This is a Fleeting item!
This is a Unique* item!
Imbues wearer with +5 Intelligence, grants the user +5 to the Good First Impression skill. All attacks, including magical attacks, now have a 15% chance to inflict the Sepsis debuff.
Warning! (Seriously though. I’m going to say this again.
WARNING! Read this shit before you put it on.) Placing this crown upon your head permanently places you within the royal line of succession for the Blood Sultanate on the ninth floor of the world dungeon. Removing this item will not remove this status. Royal members of the Blood Sultanate will be required to slay the Sultan and all other members of the royal family before descending to the tenth floor. You’ll only want to wear this if you’re a blood-thirsty, raging psychopath.
“That…” I began. “I’m not so sure you should’ve put that on.”
“It’s purple,” Donut said. “Purple is my color. Do you know how many purple ribbons I’ve won? Do you know what it takes to get a purple ribbon?”
“What does fleeting mean?” I asked Mordecai. “And why is there an asterisk by ‘unique?’”
Donut had received a few more boxes from learning the spell and putting on the tiara. It was all low-tier potions and torches. She sorted through the items now, hissing with displeasure each time she received another torch.
“Fleeting means it’ll crumble to dust the moment she takes it off. If that happens, another crown will be generated somewhere else in the dungeon. Now that it’s on her, don’t let her take it off. If another crawler gets the crown, it’ll just be one more person you’ll have to kill to get off that floor.”
The idea of having to fight actual people hadn’t occurred to me. Would that really happen? The thought of it made me sick. I looked at Donut.
“What the hell am I going to do now?” I asked, shaking my head. The tutorial was over, and I knew it. We’d have to go back out there.
“It’s quite simple, really,” Donut said. “You need to assist me to this 18th level, so I can exit this hellscape and resume my rightful place as liege. I am assuming this rat creature won’t be able to travel with us,” she lifted her paw and pointed it at me, “so you have been promoted from manservant to bodyguard. Congratulations, Carl.”
Princess Donut has named your party The Royal Court of Princess Donut.
Princess Donut has changed your title to Royal Bodyguard.
Princess Donut has changed her title to Grand Champion Best in Dungeon.
“Really?”
Mordecai laughed. “She has the highest combined stat total, so she’s the designated party leader. As such, she has more control over the party menu. Don’t worry. The titles don’t mean anything.” He paused, suddenly serious. “Listen up, kid. She’s quite a bit more powerful than you are right now, so you’ll want to stick together. At least until you get to the ninth floor. That… That will be a challenge. You can always leave the party. That crown is on her head, not yours.”
Donut walked up to the door and scratched at it. It opened on its own.
8
Time to Level Collapse: Four days, 20 hours.
And with no additional fanfare, we left the guild and struck out into the dungeon.
“By the way,” Mordecai said as we left. “Now that I’ve successfully trained both of you, if you enter any additional training guilds, you’ll be transported back to this room. I’m now your registered guide, so feel free to come back here if you have any additional questions. You’ll lose access to me once you hit the fourth floor.”
“Yeah, take care,” I said. “Good luck out in the universe once this is over.”
Mordecai looked at me sadly. “Yeah, good luck to you, too.” He grasped my jacket and met my eyes and then whispered, “It’s not worth it, no matter what they tell you. Not until floor 12, and even then, negotiate as much as you can. Remember that.”
He slammed the door, and my mind reeled. What did that mean? Was he saying it was better to die than to take whatever exit they offered on floors 10 and 11? Did that even matter? Floor 10. Who was Mordecai kidding? Three million people had died in this place in the very first hour. I wasn’t expecting to survive until the next floor opened up..
“Okay,” Donut said, “here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to walk that way, and if we get attacked by anything, you protect me.”
“Wandering aimlessly? That’s the plan?” I asked.
“We have approximately 29 hours before these aliens air their television show. That means we have 29 hours to do something absolutely spectacular. But,” Donut added, “first we need to find you some pants. I will not be presented to the universe in such a fashion. I can just see the comments now on the Martian social media.” She mocked an alien voice. “‘Beautiful cat, Blorg. But why isn’t her bodyguard wearing pants?’”
I sighed and started moving down the hall. We headed back the way we’d come before, back toward the main thoroughfare. This entire area was scorched black from the explosion of the goblin dozer. The smear of blood from where the dozer had run over the goblin remained. Everything else had been destroyed in the explosion.
“You know, you’re not wearing pants, either,” I said after a moment.
“Nor am I wearing a cloak that makes me look like I won a participation trophy at the special needs comic con, Carl. I’m a cat. Cats don’t wear pants. Don’t be so droll.”
We came to the conjunction, and I warily looked around the corner. I didn’t see anything. This hallway was lit by torches, not the green lichen, so it was much brighter. It seemed completely abandoned in either direction. We stepped out into the wide tunnel.
“Now, I know your simple mind is telling you to just keep…”
“Okay,” I said, turning on the cat. “I was struggling with this decision earlier, but this… transformation… or whatever has happened has made this much easier. I’m going to go that way,” I pointed east, “and you’re going to go any other direction than that. Good luck.”
“What?” Donut said. “You want to separate? I don’t understand.”
“Look,” I said. “Mordecai said you’re a lot more powerful than I am. Great. That means you’ll probably be okay. More okay than me.” I leaned in. “But I would rather just get this over with and get squished by a goblin bulldozer than spend another second dealing with this bullshit. Cats are assholes. I get it. But do you know why people like cats, despite their asshole-ness? It’s because they don’t fucking talk. If they did, and they were all like you, they’d all be extinct because we’d have killed you all by now.” I pulled up my menu and tried to figure out how to remove myself from the party.
“Wait, Carl, wait. Don’t. I’m sorry. Wait.”
“What?” I said.
The cat sat on the floor. She seemed to deflate. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I… It’s just… Have you ever woken up from a long dream, one where you’re one thing, and now that you’re awake, it takes you a moment to realize that’s not who you really are?”
I just looked at her.
“Okay, when I woke up back there, I had all my memories, of all my time being me. Of sitting in that window, looking outside, of watching television all day long, of all the hours in the carrier in back of Miss Beatrice’s car, traveling to those horrid yet wonderful shows, of being told what a princess I am. And then, suddenly, my mind looked back on all of it, and I understood what had happened. I am a grand champion, Carl. I’m supposed to act a certain way. But sitting in your lap, watching you get fragged over and over in Call of Duty? I like that, too. I mean, you really suck at that game, but you keep playing. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I liked that.”