In every direction was splattered sticky blood and body parts. The swimming pool was filled with red, and much of the viscera was currently spilling into it, filling it deeper and deeper. Hunks of flesh, some pretty big, lay strewn about like boulders. The white shock of bone stuck up everywhere, giving the sense I was looking at the zoomed-in view of a wound, and the bones were actually grubs.
And the smell. Oh god, it hit me all at once. It was the stench of a sewer and the contents of a refrigerator at a restaurant that sold 99 cent tilapia, cracked open after an extended period with no power. My head swam.
“Fucking hell,” I said. “What the hell happened down there?”
“You did it,” Donut said. “You really need to be more careful, Carl.”
My eyes caught movement, and I finally saw one of the monsters we’d been facing in the dark.
The beast was a thirteen-foot-tall pile of body parts, all sewn together haphazardly as it shuffled forward. It was as if Doctor Frankenstein had dropped acid before he’d made his creation. I saw legs and arms and torsos, all smushed together. But there were heads, too. Lots of heads, all human. The thing moved and was shaped like a giant slug. Tentacles made of arms and legs twirled above it, waving in the air. The heads all groaned in unison.
The thing was terrifying to behold, and I was glad I was now up here and not on the ground facing it.
Shambling Berserker – Level 12
If you weren’t fortunate enough to face one of these neighborhood boss monsters on the first level of the dungeon, fret not! Now’s your chance to get in on the fun!
You know how you sometimes buy something from IKEA, and after you’re done putting it all together, you have a few parts left over? It happens to the best of us. What you see here is a Shambling Berserker, the smallest iteration of this creature. Also known as the Mini Grinder or the Shrilling, this creature consists of extra parts we found after creating the World Dungeon. Waste not, want not.
This undead abomination is oftentimes found in groups, summoned as a slow, but very tenacious assassin. Once you’re targeted by these guys, they don’t stop. The good news is, they’re mostly harmless. Unless, of course, you face one in the dark. Their power is quadrupled in the dark. And once they go berserk, there’s no putting them down. They ain’t so slow after that.
So, yeah, actually, you’re probably fucked.
I thought of Mrs. Parsons, my downstairs neighbor before all this started. She’d been beheaded in the collapse. Her head had fallen at my feet, but the rest of her had gone down into the depths with the rest of the building. Had they used her headless body for one of these things?
As I watched, Mongo emerged from a pile of gore where he’d been having a snack, and he squealed, running at full speed toward the monster and leaping, feet first. The shambling berserker tumbled back and fell apart, groaning as it died.
“They’re really easy to kill,” Donut said. “They just fall apart.”
“That’s because it’s not dark anymore,” I said. I felt as if I’d been hit by a damn truck. I still didn’t know exactly what had happened. “I’m pretty sure our Featherfall friend sent these dudes after us.”
“Probably. Also, I think we should have a new rule,” Donut said.
“What’s that?”
“It’s quite evident we shouldn’t be throwing explosives when we’re blinded.”
I laughed. “That sounds like a good rule.”
Below, Mongo screeched with victory as he eviscerated the pile of slow-moving body parts.
“I got the neighborhood map,” Donut continued. “I can see there’s about ten more coming. Let me and Mongo kill them, and we’ll head back. This has been a great day for experience. I’ll hit 17 before we’re done, but we need to hurry. There’s a saferoom around the corner. I need to take a shower before we go on our interview.”
I thought of us zapping into a production trailer looking like we did now, and I suddenly felt myself grin. I couldn’t help it. I just started laughing. It even sounded a little crazy to my own ears.
“Okay,” I said. I pulled a hob-lobber out, tossing it in the air and catching it. “But let me kill a couple, too. I want to see how far I can really chuck these things.”
19
This was a different production trailer than the one we’d used for the Maestro’s show, but it was still a rental, according to the frisbee-shaped robot running the thing. The boat was even larger and more well-appointed than Odette’s private production trailer, and I had the sense this one was normally used for dignitaries and non-crawlers. Or maybe it was even a living quarters, as it had a large, bowl-shaped bed and a very nifty shower facilities.
There was a tray set out with food, but it clearly wasn’t food from earth. It was little, purple, squiggly worm things, still alive. They smelled like fish. Donut and I decided neither of us were hungry. Mongo sniffed at the tray and slurped it all up.
They’d likely rented this place at the last minute since I’d told Zev we didn’t have time to get properly cleaned up. She sounded as if she might cry over the chat when I told her. She started lecturing us on how we needed to be ready for our “media relations obligations.”
The saferoom had been a bare-bones version with no food and only a single shower facilities. We’d soaked Donut, and I had Mordecai brushing her as I got ready. Still, by the time we needed to go, Donut’s fur remained heavily matted. The red, mud-like gore clung to her like paint. She needed to get back in the shower again, but we didn’t have time.
So when we transferred to the production trailer, we’d moved to a special one that contained a shower that was straight out of the Jetsons cartoon. The frisbee robot thing’s name was D-0NAH, which Donut immediately translated to “Donna.” Donna told Donut to remove all of her gear—except her tiara of course—and to proceed to the shower. Mongo and I watched as the cat got on a treadmill thing that appeared to have been especially designed for her. It blasted her with water, air, some blue chemical, more water, more air, a robot arm brushed her, and then she got blasted again.
When she came out the other side, she looked as if she was ready for judging at an international cat show. Her fur glistened. There was no indication that an hour earlier she’d been showered with the exploding gore of a multi-ton, long-dead sea creature boss. I watched as she re-equipped her crupper and the rest of her equipment. Donna ushered her back into the cleaning machine, and this time the mechanism focused on cleaning and polishing her gear. She stepped out, and the metal skirt gleamed. Mongo crept up to her and started sniffing at her suspiciously.
“Carl, Donna tells me that one may purchase one of these all-purpose cleaners for a personal space. She says they’re expensive, but I think they’re absolutely well-worth it. We need to save our money. Quick, you go in there too. It is luxurious.”
“Nah, I’m good,” I said.
“Carl, the back of your cloak looks as if it was used as a sanitary napkin. You need to get cleaned.”
“Crawler Carl, I have been instructed to inform you that you need to avail yourself of the cleaning facilities,” Donna the robot said. “You will be in the presence of royalty on the panel, and not presenting yourself properly is considered an insult.”
Uh-oh. “Royalty? It’s not that Maestro asshole, is it?”
“Prince Maestro has been stripped of his titles and disowned by his father, so he is no longer considered royalty. But no, it is not anyone of the Skull Empire. You will receive a rundown of your fellow panelists at the preshow briefing, which will occur in ten minutes. Now please step into the cleaner.”
“Okay, but I’m not getting naked,” I said. “Just clean the stuff people can see.”