka played at half speed. I looked worriedly at the sun, which edged close to the distant rooftops. I hadn’t seen any saferooms since the last one.
We hid inside of a building that overlooked the massive circus tents. We’d killed five sentinel lemurs on our way here. While the lazy lemurs were hard to spot, they also seemed easy to sneak up on as long as we moved slowly. Donut had killed most of them, usually allowing Mongo to finish them off. The little dinosaur hit level four, and now he was about the same size as the cat. The dinosaur quivered with anger and potential energy every time we approached a lemur, and sometimes the excitement was too much for him. He’d let out a quick screech and then clamp his beak shut, as if he knew he’d messed up.
We came across a sleeping lemur sprawled out on the floor of one building, and it was just too much temptation for Mongo. The dinosaur squealed and pounced, landing onto the stomach of the lemur, who awakened and managed to croak before I could also jump and smash his skull with my foot. A lemur-laden giraffe walked down the street soon thereafter while we hid against the inside wall of the building. But it passed by, not pausing.
Through the hole of a missing window, we now observed the circus. It consisted of three massive tents, multiple wagons, several cages filled with shadowy forms we couldn’t see, and at least a dozen other smaller tents. In addition to the lemurs, giraffes, and stilt clowns, we saw a few other types of mobs, including a group of short, fat clowns and a large, ogre-like creature wearing a leopard-skin leotard. The ogre had a tentacle sprouting from the side of his neck.
One of the tents was flanked by a massive, faded sign that read “Grimaldi’s World O’ Freaks, Admission One Gold Coin. No children or those with weak constitutions allowed.” A line of illustrated, ten-foot-tall images stood on either side of the sign, showing the freaks and other attractions within the tent. One of them was the ogre creature with “The Over City’s Strongest Citizen.” written over it.
The other illustrations were a faded mix of sideshow characters and attractions like “The Over City’s Fattest Woman” and “Garth, The Two-Headed Troglodyte” and “Tiny, The Amazing, Fire-Breathing Gnoll.”
There was one peculiarity amongst the signs. The last of the tall illustrations held an image of a horned, elf-like woman covered head to toe in tattoos. The sign read “Tsarina Signet and Her Amazing Battle Squad.” But someone had painted a large circle around the poster, crossing out the image. “Wanted. Traitor,” was written above the sign. As we watched, one of the round clowns walked by, pushing a wheelbarrow that appeared to be filled with animal skins. He paused at the sign, zipped down his pants, and urinated on the poster.
“My word, they don’t seem to like that lady,” Donut said.
“No. No, they don’t,” I said.
We watched for a few more minutes. The clowns and lemurs appeared to be hard at work, but what were they doing? The entire circus was surrounded by a well-worn, five-foot-high battlement made of rocks, wood, and bones. The clowns started draping animal skins over the barriers. A pair of stilt clowns pulled a wagon out into the street and started erecting what looked like trench warfare defenses. They dumped jack-like wooden structures connected to one another by circling, barbed lengths of wire.
“They’re getting ready for a battle,” I said.
Mordecai: It’s getting late. Are you guys close to the other town yet?
Carclass="underline" Hello, Mordecai. How’s your head?
Mordecai: I’ve had no… Wait, what do you mean?
Carclass="underline" Where are you?