Warning: This is an event quest. If you do not wish to participate in this quest, you will have sixty seconds from the end of this message to get yourselves into a saferoom. After that, all access to saferooms within the quest zone will be shut off until the event quest is concluded. All NPCs who remain indoors, saferoom or not, will remain safe. All mobs and neighborhood-level boss monsters within the blast radius subject to both physical and magical explosions will be killed.
Reward: All participants who survive will receive a Platinum Quest Box.
Oh, by the way. The explosion is coming in seven minutes.
Run.
“What the fuck? How is that a quest?” I cried.
Mordecai: Run. Desperado Club. It’s not a saferoom, but the second room is out of the blast radius.
Katia: I don’t have access to the club! I can’t go to a saferoom because I’m a quest host!
Carclass="underline" Protective Shell?
Mordecai: Won’t work. Magical blast. Go.
“Fuck!” I cried. “We have to get to the club. Let’s go.”
“What about Katia?” Donut said. “That’s not fair. We promised we’d keep her safe. This is our fault.”
“It’s not,” I said. I didn’t bother going down the ladder. I just jumped all the way, hitting the ground heavily. Behind me, the guards stopped glowing. An entire wall of white dots appeared on the map. I knew in a moment those dots were going to turn red once the Swordsmen noticed me here. Donut hesitated and leaped to my shoulder. Her ears were flattened against her head.
Shit, shit, shit! I pulled up my map, looking for the fastest route. The Desperado Club was three blocks away. We could make it if we ran.
“Look,” I said. “This was going to happen one way or another. That’s why they tried to get that Bautista guy to kill Miss Quill, too. They wanted this explosion quest to trigger.”
I had a weird chat notification. I pulled it up, and the window said Quest Chat.
This was different than regular chat. This was like a Discord chatroom, with a whole group of crawler names on the list. There were about 80 names there.
Quan Ch: Thanks a lot Carl and Donut, you fucking assholes.
That was the only message. Oh fuck off, I thought. I clicked it away. But that list of names, all crawlers who were likely about to die, stunned me. Eighty people.
I moved to also close the map, but I paused, seeing something unexpected. A tiny, round star appeared where the explosion’s epicenter would be. I zoomed in tight.
“Carl?” Donut said. “The guards are waking up!”
Carclass="underline" Mordecai, the soul gem is the epicenter. Not Remex. If I break the gem, will that cancel the explosion?
Mordecai: I don’t know. I don’t think it will stop it. Probably make it blow early. The quest is called The Fools Who Broke the Glass for a reason. They want you to do that. Get the hell out of there.
Donut: WE CAN’T ABANDON KATIA!
Katia: It’s okay. Thank you, Donut. I understand. I’m getting the NPCs back into their homes. Run, guys. Go.
Donut: WHAT ABOUT YOU, MORDECAI?
Mordecai: I’m in my room. I’m safe. Hurry the hell up!
“Fuck,” I muttered, looking up at the hole in the ceiling.
“Carl?” Donut asked.
“Donut, we have a choice. Save ourselves. Or we try to save Katia and those other 80 people. I have an idea, but it probably won’t work. We need to decide. Quick.”
“I, uh, I don’t know,” Donut said, looking about. She seemed to deflate on my shoulder. “We should try to save the others. It’s the right thing to do.”
I didn’t answer. I just reached up and scratched her. And then I ascended the ladder.
We returned to the room. Remex remained in the corner, his eyes closed. He appeared to be fading.
“You returned,” he said. He didn’t open his eyes. “Welcome to the end of days.”
The soul gem hovered in the room. The entire crystal vibrated. The tendrils of light had stopped shooting from it, including the large river down into the room below and the golden strand leading into Remex.
A red timer counted down over the gem. It was at four minutes and thirty seconds.
I pulled Miss Quill’s beanie baby from my inventory. It wasn’t hard to find. Kimaris, the stuffed horse-riding soldier was the very top item when I sorted my current inventory by value.
The second item on the list was the protective carrier it was stored in. The door to the small, glass case wasn’t locked. It was a small, hinged flap held closed by a cheap-looking hook and eyebolt. I opened the little door and pulled the stuffed animal back into my inventory.
I gave the glass case a quick examination.
Sheol Glass Reaper Case.
Forged in the fires of Sheol, the mysterious 15th level of the World Dungeon, these protective, expensive artifacts are built and sold by traveling Spider Reaper Minions. They also sell lollipops, which are said to be out of this world.
When you absolutely, positively want to keep something safe, put it in this box. It will protect against most—but not all—forms of abuse.
Warning: Every time you open this case, there is a 1.5% chance you will be blasted with the Sheol Fire spell. That’s not a good thing. The item within the case will remain protected.
I swallowed. I probably should have read that description before I’d opened it to pull the beanie out. I kept the door open now.
I remembered that moment we’d jumped from the civic building and landed in the debris. There’d been a flash of light. Looking back now, I realized it’d been deliberate. The system had brought my attention to the case. It was just like any regular game. Seemingly random objects were sometimes placed there intentionally, just to keep the game fair. That’s what this was.
I held the case in my hand, and I approached the pulsing gem. Careful not to touch it with my hands, I closed the case around the floating gem, like I was catching a firefly with my two hands. I shut the door, and I gingerly hooked it closed.
I tried to pull the whole thing into my inventory, and I received an error.
Yeah. Nice try, asshole.
“Oh, fuck off,” I said. I hadn’t expected that to work. After taking a deep breath, I let go. I cringed as the case fell a couple inches, clinking to a stop as it fell against the gem floating within. But it remained there, floating. The gem itself was starting to vibrate faster and faster, with little cracks forming along the edge. The glass case’s description, that it protected against “most” forms of abuse, did not give me confidence. A magical explosion that was going to flatten 45 square kilometers of dungeon seemed like it would probably be pretty high on the shortlist of attack types that would break this thing.
We still had two and a half minutes on the countdown. Not even close to the amount of time we’d need to get to safety.
“Oh my god, Carl. Is that going to work?” Donut asked.
“I don’t know. I doubt it. But it’s worth a try.” I paused. “I’m sorry, Donut. I should have told you my idea before forcing you to choose.”
She made a grunting noise. “You always pretend like I’m the stubborn one, but once your mind is made up, Carl, it’s impossible to change it. There’s nothing to be sorry for.”
I sat on the ground, exhausted. Donut jumped into my lap, and we stared at the floating glass case.
Remex rocked back and forth in the corner, muttering, “I’m coming, son. Any minute now. I’m coming. I missed you so much. I’m coming.”