“Yes. Any biological creature above a certain weight who enters the dungeon is assigned a crawler ID. But one needs at least an intelligence of two to qualify for training, and if you can’t do training, your inventory doesn’t get turned on, which allows you to access your boxes. Otherwise, they’re designated as pets. All the other ones, like wild animals who happen to make it inside very rarely make it past the first floor. We’ll get to the pet menu after we open up your inventory, which is the next step.”
Now that we’d put about twenty minutes between my earlier mention of Borant, I wanted to continue our previous conversation.
“Before we do that, I have a couple questions about the people running the show.”
He paused. “What is it?”
“Are they always listening?”
“Listening, yes. Paying attention, not necessarily. They expect a certain amount of …gnashing of teeth… amongst the crawlers. And we NPCs are required to say the name of the organizers multiple times during the training, so we’re mostly ignored. Mostly. You really need to be careful once you start collecting followers. They know they’re sadistic assholes, but they don’t want you saying it on camera. They take their image quite seriously.”
“I’m no math expert, but when the dungeon opened, there were tons of the glowing entrances in my city. They said there were only 150,000 of them seeded around the world. It seemed like… too many for my area.”
“They have certain benchmarks they try to reach. The AI closely monitors the launch of the game, but there are loopholes. The entrances are rarely distributed equally. Ten million crawlers upon the sealing of the dungeon is pretty typical. So however it happened, it wasn’t on accident. Like I said, they spend a lot of time preparing for each dungeon.”
“Yeah, you mentioned that,” I said. “You’ve been here for decades. Does this show really only air once every 90 years or so?”
“No, not at all,” Mordecai said. “Different corporations run each season, which appear about every two and a quarter of your years. My employer usually has about five forward teams working at any given time, and they get chosen to run a season about one in fifteen.”
“So with different corporations running each season and different worlds, uh, crawling, then is every season vastly different?”
“Oh yes. The Squim Conglomerate chooses a different game completely, for example. It’s a battle royale-style fight. An entire world, and it all comes down to one champion. It’s good for ratings, but it doesn’t make them much money from what I understand. My company is known for making the most elaborate, most entertaining dungeons.”
Wonderful. “And you?” I asked. “Are you stuck here for the rest of your life?”
“No,” Mordecai said, smiling sadly. He looked down at the framed picture of the eagle creature I had placed on the floor. “This is my last tour. Once this nightmare is over, I become a full citizen, I receive a moderate stipend, and I am free to make my way into the universe.”
“Will you go back to your home planet?”
“No,” he said. “It’s not open to me.”
“What about the people who didn’t go into the dungeon on your world?”
He paused. “We really need to get back to the tutorial.”
“Okay, but what if someone won the dungeon, made it past level 18. The message said if that happens, they gain control of the world. Maybe your world is under control of one of your people.”
The rat creature grunted. “Remember how I said I made it down to the 11th floor?”
“Yeah.”
“A handful of crawlers over the centuries have made it that far. One once made it down to 13. One. He died within a half-hour of hitting the floor. He was a human, like you. But from another human world. That’s the deepest anyone has ever delved, kid. Level 13.”
5
“I’ve just activated your inventory,” Mordecai said, waving a hand. “This season Borant is trying something a little different.”
“Different good or different bad?” I asked, pulling up the menu.
The only thing listed was a handful of loot boxes with Ready to Open next to them.
“Last season, it was a slot-based system. It allowed one to carry multiple items, but it was limited in capacity and had standard weight limits. This season, each crawler is given a dimensional inventory and AI cataloging system.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s a good thing. Basically, unlimited storage. And if you can physically lift it off the ground by yourself for about four seconds, you can put it in your space, no matter how big it is. The only rule is you can’t store living creatures. They will immediately die. Also, the storage is time-locked, so food doesn’t go bad. That’s a big one. We had an issue last season with crawlers starving to death. Watching thousands of lethargic, unmoving players as they waited the timer to run out… Yeah. It was no good, so Borant fixed it. Disease and starvation doesn’t make for compelling drama.”
He produced a single, glass bottle. It was small, like a third the size of a coke bottle. It was red with a cork in it.
“Pick it up and place it in your inventory. A gift from me to you.”
I picked it up and examined the item’s properties.
Standard Healing Potion.
Increases your health by at least 50%. Doesn’t cure poison or other health-seeping conditions such as succubus-inflicted gonorrhea. So remember to wrap it up, bucko.
I pulled up my inventory menu, and an Add Item to Inventory button appeared. I clicked it, and the potion vanished. It appeared in my inventory list, which now had both a Potions and Healing submenu. I mentally clicked on it, and the potion reappeared in my hand.
“Good, good. If you add the potion to your hotlist, you’ll drink it without having to actually drink. Remember this, because some of these potions taste like shit. If you straight pull it from the normal inventory, you’ll have to pop the cork and swallow. Potions and other like items stack up to 999 a slot, so it’s best to stick them in your hotlist. And that’s pretty much it. There are a few other quirks regarding inventory, but you’ll figure them out along the way.”
I put the potion back and then added it to the hotlist next to my healing spell.
“Okay,” Mordecai said. “Let’s take a look at your current notifications… holy tits!”
“What? What?” I said, alarmed, looking around. Donut looked up from her spot by the fire and yawned.
“You have a Legendary Pet Box! Why didn’t you say so?”
I just looked at him. The urge to punch him in the face returned.
Mordecai shook his head. “Legendary right when he walks in,” he grumbled. “Okay. Yes, yes you do have a lot of boxes. Okay, now that inventory is active, you can pop up your missed notifications. Let’s take look.”
I had a line of the notifications. I clicked on the first one.
New achievement! You’ve inflicted damage on a mob.
Hopefully it won’t hit back!
Reward: It’s probably going to hit back.
New achievement! You’ve killed a mob!
You’re a murderer! He probably had a family!
Reward: You can now gain experience. Get enough of it, and you might even go up a level.
New achievement! You’ve killed an armed mob with your bare fucking hands!
Holy crap, dude. That’s kinda fucked up.
Reward: You’ve received a Bronze Weapon Box!
New achievement! You’ve killed a mob a higher level than yourself!
You’re getting the hang of this. Don’t let it get to your head.